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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| bouda Senior Member United States Joined 5601 days ago 194 posts - 197 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 105 of 160 18 August 2009 at 6:15am | IP Logged |
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I've been translating Classical Chinese poems lately. Here's a slightly unsettling one.
My rough re-renderings are generally literal translations but do acquiesce to connotation at times so will not match up one-to-one with the Chinese text, which I'll put up here next time I have access to internet long enough to type it up. "Moved to Subtle Criticism" Li He The tombs of Nanshan - why such grief? Ghost rain scatters on empty grass. Changan - night, mid-autumn - And, before the wind, how many people aging? A dusk-muddled evening path, Shifting branches, old gray-green oaks; A moon at midnight, the trees shadowless. The entire mountain is only white morning. Dark flame welcomes newcomers, and around the gloom of the secluded tomb, fireflies haunt, chaotic. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| bouda Senior Member United States Joined 5601 days ago 194 posts - 197 votes Speaks: English* | Message 106 of 160 18 August 2009 at 9:14pm | IP Logged |
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Anki - 36 min (and I have about 90 more cards to go...)
Listening - 1 hour Vague fiddling - 30 min Growing more and more fidgety about languages, hence the "vague fiddling" (today in various alphabets). It seems that every time I have both time and a specific language that I feel I need to focus on, I develop a huge case of wanderlust. But I KNOW that I don't have enough time to really focus on more than two or three languages. In the "Language History - in 5 Years" (paraphrase) thread started by Lizzern in General Discussion, I took a moment to think about my goals and decided that the languages I hope to gain proficiency in the next decade or so and thus will probably at least start within the next five years are Mandarin, MSA (and a dialect), Russian, Spanish, and Turkish on the modern front and Hittite, Ancient Greek, Ancient Egyptian, Literary Chinese on the classical front (I know some people might not count Guwen, but I'm putting it here because it's, well, gu). There are of course only around a hundred more languages that I want to learn and will probably dabble in during my lifetime, but these are the ones that speak to me now. Obviously, I will not be able to achieve fluency in all of them in the next five years, but I think I can at least attain some sort of proficiency in MSA, Mandarin, and Guwen and start the rest. The classical languages should probably come slightly more easily than the others because I won't be focusing on speaking, and I learn much faster when I intend only to read, especially if I allow myself to use a dictionary frequently without feeling guilty about it. Edited by bouda on 18 August 2009 at 11:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| bouda Senior Member United States Joined 5601 days ago 194 posts - 197 votes Speaks: English* | Message 107 of 160 18 August 2009 at 10:45pm | IP Logged |
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Okay, I'm indulging my lack of motivation today by going on a search-and-locate for
language-related texts instead of actually studying. I've tracked down a surprising amount of resources in my local public library. Thinking hard about the languages I want to study and whether it is feasible. Will get back on track tomorrow or exhaust myself trying. 1.5 hours passive listening (I'm picking out words, but skimming through English web pages at the same time) and counting. New goal: hitting 50 hours of intensive work/listening/whatever before Sept 3rd. So that's 15 days. If I work 3 to 4 hours a day, I should be fine. Today was a lazy day and I still got in 2.5 hours of mostly passive listening and 30 minutes of Anki for a total of 3 hours of non-intensive Arabic. I should be able to do better than that tomorrow! Edited by bouda on 19 August 2009 at 7:05am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| bouda Senior Member United States Joined 5601 days ago 194 posts - 197 votes Speaks: English* | Message 108 of 160 19 August 2009 at 7:55am | IP Logged |
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So today someone asked me, "Now that you're studying Chinese and Arabic, which do you
