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Method: target reading for beginners | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Asiafeverr Diglot Senior Member Hong Kong Joined 6345 days ago 346 posts - 431 votes  1 sounds Speaks: French*, English Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese, German | Message 33 of 49 03 February 2008 at 3:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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WOW! Most of your guesses are correct. I am really impressed, especially considering that you never studied the language! Most of the problems you had were with the cities/countries names. Here are the correct answers.
Bólín <- Déguó <- Oūzhōu. Berlin <- Germany <- Europe Bālí <- Fǎguó <- Oūzhōu Paris <- France <- Europe Xīní (Xi is pronounced schi) <- Aòdàlìyà Sydney <- Australia Shànghǎi <- Zhōngguó <- Yàzhōu Shanghai <- China <- Asia Dōngjīng <- Rìběn <- Yàzhōu Tokyo <- Japan <- Asia Jiālìfúníyǎ <- Měiguó California <- America Let's see if somebody can find the meaning of Arnold's paragraph. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6442 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 34 of 49 03 February 2008 at 4:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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Ah - I kept being mixed up with Europe, Asia, and China, and only partly sorted it out by the time of my previous post. I entirely missed Tokyo/Japan, and I'd thought that "Bali" was the Indonesian island for perhaps 80% of the time I was trying to puzzle it out -- both of these things threw me.
Arnold's paragraph: "Tā shì Ānuòdé Schwarzenegger. Ānuòdé Schwarzenegger shì shěi ? Tā shì Aòdìlìrén ma? Ānuòdé Schwarzenegger lái zì Aòdìlì : tā shì Aòdìlìrén , kě shì tā zhù zài Jiālìfúníyǎ. Jiālìfúníyǎ zài nǎlǐ ? Jiālìfúníyǎ zài Déguó ma? Bù , Jiālìfúníyǎ bú zài Déguo; Jiālìfúníyǎ zài Měiguó. Ānuòdé Schwarzenegger shì Jiālìfúníyǎ de zǒngdū . Tā shì yǎnyuán . Shěi shì Měiguó de zǒngtǒng ?" This is Arnold Schwarzennegger. What nationality is Arnold Schwarzenegger? Is he Austrian? Arnold Schwarzenegger was born in Austria: he is Austrian, and/but he (now) lives in California. Where is California? Is California in Germany? No, California is not in Germany; California is in America. I can't guess zǒngdū, yǎnyuán, and zǒngtǒng. My major guesses have something to do with naturalization/residency, amount of time he's been a citizen of America, and/or his job -- but they're too uncertain, as the words only appear once, so I can't cross-reference possibilities for feasibility and contradictions. What helped me is many years of guessing and extracting meaning from partly-understood texts, whether they were in languages I'd never studied but partly understood in written form (mainly Romance and Germanic ones), along with years of reading various forms of mangled English (automatic translator output, and very occasional hyper-literal translations -- it's amazing how much more sense Finnish makes than Russian in hyper-literal English translation). That said, my previous post did take around an hour, I think. Edited by Volte on 03 February 2008 at 4:24pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Asiafeverr Diglot Senior Member Hong Kong Joined 6345 days ago 346 posts - 431 votes 1 sounds Speaks: French*, English Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese, German | Message 35 of 49 03 February 2008 at 4:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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Please excuse me, I made a mistake in my translation. "Ānuòdé Schwarzenegger shì shěi" should be "Ānuòdé Schwarzenegger shì nǎlǐrén". I thought the original text said "Who is Arnold Schwarzenegger" but it actually said "Where is Arnold Schwarzenegger from?".
