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TAC My poor overwhelmed brain | ||
Tags: Afrikaans | Wanderlust | Brain | Teach Yourself | Finnish | Swedish | Vocabulary learning | Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC) | Pronunciation | Grammar | Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5928 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 113 of 223 17 May 2009 at 5:13am | IP Logged | ||
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Afr: Ek kan nou oor voornamwoorde skryf. Eerste, ek sal vraag, Waarom leer voornaamwoorde? Meeste mense wat nooit veel tale leer nie sê ek sou begin met groete en miskien werkwoorde. Ek stèm nie saam, omdat ek ken voornaamwoorde is iets dat ek in enige taal seker kan gebruik. Wanneer ek begin om 'n nuwe taal te lees en moet in 'n woordeboek vir onbekend woorde soek, ek sien dat baie maal die voornaamwoorde is meer gewoonlik as anders woorde. Dus moet ek die voornaamwoorde eerste leer en dan enige ander woorde. Ek is baie verbaas dat ek nou in Afrikaans so gemaklik kan tik, ek het slegs die woordeboek vir "voornaamwoord" en "onbekend" gebruik.
I was just explaining that I like to learn pronouns first because I think they are the most common words I encounter in any language. Also I learned a new word: "voornaamwoord". Now onto the actual pronouns which I will list in the follwing order Finnish-Spanish-Afrikaans. In Spanish the personal pronouns can often be left out or used only for special emphasis, because the verb conjugations make the personal pronouns redundant. I think to a lesser extent this is true in Finnish but there are a few Finnish pronouns that must be included for a sentence to be understood correctly. NOTE: The pronouns in Finnish are inflected in most of the case endings, but that would take too long to list here, but perhaps in later posts. minä-yo-ek (I) In Finnish and Spanish "Minä olen" and "Yo soy" (I am) can also be simply "Olen" or "soy" respectively. "Ek is" won't make sense without "Ek" sinä-tú-jy (you; singular informal) Now here's where things get tricky hän-él/ella-hy/sy (he/she) In Finnish whether or not "hän" means "he" or "she" depends on context, unlike Indo-European languages there is no genderization at all, I've read that the Finnish sometimes get the gender-specific pronouns mixed up in other languages. In Afrikaans, "sy" also means "his" something which occasionally confuses me. me-nosotros-ons (we) te-ustedes-julle/u (you plural and in Spanish and Finnish also the formal form of you) "U" is a formal term that is rarely used in Afrikaans. Vosotros is an informal plural "you" in Spanish, but is only used in Spain, so I did not list it. Te refers to people and living things. Along with Ustedes Spanish also has ellos/ellas, ellos refers to a group of men or a group of men and women, but ellas refers to a group of women only. This post has taken a long time, now I want to learn more about Finnish verb conjugations and the past tense in Spanish before I get too tired; I've discovered that although Finnish does not appear to use double negatives (what a pity!) it looks like "ei" which menas "no" conjugates like a verb, this is fascinating. But there will be more ponouns in my next post. On a somewhat unrelated note I read something the other day about a Hungarian polyglot named Lomb Kato. She learned 17 languages and even wrote a book Polyglot: How I learn Languages explaining her approach to learning languages. I've only just started reading it, but I already find it very informative and interesting, one quote from her that I like is "We should learn languages because language is the only thing worth knowing even poorly". Hyvää yöta Goeie nag Buenas noches Mick Edited by mick33 on 25 February 2012 at 9:39am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5928 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 114 of 223 21 May 2009 at 7:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have been unable to post here this week because my computer stopped working Sunday evening and the problem hasn't been fixed yet. I have continued studying my target languages and hope to get my computer working soon so I can post more messages here next week. Edited by mick33 on 04 August 2009 at 11:59pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5928 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 115 of 223 29 May 2009 at 10:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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Afr:Ek sal vandag 'n kort boodskap skryf, die weer is lekker en ek wil my fiets ry. My rekenaar is nog nie herstel nie, maar ek kan nie wag om hier te tik nie. Jammer dat hierdie pos sal nie oor voornaamworde wees nie.
