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TAC 2012 - zenmonkey - German, Arabic + | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| zenmonkey Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6544 days ago 803 posts - 1119 votes  1 sounds Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew | Message 41 of 47 21 February 2012 at 10:22am | IP Logged | ||
The كُنَّ and not تنّ problem is probably a mistake in source, for others, based on the thread I've read there seems to be several things going on. 1) grammar is in a pitiful state - in general, people do not learn much formal grammar, or remember it and it's application is often "just is" and "because". 2) transliteration issues are bound to appear, especially if you use multi L1 sources, like I'm doing (like Assimil (French L1), web (English often), Langenscheidt (German L1) 3) Regionalism are bound to creep in - not only is the language fluid but MSA with x or y local lingo injected will influence the language - outside of the textbooks, standard languages seem to be influenced by dialect. But I would expect a basic pronoun table to be clear! And looking at different sources and the differences between the different types of Arabic -- It's going to be like swimming in a very uncertain linguistic soup! As I agree that IPA is uncreadable, I'm likely to start transcribing in something that works for me, while trying to keep as much of 'standard' transcription in place so I can read others work. I'll eventually move away from transcription but certainly not for a while! Those 'green sheets' in Arabic take a huge effort to build compared to other languages. In fact, in most languages I have not bothered -- I just look up the info in a book. I've bought plasticized fold out sheets in SP, PT, FR, DE, IT or EN for myself or the girls and frankly they don't get much use. I'm trying something different and build my own - the buidling part helps in the learning and in the end I'll have something where I know where I placed everything with explanatoins I understand and do not need to work to get. BTW, a question pops up into my mind, which arabic language forums are you using? Edited by zenmonkey on 21 February 2012 at 10:23am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Andrew C Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom naturalarabic.com Joined 5182 days ago 205 posts - 350 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written) | Message 42 of 47 21 February 2012 at 4:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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MSA doesn't vary across countries, except perhaps for a small number of words. As far as I am aware MSA grammar is identical everywhere.
The errors I picked up in the green sheet are certainly errors. Whether they were caused by dialectical influence or just carelessness I'm not sure, but I suspect the latter. I think when most Arabs talk about grammar, they are thinking about the case endings. And yes, the average Arab is pretty bad at these, which is strange because as a student of Arabic, I find the case endings quite straightforward. But apart from that, I think any Arab would be able to write perfectly grammatical sentences. Multiple transliteration systems are an issue, but provided the transliteration is consistent with itself, it is not a major problem. Knowing the Arabic script removes the problem, of course. A great Arabic language forum is word reference Thank you zenmonkey for your kind words about my site! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| zenmonkey Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6544 days ago 803 posts - 1119 votes 1 sounds Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew | Message 43 of 47 27 February 2012 at 12:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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And thanks for all the help! You have been very valuable -- imagine if I was memorizing these basic things incorrectly!
-- log -- Yesterday was another day marked with a white stone. I flew in to Miami from Munich and got 4-5 hours of study on the plane, watched an excellent movie in French and spoke German with the stewardess (she was impressed with my fleissig-ness). I'm also glad to report that carrying around half a dozen books in Arabic and writing down notes does not get you in trouble with TSA, despite reports to the contrary. At immigration, the controller saw my passport and we quickly switched to Spanish and spoke for about 10 minutes on my trip and Miami. My taxi driver had an island accent so I asked him where he was from - got HaI-ti as an answer and we switched to French. He ended talking to me about his life and the bible. A good language day. Activity Completed  German
Assimil 96 - Almost time to start with the next one! Adding vocab to Anki Up to date with Anki (2000+ for the first time!!)  Arabic
And so I've hit the famous lesson 19 a day or so ago in Assimil Arabic. suddenly things get serious and this is the lesson that really begins to show a step up in difficulty. So far I have been cruising along, supplementing Assimil with learning the alphabet and the various script rule, a few podcasts, a few pages from Salam!, Living language, a glance at FSI (umm, wow, the first pages start direct in Arabic sentences without accents!) Assimil 20 first pass and continued review of previous lessons Salam! Anki Grammar My German/Arabic book isn't getting much use! Edited by zenmonkey on 27 February 2012 at 1:11pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| zenmonkey Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6544 days ago 803 posts - 1119 votes 1 sounds Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew | Message 44 of 47 02 March 2012 at 9:38am | IP Logged | ||
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I was reading a few threads and came across Luca's method -- noting it here because it comes close to what I use, Luca's method, over several days. I do think it is necessary to study grammar, on the go, mostly - not necessarily as a thing unto itself. Except I enjoy some of it.
And I just learned about cloze deletions in Anki. If you use Anki, check that out. I'm back from Maimi, little study on the plane. Next out Sunday for Dubai. Need sleep! Activity Completed German
Assimil 99 - Time to go back and complete the Anki entries and move on to the next Assimil book. Anki Movies are now a pleasure and less of a struggle. Arabic
Lesson 23 - I think I need to slow down and consolidate from 15 or so Anki Watched Zahaymar on the plane - with subtitles of course! Travel book today as I leave for Dubai on Sunday! Edited by zenmonkey on 02 March 2012 at 10:37am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Flarioca Heptaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5874 days ago 635 posts - 816 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Esperanto, French, EnglishC2, Spanish, German, Italian Studies: Catalan, Mandarin | Message 45 of 47 02 March 2012 at 3:50pm | IP Logged | ||
Thanks for the tip! Indeed, I'm aware that Anki has many features unexplored by me and it would be nice to spend some time learning other possibilities. Anyway, I've recently realized that one of my weakest points in German is the verb-preposition association. ClozeDeletion may be a very useful and low effort demanding way to improve. I'll collect phrases and hide its prepositions. Edited by Flarioca on 02 March 2012 at 4:09pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| zenmonkey Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6544 days ago 803 posts - 1119 votes 1 sounds Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew | Message 46 of 47 08 March 2012 at 11:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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So Dubai was mostly a language bust for Arabic -- the working language for the trip was English and I got to speak everything but Arabic except for greeting. I did get half a dozen bi-lingual classic books (Arabic-English) for later learning and a grammar book.
The interesting thing about the trip was that I got to speak extensively in German, French, English, Spanish, Italian and I followed a bit of a couple of coversations in Dutch and I heard Russian and Polish -- it's the plus of these EMEA work conferences; my co-workers switch to their home languages easily because they feel comfortable using them with me. 3 days in language heaven! Edited by zenmonkey on 08 March 2012 at 11:15pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| zenmonkey Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6544 days ago 803 posts - 1119 votes 1 sounds Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew | Message 47 of 47 20 March 2012 at 3:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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Oh nos!
The 6WC challenge is over and what happened exactly after the end -- I stopped studying! Almost a week with very little study and I'm behind on Anki and everything else. It is time to let go, clear my conscience and just do it. So this post should be about the 6WC challenge. I learned: - that I actually found it useful to track activity - and see the activity of others - that I studied a lot less than I thought - that I'm not focusing on what I know I need to do - that I got about 32 hours of Arabic in the 6 weeks, which is the equivalent of a respectable 45 minutes a day every day. A lot for a secondary language, not enough for serious study. Edited by zenmonkey on 20 March 2012 at 3:36pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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