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Bootstrapping Turkish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| renaissancemedi Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Greece Joined 4363 days ago 941 posts - 1309 votes  Speaks: Greek*, Ancient Greek*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Russian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew | Message 41 of 54 13 April 2014 at 8:28pm | IP Logged |
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Göksel Baktagir is great, thanks for this.
Truly a wonderful log. You inspire me to study harder because I am a bit behind lately, with all the other languages! I remembered your method when I came across a hebrew book with images and words. I will definitely try it :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Bakunin Diglot Senior Member Switzerland outerkhmer.blogspot. Joined 5135 days ago 531 posts - 1126 votes Speaks: German*, Thai Studies: Khmer | Message 42 of 54 13 April 2014 at 9:38pm | IP Logged |
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@tristano: Thanks :)) As I’ve just written in my other log on Thai and Polish, I don’t think I have any special talent, but I have one thing going for me: I have a high tolerance for ambiguity - and I use it shamelessly to my advantage!
Thanks for Sertab Erener; I’ve listened to a few of her songs on youtube and found some I liked. It’s a bit on the poppy side for my taste, but she has a beautiful voice. Once I’m better at Turkish, it might be fun to learn a few of her songs to sing along. Getting to know music (and food) of a new culture is one of the great joys of language learning :)) @renaissancemedi: Yes, please! It would be nice to have a few more people here studying Turkish actively and with some commitment :)) I’m glad you like Göksel Baktagir. I’ve started exploring a few of the artists youtube suggests as similar to Güldür Gül, and there’s a lot of great stuff there as well. I’ve never known how much I would enjoy that kind of music. Since I got your and kanewai’s recommendations a few days ago, I’ve discovered a whole new world of sounds and instruments. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Bakunin Diglot Senior Member Switzerland outerkhmer.blogspot. Joined 5135 days ago 531 posts - 1126 votes Speaks: German*, Thai Studies: Khmer | Message 43 of 54 26 April 2014 at 7:03pm | IP Logged |
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Just a quick update now that HTLAL is back again. I’ve finished my, I believe, third round through the 30ish super-basic science books and am now reading through a (still very basic) encyclopedia for kids (see the last picture in my fourth post for an example). The book covers geography, plants, animals, dinosaurs, humans and continents, history, body, science, space, and technology. I’m half-way through, some topics are doable, others very difficult. There are many pictures setting the scene and providing context, and every time I sit down to read, I understand new words. There’s now a good deal of synergy between reading the encyclopedia and listening to the Wimmelbuch recordings, especially regarding materials and their properties.
Today, I had my third Wimmelbuch session, and it keeps getting better. My tutor has started to increase the level of detail in her descriptions. I’m guessing she somehow has a feeling for what I already understand well and what not. That’s why sitting next to her is so important. She has also increased the speed at which she talks to me which is good. I have no problems processing her spoken Turkish at all when I know most words and see what exactly she is talking about. There is no translation going on, even at my most basic of levels, I just understand as I would understand Thai or German. Of course, there are many instances where I don’t understand what she is saying because I don’t know the words and have too little context to guess them on the spot. In those cases, I just let go, and I’m pretty good at letting go by now (after years of training). I almost never think “Wait, I didn’t get that, can you please repeat or make it clearer?”. It will all come again, and the most efficient thing for me to do is to learn what I’m ready to learn and to let go of what I’m not yet ready to learn from context. I’m currently taking a break with adding sentences to my corpus so that I can read through the encyclopedia in a care-free manner, but eventually I’m planning to add all those science books and encyclopedias to my corpus. Whenever I play around with my corpus, I enjoy it and see the potential. Adding sentences to my corpus is pretty intense since I need to check spelling, derive base forms, look up words on Google image search etc., so it’s probably important to balance this with extensive activities where I just read, wonder, guess, enjoy and move through material at a relatively fast pace. It all helps. When listening to the Wimmelbuch sessions during the week, I’ve taken to point with a pen at whatever is being described. This seems to increase my focus and prevents my thoughts from wandering off. I’ve been listening a lot to classical Turkish music, even during my Thai and Polish studies. I really love the melodies and instruments. It’s a beautiful new world of sounds. Edited by Bakunin on 27 April 2014 at 3:34pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Bakunin Diglot Senior Member Switzerland outerkhmer.blogspot. Joined 5135 days ago 531 posts - 1126 votes Speaks: German*, Thai Studies: Khmer | Message 44 of 54 03 May 2014 at 7:36pm | IP Logged |
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Since I’m going to Thailand later this month, I’ve done eight hours of Wimmelbuch sessions this week, two sittings à four hours each. I have to admit that the last hour was tough both times, my brain was in a state of melt-down. Fortunately, my iPhone didn’t feel the same and faithfully kept on recording. I got exposure to an enormous amount of new words, my tutor (as would every tutor who pays a bit of attention to the listener’s body language) keeps adjusting the level of difficulty. She’s now using various tenses as far as I can tell, her descriptions are getting more and more detailed, and she’s speaking faster. She’s also started to go a bit beyond the picture by telling me what happened before or will happen next, or by referring to things that we’ve already seen in previous months (the book has a double page for every month with basically the same characters and evolving stories). My Thai tutor used to do the same, and in the end he spent like 50% of his time telling me stories and even personal experiences inspired by the pictures. I’m not at this level yet with Turkish, but it’s good that my tutor is testing the waters, and I’m sure it’s actually something that comes naturally with this approach. I always get the famous i+1 comprehensible input, it’s pretty much self-regulating.
