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Adventures in Cebuano, etc. (Goldlist) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| sfuqua Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4767 days ago 581 posts - 977 votes  Speaks: English*, Hawaiian, Tagalog Studies: Spanish | Message 17 of 145 26 April 2013 at 6:30pm | IP Logged |
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My wife is a native speaker of Cebuano (the Southern Leyte version), and she would be glad to help you if she can. In southern Leyte dialect all the y's become j's similar to what happens to the same sounds in some Spanish dialects. She grew up listening to radio from Cebu though.
She's not a member of the forum, but I could pass questions along. I speak Taglog, but only know enough Cebuano to get into trouble trying to speak. steve 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ElComadreja Senior Member Philippines bibletranslatio Joined 7240 days ago 683 posts - 757 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Cebuano, French, Tagalog | Message 18 of 145 29 April 2013 at 5:55pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the offer, I'll hold off for now.
I started going through a dictionary of some 13,000 words with some success. But it occurred to me that some of these words would never get used, because I already know the word that the locals told me to use. So I asked a native to mark out the words that they don't recognize. What happened instead is that they circled the words that they know. Over a twenty page sample they only picked out 35 words. I think this is going to go faster than I first thought. I've noticed recently that I prefer listening to Cebuano rather than reading it. This is probably due to the fact that I've stopped reading for the most part, but also may have to do with subtle differences in how the words are said that mark out prefixes. We had some kid's book in English that had a simple sentence on each page. In my attempts to translate to Cebuano I experienced the grammatical backflips that are required to move ideas to the other language even at this pre-school level. The others were having much the same difficulties that I was. Edited by ElComadreja on 29 April 2013 at 6:03pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ElComadreja Senior Member Philippines bibletranslatio Joined 7240 days ago 683 posts - 757 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Cebuano, French, Tagalog | Message 19 of 145 02 May 2013 at 6:47am | IP Logged |
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Last night I had a conversation in Cebuano, and although it was awkward at times, I made it through. There was a allot of background noise too. I think I'm about to bump my status up on this one to "basic" fluency. It's about where my Spanish is, but not quite.
Also, I went back to the dialogs from the Book/CD "Magbinisaya Kita 1" and I understood all the dialogs just fine this time :) Edited by ElComadreja on 02 May 2013 at 9:46am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5168 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 20 of 145 02 May 2013 at 6:25pm | IP Logged |
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That was quick! It took you less than one year, right?
How much did your Spanish vocabulary help you out throughout the process? What about the grammar? When you have to say something in Cebuano, does the Cebuano grammar come up smoothly? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| ElComadreja Senior Member Philippines bibletranslatio Joined 7240 days ago 683 posts - 757 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Cebuano, French, Tagalog | Message 21 of 145 03 May 2013 at 5:28am | IP Logged |
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For those curious there is a list of borrowed Spanish words on the Cebuano Wiki http://ceb.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talaan_sa_mga_pulong_nga_gikan _sa_Kinatsila I believe this confirms what I thought before... that there is more Spanish in English than in Cebuano. :p
To tell the truth I knew a hand full of words and had a basic idea of how the grammar worked about 2 years ago, but I didn't make the extra push for fluency because I needed that for Greek class. I was also halfway through that Binisaya kita book and got stuck for weeks before I put it down. So if you add it all up, it's probably been a year. The grammar is still awkward, but usually understandable. I spend most of my time trying to dig up the right word (sometimes confusing things like "give" and "receive") and throw it out there as quickly as I can. My friends here are correcting my grammar as I go along. Sometimes they just make it sound right even though I "technically" said it right. For example, Cebuano speakers highly prefer using passive verbs. This happened yesterday... I tried to say something, and thought of two ways that I could say it, so I just picked one, and my friend suggested the other way I thought of... to which I said "sweet!" I think that avoiding written words for several weeks has helped. Yeay audio flash cards. I've also noticed when someone new comes around I won't always understand their speech, but then I concentrate on their way of speaking and (usually) the words start appearing. Edited by ElComadreja on 03 May 2013 at 5:50am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| ElComadreja Senior Member Philippines bibletranslatio Joined 7240 days ago 683 posts - 757 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Cebuano, French, Tagalog | Message 22 of 145 07 May 2013 at 5:51pm | IP Logged |
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I started going through the magbinisaya kita book again. I feel that I'm peeling off another layer of the onion. As I said, I understand all the dialogs just fine now, but this time I went through them I saw something different. I have problems making sentences that have "is" in English (because there isn't one in Cebuano) and using more than one verb together at the same time. (Do I use "ug" or "nga" to connect, or nothing at all? Do the adverbs go on the first or second verb?). I also noticed that I can get away with not using many adverbs. ;) In short my active grammar skills are still rough.
I went through several chapters thinking "ah, that's how you do that" many times. which was quite gratifying. Another problem I have is when to use "mag/nag" prefixes rather than "mi/ni". I know the basic rules of these (one of which is that "mag" is continuous and "mi" is a more pointed action), but I think at this point I just have to feel my way around with the natives correcting me. By the way, the most extensive explanations of these prefixes that I found was in the back of some peace corp handbook. Edited by ElComadreja on 07 May 2013 at 5:52pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ElComadreja Senior Member Philippines bibletranslatio Joined 7240 days ago 683 posts - 757 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Cebuano, French, Tagalog | Message 23 of 145 09 May 2013 at 5:53pm | IP Logged |
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I said several short phrases to a friend of mine (not random), and apparently I have those down. There was just one moment of "use nag not ni". Then I got stuck on how to say "It's better to be a sheep" mainly because there's no direct translation for "to be". Oh well, now I know what to do.
I also did allot of texting in Cebuano (both ways) which is an extra challenge because of "text type", like in English you might send "s" instead of "is". It's also a nice change of pace for making my own sentences. My circumlocution skills are budding. Some of the natives around here asked me to translate some sentences from English into Cebuano (to test me). My translations often times got stares and then they thought about it and said, "yeah that's pretty much the same". I think sometimes you have to do this anyway in a translating situation for these two languages. Edited by ElComadreja on 09 May 2013 at 5:55pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ElComadreja Senior Member Philippines bibletranslatio Joined 7240 days ago 683 posts - 757 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Cebuano, French, Tagalog | Message 24 of 145 13 May 2013 at 4:09pm | IP Logged |
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I found a different Cebuano newscast where the speakers are highly understandable to me :) I think it's just because they speak slower.
Still, when someone comes on and talks over a less than perfect phone connection, my understanding goes almost to zero. For exampleHere I wonder what the best approach would be at this time? Listen to the easy stuff to reinforce it, or listen to the harder stuff until I can understand it? Again I come to that foreign language hurdle I've never quite been able to get over... Understanding speech at a normal speed, or less than ideal annunciation. Edited by ElComadreja on 13 May 2013 at 4:11pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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