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TAC 2015 - Rare Languages Team Thread

 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
113 messages over 15 pages: << Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 13 ... 14 15 Next >>
Zireael
Triglot
Senior Member
Poland
Joined 4649 days ago

518 posts - 636 votes 
Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, Spanish
Studies: German, Sign Language, Tok Pisin, Arabic (Yemeni), Old English

 
 Message 97 of 113
12 April 2015 at 5:28pm | IP Logged 
Still there, and just posted an update. Luso, might want to cheer me up in Arabic, I've been pretty worried those few weeks over my Yemeni friends - and today has been a shock.
1 person has voted this message useful



Magdalene
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5034 days ago

119 posts - 220 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Mandarin, German, Modern Hebrew, French

 
 Message 98 of 113
12 April 2015 at 7:51pm | IP Logged 
Also still here! I'm still working on getting a regular study schedule together, so my
progress has been sporadic at best and there hasn't been much to report.
1 person has voted this message useful



Anya
Pentaglot
Senior Member
France
Joined 5791 days ago

636 posts - 708 votes 
Speaks: Russian*, FrenchC1, English, Italian, Spanish
Studies: German, Japanese, Hungarian, Sanskrit, Portuguese, Turkish, Mandarin
Studies: Ancient Greek, Hindi

 
 Message 99 of 113
13 April 2015 at 1:07pm | IP Logged 
Also still here! Working on vocabulary using Anki.
1 person has voted this message useful



Sprachprofi
Nonaglot
Senior Member
Germany
learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 6468 days ago

2608 posts - 4866 votes 
Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian
Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese

 
 Message 100 of 113
15 April 2015 at 10:16pm | IP Logged 
I just completed the Hebrew Add1Challenge. Not done with the language, but I made a
lot of progress. You can watch all my Hebrew videos and see me progress at
http://learnlangs.com/90_days_Hebrew .

Some insights I thought I'd share:

Routine beats all

My biggest problem is my lack of a language-learning routine. This was one of the
reasons I signed up for the Add1Challenge in the first place, to have social pressure
help me form a language learning routine. I'm not 100% there yet, but I've been
learning Hebrew much more regularly than I otherwise would.

Learning vocabulary that sounds different

Another problem that I encountered: learning vocabulary that sounds different than any
other word I know. One of the advantages of being a polyglot is that you can draw on
so many different languages for mnemonics. I did take advantage of that, but due to
the different phonology and the root consonant system, there were still Hebrew words
for which I couldn't find a good mnemonic. My solution, which I implemented quite
late: rather than cramming too many strange new words, also look at word families
within the target language and learn those. For example: 'inyan (interest), la'inyan
(to the point), yesh li inyan be... (I am interested in...), me'anyen (interesting),
me'unyan (interested). Unfortunately I haven't yet found a root-based dictionary of
Hebrew, that would have been really helpful. If you know one, please let me know!

Chunking

At the beginning of the challenge, I focused a lot on Anki, simply learning lots of
words and also quite a bit of grammar. Later, I found that all these words weren't
really doing much for me, because I had trouble recognizing words in regular-speed
speech and I needed too much time to come up with words myself when building phrases.
I then remembered Anthony Lauder's excellent talk from the Polyglot Conference in
Budapest, where he told us that the human brain actually cannot process language at
the speed as it is used, if it were to rely on a vocabulary list. The only way we can
speak as fast as we do is because our brain chunks phrases. To say "I'm hungry, let's
go have falafel", your brain does not look for the words for "I", "am", "hungry" and
the like, it probably has a stored memory of "I'm hungry", and also "let's go", and
then maybe looks up "have" and "falafel". So it only does 4 dictionary look-ups rather
than 8. And language learners do 8 look-ups for this kind of phrase, that's why they
can't speak or understand faster.

There is no way around it, you have to allow your brain the time to see & store
chunks. You can speed up the process though. Here are some ways:

  • Put chunks of words on your flashcards (rather than each card being one word)

  • Challenge yourself to write X sentences using the same chunk

  • Have tons of conversations or self-talk exercises, so that the most common phrases
    become chunks that you can recall without effort

  • Select a few chunks beforehand and try to use each of them several times in your
    next conversation.

  • (Possibly) if you're a fast reader or have a lot of time on your hands, blast
    through a target-language book in a few days. You'll pick up a lot of the author's
    favourite chunks.



Hope you find this useful!

Edited by Sprachprofi on 15 April 2015 at 11:36pm

3 persons have voted this message useful



Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6595 days ago

9753 posts - 15779 votes 
4 sounds
Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish

 
 Message 101 of 113
15 April 2015 at 11:00pm | IP Logged 
Sprachprofi wrote:
Learning vocabulary that sounds different

Another problem that I encountered: learning vocabulary that sounds different than any
other word I know. One of the advantages of being a polyglot is that you can draw on
so many different languages for mnemonics. I did take advantage of that, but due to
the different phonology and the root consonant system, there were still Hebrew words
for which I couldn't find a good mnemonic. My solution, which I implemented quite
late: rather than cramming too many strange new words, also look at word families
within the target language and learn those. For example: 'inyan (interest), la'inyan
(to the point), yesh li inyan be... (I am interested in...), me'anyen (interesting),
me'unyan (interested). Unfortunately I haven't yet found a root-based dictionary of
Hebrew, that would have been really helpful. If you know one, please let me know!

In my experience, songs are very useful for the unusual vocabulary.
2 persons have voted this message useful



Expugnator
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Brazil
Joined 5164 days ago

3335 posts - 4349 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento
Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian

 
 Message 102 of 113
15 April 2015 at 11:21pm | IP Logged 
I'm back! Second day of regular studies since March 27th. Georgian isn't exactly my main field of progress now, but I'm seeing progress with reviewing a newspaper reader I went through two years ago, that is, longer sentences start to make a little more sense.
1 person has voted this message useful



Zireael
Triglot
Senior Member
Poland
Joined 4649 days ago

518 posts - 636 votes 
Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, Spanish
Studies: German, Sign Language, Tok Pisin, Arabic (Yemeni), Old English

 
 Message 103 of 113
11 June 2015 at 1:37pm | IP Logged 
Done with my MA (printed, bound & submitted for review - defense on the 23rd), so more time for posting in my log.

I hope the forum doesn't disappear 3 days hence :)
1 person has voted this message useful



Expugnator
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Brazil
Joined 5164 days ago

3335 posts - 4349 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento
Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian

 
 Message 104 of 113
11 June 2015 at 10:05pm | IP Logged 
Congratulations! Now for some fun with Arabic!


1 person has voted this message useful



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