Since my understanding has improved quite a bit, and since I’m encountering so many new words, I’ve started to put them into Anki. The process is as follows: during the first repetition at home, I stop the recording whenever I encounter a new word which I both understand (from the picture and the context) and am able to spell. Then I type it into Google image search to confirm and choose a nice picture, which I then add to Anki with Turkish on the front and the picture on the back. I’m now entering a, probably fairly long, phase where the main focus will be to increase my passive vocabulary. It’s all about words, words, words. I need thousands of words so that I can start reading books and listening to native audio. Did I mention already how exciting it is to sit down with my tutor and actually understand her speaking Turkish to me? :) I know I mention this every time, but it’s such a great feeling! Two months ago, I knew like 10 words or so, and now she’s talking to me in Turkish like a waterfall and I actually understand a lot of what she says. Other than that, I’m still looking at / reading through the encyclopedia. It’s a 300+ page book, I’m on page 230. I should spend most of my time working with the recordings now, but sometimes I need a change. Oh, and before I forget it, here's another music recommendation, this time a famous Oud player from Irak: Naseer Shamma. Check out for instance his album 'Ancient Dreams' on iTunes (or any other), or get started here. Beautiful music. Edited by Bakunin on 03 May 2014 at 8:58pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Bakunin Diglot Senior Member Switzerland outerkhmer.blogspot. Joined 5135 days ago 531 posts - 1126 votes Speaks: German*, Thai Studies: Khmer | Message 45 of 54 04 May 2014 at 6:21pm | IP Logged |
Here is a transcript of a short 30-second segment of one of my early Wimmelbuch sessions to give an example of what I’m doing. The segment is rather easy, that’s why I was able to transcribe it without much trouble. I checked the spelling on lang-8 (and did mix up u’s for ı’s, but they’re corrected now). There’s a question in the description, but I wasn’t expected to give an answer; I’m just expected to say mhm-mhm from time to time. The translation reflects my current understanding, but I’m sure it’s mostly accurate; if not, you’re welcome to let me know :)
Spoken Turkish: Adamın çalışma odasında bir, iki, üç, dört, beş, altı raflı dolabı var. Yüksek çekmeceli beyaz dolabı var. Dolabın üzerinde büyük beyaz vazosu var. Vazonun içinde çicek yok. Vazonun içinde ne var? Fırça var, boya fırçası ... bir, iki tane fırçası var. Adam koltuk resmi yapmış. Translation: In the man’s study/workroom, there is a one, two, three, four, five, six-story cupboard. There is a tall white cupboard with drawers. On the cupboard, there is a big vase. In the vase, there are no flowers. What is in the vase? There are paintbrushes, his paintbrushes ... he has one, two paintbrushes. The man has painted a picture of a chair. It goes on like this for hours :) Edited by Bakunin on 04 May 2014 at 8:53pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Elenia Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom lilyonlife.blog Joined 3861 days ago 239 posts - 327 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Swedish, Esperanto | Message 46 of 54 20 May 2014 at 5:25pm | IP Logged |
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Just found your log and I have to say that it's amazing. You're coming really far! While
I don't take a strict 'no-translation' approach, I do often just read without working to understand what I'm reading (I do this often in Swedish, and I still do it in French). Your log is really interesting, I look forward to reading more and seeing you progress - I feel satisfied on your behalf! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| fireballtrouble Triglot Senior Member Turkey Joined 4529 days ago 129 posts - 203 votes Speaks: Turkish*, French, English Studies: German | Message 47 of 54 21 May 2014 at 12:31pm | IP Logged |
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Both Turkish and translation parts have some little imperfections. Let's correct them
:) Spoken Turkish: Adamın çalışma odasında bir, iki, üç, dört, beş, altı raflı dolap var. Yüksek çekmeceli beyaz dolap var. Dolabın üzerinde büyük beyaz vazo var. Vazonun içinde çicek yok. Vazonun içinde ne var? Fırça var, boya fırçası ... bir, iki tane fırçası var. Adam koltuk resmi yapmış. bir, iki tane fırça var. (there is/are 1, 2 brushes) bir, iki tane fırçası var. (HE/SHE has 1,2 brushes. There is/are 1,2 brushes of HIM/HER) ..beyaz vazo var . There is white vase. .. beyaz vazosu var. He/She has his/her white vase. Translation: In the man’s study/workroom, there is a one, two, three, four, five, six- story cupboard. There is a tall white cupboard with drawers. On the cupboard, there is a big vase. In the vase, there are no flowers. What is in the vase? There are paintbrushes, his paintbrushes ... he has one, two paintbrushes. The man has painted a picture of a chair. Your path is perfect, congrats ! Kolay gelsin ! 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Bakunin Diglot Senior Member Switzerland outerkhmer.blogspot. Joined 5135 days ago 531 posts - 1126 votes Speaks: German*, Thai Studies: Khmer | Message 48 of 54 21 May 2014 at 6:10pm | IP Logged |
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@Elenia: Thanks for stopping by! :)
@fireballtrouble: Thanks! I really appreciate that you’ve taken the time to correct my translation. My translation reflects my current understanding which is still far from solid. I hope that over time all those little details will sort themselves out. As to your correction of the Turkish text, I’m afraid that’s just what she said. Don’t forget that this is not a stand-alone fragment but just a snippet out of a two-hour session. I think she indeed refers to *his* cupboard and *his* vase; the painter has been talked about already and can be referred to. When I posted my transcription on lang-8, I got two corrections and nobody complained about dolabı and vazosu. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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