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Various languages for 2010 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| elvisrules Tetraglot Senior Member BelgiumRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5473 days ago 286 posts - 390 votes  Speaks: French, English*, Dutch, Flemish Studies: Lowland Scots, Japanese, German | Message 1 of 7 27 December 2009 at 11:05pm | IP Logged |
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I doubt I'll be able to reach all my goals as a lot of time will probably be taken up by university, but I think these are all feasible if I put in the effort.
Japanese Level end 2009: around A1 Goal by end 2010: around B2 I study Japanese at university and am supposed to reach A2 by the end of the university year in June, and B1 by the end of the first semester of the second year in December 2010. I hope to study ahead of what we see in class though and reach B2 by then. Means: University lectures and class materials (Modern Japanese v.I, II, III, Nagoya University) + Assimil Japanese I & II for self-study Reason for studying: I love the Japanese pop culture. Dutch Level end 2009: C1 Goal by end of 2010: C2 (by June) Means: I plan to follow an evening course of academic Dutch (C2 level) from February to June 2010. Reason for studying: I live in Flanders. French Level end 2009: around C2 passive, B2/C1 active (was easily C2 years ago but lost fluency due to lack of use) Goal by end of 2010: C2 Means: Talking to strangers on Skype. Comments: Not sure if I will work to improve my written French. Yoruba Level end 2009: None Goal by end of 2010: equivalent A2/B1 Means: FSI Basic and intermediate (if I make it through basic). If I find FSI too much on its own, I might buy Teach Yourself to use alongside it. Reason for studying: It was my grandfather's mother tongue and I am strongly motivated to learn it to fluency before I die (preferably sooner than later). A few of his descendants speak it basically, and one intermediately, but none fluently, which I find sad. Comments: From what I have read, Yoruba is an easy language in terms of grammar, vocabulary and spelling, but that the tones are very hard to master. Perhaps this goal is too optimistic. Scots Level end 2009: passive understanding Goal by end of 2010: equivalent C1 Materials: websites, my father, online recordings and a small book on the Central Scots dialect Reason for studying: the mother tongue of my father and three grandparents, two of which survive but no longer speak it, I hope to fix this by learning it so I can speak it to them. My grandmother tends to have a "one should speak proper" kind of attitude, I hope I can remedy that. Comments: There doesn't seem to be too much material for Scots. I found a course with tapes on Amazon, but it was sold out. Luckily there are some good website with grammar and vocabulary lists. I don't think it'll be too hard, just a question of adapting my English bit by bit until I'm satisfied it's "Scots enough". Scottish Gaelic Level end 2009: A1 Goal by end of 2010: equivalent A2 Materials: teach yourself book, other grammar book, online recordings Reason for studying: I'm Scottish and it's an official language of Scotland. Also, it's the last living language which ancestors of mine spoke (after English, Yoruba and Scots). Comments: I plan to follow a week or two summer course in Scotland. West Flemish Level end 2009: none Goal by end of 2010: A1/A2 (flirt) Materials: the 'Akademie voor Nuuze Vlaemsche Taele' sell a coursebook with CDs based on the dialect spoken in French Flanders: I plan to buy this as well as use the West Flemish Wikipedia and the Vlaamse Taal website as sources on the language. Reason for studying: I'm very interested in the dialect because it's not mutually intelligible with other Dutch dialects. It's about 40% different from standard Dutch and ressembles Middle Dutch except with a heavily gallicized vocabulary. I would really appreciate comments/criticism(constructive)/suggestions/etc! Thanks! EDIT: This was supposed to be all the languages, but it's only January and I've already started on German... I don't know how long I plan to take this so I won't set any targets. Edited by elvisrules on 06 January 2010 at 10:15pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6707 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 7 28 December 2009 at 1:01am | IP Logged |
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I have spent some time on Scots lately, and my most important sources were the text collections at www.scottishcorpus.ac.uk, the Scots Wikipedia, and last, but not least the to-way Scottish <-> English online dictionary at www.scots-online.org.
