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Mick’s 2012 log Teams *jäŋe / *ledús & Žá | ||
Tags: Scriptorium | Afrikaans | Wanderlust | Thai | 6 Weeks Challenge (6WC) | Teach Yourself | Hindi | Intermediate | Finnish | Polish | Swedish | Verbs/Conjugation | Multilingual | Beginner | Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC) | Italian | Grammar | Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5923 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 97 of 108 11 October 2012 at 11:09am | IP Logged | ||
After I get a good handle on the letters (or characters?) it will be time to start teaching myself to read Hindi. This will be my first attempt to learn to read a language with a syllabic alphabet and I can't wait. I hope I can read simple texts by the beginning of November. Maybe that's too ambitious or maybe I'm not challenging myself enough. The trouble is that I don't remember how long it actually took me to learn how to read English and I don't know how long it will take for my brain to learn to how to read Hindi either. शुभ रात्रि Mick Edited by mick33 on 11 October 2012 at 10:48pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5923 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 98 of 108 16 October 2012 at 10:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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Dink u dat ek in ses dae vloeiend hindi kon skryf? Nee, En ek sal tog nooit net 'n belaglik verklaring maak nie. Ek het in die laaste vier dae geen hindi geleer nie. Is Hindi 'n moeilike taal? Nee, maar ek het die klanke van afrikaans, spaans en italiaans gemis dus ek het na hierdie taal gelees en geluister. Ek het ook my uitspraak van hierdie tale geoefen. My afrikaans en spaans uitspraak is nie te sleg nie, nie perfek nie maar oukei. My italiaans aksent is nie te goed nie. Wanneer ek probeer om italiaans woorde of frase sê hulle klank soos spaans woorde of frase. Ek weet nie hoe om dit te verbeter nie. Hoe kan dit wees? Ek kan dit nie verstaan nie! Ek het eerste spaans geleer, miskien my italiaans sal altyd soos spaans klank.
Did anyone think I'd be writing fluent Hindi in six days? No, and anyway I will certainly never make such a ridiculous claim. Hindi isn't too hard, I just missed the sounds of Afrikaans, Spanish and Italian. So I've been reading and listening to these languages instead. I also practiced pronunciation. My Afrikaans and Spanish pronunciation is not too bad, not perfect, but okay. My Italian accent is not so good. Whenever I attempt to say Italian words or phrases they sound just like Spanish, and I don't understand it. Maybe because I learned Spanish first my Italian will always sound like Spanish, but I hope not. That minor frustration has led me to focus on Italian pronounciation and listening to more spoken Italian. I'm not sure my problem is just with getting a better Italian accent it could be rhythm and intonation which might fall under prosody, but I don't know yet. Another thing is that my recent focus on Italian exposed some gaping holes in my vocabulary. I expected this and intend to know more Italian words by Christmas. I also dabbled with Faroese again (I think I mentioned it in one of earlier logs), and though I know I won't learn Faroese it was interesting to listen to the language again. Faroese is fun to pronounce because of some unusual sounds for a Germanic language. I think I am comfortable with all the vowel sounds except í, æ, á, and ó. The written language uses the letter "ð" for historical reasons, but it is either nearly silent glide or can sometimes sound like a "v". The letters "v" and "g" can also be silent glides and I am not sure what sound, or sounds, the letter "r" is supposed to represent. Oh well, as I wrote above I won't be learning Faroese anytime soon due to the limited resources and opportunities to speak it. ciao lekker dag Mick Edited by mick33 on 18 October 2012 at 10:01am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5923 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 99 of 108 22 October 2012 at 11:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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Non pronuncio bene la lingua Italiano, ma ho letto la lingua Italiano la settimana scorza. Ho letto della ottava rima. L'ottava rima è una forma poetica nella Toscana.
I can't write anymore Italian right now, I can't remember the words I would want to write. My Italian pronunciation is not good, but I did read in Italian last week. I had been reading about Italian rap music in an old New York Times article and it mentioned something called ottava rima. Then I remembered that I believe the NYTimes is one of the most overrated newspapers on the planet, not only because the articles are always in English, and I should read about ottava rima in Italian. So I consulted the nearly all-knowing Wikipedia, in Italian, and YouTube. Wikipedia told me that Ottava rima is a poetical form that originated in Tuscany in the 14th century (the Wikipedia article also mentions Lazio, Sardinia and Sicily) and may have been first seen in Boccaccio's writings. But there's more, Ottava rima can also be improvised in public by two singers in competition with each other. The New York Times article said that these competitions are disappearing but I found some videos http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzEY4GUoFKk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q1tN9phiUw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5pbPEubmJ4 There are many more videos, so I won't post links to them all. I am also a little embarrassed about writing in English, and next time I will be more tolerant of my limitations in Italian. I have also been continuing to learn to read Hindi in preparation for November. It's going very slowly, and I can't actually read anything yet. I have more trouble than I expected to have with the many conjuncts and this slows me down a lot. arrivederci Mick Edited by mick33 on 25 October 2012 at 7:49pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5923 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 100 of 108 25 October 2012 at 10:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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I knew it would happen, I just had to have a peek at Hindi grammar. So that's what I did. The first thing I noticed is that in Hindi the verb is placed at the end of a sentence, which is different from any other language I am learning. This means that even a simple statement such as "my name is __ ." becomes मेरा नाम ___ है (mera naam ___ hai) hyperliterally translated as "My name ___ is". So the word order is Subject-Object-Verb. There are also postpositions, a feature I know already from Finnish but which I hadn't expected to find in an Indo-European language. I'll write more on Hindi later and I am continuing to learn to read the language but I have nothing new to tell about this yet.
