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Tetun Resources | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| jimjums Newbie Australia Joined 3431 days ago 4 posts - 4 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 1 of 7 03 July 2015 at 12:24pm | IP Logged |
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Total newb here... sorry if this has been posted before, I can't figure out (am too lazy to) the search
function. I'm going to be heading to Timor in 3 months, and would to start learning a new language... figure this is a nice opportunity. I need a break from Mandarin. I've found the Peace Corp book, and matching youtube recordings. Anyone know of anything else like this? Also!!! I'm wondering if anyone can recommend some TV, radio, hip-hop!!! or music, purely for listening to the language. I've found some stuff on youtube.... any other suggestions? Thanks 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Nieng Zhonghan Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Antarctica Joined 3668 days ago 108 posts - 315 votes  Speaks: Portuguese*, Japanese*, Spanish, Galician Studies: Finnish, Icelandic, Armenian, Mongolian Studies: Old English, Russian, English, German, Korean, Mandarin | Message 2 of 7 03 July 2015 at 3:17pm | IP Logged |
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Welcome to the forum, jimjums.
In short, people are your best resource if you want to speak a language. I don't know where you live in Australia, but I have heard of some Tetun native speaker’s community there. Keep your eyes and ears open. You can also find a language exchange partner on-line. Once you find someone to exchange language with, simply speak as much you can do before going there. The reason why speaking is so good is simply because it puts what you've learnt into action; active use of the language creates new mental connections between those passively learnt words and grammatical constructs to more active parts of the memory, which once there are more easily accessible when needed. Also perhaps start a daily or even weekly (if you are out of time) journal type thing in Tetun? I might add that twitter is an excellent resource for some language learners. I particularly don’t use twitter, but I have seen many learners who successfully found other native speakers or fluent speakers of their target languages. Writing daily or every couple of days in a language would also be a good active way to maintain and improve your skills if people to chat with aren't an option available now. I tend to write little reviews about things or some thought pieces about a subject of my interest, or I try to write descriptively a scene or a specific situation I was in that day, just so I can try out new vocabulary (nouns, verbs, idioms, slang etc) and whatnot. I think writing for me personally in the absence of native speakers has been one of the most important things for my constant moving forward in some of my target languages. As native English speakers, your language is in demand all over the world and I am pretty sure that Tetun speakers are eager to practice and improve their English. The other way around is more difficult to happen. So, you can get started by giving a feedback on someone’s writing or speaking, just by giving little explanation of why a certain construction is preferable, instead. Or you could just tell them the way native speakers of English would say that sentence or expression. Let me write some thoughts regarding resources I have used. Perhaps they may help you if you are seriously willing go further into your studies. I downloaded the Peace Corps Tetum Course a few years ago and was surprised at the amount of Portuguese borrowings - probably analogous to the Spanish-Tagalog situation. When I heard about it, I thought it would contain words borrowed from Indonesian and other languages, but not Portuguese specifically. Tetun (Tetum) was not as challenging as I was expecting perhaps because it has a large selection of borrowed words from both Portuguese and Indonesian and I have read about some features from Austronesian family before. I cannot help you much with the resources you are looking for such as media in general (TV, radio, music), but I will leave here some links that might help you since you said you were going to learn the language. I assume you want something for "fun", but perhaps you can take in consideration some of the resources I will list below: General resources: 1. http://www.tetundit.tl/ On the website above (Dili Institute of Technology), you can download free resources: Tetun-English interactive dictionary (2015, ed. 2) Tetun ba eskola ho servisu 1 (2015) Glosariu informatika / IT Glossary (2015, ed. 2) Tetun 1, Tetun 2 (2015, ed. 2) They may help you improving your comprehension. 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz5oIQUI_I8 User “Shabnam Hameed” has posted 10 videos by the time I was more interested in the language. 3. https://vimeo.com/42101674 Perhaps you are looking for such videos too. 4. Verbix http://wiki.verbix.com/Languages/TetunDili 5. Mai Kolia Tetun, by G. Hull This is a textbook from 90’s. I am not sure if there are newer editions of the book. If you are into varieties other than Tetun-Prasa, such as Tetun-Terik and Tetun-Belu, then, this might be an interesting resource for you. If you need a survival course, then, Lonely Planet's East Timor Phrasebook isn’t that bad and has enough grammar to allow you to survival. Hull’s books were grammar-based and I little bit too much for me by that time. I wanted something more practical. It took me a while to understand the “logics” of “how to use” the textbook, but nowadays there are much better resources if you know Portuguese. 