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Geoffw in TAC2015: RU, HE and Friends | ||
Tags: Football/Soccer | Yiddish | Hebrew | Dutch | Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC) | Russian | German | French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4681 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 217 of 251 28 September 2014 at 4:22pm | IP Logged |
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I finally finished Harry Potter e il Principe Mezzosangue (HP6 in Italian), and now I don't have a next book in Italian
lined up. I ordered one from deastore.com a while back (Imperium, by Robert Harris), but who knows when that will arrive. Robert Harris writes in English, but he writes about ancient Rome. Since the book had been strongly recommended to me on multiple occasions, I broke down and decided to work it into my rotation sometime if I could find a good translation in a TL, and Italian seemed the perfect fit for reading about Rome. And without further ado, it's time for the traditional "oh by the way, my focus has shifted since my last post" message. So my focus has shifted since my last post. I've gotten drawn back into working on my Hebrew again, to the detriment of all my other TLs. If it hadn't happened dozens of times before, I might be worried. The most common foreign language I encounter in my daily life these days is probably Hebrew (even only counting Modern Hebrew). One would normally expect it to be Spanish, but I probably hear Russian spoken more often than Spanish, too. Spanish-language media is ubiquitous, though, for anyone who wants to see/hear it. In any event, I still haven't formally started using Assimil or anything (though that could be the next step). Instead, I've been alternating back and forth between learning Mishnah, and reading the first Harry Potter book. (The Hebrew of the Mishnah formed the basis from which the modern Israeli Hebrew language was constructed.) I have all manner of heavily annotated parallel English-Hebrew texts for learning Mishnah, and they all use vowel points. Harry Potter does not use vowel points (except for certain non-Hebrew words, like "Hogwarts"). This has long been THE problem stopping me from doing extensive reading in Hebrew. Whether due to overconfidence or improved intuitive Hebrew grammar, this no longer feels like an insurmountable obstacle, so I'm simply not reading each word properly, but making progress nevertheless. Thus far, I'm having no difficulty whatsoever in following the story. My comprehension is at least as good as with Harry Potter in Russian, I think. There's a fascinating synergy between reading, alternatively, Mishnah, and then Modern Hebrew. The grammar is noticeably different, but it really drives vocabulary home when I see, for example, that Dudley's "Smelting Stick," the cane he carries around to beat people with, is an unknown word spelled with the triliteral "MQL," and then I see that same word twice in the Mishnah (with vowel points) referring in one place to a stick, and in the other to a staff. It also drives home the sheer antiquity of the vocabulary, which is mind-boggling by comparison to many modern languages like English. Edited by geoffw on 28 September 2014 at 4:29pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5840 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 218 of 251 28 September 2014 at 4:42pm | IP Logged |
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Geoff, thank you for the link to the English explanation of the word Mishnah.
Fasulye Edited by Fasulye on 28 September 2014 at 4:44pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4681 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 219 of 251 13 October 2014 at 12:40am | IP Logged |
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So Imperium came, and it's a cool story so far. It's my first time trying to read a book in Italian that I haven't
previously read in English (e.g., Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings). All in all, I'm pretty sure I'm following everything and it isn't incredibly onerous to read, although sometimes I have to back up and reread sections to figure out what's going on. Recently I've been focused mostly on Hebrew, but taking the occasional break to read in Italian. I was pleased to discover that the Israeli series Srugim is now available (2 of 3 seasons, at least) to watch on Amazon online. Previously, my easiest option had been to buy the DVD sets and also buy another DVD player because of the region encoding. It's still hard to keep up, but with the subtitles I'm really starting to follow a lot on my second viewing of an episode. And I've now THOROUGHLY learned some of the short exclamations that show up all over the show like "ma at(ah) omer(et?)" (Really? You don't say?), "stam dibarnu!"(we were just talking!) and "zeh klum!" (It's nothing!). I know I haven't been posting much activity to the Super Challenge recently, but I just broke down and registered also in Hebrew. I have a lot that I've read so far, which should get recorded eventually. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4681 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 220 of 251 13 October 2014 at 10:26am | IP Logged |
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It occurs to me that, thus far, there's a difference between Imperium and other relatively recent works of popular
fiction set in ancient Rome (e.g., SPQR). I've read through three chapters so far, and there hasn't been a murder yet, or even a death. I tend to find the murder-mystery formula a little tired and annoying (especially on TV: I'm looking at you Law & Order! You guys can't go a single day without handling a murder case? Yeah, I buy that...) I'm reminded a tiny bit of the beginning of the Song of Ice and Fire series, when it was all about political intrigue at the royal courts. Yes, there were dead bodies falling out of windows and window seats all over the place, but it felt like the real thread of the story was about political intrigue and jockeying for power in ways not limited to violence, with some foreshadowing of supernatural fantasy. That went away after the first book, and I gradually lost interest. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4681 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 221 of 251 26 October 2014 at 5:06am | IP Logged |
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Browsing the active topics on HTLAL just now, I saw yet another "language X in short time frame Y" title, and
mentally rolled my eyes. Not that the task itself, whatever it is, isn't plausible. Rather, I've developed an attitude that finds it harder to relate to that kind of mindset anymore. I thought about it, and I realized that I first started studying Hebrew in earnest over 10 years ago, and Russian even longer. German--over 25 years ago. Even the relatively new French is a couple years old relationship for me. And no, I haven't been constantly studying all that time. But maybe getting older has taught me more patience. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4681 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 222 of 251 26 October 2014 at 5:20am | IP Logged |
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I recently had another breakthrough experience, this time in Hebrew. I've watched a lot of Hebrew TV recently,
which has had a strong effect on my conversational skills. I was playing I Spy with my daughter, and decided to try it in Hebrew with her: ...אני רואה עם העין הקטן שלי משהו ...and for some reason I was surprised when she started guessing in Hebrew. I shouldn't have been, but sometimes people don't think things through all the way. In any event, we kept it up, and then she started trying to discuss other things in Hebrew with me, and I found that we were indeed having successful basic conversational interactions. We both have plenty of work to do still, but it's a great start and very exciting. During our conversations, I taught her a couple new words, and she even taught me one or two that I didn't know. Edited by geoffw on 26 October 2014 at 5:22am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4681 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 223 of 251 29 October 2014 at 3:01am | IP Logged |
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,קניתי עוד ספר אחד היום–חלק ד' ממשנה ברורה, עם פירושים נוספים (דירשו). הגירסא הזה לא מנוקד. עמוד יומי של משנה ברורה
.הוא מתחיל עם החלק הזה, השבוע ביום שישי. המבין יבין 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4681 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 224 of 251 29 October 2014 at 3:08am | IP Logged |
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Further to my last post, I'm continuing to expand my horizons for Hebrew reading. I'm enjoying my relatively new
ability to actually understand most of what I'm reading in certain contexts, and spurred on both by my potential to use the language at home and by all the times recently when I've heard people speaking Hebrew around me while I'm out and about. Much to my surprise, I also recently overheard someone speaking Yiddish to his kids, and, unlike with Hebrew, was able to butt in and schmooze him up for a few minutes. Naturally, we exchanged contact info, as that doesn't happen every day. Possibly more to come on this topic. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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