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10 languages-2000 hours TAC 2011 Team ש

 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
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CheeseInsider
Bilingual Diglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 5113 days ago

193 posts - 238 votes 
Speaks: English*, Mandarin*
Studies: French, German

 
 Message 33 of 52
29 December 2010 at 10:56pm | IP Logged 
There have been some replies on your log that you haven't addressed. These people are taking the time to read your log and give you feedback, the least you can do is acknowledge what they're saying.

Anyways, good luck :)
4 persons have voted this message useful



Hakan D
Tetraglot
Groupie
Turkey
Joined 5092 days ago

45 posts - 77 votes 
Speaks: Turkish*, Icelandic, English, German
Studies: Spanish, Greek, Swedish, Hungarian, Mongolian, Modern Hebrew, Russian

 
 Message 34 of 52
29 December 2010 at 11:26pm | IP Logged 
CheeseInsider wrote:
There have been some replies on your log that you haven't addressed. These people are
taking the time to read your log and give you feedback, the least you can do is acknowledge what they're saying.

Anyways, good luck :)



Thank you very much for reminding me CheeseInsider, you won't believe me but I'm always on the way to reply
them but can't find the best words all the time. However I take your word for it and try to reply them :) Perhaps
even now :)

ellasevia: Thanks for the comment. Θα προσπαθήσω να βελτιώσω τα ελληνικά μου. Να δω τι θα
συμβεί. Ίσος πρέπει να πάω στην Ελλάδα μία άλλη φορά την ερχομένη χρονιά.

Solfrid Cristin: You don't have to worry about that. I have many Norwegian friends and have been to
Norway many times and I know that they're kind enough people who wouldn't nag others without even ever
meeting them.

lingoleng: I think I've figured it out. My girlfriend bought a new Mac and I can fortunately type in Hebrew
recently for about 5 days now.

I'm sorry for the late replies and thanks again to CheeseInsider
1 person has voted this message useful



Meelämmchen
Diglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 5074 days ago

214 posts - 249 votes 
Speaks: German*, English
Studies: Modern Hebrew

 
 Message 35 of 52
30 December 2010 at 2:59pm | IP Logged 
Great audio file. Your pronunciation is very good as far as I can tell. And you have quite a fluency in speaking. Unfortunatly I couldn't understand all what you have spoken, maybe only a little bit over 50%. But this is due to our different vocabulary. And I can only count to ten :( But after having had a short look on the higher numbers I got it that you are 32 years and are learning Hebrew for twelve years, is that right? But you are nonetheless on level A1? Maybe you have explained the reasons for that, but, like I said, I couldn't understand a lot. I listened several times and will do so again in the near future. The part with your uncles and other languages for example was clear. For the rest I don't want to go a lot of in detail. Great work all in all, I'm looking forward hearing more.

P.S.: The Oxford Dictionary shall be good (you asked for on page 1), I myself use the two Langenscheids, having the Oxford one on my list, too.
P.P.S.: Interesting comment on the root שלם! Apparently bearded and old also became one word, since זקן (beard, sakan) זקן (old, saken) share the same root. Very pictural and a positive or at least neutral connotation of age. Today old would be mingled with wrinkles. She is old as she is wrinkled....
1 person has voted this message useful



Hakan D
Tetraglot
Groupie
Turkey
Joined 5092 days ago

45 posts - 77 votes 
Speaks: Turkish*, Icelandic, English, German
Studies: Spanish, Greek, Swedish, Hungarian, Mongolian, Modern Hebrew, Russian

 
 Message 36 of 52
30 December 2010 at 4:37pm | IP Logged 
Hello Meelämmchen,

Thank you for your comments. I'll write a transcription of what I've said one of these days. I've got some minor
mistakes in grammar, apparently forgot them when I was talking and some mistakes in pronunciation. (I'll also
write what I've said in parenthesis with the transcription). I hate studying number in every language but I had to
do it for this work. At least I won't forget now how to say twenty, thirty and two hundred :) I'm 32 years old and
in the recording it says I've been studying Hebrew for 22 days (now 23 but obviously a day off for me as I
couldn't yet pull myself together)

