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Bak Triglot Senior Member Senegal Joined 6643 days ago 31 posts - 36 votes Speaks: Spanish, French*, English Studies: German
| Message 105 of 117 13 September 2007 at 2:30pm | IP Logged |
It's really nice to have you back.WELCOME BACK !!!!!
Like Awake I've joined the forum after you left and studied your post extensively.They are a real source of inspiration for many of us.
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| Cherepaha Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6588 days ago 126 posts - 175 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Spanish, Polish, Latin, French
| Message 106 of 117 13 September 2007 at 7:54pm | IP Logged |
Welcome back, Ardaschir!
Like many on this forum, I've joined in after you’ve left, but have been following the discussions of the earlier days of this board with enormous interest.
If you are still in the San Francisco Bay Area, and find it useful to practice Russian with the native speakers, there are a few events that occur here throughout the year, and can potentially be of interest. (My daughter’s Russian choir will be performing Mozart's Don Giovanni (in Russian) in Berkeley in December. There are a couple of plays that are being produced by the middle and high school Russian speaking children to be released in October and January in the Walnut Creek area, to name just a few.)
Varia
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| Taiga Diglot Groupie Australia Joined 6309 days ago 81 posts - 85 votes 5 sounds Speaks: English, Spanish Studies: Russian, Serbo-Croatian
| Message 107 of 117 13 September 2007 at 8:16pm | IP Logged |
Ardaschir wrote:
Greetings. I have not written in some time due to a great number of reasons, most of which have absolutely nothing to do with this forum, such as escaping a war zone, enjoying my two young sons, and balancing my languages. I recognize that I really have no choice but to interact with a computer for a certain amount of time each day, but I do not like doing this, and so I try very hard to limit that time. This forum is certainly one of the very best aspects of the whole internet culture, and so I would like to try to work it into my routine again, but I will not be able to post on the scale I did previously. For a while I felt that I had already said pretty much everything I had to say here, but enough time has elapsed that it seems we might hope to have some interesting discussions again. I have gained some new perspectives on the art of polyglottery over the past few years, and I would indeed like to share them with people who might possibly care about them. I am wondering what the best way for me to do that might be. I do not like ignoring any pointed questions that are directed my way, but I cannot handle the volume I used to get here. Unfortunately, I have yet to finish my book on language learning —- I have reworked it too many times and remain forever dissatisfied with it. Perhaps I ought to jettison it and begin anew. It is probably nothing more than an illusory dream, but I must confess that I do fantasize about ways of becoming a professional foreign language coach, counselor, or consultant, or of opening a foreign language exercise center, perhaps along the lines of a gym, perhaps along the lines of an idyllic retreat center. I have long since realized that there is no way to work polyglottery into any established educational curriculum, so the idea of founding an institute devoted solely to this pursuit has also crossed my mind. There are a fair number of people in the world who would say that they would like to learn a foreign language, but all too few act on that for polyglottery to be a lucrative career. Still, polglottery is very much its own reward… and with that, let me get back to my pen and my paper and my Arabic. |
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Hey, I've just googled your name. Were you actually in LEbanon during the bombing ?? OMG, I hope you and your family are OK !
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| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 7014 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map
| Message 108 of 117 14 September 2007 at 6:30am | IP Logged |
Taiga wrote:
Hey, I've just googled your name. Were you actually in LEbanon during the bombing ?? OMG, I hope you and your family are OK ! |
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Just read page 4 of this thread.
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| ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7255 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes
| Message 109 of 117 16 September 2007 at 9:02am | IP Logged |
Greetings again, and many thanks for all the warm welcomes. For the time being, I have decided that I will devote several hours each Sunday morning to writing for this forum. Let me begin this week’s post with some short responses to some of the pointed questions that came during the week:
I looked at the thread on the listening-reading system and was very favorably impressed. Indeed, I myself study languages in very much the same fashion when I am in what might most appropriately be considered the intermediate stage of acquisition. I am not so sure that this would be the best method for a typical student learning a relatively exotic language, but I think that audio books are a great means of getting most swiftly at the real living language itself and so learning directly from it. Thus, students who have already have already garnered language learning experience and who know that they learn in an intuitive fashion could very probably use this method to attain real abilities quite swiftly and efficiently in languages whose cultural vocabulary they already share.
As for the benefits of learning Arabic, and what I have gained from my pursuit of this language, I would have to say that the most important aspect of Arabic is its vocabulary. Arabic is probably the most important etymological fountainhead in human history. If you know the Arabic word, there is a good chance that you also know the word in an enormous range of other languages. Another beautiful aspect of Arabic is its diachronic transparency, i.e., the fact once you have learned to read it, you can read anything that has ever been written in it, even books that were written over a millennium ago. As for the best methods for learning it considering its difficulty, I would say this: when it comes to learning foreign languages, different equals difficult, and Arabic is indeed very different from European languages. So, there is simply no getting around the fact that you must put in a great number of hours, nor the fact that, even having done so, you will probably still never be as fluid as you could be in a Western language. Once this is acknowledged, however, remove the mental and psychological block of thinking that it is difficult and just accept it as it is. Do not image that you will master “it” by next year, but rather accept “her” as a friend whose companionship you will enjoy over a lifetime and whom you will get to know better and better once you have found a method that you truly and actively enjoy using. I cannot tell you what that method is in the abstract because there are so many methods out there, some of which are appropriate for some learning styles, others for others. I personally have profited most from repeated shadowing as I listen to stories and from making large copies of the pages of literary readers upon which I write the meaning of new words right underneath them, and which I then proceed to transcribe by hand.
Administrator, thank you very much for offering to set up a room of my own where people could ask me questions in a grouped fashion. “Ardaschir’s Tree” is a beautiful name, but I am afraid we are going to have to think of another one because before I write anymore I must address something that may seem rather strange: I need to stop being Ardaschir. I took that name because I admire the historical (or at least the legendary) figure, but I also gave it to my first-born son for the same reason. When I used it during my first incarnation on this forum, my son was not yet the fully articulate individual personality he now is, so I did not find it strange to be addressed as such, but now it strikes me as being uncomfortably odd. Shall I choose a new “user name?” I do not see the point. Everyone knows my real name anyway, so I would rather simply use it. Indeed, let me break off here right now and continue on the Alexander Arguelles thread.
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| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 7014 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map
| Message 110 of 117 16 September 2007 at 1:50pm | IP Logged |
Ardaschir wrote:
Do not image that you will master “it” by next year, but rather accept “her” as a friend whose companionship you will enjoy over a lifetime and whom you will get to know better and better once you have found a method that you truly and actively enjoy using. |
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That's an excellent way of putting it.
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| Topsiderunner Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6917 days ago 215 posts - 218 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Italian, Arabic (Written)
| Message 111 of 117 18 September 2007 at 7:36am | IP Logged |
I must join the chorus of those welcoming you back. You're posts have proved invaluable to me and I honestly
couldn't pay for the ideas I got from them. Thanks!
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| Nephilim Diglot Senior Member Poland Joined 7144 days ago 363 posts - 368 votes Speaks: English*, Polish
| Message 112 of 117 20 September 2007 at 2:58pm | IP Logged |
Welcome Back to the forum Ardaschir - you've been gone way too long and we all missed your excellent posts.I look forward to reading your new stuff.
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