Tecktight TAC 2012 Team Sputnik (Language Learning Log) Language Learning Forum

Tecktight TAC 2012 Team Sputnik
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Chung
Diglot
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Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish

Message 49 of 96

03 April 2012 at 6:19pm | IP Logged

Tecktight wrote:

Chung, you're absolutely correct about the danger of looking at Estonian through a Finnish lens. I'm not sure
quite what the teacher is thinking. I believe the teacher might have communicated with the Finns in our class
beforehand, and so established based on their individual criteria into what group they should be placed. Perhaps
one or two of them has an Estonian parent, or perhaps some are studying/living in Estonia...I really have no idea.

But, indeed, I misspoke. If I'm jumping in the crazy pool, you're already way at the bottom.
I've only just started and I already have a massive headache. Our textbook is astoundingly unclear. There are no
English translations save for a simplified vocabulary list. The list is helpful, of course, but I find it tiresome to be
flipping through the pages of that vocab packet all the time just to be able to understand what a single 1/5th of
a page of my textbook is saying. I'll probably have to supplement my learning with other materials. I was thinking
of getting either "Teach Yourself" or "Colloquial" (or both)--as for the vowel lengths, the only good thing about
my textbook and CD is that it presents them properly. The CD is a lifesaver, considering how few audio samples
are available for Estonian...

In any case, my knowledge of Finnish is not great enough to greatly affect my Estonian learning. At this point,
especially considering how complicated both languages are for someone like me with very little experience in
anything outside Romantic and Slavic languages, I think I'll be calling myself "hopeless novice" for a long, long
time.

Of the two books, "Teach Yourself Estonian" is the clear winner. Stay the hell away from "Colloquial Estonian" as seen here and here. Is this "E nagu Eesti" that's driving you nuts with its astounding lack of clarity?

If you want to ease your way into Estonian, I suggest the short online Estonian course (under "Language School"). Not to toot my own horn but I've also rambled about Estonian including my impression of other learning materials here.
1 person has voted this message useful

Tecktight
Diglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4974 days ago
227 posts - 327 votes

Speaks: English*, Serbian
Studies: German, Russian, Estonian

Message 50 of 96

05 April 2012 at 5:44pm | IP Logged

Chung wrote:

Tecktight wrote:

Chung, you're absolutely correct about the danger of looking at Estonian
through a Finnish lens. I'm not sure
quite what the teacher is thinking. I believe the teacher might have communicated with the Finns in our class
beforehand, and so established based on their individual criteria into what group they should be placed. Perhaps
one or two of them has an Estonian parent, or perhaps some are studying/living in Estonia...I really have no idea.

But, indeed, I misspoke. If I'm jumping in the crazy pool, you're already way at the bottom.
I've only just started and I already have a massive headache. Our textbook is astoundingly unclear. There are no
English translations save for a simplified vocabulary list. The list is helpful, of course, but I find it tiresome to be
flipping through the pages of that vocab packet all the time just to be able to understand what a single 1/5th of
a page of my textbook is saying. I'll probably have to supplement my learning with other materials. I was thinking
of getting either "Teach Yourself" or "Colloquial" (or both)--as for the vowel lengths, the only good thing about
my textbook and CD is that it presents them properly. The CD is a lifesaver, considering how few audio samples
are available for Estonian...

In any case, my knowledge of Finnish is not great enough to greatly affect my Estonian learning. At this point,
especially considering how complicated both languages are for someone like me with very little experience in
anything outside Romantic and Slavic languages, I think I'll be calling myself "hopeless novice" for a long, long
time.

Of the two books, "Teach Yourself Estonian" is the clear winner. Stay the hell away from "Colloquial Estonian" as
seen TID=31352&PN=1#362318">here and language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=31352&PN=1#362468">he re. Is this "E nagu Eesti" that's
driving you nuts with its astounding lack of clarity?

If you want to ease your way into Estonian, I suggest the short online
Estonian course (under "Language School"). Not to toot my own horn but I've also rambled about Estonian
including my impression of other learning materials language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=12437&PN=1">here.

Thanks for the advice. I'll try my luck with Teach Yourself, and I'll do that online course, as well.

