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Josquin’s Language Symphony (RU, IR, 東亜) | ||
Tags: Gaelic (Scottish) | Gaelic (Irish) | Icelandic | Portuguese | Multilingual | Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC) | Italian | Japanese | Russian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4845 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes  Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 457 of 646 04 July 2013 at 4:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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@Liam: Yeah, but slenderization as a morphological feature also exists in Scottish Gaelic of course: bàrd - bàird, balach - balaich, etc. Moreover, there's the problem whether the plural ending should be -(e)an, -tean, -annan, or -(a)ichean and whether slenderization is included or not. But one thing that strikes me is that the prominent Irish plural ending -(a)í doesn't exist in Gaelic at all.
@Fabricio: Okay, that was of course a much better way to learn katakana than the one I'm learning them right now. Maybe I should simply transcribe everything that comes to my mind in katakana so I can practise them. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4845 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 458 of 646 07 July 2013 at 4:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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SUNDAY, 07 JULY 2013
This is going to be a detailed resume of my language studies during the first half of 2013. There are still a lot of things I want to change in my life, but as the fun in language learning is back, I think it’s a good idea to reflect on what I have studied and how I want to continue. Русский This is the language I have studied most intensively and for the longest time. Although I took a break after finishing the Langenscheidt course and Colloquial Russian, I would now like to repeat some grammar points and dive into native material. I still have a great interest in Russia and its culture and I notice that Russian has come to me easily, so it would be stupid to neglect it completely. For the time being, I will continue reading my bilingual reader and listening to Russian Podcast, then I may move on to something different. Íslenska Although Icelandic is a great language with a great literary tradition, I notice my interest in it has decreased notably. An additional point might be that it’s rather difficult to obtain native material for further studies, so I don’t have any plans to continue my Icelandic studies right now and I don’t know if and when I’ll come back to it. Gàidhlig agus Gaeilge I have made good progress in Gaelic and worked through the first half of Lehrbuch der schottisch-gälischen Sprache. However, after dipping my toes into the cold water of Irish for the first time, my interest has shifted a lot towards the big sister of Gaelic. I can’t really say why, but for some reason Irish sounds more pleasant and interesting to my ears. Moreover, Irish has more resources and a greater literary tradition and I have already been to Ireland (and fallen in love with it), so I will transfer my interest in the Celtic languages from Gaelic to Irish. I can’t say yet whether I will stop studying Gaelic altogether, but in the near future my focus will definitely be on Irish. 日本語 I’m not making any progress in Japanese right now and I sense that the first enthusiasm of studying a non-IE language might be gone. I still think Japanese is interesting and that it has a great culture, but my intrinsic motivation for studying it seems to have vanished. Japanese is exotic, but maybe it's too exotic to really interest me. Furthermore, I don’t really see myself cramming 2,000+ kanji with all their kun- and on-readings, so I officially declare my Japanese experiment over for the time being. Maybe, I’ll return to it later or do a lesson once in a while, but I know I won’t study Japanese seriously in the near future. Other I'm not really planning on doing anything in my other languages right now. My copies of Madame Bovary and Wuthering Heights are still standing on my shelf untouched, but that’s rather due to the fact that I still have to finish Бесы (in German) and Der Tod des Vergil. I haven’t been very keen on literature during the last few months, but maybe that will change now. I feel that a lot of things that I had lost my interest in are coming back to me now. Additionally, I’m not planning on starting a new language either. If wanderlust should strike me, I could take a look at Old English or Ancient Greek once more or try something totally different like Hungarian, Thai, Persian, or Welsh. But I think before I started a new exotic language, I would rather continue with Japanese. However, I'm still toying with the idea of brushing up my Italian a little bit. Well, we'll see. Conclusion I will focus on Russian and Irish right now, but some dabbling in other languages may occur as well. However, I won't make any detailed study plans as things in my life keep changing and everything I say today might be totally different tomorrow. Moreover, I want to keep enjoying my language journey and not to enter the treadmill once more. Edited by Josquin on 07 July 2013 at 6:00pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4845 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 459 of 646 08 July 2013 at 7:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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MONDAY, 08 JULY 2013
Just a few additions to yesterday's summary. I have redefined my goals, so this is how I want to go on with my languages in July: Russian: Repeat grammar, read native materials, listen to podcasts. Icelandic: Take a break from studying. Scottish Gaelic: Continue with Lehrbuch der schottisch-gälischen Sprache and finish it in the long run. Irish: Get started on Colloquial Irish, learn elementary phrases, maybe take a look at the first chapters of Learning Irish. Japanese: Continue dabbling in Colloquial Japanese when I feel like it. No serious studying. Top priority: Enjoy studying and have fun! Edited by Josquin on 09 July 2013 at 10:53am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4845 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 460 of 646 14 July 2013 at 1:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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SUNDAY, 14 JULY 2013