I have also been practicing Italian pronunciation and I hope I am getting better but I don't know yet, there's still the tendency to lapse into making Spanish sounds and intonation. Pronunciation is important, and I will keep working on it; but I must have something to say. I also want to understand colloquial expressions because I intend to learn Italian to at least a fairly high level. There are some interesting Italian expressions here and here, such as "In bocca al lupo" which translates as something like "Into the wolf's mouth." but is used to mean something like good luck and apparently the response is "Crepi il lupo" which literally means something like "May the wolf die". Others that I like are: Dente avvelenato - to have a poison tooth (a negative opinion that might be very biased) Ogni morte di papa - Every death of a Pope and is used like the English phrase "Once in a blue moon." Non ti perdere in un bicchier d’acqua - Don't get lost in a glass of water which is similar in meaning to the English expression "Don't make a mountain out of a molehill". A presto Mick Edited by mick33 on 26 October 2012 at 9:37am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5923 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 101 of 108 26 October 2012 at 10:26am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm back to write a little more about basic Hindi grammar. First I will list some subject pronouns:
मैं (main) - I तू (too) - You [intimate] Best to only use this one with a romantic partner or to young children. तुम (tum) - You [informal or casual] Most common form, I believe this is also a plural form. Use this when talking with friends and anyone you know well. आप (aap) - You [most formal] Can also be plural, use this one with people you don't know, older people and to show respect. यह (yeh) - he/she/it and this Used for people or items near me. वह (voh) - he/she/it and that Used for people or items not near me. हम (ham) - we This message would be incomplete if I didn't mention the verb होना (honaa) or "to be" and it's present tense conjugations so here they are: मैं हूँ (main hoon) I am तू है (too hai)you are [intimate] तुम हो (tum ho)you are [informal] आप हैं (aap hain)you are [formal] हम हैं (ham hain)we are यह है (yeh hai)he/she/this is [near] वह है (voh hai)he/she/that is [far] ये हैं (ye hain)these/they are [near] वे हैं (ve hain)those/they are [far] My next post will be about the Hindi verb for "to have" and there will also be more about Italian. शुभ रात्रि (shubh raatri) good night Mick Edited by mick33 on 26 October 2012 at 10:36am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5923 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 102 of 108 28 October 2012 at 10:27am | IP Logged | ||
I can't write about the Hindi verb for "to have", I don't have information about it. Maybe it isn't important right now, I can always learn it later if I need to know it. What did I do? I learned more Italian vocabulary and read a gelato recipe. I don't why I read a gelato recipe in October when it is already too cold for me to want gelato, so don't ask me. My latest Italian word list spettacolo - show, or play (theatrical production) coraggiosamente - courageously qualcuno - someone scomparire - to disappear soprattutto - above all, most of all chiedere - to ask This word list should be longer, but I'm very tired now. I'll finish the list in another post. buonanotte Mick Edited by mick33 on 28 October 2012 at 10:29am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5923 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 103 of 108 02 November 2012 at 9:35am | IP Logged | ||
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Another 6WC has begun, and I hope this one will be my best one yet. I still can't really read Hindi yet, but I will very soon. I may start doing scriptorium in the hope of learning to read Hindi quickly. I spent 2 hours and 30 minutes learning Hindi and that is a really good start. Unfortunately, I spent too much time yesterday scouring the Internet for Hindi radio stations but most of the stations I found play old Bollywood songs and nothing else or they play Hindi music along with music sung in other languages spoken in India. If I were not focused on learning Hindi right now this would be a wonderful discovery; but I would rather have a radio station that broadcasts solely in Hindi if possible. The other languages of India can wait until sometime in the not-so distant future. I did find a TV channel that I can watch on the India Times website.
I'm happy that the news broadcasts don't seem to have much of the odd mix of English phrases into spoken Hindi that I commented on a few pages back, or maybe I'm used to it now. फिर मिलेंगे phir milenge Mick Edited by mick33 on 02 November 2012 at 10:35pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5923 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 104 of 108 05 November 2012 at 9:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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I decided I needed a slight break from this forum over the weekend, so that I would spend more time learning Hindi and Italian. That's embarrassing thing to admit, or it would have been, but the plan worked! I actually spent 2 hours on Italian and another 2 hours on Hindi.
Since Hindi is my major focus right now, that's the language I'll write about. Learning to notice the present tense conjugations for होना [honaa] ("to be") that I write about in message #101 is already paying off, it sounds and looks like almost every Hindi sentence ends with a form of होना. I don't think every sentence requires this verb at the end, but I'm having so much just listening to, and trying to read, Hindi that I'm not even looking at grammar. In fact, longtime readers of my language logs may be shocked that I haven't even bothered to learn to write a negative sentence yet. I have also found अंग्रेज़ी हिन्दी शब्दकोश angrezi hindee shabdkosh an English-Hindi dictionary. I especially like the fact that शब्दकोश [shabdkosh] is the Hindi word for dictionary. I'm missing the sound of spoken Hindi right now, so I'll get back to listening to more Hindi. राम राम ram ram Mick Edited by mick33 on 03 December 2012 at 6:52pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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