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IT/NL Not knowing where this is going log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6774 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes  Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 97 of 112 25 February 2011 at 9:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think what is probably my biggest problem is that I speak too quickly in conversation,
I'm used to that. When speaking a new language I naturally expect to be able to speak it at the same speed as any other (at least once I can handle the grammar well enough). But without training to speak slowly first I probably just don't have the necessary training to speak properly at my normal speed. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6774 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 98 of 112 02 March 2011 at 5:54pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm starting to get fascinated by the network effects of language learning. In the Scandinavian region this is nothing new for me, but now I'm thinking of "exploring the neighborhood" of the languages I'm currently learning.
I've listened to a little bit of Afrikaans and it's amazing both how many words I can guess of a completely new language and how I can trace each one that I understand to either English or Dutch. Some are even "visible" from Norwegian if you know the nor->nl syllable translations like tilstand->toestand. In the future I might try to read a book or two in Afrikaans. Unfortunately, they are not so easy to find and I might even have to order all the way from ZA. Similarly, I was remembering that Steve Kauffman was talking about this story he had written, in 30 or something episodes, that the members of his website had translated to all the languages that they have there. Well, I don't like LingQ that much, I think it's kind of mediocre and poorly organized, but the text display is pretty nice with how every word is highlighted and if you hover it with the mouse you get a popup translation. Having this same story means a parallel text in many languages. However, it's not a hyperliteral translation or even close to that, it's literary; so it's not as if you can look up the precise verb tense and person in Italian if you get stuck. Anyhow, I went through the first 10 episodes of the story in Spanish and again it's amazing how much I can understand using only Italian + their built-in dictionary. I hit a handful of things that can't be explained with Italian, so those I would have to look up in some textbook. But the vast majority is quite clear. I'm starting to think of Italian and Dutch less as languages and more like gravitational centers in language families. I want to take these two languages seriously, but then there will be some others that I can probably read without that much added effort. That is really cool to me. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6774 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 99 of 112 03 March 2011 at 9:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
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So to develop the idea of language comprehension by syllable translation a bit, I decided to try and make a sort of index going from Norwegian to Dutch, that would allow you to accelerate the comprehension a lot by knowing about a lot of patterns, mostly centered around prepositions but also changes in vowels and consonants.
Clicky This is basically everything that I have noticed about similarities in these two languages and I think that it ought to make the case that they are indeed very alike given how many equivalent words you can find. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| ReneeMona Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5326 days ago 864 posts - 1274 votes Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2 Studies: French | Message 100 of 112 03 March 2011 at 9:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Very interesting, numerodix! I've got the article bookmarked and ready for if (scratch that; WHEN) I start dabbling in Norwegian.
I spotted two little mistakes. The translation for "written by" should be "geschreven door" en "bijdraag" should be "bijdrage". I like the way you dissect big scary words like onwaarschijnlijk. A lot of people who start learning German or Dutch (or Norwegian, from the looks of it) are turned off by those long compounds but really they're just little puzzles and if you know all the parts it's really easy to figure out what they mean. They're certainly a lot less confusing than those frightening Latin words English uses. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6774 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 101 of 112 03 March 2011 at 9:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks, I've fixed those mistakes. Well, I don't really expect this to be useful to anyone, it's just writing down my thoughts more or less.
It's true that compound words are practical, there is a lot more you can guess about them than when you're stuck with a word based on a root you don't know. The good news (as I'm discovering these days with my Italian) is that once you know a new root, you're likely to benefit from it beyond the current language. Norwegian is a nice language if you ask me (no bias, I promise), so have fun :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ReneeMona Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5326 days ago 864 posts - 1274 votes Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2 Studies: French | Message 102 of 112 03 March 2011 at 10:07pm | IP Logged | |||||
And they're funny too! The other day I was thinking about the word liefdadigheid; "Nice-deedy-ness". :)
I will definitely have to try my hand at all the Scandinavian languages at one time or another, because I love the way they look and sound. They sound quite strange and different a lot of the time but then sometimes I can make out a word that's similar to the Dutch and/or German one and I'm reminded that they're all related to each other. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6774 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 103 of 112 05 March 2011 at 10:23pm | IP Logged | |||||
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[nl] New plan. Again. Turns out I do want to go over some grammar afterall. It's just that in the past I would write it all out by hand, which takes a long time and I don't have a desk right now where I can do it comfortably. So instead I type out stuff and I do it less in depth because Dutch is more familiar. I have a grammar book with some exercises, so I think I'll just go through it topic by topic.
So far I mess up most on words that I'm too ignorant to know, like "immers" and "althans". I haven't done enough reading to know them yet and I don't really enjoy learning them proactively, so I just let it slide. Learning how a word like "integendeel" works is really a piece of trivia, it's only a matter of meaning (which is readily guessable) and what order it forces on the verb that follows (trivia). When I do hit a grammar point that has a story to it that I don't understand I'll take it seriously, but I don't feel like spending a lot of effort trying to drill these small issues. Edited by numerodix on 05 March 2011 at 11:48pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6774 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 104 of 112 07 March 2011 at 8:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
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[it] I've written another observational piece, this time about Italian. The more I study languages the more ideas I seem to have to write about.
This time I'm explaining a topic that I've found a bit tricky, namely the periodo ipotetico, or hypothetical. I had the idea that if I started from a point in English that was very clear then I could explain it better. making hypothetical statements in Italian 1 person has voted this message useful |
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