Here is the translation of Arnold's paragraph: Tā shì Ānuòdé Schwarzenegger. He is Arnold Schwarzenegger. Ānuòdé Schwarzenegger shì nǎlǐrén ? Tā shì Aòdìlìrén ma? Where is Arnold Schwarzenegger from? Is he Austrian? Ānuòdé Schwarzenegger lái zì Aòdìlì : tā shì Aòdìlìrén , kě shì tā zhù zài Jiālìfúníyǎ. Arnold Schwarzenegger comes from Austria: he is Austrian, but he lives in California. Jiālìfúníyǎ zài nǎlǐ ? Jiālìfúníyǎ zài Déguó ma? Where is California? Is California in Germany? Bù , Jiālìfúníyǎ bú zài Déguo; Jiālìfúníyǎ zài Měiguó. No, California is not in Germany; California is in America. Ānuòdé Schwarzenegger shì Jiālìfúníyǎ de zǒngdū. Arnold Schwarzenegger is California's governor. Tā shì yǎnyuán . Shěi shì Měiguó de zǒngtǒng? He is an actor. Who is America's president? de = 's (from that you can guess that tā de = his/her) yǎnyuán = actor zǒngtǒng = president shěi = who nǎlǐrén = where from person (have to be in context to make sense). nǎlǐ de rén (where's person) is also correct. Edited by Asiafeverr on 03 February 2008 at 5:29pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6912 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 36 of 49 03 February 2008 at 5:08pm | IP Logged | ||
You may want to change the translation of Déguo into Germany, for less confusion. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6442 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 37 of 49 03 February 2008 at 5:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the translation, Asiafeverr, and the correction to "shì nǎlǐrén"; it makes more sense that way.
If there was a line saying that Clinton/Bush/Washington/.. is/was a president of the United States, and that (whatever other famous actor) is an actor, it would have made sense. The strength of these texts is that you basically find obvious connections between things that are 'general knowledge'; repetition to bring out the similarities is crucial, along with having enough words which are recognizable - places and people are probably best for the latter. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fanatic Octoglot Senior Member Australia speedmathematics.com Joined 7149 days ago 1152 posts - 1818 votes Speaks: English*, German, French, Afrikaans, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Dutch Studies: Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, Modern Hebrew, Malay, Mandarin, Esperanto | Message 38 of 49 03 February 2008 at 10:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have only just realized that this was the method I used with Russki Yazik dlya Vsyeh to learn Russian. The textbook is entirely in Russian and makes much use of what it calls international words and pictures. (International words like university and taxi)
It had seperate books for dictionary, reader, grammar and speaking practice. It came with ten long-play records which I immediately recorded to cassettes and then to mp3. It is my favourite language course (or one of my favourites) and revolves around central characters whom you get to know with their quirks and foibles. I couldn't work out every word from the context and had to look them up. Then I pencilled in the English equivalent so I wouldn't have to repeat the procedure the next time. They taught grammar by inference the same way they did vocabulary. The problem there is that you might come to the wrong conclusion with grammar, but a native speaker might make the same mistake. I have supplemented the course with a whole lot of other material and it hasn't been a problem. The course has undergone a lot of changes since I bought my copy in an East Berlin bookshop. I like my original copy the best. Edited by fanatic on 03 February 2008 at 10:48pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Alkeides Senior Member Bhutan Joined 6151 days ago 636 posts - 644 votes | Message 39 of 49 04 February 2008 at 8:17am | IP Logged | ||
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IMO, if you really want to do this for an Asian language, you need to use A LOT OF PICTURES, almost to the extent of a comic. It's not listed in my language profile but I am a native speaker of Mandarin, and my Japanese is passable (enough to read manga and listen to anime, but barely enough to get through a novel).