6. Hull, Geoffrey and Eccles, Lance (2001). Tetum Reference Grammar. Sydney: Sebastião Aparício da Silva Project and Instituto Nacional de Linguística. Dictionary 1. A Traveller's Dictionary in Tetun-English and English-Tetun http://www.gnu.org/software/tetum/contributors/cliffMorris-x html/ As the name suggests, it is a “traveller’s” dictionary; therefore, don’t expect to find out many words there. 2. Hull, Geoffrey (1999). Standard Tetum-English Dictionary. Sydney: Allen & Unwin in association with the University of Western Sydney Macarthur. Online news http://suara-timor-lorosae.com/ Graded readers: 1. http://rumaccc.unimelb.edu.au/readers/east-timorese-language s/tetun 2. http://www.livrutimor.org/books/ PS: There are much better resources available for Portuguese speakers, but I haven't listed them since it was not in your list of languages in your profile. PS2: There are newer textbooks for learning Tetun (designed for English speakers), but I am no longer studying this language; therefore, I am not sure about the quality of them. Again, welcome to the forum, anything I can do to help, please let me know. 11 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5163 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 3 of 7 03 July 2015 at 7:16pm | IP Logged |
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I'd be glad to have the list of resources available for Portuguese speakers, Nieng_Zhonghan!
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| jimjums Newbie Australia Joined 3431 days ago 4 posts - 4 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 4 of 7 04 July 2015 at 3:16am | IP Logged |
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Wow Nieng!!! That's more of a response than I expected!
Thanks so much... its a nice welcome to the forum. Twitter and I think most of the textbooks will be an issue as I'm in China, but I have plenty to get me started, I'll worry about more books as I get further into the language. We'll see how it all goes. Thanks so much!!! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| jimjums Newbie Australia Joined 3431 days ago 4 posts - 4 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 5 of 7 06 July 2015 at 6:03am | IP Logged |
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Nieng, or anyone who see's this.
How would you go about finding a language partner for a somewhat rare language. I had a look at italki, sharedtalk, and livemocha. None of them seem to even have an option for me to search for Tetun... I asked me friend in Timor to help try and find me a partner, but I don't know if much will happen there. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5259 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 6 of 7 06 July 2015 at 2:05pm | IP Logged |
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As someone who has learned a somewhat rare language from a country with poor infrastructure and low internet penetration, I found people where I live to help me. There are many Timorese immigrants in Australia. Obviously, I don't know where you live in OZ but I am sure that you can find Timorese people in probably every major city in Australia.
Just a quick google search turns up the Timorese Association in Victoria and The East Timorese in Sydney. There will be other facebook groups of Timorese in Australia and other associations to find people for speaking. Most likely, some people will need to improve their English. Seek and ye shall find. In my experience, Haitians are thrilled to hear me speak their language and are more than happy to help me. I'd be willing to bet that you will get a similar response from Timorese people, especially if you can learn the basics on your own first. I once thought about learning the language, but ultimately decided against it because, for me, it would have been learning it just because I could. I live over 10,000 miles away from East Timor with no plans to ever visit there. There would be no one to speak with here and a paltry selection of media/books to explore. So, I decided against it. Learning a minority language is more challenging than learning a mainstream language because of the lack of materials. It's not just going to drop into your lap. You have to make a real effort, and, you have to take what you can get. For Haitian Creole, I had to use anything I could find. I even used bilingual government pamphlets, The Bible (a modern translation), UN comic books on health, twitter, The Little Prince, and native-speakers. (The Old Testament- especially Genesis and Exodus are quite useful for language-learning in my experience. A modern translation being essential, of course.) You have a good resource in the Peace Corps course. Combine that with a bilingual text, some audio with a transcript and access to at least one native-speaker and you can indeed learn a lot of the language even being in Australia. Good luck! Edited by iguanamon on 06 July 2015 at 3:10pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| jimjums Newbie Australia Joined 3431 days ago 4 posts - 4 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 7 of 7 08 July 2015 at 3:36am | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the reply....
I feel really bad now, I should have put my location to China. I don't live in Australia anymore, I'm just Australian. Sorry.... There's still a lot of useful stuff in your reply, mainly on taking whatever I can get in terms of resources and having to hunt for partners. I've contacted my mate over there to see if he can help me find a partner, but yes skype calls may be a problem with the poor internet... We'll see what happens 1 person has voted this message useful |
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