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Sizen’s Deuxième 旅立ち | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Elenia Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom lilyonlife.blog Joined 3854 days ago 239 posts - 327 votes  Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Swedish, Esperanto | Message 33 of 57 30 July 2014 at 6:01pm | IP Logged |
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Just popping by to say I'm really enjoying your log. I can identify with pretty much
everything you said in your last post, particularly the points about socialising and having interests. During the time I spent in France, I only made English speaking friends. Even the francophones I met also spoke English, and so I hardly ever spoke French casually. Although I know many more outgoing exchange students found it difficult to make francophone friends, I didn't make the effort because I was too shy and felt I had nothing to talk about. Reading that you also experienced the same thing and worked through it is comforting, and it also means those are two less excuses I have to work behind. So thanks :) and I'm looking forward to your next posts. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sizen Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4337 days ago 165 posts - 347 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Catalan, Spanish, Japanese, Ukrainian, German | Message 34 of 57 31 July 2014 at 7:19am | IP Logged |
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@Elenia It's nice to hear you're enjoying! I've taken a peek at your log now as
well and I can see how we've got more or less the same style of learning. I'm also getting the urge to study Swedish again after seeing all that, but I must resist! So today I thought I'd post a little impromptu list of common slang that I've heard a lot from younger European French speakers (under 30, perhaps). I'll be skipping the most obvious words and expressions like "merde" and "chier/faire chier". I'll also try to skip words that are used by the older generations as well, such as "tronche" and "bouffer". Let's start with some good old verlan. For those who don't know, verlan is a type of French slang where one takes a word and reverses the syllables: kind of a French Pig Latin minus the annoying "ay". The word "verlan" itself is verlan that comes from a reversal of the syllables in "l'envers". So what are the kids saying these days? Chelou - from "louche" of the same meaning. Suspicious, sketchy. "Il est trop chelou, ce mec." Relou - from "lourd" of the same meaning. Annoying, bothersome. "J'ai des voisins relous." "T'es relou, mec." Pécho - from "choper". To seduce, to pick up (chicks). To a lesser extent: to catch. "Il a essayé de me pécho !" Veuch - (rare) from "cheveux" of the same meaning. Hair. Foncedé - from "défoncer/défoncé" of the same meaning. To wreck, to beat (in a game); drunk, high, tired. "C'est abusé. T'as vu ça ? Il m'a foncedé, mec !" Other assorted vocabulary: Kiffer. To like. "J'ai trop kiffé ce film. Faut que tu le regardes !" Pédé. Homosexual. Niquer. Similar to a certain "f" work in English. Dézinguer. To destroy, to wreck. Expressions: Se foutre de la geule (de). To make fun of. To a certain extent: you've got to be kidding me, or, are you kidding me? "Non mais ils se foutent de ma gueule !" S'en battre les steaks/les couilles. To not give a damn. "Je m'en bats les steaks ! On s'en bat les couilles !" Sans dec. Seriously. Être deg. To be disgusted, unimpressed. "Je suis trop deg." (Usually after an unpleasant and/or unexpected turn of events.) De ouf. Crazy, sick, awesome. "Y fait pas une game de ouf ?" Prendre cher. To take a beating, to get owned. "Il va prendre cher, lui." À la mort qui tue. Used to emphasize. "Une arme à la mort qui tue." Anyway, this is just a cursory look at what the francophone youth of today has to offer us. YouTube is a fantastic resource for learning these expressions if you're interested in finding more. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Sizen Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4337 days ago 165 posts - 347 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Catalan, Spanish, Japanese, Ukrainian, German | Message 35 of 57 01 August 2014 at 12:38am | IP Logged |
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So in the goal of experimenting, I've let my languages I study list explode.
I'l be honest, I was already flirting with all the languages on the list for quite some time, and I've also flirted with other languages before. But now that I think of it, I've been having a hard time really learning a third language to any degree of fluency for the past few years. And well, I have no reason to do that either. My life has been based around English and French for the past couple years and I've had no need for any other language. Thing is, I'm interested in plenty of languages and don't mind getting only a reading knowledge of them. Outside of the two languages I speak, I can also read Spanish and Japanese fairly comfortably even if there are words I don't understand, and beyond that, I can also read Portuguese, Catalan, Italian and Mandarin (in descending order of comprehension) to varying levels and I enjoy very much using my knowledge to read interesting articles, understand song lyrics and read my friends' facebook posts when the opportunity arises. I just don't really see myself speaking these languages fluently because I have no need for them in my life. At least, not at the moment. ;) So I've added these languages to my "studies" list to show that I'm open to learning them, but I don't intend to do any regular work with them. I've also added Korean because I've already taken a few looks at it before and have enjoyed comparing hanja readings to kanji and hanzi readings. What fun! (Seriously, just today I was talking to my mom about the Taiwanese language song 雨夜花 and comparing the different ways of reading the line 無人看見 [bo5 lang5 khoan3-kin3] in Mandarin, Taiwanese and Japanese.) If anything, I'll probably focus most of the time not spent on French instead on Mandarin and Korean because I find studying the grammar of Asian languages to be very enjoyable when compared to European grammar! I spent a year fooling around with Japanese (that is, 5 minutes here, 20 minutes there) and actually managed a decent level in the language, so why not try with other languages? Anyway, all of this isn't really new, but I thought I'd mention it so that nobody freaked out and thought I was in over my head trying to become fluent in a bajillion languages. I'm just trying to have some fun while I focus on French. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sizen Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4337 days ago 165 posts - 347 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Catalan, Spanish, Japanese, Ukrainian, German | Message 36 of 57 02 August 2014 at 8:42am | IP Logged |
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Three updates in three days? What is this madness.
