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Finally a want and not a need | ||
Tags: Hebrew (biblical) | Ancient Greek | Dutch | Multilingual | Korean | Arabic | Mandarin | French | Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Belardur Octoglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5612 days ago 148 posts - 195 votes  Speaks: English*, GermanC2, Spanish, Dutch, Latin, Ancient Greek, French, Lowland Scots Studies: Biblical Hebrew, Italian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, Korean | Message 1 of 20 09 October 2013 at 5:01pm | IP Logged |
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So, I have been gone from this forum for a very long time, but I have decided to return. It wasn't anything personal, I honestly just got swamped. Yes, I got swamped for four years. I am on the other side of my program, and I've gotten a pretty good basis in quite a few languages. I also made some personal goals, though I had to take the path of least resistance a couple of times.
So I'm going to try keeping a language log with my goals and progress, since I now don't have quite so much pressure. Without further ado: Mandarin: I have basically forgotten everything after a five-year hiatus. My long-range goal is to be between C1 and C2 in the next seven years. Spanish: This is about to become more useful, because I am relocating. Spanish has always been a "don't waste the advantage" language. I'd like to make the jump to C2 in the next 8-10 months; I'm currently there on reception but a bit off on production. Ancient Greek: I want to solidify this and get where I don't take so long to parse things. Maybe push up my reading without a dictionary. Ideally, this should be by the end of the year, for some professional reasons... Latin: About the same as Ancient Greek, though I want to get more into the Golden Age of Latin and away from so much medieval stuff. Thinking about trying some production. Biblical Hebrew: I really need to brush up on this before my abilities wash away completely. I want to L-R the Hebrew Bible by the end of the year, and work back through my Jenni. French: This is going to have to chill at the moment; I just want to maintain it. Podcasts, a little reading, very relaxed. At some point I need to solidify my atrocious spelling and better my pronunciation, just not yet. Korean: I want to start chipping away at this again, maybe just one session a week, and see where it gets me. Arabic: Here's where I'm crazy. I have enough on my plate. And yet...I have a friend who wants to help me, there's so many free resources, and it is on my list anyway. Plus, after my relocation in the new year, I won't have such contact with a native user... It can't be that bad to practice a litte, right? Dutch: If I don't practice, I will lose it. Meh. But it was too much effort to let it go away, and I am already noticing some erosion. Everything else just isn't going to get any attention right now, or, in the case of German, doesn't need special attention. Here goes... 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Belardur Octoglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5612 days ago 148 posts - 195 votes Speaks: English*, GermanC2, Spanish, Dutch, Latin, Ancient Greek, French, Lowland Scots Studies: Biblical Hebrew, Italian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, Korean | Message 2 of 20 10 October 2013 at 8:14am | IP Logged |
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So now a bit about what I am starting with and where I am starting from. Any suggestions for materials and such are very welcome!
Spanish: I have a few podcasts and a couple of novels. I would like to try to read those with an audiobook, but I don't really want to pay for it. My problem here is creating enough exposure on the one hand, and having an outlet for production on the other. I guess I will just start reading. Mandarin: I have the FSI courses, the Michel Thomas stuff, and a couple of native speakers. When I tried this years ago, I had the Pimsleur audio as well, but I can't seem to find the files. Might be with my parents. Ancient Greek: When I was taking courses up to the Examen Graecum, we used "Kantharos", but I had borrowed it. I have "Hellas" now, but I'm not sure where I should start. Maybe I will translate through the texts until I get to a lesson where I have trouble, then do the exercises from there. I also have my old vocabulary lists and some readers in classical Greek. In Koine I have the NT and the LXX, NT also interlinear in a couple of versions. I think there's some patristics stuff around here somewhere as well. No lack of materials. Oh, and I have some decent recordings of the NT spoken, even if the pronunciation is rather different than what I had to learn before. Biblical Hebrew: I have a Biblia Hebraica, an interlinear program, Abraham Shmuelov's recordings, and Jenni's "Lehrbuch der hebraischen Sprache". I just have to find the motivation to do the book, and not just listen. I just remember how terrible working through that book the first time was... I have a vocab list that I can put into SRS as well. Latin: tons of original material, and my old Lingua Latina books. Not sure how I want to go about solidifying my grammar for production with just that. Right now it is really easy to just read something through and get the grammatical information from the context - I just know the older stuff is not so easy. Expanding my vocab as Latin and not relying on synergy might not be bad as well, I might try to get my old lists into SRS. Korean: I have the Pimsleur stuff and Francis Park's four-volume "Speaking Korean", which is about as dry as dust. There's an all-Korean learning book somewhere here, and a Bible, I think. I think I will just start with the Pimsleur and see if I can find time to get through it. Arabic: I don't have any materials yet. I will probably get the FSI course, and check out the library tomorrow to see what's there. We'll also see what my friend recommends, she has taught Arabic before. Dutch: I need to find some podcasts or something, my listening is weaker than my reading anyway. Aside from that, reading online? So tempted to just give up here... 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Belardur Octoglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5612 days ago 148 posts - 195 votes Speaks: English*, GermanC2, Spanish, Dutch, Latin, Ancient Greek, French, Lowland Scots Studies: Biblical Hebrew, Italian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, Korean | Message 3 of 20 10 October 2013 at 10:18pm | IP Logged |
