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Jellyfish’s TAC ’12 - Teams ɬ and Sputnik | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| jellyfish Triglot Groupie Japan Joined 4777 days ago 50 posts - 70 votes  Speaks: English, German*, Japanese Studies: Thai, Persian, Russian | Message 9 of 35 25 January 2012 at 10:25am | IP Logged | ||
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I think I'll be updating this more or less on a weekly basis, so here we go!
فارسی I remember a quote from a book by Banana Yoshimoto that goes, "Every time I look into his eyes I just want to take the ice cream or whatever I've got in my hand, and rub it into his face. That's how much I like him." That's me and Persian right there. Just dragged myself through 20 minutes of tedious kanji revision just to get it out of the way and devote the rest of the evening to blissfully studying Farsi (and I have a Japanese exam tomorrow). The amount of phrases I just unexpectedly understand (in songs or, with a bit more effort, texts) is increasing pretty fast, and altogether it's really rewarding. Got through lessons 18, 19 and 20 on EasyPersian.com since last Thursday and have been reviewing the EP vocab using Anki; I think all the words are sitting in my head good and securely. Got up to Pimsleur lesson 27 or so. I've also accidentally learned indirect speech from a Maziar Fallahi song, been listening to as much extremely cheesy Persian dance music as always, and daydreaming about that faraway day when my Farsi will be good enough for me to start peeking into those Tajik and Dari resources sitting on my hdd. Would've liked to do get more done, but what with my Japanese exams starting tomorrow, I think I'm doing okay. I quite enjoy the EasyPersian lessons and would like to stick to them exclusively for now, except that they don't teach the present tense until lesson 52 or so, which is annoying. Other than that they're nice and coherent. русский язык Enjoying it just as much as Persian, although it does require much more of an effort. More than two years of CVCVCVCV deprived my brain of consonant clusters to such an extent that I'm still having a hard time memorising Russian vocabulary, but it's getting better. I've started on Pimsleur Russian 2, and have been listening to the MT Advanced course as well, which seems reasonably easy without having done MT Foundation. Also did a couple of chapters of the Penguin course since Sunday, and accidentally acquired an Ukrainian acquaintance, who will doubtlessly come in handy. 日本語 It knows I'm cheating on it with Farsi and Russian. Japanese and I aren't talking much these days. Four exams coming up, which shouldn't be much of a problem. Wanderlust Sudden desire for Turkish. I WILL RESIST. Edited by jellyfish on 25 January 2012 at 10:35am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5326 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 10 of 35 29 January 2012 at 12:02am | IP Logged | ||
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日本語 I see these three letters in your blog, and assume they mean Japanese, but what are the individual signs? I know that the first one means sun, but how about the two others? I am also on Pimsleur Russian two - how far have you got? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jellyfish Triglot Groupie Japan Joined 4777 days ago 50 posts - 70 votes Speaks: English, German*, Japanese Studies: Thai, Persian, Russian | Message 11 of 35 29 January 2012 at 8:37am | IP Logged | ||
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The first kanji in 日本語 is, indeed, sun; 本 means 'origin' in this context, together they're "Japan" - origin of the sun, "Land of the Rising Sun". And the 語 means "language"; except for some irregular ones, you can affix that to most country names and it'll turn into a language.
So far I'm only on track 3 or 4 of Pisleur two; I usually listen to it while cycling to uni, but I've had a few days off for exam preparation, hence the lack of progress. ;) Will do a track this evening, I think, as a reward for two hours of kanji (that shall commence... now). How far are you with Pimsleur? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| jellyfish Triglot Groupie Japan Joined 4777 days ago 50 posts - 70 votes Speaks: English, German*, Japanese Studies: Thai, Persian, Russian | Message 12 of 35 04 February 2012 at 2:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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Got most of my exams out of the way, and had a rather productive week despite them. No uni for most of the next two weeks, only solitary kanji-cramming before the last exam, and I'm planning to get loads of Russian and Persian done until I'm off to China on the 17th.
