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A Linguistic Odyssey | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6147 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 169 of 265 01 March 2010 at 6:18am | IP Logged | ||
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A slightly unrelated comment:
Lately I've noticed that the threads that I'm subscribed to will have a message posted, but I won't get any email notification at all, and will have to go look for the post and check myself if any new messages have been written. Has this been happening to anyone else? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| The Blaz Senior Member Canada theblazblog.blogspotRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5605 days ago 120 posts - 176 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Swahili, French, Sign Language, Esperanto | Message 170 of 265 01 March 2010 at 1:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hey Ellasevia! I saw you're studying some Swahili because you're going to Tanzania for two weeks, so I just thought I'd give you a word of encouragement. Tanzania is where I learnt the Swahili I know and I can tell you it really makes a big difference to your experience to have a grasp of the language. The good news is that you really don't need to know that much to get by on. I'm fairly certain I only had an active vocabulary of 2-300 words but I used the heck out of them and was very comfortable with them. Here's my tips on getting the most bang for your buck:
* Just learn your common movement, feeling, desiring verbs (go, come from, want, get take, tell, see, eat, drink, need, like) and as many usefull nouns as you can/want (foods and places, mostly) * Learn the verb constructions of subject prefix + tense + verb root. Know your tense and subject (M/WA) prefixes well so they roll off your tongue. *Don't bother learning the rest of the noun class system. You could sink a lot of time into it but the pay-off isn't that great. Just use N class prefixes for everything that isn't a living subject. * And of course, learn greetings. Hope that helps! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6147 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 171 of 265 01 March 2010 at 2:59pm | IP Logged | ||
Thanks, The Blaz, that is encouraging to know that I won't have to know much to get by. However, I'd like to make the most of my studying so that I can speak as well as possible by the time I get there. I was planning on learning Swahili to at least a basic fluency level anyways, but just not this soon. The trip has only made me start learning it earlier than I would have if I weren't going on the trip (in a year or two probably). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6788 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 172 of 265 01 March 2010 at 3:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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ellasevia, you mention this thing called Ultimate Italian. Can you tell me about it (or point me to where you described it possibly)? Is it the "Advanced" edition you're talking about? I've never heard of this product. Edited by numerodix on 01 March 2010 at 3:18pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5929 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 173 of 265 01 March 2010 at 9:49pm | IP Logged | ||
1. I will put in a plug for learning Finnish because it's really fun to learn. 2. I'm not an expert on Swedish yet; but my guess is that person you heard was speaking skånska dialect, which can sound like Danish, and yes it is spoken in southern Sweden. Edited by mick33 on 15 October 2010 at 2:34am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6147 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 174 of 265 02 March 2010 at 12:58am | IP Logged | ||
Yes, it is a book in the "Ultimate" series by Living Language. They also make it for Spanish, French, Portuguese, German, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and Arabic. I think that the series as a whole is very good, from what I've used (except for maybe the Portuguese one), as it blends good explanations of grammar and usage with lots of practical vocabulary. Each one has about 40 lessons, and I know that for several of the languages (French, German, Japanese; not sure about Italian) it gets you to a level where you are capable of reading excerpts of literature bu the last lesson. Each lesson starts off with a dialogue regarding the theme of the lesson (for example, my most recent Japanese one was themed with clothing and colors), followed by pronunciation, grammar and usage, vocabulary and expressions, and exercises. If you want to look at the book in more detail, here is the link to Ultimate Italian Beginner-Intermediate on Amazon. There is also an advanced book too, but I have never used it for any language (yet), so I cannot comment. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6147 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 175 of 265 07 March 2010 at 10:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well this is annoying. All week I had been organizing all of my activities neatly by language so that I wouldn't have to spend an hour writing a post today, and then I accidentally clicked refresh, and poof, it's gone (which is not normal; usually it saves it somehow). So now I have to remember it all.