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| elvisrules Tetraglot Senior Member BelgiumRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5473 days ago 286 posts - 390 votes Speaks: French, English*, Dutch, Flemish Studies: Lowland Scots, Japanese, German | Message 3 of 7 28 December 2009 at 3:41am | IP Logged |
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Forgot to mention that I plan to flirt with West Flemish as well, added it above.
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| elvisrules Tetraglot Senior Member BelgiumRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5473 days ago 286 posts - 390 votes Speaks: French, English*, Dutch, Flemish Studies: Lowland Scots, Japanese, German | Message 4 of 7 03 January 2010 at 2:42am | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the link to the Scottish Corpus Iversen, I didn't know about that website.
I was looking into similarities between Scots and Dutch today, and here are my notes: nummers: ane/ain/een - one - één twa - two - twee seiven - seven - zeven aicht - eight - acht first/airst - first - eerst Germaanse nummerrekening -inversie (bv: ane an twinty i.p.v. twinty ane) -halfuren gerekend vanaf het uur daarvoor (bv: half twa [1:30] i.p.v. half ane) ->gebruikt vaak tot het midden van de 20e eeuw, nu zelden door Engelse invloed. nae/no - no - nee cairt - map - kaart hairst - autumn - herfst leid - language - taal ('lied') yon(der)/thon(der) - over there - ginder learn - learn/teach - leren scrieve - scribble - kribbelen ('schrijven') nether - lower - neer(neder) hit/it - it - het/'t waur - where - waar wilk - which - welk hoo - how - hoe ee(n) - eye - oog/ogen shae/shuin - shoe(s) - schoen(en) haund - dog - hond mutch - cap - kap/muts tae ken - to know - kennen/weten kent - knew/known - gekend kirk - church - kerk tae gae - to go - gaan dooble - bubble - dubbel tae haud - to keep - houden lang - long - lang tae bak - to bake - bakken bakken - baked - gebakken yestreen - yesterday - gisteren 'au'/'o'/ou' auld - old - oud cauld - kold - koud 'oo'/'ou'/'o' roond/round/rond pund/pound/pond 'oo'/'ow'/'u' oor - hour - uur noo - now - nu 'oo'/'ow'/'oe' hoo - how - hoe coo - cow - koe 'oo'/'ow'/'ui' hoose - house - huis moose - mouse - muis 'ai'/'o'/'ee' maist - most - meest ane - one - een 'ch'/'gh'/'ch' aicht - eight - acht richt - right - recht wecht - weight - gewicht dochter - daughter - dochter licht - light - licht fecht - fight - gevecht nicht - night - nacht micht - might - mocht brocht - brought - bracht thoucht - thought - dacht Lidwoord voor een taal: Hoo wid ye say tha in the Dutch?/How would you say that in Dutch?/Hoe zou je dat zeggen in het Nederlands? MAAR-> He cannae speak the French/He can't speak French/Hij kan geen Frans (spreken) meer diminutieven: -ie lad, laddie lass, lassie wife, wiffie postman, postie kiltie (gekilt soldaat) -ock/ag [beïvloed door het Schots Gaelisch dimuniefsuffix -ag] -> -ockie bittock (beetje) playock (spelletje) bairnag (kindje) hooseockie (huisje) wifeockie (vrouwtje) Gebruik van 'the' waar het in het Engels niet zou gedaan worden Hij gaat naar 'de' kerk/He's going to church/He's awa tae 'the' kirk. Wi the train/by train/met de trein 'e' uitgeproken tussen l/r en medeklinker als de lettergreep daarmee begint: fil(e)m Metingen blijven vaak in het enkelvoud twa kilometre - two kilometres - twee kilometer fower euro - four euros - vier euro Betrekkelijk voornaamwoord: altijd 'that' (zoals dat/die), hoewel het vaak 'wha'(who) in Schots literatuur is, en altijd zo in het geschreven Engels (howel 'that' wel ook in de spreektaal gebruikt wordt) Het Scots gebruikt constructies met dubbelhulpwerkwoorden, iets wat in het Engels nooit wordt gedaan I uised tae coud dae it, but no noo - I used to be able to do it but not now - Vroeger kon ik dat doen, maar nu niet. He shuid coud come the morn - He should be able to come tomorrow - Hij zou morgen moeten kunnen komen. gelijkenissen met het Vlaams: lidwoord voor de naam van dag van de week Hij gaat op café op de Zaterdag. He gaes tae the pub on the Seturday. 'f' wordt niet 'v' (zoals in sommigen Vlaamse dialecten) a laif/twa laifs - a loaf/two loaves - een brood a wife/twa wifes - a wife/two wives - een vrouw ('een wijf/twee wijven') a knife/twa knifes - a knife/two knives - een mes/twee messen 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| elvisrules Tetraglot Senior Member BelgiumRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5473 days ago 286 posts - 390 votes Speaks: French, English*, Dutch, Flemish Studies: Lowland Scots, Japanese, German | Message 5 of 7 03 January 2010 at 2:55am | IP Logged |
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I've almost finished going through my coursebook Modern Japanese I and have done the first 23 lessons of Assimil, I'm really liking the technique so far.