I've also find some online dictionaries

morfix.co.il/
milon.co.il/

The first one is especially useful because it's vocalized but the downside is the verbs come with the roots only
I use the other one to find the infinitives of the verbs and the pronunciation is left out as a guess work :)
Probably there's a pattern that I don't know yet (or at least I hope) to see how I can form an infinitive with the
root letters plus guess the pronunciation
1 person has voted this message useful



Sunja
Diglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 6076 days ago

2020 posts - 2295 votes 
1 sounds
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: French, Mandarin

 
 Message 37 of 52
30 December 2010 at 7:52pm | IP Logged 
I was reading what you wrote in Sprachprofi's log and I really like what you say here:

Hakan D wrote:
I don't know whether you would consider it but apart from putting the new vocabulary into your programme, I'd
suggest also putting sentences. At your level of course not every other sentence you see but rather the
sentences that you think you might not be able to produce yourself even though you would know all the words
in it. I think this may be of help especially if you're going to make translations in one specific area. As we know
if the text is about law, medicine, engineering etc. there's almost always a certain jargon and specific character
to the language.

I used this method for Icelandic and saw that even the sentences that the native speakers go with patterns. I
dabbled quite a lot with Icelandic the first 3-4 years, I had a large vocabulary, a good grasp of the grammar
even my accent was like an Icelander but obviously I didn't sound like a native speaker. I reckon I started
memorizing sentences as I soon realized that Icelandic is a highly idiomatic language.

I guess things start to click after one acquires around 3000-4000 stock-sentences. Then these sentence
patterns merge into each other and you can create lots of others with these patterns. Even half the way through
it, at least for me, reading newspaper articles or books was much easier and fun. In the case that one is trying to
learn a language living in a different country reaching a native sound should lie somewhere around well-chosen
15.000-20.000 sentences. I'm trying out this approach with the new languages that I've started.


(I didn't want to address this in sprachprofi's log), but could you mention a bit more about your sentence-making method in the course of doing your log entries? I'd be interested. Thanks!

Edited by Sunja on 30 December 2010 at 7:58pm

1 person has voted this message useful



Hakan D
Tetraglot
Groupie
Turkey
Joined 5092 days ago

45 posts - 77 votes 
Speaks: Turkish*, Icelandic, English, German
Studies: Spanish, Greek, Swedish, Hungarian, Mongolian, Modern Hebrew, Russian

 
 Message 38 of 52
31 December 2010 at 5:47am | IP Logged 
Hello Sunja,

I'll try to explain how I do it in detail, I hope it would help. And I think it wouldn't be either too bad to have the
sentence of the week in my log.

Initially I had this idea through an Icelandic stage actor. When I met him first after hearing that I was from
Turkey he started addressing me in Turkish. I was a bit surprised to see an Icelander speaking Turkish as it's
not the most popular language here. But he explained to me that once about 20 years ago he played in a role
where he had to speak in Turkish and he committed to memory more than 200 sentences if I'm not mistaken.
The play went on for around 2 years so you can imagine that he had to utter all those sentences almost every
day for 2 years. And he still remembered after so many years. The sentences were obviously written down by a
Turk and had a Turkish feeling. So I just thought I could do it myself also in Icelandic.

So basically the method I use is pretty simple in essence. You select the sentences you want to own, you're free
to choose any sentence said or written by native speakers. It can be something that your friends say, anything
that you would hear in the news, something that a train conductor says, when I was learning Greek for example
I would go out to what I call field work and write down sentences to my little notebook that I see in the
billboards, little stickers, museums or in some other various places. Billboards are especially useful because you
get to see the same ad again and again in some other places in the town and eventually you'll stick it to the
memory.

