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TAC 2012 - zenmonkey - German, Arabic +

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Flarioca
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Brazil
Joined 5880 days ago

635 posts - 816 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, Esperanto, French, EnglishC2, Spanish, German, Italian
Studies: Catalan, Mandarin

 
 Message 25 of 47
31 January 2012 at 11:44pm | IP Logged 
zenmonkey wrote:
Which led me to memrise. That is a great site based on mnemonics for vocabulary learning. I tried it out and liked it, but it is a little buggy (as I ignored all the words on the list I was trying out, it got stuck) and i think I like something a little less graphic. But overall it seem to be an excellent site. If I can get a list that is up to my speed and not too basic I might use it. German = too easy. Arabic = too hard.

But the whole thing got me to thinking about mnemonics for words learning. I think I will have to try for certain words and even articles.

My method? Placing nouns in place (words with Das will be placed in the car - Das Auto, Der in ocean - Der Ozean and the river Isar for Die Isar.) We'll see if that helps.


The Memrise idea looks great. However, it seems to be still a work in progress. Even if you don't like a given mnemonics, it may inspire you and that's how I think this site may be useful.

I like mnemonics a lot. It seems easy to argue that it is specially useful in the beginning, but I think that it is also suited for intermediate and advanced levels. For instance, in German, I try to use them to memorize words suspended by Anki.

For der, die, das, I prefer to add a cap for das, a pair of long blond braids for die and a huge moustache for der.

However, since my problem with der, die, das is mostly about the words I already "know", I've decided to create a deck with all rules and guidelines that I could find, plus a lot of examples and exceptions. It is not yet finished.
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Flarioca
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Brazil
Joined 5880 days ago

635 posts - 816 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, Esperanto, French, EnglishC2, Spanish, German, Italian
Studies: Catalan, Mandarin

 
 Message 26 of 47
03 February 2012 at 1:21am | IP Logged 
I'm really enjoying Memrise, though using it only for Turkish.
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zenmonkey
Bilingual Tetraglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 6550 days ago

803 posts - 1119 votes 
1 sounds
Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German
Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew

 
 Message 27 of 47
03 February 2012 at 12:55pm | IP Logged 
Flarioca wrote:
The Memrise idea looks great. However, it seems to be still a work in progress. Even if you don't like a given mnemonics, it may inspire you and that's how I think this site may be useful.

I like mnemonics a lot. It seems easy to argue that it is specially useful in the beginning, but I think that it is also suited for intermediate and advanced levels. For instance, in German, I try to use them to memorize words suspended by Anki.


It does look good.

I think as a technique mnemonics has it place in many areas and I'm trying to use it for some of those hard to learn words, exactly like you. I've taught my girls SOHCAHTOA and vedic methods for math. Sometimes you see posts here that categorically knock-down mnemonics in language learning. I'm more in the school, "All things in moderation".

I'll give that site another look every once in awhile, I'm also afraid of tool wanderlust as there are so many things out there.


Edited by zenmonkey on 03 February 2012 at 12:59pm

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zenmonkey
Bilingual Tetraglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 6550 days ago

803 posts - 1119 votes 
1 sounds
Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German
Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew

 
 Message 28 of 47
03 February 2012 at 1:33pm | IP Logged 
Arrrg. I'm travelling to Chicago this week and have forgetten to load my Assimil Arabic lessons into the ipod, so I'll have to use other material -- I have enough, but I wanted to focus the 6WC period on that techinque and I'll have to shift for the first week.

On the trip the language fairy was watching over me -- the flight attendant spoke to me in English and when I answered in German and we talked for a little while - she thought I was Italian because of my latin-sounding name. Another attendant saw my Assimil book and asked me about that, she's been using the Dutch book at home.

My taxi driver was from Mumbai, India so I got a little 20 minute lesson of his languages. Arriving in the city, I needed a haircut so I stepped across the street and the guy in the salon had an accent and we got talking -- an Iraqi, the guy next to him Jordanian so a little discussion on MSA, accents, Syriac and I got a few sentences. My first words in Arabic with a "native"! (well, except for some standard greetings I had learned while traveling in Jordan)

And, in March, I'll be going to Dubai for a short business trip.

German
Anki - 147 behind
Assimil 90
bussuu

Arabic
Assimil review 4-10.
Anki




Edited by zenmonkey on 03 February 2012 at 6:36pm

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zenmonkey
Bilingual Tetraglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 6550 days ago

803 posts - 1119 votes 
1 sounds
Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German
Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew

 
 Message 29 of 47
12 February 2012 at 3:41pm | IP Logged 
I'm back from the busy week in Chicago and did not really have as much time for study as I would have hoped. I did get to play around with languages - speaking Spanish with the hotel waiters, French with the driver and I learned a Malay phrase to greet a collegue in the morning. That is now gone (it was "Adakah anda tidur lena?") except for the "anda" and the similarity to anti ( أَنْتِ ). I have been studying German and Arabic almost every day so at least some consistency in that.
The long drives continue to help in pushing me to listen to podcasts. I am struggling with the difficulty of the Arabic learning material (such as busuu) in which the first lessons are clearly too advanced. It will get better. And the 6 week challenge is motivating, even if I fear I will not reach lesson 40!