think is more difficult?" A controversial question, and I don't think I'm qualified to speak on the topic. But I'll jot down a few thoughts anyway, with disclaimer. I should also say that my answer, to some extent, is actually a response to the question, "Which do you think is more difficult to know well?" First, we must define what we mean by "Chinese" and by "Arabic." Arabic is well-known for having a vast array of divergent dialects that are sometimes mutually unintelligible. A lot of people who do not have much experience with Chinese think of Chinese as one big umbrella, or maybe two sides of one coin to use another cliche (Cantonese and Mandarin), but as most of us language lovers on this forum probably know, there are still a lot of tributaries, some more incomprehensible to a Mandarin- only learner than others. So for the purposes of this comparison, I will be using MSA and Mandarin, which, in addition to being the standard as far as writing goes (as well as the tongues most non-native learners start with in terms of Arabic and Chinese), happen to be the two languages that I actually have experience with. Imaginary student is a native English speaker. Writing/Reading Chinese wins hands down. Thousands of pictograms, as inaccurate as that term may be, is much much much harder than a couple of measly letters, even if you count the various forms of each letter as separate entities. A lot of people claim that the difficulty of Arabic lies in the fact that short vowels are rarely written out. I agree that this is hard - I struggle with it every day! But I'm guessing that in a year or two, my vocabulary will have increased enough that I'll be able to read many things without this constant confusion, ie know/guess the short vowels, while of course the alphabet itself is already no problem. Compare to the typical reading proficiency of someone who has learned Mandarin for only two years. I'm pretty sure that in a year, I'll be able to read much, much more than someone of my laziness and pace who has studied for the same amount of time in Mandarin. I'll check back in 2010. Also, I am of the firm belief that, if possible, one should learn both simplified and traditional characters. And also, Chinese does not partake of the space bar, so how do you know when a word or phrase ends? From context. It can be hard for me at times depending on the difficulty of the text, much more so for a beginner. Grammar Definitely Arabic (which I will not discuss in detail here, because I don't think I know enough about it). Chinese grammar is for the most part quite easy, although there are a few things that may be confusing at first, such as the various particles. But once you've studied for maybe a year, things should generally settle down. More complex sentence structures are usually just a matter of plugging the terms in - none of this messy tense stuff Arabic has. Still, though, I would hazard a guess that Arabic grammar would not be too intimidating for someone who had already studied languages like Russian and French, which also have things like gender. Pronunciation My pronunciation of Arabic sucks. Because of the amount of exposure I have to Chinese, my pronunciation of Mandarin is pretty good, if I say so myself, and I do not know how another learner would perceive zh, q, x, and so on. It FEELS as if, tones aside, MSA and Mandarin should be approximately equally difficult/easy in terms of pronunciation. But we still have tones. I've met people who try to tell me that tones don't really matter - they're too hard so we just shouldn't do them, wah, especially since people understand you anyway! I disagree entirely with this line of thinking. Honestly, I have a lot of friends who study Mandarin, and I like them a lot, but I have a really hard time understanding them when they talk to me because their tones are so bad. When they yowl out a "ni hao!!!" or something similar, I can guess from context, the combination of ni and hao, and perhaps my knowledge of their poor vocabularies that they're saying hello, but when they attempt more difficult phrases, especially ones that I don't expect coming from someone of their level (here's one that took me a while to get: "wo shi su shi zhu yi zhe," delivered in questioning monotone), I have a darn hard time. Don't make me work this hard. Please, I'm lazy. Tones are easy to get if you put in enough time and attention, but they still obviously present a sizable difficulty to most learners. Listening Tones are hard for non-natives here, too. And so many words sound exactly the same in Chinese, so that's another difficulty. I can't understand much Arabic yet, so again, I am not qualified to speak on this. But I can say that after a couple months (this is my 12th week), I can generally distinguish when a word ends, and I can also generally tell similar words apart (ex leg/man; dog/heart; last/other). Not always as easy with Chinese. But again, am not qualified to speak. Vocabulary Both languages are rich. However, Arabic has the root system, which is very helpful indeed for me when trying to learn a new word. Chinese also gives you some clues, most notably in the form of the radical (and the rest of the character sometimes hints at pronunciation or meaning as well), particularly when written traditionally, but I don't think these hints are as helpful as the hints you'd get in MSA from knowing the root, the form, and the grammar. Can't think of any other points I especially want to compare, but I may add more tomorrow. I definitely don't think either of these languages is particularly easy, but if forced to say one or the other, I'd... probably still veer towards both. At this point in my studies, I feel (guess) that it's probably harder to read Chinese and to speak Arabic. I'm also guessing that for a more advanced student who had spent equal amounts of time and effort on both languages, it would be easier to understand spoken Arabic. But as I am not that advanced student, I can only speculate. Edited by bouda on 19 August 2009 at 8:12am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| bouda Senior Member United States Joined 5601 days ago 194 posts - 197 votes Speaks: English* | Message 109 of 160 19 August 2009 at 4:59pm | IP Logged |
