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German, Ancient Greek, French and Latin | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Theodisce Octoglot Senior Member Poland Joined 5666 days ago 127 posts - 167 votes  Speaks: Polish*, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian, Czech, French, English, German Studies: Italian, Spanish, Slovak, Ukrainian, Serbo-Croatian, Greek, Portuguese | Message 1 of 10 27 December 2009 at 4:41pm | IP Logged |
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I find writing a learning log quite good idea, it may be very self-motivating.
Some data first. French. Starting knowledge: I have been studying French for a year and a half. I've done Pimsleur level I, 8 basic course CD's of Michel Thomas and I have been using vocabulary trainer. The substantial part has been reading a lot almost every single day. Reading is my strongest point in French, I can, however, participate in simple chat conversation and write a few paragraphs using dictionary for accentuation marks. I've created two rather tiny entries for French Wikipedia and nobody there suggested I should stop- perhaps French just don't care ; ). I can also listen a lecture in French, as long as the subject is known, and follow the main line. Tools: Assimil, currently I'm doing 26h lesson. Michel Thomas. University lectures from Itunes. Books: everything that suits me, various digitalized outdated books being a part of it. Aims: Finish Assimil. Finish Michel Thomas. More confidence. Developing writing skills. *** German: Starting knowledge: I had it during my school years, but I didn't progress much. As for French, recent year was essential. I can read some academic books and listen to lectures, however my active skills are limited. Tools: First Michel Thomas, then Assimil. Lectures from Itunes. Aims: Develop active skills, especially writing. Edit German Wikipedia and survive. **** Latin. Starting knowledge: I've lean quite a lot. I can read some authors, like Cicero and Nepos with about 80-90& understanding. Still, poetry may be tricky. Tools: Grammar books for better grammar foundation. Latin literature. Aims: Enrich vocabulary. Make better my hexameter. Learn some poetry by heart. Read all Bucolics, Georgics and Aeneis of Virgil, a few orations and philosophical treaties of Cicero. And some extra medieval text for relax, as they tend to be easier than classical. *** Greek: Starting knowledge: I know how the grammar works in general. I have some vocabulary items acquired. Tools: Original Greek texts and grammar books. Some recordings perhaps? Aims: Read entire Anabasis of Xenophon. Enrich vocabulary. Learn irregular verbs. Gain better command of grammar. Some New Testament and maybe Septuagint for relax, as it is quite easier and the content is much more familiar to me. *** Now, I can not handle doing every language every day. An extra goal is to learn how to work systematically. So, let us start. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Theodisce Octoglot Senior Member Poland Joined 5666 days ago 127 posts - 167 votes Speaks: Polish*, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian, Czech, French, English, German Studies: Italian, Spanish, Slovak, Ukrainian, Serbo-Croatian, Greek, Portuguese | Message 2 of 10 28 December 2009 at 1:33pm | IP Logged |
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Yesterday I did my Assimil French lesson, about 30 minutes of Michel Thomas German and proceeded from 1.2.19 to 1.2.24 in Xenophon's Anabasis. Is see I'm getting know how to deal with Greek vocabulary, which is similar to that of German, Latin and Polish in it's essence: meaningful prefixes and suffixes, meaning deductible from previously known words etc. I also ordered a Loeb edition of the book, to not be bound to online resources and a library.
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| elbereth Triglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5268 days ago 22 posts - 23 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Latin | Message 3 of 10 28 December 2009 at 3:23pm | IP Logged |
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Wow,it seems you are almost oppositeto me.I learnt French and German up to A-level,so picked yup a lot.Latin also,though I will brush up on it.You have set quite a target for your Latin texts.I assume some of the works,like the Aeneid are over 100 pages of Latin? Ancient Greek,I may leave,though you imptress me by having learnt the grammar;you seem to be progressing well.I used set textbooks for the latter courses,"Reading Latin" and "Reading Greek",there was practical grammar book and also a book with texts for both courses if you wanted to search for those.What are Assimil and Michel Thomas German?
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| staf250 Pentaglot Senior Member Belgium emmerick.be Joined 5477 days ago 352 posts - 414 votes Speaks: French, Dutch*, Italian, English, German Studies: Arabic (Written) | Message 4 of 10 28 December 2009 at 3:36pm | IP Logged |
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I don't know the Michel Thomas language courses. Assimil is the short or brand name for an enormous amount of
language courses, following the idea and method of André Chérel a Frenchman. The first Assimil courses were French based, but nowadays there are books and audio from 13 base languages to learn really many languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Theodisce Octoglot Senior Member Poland Joined 5666 days ago 127 posts - 167 votes Speaks: Polish*, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian, Czech, French, English, German Studies: Italian, Spanish, Slovak, Ukrainian, Serbo-Croatian, Greek, Portuguese | Message 5 of 10 29 December 2009 at 11:34am | IP Logged |
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elbereth- yes, some of the Latin texts are quite long. But I have already read the second book of Aeneid and quite a large amount of Cicero's writing. So I believe it's doable. I want to be a classicists, so it is also a matter of being well prepared for my work.
