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Iversen’s Multiconfused Log (see p.1!) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes  Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 3633 of 3959 05 June 2014 at 8:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have spent some time this afternoon making some printouts for the next couple of weeks - though I probably won't have much time to read anything during the upcoming event in Berlin. Just for fun I'm going to list the items, sorted after language, but first I would like to point out that some of bilingual texts are in languages I could have read without a translation - but having one may save me from consulting dictionaries which I may not even have with me. Unless otherwise mentioned the translations are into Danish.
Indonesian: several clips about exoplanets from Vivanews Greek: more about exoplanets and some news, including one about free internet to people on public welfare Italian -> French: something about graptolites and the city of Olbia on Sardegna Italian -> Russian: more about Sardegna Sardic -> Italian from S'academia Campidanesa de Sa Lingua Sarda Italian (monolingual): something about the snowball Earth hypothesis and major extinctions Esperanto -> Swedish: A short text about Paleozoologio (but there isn't much about paleontology in Esperanto), followed by part of a guide to New York Icelandic: Something about kaolin, caves, the Mariana Trench, the loss of privacy on the internet, publishing and skin diseases Catalan (monolingual): the Merovingian dynasty Portuguese -> Romanian: more about the Merovingians Portuguese (monolingual): portaits of 3 Portuguese kings from ww.dec.ufcg.br Scots (monolingual): a short biography about king Clovis, followed by texts from the Scottish Corpus - it's a pain in the **** to find stuff in Scots from other sources then Wikipedia and special corpora like this one Spanish (monolingual): something about Odoaker (who deposed the last Western Roman emperor), exotic fruits from Honduras and the Museo del Jurásico de Asturias Russian -> French: Chisinau zoo, the restauration department of the Hermitage, the Arkhangelskoj Muzej and an Archeological/Ethnographical museum, both in in Skt Peterburg Dutch -> Afrikaans: something about this planet's childhood: Hadeïcum and Archeïcum Polish -> German: articles from Wikipdeia about Archaicum (4.000.000.000 - 2.500.000.000 years ago) and about Snowball Earth Romanian -> French: Zoo Timisoara, Zoo Szeged (in Hungary), Zoo Bucuresti and public parks in Chisinau Latin -> English: the first book of Livy ... and no, no texts in Serbian (nor in Croatian) - I'll do wordlists until I have reached the end of the Azbuka. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 3634 of 3959 23 June 2014 at 12:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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ESP: Mi elvenis hejmen de Berlino hieraŭ vespere je la 22 horo (ĉar mi ankaŭ vizitis rigardebloj tie post la konferenco), kaj ankoraŭ mi ne havis tempon por fiksi fotojn aŭ malpaku. Mi kalkulis ke mi parolis circaŭ 12 lingvojn (krom unu frazon en la greko kaj izolitajn vortojn en aliaj lingvoj) - sed ne ĉiujn ciam egale bone. Strange estas ke mi havis komencas komencoproblemojn en Esperanto - mi jam forgesis la bazajn vortojn kiel "ĉar", kaj la unua tago mi devis rifuzi paroli Esperanton, ĝis mi havis tempon por revizi mian Esperanton uzante miajn elportitaj multilingvajn textojn. Kaj la dua nokto mi povis denove paroli tian lingvon. La problemo estas kompreneble ke mi ne uzas ĝin tre ofte, ĉar ne estas tiom malmultaj gravaj tekstoj pri scienco en Esperanto (ekster Vikipedio). Mia nederlanda kaj rumana ankaŭ bezonis refreŝigon, sed mi havis feliĉe sufiĉe alportajn studomaterialojn.
