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A Linguistic Odyssey

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ellasevia
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2011
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 5991 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 217 of 265
24 April 2010 at 8:38am | IP Logged 
Okay, I lied. I am not going to do my big post tonight, but either tomorrow, or on Sunday. I'm going to try to not get distracted by this site tomorrow at all, so probably Sunday. I'll just sum up a couple things:

- Kanji learned up to #1400
- Kanji reviewed
- Anki reviewed
- Ultimate German vocabulary learned
- Νέα Ελληνικά lesson with grandmother + vocabulary learned
- Some Polish listening
- A bit of Swedish this morning, will continue tomorrow
- Currently working on Ultimate Italian vocabulary (lesson 30)
- TY Chinese arrived

Okay. I'll see if I can finish this vocabulary list before it gets way too late, and if I still have time, I will type up some Spanish vocabulary. I have been neglecting Spanish, which is not good since my SAT II exam for that (and French) is next Saturday and my AP Spanish exam is only a couple days afterwards...
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ellasevia
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2011
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 5991 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 218 of 265
26 April 2010 at 8:01am | IP Logged 
For my long, exciting post this week, I'll divide it up into a short summary and then a relevant details section for those who are interested.

SUMMARY
- Finished Ultimate Italian lesson 30 on Friday evening
- Caught up with the Spanish goals for the entire month in one sitting on Saturday morning (it was a lot less than expected)
- Did a bunch of kanji study yesterday and today again to catch up. I now know up through #1450, and this means that I am all of a sudden back up to date.
紳, 約, 細, 累, 索, 総, 綿, 絹, 繰, 継, 緑, 縁, 網, 緊, 紫, 縛, 縄, 幼, 後, 幽, 幾, 機, 玄, 畜, 蓄, 弦, 擁, 滋, 慈, 磁, 系, 係, 孫, 懸, 却, 脚, 卸, 御, 服, 命, 令, 零, 齢, 冷, 領, 鈴, 勇, 通, 踊, 疑, 擬, 凝, 範, 犯, 厄, 危, 宛, 腕, 苑, 怨, 柳, 卵, 留, 貿, 印, 興, 酉, 酒, 酌, 酵, 酷, 酬, 酪, 酢, 酔, 配, 酸, 猶, 尊, 豆, 頭, 短, 豊, 鼓, 喜, 樹, 皿, 血, 盆, 盟
- Finished up through about half of CD4 in MT Polish
- Finished my SEGR lesson finally yesterday evening
- Finished two Ultimate Japanese lessons this afternoon
- TY books arrived for Indonesian, Finnish, Polish, Turkish, and Irish

DETAILS
1. Excessive English
About my Japanese, I have really noticed and somewhat resent the abundance of English loanwords in Japanese. I always thought of the Japanese language and culture and wanting to be pure and distinctly Japanese. I mean, the Japanese even went so far as to close their country off from the world in the 17th century to maintain this purity. And now, there is TONS of English in Japanese. I am not complaining entirely because these words about very easy to learn (beddo = bed, booru = ball, heakatto = haircut, fikushon = fiction, sukaafu = scarf, sutairu = style, takushii = taxi, etc.), but it feels like they are polluting the language. Not to mention that since they are foreign words they are written in katakana and I honestly dislike katakana very much. A few loanwords are okay, but this many!? I mean, 24 out of the 54 words in one of my lessons today were English loanwords. That's over 44%!

2. Japanese Dialogues
I have lately been typing up the dialogues and having them written in actual Japanese script, because it's easier for me to understand than roomaji. I have also been entering them into RhinoSpike for listening practice. Here are the two dialogues from the lessons I did today.