Well, for Portuguese, all that I've done was I worked a bit more on going through the frequency dictionary. I know almost all of the words, but it takes time to go through because I'm entering every single one into Anki. I believe I'm up to #350, plus a couple of the thematic lists. For Esperanto, I typed up the rest of the lists of vocabulary that I made that were sitting around on my desk in a clutter and completed lesson five in the Teach Yourself book. I also reviewed the previous vocabulary lists. I need to get through this book as quickly as possible so I can "finish" Esperanto (I think finishing the book would be enough to get it to basic fluency) and have more free time. Plus, really easy languages like Esperanto don't tend to hold my interest very much unless there is something I really like about them. Therefore, I need to finish up the book in the next few weeks before I lose all the motivation like I did a year and a half ago and then forget the language again. For Spanish, I typed up a vocabulary list from my class last year into Anki. I also read a horribly complex and weird story for class, and entered most of the vocabulary into Anki until it became to tiresome to do so. I would have liked to go through some more of the Spanish Vocabulary book that I have been using, but I haven't yet. Oh, and I wrote another essay in Spanish yesterday on what we can learn from animals. For French, I finally finished that awful first lesson of TY Improve Your French. I don't know why it took me so long to do, but I do not intend to have the subsequent lessons demand so much time. I hope. I also collected vocabulary during class all week and just entered it into Anki today. I don't know why I can never remember my Italian days. I know I did two lessons of Ultimate Italian, but I don't remember much else... I did a German lesson on computers and the Internet on Thursday morning. Then the rest of the night was crazy so I couldn't do anything else (the previous two days were standardized testing at school for most of the day so I had less homework, and then procrastinated on what I did have until Thursday night). In my lesson, though, I came across the word die Runde, which it said has the definition of "round, a little while." I don't quite understand what it means because I didn't see it in the dialogue and I'm not sure of its use. Could any German speaker clarify? Friday (and often Thursday night) is when things begin to fall apart. I woke up late on Friday because I had gone to bed late on Thursday. So I had little time to review Anki and kanji in the morning (I don't do Greek because I have a Greek lesson after school, so I just work on review). After school I did have a Greek lesson and I am about to go learn this vocabulary now. I didn't, however, have time to do kanji either because once I got home from my grandparents' house my mom made be go to bed and therefore I couldn't catch up on reviews while it still wasn't too much. Instead, I officially went through lesson one in both Swahili books and wrote down all the vocabulary. Yesterday was pitifully unproductive. I managed to put all of the audio for the Swahili books onto the computer and some of it onto my iPod. I reviewed all the kanji that had piled up (almost 200 reviews!) and did my Anki repetitions. I also caught up to where I should be on kanji. It is hard to believe, but I'm actually on schedule. I do have about 50 failed kanji on the review page though, but I've realized that it's not good to review all of those at once because 1) I won't remember them well and 2) they all pile up in reviews at the same time if I learn them at the same time. So, I am now up to kanji #960. It's so exciting being this close to breaking the 1000 mark. Here are all the ones I've learned: 臓, 賢, 堅, 臨, 覧, 巨, 拒, 力, 男, 労, 募, 劣, 功, 勧, 努, 励, 加, 賀, 架, 脇, 脅, 協, 行, 律, 復, 得, 従, 徒, 待, 往, 征, 径, 彼, 役, 徳, 徹, 徴, 懲, 微, 街, 衡, 稿, 稼, 程, 税, 稚, 和, 移, 秒, 秋, 愁, 私, 秩, 秘, 称, 利, 梨, 穫, 穂, 稲, 香, 季, 委, 秀, 透, 誘, 穀, 菌, 米, 粉, 粘, 粒, 粧, 迷, 粋, 糧, 菊, 奥, 数, 楼, 類, 漆, 様, 求, 球, 救, 竹, 笑, 笠, 笹, 筋, 箱, 筆, 筒, 等, 算, 答, 策, 簿, 築, 人, 佐, 但, 住, 位, 仲, 体, 悠, 件, 仕 I don't think I mentioned this yet, but one of my friends just started to learn Norwegian, which is really exciting because now I have someone to practice my Swedish with. She's learning because she has reconnected with a friend in Norway and wants to learn Norwegian and is really enjoying it (I helped her find some materials). Anyways, I have just been speaking in Swedish and she responds in Norwegian, which is fine because I understand her and she understands me, assuming I speak simply enough (because she's a week into studying, but I'm five months into studying). Oh, so I also was perusing the Internet and decided to buy another Swedish book because although the one I currently have is really good, I feel that I need some balance in my studies. It is teaching more literary language, preparing me for the literature at the end of the book. I can understand this stuff very well from what I've done of this book, but I still need lots of work on other stuff, mainly conversational stuff, which is why I bought this book. It also has audio, which I desperately need for Swedish. Along with it, I bought an advanced French grammar workbook. In terms of Swahili, I have reviewed the first lesson in each book a lot. I have read through it several times and have listened to and shadowed all of the audio now too. The Living Language course has some audio activities that are independent of the book where it simulates a conversation and gives you cues, or gives your grammar exercises, which are good for when I am on a walk (or otherwise) and don't have the book with me. Today I still intend to learn the Greek vocabulary that I mentioned, do an Ultimate Japanese lesson, one lesson from SEGR and at least two Livemocha Swedish lessons (because I've been slacking in Swedish for the past few weeks). I also hope to learn the all the vocabulary for the Swahili lessons in BYKI and possibly finish lesson two in one or both of the books. I'll report back later with what I've gotten done of this. Now, as predicted, this post took a really long time to write, whereas I would have only had to add today's activities to the list that I was preparing if it hadn't been deleted... And now, to the ANKI STATISTICS: ESPERANTO: 792 FRENCH: 1942 GERMAN: 1070 GREEK: 1486 ITALIAN: 900 JAPANESE: 408 PORTUGUESE: 1218 SPANISH: 1425 SWAHILI: 180 SWEDISH: 1004 TOTAL: 10425 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6147 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 176 of 265 08 March 2010 at 6:15am | IP Logged | ||
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Well, it's late and I'll keep this quick (still have to do some homework that I for some reason deemed less important than doing this Swedish lesson). I was able to the the Greek vocabulary, the Ultimate Japanese lesson (on the airport), and this long Swedish lesson. I have decided to stop cluttering up these posts with my translations, and have instead found a site called Lang-8 (apparently I already had made an account there over a year ago) and have published all of my translations there. Hopefully there won't be too many mistakes. No Livemocha and no Swahili unfortunately.
An excuse (yes yes, excuses excuses) for this could be that I apparently just have concentration issues and that there was a dinner party at my house tonight, unbeknownst to me. Now, to write a short essay and to review math homework. Why did I not do this earlier? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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