In regards to my current confusion, yes, it's "E nagu Eesti," or, at least, what I think is "E nagu Eesti." Our
professor e-mailed us what I think is the updated version of the textbook, so that's all I have in my possession
right now while I wait for the textbook itself to arrive. My problem with whatever it is that she gave us is that
there are no explanations at all, anywhere. There are no English translations, either. It just has pictures and
Estonian phrases. While that works fine for some things, overall, I'm left feeling confused. No grammar is
explained, at all, anywhere.

I took a screenshot to better convey what I mean:

The above is Page 1, Unit 1. So, now, that one makes sense, even though I still need to translate everything
myself just to make sure I know what's what.

Here's another example, two pages later:

I also re-discovered the German online Estonian guide thing, which I find quite easy to follow along with, so I
might be relying heavily on it: http://sprachen.sprachsignale.de/estnisch/estgramm1-1.html

Edited by Tecktight on 05 April 2012 at 5:56pm
1 person has voted this message useful

Solfrid Cristin
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Norway
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Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian
Studies: Russian

Message 51 of 96

05 April 2012 at 7:58pm | IP Logged

All I can say is that you have all my sympathy, and I hope you have an Estonian dictionary. This looked like
my Russian Berlitz book, which is useless unless you have a teacher sitting next to you :-)
1 person has voted this message useful

Chung
Diglot
Senior Member
Joined 7154 days ago
4228 posts - 8259 votes

20 sounds
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish

Message 52 of 96

06 April 2012 at 3:53am | IP Logged

Tecktight wrote:

Chung wrote:

Tecktight wrote:

Chung, you're absolutely correct about the danger of looking at Estonian
through a Finnish lens. I'm not sure
quite what the teacher is thinking. I believe the teacher might have communicated with the Finns in our class
beforehand, and so established based on their individual criteria into what group they should be placed. Perhaps
one or two of them has an Estonian parent, or perhaps some are studying/living in Estonia...I really have no idea.

But, indeed, I misspoke. If I'm jumping in the crazy pool, you're already way at the bottom.
I've only just started and I already have a massive headache. Our textbook is astoundingly unclear. There are no
English translations save for a simplified vocabulary list. The list is helpful, of course, but I find it tiresome to be
flipping through the pages of that vocab packet all the time just to be able to understand what a single 1/5th of
a page of my textbook is saying. I'll probably have to supplement my learning with other materials. I was thinking
of getting either "Teach Yourself" or "Colloquial" (or both)--as for the vowel lengths, the only good thing about
my textbook and CD is that it presents them properly. The CD is a lifesaver, considering how few audio samples
are available for Estonian...

In any case, my knowledge of Finnish is not great enough to greatly affect my Estonian learning. At this point,
especially considering how complicated both languages are for someone like me with very little experience in
anything outside Romantic and Slavic languages, I think I'll be calling myself "hopeless novice" for a long, long
time.

The above is Page 1, Unit 1. So, now, that one makes sense, even though I still need to translate everything
myself just to make sure I know what's what.

Here's another example, two pages later:

Those images seem to me to have been taken from a different edition of "E nagu Eesti" since the content overlaps quite bit with what I see in my copy but with a few tweaks of the dialogues (the names used (e.g. Peeter Taam, Tiiu Kivi) are the same) and layout of the lists or tables on grammatical points.

I think that it's a decent book, but it's indeed better suited to a classroom even though it has an answer key and decent appendix of the lessons' vocabulary (at least in my copy). I can understand your frustration and I guess that I've never thought it as so frustrating since by the time I got a copy, I had already finished "Teach Yourself Estonian" and picked up the requisite dictionaries and reference manuals for English-speakers. I can understand much of the material and examples used for presenting grammar (it comes with hardly any descriptions about the grammar as you've seen which would be frustrating for anyone learning with little or no help from a native speaker)

All the same, I think that it's definitely a good idea to work through at least one of those online Estonian courses since as a fellow language geek I wouldn't plan either to study the target language only with the assigned materials or prompting of the teacher.

As I've said earlier, õnn kaasa!. Maybe aabram or Altaica will show up and help you along as the resident native speakers much as maxval has done as the go-to reference on Hungarian for hribecek and Kisfröccs.