There were no flashcard programmes when I started this out so I just wrote my sentences into a book. I
personally found to make flashcards on my own rather clumsy and unpractical to move around so I had four
notebooks 2 for new words and 2 for new sentences.

Before I can get started with a new sentence I should know all the words in it so I need my word notebook. At
every sheet I write down the words in the target language on one side and the definition in my native language
on the other side. So that I can guess the meaning just as in flashcards. Initially I always guess from Turkish
into the target language and not the other way round because I want to have the word actively. If you try to
guess the meaning from the target language into your native language you'll own the word passively. But after
about a month or so I do both ways. The other word notebook is for writing each new word ten times. Each
time I write them down I say them out loud and try to visualize it also I try to remember the sentence that I've
seen it. Writing down a word is basically from my secondary and high school years where we had to write each
word in English down for ten times and the teacher would check it every morning. However I think it's
worthwhile.

Then I just go over the first word notebook with the definition in everyday for a week and every other day after
a week and make a tick for each correct answer and a minus for each wrong so I have a log on how successful
I am.

However there are flashchard programmes now so you don't need to bother with this anymore. Though I
recommend writing words 10 times with the same method.

Many people here use Anki and some Mnemosyne etc. I've never heard of anyone who uses Jmemorize but that
works fine with me. Jmemorize happens to be more strict when it comes to choosing decks for your cards. In
Anki and the others I've checked out it's upto the user whether the word will show up soon or in 2 days or 1
week. With the jmemorize you set up an initial plan and the words show up according to your plan. Plus there's
only two options to the question "Did you know the correct answer?" Yes or No. If it's "No" the word goes back
to the starting deck so you have to start the process all over again with this word at least.

As I don't want to totally discard the notebook method I'll use the Huliganov method which is explained in great
detail in this site http://huliganov.tv/goldlist-eu/ with some adaptations. He recommends coming back to the
words after no less than 2 weeks and no more than 2 months. But please do read the article if you're interested
becasuse there's much more than what I've summarized in one sentence.

I guess I can't just let go all those words and hope that I'll be able to remember 30% of it in 2 weeks. I'll still do
my flashcards and see the notebook in a month time. Do the distillations accordingly

So when you're done with the new vocabulary and you're sure with the grammar as well you advance to the
sentence. Therefore to save time but to make the process as fruitful as possible you should avoid choosing too
simple or too difficult sentences for yourself. If I don't understand more than 50-60% of the words in the
sentence it's probably not really for my level yet but if you want to decipher it you can still go for it. Though the
odds are you'll also have to disentangle the grammar. (Initially I also write down some simple sentences that I
hear from the native speakers to get used to the rhythm of the language)


I always like to start with the sentences from the books I learn the language. They built up according to your
level so it's unlikely that you will have more than 60% of the words that you don't know in one sentence. I use
the conversations, exercises, example sentences etc. but I don't just go and take "hello, how are you?" but
rather sentences that are giving me hints and ideas about the grammar aspects.

Like for example, in my recent Hebrew studies I chose this sentence:

Can you see the doctor who speaks English?

?אתה יכול לרות את הרופה שמדבר טברית

Although I was 100% sure with the words when I saw them there were many things for me to consider in this
sentence. Such as after y'kol I need to use the infinitive and because the doctor is a definite object I need to use
"et" and "ha" and that's a relative clause so I should use "she"

Finally when I saw the bill I said to Michael's wife: "The time is coming (arriving) to diet
ספ–ספ כּאשר את החשבון אמרתי לאשה של מכאל: מגיע הזמן לדיאטה
This is a fine example for "when" sentences 5 unknown words and sophisticated enough to impress even the
native speakers :)

I should also mention that anywhere in my learning process I write down what native speakers, my friends say.
Especially at the beginning just anything. For example:

אני חשבתי שאתה לומד עברית כדי לבוא ולרקוד איתנו בתל אביב
(I thought you were learning Hebrew to come and dance with us in Tel Aviv)

I guess I could produce this sentence without much problem but on the other hand it was very real and alive for
me that I took this one also

Another one:
היה כיף לדבר איתך
It was a pleasure talking to you.

