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Reaching for Persepolis: TAC14 Team Cyrus | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6140 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 1 of 3 07 January 2014 at 10:02am | IP Logged | ||
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Reaching for Persepolis: Team Cyrus, TAC 2014
!سلام به همگان و خوش آمدید (Salâm be hamegân va xôš âmadid!) Hello and welcome to everyone! 
This year, as in 2011, I once again find myself on the TAC Persian Team, called Team Cyrus. We will be studying the descendent of the majestic and elegant language of Ancient Persia, long considered the language of culture and prestige throughout much of Central, South, and Western Asia, and still spoken in modern-day Iran, as well as parts of Afghanistan and Tajikistan. !زبان فارسی را یاد بهیریم (Zabân-e Fârsi ro yâd begirim!) My first interest in Ancient Persia was sparked back in 2008, reading about Persepolis (modern Persian: تخت جمشید, Taxt-e Jamšid), the cultural capital of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, and discovering the enchanting beauty of classical Persian music. Two years later, I began studying the Persian language, partly out of genuine interest in Iran, its language, and cultural heritage, and partly as a strategy to use Persian as a gateway to learning Arabic, since the two share so much vocabulary and a common script. Sadly, my efforts over the past few years have been wildly inconsistent, and as a result I do not have as much to show for all that time as I feel I should. In the past year, although I still was not doing much real study, my motivation and inspiration for learning the language continued to build, as I read more and more about Iran/Persia, and discovered some of its cultural treasures, namely its beautiful artwork and the classical mystic poets. Now, nearly three and a half years after I first started to learn the language, I sit here with an unanticipated and almost inexplicable love of and appreciation for the Persian language and culture, that is so much greater than what I could ever have imagined back when Persian was just a stepping stone on the path to learning Arabic. If asked today about my favorite languages, Persian would certainly be very close to, if not at, the top of my list. So, I want to tap this source of inspiration in order to make 2014 the year when I finally get a firm grasp on the captivating Persian language, زبان فارسی (zabân-e Fârsi). My ultimate goal by the end of the year is to reach approximately a B2 level in the language, something resembling basic fluency. Ideally, I would also be able to start reading and understanding some simple poetry by the end of the year, but I don't know how feasible that is. Currently, I’m still muddling around near the A2 region of the scale. In later posts, once I get myself a little more organized, I plan to set out monthly goals or challenges for myself to accomplish. Thanks to having studied the language for so long already, I’ve amassed a plethora of resources. I won’t list them all here right now, but will mention them as I make use of them over the course of the year. !به همگان در تیم کوروش، موفّق باشید! سال نو مبارک (Be hamegân dar Tim-e Kurôš, movaffaq bâšid! Sâl-e nô mobârak!) Good luck to everyone on Team Cyrus! Happy New Year! OTHER PROJECTS Unlike in past years when I wrote about all of my studied languages, I plan to use this log primarily for Persian. However, I may from time to time mention some of my other active linguistic projects, listed below: Hrvatski (Croatian) – I spent 11 months in 2012-13 living and studying abroad in Croatia. During that time, I managed to attain a very respectable level of fluency in Croatian, which I hope to now maintain through reading and corresponding with friends, especially as I’m planning on returning to Croatia for a couple weeks this June. Português (Portuguese) – Portuguese was one of the first languages I ever studied, but through lack of use it got very rusty. However, in recent months, primarily because I met some new Brazilian friends, I’ve been using Portuguese quite frequently and would like to continue improving my level and bringing it back up to where it once was. Français (French) – My plans for my French are similar to those for my Portuguese, though somewhat less concrete. I currently have a French roommate and have ample opportunities to practice, and I also will be using French-based Assimil courses for some of my other studied languages. I’ll also be in Belgium this summer, so reviewing some French may be useful for then. Ελληνικά (Greek) – Again, similar to Portuguese and French. My family is from Greece and I will be spending a few weeks there over the summer, and would like to bring my level back up before going. Nederlands (Dutch) – Once again, same plans for Dutch as for Portuguese, French, and Greek. I want to bring my level in the language back up to what it used to be, especially since I plan on going to Belgium and the Netherlands this summer. 中文 (Chinese) – I’m currently taking a Chinese course at university, and plan on taking the second-year course again next year. I’m very much enjoying the course and am learning a lot, so for now my only plans revolve around the class material since it is fairly intensive. Kiswahili (Swahili) – I really like Swahili and absolutely loved visiting Tanzania in 2010, but lately I haven’t been feeling very motivated to keep up my studies of it. I can’t decide whether it’s worth it to continue studying for now, so this will likely be a very on-and-off sort of project. Other Potential Projects: Български (Bulgarian) – I’ll be in Bulgaria for only a couple days this summer en route from Croatia to Greece, but I feel like it would be very helpful to have some knowledge of the language while I’m there. Additionally, Bulgarian has sparked my linguistic intrigue for being so close to Serbo-Croatian yet being the only Slavic language that doesn’t retain a case system. Slovenčina/Čeština (Slovak/Czech) – Likewise with Bulgarian, I’ll be traveling to both Slovakia and the Czech Republic this summer and would like to have some knowledge of the language before going. I went to Prague in 2007 and remember being fascinated by the Czech language at the time, and it should be simpler now that I speak Croatian. Of the two, I would be more likely to choose Czech since it has more resources and I’ll be in the Czech Republic for longer than in Slovakia, but I’d like to take a look at Slovak as well if I have time. Íslenska (Icelandic) – Keeping my fingers crossed for this one, I will hopefully have the chance to spend a few magical days in Iceland on my way back from Europe at the end of the summer. It has been my dream to travel to Iceland since I was little, and I can’t imagine going there without having learned something of the Icelandic language. Edited by ellasevia on 05 January 2015 at 7:32am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6140 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 2 of 3 16 January 2014 at 11:55pm | IP Logged | ||
 فارسی
I previously promised that I would list my goals for January here, but promptly forgot about that promise. However, I did post them back in the Persian Team Thread.