Ek is seker nou dat ek moet meer Fins woordeskat leer en nie so veel grammatika nie, dan sal ek soms Fins skryf. Ongelukkig, ek dink dat in my Spaans klas, ek het baie veel woordeskat geleer, maar slegs 'n bietjie grammatika, dus is ek baie onseker oor wat ek wil om in Spaans te sê. Eng: My computer is still not fixed (stupid Microsoft Windows!)but I can't postpone this log any longer, though it's too nice a day to stay inside. I've stopped focusing on Finnish grammar so I can learn more words, but in Spanish I've decided I need to learn more grammar and not so much vocabulary as I always worry that my sentences are incorrect. Lekker naweek Mick Edited by mick33 on 12 August 2009 at 1:51am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5928 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 116 of 223 03 June 2009 at 1:46am | IP Logged | ||
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My computer will not be fixed for another couple of weeks, so I promise this is the last time I will make mention of it not working. I'll just be posting less frequently, though considering that I planned to post here three times a week and have sometimes only managed one post a week and a few times I've managed four or five posts in a week (I think it's only happened twice) perhaps this isn't much of a change.
Now for the important stuff: Finally, I get to learn one of the past tenses in Spanish, unfortunately there are at least two past tenses, the preterite and the imperfect. Right now I'm learning the preterite tense which seems simple, it describes actions which were done and completed in the past. To give one example for regular verbs that end with -ar in the infinitive "comprar" conjugates thus:"yo compré tú compraste Ud./él/ella compró nosotros/as compramos vosotros/as comprasteis Uds/ellos/ellas compraron I've decided to learn the conjugations for vosotros even though I know I'll have to go to spain to find anyone who uses it in speaking. Example for regular verbs that end with -er in the infinitive "vender" becomes: yo vendí tú vendiste Ud./él/ella vendió nosotros/as vendimos vosotros/as vendisteis Uds/ellos/ellas vendieron Example for regular verbs that end with -ir in the infinitive "escribir will now become: yo escribí tú escribiste Ud./él/ella escribió nosotros/as escribimos vosotros/as escribisteis Uds/ellos/ellas escribieron. Another thing to know is that some verbs that change their stems in the present tense follow the regular conjugation rules in the preterite tense, meaning that "volver" and "jugar", two verbs whose present tense conjugations were giving me fits just a few weeks ago because of the the spelling changes; o:ue and u:ue respectively now play by the rules!?!? HOW FRUSTRATING to finally get used to the spelling changes only to have them change back to the infinitive stem for the preterite tense ....DAAMMNN!! I was very frustrated with the Spanish preterite tense last night, but instead of giving up and eating a late night snack (which I didn't need) I actually decided to learn more of the verb conjugations so I can get better acquainted with them. For Finnish verb tenses, what I've found out so far is that Teach Yourself Finnish claims that the verbs are divide into four, or is it five, groups. Here I will digress to state that I do not usually go through the Teach Yourself books the way the authors intend; rather I often jump around trying to learn the vocabulary and grammar that I want to actually learn, otherwise I get frustrated because it seems that TY Finnish wants me to know how to ask directions in Helsinki in the fourth chapter, something I would save for later on. Asking directions is useful information, but right now I would rather learn how to say "I'm very hungry and will be going home soon to eat the chicken that has been roasting in my crockpot." as the preceding sentence has far more relevance for me presently. But getting back to the verb tenses of Finnish. There are four tenses: a present tense, and what appear to be three past tenses. No I have not neglected the future tense, there is no future tense one simply says somthing like "luen huomenna" (I read tomorrow), Minä is not required as the conjugated form "luen" tells the reader or listener that I'm the one who will be doing the action. I haven't forgotten about the pronouns, I just failed to complete the partial post from a few weeks ago. Näkemiin Mick Edited by mick33 on 25 February 2012 at 9:42am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5928 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 117 of 223 04 June 2009 at 2:52am | IP Logged | ||
There do seem to three past tenses, the imperfect, perfect and pluperfect. However, I must have missed something when I read TY Finnish yesterday; there are actually six groups of verbs and these are based on how the stems of the verbs change YIKES!!! It looks like these stem changes are part of consonant gradation and maybe I'm getting into material that's too advanced, but I have found a Finnish verb conjugator that looks like it will be more helpful than the verbix conjugator site. I need to study mathematics now, and also more Finnish and maybe a little Swedish before I go to sleep. Mick Edited by mick33 on 04 June 2009 at 2:53am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5928 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 118 of 223 06 June 2009 at 12:48am | IP Logged | ||
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I've given in to wanderlust again! I don't know exactly why I'm curious about Swedish, perhaps I like the melodious sounds? Is it because Sweden and Finland are neighboring countries with a complicated relationship not unlike that of the USA and Canada or England and Ireland? I should add that if this is my main motivation my next wanderlust language could logically be Russian. Most likely, as I know I stated a few weeks ago, I'm taking a circuitous approach to the Germanic languages by dabbling a little in nearly every Germanic language except High German itself.