I will have probably seen this sentence or a variant somewhat later. But according to my dictionary כיף (keyf) is
a slang and that's basically the same word in Turkish.

So when I'm normally done with the books that I'm learning I go on to grammar books and children books. And
I choose sentences from there. Especially good grammar books with well-phrased sentences are really of
benefit but the downside is as you don't have a storyline these are hard to remember. I'm sorry that I don't
have an example for this at the moment.

When I feel ready I go and check newspapers and then comes the novels finally.

I'm reading a novel called Spútnik Love in Icelandic (Spútnik Ástin). I have both English and Icelandic version.

Einu gilti hversu marga kosti lífið bauð henni, hún skyldi verða skáldsagnahöfundur og ekkert annað.
(No matter how many choices life might bring her way, it was novelist or nothing)

No unknown words but especially these kind of sentences where I expect an "að" (that) before the clause but
for the life of me can't grasp why I shouldn't put it there. (So I expected it to be einu gildi að.... ) After a week
of repetition I got a general feeling - actually just got used to it and I could see some parallels with some other
patterns in the language. So the reason was if the clause sentence is starting with a question word you don't
use the "að". If I have just slipped this sentence I couldn't see this at all.

Laika var fyrsta lifandi veran sem fór út fyrir gufuhvolf jarðarinnar, en ekki tókst að lenda gervihnettinum aftur
á jörðu og örlög Laiku urðu þau að henni var fórnað í nafni líffræðirannsókna í geimnum.

(Laika became the first living being to leave the earth's atmosphere, but the sattelite was never recovered
(returned back to earth), and Laika ended up (kaderi, akibeti) sacrificed for the sake of biological research in
space)

Again there's no unknown word but I chose this one because of some expressions like "fara út fyrir", "lenda á
jörðu", "örlög Laiku urðu þau að". After some dabbling "fara út fyrir" has a meaning something like "go beyond
the boundaries of something" but I surely don't have a feeling yet for it and can't visualize it apart from a
satellite going beyond the boundaries of atmosphere with a poor dog inside. But in Icelandic you sometimes
just have to except things as how they are :)

lenda á jörðu: for so many years I've been using this as lenda til jarðar, a google seach leads considerably more
results on "lenda á jörðinni". Jörðu is also in the same case as jörðinni but it's indefinite. So I've corrected a long
over due mistake.

örlög Laiku urðu þau að: I would have worded probably in a different way but I just like this one and have
already put into use.

At the beginning stages I would recommend mostly solving out sentences on your own and then if you have a
bilingual text checking whether you got it correct. If there isn't any bilingual text if you aren't sure just ask a
native.

Again when I guess the meanings I look it up in Turkish and aim the target language until I'm really confident. I
utter it out loud when I'm saying it. The pace of your speech gets faster and faster each time. I don't attempt
to pass a sentence without speaking out loud because my aim is to talk in the target language but not
assuming that I will talk later. When I'm confident enough I can start mixing guessing both ways.

The other notebook I use for writing the sentences I learn. 5 times. But this time I do an initial test on the
sentences and sometimes I can remember them. The rest I write them down. One thing to mention is when I'm
tyring to guess the sentences at the initial phase if I'm getting around 80% of the sentence right I mark it as
correct. But if after 3rd time if it's not 100% correct it goes back to the start deck no mercy. Each time I fail to
remember a sentence I write the sentence down once slowly and saying each word out loud. After this I close
the sentence and try to say it again. If I can't say it still thoroughly I go and check the part of the sentence
that's causing the problem. Try to say it again. Probably you'll get it write the second time you look at it. Once
you say it correctly write it again saying it out loud word by word and visualizing the sentence. I consider this
process troublesome so it's an extra motivation for me not to fail my cards after I get to the 3rd, 4th deck :)