LESSON 13: スポーツ
上田:明日北海道から友達が来るんです。一 緒に鎌倉へ行くんですけど,高木さんも行き ませんか。
高木:ああ,すみません。でも,明日は都合 が悪いんです。高校の同窓会の人たちと一緒 に野球見に行くんです。
上田:ああ,そうですか。残念ですね。チケ ットはもうあるんですか。
高木:ええ,いい席のチケットを買うことが できたんです。上田さんは野球は見ないんで すか。
上田:いいえ,テレビでいつも見ますよ。昔 はあまりスポーツ番組は見なかったんですけ ど,このごろはよく見るんです。
高木:スポーツをするのも好きですか。
上田:ええ,僕はテニスが好きですから,会 社のテニスコートで時々練習するんです。
高木:私もテニスをするんです。あまり上手 じゃありませんけど。
上田:僕も下手ですよ。今度一緒にしません か。
高木:ええ,お願いします。
上田:来週の土曜日はどうですか。
高木:ええ,大丈夫です。
上田:十一時ごろにテニスコートで会いまし ょうか。
高木:そうですね。じゃあ,また。

LESSON 14: 美容院で
美容師:いらっしゃいませ。
客:カットをお願いします。
美容師:はい,どうぞ。あちらでお待ちくだ さい。
客:時間はどのぐらいかかりますか。今三時 十分ですね。四時半までにできますか。
美容師:ええ,大丈夫です。コートはそちら に掛けてください。

しばらくして。

美容師:お待たせしました。こちらへどうぞ 。この椅子に掛けてください。どんな髪型に しましょうか。
客:長い髪を洗うのは面倒ですから,短い髪 にしたんです。耳の下ぐらいが好いです。
美容師:じゃあ,十センチぐらい切ります。 好いですか。
客:そうですね。
美容師:前髪も切りましょうか。
客:そうですね。前髪は今ちょうどいいです 。でも,ちょっとそろえてください。
美容師:はい,分かりました。

3. SEGR Texts and Translations
Lesson 12: En skidtävling i Dalarna
Erik tycker mycket om att åka skidor. På våren när snön börjar smälta i Stockholm är det fortfarande vinter i Dalarna och då brukar han resa upp till Mora för att åka skidor. Där är han i ’Sveriges hjärta’, bland folk some är stolta över den roll, som Dalarna en gång spelade i den svenska historien.
     I början av 1500-talet regerades Sverige av Kristian Tyrann, en dansk kung, som var mycket grym. En kall novemberdag fördes åttiotvå svenska adelsmän till Stortorget i Gamla stan för att halshuggas. Bland de halshuggna befann sig Gustav Vasas far, svåger och morbröder. Hans mor, systrar, mormor och moster hade kastats i fängelse. Själv var han tvungen att fly. Jagad av kungens soldater kom han till Dalarna, där han flera gånger var nära att tillfångatagen. Förklädd till bonde nådde han kort före jul Mora. Här steg Gustav upp på en liten kulle och berättade för böderna om det grymma blodbadet i Stockholm. Han bad dem om hjälp med att befria landet, men han möttes bara av misstro.
     Nu flydde Gustav på skidor vidare mot Norge. Kort därefter nåddes folket i Mora av nyheten om Stockholms blodbad och, vad värre var, om kungens nya höga skatter. Ett par skidlöpare sändes efter Gustav Vasa. De hann up honom i Sälen, inte långt från den norska gränsen, och med glädje vände Gustav tillbaka till Mora. Tillsammans med dalkarlarna befriade han landet från danskarna.
     Frihetshjälten Gustav Vasa hedras varje år med en berömd skidtävling som går från Sälen till Mora. Vasaloppet, som det kallas, är åttiofem kilometer långt. På morgonen den första söndagen i mars åker tusentals skidåkare detta historiska lopp.
     Även Erik hoppas kunna åka det en gång i sitt liv.

Erik likes to go skiing very much. In the spring when the snow is beginning to melt in Stockholm, it’s still winter in Dalarna, when he has the habit of traveling up to Mora to go skiing. There he is “Sweden’s hear,” among people who are proud of the role that Dalarna once played in Swedish history.
     In the beginning of the 16th century, Sweden was ruled by Kristian Tyrann, a Danish king who was very cruel. A cold November day 85 noblemen were led to the Big Square in the Old City to be beheaded. Among the beheaded were Gustav Vasa’s father, brother-in-law, and uncles. His mother, sisters, grandmother, and aunt had been thrown in prison. As for himself, he was forced to flee. Hunted down by the king’s soldiers, he came to Dalarna, where he was nearly captured several times. Disguised as a peasant, he reached Mora shortly before Christmas. Here Gustav climbed up a small hill and told the peasants about the cruel bloodbath in Stockholm. He asked them for help in liberating the country, but he was only met by mistrust.
     Now Gustav fled on skis further towards Norway. Shortly thereafter, the news of the massacre in Stockholm reached the people in Mora and, what was worse, about the king’s new high taxes. A pair of skiers was sent after Gustav Vasa. They caught up to him in Sälen, not far from the Norwegian border, and returned Gustav to Mora with pleasure. Together with the men from Dalarna, he freed the country from the Danes.
     Gustav Vasa, the hero of the liberation, is honored every year with a famous ski race that goes from Sälen to Mora. The Vasa Marathon, as it is called, is 85 kilometers long. In the morning of the first Sunday in March, thousands of skiers go on this historic race.
     Erik hopes to be able to do it once in his life as well.