At any rate, this bout of wanderlust is fun, but challenging; not the least because I like to listen to music with lyrics sung in my target language, because it helps at first with pronunciation and getting accustomed to the rhythms of the language which is important for me because I'm somewhat of a musical person. Surprisingly I have had little trouble finding music sung in Afrikaans or Finnish, but Swedes often sing in English, though I have found more songs to listen to in Swedish than I have in Standaard Nederlands. Now it's time for me to go shopping and then study Spanish. Nos vemos Mick EDIT: It's embarassing how many typographical errors I make in English, I noticed a few in this mesage and decided to correct them even though they are only minor mistakes. Edited by mick33 on 02 November 2009 at 7:56am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5928 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 119 of 223 08 June 2009 at 7:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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I must resist temptation, I do not have time to start learning Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish; though they are interesting. My initial impressions are that Swedish and Norwegian sometimes sound like they are being sung rather than spoken,while Danish has the most unique sounds of any Indo-European language I've heard (but what would I know, I'm not an expert by any means) but it's spelling looks virtually identical to that of Norwegian Bokmål, which might make things tricky when, or if, I actually do learn these languages, though these issues won't be a concern until next year at the earliest.
Sunday evening I found out that a DVD about a religious topic that I've owned for about a year has subtitles and dubbed audio in Finnish. I know that many people on this forum consider dubbing to be a cardinal sin, and I usually agree; but I was just so excited to discover that I actually have something to read and listen to in Finnish and since I already know what the video is about I could focus on the Finnish language. I did notice that the subtitles didn't always match the spoken Finnish precisely; there were some times when the word order in sentences was different, but I doubt this matters too much. More significantly, I realized that when asking a question in Finnish there are no intonation or pitch changes, or at least nothing similar to the rising pitch at the end of question in Spanish or English, either use a "question word" such as "mitä", "missä" etc. or add what I will call a "question sufix" (I can't think of a better word or phrase to describe this) such as "ko/kö" or "kin", this will definitely be important to remember. There are more "question words" and maybe more suffixes, but I don't have time to look them up right now. I was also pleasantly surprised that I recognized about 1/4 of the words I was hearing or reading; I know that's not enough, and I still can't claim to comprehend Finnish well yet, but it was encouraging. Shame on me!!! I neglected Afrikaans over the weekend, and I will look for something interesting to read later today, just to make sure I don't forget much. I studied some Spanish on Saturday, but did nothing for Spanish Sunday and I have a test on Wednesday, so I already know I'll be studying Spanish this evening. Lekker dag Mick Edited by mick33 on 02 November 2009 at 7:59am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5928 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 120 of 223 09 June 2009 at 11:10pm | IP Logged | ||
hasta luego lekker bly voi hyvin! Mick 1 person has voted this message useful |
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