Things are going well in Sizen-land, I have to say. French I finished La maîtresse de guerre by Gabriel Katz this morning. The book was very exciting at the start but kind of felt rushed at the end, quite like the third book of LE puits des mémoires, which is very unfortunate because they're fun books. I think I'll start reading the trilogy Les fourmis by Bernard Weber next since I've been meaning to get to them for a while. Other than that, I listened to a nice podcast on Nordic countries from Radio Canada recently. http://ici.radio-canada.ca/emissions/les_chemins_de_travers/ 2013- 2014/chronique.asp?idChronique=344845 I love all of Scandinavia, Finland, Iceland and Greenland, so I easily went through the full three hours. I recommend a listen to anyone who shares my interest for these gorgeous countries, although I have to admit that the host mumbles quite a bit. Not for the untrained ear! Spanish I've run out of things to do in Spanish for the moment. I'm just reading articles on VeinteMundos to pass the time and keep myself exposed to the language. I'll dfinitely take some time Sunday to scour the net for interesting podcasts, documentaries and the likes so that I have something to do this coming week. Any suggestions would also be appreciated! Japanese I was going to start rereading a novel today, but a 4 hour skype call got in the way. ;) I took out my intermediate kanji book, though, and it's been quite enjoyable to review it a little. I love writing out kanji and common compounds, but I hadn't been looking at my intermediate book lately. I had mostly been focused on reviewing my basic books and trying to make progress in my advanced book. It's been a little nostalgic as well, since I studied the intermediate one every day when I was on my exchange in Japan. I get lots of flashbacks, or rather remnants of sensations, that come back while studying. It's a little sad but also motivating. Maybe I'll go back again one day? Mandarin Given my love for Chinese characters, I bought myself a hanzi book (Reading and Writing Chinese, Third Edition) and have started going through it as I did my kanji books so many years ago. It's arduous work, but I enjoy it and know that if I continue working on it, I'll know a couple thousand characters in a year or two from now. I also thought back to how I originally studied Japanese so that I could emulate my old techniques in the hope that they would bear the same fruits. When I started Japanese, I used Tae Kim's Japanese Grammar Guide and loved taking glances at it now and then, reviewing old lessons and studying the advanced grammar before I even understood it. I just find studying grammar in this way to be enjoyable. Short literal explanations with tons of example sentences. And luckily enough, I found something very similar: http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/ I've been doing the exact same thing as I did with Tae Kim's guide and have been enjoying it immensely! Who knew Chinese grammar could be fun? :P Korean This has pretty much been the same as Mandarin. The only difference being that while I can read basic Mandarin, I only know a few basic words and grammar points, plus how to read hangul. I had tried to pick up Korean a couple times in the past but never found satisfactory materials. Everybody always said how much they loved TalkToMeInKorean, but I never really liked it. Until yesterday, when I discovered the PDFs of their shows. I don't really like listening to audio courses like this. Assimil, I can stand, but all the 101 podcasts and the likes never really interest me, so being given the option to just read about the grammar with a couple example sentences is a godsend. The only problem now is that I can't study Korean like I did Japanese and how I will Chinese because hanja isn't really an important part of the modern language. Or so I thought until I found this: http://www.amazon.com/Guide-To-Korean-Characters- Dictionary/dp/0930878132 This is exact same format as the Mandarin book I'm studying now and one of the Japanese books I used a reference. I'm so excited to have found it because I always thought I'd have to learn Korean first then learn hanja, but now I can learn Korean THROUGH Chinese characters, which I already know from Japanese. Oh my god, I'm so excited to get this! Other languages Portuguese has been in the forefront lately. I've been skyping a lot with a Brazilian friend, and while I have no intentions of learning to speak Portuguese, we always spend a little time doing something in Portuguese in our calls. The other day she read the first part of one of her English books to me while I read the Portuguese translation back to her. Then today, she introduced me to a game called Perfil 4, which is kind of like 20 questions, except you're given hints instead of asking your own questions. She started by translating the hints for me, but we also played in Portuguese for a bit. I learned that it's not safe to play around with kites covered in wax... I've also been looking at Icelandic cases for fun. I noticed that the plural dative form is very similar to the plural dative of Polish. Fun. I've never studied a language with cases, so it all looks very complicated to me, even if Icelandic only has 4 cases. I always thought cases were something like particles in Japanese, but I'm starting to think that that's not the case. I don't know enough about Slavic languages to say this with any confidence, but besides the nominative and the accusative, the other cases seem to always be accompanied by a preposition. In my mind, this defeats the purpose of cases, but it doesn't bother me. It just means that the idea I had of cases wasn't quite right, at least in Icelandic. I'd like to look more into the instrumental case of Slavic languages to see if a preposition is used as well. Honestly, I'd be surprised and perplexed if it was, but what can you do? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| vonPeterhof Tetraglot Senior Member Russian FederationRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4770 days ago 715 posts - 1527 votes Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC2, Japanese, German Studies: Kazakh, Korean, Norwegian, Turkish | Message 37 of 57 02 August 2014 at 9:47am | IP Logged |
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Bookmarked the Chinese grammar link for future use. Thanks!
