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Sirkka’s Dutch & French & More Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Sirkka Diglot Newbie Germany Joined 5486 days ago 35 posts - 39 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Sign Language, Russian, Dutch, Esperanto, Thai, Modern Hebrew | Message 1 of 12 31 January 2012 at 9:18pm | IP Logged |
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Hi everyone - welcome to my language learning log! I used to have another log (Sirkka's 5-Language-Challenge)
as part of the TAC 2010 - I participated in the TAC for about three months and then got distracted, had too many other things on my plate, and a whole bunch of other excuses, so that log was rather short. I think one of the main reasons was that I just couldn't cope with the fact that, working full-time and having a family, I simply don't have the time to work on five languages in a way that will result in quick progress. And I'm quite impatient in this regard. But like I said in my TAC log, languages haunt me - in a good way. There is no way I can not be busy studying a language in my spare time. So I did a little French here, a little Russian there. And now I think it's time to give another log a try. I was tempted to participate in the TAC 2012, but I didn't want to set myself up for failure again, so I'll keep a TAC-independent log this time. To keep things simple I have decided to study one A level language that I would pretty much have to learn from scratch (Dutch, currently somewhere between total beginner and A1), and a B level language that requires vocab work, fine tuning and advanced grammar work (French, working my way from B1 to B2). And because it would break my heart to leave all of my other languages fall by the wayside this year, I have decided to enter these into the 6WCs this year. I have entered the February 6WC with Esperanto. Waiting in line are Russian, Thai, Modern Hebrew and maybe Spanish. Which language will go with which 6WC will have to be decided. Oh, and then there's the omnipresent German Sign Language, which I actively get to (and have to) use at work. I'm an A2 and on my way to B1, but for anything beyond that I will need a private tutor. We'll see. So much for my first log post. Methods, goals, Esperanto 6WC news and whatever will follow... 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4555 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes  Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 2 of 12 31 January 2012 at 10:32pm | IP Logged |
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Hey! I'm also studying Dutch! Maybe we can help each other on this path! =)
I wish you luck! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ReQuest Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4872 days ago 200 posts - 228 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, German, French Studies: Spanish | Message 3 of 12 01 February 2012 at 7:44am | IP Logged |
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Bonne chance! En veel geluk met Nederlands!
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| Sirkka Diglot Newbie Germany Joined 5486 days ago 35 posts - 39 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Sign Language, Russian, Dutch, Esperanto, Thai, Modern Hebrew | Message 4 of 12 17 March 2012 at 11:27pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the good wishes, you two!
I guess it's time for a quick update. I was swamped at work, and I could barely make enough time for the 6WC (and my kids), let alone update the log. So I've had to let the log fall by the wayside for the past weeks, unfortunately. Now that the 6WC is over I realize I really miss it! I loved to update how much work I had done, even if it was only ten, fifteen minutes a day. Taking part in a contest put a lot of pressure on me, in a positive way. Call it motivation, if you will - actually, yes, it was motivation, and the fact that I could compare myself to others ("I need 30 more minutes of Esperanto to have done more than the next person ahead of me" ;o) and I instantaneously started thinking about how I could get another 30 minutes of Esperanto into the day - this had never happened to me like this before). I just loved it. I managed to do 18h55 of Esperanto and 26h35 of total language study, which I'm kinda proud of, given the fact that I have a family and a full time job to manage as well. Esperanto is neat. It appealed to me right from the start, and the first thing I loved about it was its sound. I don't like the way the plural looks, though :o) I prefer plural -s, but I guess I can live with -j. I've gotten used to it now. It'll take me longer to get used to "you" being "vi" and not "ti" - Spanish getting in the way there. So far, with every language, I have come to a point where I kind of hit a brick wall. Well, the wall came quickly with Esperanto. I use Ana Pana on lernu.net, some parts of the Free Esperanto Course on pacujo.net, but I've also dabbled in puzlo Esperanto on lernu.net. In the latter I quickly encountered correlatives, and I did what I should have never done: I tried to memorize the table (kiu, kio, kia, kial, kiam,... tiu, tio, tia, tial, tiam,...). OMG! No matter how many times I repeated the words, used them in sentences, put them on a post it on my computer screen - I just could not get myself to remember their meaning. They were just too similar. I gave up, and I was really close to giving up Esperanto altogether. This table just doesn't work for me, at least as far as memorizing the words goes. No matter how much logic there is in it. And then I realized something about