It's always nice to see others delving into Uralic languages :-)
1 person has voted this message useful

Tecktight
Diglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4974 days ago
227 posts - 327 votes

Speaks: English*, Serbian
Studies: German, Russian, Estonian

Message 53 of 96

07 April 2012 at 7:37pm | IP Logged

Chung wrote:

Tecktight wrote:

Chung wrote:

Tecktight wrote:

Chung, you're absolutely correct
about the danger of looking at Estonian
through a Finnish lens. I'm not sure
quite what the teacher is thinking. I believe the teacher might have communicated with the Finns in our class
beforehand, and so established based on their individual criteria into what group they should be placed. Perhaps
one or two of them has an Estonian parent, or perhaps some are studying/living in Estonia...I really have no idea.

But, indeed, I misspoke. If I'm jumping in the crazy pool, you're already way at the bottom.
I've only just started and I already have a massive headache. Our textbook is astoundingly unclear. There are no
English translations save for a simplified vocabulary list. The list is helpful, of course, but I find it tiresome to be
flipping through the pages of that vocab packet all the time just to be able to understand what a single 1/5th of
a page of my textbook is saying. I'll probably have to supplement my learning with other materials. I was thinking
of getting either "Teach Yourself" or "Colloquial" (or both)--as for the vowel lengths, the only good thing about
my textbook and CD is that it presents them properly. The CD is a lifesaver, considering how few audio samples
are available for Estonian...

In any case, my knowledge of Finnish is not great enough to greatly affect my Estonian learning. At this point,
especially considering how complicated both languages are for someone like me with very little experience in
anything outside Romantic and Slavic languages, I think I'll be calling myself "hopeless novice" for a long, long
time.

The above is Page 1, Unit 1. So, now, that one makes sense, even though I still need to translate everything
myself just to make sure I know what's what.

Here's another example, two pages later:

Those images seem to me to have been taken from a different edition of "E nagu Eesti" since the content overlaps
quite bit with what I see in my copy but with a few tweaks of the dialogues (the names used (e.g. Peeter Taam,
Tiiu Kivi) are the same) and layout of the lists or tables on grammatical points.

I think that it's a decent book, but it's indeed better suited to a classroom even though it has an answer key and
decent appendix of the lessons' vocabulary (at least in my copy). I can understand your frustration and I guess
that I've never thought it as so frustrating since by the time I got a copy, I had already finished "Teach Yourself
Estonian" and picked up the requisite dictionaries and reference manuals for English-speakers. I can understand
much of the material and examples used for presenting grammar (it comes with hardly any descriptions about
the grammar as you've seen which would be frustrating for anyone learning with little or no help from a native
speaker)

All the same, I think that it's definitely a good idea to work through at least one of those online Estonian courses
since as a fellow language geek I wouldn't plan either to study the target language only with the assigned
materials or prompting of the teacher.

As I've said earlier, õnn kaasa!. Maybe aabram or Altaica will show up and help you along as the resident
native speakers much as maxval has done as the go-to reference on Hungarian for hribecek and Kisfröccs.

It's always nice to see others delving into Uralic languages :-)

Thanks again, Chung! Actually, this post of yours was extremely helpful. I was about to pull my hair out and send
the professor an angry e-mail detailing my frustration. Your words of reason helped calm me, though.

What's seen above is the new version of E nagu Eesti. The professor of the course is actually the author of
the book, and, because of that, I'm reluctant to drop the course. I'd like to see the course through at least a few
more lessons, and see what becomes of it. Of course, I'll have to pay the rest of the cost of the course soon, and
it's not cheap, so, hopefully, I'll have made up my mind by then.

Just ordered "Teach Yourself," and I'll start going through it ASAP. Meanwhile, I'm finding that German course
really helpful, plus the online one. You're correct, E nagu Eesti seems better fitted to classroom instruction. So I'll
need to create my own base if that textbook will be of any use to me, as you did with "Teach Yourself."

I, too, am glad that I've joined the group of those studying Uralic languages. I have a nagging suspicion that my
entry will cause me many, many headaches in the future, and many more frustrations. All of the former to be
accompanied by, I hope, interesting experiences, and the sheer joy that comes with learning such languages.
Once I can fluidly understand the Estonian songs that bring tears to my eyes, I'll know it'll all have been worth it.
The uralics are their own weird type of drug, I think. Or that fifth or so mile of jogging, when you feel like you're
just about to collapse, but can't stop...Anyway, I'm being silly, because I'm not nearly at that point, yet.