Progress this week: Persian I made an Anki deck with vocabulary from EasyPersian (and other words I picked up from songs etc), added audio recordings of the proper pronunciation to every card (taken from EP or forvo.com), and have been reviewing diligently every day. I also finally finished the Pimsleur course - I do realise that it took me a ridiculously long time to finally get through the last couple of lessons. I tend to jump ship when I notice I'm close to actually finishing something, so I'm quite proud that I've done the whole thing. First Pimsleur course I've ever actually got done with! Due to the shortage of further audio material for Persian, my listening efforts will now entirely be devoted to Russian, which makes more sense at the moment, in any case - I'm finding the pronunciation of Persian quite easy, but Russian still does my tongue in, so pronunciation aides are essential. Did another few lessons on EP, although I'm getting quite bored with those and might add other, more challenging resources soon. I've also got it into my head that my handwriting in Persian should look less like that of a primary school child (as it presumably does), so I've been practicing shekasteh in an attempt to move away from naskh. It's fun and not too intimidating. Total time spent on Persian since last Thursday: approximately 8 hours. Russian I seem to have some kind of mental block making me think that no matter how much Russian I study, I'm not making any progress whatsoever. It's probably not true, but somehow Russian feels like fighting windmills and I'm finding it hard to find a coherent way of tackling it. I think I'll try focussing mostly on the various audio programmes (of which I have tons left, luckily), with an hour or two of intense grammar study as regularly as possible. Once I have a stable grasp of the whole declination, conjugation and aspect shebang, I might well feel more comfortable about my progress. At this stage, I keep forgetting endings and declinations left right and centre, and the grammatical foundation in my head feels all wobbly. (Nevertheless I still feel like my Russian is more advanced than my Persian... go figure? I have no idea.) I've restarted the second Pimsleur course because I'd taken a bit of a break from it, so I'm still only at lesson 2 of that, but at least it's sticking properly now. Went to Russian class on Wednesday and it was a pretty good one, though I got two very basic words confused and told my teacher I'm going to Shanghai by train, rather than boat; hilarity ensued. Got up this morning and felt that today should be a Russian sort of day; studied various materials from 3pm until about half an hour ago, so 10pm. With breaks, of course, but I probably still got a good 5 hours done today. Started an Anki deck like the one I've got for Persian. SRS is less boring with audio recordings from random Russians on Forvo, somehow, although that might get old soon, too. Total time this week: ca 7h. Japanese Exams went well! Getting better at reading the newspaper. If it just weren't such hard work to fight my way through a whole article... Edited by jellyfish on 04 February 2012 at 2:44pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5326 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 13 of 35 05 February 2012 at 12:00pm | IP Logged | ||
Join the club, my friend! I gave it up twice before I on the third attempt decided that no matter how slow my progress was, I would still continue, like a donkey caught in a snow storm. Just go on and on, until the sun starts to shine, melts away the snow, and you can just walk. I have been doing this for almost two years now, and I am still practically at beginner's level, but I assume, that when the day comes that I can actually say what I want in this language, it'l feel like giving birth to one of my daughters. Hang in there, just be very patient with yourself and give yourself a tap on your back whenever you have acheived something. Do not look at Russian like any Western European language, where you can generally acheive a lot in a short time. Russian is not something you do in three months - unless you can do an immersion, of course, in which case I would imagine things would go a lot smoother. Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 05 February 2012 at 2:57pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jellyfish Triglot Groupie Japan Joined 4777 days ago 50 posts - 70 votes Speaks: English, German*, Japanese Studies: Thai, Persian, Russian | Message 14 of 35 05 February 2012 at 1:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you for the encouragement; it's good to know I'm not the only one finding Russian ridiculously... unübersichtlich, for lack of an appropriate English word. You're right, it'll be all the more rewarding in the end. Edited by jellyfish on 05 February 2012 at 3:44pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5548 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 15 of 35 08 February 2012 at 11:15am | IP Logged | ||
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Persian, Russian, Japanese and maybe even Thai...I like the way you're thinking. Just stick in there with Russian, and with the help of enough fun quality materials, you'll eventually break the back of this thing. And once you do, the rewards of gaining an inside view of Russian literature, music and culture will become abundant. Edited by Teango on 08 February 2012 at 11:16am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Woodsei Bilingual Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Woodsei Joined 4789 days ago 614 posts - 782 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Egyptian)* Studies: Russian, Japanese, Hungarian | Message 16 of 35 12 February 2012 at 7:16am | IP Logged | ||
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Welcome, Jellyfish! Interesting set of languages you got there. I understand how some minor setbacks in a
language you're relatively fluent in, like struggling with news articles, can put a damper on the whole experience. Like Brun_Ugle said, participating in a Japanese class for natives will hopefully spark your love again for the language. I envy you, living in Japan and all. My focus this year is on Russian and Japanese, and I'm as enamored with Japanese as you are with Persian :) And Russian is quickly becoming a favorite! Speaking of Persian, the handwriting is almost identical to Arabic. I speak Arabic and English natively, and when I watch a movie with Persian subs, I can't help looking at the subs, because they're so Arabic script- like! And then I go..whoa! It's Arabic, but it's gibberish :) I guess if it looks like Arabic bu it's not Arabic, it must be Urdu or Persian! :). Seriously though, Persian is such a beautiful-sounding language, and is on my 'to do' list :) I hope you fall in love with Japanese all over again. And awesome work so far on Russian and Persian. Break a leg! (Metaphorically:) ) Edited by Woodsei on 12 February 2012 at 7:18am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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