As for Slavic cases, not sure about other Slavic languages, but in Russian the only case that can never be used without a preposition is the prepositional (hence the name; its equivalent in most other Slavic languages seems to be the locative). If you need a parallel between the case systems of most Indo-European languages and the Japanese postpositions (or, for that matter, English prepositions), I think the former can be seen as a sort of two-tiered version of the latter. The cases are the basic "particles" that can independently give the noun a basic grammatical function in a sentence. While they can be equivalent to certain pre/postpositions (for instance, Russian doesn't have a preposition even roughly equivalent to the English "of", since many of its functions are performed by the bare genitive case), very often they need the addition of prepositions, a secondary level of "particles", to further specify the noun's role and/or to fit into the sentence better. I hope that made sense.. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5234 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 38 of 57 02 August 2014 at 12:25pm | IP Logged |
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Merci pour le site Web de la grammaire chinoise!
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5980 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 39 of 57 02 August 2014 at 2:33pm | IP Logged |
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Apologies if you mentioned it before and I missed it, but what kanji books are you using?
I found it interesting to read about the gap you have found between active French and other languages, especially Japanese. I think it's really important not to underestimate the gap between Japanese and English, or overestimate the gap between French and English. Combine that with your early childhood experiences of French and it's only natural that your brain feels more comfortable in French. With Spanish, I think you just need to be patient. As for Japanese, I don't know... I totally understand now why it has a reputation as a "difficult" language, and since several years of immersion are not on the cards for me, I've just adjusted my expectations down a bit. I still find value in what I can already do, and I still think it's worth continuing with, but like yourself somehow French just feels more comfortable and I think it always will no matter how much I neglect it! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sizen Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4337 days ago 165 posts - 347 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Catalan, Spanish, Japanese, Ukrainian, German | Message 40 of 57 02 August 2014 at 8:17pm | IP Logged |
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@vonPeterhof See, that's more along the lines of what I imagined cases to be. I guess in languages with fewer cases, prepositions become more common so as to provide a greater range of meanings for each case. Which makes sense really. English must have gone through a long transition period to get where it is today with all its prepositions.
Thanks a lot for the explanation! It made quite a bit of sense! Slavic languages used to not interest me all that much, but I've started to be tempted to learn one. ;) Probably not a good idea to start now though. @g-bod I started with these two books back in the day. Each chapter had basic exercise and games which helped me consolidate my grammar knowledge as well. Really fun books for getting started in Japanese. The intermediate book I used was this one. There's a bit of overlap between it and the two basic kanji books, but I didn't have any problem with that. There are 2 intermediate books from the other series, but I didn't really need them at that point. I also picked up this book, which I used as a reference. Finally, the book that I've been working on off and on is this one. I've gone through a lot of it, but I'm starting to feel a lot of diminishing returns. I find I learn more kanji by just reading. The example words in this book start to get much more specific and don't always turn up in the kind of material I enjoy, so the value of studying the characters isn't as great as it used to be. Definitely a good help if you're looking at doing the N1 though. And yeah, at this point I'm trying to lower my expectations as well. I don't really need to speak Japanese fluently. My comprehension, both reading and listening, is pretty decent, and I should be happy with that. Maybe one day I'll get the opportunity to work in Japan and then I'll have a reason to activate my passive knowledge, but now doesn't seem to be the right time. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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