The lessons are also filtering to the girls - the little ones now say they are "learning Arabic".

Activity Completed

German
Assimil 90
A few movies
DW and Germanpod101 podcasts
Up to date with Anki!!
No writing!

Arabic
Assimil 13 and continued review of previous lessons
Anki
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zenmonkey
Bilingual Tetraglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 6550 days ago

803 posts - 1119 votes 
1 sounds
Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German
Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew

 
 Message 30 of 47
13 February 2012 at 10:53am | IP Logged 
Keyboard angst -- I can't find the correct symbol that goes over the alif in


اٌلْمكْتَبِ
<-- wrong

it is supposed to be something that looks a bit like this



Apparently, in the notes this is supposed to be the way that أَ is written in the middle of a phrase. So if I wrote:

.جَلَسَ أَلْكَاتِبُ

That middle alif hamza would be transformed. hmm.
Am I using the wrong keyboard? not seeing it? Any help would be appreciated!

Edited by zenmonkey on 18 February 2012 at 9:08pm

1 person has voted this message useful



zenmonkey
Bilingual Tetraglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 6550 days ago

803 posts - 1119 votes 
1 sounds
Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German
Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew

 
 Message 31 of 47
18 February 2012 at 9:36pm | IP Logged 
I'v been spending quite a lot of time on work and a bit focused on the 6WC so my study has not been so focused on my objectives. After two weeks, if I look at what I was doing what can I conclude?
Well, I'm being good at studying but taking the easy path - little writing in German.

Arabic is fun, I'm enjoying the new language and the excitement has passed on to the girls. Beginning to look at grammar - boy!

Tonight I challenged the older girls to listen to the words of eminem and see if they could understand everything and produce the song. Ha, got them to look at the lyrics and then we reviewed the song twice. And they were surprised when I could produce it.

Their revenge was Frida Gold - "Wovon sollen wir traumen?" which they chose and know by heart. I found the German/English lyrics (on lyrics translate) a good resource for lyrics - I think I'll use this to get some words in the LwT server.

The girls also showed me that I could paste the lyrics into iTunes and have them while I listen to music on the iPhone!

My schedule for the next two weeks might get scrammbled with a trip to the US and another to Dubai.


German
Check on last 2 weeks
- Finish a reader -- wahhhh, failed! Took it with me to the US and back and really didn't use it. Reset.
- LwT -- not used. I think that is fine. However, I'll try it with music.
- 5 grammar exercises -- a few but not 5. Eeset
- Assimil - do not rush -- did well here, more focused.

Activity next 2 weeks
- Finish a reader
- LwT - try with music
- 5 grammar exercises
- Assimil (currently at 90) - probably finish but take time to do it right
- keep up with Anki

Arabic

Check on last 2 weeks
- Kicking off 6WC - Assimil lesson per day + a podcast -- pretty well on this, certainly doing it every day.
- consolidate script in Anki -- done!!
- 14 Assimil -- not quite, a few behind but no issue, trying to do them correct, have paused to look at grammar and listen to LivingLanguage 1-3 and a quite listen to Pimsleur, which I'll reserve for much later as I have the Levantive version.
- 3-4 Podcasts -- yep, did that.

Activity next 2 weeks
- Assimil (currently 15) to 25 and continued review of previous lessons
- Continue to supplement with LivingLanguage, etc.
- Anki (enter lessons and maintain)
- Continue with grammar study, draft first self-guide (?)
- 2-3 podcasts, when I have time
- keep up with the 6WC



Edited by zenmonkey on 18 February 2012 at 9:39pm

1 person has voted this message useful



Andrew C
Diglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
naturalarabic.com
Joined 5188 days ago

205 posts - 350 votes 
Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written)

 
 Message 32 of 47
18 February 2012 at 10:14pm | IP Logged 
zenmonkey wrote:
Keyboard angst -- I can't find the correct symbol that goes over the alif in


اٌلْمكْتَبِ
<-- wrong

it is supposed to be something that looks a bit like this



Apparently, in the notes this is supposed to be the way that أَ is written in the middle of a phrase. So if I wrote:

.جَلَسَ أَلْكَاتِبُ

That middle alif hamza would be transformed. hmm.
Am I using the wrong keyboard? not seeing it? Any help would be appreciated!


This is the alif: ٱ You can get it in MS Word by typing 0671 + Alt +X. Unfortunately it’s not on a standard keyboard.
However, it is much more common to write this as ا , i.e. a plain alif. If it’s elided in pronunciation, you omit vowels, but if the vowels are pronounced you add them, e.g. اُ , اِ
It’s a mistake to put a hamza on the alif of ال, though some text books (incorrectly) put it for individual words.



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