About halfway through January (Persian: ژانویه, žânviye), and I have already accomplished almost all of these goals, as well as exceeding one or two of them. I've reviewed the first few lessons, I can't remember exactly how many, of Spoken World Farsi. As I was doing so, I stumbled across the somewhat tricky subject of marking definiteness/indefiniteness in both spoken and written Persian. A quick Google search turned up this interesting paper, which includes a thorough discussion on the subject. The following table sums up the rules nicely: 
I continue to reference this table since I haven't fully assimilated/memorized all of the rules just yet, especially as they differ between the colloquial and written languages. As for Assimil's Le Persan Sans Peine, I have reviewed the 21 first lessons (three units). As I recall from when I was using this course in 2011, the lessons progress relatively slowly up until around lessons 25-30, and then quickly pick up the pace. So far everything covered has been a review for me. I also set the goal of listening to 10 episodes of Chai and Conversation, but this turned out to be much too easy. As of now, I have already finished listening to the first 20 episodes, comprising the first two units of the course. The majority of what has been covered so far has been review for me, but I do like the audio format of the course, especially since it focuses on conversational Persian, which differs greatly in both pronunciation and grammar from the written Persian that some of my other resources focus on. I have not yet touched Colloquial Persian this year, but I started to take a look at Persian of Iran Today, which one of my teammates (I forget who, I'm sorry!) linked to in their log. It's meant for classroom use and from what I've seen in the first several units, it's very simple and all review, but the later material looks rather promising. I've also watched a few documentaries about modern Iran and ancient Persia, and begun reading a book which takes place in Iran. I'd like to set a new monthly goal for myself which is to watch at least two films, either Iranian (in Persian) or about Iran/Persia, per month so as to continue familiarizing myself with the culture. Ideally, I might also eventually take a stab at reading and/or translating some Persian poetry (شعر فارسی, še'r-e fârsi), but that's a bit of a long shot at the moment. I wanted to have a Persian cooking day (روز غذای ایرانی پزی, ruz-e ğazâ-ye irâni pazi) with a friend of mine, but unfortunately I got sick (بیمار شدم, bimâr šodam) and it never materialized.  БЪЛГАРСКИ
In the past week, I've also begun studying some Bulgarian with Assimil's Le Bulgare Sans Peine, and have completed the first 10 lessons. So far it mostly seems like a simplified hybrid of Serbo-Croatian (closer to Serbian than Croatian, though) and Russian. It's really not too difficult so far because of my knowledge of Croatian, and what I remember of Russian from when I used to study it. So far, the most difficult aspect of the language has been the suffixed definite article. It's not that it's difficult to form -- -ът/-ят for masculine nouns as the subject and -а/-я otherwise (for example: Чаят е в офиса, The tea is in the office), -та for feminine nouns (къщата, the house), -то for neuter nouns (морето, the sea), and -те for all plural nouns (кроасаните, the croissants). Rather, it's simply that I forget to use them since they don't exist in other Slavic languages and so they're not something I usually have to think about! Another interesting feature, I think, is that Bulgarian tends to split up consonant clusters with the vowel ъ (ă), whereas Serbo-Croatian would not insert any vowel. Compare the two, the Croatian word first and Bulgarian second: Hrvatska - Хърватска (Hărvatska) brz - бърз (bărz) prvi - първи (părvi) četvrtak - четвъртък (četvărtăk) The ъ (ă) vowel also seems to be used in the same environments where in Serbo-Croatian the fleeting vowel a appears (and it also seems to behave in the same way): dobar - добър (dobăr) sam - съм (săm) petak - петък (petăk) centar - център (centăr) Another interesting note is that I've come across a couple Greek loanwords in Bulgarian: έλα (éla) - ела (elá) πανηγύρι (paniyíri) - панаир (panaír) ...which mean "come" (imperative) and "festival/fair," respectively. I'm sure I'll come across more interesting similarities between Bulgarian and Greek as I learn more.  SRPSKI
One last note: I recently also began reading the popular novel Igre Gladi ("The Hunger Games") in Serbian. I haven't read it in English and wanted to read it in Croatian, but wasn't able to find it online in Croatian for a reasonable price, so I settled for Serbian instead. Thankfully it's in srpska latinica, the Serbian Latin alphabet, so that I don't have to deal with reading ćirilica, the Serbian Cyrillic. Even so, it was somewhat more difficult than I expected when I first began reading. After a few pages I was mostly able to get used to the different spelling and grammatical structures, as well as the occasional word that is entirely different (e.g. Serbian vazduh vs. Croatian zrak [air], Serbian porodica vs. Croatian obitelj [family], etc.), but I still sometimes have to think for a moment to figure out what a particular word means, usually because it's different from Croatian. I think it's a very good exercise, though. To je to za ovaj tjedan! - That's all for this week! Edited by ellasevia on 17 January 2014 at 12:15am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4866 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 3 of 3 17 January 2014 at 12:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's very nice to read that you're off to such a great start! It motivates me to hurry up and quickly get through lessons 8-21 of Assimil as well :)
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