Rhoda Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5604 days ago 166 posts - 196 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Latin, Swahili, Ancient Greek, German
| Message 57 of 115 25 August 2009 at 10:21pm | IP Logged |
OK.
I have the BEST news.
I have a job.
The perfect job.
In France.
Next summer!
It only lasts a month, after which I'll be moving on to another job in France.
But seriously I am so lucky to get this.
Now it is very, very imperative to brush up on my French...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SWAHILI
Just continuing rereading children's books!
Class starts tomorrow. I am so excited. I will have someone to talk to!!!
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Rhoda Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5604 days ago 166 posts - 196 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Latin, Swahili, Ancient Greek, German
| Message 58 of 115 26 August 2009 at 7:40pm | IP Logged |
SWAHILI
First class, we learned to count to ten by counting pens.
Kalamu moja, kalamu mbili, kalamu tatu, kalamu nne, kalamu tano, kalamu sita, kalamu saba, kalamu nane, kalamu tisa, kalamu kumi.
Counting to ten was the first thing I taught myself over the summer. I hope the pace picks up.
I do really really like my prof though! He is a cool guy.
FRENCH
Read some more Bienvenue au Club. Crac went on his first trail ride!
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bouda Senior Member United States Joined 5601 days ago 194 posts - 197 votes Speaks: English*
| Message 59 of 115 26 August 2009 at 8:44pm | IP Logged |
oh fantastic!! Congratulations on your job - I'm horribly envious.
Is kalamu pen in Swahili? Interesting... I learned it as qalam in Modern Standard Arabic.
I just checked on Wikipedia and noticed that around 35% of Swahili vocabulary derives
from Arabic, which you probably know/can surmise, but I didn't expect that at all! I
learn something new every day!
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Rhoda Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5604 days ago 166 posts - 196 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Latin, Swahili, Ancient Greek, German
| Message 60 of 115 27 August 2009 at 3:48am | IP Logged |
Thanks! I am so ridiculously excited for next summer & can't wait!
Yeah, kalamu means pen. That's cool...I read somewhere that Swahili has some Arabic influence, but since I don't know Arabic I never really notice. Do you recognize words like "-subiri" (wait) or "-samehe" (forgive)? I think if a Swahili verb does not end in "-a" then it is usually Arabic.
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Rhoda Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5604 days ago 166 posts - 196 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Latin, Swahili, Ancient Greek, German
| Message 61 of 115 27 August 2009 at 3:56am | IP Logged |
FRENCH
My summer job is going to rely a LOT on speaking/listening skills, so I put a major effort into polishing up my listening this afternoon! First I watched 20 minutes of Le Dîner de Cons (I couldn't find the middle & end parts anywhere! Big disappointment, since it is the funniest movie. I'll try to find it in the library). Then watched the first 10 minutes of Tarzan in French. And finally, I watched the entire French Aladdin. No subtitles of course! So it adds up to ~2 hours of listening practice. This is something I'll aim to keep up at least a day or two each week, in addition to reading.
I've finally figured out what my reading for this semester is (I'm not taking an actual French class at the moment, so I've decided to read 3 French books for fun throughout the semester). Currently, I'm almost done with Bienvenue au Club. After that, I'm really impatient to get on with Harry Potter et L'Ordre du Phénix. And finally, I'll reread Candide, which I read 2 years ago and loved but have now completely forgotten.
Edited by Rhoda on 29 August 2009 at 5:40pm
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Rhoda Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5604 days ago 166 posts - 196 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Latin, Swahili, Ancient Greek, German
| Message 62 of 115 27 August 2009 at 7:24pm | IP Logged |
SWAHILI
I've found some Swahili videos here: http://www.vimeo.com/326074
Which is excellent, since Swahili listening practice is much harder to come by than French.
So I've just spent about 60 min watching and listening. I also watched a couple things on GoogleVideo (some with subtitles, some without). I can pick up a few words here and there and get the gist of things, but if i had to take a detailed quiz on exactly what was said, I'd fail pretty badly :)
Anyway, Swahili is pretty simple to pronounce, but I'm going to fit in a lot more listening practice to help me really get the sounds down.
Edited by Rhoda on 27 August 2009 at 11:55pm
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Rhoda Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5604 days ago 166 posts - 196 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Latin, Swahili, Ancient Greek, German
| Message 63 of 115 28 August 2009 at 2:17am | IP Logged |
FRENCH
J'ai regardé La belle et la bête ce soir!
My big master French-tune-up plan involves massive amounts of input this semester--reading my three books of course, and watching French movies whenever I get the chance. Second semester, I'll focus more on speaking/writing (mostly speaking). I intend to join French Club (though it's apparently quite disorganized and inactive at the moment, but hopefully my friends and I can revive it!). So that will be good conversation practice, and I'll keep burying myself in French movies and books so that when summer arrives, I will practically be French!
And somehow I'll also keep up with Swahili and start laying the foundation for Russian. And pass my bio and chem exams.
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Rhoda Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5604 days ago 166 posts - 196 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Latin, Swahili, Ancient Greek, German
| Message 64 of 115 28 August 2009 at 4:45pm | IP Logged |
Another Swahili class.
Nina nini?
Una penseli na kalamu.
Nina karatasi?
Siyo, huna.
Nina penseli ngapi?
Una penseli tano.
I really like the prof so far. He uses Swahili a lot when telling us things ("simama" "njoo" "chukua penseli" n.k.)
Oh, by the way, n.k. = na kadhalika = etc.
Anyway, I'm definitely going to have to keep studying independently, since this class is going to be a review, but still, it's always good to review right? The format of the class reminds me a bit of FSI--repetition, drills--but it's not always as dry.
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