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My Spanish learning journey (TAC 2013) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Murat&S Diglot Newbie Turkey Joined 4318 days ago 14 posts - 19 votes Speaks: Turkish*, English Studies: Spanish | Message 1 of 6 05 February 2013 at 12:25am | IP Logged |
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Hello everyone, my name is Murat and I'm from Turkey.
Finally, I've decided which language I want to learn this year. It was a dilemma for me between French and Spanish which are the primary languages that I want to be proficient at in the next two years. I'm going to study French as well eventually, actually I was considering to study both at the same time before but because of my busy schedule and also my plans to improve my English writing and speaking this year, I can only give time for just one of them at this time. So I've decided to go with Spanish first and this will be my basic log for my progress. I will do my best to keep this log regular and alive. My first task will be gathering learning materials in the next two days and I'm gonna prepare a main study program. I'll be searching for free learning materials of good quality from the internet, at this point any advice and suggestions would be much appreciated, then I will begin to study right away. I'm planning to study every day and I may have 2 to 3 hours to devote, my program will be a basic one and I'll look to build it up in accordance with my progress within the time. In my very next posts, I will talk about my reasons to learn Spanish(and French for that matter) and my current knowledge about Spanish which will probably not take much time. :) Gracias por el interés... 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Murat&S Diglot Newbie Turkey Joined 4318 days ago 14 posts - 19 votes Speaks: Turkish*, English Studies: Spanish | Message 2 of 6 06 February 2013 at 6:58am | IP Logged |
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Hello again, as I told in my first post earlier, I'm going to write about why I want to learn Spanish and French(later). Actually I have kind of a dream about to be able to speak 4-5 foreign languages fluently or even 5-6 languages or even more! Especially as I see all these polyglots in this kind of forums or over youtube etc, my desire to be one of those people is increasing. So there are other languages too that are waiting on my hit list such as Arabic, German, Russian etc. If one day I ever become a fluent speaker of these languages I'll be one of those awesome polyglots and fulfilled my dream with six major languages apart from my Turkish which is my native tongue.
Besides this dream, I'm pursuing both some major life goals and some practical usages through these languages. For instance, to give an example for the practical reasons, Arabic is one of my primary target languages, because as I happened to be a muslim born person who doesn't know any Arabic which is the language of the Quran, and since I believe the most of the translations of the Quran are made by people who think in their own traditions and understandings of life(Lately, I've been encountering with many different and new approachs and different translations of the Quran), I sincerely want to know the language and have my own way of understanding of of the book. Another example for my practical goals would be to be able to reach to the very sources of the great literatures of the major languages like French, Russian, German etc. And I can count many more reasons like that such as understanding other cultures better, listening their music deeper and traveling the world with more convenience and so on... But over all of these reasons, my main purpose is about expressing myself and my ideas to the world more globally and efficiently. Obviously, some may think that English alone would just be enough for this but that would be an irrelevant and moot argument without knowing the contents and substance of my ideas and the intentions behind of them. But, as a matter of fact, I don't want to learn all these languages just for this main purpose either. Just the opposite, I too think that English by itself might be enough but I believe it would be much better if I could support it with another one or two major languages that are widely accepted and being used globally. This is why I'm gonna study extensively on my English skills especially like speaking and writing and on the learning Spanish this year. I will only then consider the learning other languages to be in the path of my dream about becoming a polyglot and for the other practical usages of them. Anyway, now I'm going to write about my current Spanish knowledge briefly. It will be short because I really haven't studied anything yet... I know how to say "Hello!", "Thanks", "How are you?" and how to count up to three(thanks to Ricky Martin)... :) So that's it for today, I'm currently still trying to gather learning materials and I'm gonna start to study as soon as I feel I'm ready to go. PS.: I'm still open to any suggestions about learning materials, thanks in advance... Gracias por reading(!)... Edited by Murat&S on 06 February 2013 at 7:00am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 sin123ned Triglot Pro Member Germany Joined 4316 days ago 13 posts - 15 votes Speaks: English, Spanish*, German Studies: Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 6 06 February 2013 at 10:38am | IP Logged |
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"Gracias por reading" Just so you know, that right there is called Spanglish ! Puerto Ricans are really famous for this. I'm assuming any other hispanics that speak both Spanish and English also speak "Spanglish" but I don't want to speak for anybody else.