Listened to a lot of Gaelic music this week. I would love to speak this fluently one day, I have to resist studying it until later on in the year though as I am already too caught up with other languages. I'm well into the Tone drills of the FSI Basis Yoruba. I've learnt practically nothing of the language so far other than practicing the tones. The course recommends spending 25 to 50 hours on tone drill practice before starting Unit 1 'How are you'! This is drastically different from other language studying methods I've learnt with and I hope it gets more interesting once I'm on the units themselves. The tones seem much harder than those in Mandarin, though that might be due to my just starting to study it. The course recognizes 4 tones, whereas from what I've read online on the language, it seems to state that it has only 3 tones (+ a flat one). This is probably due to the age of the course. There are only small Yoruba online dictionaries, but when I searched up a word which ended with a 'mid rising' tone in the FSI coursebook, it was spelt with simply a 'rising' tone. Perhaps it was found that the difference between the two tones was insignificant. Unfortunately African languages are unpopular with learners, and when they do opt for one, it's most often Swahili which despite having a low number of first language speakers (much less than Yoruba), has a larger number of second language speakers. It's clear to me anyhow that I'm in desperate need for a good modern Yoruba dictionary and grammar book. Unfortunately however I have no idea what to look for. Edited by elvisrules on 03 January 2010 at 2:58am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| elvisrules Tetraglot Senior Member BelgiumRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5473 days ago 286 posts - 390 votes Speaks: French, English*, Dutch, Flemish Studies: Lowland Scots, Japanese, German | Message 6 of 7 06 January 2010 at 10:11pm | IP Logged |
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I just had the first of 5 mid-year Japanese language exams, the written exam. I still have listing comprehension, kanji, oral and essay. I am not sure if I will pass these...
I realized that one area in which I'm seriously lacking is the passive Kanji I'm supposed to learn. There were a series of questions I probably could have answered, knowling the grammar, but was unable to as I didn't recognize the Kanji... Perhaps I should get ahold of the Heisig books, though I didn't like the look of the method when I flipped through once. The frustrating thing is that I know I could have reached the required level and beyond if I had only focused on Japanese since the beginning of the semester. I find this impossible to do however and get constantly distracted by other languages, even now in the middle of the exam period. Edited by elvisrules on 06 January 2010 at 10:12pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| elvisrules Tetraglot Senior Member BelgiumRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5473 days ago 286 posts - 390 votes Speaks: French, English*, Dutch, Flemish Studies: Lowland Scots, Japanese, German | Message 7 of 7 06 January 2010 at 10:29pm | IP Logged |
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I got really distracted by German last week.
I hadn't tried looking at it since I became fluent in Dutch last year, and was surprised as to the similarities. Out of the 50 random words (mostly basic ones) or so I've looked at, over 70% are cognate with Dutch words, sometimes with a slightly different meaning, but often the same. And over 90% of these cognates have the same gender as in Dutch. Though few Netherlanders now know whether a 'de' word is masculine or feminine, most Flemings do, as they are distinguished grammatically unlike in Dutch. I sort of got the impression that German is an older Dutch with cases with a slightly different vocabulary. I doesn't seem like it would be too difficult to learn and it would definitely improve my Flemish and Dutch. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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