Oh, I nearly forgot! Update: had my first "class" on Thursday. It's just text-chatting over Skype. It was rather
slow, and I'm still judging the value of it. The teacher asked us questions like "where are you from, where do you
live, what languages do you speak, etc. etc." We answered one question and then moved on to another. For an
hour. Throughout, the teacher would correct any grammar mistakes we made. And that was the entire session. I
have to say I found it rather unengaging. I don't see why I should pay for such robotic correspondence. I can
memorize such questions and answers on my own--moreover, that's what we were required to do in
preparation for the session, so that we could regurgitate when prompted.

The only promising thing about the course, it seems, is the phone call with the teacher. Now I'm not even sure if
its once a week or once a month. If it's the latter, I'm just going to call quits on the course and just utilize my
Estonian friend, who's already agreed to Skype with me.

Thoughts, Chung? :/

Also, Cristina, you're exactly right. The text is something that would be useful were one being guided through it
by a teacher..

Edited by Tecktight on 07 April 2012 at 7:44pm
1 person has voted this message useful

Chung
Diglot
Senior Member
Joined 7154 days ago
4228 posts - 8259 votes

20 sounds
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish

Message 54 of 96

07 April 2012 at 9:03pm | IP Logged

Tecktight wrote:

Thanks again, Chung! Actually, this post of yours was extremely helpful. I was about to pull my hair out and send
the professor an angry e-mail detailing my frustration. Your words of reason helped calm me, though.

What's seen above is the new version of E nagu Eesti. The professor of the course is actually the author of
the book, and, because of that, I'm reluctant to drop the course. I'd like to see the course through at least a few
more lessons, and see what becomes of it. Of course, I'll have to pay the rest of the cost of the course soon, and
it's not cheap, so, hopefully, I'll have made up my mind by then.

Just ordered "Teach Yourself," and I'll start going through it ASAP. Meanwhile, I'm finding that German course
really helpful, plus the online one. You're correct, E nagu Eesti seems better fitted to classroom instruction. So I'll
need to create my own base if that textbook will be of any use to me, as you did with "Teach Yourself."

I, too, am glad that I've joined the group of those studying Uralic languages. I have a nagging suspicion that my
entry will cause me many, many headaches in the future, and many more frustrations. All of the former to be
accompanied by, I hope, interesting experiences, and the sheer joy that comes with learning such languages.
Once I can fluidly understand the Estonian songs that bring tears to my eyes, I'll know it'll all have been worth it.
The uralics are their own weird type of drug, I think. Or that fifth or so mile of jogging, when you feel like you're
just about to collapse, but can't stop...Anyway, I'm being silly, because I'm not nearly at that point, yet.

Oh, I nearly forgot! Update: had my first "class" on Thursday. It's just text-chatting over Skype. It was rather
slow, and I'm still judging the value of it. The teacher asked us questions like "where are you from, where do you
live, what languages do you speak, etc. etc." We answered one question and then moved on to another. For an
hour. Throughout, the teacher would correct any grammar mistakes we made. And that was the entire session. I
have to say I found it rather unengaging. I don't see why I should pay for such robotic correspondence. I can
memorize such questions and answers on my own--moreover, that's what we were required to do in
preparation for the session, so that we could regurgitate when prompted.

The only promising thing about the course, it seems, is the phone call with the teacher. Now I'm not even sure if
its once a week or once a month. If it's the latter, I'm just going to call quits on the course and just utilize my
Estonian friend, who's already agreed to Skype with me.

Thoughts, Chung? :/

Pole tänu väärt, Tecktight :-)

Since I've never made a log for studies in Estonian, I should clarify how I studied it and put my comments about "E nagu Eesti" into perspective.

My main course became "Teach Yourself Estonian" after having tried "Colloquial Estonian" (ditched it after 6 lessons because it's atrocious) and plowed through about a dozen chapters of "Estonian Textbook" by Juhan Tuldava. By the time I got to TY Estonian, I was already familiar with greetings, the present indicative (including negative conjugation), present conditional, imperative 2nd person singular, and the singular for about half of the cases. Yet I was very impressed by the authors' care in TY Estonian when presenting material and providing lots of exercises ("Estonian Textbook" has good notes on grammar but is quite similar to the old editions of TY with long dialogues and lists of vocabulary, no audio, and exercises limited to translating a dozen sentences or inflecting a handful of words in isolation. For "Colloquial Estonian", well... we all know about that train wreck). In addition, I was getting a mental boost from having just returned from a trip to Estonia (I remember smiling when I first heard the dialogues in TY Estonian since one of the actors sounded a lot like one of my hosts in Tallinn). I finished TY Estonian in about 3 months with an average of 1 week spent for every chapter. While in Estonia I also picked up a few dictionaries including the excellent monolingual TEA rahvasõnaraamat. Eesti keel which lists several inflected forms for the entries. (N.B. It seems that the publishers are also holding a sale online of 50% off. Damn. I paid about $100 for Silvet's huge Inglise-eesti sõnaraamat but it's on sale right now for 29 Euros or about $40 before shipping).