If you wish to use names of countries for Chinese/Japanese, I would think that you should put pictures of flags at the margins of the page. Cities could be represented bywell-known landmarks (Eiffel tower for Paris, Big Ben for London, the Kremlin for Moscow, Forbidden City for Beijing) or a representation on a small map. Also, ideally, one should at least know hiragana for Japanese and to possess audio recordings for Chinese. If possible, I would even recommend Heisig or something to learn chinese characters before starting, otherwise you might not be able to know some of theetymological meanings of the Characters, but it is still possible to learn characters completely through this "Direct/Natural Method" for example. Look at http://www.lingua-latina.dk/, this is the original inspiration for this thread, as I mentioned a few posts ago, and subsequently confirmed by Sprachprofi. It uses many pictures for vocab learning and a few to illustrate grammatical concepts, there are sample pages there for anyone interested. There is a page-sized map of the Mediterranean region on the first lesson page and another small drawing of a city at a river mouth to illustrate concepts such as an "iinsula" for example. Let me try out an example for Japanese: （Picture of North-East Asia-Pacific on the first page with names of all the nations and cities subsequently usaed written on it and marked) All kanji are written with ふりがな、the text should be vertical and left to right like a real Japanese text. Apologies for weird line breaks, there are some encoding issues. 京都が日本にある。 日本がアジアにある. 中国(Map)がアジアにある。 日本や中国はアジアにある。韓国(map)もアジ にある。日本や中国や韓国はアジアにある アラスカ(Map)がアジアにはない。北米(map)に ある。ハワイ(map)が北米にはない。オセアニ (map)にある。 モンゴリア(map)がオセアニア には ないが、アジアにある。タイ(map_もアジアに ある。モンゴリアもタイもあじあにある。ポ リネシアはアジアにはないが、オセアニアに ある。フィジー(map)もオセアニアにある。フ ジーもポリネシアもオセアニアにある。 アラスカは北米にある？アラスカは北米にあ る。京都は中国にある？京都は中国にはない 。京都はどこにある？京都は日本にある。日 本はどこにある？日本はアジアにある。アラ スカやカナダはどこにある？アラスカとカナ ダは北米にある。 シンガポール(on map)は北米にある？ シンガポールは北米にはない。シンガポール はどこにある？ シンガポールはアジアにある。ホノルルはア ジアにある？ホノルルはアジアにはない。ホ ノルルはどこにある？ホノルルはオセアニア にある。シンガポールは島である。ホノルル は島である。シンガポールもホノルルも島で ある。台湾も島である。シンガポールや台湾 はアジアにある島である。 ｛note in margin: シンガポールや台湾は島である。シンガポー ルも台湾もアジアにある。シンガポールや台 湾はアジアにある島である。｝ Note: The romaji used here is more for typing than for pronunciation. Do not attempt to pronounce this in any way you are familiar with in the Latin alphabet. . Kyouto ga Nihon ni aru. Nihon ga Azia[/B ni aru.（Picture of Asia on the first page) Chuugoku ga Azia[/B ni aru. Nihon ya Chuugoku ha Azia[/B ni aru 。Kankoku(map) mo Azia[/B ni aru。Nihon ya Chuugoku ya Kankoku ha Azia[/B ni aru. Arasuka ga Azia niha nai. Hokubei ni aru. Hawai ga Hokubei niha nai. Oseania ni aru. Mongoria ga Oseania niha nai ga, Azia[/B ni aru.。Tai mo Azia ni aru. Mongoria mo Tai mo Azia ni aru. Porinesia ha Azia niha nai ga, Oseania ni aru. Fizii mo Oseania ni aru。Fizii mo Porinesia mo Oseania ni aru. Arasuka ha Hokubei ni aru? Arasuka ha Hokubei ni aru. Kyouto ha Chuugoku ni aru? Kyouto ha Chuugoku niha nai. Kyouto ha doko ni aru? Kyouto ha Nihon ni aru. Nihon ha doko ni aru? Nihon ha Azia ni aru. Arasuka ya Kanada ha doko ni aru? Arasuka ya Kanada ha Hokubei ni aru. Singapooru ha Hokubei ni aru? Singapo-ru ha Hokubei niha nai. Singapooru ha doko ni aru? Singapooru ha Azia ni aru. Honoruru ha Azia ni aru? Honoruru ha Azia niha nai, Honoruru ha doko ni aru? Honoruru ha Oseania ni aru. Singapooru ha Shima de aru. Honoruru ha Shima de aru. Singapooru mo Honoruru mo Shima de aru. Taiwan mo Shima de aru. Singapooru ha Taiwan ha <Azia-ni-aru>Shima de aru. ｛note in margin: Singapo-ru ya Taiwan ha Shima de aru。Singapo-ru mo Taiwan mo Azia ni aru。Singapo-ru ya Taiwan ha <Asia ni aru>Shima de aru. Edited by amphises on 04 February 2008 at 8:41am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| TreoPaul Senior Member United States Joined 6333 days ago 121 posts - 118 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 40 of 49 04 February 2008 at 8:58am | IP Logged | ||
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This reminds me a little of an idea I had, and others on this forum (pardon me for forgetting whom) have independently developed as well.
I think the most pain-free way to learn a language would be a book, or series of books that were progressive in nature. Page one would be little more than "Dick and Jane", and as the book progresses additional vocabulary and language constructs would be introduced. So by the end of the book one is reading and understanding at a significantly higher level than at the beginning. Of course the text would need to be at least mildly interesting, and it would be a massive undertaking to write. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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