Mi ricevis inviton por havi konversacion en la latina lingvo, sed en tiu kazo ĝi ne estis sufiĉa legi iun tekston. Mi kunportis la unuan libron de Tito Livio pri la historio de Romo (la sekcio de la reĝoj), sed neniu vortaron aŭ gramatikon. Kaj mi nur skribis, pensis kaj videofarigis en latino, neniam parolis la lingvon kun aliaj homoj. Do ĉi tie mi devis rifuzi konversacion. Sed mi parte metis la lingvo reen en mia menso por pensi en latina ("sermone latine") dum matenpromenado, kaj anstataŭ tiu konversacio, mi elektis teni tre malgrandan prelegon pri tre mala latino sur la temo: kiel rekuperi lingvojn. ENG: In my 'big' lecture about grammar learning (in English) I basically recommended the Pareto method: spend 20% of your time and effort to get 80% of the result. And later, when you are smarter, you can use the same procedure on the remaining 20%. I also demonstrated ways to find those 20% of a grammar book which will give you most bang for the buck, and a showed some of my green sheets which resume the regular parts of the morphology of languages like Russian, Latin and Icelandic - the exceptions should be learnt as exception using concrete examples. I don't have my illustrations with me right now, but I have formulated a few principles, and I'll quote them as soon as possible. Apart from that I was asked to be a member of the hyperpolyglot panel who answered questions about language learning. And the five panel members (six with Judith Meyer/Sprachprofi) used extremely different methods indeed! Which just goes to show that language learning is very dependent on personality and circumstances. Edited by Iversen on 23 June 2014 at 1:27pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6910 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 3635 of 3959 23 June 2014 at 3:25pm | IP Logged | ||
Yeah, if polyglots have anything "in common", it's the fact that everyone uses different methods. (I also think that Brian Kwong said something about that during his talk.) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 3636 of 3959 24 June 2014 at 11:02am | IP Logged | ||
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The diversity was certainly impressive, and often also the scholarship. I have noticed with glee that Sprachprofi on her website has mentioned my "How to survive grammar" as a beginner-friendly advice session. Actually I think that everybody can benefit from methods to find the 20% of a grammar that gives you 80% of the effective knowledge - to be followed by a new session hvor you find the 20% of the remaining 20% that gives you 80% of this slice. The point is that simply learning a grammar from A to Z is stupid.
I'll write more about the conference in the next couple of days, but right now I'll just mention some of the things I did before and after the event. DA: Inden turen til Tyskland besøgte jeg de danske 'Sydhavsøer' Lolland og Falster, hvor jeg blandt andet besøgte Pederstrup herregård, hvor der er et museum for den danske skolereformator Rewentlow, Knuthenborg, som er en stor safaripark, et frilandsmuseum i Maribo, en mindre zoo og to museer i Nykøbing F samt et traktormuseum og Krokodille-zoo i Eskildstrup - vistnok det eneste sted i Europa hvor ALLE krokodillearter vises. Hvorfor hedder det forresten Nykøbing F? Jo, F'et står for Falster, og vi har også en Nykøbing på Sjælland og én på den jyske ø Mors. Og er det ikke dødkedeligt at se traktorer på fire etager? Næ, bare der er nok af dem og der berettes pudsige detaljer om tilstrækkelig mange af dem. GER: Danach habe ich Burg auf Fehmarn besucht, wo alles grundsätzlich auf einer mehrere Kilometer lange Strecke liegt zwischen den Hafen und das ferne Norden, wo ettliche Discountketten, das Schmetterlinghaus, die Wissenschaftsausstellung Galileo und das Aquarium Meereszentrum sich befinden. Die Aktivitäten in Berlin began erst Sonntag, so ich hatte am Samstag Zeit für einen Besuch in Potsdam, wo es neben den Schlösser jetzt auch eine Biosphäre im Volkspark gibt. Dies is grundsätzlich einer grosse Kasten mit Regenwald und Aquarium und Restaurant, aber leider nicht viele Besucher. Von Donnerstag bis Samstag in der folgende Woche habe ich Berlin mit einer Museumskarte besucht, und wenn ich so eine Karte in meinem Hand kriege werde ich ganz einfach unersättlich. Ich habe jeden Tag 6-7 Museen besucht (und dabei rechne ich die Staatsliche Museen in Dahlem als eine Institution), and dazu noch das Sealife Aquarium, den Zoologische Garten und Tierpark Friedrichsfelde mit Rabatt weil ich dazu auch eine Welcome Berlin Karte für meine Transportzwecke gekauft hatte. Samstag habe