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I actually went and read my old language log from 2009 (if you want to read it, it's not like I have a great lot of
posts). Crazy. Yes, if you ignore something long enough, it will go away. If anyone from that time remembers, or if anyone goes back and reads it, I should mention what happened. I got into the doctoral program, started learning three ancient languages for examinations in German, and wrote a 300+ page monograph in German. Ouch. As for today, I managed a couple of hours listening in Spanish, some with an unusual accent (for my ear), as well as some Koine. I also did the first Pimsleur lesson in Korean. Does downloading the FSI stuff for Arabic count? I'm going to go read Ephemeris a bit now... 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 4 of 20 10 October 2013 at 10:25pm | IP Logged |
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How good is your Dutch? If you speak fluent German and can read decently well, I'd just
use uitzendinggemist.nl for lots of audio and video resources, and buy yourself one or two books to read. It's Dutch, ce n'est pas si difficile que ça! :) 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Belardur Octoglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5612 days ago 148 posts - 195 votes Speaks: English*, GermanC2, Spanish, Dutch, Latin, Ancient Greek, French, Lowland Scots Studies: Biblical Hebrew, Italian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, Korean | Message 5 of 20 10 October 2013 at 10:32pm | IP Logged |
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And now I've found something for the rest of the evening (since the wife is on the phone with her mother).
Thanks so much for the website! 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 6 of 20 10 October 2013 at 10:42pm | IP Logged |
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You're welcome. It seems like I have been thrust into the role of "question that guy"
when it comes to Dutch round these parts, so should you have any questions, I'm around and about. But given you list Dutch as speaks, you shouldn't really have trouble just reading stuff. If you get through some nice short novels you'll feel revitalised. Also in your other languages, mind. Edited by tarvos on 10 October 2013 at 10:43pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Belardur Octoglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5612 days ago 148 posts - 195 votes Speaks: English*, GermanC2, Spanish, Dutch, Latin, Ancient Greek, French, Lowland Scots Studies: Biblical Hebrew, Italian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, Korean | Message 7 of 20 11 October 2013 at 3:25pm | IP Logged |
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And it's the season of flu. Seriously, it is the beginning of October, it's not supposed to snow here yet. I even went home early from work, and my wife and I will probably be skipping the opera this evening - shame. This on top of the fact that it's a week where a lot of people are ill every year.
I did watch some in Dutch last night (about 2 hours), and I've listened to some Spanish today (about an hour, more to come). I did another lesson of Pimsleur Korean; so much for one session a week. I wrote some SMS in both Spanish and Korean today, and got some correction on what I said in Korean. I've also pulled up the website for De Telegraaf, I think that's what I used to read when I read Dutch news regularly. And I've been to the library! I picked up Assimil's Arabisch ohne Mühe and Chinesisch ohne Mühe, as well as a book called Arabisch-Intensiv Grundstufe from the Ruhr-Universität Bochum. Also a Dutch grammar, I watched something subtitled last night and was shaky on why something had been formed the way it was, so I wanted an overview. I wanted to pick up a novel or something in Dutch but I have too many articles out to take anything else. I might yet do some reading in Latin and/or Greek this evening, depends on how I feel. Still no progress in Mandarin, but if I start before the new year I'm ahead of schedule anyway. Over the weekend I will start playing with this Assimil stuff, and probably start reading one of my novels in Spanish. If I find time next to the massive note transfer I have to do before I need to take books back to the state library on Monday. Why, oh why, did I have to want a second degree? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Belardur Octoglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5612 days ago 148 posts - 195 votes Speaks: English*, GermanC2, Spanish, Dutch, Latin, Ancient Greek, French, Lowland Scots Studies: Biblical Hebrew, Italian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, Korean | Message 8 of 20 12 October 2013 at 6:47pm | IP Logged |
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My cold/flu was only worse when I woke up this morning, so I have spent most of the day doing nothing
productive. A splitting headache makes doing anything for very long problematic. I did manage to watch some historical documentaries in Spanish, which can't hurt. Losing this weekend is probably going to have an effect on the coming week, as I'm going to have to play catch-up on the research I wanted to get done today, squeezing out time for languages. Maybe I can get some stuff done tomorrow afternoon. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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