Translate into Swedish
People have told many stories about Gustav Vasa’s adventures in Dalecaria where he was almost captured by the Danish soldiers who had been sent out by the king. After the massacre in Stockholm, the young Swedish nobleman had been forced to flee northwards to his friends who tried to save his life. First he came to Anders Persson at Rankhyttan. They had been good friends many years before at Uppsala when they were students. Gustav was dressed as a peasant. He told his friend about his family and about how his father had been beheaded and his mother had been thrown into prison. Anders was unable to give him the help he requested, and the young nobleman fled further to Arent Persson at Ornäs, a few kilometers from Borlänge. Here he was received with mistrust and the news soon reached the soldiers that the king’s enemy was in the vicinity. They came to Ornäs, but Arent’s wife saw them come and gave her guest a horse. The young hero fled on to Svärdsjö where he hoped to be able to get help from a priest called Jon. But it was not before Gustav was caught up with by skiers near the Norwegian border that he got the help he wanted from the Dalecarians. Gustav Vasa succeeded in freeing Sweden from the Danes, but it is said that Arent never forgave his poor wife.

Folket har berättat många historier om Gustav Vasas äventyrerna i Dalarna då nära fångades han av de danska soldaterna som hade sänts ut av kungen. Efter blodbadet i Stockholm, den unge svenske adelsmannen hade tvungits att fly norrut till hans vänner som försökte att rädda hans livet. Första kom han till Anders Persson på Rankhyttan. De hade varit bra vänner många år förr på Uppsala då var de studenter. Gustav kläddes till bonde. Han berättade för hans vän om sin familj och om hur sin far hade halshuggits och sin mor hade tillfångatagens. Anders kunde inte ge honom hjälpen som han bad, och den unge adelsmannen flydde vidare till Arent Persson på Ornäs, några kilometer från Borlänge. Här fåtts han med misstro och snart nåddes soldaterna av nyheten att kungens fienden var i närheten. De kom till Ornäs, men Arents hustru såg dem komma och gav hennes gäst en häst. Den unge hjälten flydde till Svärdsjö då hoppades han att kunna få hjälp från en präst som hette Jon. Men det var inte förrän hanns upp Gustav av skidåkare nära den norska gränsen att han fick hjälpen som han ville av dalkarlarna. Gustav Vasa lyckades att befria Sverige av danskarna, men sägs det att Arents förlät aldrig hans stackars hustru.
------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------
Well, I believe that's about it. My detailed color-coded guide for this weekend's goals seemed to work more or less well, so I made a similar one for the entire week. I am looking forward to hopefully not being so stressed this week since I will have both Wednesday and Friday off from school. :)

I hope all readers have a wonderful week and much success with your linguistic endeavors.

--Philip
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ellasevia
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2011
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 5991 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 219 of 265
28 April 2010 at 8:13am | IP Logged 
I am extremely tired. I have been attempting to stay up all night to work for several weeks (usually on a Saturday night), but keep succumbing to the dreadful fatigue. Seeing as how I don't have school tomorrow, I decided to try again tonight. Last night I was up late too, partly inspired by a friend who has apparently not slept more than a few hours in over a week due to excessive amounts of schoolwork. Anyways, armed with caffeine, I set out to work tonight since this afternoon and evening were non-existent work-wise. Now, I am extremely tired, despite my caffeinated tea recommended by my friend and my best efforts to maintain consciousness. So, I shall just post briefly to say what I've done lately, then take a short nap (about an hour?) and then come back to work.