ich einen enormen Buchladen in Friedrichstrasse besucht um dort Sprachbücher zu kaufen. Leider konnte ich kein Pons Kurz und Bündig für Serbisch finden, aber ich fand ein Verbumbuch für Kroatisch, ein Kurzgrammatik für Latein (mein Latein ist etwas auffrischungsbedürftig geworden) und dazu noch etwas ganz unerwartetes, nämlich ein fettes Hochdeutsch -> Plattdüütsches Wörterbuch - so ich werde sicher bald wieder etwas in dieser Sprache hier in meinem Log schreiben, und hofffentlich mit weniger Fehler. Meines alten Sass war ganz einfach nicht groß genug. Übrigens habe ich auch während der Konferenz zusammen mit Fasulye ein halbes Museum besucht, nämlich das Naturkundemuseum auf Invalidenstraße, das nur etwa 20 Minuten vom A&O Ho(s)tel liegt. Wir haben nur die Paläontologische Sammlungen besucht (Donnerstag habe ich dann wieder das Museum besucht und die andere Säle gesehen), aber eher zufällig habe bin ich dar in einer Diskussion mit einem Angestellte geraten über die vollständige und klägliche Abwesenheit von Informationen über die Schneeball-Erde-Hypothese, die jetzt mehr oder weniger als bewiesen gilt. Der Streit gilt jetzt nur noch, ob die ganze Erde tiefgefroren war oder ob es einige eisfreie Stellen am Äquator gab, nicht ob es eine große Eiszeit vor rund 600 Mio. Jahren gab. In der Tat scheint es, daß dieses Ereignis dafür Anlaß für das Erscheinen von komplexe Lebensformen wurde (wie zum Beispiel die Ediacara-Fauna), und darum ist es von jedem ernst zu nehmende Naturkundemuseum zu erwarten, daß die Hypothese jedenfalls erwähnt werde. Edited by Iversen on 24 June 2014 at 11:23am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 3637 of 3959 25 June 2014 at 1:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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Up to the Berlin gathering I studied Serbian vocabulary by making wordlists directly from a dictionary. During the event I did a couple of repetition rounds, but otherwise concentrated on the lectures and casual communication. This means that my vocabulary studies constitute a nice block on which I could do some statistics in order to study the effects of such activities. And I expect that I can quote some of the conclusions later in Novi Sad.
I did wordlists in my usual three-column format with groups of 5-7 words, but contrary to normal practice I did three revision rounds: 1 day after, 2 days after and (partly) 2-3 weeks after - and during the conference and the days before I didn't study Serbian in other ways. In order to see the general effect of the wordlists I also counted words for the part of the alphabet I had worked on (А-И) and the part I hadn't reached yet. This last part functions as a 'control group', where I still know some words due to internationalisms and previous text studies. But any rise in the 'known' or 'guessable' percentages between these two parts must be due to my wordlist-from-dictionary activities. And the results so far? My wordlists contained 1724 words, and after one day I had forgotten 349 words (20%), after two days 217 words (12%) and after 2-3 weeks 145 words out of 1092 = 13% (only А-Ђ). NB: this isn't the classical Ebbinghaus curve where the percentage of forgotten items grows. Each repetition is a learning exercise which refreshes the words on the list AND I counted words, so therefore the figures for forgotten vocabulary don't rise - they fall. But the really interesting thing is that the 'forgotten' words change between each round: between repetition round 1 and 2 there only was an overlap of 56 forgotten words (3%). This means that you can't just remove the words you know in a given round - some of these will be forgotten soon after unless you keep them in the system. And this must must be a problem both for Anki and for the Goldlist method. Between round 1+2 and 3 (only А-Ђ) there was an overlap of 59 words (6%), ie. roughly half the words I had forgotten in this round had been marked as known earlier, and if I had eliminated them back then I wouldn't have had the chance to review them in round three. But quite honestly, the numbers of forgotten words are so low that it hardly is worth doing more than one review. And if my Ebbinghausean oblivion loss after that starts to follow the classical curve then so be it - the alternative is to be wallowing around in the same words again and again. I also did wordcounts, typically one or two days after the creation of the wordlist. There is a complication here insofar that I used two dictionaries for the first couple of letters, but I have sorted things out now. With my Serbian-Italian dictionary (only А-Б) I counted 3 'studied' pages and 3 'unstudied' pages. I got 60 known words out of 96 on the 'studied' pages (62%) and 18 known words out of 100 in the 'unstudied' part (18%). But three pages isn't much. With my Serbian-English dictionary I counted 11 pages in each category and got 469 known words out of 702 in the 'studied' part (67%) and only 258 out of 772 in the 'unstudied' part (33%). With 1474 words on 22 pages I can calculate that the total number of words in the dictionary is roughly 12.000, with 4500 words in the studied part, so I have 'only' included about a third in my 'English-dic' wordlist (1455 words). So clearly the effect goes beyond the actual words on the list, and the difference between 'studied' and 'unstudied' letters is nothing less than dramatic. It would be difficult to claim that wordlists don't work after this exercise. By the way, I have read a report named "Guessing Word Meaning From Context Has Its Limit. Why?" (by Mokhtar and Rawian), and it demolishes the idea that guessing from context is better than getting precise information (typically from translations), and also the idea that words are learnt more efficiently from 'long' contexts than from short contexts or even directly from wordlists and dictionaries. Edited by Iversen on 25 June 2014 at 1:46pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4145 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 3638 of 3959 25 June 2014 at 8:47pm | IP Logged | ||
I'm absolutely fascinated by the huge variety of topics! I think that I need to expand my horizons a bit. Thanks for the inspiration! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 3639 of 3959 26 June 2014 at 1:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well, there are also limitations. For instance there is no literature (apart from a few short texts in Scots, which I actually gave away in Berlin). And no sports, no popstars, no politics unless it is very old and no flashy lifestyle or new age messages. The selection could have included texts on language, African fauna, classical music, nuclear physics, art (OK, preferably the competent part of it) and lots of other things. But now we are speaking art... I found two top-class German painters in Berlin:
GER: Ich habe nicht viel übrig für 'Kunstwerke' mit nur einer Idee und kein ehrliches Handwerk. Dann lieber gutes Handwerk mit wenig Idee. Ich bin auch skeptisch gegenüber der Art von Kunst, wo jemand einen ganzen Raum mit ein paar schwarze Punkten und eine rote Streifen irgendwo auf einem Wand in Beschlag nimmt. Und viele Museen von moderne Kunst hat leider mehr Architektur als Kunst drinne. Als ein besonders kläglichen Exempel davon könnte ich den Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin nennen, wo ich kilometerweit gegangen bin um nur zwei Räume mit irgendetwas sehenwürdiges am Ende zu finden. Aber zweimal habe ich etwas absolut meisterhaftes in Berlin gesehen. Zum Einen gab es in der Neuen Nationalgalerie fünf Gemälde von Werner Tübke mit dem Gesamttitel "Frühbürgerliche Revolution in Deutschland", ein Werk das die gute alte Tradition von Bosch und Breughel I und II weiterführt mit dieselbe übermenschliche Akkuratesse und Akribie und gleichzeitig auch mit derselben Humor wie bei der alten Leute. Zum Zweiten sah ich im Ephraimpalast im Nikolai-Viertel eine Ausstellung von Matthias Koeppel mit Motiven aus Berlin, darunter mehrere Gemälde wo er versucht zu illustrieren, wie verschiedene berühmte Maler der Gegenzeit den Brandenburger Tor hätte malen können. Und wie Tübke hat der Koeppel dies mit viel Witz und eine hervorragende Technik gemacht. Warum gibt es dann so viel prätentiözen und total gleichgültigen Dreck in unsere Museen für moderne Kunst, wenn es Künstler wie diese zwei gibt? Edited by Iversen on 27 June 2014 at 10:12am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4708 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 3640 of 3959 28 June 2014 at 11:49am | IP Logged | ||
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I agree with Sprachprofi, I very much enjoyed your talk at the Gathering (and I tried to
convince as many people as I could to go see it). I also thought it was a very clever idea to have you on the hyperpolyglot panel, because it should showcase a variety of approaches, and it's excellent to see them contrasted. Let me also say that I find the "green sheets" a masterstroke for mastering grammar - I have my own Romanian verb tense chart on the wall and it's brilliantly useful. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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