why I've never had a problem like this with any of the other languages I've studied so far. Beside the fact that I'm probably just not Vulcan enough to just memorize a simple table like this, there was nothing for me to listen to! Normally, what I do is, I take a lesson text, translate it into German or English or both word by word, and then I listen to the lesson over and over again, while reading the translated version. And then I listen to the lesson without reading along, sometimes 50, sometimes 100 times, without actively listening to it. This way, I get really familiar with the words, their meanings, every aspect of the lesson text. I hadn't realized how much I need this to learn new words or sentence structures. So, what I did was to think long and hard, and then I gave in and bought Assimil Esperanto. And what can I say? The combination of lernu, pacujo and Assimil is what keeps me going now. Without the 6WC I probably would have never been able to find out about my learning style and needs. So thank you 6WC! And thank you Sprachprofi for organizing it! OK, that's it for today, it's getting kind of late... I have entered the Tadoku with Dutch and French (CornerPoem), and I'm looking very much forward to it! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sirkka Diglot Newbie Germany Joined 5486 days ago 35 posts - 39 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Sign Language, Russian, Dutch, Esperanto, Thai, Modern Hebrew | Message 5 of 12 19 March 2012 at 9:10pm | IP Logged |
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I was very keen on getting started with my reading today, so first thing in the morning I grabbed my Harry Potter en
de geheime kamer. I got 11 pages done, yay! I know the story, but reading it in Dutch gives it a different flavor. The translation seems really well done, as far as I can tell. I have the audio book as well, so the second time around I will listen to it while reading the text, to give my pronunciation a boost. As a German native speaker I have a high passive understanding of written Dutch. Quite a number of words are pronounced totally different to the way they are pronounced in German, though, although the spelling often looks very much alike. I like the Tadoku so far! I also finished up with Ana Pana. I had Lessons 7 and 8 left over from the 6WC. Lessons 1-6 I thought were very easygoing, quick to do. Lesson 7 required concentration, Lesson 8 some hard thinking... No, not really, but the lessons are getting harder. I haven't decided on which intermediate course I am going to use yet. Ana renkontas or Gerda malaperis? Will see and make up my mind about it tomorrow. The original plan was to limit my Esperanto studies to the February 6WC, but this is obviously not working out the way I planned - I got hooked! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Quabazaa Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5449 days ago 414 posts - 543 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German, French Studies: Japanese, Korean, Maori, Scottish Gaelic, Arabic (Levantine), Arabic (Egyptian), Arabic (Written) | Message 6 of 12 22 March 2012 at 5:52pm | IP Logged |
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Good luck with your studies Sirkka :) Dutch is a truly fascinating language especially
when you know both German and English. When I went to the Netherlands I had a lot of fun figuring out what things meant! The spelling sure seemed counterintuitive to me, I was amazed when told huis was pronounced more or less like haus! Have fun continuing your Esperanto, hehehe sounds like 6WC brought out your competitive side ;D 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4547 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 7 of 12 22 March 2012 at 8:57pm | IP Logged |
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Actually huis is pronounced with a vowel sound that doesn't really exist in English (or German for that matter)... There is a sound in Norwegian that is close I believe, the oy (I don't have a keyboard with which to do the dash through the o), but I can't think offhand of anything that has exactly the same vowel sound Edited by tarvos on 22 March 2012 at 9:02pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Sirkka Diglot Newbie Germany Joined 5486 days ago 35 posts - 39 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Sign Language, Russian, Dutch, Esperanto, Thai, Modern Hebrew | Message 8 of 12 22 March 2012 at 10:55pm | IP Logged |
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True. For someone who knows only German and no Dutch, Dutch spelling and pronunciation just don't seem to
match, because you would expect huis to be pronounced something like hoo-is. Due to the many similarities between the languages you would expect pronunciation rules to be similar as well, but they're quite different. It took me some time to get used to it, but Dutch spelling is actually quite logical. The hardest part about it are those vowel sounds that don't exist in German but have relatively similar-sounding German counterparts - false pronunciation friends if you will. Those sounds are notoriously difficult for German native speakers to pronounce correctly :o), such as -ui or -ij. To get those right it helps to listen to a lot of spoken Dutch while following along with the written text, like I'm doing right now with Harry Potter en de geheime kamer. @tarvos: What's it like for native speakers of Dutch learning German - do you experience similar difficulties with German? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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