I'm finding many guys out there who use this sentence acquiring method so it definitely works for some people.
Like the guy who devoted himself for japanese studying he has a website called "ajatt" and two polish guys who
learned English within a very short time without ever leaving Poland and some more. But well those techniques
that they mention although very similar to mine it reinforces passive memory. They tend to guess from the
target language into their language and the ajatt guy suggests a ladder method if you're learning multiple
languages, meaning building the 3rd or 4th language on top of the previous one (guessing meanings through
those ones). I cannot quite agree but that works fine for them so it should also be a successful method.

Schliemann's method is based on also memorizing sentences. But I'm not a big advocate of it as it's a huge
task. According to him one should memorize a whole book and you should remember all the sentences in
order. It is surely achievable as I know there are many kids learning Quran for example in some countries where
Arabic isn't spoken, without understanding a single word in it. They manage to do it in a year. But even though
you would

There's also a shadowing technique (reciting or echoing on top of an audio file read by a native speaker, an
lengthy method nevertheless can be helpfull especially for the oral aspect of a language. I would do it with
some adaptations though. The guy himself put up a youtube video explaining this technique, I'd suggest
everyone to check that video.


I can't say that this is the only technique that I use, but this is like a fast-forward one for me. Another one is
basically without any flashcard method or anything and pretty straight-forward. Reading through the language
learning kit pretty fast, having a grasp of the language, a feeling for how the sentences constructed, I don't
have to know everything in detail. Finishing the book within 8-12 days. Then jumping into newspapers
checking any word that I'm curious about, checking quickly any grammar aspect that is foreign to me (and there
maybe a lot of them) reading reading reading and listening to the radio many hours. At one point everything
comes together but one needs to read and listen continuously. This is most suitable on a holiday where I don't
need to worry about anything and can study all day long for an extended period of time. But the big downside
is if you stop reading before you own the language, there's a big danger that you'll lose it all.

Thank you for reading thus far by the way. :)
(I'll edit typos later)

Happy new year everyone!
!שענה תובה
ּBoldog új evet!
Χρόνια πολλά!
Gleðilegt nýtt ár!
Mutlu seneler!

Edited by Hakan D on 31 December 2010 at 5:54am

3 persons have voted this message useful



Sunja
Diglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 6076 days ago

2020 posts - 2295 votes 
1 sounds
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: French, Mandarin

 
 Message 39 of 52
31 December 2010 at 2:23pm | IP Logged 
Yowza, that's a mouthful. Thanks! I've found a decent docking place for my sentences but it's getting full and I'm considering looking for other flash programs. It has to have a decent audio, though. I explain this more in my log. Thanks for your time!
1 person has voted this message useful



Hakan D
Tetraglot
Groupie
Turkey
Joined 5092 days ago

45 posts - 77 votes 
Speaks: Turkish*, Icelandic, English, German
Studies: Spanish, Greek, Swedish, Hungarian, Mongolian, Modern Hebrew, Russian

 
 Message 40 of 52
13 January 2011 at 12:05pm | IP Logged 
It's been quite a hectic beginning of a new year for me. I moved to Turkey from Iceland and will be staying here for about 5-6 months, trying to settle things, organize stuff etc. Therefore I couldn't study all that much. Nevertheless some Hebrew and Dutch study.

HEBREW (Total hours studied 23 - vocabulary study 3,5)
Almost finished with the 12th chapter that is I'm pretty confident with the usage of present, past tense and prepositions but still trying to get used to the future tense feeling but it'll take time. Currently at around 700 words (500 of which is pretty much acquired).

DUTCH Nothing much to talk about unfortunately but as the vocabulary is really similar to English and German it's not that difficult to learn new words. I should be studying these much more these days as I'm in the January Dutch Challenge.


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