That's awesome that you decided for Spanish. I can help you out as far as corrections go. I'm not the best at grammar. But if you were to have a question about grammar, let me know. I'm sure I can research it and explain it to you. It shouldn't be that hard for me, because that's my first language (as well as English). By the way, you have an insane amount of English vocabulary . I know Americans that can't express themselves the way you do, so good on you ! On another note, I find it very interesting that you want to learn Arabic. I had actually tried to start learning Arabic last year, but I gave up on day 2. It was too much for me, because I didn't have the means neccessary to even get me started. I tried Rosetta Stone, but that did not go too well. I did not like it at all. I guess I need more hands on when it comes to learning. I'll be following up with this thread, and see how you are doing with your studies. I highly recommend the "Spanish for Dummies" series. It is a great way to begin; it really gives you a good fundamental knowledge of the language. Best of luck ! Edited by sin123ned on 06 February 2013 at 10:39am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Murat&S Diglot Newbie Turkey Joined 4318 days ago 14 posts - 19 votes Speaks: Turkish*, English Studies: Spanish | Message 4 of 6 11 February 2013 at 6:28am | IP Logged |
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Dennis, thanks for your elaborate answer.
Thanks for the compliment about my vocabulary but I still have to use dictionary quite often, I won't be satisfied about it until I'm able to carry on a conversation without any dictionary help. As of today I'm starting to study Spanish, I'm going to start with Spanish for Dummies and some websites with free material along with some audio lessons. Unfortunately I'm way behind of my schedule (even before starting!) because I had some personal issues, that's why I'm writing this post so late. But I'm still determined and that's the only thing I truly need. About Arabic, you're right it's absolutely one of the hardest languages. It certainly wouldn't be easy if one doesn't have genuine reasons to learn. But as a native Turkish speaker I have some small advantages about learning Arabic. As you may know, we have quite amount of Arabic words in Turkish and if I'm right Arabic also has considerable amount of Turkish words, so that can count as a vocabulary start for me. Also I know how to read Quran(with diacritical marks) so I'm familiar with the alphabet. Another benefit of being Turkish is the hearing Arabic from the beginning of your life even though you may not have seen a single Arab in your entire life! In Turkish tradition, when a baby's born, for the name giving ritual, one of the elder members of the family or relatives etc reads Adhan to the baby's right ear and Iqama(a version of adhan) to the left ear and then calls the baby with his/her name. This very first hearing of Arabic is only the beginning, after that, throughout our daily lives we listen to Arabic quite frequently with adhans, prayers, various rituals and so on. And we memorize tons of Arabic prayers during our childhoods, in fact if I'm not mistaken there is still scripture lessons in schools. Anyway, these things are valid for all the Turks whether he/she is a religious person or not, so I'm hoping I could use the benefits of this case when I'm learning Arabic. I know it's still gonna be hard though. Anyway, from this point, I will write mostly about Spanish in this thread and keep it regular, I hope it will be a nice adventure. Thanks for all the help... 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sin123ned Triglot Pro Member Germany Joined 4316 days ago 13 posts - 15 votes Speaks: English, Spanish*, German Studies: Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 6 11 February 2013 at 1:49pm | IP Logged |
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Awesome to hear ! You are right, Arabic es probably easier for you than for me. For the same reasons why Italian or portuguese would be easier for me than for you hahaha.
I have been studying a lot of Turkish grammar, but I am behind on learning vocabulary. I use the dictionary a lot. I can apply the grammatic as soon as I get the word. Like for examaple: I don't know how to say "give up" , so I look it up in the dictionary and it says: vazgeçmek ..... Now that I know the word I can build a sentence using the rules. I want to say, I will not give up : Ben vazgeçmeyeceğim. (adding a negation (me), future tense with binding consonant (y-eceğ ), and of course... the personal ending (im). I love building up sentences like that, and understanding them as well ! I have to come up with a plan that I can learn more vocabulary. When I have time, I will read up on it. I know there must be a substantial amount of information on this website. I just have to find it, read it, and apply it. How is the Spanish going ? What lessons did you start out with ? Best of luck to you, and if you have any questions let me know! Laters 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Murat&S Diglot Newbie Turkey Joined 4318 days ago 14 posts - 19 votes Speaks: Turkish*, English Studies: Spanish | Message 6 of 6 14 February 2013 at 3:54pm | IP Logged |
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Can't get online these days, so I just wanted to give a heads up while my internet is OK for now. I'm studying in accordance with my schedule, I'm gonna submit my first report in detail when I complete my first week which would be a few days later, or the coming Monday to be exact. I hope my internet access would be fine then.
Hasta luego... 1 person has voted this message useful |
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