I finished with what I estimate was roughly A2 or B1 capability in Estonian but my inability to find native speakers in my hometown or maintain regular contact with Estonians on Skype due to the difference in time zone and being occupied by the rest of life meant that my passive skills were a lot better than the active ones. As I haven't used Estonian much since then, a lot of it has gone rusty or probably become supplanted by Finnish.

Anyway by the time I got a copy of "E nagu Eesti" I had already finished "TY Estonian" and wasn't particularly bothered by the former's lack of descriptions in English (or in some other intermediary language that I could also understand). I never did use it but browsed it for fun and didn't find the content out of place for a beginner. However I did note that it wasn't something that I would have used on its own from the very beginning since I too would have been bothered by the lack of explanations in an useful intermediary language.

If I were in your place, I would consider dropping this course if the effort and cost don't justify the benefit (and if I could get a refund of at least 75%). A monthly session on Skype wouldn't be that useful or justifiable to me unless I had paid relatively little for the course. A weekly session would be much better, though (I assume that we're talking about an useful amount of time for each session e.g. 4 weekly sessions of 45 minutes each would suit me much better than 1 monthly session of 3 hours).

I have to admit that your enthusiasm has been gently prodding me to revisit Estonian. Maybe I'll find a way to work through "E nagu Eesti" although I hesitate to add yet another language to my studying profile.

Anyway I'll be keeping an eye on your log, and try to help by drawing on what I can remember or can find in my reference material. Not to sound like a brazen poacher, but there's also always a place for you at Team *jäŋe / *ledús if you'd like it. :-)
2 persons have voted this message useful

Chung
Diglot
Senior Member
Joined 7154 days ago
4228 posts - 8259 votes

20 sounds
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish

Message 55 of 96

21 April 2012 at 8:04am | IP Logged

While I looking for stuff in lesser-known Uralic languages, I stumbled upon this busy-looking but cute site from Estonia which could be useful for you. If you click on "Jussi TV" on the bottom left, you will begin watching episodes lasting about 8 minutes each in an embedded Youtube player linked to a playlist of the Estonian cartoon Jänku-Juss (Bunny Johnny). The dialogue has Estonian subtitles, and may be helpful for you by connecting sound and words. To watch a different episode click on the embedded Youtube player's red Playlist button on the bottom of the player.

If you click on the upper left "Õpime sõnu" you will get a different cartoon character, Mõmmi narrating what he sees. The first episode has him in the forest identifying what he sees. After pressing the play button in the middle of the "TV" / embedded Youtube player, you will get a brief shot of the title "Lendab üks liblikas" (One butterfly is flying) and to the right you will see ruffled Estonian and Russian flags. Clicking on either of these flags will superimpose subtitles in Estonian or Russian respectively and so you can get running text of Mõmmi's narration. If you wish to have Mõmmi teaching you words from other locations while he is narrating, click on the fast-forward or rewind button near the bottom left corner of the "TV". The cartoon "Mõmmi mängib also works similarly as "Õpime sõnu" with options to jump episodes with the rewind and fast-forward buttons and superimpose Estonian or Russian subtitles by clicking on ruffled flags.
1 person has voted this message useful

Woodsei
Bilingual Diglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
United States
justpaste.it/Woodsei
Joined 4795 days ago
614 posts - 782 votes

Speaks: English*, Arabic (Egyptian)*
Studies: Russian, Japanese, Hungarian

Message 56 of 96

12 May 2012 at 4:29am | IP Logged

It's great seeing you back here, Kat! I fell off the wagon at some point, but it's great
to resume following everyone's progress. Your Estonian forays sound very intriguing,
although I must admit that textbooks in the target language only do seem intimidating at
first. I don't know anything about Estonian, but I hope you sort your way through it. I'm
sure you will.

1 person has voted this message useful

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