As far as Ancient Greek is concerned, I feel I'm repeating my previous experiences with the vocabulary of a new language. Looking at the dictionary for the half of the words in a text may be annoying, but I have experienced it 4 times in my life already and the great benefit is that I am prepared for difficulties. Michel Thomas was a Polish Jew, war hero, linguist, polyglot and inventor of his own method of teaching foreign languages. He teaches how to build sentences and introduces you gradually into the very mechanics of a language. The method is an audio one, which means I can try to lose my weight still listening to it- and it really works. It has helped me enormously with my French and is doing the same for my German. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Theodisce Octoglot Senior Member Poland Joined 5666 days ago 127 posts - 167 votes Speaks: Polish*, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian, Czech, French, English, German Studies: Italian, Spanish, Slovak, Ukrainian, Serbo-Croatian, Greek, Portuguese | Message 6 of 10 29 December 2009 at 11:38am | IP Logged |
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Yesterday I did my Assimil lesson- which was a short one, read a few pages of Cicero, and I was listening to Michel Thomas German for 30 minutes. Then I started reading Anabasis from the very beginning, this time with a historical commentary and a map, which was much more beneficial than reading the text alone.
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| Theodisce Octoglot Senior Member Poland Joined 5666 days ago 127 posts - 167 votes Speaks: Polish*, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian, Czech, French, English, German Studies: Italian, Spanish, Slovak, Ukrainian, Serbo-Croatian, Greek, Portuguese | Message 7 of 10 28 September 2012 at 5:24pm | IP Logged |
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OK, it's been a long time since I posted here. I feel like revitalizing (well, resurrecting in fact) this old log.
To begin with, I'd like to post a list of the languages I have been working since the beginning of the year 2011 with the number of hours I spent with each of them for the past two years. English 500 hours Czech 495 hours French 180 hours Russian 141 hours Slovak 110 hours Latin 80 hours Ancient Greek 58 hours German 22 hours Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian 21 hours Spanish 13 hours Ukrainian 8 hours Old Czech, Belarusian, Old Catalan/Old Aragonese, Macedonian, Bulgarian- less than 5 hours per language. My ongoing goals are: maintaining and developing further my English, Czech, Greek and Latin, achieving German passive proficiency sufficient to enable me to read books and listen to lectures with a decent degree of comprehension and checking how many hours it takes to do the same with Ukrainian and Serbo-Croatian (hence I'll be calling it BCS). Ned�vno za�al jsem v�uku ukrajin�tiny. Naproti tomu, �e tento jazyk pat�� k v�chodn� skupin� slovansk�ch jazyk� spolu z ru�tinou a b�loru�tinou, m� mnoho spole�n�ho z pol�tinou, asi tolik, kolik pol�tina se sloven�inou. Samoz�ejm�, fonetick� pol�tina se vice bl�� sloven�in�, ale je nutn� ��ci, �e z spole�n� slovn� z�soba ukrajin�tiny ve mnohem podob� se t� polsk�. Je to dan� dlouholet�m �ivotem Ukrajinc� a Pol�k�, bu� to v b�val�m Polsko-Litevsk�m kr�lovstv�, bu� pod nadvl�dou Ruska a Rakousk� monarchie. Zjistil jsem, �e ukrajinsk� statn� radio umo�n� poslech d�iv� emitovan�ch po�adu v podob� podkast�. Te� poslouch�m cyklus v�nov�ny dvacetilet� nez�visle Ukrajiny. Edited by Theodisce on 28 September 2012 at 5:25pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Theodisce Octoglot Senior Member Poland Joined 5666 days ago 127 posts - 167 votes Speaks: Polish*, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian, Czech, French, English, German Studies: Italian, Spanish, Slovak, Ukrainian, Serbo-Croatian, Greek, Portuguese | Message 8 of 10 29 September 2012 at 5:37pm | IP Logged |
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The process of reading Cyrillic, be it Russian or Ukrainian, is becoming less and less painful. As a matter of fact, most of what I've been doing with my Russian and Ukrainian was in a form of audio material. My friend suggested that I should become more or less familiar with the sound of Russian first and start reading only after that. It kinda works. The funny thing I can read Ukrainian with greater ease than Russian, although the amount of time I spent with the former is ridiculously small as compared to the time I spent with Russian.
Today I was reading Mykhailo Hrushevskyi's History of Ukraine. For some reason fiction does not appeal to me so much as historiography does, so I decided to explore the work of this man who is a major figure in Ukrainian culture. One funny thing I noticed is that I don't feel like giving up to the wanderlust, something I had been engaged in for few months. I like the idea of focusing on Ukrainian just for now. We shall see if I'll be of the same mind tomorrow. OK, enough for today, I had a terrible sleepless night after all. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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