There's not much to report for this week. I'm still making plans for moving house and finding a new job as soon as possible, but this may take more time than I thought. I am waiting for some responses to applications right now and only when I've got a new job, I can think about relocating. Meanwhile, I'm rediscovering my love for making music, which has been neglected for some time now, so language learning is just one hobby among others at the moment. Moreover, I'm encountering some problems which have to do with resources. Русский I'm starting to think my bilingual reader is not the optimal resource right now. Its texts are all about Russian history, which is interesting, but unfortunately that means the vocabulary is relatively abstract and particular. I ought to read something easier with a lot of dialogue, so I thought about getting some easy Russian novels. Besides reading, I haven't done anything. I wanted to review the participles and some irregular verbs, but I'll do that some other time. Gàidhlig agus Gaeilge I have sorted out the way how to study Gaelic and Irish. I will continue with Lehrbuch der schottisch-gälischen Sprache until I have finished it. I already have a quite solid level in Gaelic, so it would be stupid to give it up and start from scratch with Irish. Nevertheless, I'm dabbling in Colloquial Irish on the side, which works out quite well, as it focuses rather on communication than on grammar. However, there are some subtle differences between Gaelic and Irish which can be easily confused, so I guess I will have to decide for one of the two languages sooner or later. For the time being, I have borrowed some other resources from the library such as TY Irish, The Christian Brother's New Irish Grammar, Nancy Stenson's Basic Irish, and Colloquial Scottish Gaelic, so I'll have some more diversified input. Generally speaking, the Celtic languages interest me the most at the moment, so I'm going to borrow Colloquial Welsh from the library as well, just in order to catch the flavour of the language. I have always wondered what Welsh would be like. It looks so exotic in writing, but I have never really heard it spoken except: Dwi'n hoffi siarad Cymraeg ("I like speaking Welsh"). 日本語 Although I had declared my Japanese experiment finished, I tried to keep dabbling in Japanese a little bit. Unfortunately, this damn unit 7 of Colloquial Japanese is just so packed with grammar that it seems impossible to get it done without studying Japanese seriously. So I basically have three options: 1) Drop Japanese altogether. That would be the easiest option of course, but I'm not quite willing to do that yet. 2) Repeat unit 7 ad nauseam. That's the only possible way if I want to keep on dabbling in Japanese without getting new resources. 3) Get other resources. I thought about getting Assimil, which would probably have smaller units and would thus be better fit for dabbling. The book costs about 20 €. If I wanted to have the recordings, too, I'd have to pay about 90 €. I thought I could possibly do without the recordings, as Japanese pronunciation is quite straightforward and I'm not aming for perfect pitch accent anyway. Well, I'll think about it and see what's the best solution. Other I'm feeling a little bit of wanderlust. Besides Welsh, I'm especially interested in Korean. I would like to learn the hangul alphabet and maybe some basic phrases - nothing more. My only problem is I want to do so many things at the same time, so I have to organize myself better. I have a part-time job, a dissertation to work on, my music, my languages, and sometimes I just want to hang out, drink some beer, and watch some Mad Men, Game of Thrones, or How I Met Your Mother. So, I'll have to set some priorities and do the other things whenever I've got the time. Edited by Josquin on 14 July 2013 at 1:20pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4845 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 461 of 646 15 July 2013 at 7:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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MONDAY, 15 JULY 2013
I've turned my study room into a Celticist's heaven. Today after work, I went to the library and borrowed textbooks for Irish, Gaelic, and Welsh. My shelf is bursting with resources for Celtic languages right now. I now have: Gàidhlig Klevenhaus, Michael: Lehrbuch der schottisch-gälischen Sprache. Spadaro, Katherine M.; Graham, Katie: Colloquial Scottish Gaelic. Gaeilge Ó Siadhail, Mícheál: Learning Irish. Ihde, Thomas et al.: Colloquial Irish. Ó Sé, Diarmuid; Sheils, Joseph: Teach Yourself Irish. Stenson, Nancy: Basic Irish. McGonagle, Noel: Irish Grammar. A Basic Handbook. The Christian Brothers: New Irish Grammar. Ó Huallacháin, Colmán; Ó Murchú, Mícheál: Irish Grammar. Cymraeg King, Gareth: Colloquial Welsh. As I already said, I will focus on getting my Gaelic to an intermediate level while dabbling in Irish and learning the very basics of Welsh. After that, I'll probably concentrate on Irish, because it simply has the most resources. I'd love to go on with Gaelic, I just don't know how. Of course, I could take a course at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, but that would be rather expensive. Well, at least there's the Litir do Luchd-ionnsachaidh podcast on the BBC Alba website, so maybe I can practise my Gaelic there. Русский I also found three Russian e-books that interested me and will hopefully not be too hard: Кристи, Агата: Смерть лорда Эдвера. Дойле, Артур Конан: Собака Баскервилей. Скотт, Вальтер: Айвенго. I'll start with Agatha Christie and then I'll see whether I can tackle Sherlock Holmes and Ivanhoe already or whether I'll have to read another Christie novel first. This should be quite enjoyable - in any case more enjoyable than the historical texts in Ну что, поехали? 日本語 Regarding Japanese: I just don't have any time for it and interest in it right now. I nevertheless hesitate to stop studying it completely, so I guess I'll just give it a break for the moment and see if my interest comes back. Right now, the Celtic languages are much more interesting. Edited by Josquin on 16 July 2013 at 9:10pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4845 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 462 of 646 16 July 2013 at 9:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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TUESDAY, 16 JULY 2013
