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Josquin’s Language Symphony (RU, IR, 東亜) | ||
Tags: Gaelic (Scottish) | Gaelic (Irish) | Icelandic | Portuguese | Multilingual | Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC) | Italian | Japanese | Russian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4837 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes  Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 369 of 646 01 April 2013 at 7:07pm | IP Logged | ||
I'm not really advanced enough to make big statements about Gaelic grammar at the moment, but prepositional pronouns or "conjugated prepositions", as you call them, are not really that big a deal. You just learn six forms for a preposition and that's it. They often are quite regular as well. The concept itself isn't that weird either, you just have to imagine the preposition and the personal pronoun are amalgamated to one word. What's way more difficult is remembering the lenition rules (that's the only kind of mutation that exists in written Gaelic, although there is also nasalisation or "eclipsis" in the spoken language) and applying them correctly. The different way of phrasing thoughts takes some time to get used to as well. I can't really say anything about verb tenses, as I only know the construction "bi" + verbal noun at the moment, which can be used for present, future, and past tense. It's similar to the English continuous form. The "classic" verb tenses (past, future, relative future, subjunctive) are only introduced in later lessons. There are also passive forms, an imperative, and participles. A very big problem is orthography and pronunciation. Gaelic has a very conservative orthography and uses only 18 letters in order to convey 88 phonemes, which include 'broad' and 'slender' consonants that are similar to Russian 'hard' and 'soft' sounds. The orthography is very irregular and it's difficult to figure out how a word is pronounced based on its spelling. Moreover, there are several dialects with alternating pronunciations. I'm learning the variety of the island of South Uist, but on the CDs of my textbook, there are also native speakers of other varieties, which makes things even more complicated. As I wrote above, counting is somewhat crazy, because 1, 20, and numbers over 40 take the singular of the noun, 2 takes the dual, and all other numbers take the plural. Some numbers lenite their noun and some nouns lenite their numbers. It's really complicated. The vigesimal system is very illogical in itself, because compound numbers can be formed in two different ways, and moreover the components of a compound number surround the noun (13 sheep = "3 sheep 10", 23 sheep = "3 sheep on 20", and 43 sheep = "2 20 sheep and 3"). This is my nightmare at the moment. Edited by Josquin on 01 April 2013 at 7:10pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5049 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 370 of 646 01 April 2013 at 7:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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88 phonemes?!
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4837 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 371 of 646 01 April 2013 at 7:49pm | IP Logged | ||
I took that number from the German Wikipedia, but you're right, it seems a little bit too high. Maybe, they count long, short, and nasalized vowels, diphthongs, and triphtongs seperately. Nevertheless, the Gaelic sound system is very rich and complex. Edited by Josquin on 01 April 2013 at 8:14pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| liammcg Senior Member Ireland Joined 4597 days ago 269 posts - 397 votes Speaks: English* | Message 372 of 646 01 April 2013 at 11:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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More info on the counting system here:
The new-old numerals or why this sucks! 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4837 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 373 of 646 03 April 2013 at 12:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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WEDNESDAY, 03 APRIL 2013
Summary for March and Plans for April Generally speaking, language learning isn't my first priority at the moment, because I am working on several other projects and plans for my life. Language learning is only one hobby among others, so I'm not dedicating it my full attention right now. This is not to say that I stopped learning languages altogether, but I have been busier with other things. Here's my summary for March and my plans for April for all of my languages. Русский I have been mainly working with my biligual reader Ну что, поехали?. I have worked through the first three texts and am currently working on the fourth one. I usually read the text, highlight the unknown words, and enter them into Anki. Then I do my daily vocabulary reviews. Additionally, I listen to podcasts from Russian Podcast and Radio Эхо Москвы. I haven't done any of the small challenges from Team MIR yet, but in this regard I'm not the only one. It's a bit disappointing that Team MIR isn't very active at the moment, but everybody seems to be busier with other things right now. Gàidhlig I'm working on unit 13 in Lehrbuch der schottisch-gälischen Sprache at the moment. I'm content with my progress, although I clearly notice that Gaelic doesn't have the same priority for me as Russian. I'll continue nevertheless. Íslenska After finishing Hrafnkels Saga, I haven't done any Icelandic at all. I'll read something different from An Introduction to Old Norse when I have the time for it. 日本語 I'm still working on unit 2 in Colloquial Japanese. So far, I like it. It's fun to learn a language that is absolutely unrelated to anything I know. I also like the writing system, although I can imagine learning kanji would be a terrible pain in the neck, if I really went for conscious, eager studying. But, as I said, I only want to dabble in Japanese without any pressure. Svenska, Italiano, Français I haven't been working on any other languages lately. I have found my Swedish textbook from university again (Svenska utifrån), but after browsing through its pages, I realized Swedish doesn't attract me any more. I'm happy with the Swedish I know, but I don't want to work actively on it. The same goes for French and Italian. It would be nice to brush them up some time, but it's not a high priority for me right now. English I'm still using my English every day. I read and write in English and I regularly watch movies and series in it. After cleaning up my mother's cellar, I found a lot of my old books tucked away in boxes, and several of them were in English (e.g. Moby Dick, Brave New World, The Old Man and the Sea). It would be great to read English literature again, which I haven't done for some time now. The problem is only time. As I said, languages aren't that important in general at the moment, there are more urgent things to be tackled right now. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4700 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 374 of 646 03 April 2013 at 2:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's always fun when you have plans. I have the same as you with my better languages,