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I've been thinking about it and am not sure how I am going to fit languages in. Well,
I'll fit everything in, all right, but Arabic and Mandarin aside, it looks like I'm only going to be able to devote a minimal amount of time for the next five years. Which is better than nothing, but not exactly conducive to attaining fluency. Also, I know that I will have a much heavier workload as time goes on, so that's a problem too. Finally, I have not actually chosen my major yet, but it seems unlikely that it will touch upon languages except in terms of comparative literature in Arabic (insha'allah) and Mandarin, thus leaving little time for advancing in the other languages I want to study. That's not going to stop me from doing my measly 30 minutes of non-MSA/Mandarin study a day, but just something that worries me. TO DO TODAY Anki (MSA) - Reading (MSA) - 45 minutes in the reader, which feels harder than the novel (!!!) Grammar review (MSA) - Listening (MSA) - 1 hour Chinese translation - didn't work on the last p. of zh2, but finished new draft of sh1 Dabbling - 1 hr Total hours on Arabic since I started counting, including passive listening: 5:15 hours Lunch: crab cakes and romaine with sriracha sauce on garlic ciabatta. Edited by bouda on 20 August 2009 at 3:41am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| bouda Senior Member United States Joined 5601 days ago 194 posts - 197 votes Speaks: English* | Message 110 of 160 20 August 2009 at 3:46am | IP Logged |
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TOTALS thus far since I began counting (Week 12 of studying though not recording; today
is Weds): ARABIC Anki - 2:10 (haven't done today's yet) Listening - 5:00 Reading - 0:45 (!!!) CHINESE Various translations - 1:00 VAGUE FIDDLING - 1:30 Obviously I am suffering from wanderlust - I need to cut my dabbling time way down and focus more on Arabic! I have lots of plans and goals for this week, so we'll see how successful I am. I'll update this post with today's totals later tonight. Today thus far: MSA reading - 45 m MSA listening - 1:45 last updated 10:15 Dabbling - 1 hr ETA: 12:15 - I just spent the last two hours passively listening to Arabic while cataloging every Chinese learning textbook in my house. Turns out I have over fifty. I think I've used maybe five. Edited by bouda on 20 August 2009 at 6:22am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| bouda Senior Member United States Joined 5601 days ago 194 posts - 197 votes Speaks: English* | Message 111 of 160 20 August 2009 at 8:41am | IP Logged |
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So I STILL haven't done today's Anki. I've been having some real problems with
motivation lately. However, I did count almost all the language learning textbooks that I have in hard copy in my house. I say almost because I did not count manuscripts or those that I know I have but couldn't find or those that were available only in audio/electronic form. I generally counted readers only when they provided a large amount of vocabulary or grammar explanation. Total: 84+ Interestingly enough, I actually check out most of my learning materials from the library, so I didn't realize that I had this many lang books of my own. Including English-X dictionaries: Chinese (Mandarin and Classical): 47+ (does not include dictionaries) Ancient Greek: 5 Assyrian: 1 Ancient Egyptian: 1 MSA: 5 French: 5 or 4* Japanese: 3 Latin: 3 Russian: 2 Spanish: 8 Turkish: 2 or 1* And some more that I didn't tag. Sadly, I obviously cannot speak or read all (or many) of these languages. But I guess I still have time. *Includes French-Turkish dictionary that I used when I was trying to learn Turkish and had no Turkish-English dictionary. Money I wish I had so I could expand my collection even more: $52 + $40 + $57 + $34 + $12 + $37 = $232 But really I could narrow it down to $57 (+$12?) + $37 Which is still around $100 too much. Edited by bouda on 20 August 2009 at 2:40pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| bouda Senior Member United States Joined 5601 days ago 194 posts - 197 votes Speaks: English* | Message 112 of 160 21 August 2009 at 1:29am | IP Logged |
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3 hours listening (sometimes passive, but counting it anyway)
2 hours reading NO Anki - I really need to pull myself together! TOTALS ARABIC Anki - 2:10 Listening - 8:00 Reading - 2:45 CHINESE - Various translations - 1:00 VAGUE FIDDLING - 1:30 1 person has voted this message useful |
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