After having talked endlessly about what I want to do and how I'm going to do it, I got back to studying today. I repeated unit 27 in Lehrbuch der schottisch-gälischen Sprache and worked through unit 28, which deals with the conditional of "bi", conditional clauses, and verbs of motion. Another language fun fact about Gaelic: Just as it uses the future tense to express habitual actions in the present, it also uses the conditional mood to express habitual actions in the past. Topic of this unit was nature protection and green energies, the one before dealt with life on a farm in the Highlands. The texts are getting more complicated and demanding and I'm beginning to notice that I should have learned my vocab better. I also repeated unit 1 in Colloquial Irish, skimmed through unit 2, and listened to the first dialogue of unit 3. I can understand a lot based on my knowledge of Gaelic, but Irish is a different language nevertheless. Sometimes the differences are obvious, sometimes they're rather subtle, and moreover the pronunciation of Irish (I'm learning the dialect of Cois Fharraige) is a bit trickier than the one of Gaelic. I nevertheless think it will be possible to learn both languages simultaneously without confusing them too much. If it doesn't work out, I might still try montmorency's whisky method. Last but not least, I listened a bit to the pronunciation exercises and some of the dialogues from Colloquial Welsh. The sound of this language is crazy! I've never heard anything like that before and if I had listened to the recordings without knowing that it was Welsh, I might as well have thought it was Lithuanian or Basque or God knows what. I'm not planning on studying Welsh, but I want to learn how to pronunce words. I'm already quite good at pronouncing the ll sound, which stands for the voiceless alveolar lateral fricative, because Icelandic has a similar sound, which is also spelt ll. I have prepared my Russian Agatha Christie novel, but I had no time for reading it. I'll have a long weekend beginning on Thursday, so I hope I can read the first chapter then. For other languages, I have done nothing. I'm concentrating on my two TAC language groups right now. Oh yes, I'm watching Game of Thrones in English. Does that count? I think it does. ;) Edited by Josquin on 16 July 2013 at 9:16pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| liammcg Senior Member Ireland Joined 4605 days ago 269 posts - 397 votes Speaks: English* | Message 463 of 646 16 July 2013 at 10:27pm | IP Logged | ||
I also cracked open my copy of Colloquial Welsh today! I agree 100% about the pronunciation, it's mad! I still can't get my head around the spelling, though it is supposedly one of the most logical orthographies of any European language once you are accustomed to it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4845 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 464 of 646 22 July 2013 at 8:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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MONDAY, 22 JULY 2013
Good news! I have been granted a scholarship by the State Foundation for Graduate Students ("Landesgraduiertenförderung") of Baden-Württemberg. This means I will quit my job by the end of August and henceforth concentrate on researching and writing my PhD thesis. I am very happy about this, because this means a dream has come true. Now, I can concentrate on what I really want to do and I have the chance to move to another city sooner or later. Well, I'm not quite sure what kind of impact this will have on my language studies, because I'll have to research my dissertation full-time, but as I don't have any teaching responsibilities I might end up having some spare time now and then which I will be able to dedicate to my languages. Anyway, I haven't done much language-wise since my last update, but here you go: Русский I have read the first chapter of Смерть лорда Эдвера, but in order to really benefit from this I will have to study the vocabulary with Anki again. I don't have the time to do that right now, so this remains a mere postulate. Other than that, I noticed that my vocabulary has profited more from reading my bilingual reader than I thought. So, maybe I'll get back to it some day. Gàidhlig I'm stuck on unit 27 of Lehrbuch der schottisch-gälischen Sprache. This whole talk about environmental protection and green energies gets on my nerves. I will never discuss green energies in Gaelic, so why should I learn this? I might simply skip the vocabulary of this unit and go on. Moreover, I got Teach Yourself Gaelic from the library, which is a good complement to the Lehrbuch. But, alas, I'm much more inclined towards Irish than towards Gaelic these days again. Gaeilge I'm working on unit 2 in Colloquial Irish and unit 1 in Teach Yourself Irish. Colloquial is good for a more playful approach to the language while TY is very good at explaining grammar. I simply love the sound of Irish, so this might be my language of the future. 日本語 I even did some Japanese. I'm working through the dreaded unit 7 step by step and it really works out. I love dabbling in Japanese without really studying it seriously. If I really wanted to learn the language, I ought to study the vocabulary more intensively, but I don't really feel like doing that right now. Cymraeg Last and also least, I have been listening to the recordings of Colloquial Welsh, but I simply enjoy the language in all its incomprehensibility. I won't study Welsh right now, maybe some other time. @liammcg: I agree. I especially love the fact that "u" is an "ee" sound. That regularly trips me up! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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