though; at this point, improvement of my French or German doesn't interest me, although I could do with speaking them better than I do. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4837 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 375 of 646 07 April 2013 at 5:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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SUNDAY, 07 APRIL 2013
Although I said I was busy with other things, I happened to have quite a lot of free time which I could dedicate to language learning during the last few days. This came in quite handy, because from tomorrow on I'll be back at work and won't have that much time any more. Русский Сначала, мне немного жаль, но на этой неделе я не много занимался русским языком. Я не брал словарь с собой, когда навестил свою семью на Пасху, поэтому я не мог справляться о неизвестных словах и вводить их в Анки. К тому же я также не слушал мои подкасты, но надеюсь, что на следующей неделе я буду больше заниматься русским языком. Вчера и сегодня я уже ввёл много слов в Анки. Когда закончу это, я должен буду заниматься четвёртым текстом из моей книги, который будет о суеверии русских. Я его уже прочитал, но я ещё должен выучить новые слова. [First of all, I'm a bit sorry, but I haven't studied much Russian this week. I didn't take my dictionary with me, when I visited my family over Easter, so I couldn't look up the unknown words and enter them into Anki. Furthermore, I didn't listen to my podcasts either, but I hope that I will occupy myself more with Russian next week. I already entered many words into Anki yesterday and today. When I have finished that, I will have to deal with the fourth text from my book, which is about Russian superstitions. I have already read it, but I still have to learn the new words.] Gàidhlig I have finished units 13 and 14 in Lehrbuch der schottisch-gälischen Sprache. Although counting is still insanely difficult, I decided to ignore that and simply went on. I will repeat the numbers and counting some other time. For now, I know all the rules, but I don't always apply them correctly, especially when lenition is involved. Unit 14 was much easier, as it only dealt with the genitive, which is quite easy if you neglect irregular forms. Interestingly, the genitive is also the appropriate case for direct objects of verbal nouns, so instead of "I see the school" you say "Am I at seeing of the school" in Gaelic. Here is this week's translation exercise: Tha mi a' fuireach ri taobh na sgoile. Tha taigh Sheumais air cùlaibh a' bhanca. Tha an t-àite-bìth ri taobh na h-eaglaise. Tha Mòrag a' feitheamh air beulaibh an taighe. Tha mi a' faicinn do mhàthar. Tha Teàrlach a' fosgladh an dorais. Tha sinn a' faicinn na h-eaglaise. Tha nead na circe blàth. Tha brògan Eilidh snog. Tha e a' bruidhinn ruinn ri taobh doras an taighe. [I live next to the school. Seumas's house is behind the bank. The restaurant is next to the church. Mòrag is waiting in front of the house. I see your mother. Teàrlach closes the door. We see the church. The chicken's nest is warm. Eilidh's shoes are beautiful. He is talking to us beside the house's door.] Íslenska Ég er búinn að lesa tvær sögur úr bókinni An Introduction to Old Norse. Sú fyrsta var Völsunga saga, sem var mjög auðveld að lesa. Sú önnur var Brennu-Njáls saga, sem ég þekkti nú þegar. Ég las bara hluta af sögunum af því að það eru ekki heilu sögurnar í bókinni. Það var mjög áhugavert og skemmtilegt svo að ég mun kannski lesa meira í næstu víku. [I have read two sagas from the book An Introduction to Old Norse. The first one was the Völsunga Saga, which was very easy to read. The other one was the Brennu-Njáls Saga, which I already knew. I read only parts of the sagas, because there aren't the whole sagas in the book. It was very interesting and entertaining so that I will probably read more next week.] 日本語 I have finished unit 2 in Colloquial Japanese. This is what I can say by now: 皆さん、今日は！ 私はクリスチアンです。 ドイツのテュービンゲンから来ました。 ドイツに住んでいます。 クラシックと読書が好きです。 スポーツが好きではありません。 今、日本語を習っています。 日本語が少しできます。 日本語は私の趣味です。 さようなら！ [Hello everybody! I am Christian. I come from Tübingen in Germany. I live in Germany. I like classical music and reading. I don't like sports. Now, I'm learning Japanese. I know a little bit of Japanese. Japanese is my hobby. Goodbye!] Føroyskt After having found out that the audio material for Faroese. A Language Course for Beginners is available for free from the publisher's homepage, I have started reading and listening to unit 1 of the course. Based on my knowledge of Icelandic, I understand everything and get the unknown words from context, so it's quite fun listening to this language that sounds quite different from the other Nordic languages. I'm not planning on studying Faroese actively, but I will continue listening and reading when I have the time for it. Edited by Josquin on 07 April 2013 at 8:46pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4837 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 376 of 646 07 April 2013 at 6:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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@tarvos: Yes, having plans is very important. I have been concentrating on my languages very much during winter, but with the beginning of spring, other things have become more important. Now, I'll travel a bit, look for new job opportunities, and try to meet new interesting people. If there's still time for my languages, that's fine, but it's not the most important thing at the moment.
@liammcg: Thanks for the additional information on Gaelic numbers. I'd be more than happy if the decimal system prevailed sooner or later, but until then I'll have to do calculus in my head: "35 horses, that's 'five horses ten on twenty'. Oh wait, 'horse' has a slender ending, so I have to lenite 'ten', and 'twenty' is in the dative, so I have to lenite that, too. Wait, how much was it again?" @Expugnator: It's good to know other languages have crazy number systems, too. But I guess numbers are not the worst part of Georgian, are they? I heard evil rumours about the verbs... Edited by Josquin on 07 April 2013 at 6:45pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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