I have been having major fail sessions of kanji due to my cramming of them this weekend. I believe on one particular review, I got a 13%... I am up to date through yesterday, as I have not yet had the chance to learn my new characters for today.
盗, 温, 監, 濫, 鑑, 猛, 盛, 塩, 銀, 恨

Since I have two important Spanish exams coming up soon I have incorporated into my detailed daily goals plan going through several vocabulary lists every day. I have done this for yesterday and today, and just in time for this project I was blessed by having some enormous lists to get through, which was a pleasant experience.

Last night I also did my Beginner's Swedish lesson and typed up my TY Swahili lesson 3 vocabulary (which I had written out way back at the beginning of April).

When I come back to work this evening after my nap (hehe, this just sounds really amusing), I will attempt to finish off a LGWT lesson, my kanji, and perhaps that Swahili vocabulary. I might even start on some of tomorrow's goals, which include work for Italian, Esperanto, Spanish, Japanese, and kanji. I should also probably do some reading for world history and language arts, and study rat anatomy for biology.

A SHORT SIDE NOTE:
The second copy of TY Arabic arrived last night (I got one copy for a friend of mine, with whom I will be studying when we begin Arabic sometime next year) and I brought the copies to school and gave one to my friend. We were reading out of it at lunch, trying to make sense of some of the pronunciation. The pharyngealized consonants were rather difficult, but I think we mostly understand how to do those now. Then, after learning that and thinking that we had learned the hardest sounds in Arabic, on the next page it said the following about the letter ح:

Teach Yourself Arabic wrote:
H is probably the most difficult sound of all, and it must be distinguished from the ordinary h-sound. It is pronounced very deep down in the throat, and if you try a very deep and forceful sigh, with mouth wide open, and at the same time try to constrict your throat in the region of the Adam's apple, you should achieve an approximation. The tongue is slightly tensed and its tip tucked down behind the bottom teeth. This contributes to the effect.


We felt a bit like crying/screaming/throwing the books out the window when we read that. I mean, how are you possibly supposed to do all of that with your mouth and throat at the same time? Is it physically possible? All we succeeding in when trying to pronounce the sound was almost choking ourselves and ended up coughing.

Then, it turns out that in my PE class there is a native Arabic speaker (an exchange student, I don't remember from where). I showed her the letter and asked how it was supposed to be pronounced, and she showed me how. It was so much easier than the evil book led on! It's essentially just a slightly stronger and deeper h-sound. The only issue is to make sure it's distinct enough to be able to tell it apart from ه, the other h-sound in Arabic, which is more like what we have in English.

Well, I will be back in a few hours to report any progress.

--Philip
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Woodpecker
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5660 days ago

351 posts - 590 votes 
Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Arabic (Egyptian)
Studies: Arabic (classical)

 
 Message 220 of 265
28 April 2010 at 9:58am | IP Logged 
ح is not all that difficult. The trick that got me producing it correctly was whispering the English word "hey" loudly. The sound you get at the start is a fairly good ح

ع on the other hand, will give you a headache.
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ellasevia
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2011
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 5991 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 221 of 265
29 April 2010 at 10:37am | IP Logged 
ellasevia wrote:
Well, I will be back in a few hours


...or not. Alarm clocks are traitors, that's all I'm going to say about the matter.

ellasevia wrote:
to report any progress.


...or lack thereof, as the case may be (and is).

Well, this is officially the latest I've been up on a school night. It's almost 2:30 in the morning and I have actually been staying up late tonight because I have been overwhelmed with homework. I squandered my daytime hours doing nothing at all and am greatly regretting this. I need to learn to not get distracted and actually focus. When I wake up late, though, I get in a really unpleasant mood for several hours and don't want to do anything. And then the mood might lift, but by then the laziness has set in.

So, for the past several hours, instead of studying foreign languages like any normal person on this forum would be doing, I have been immersing myself in the exciting worlds of late 20th century world history (bleh), pyramids in geometry (bleh bleh), and every single detail about rat anatomy (bleh bleh bleh). I have finished for a bit and am on a "break" now, and have taken a couple before, and used some of that time to study kanji.

NEW KANJI (#1480):
根, 即, 爵, 節, 退, 限, 眼, 良, 朗, 浪, 娘, 食, 飯, 飲, 飢, 餓, 飾, 館, 養, 飽
I have also reviewed for today and yesterday, but there are about 40 failed kanji that I'll have to revisit.

ESPERANTO
I did 1/2 of Lesson 10 from TY Esperanto, as per my goals today/yesterday (the border becomes fuzzy late at night/early in the morning when it feels like the same day still because you haven't gone to sleep, but technically it's a new day). The second half will be done tomorrow/today.

SPANISH
I did my Spanish vocabulary exercises for today/yesterday and tomorrow/today.

I also did my Anki reviews. I don't remember having updated my Anki stats in a while, so here they are:

ANKI STATISTICS:
ESPERANTO: 1456
FRENCH: 3513
GERMAN: 1843
GREEK: 2004
ITALIAN: 1840
JAPANESE: 752
PORTUGUESE: 2663
SPANISH: 2981
SWAHILI: 368
SWEDISH: 1513

TOTAL: 18,933

In the next few hours, I am going to see if I can accomplish some of the following:
- Reading AP World History review packet
- Math homework (probably not going to happen since I'm tired and I don't understand it in the first place)
- Writing/beginning to write essay for language arts (this isn't hugely important since my LA class doesn't really have due dates so really I could wait until next month when I have more time to do this)
- LGWT lesson
- Ultimate Italian lessons
- Study kanji
- SLEEP!!!

I will be leaving for school in approximately four and a half hours from now...

-- PHILIP
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ellasevia
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2011
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 5991 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 222 of 265
30 April 2010 at 5:00am | IP Logged 
昨夜は眠った。勉強しなかった。今日Ankiと �字を勉強した。そして,エスペラントのレ � �スンも勉強した。今新しい漢字を勉強する � �漢字が大好きですけど,少し難しいんです � �。それからイタリア語のレッスンをする。 � �リシャ語やドイツ語のレッスンもしたいで � �。そして明日は金曜日ですけど,学校がな � �よ!たった日本語を書くほしいでした。す � �ません,僕は日本語がまだあまり上手じゃ � �りませんけど。今今日の漢字を済む。それ � �らここでもう書く。

EDIT: I have no idea why this is not showing up properly. I even typed it out three times, but no success in making it show up correctly.
Here is what I was trying to write in rōmaji:

Sakuya wa nemutta. Benkyō shinakatta. Kyō Anki to kanji o benkyō shita. Soshite, esuperanto no ressun mo benkyō shita. Ima atarashii kanji o benkyō suru. Kanji ga daisuki desu kedo, sukoshi muzukashii n desu ne. Sorekara itaria-go no ressun o suru. Girisha-go ya doitsu-go no ressun mo shitai desu. Soshite ashita wa kin'yōbi desu kedo, gakkō ga nai yo! Tatta nihongo o kaku hoshii deshita. Sumimasen, boku wa nihongo ga mada amari jōzu ja arimasen kedo. Ima kyō no kanji o sumu. Sorekara koko de mō kaku.

Edited by ellasevia on 30 April 2010 at 5:10am

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TixhiiDon
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Japan
Joined 5313 days ago

772 posts - 1474 votes 
Speaks: English*, Japanese, German, Russian
Studies: Georgian

 
 Message 223 of 265
30 April 2010 at 5:06am | IP Logged 
全然悪くないよ!Just one big mistake. "I wanted to write Japanese" is 日本語を書きたかっ
た rather than 書くほしいでした. Also, I don't understand what you meant by 今日の漢字を
済む.
Otherwise, pretty good. Keep it up! But get some sleep too!!
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nescafe
Senior Member
Japan
Joined 5258 days ago

137 posts - 227 votes 

 
 Message 224 of 265
30 April 2010 at 5:13am | IP Logged 
Hi, Ellasevia

I think "今今日の漢字を済む" is "いま今日の漢字が済んだ" or "漢字が終わった".
Not "を" but "が". If you want to use "を" , it will be "今日の漢字を終えた".

Edited by nescafe on 30 April 2010 at 5:42am



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