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Élan’s TAC/6WC 2011 Team Ohana Log

 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
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Élan
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5232 days ago

165 posts - 211 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Persian

 
 Message 1 of 76
30 December 2010 at 3:48am | IP Logged 
Background
I have been self-studying Persian for about 8 months now. I tend to go through periods where I study like crazy, then don't study at all for months. This leaves me constantly trying to catch up! I enjoy reading logs and I think having a log to be accountable to would be a good thing for me.

So far, I have completed parts of the following programs:
65 lessons at EasyPersian.com
30 lessons of Pimsleur Farsi
10 lessons of TY Modern Persian
4 lessons of Living Language Persian

I'd rate myself at a high beginner level, I suppose. I'm much better at reading than I am at speaking.

Goals
Some of my language goals are a bit silly. I'd like to be able to:

Watch various Persian TV shows and understand the jokes
Have a basic understand of any Persian pop song I hear
Be able to comfortably have conversations in Persian

I'd like to focus on all my skills, but speaking will be the biggest challenge because I am so shy.

Materials
I plan to make use of the following materials:

My Anki decks: 1 with full sentences and 1 with words and short phrases
Living Language Farsi: I like how it focuses on speaking AND spelling in the casual style.
TY Modern Persian: This book is a bit more formal than LL. I find it quite frustrating to work through since the author seems to leave out a lot of information that is necessary to complete the exercises.
EasyPersian.com: I enjoy this site. The quiz each lesson often feels tedious, but I feel the owner does a great job getting users to review. I don't often forget the things I have learned from EasyPersian.
I also have access to plenty native materials when I reach that level.

Etc.
Since I am only studying one language for the TAC, I am trying to learn a lot about Iranian culture too. I plan to share music, recipes, movies, articles and more in this log. I welcome all comments!

Please visit my brilliant partner, ellasevia.

Edited by Élan on 01 August 2011 at 1:34am

1 person has voted this message useful



ellasevia
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2011
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 5930 days ago

2150 posts - 3229 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian
Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian

 
 Message 2 of 76
30 December 2010 at 4:41am | IP Logged 
سلام الان! حالت چطوره؟ من مى توانم فقط کمی فارسی حرف بزنم اما فکر مى کنم که ما تيم خيلى خوب هستيم. من از مرداد فارسى ياد بگيرم. فارسى زبانى قشنگه و از گشور مشغول کنندهه. اين سال با فارسى موفق باشى

I hope that text made sense, since I'm not very advanced in Persian yet. I'm excited to be on a Persian Team with you this year because I think it will be great for my motivation for Persian which was beginning to wane just a little, and it will also be good practice. You're a lot more advanced than I am, but we might be able to help each other out with it (although I suspect I won't be of much help because I can still barely string basic sentences together). In any case, good luck (movaffaq bâshi) with Persian this year. Go Team چ!

Ellasevia

P.S. Do you know how we can get the Persian text to behave on this website? It never lets me put punctuation at the end of my last sentence...
1 person has voted this message useful



Élan
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5232 days ago

165 posts - 211 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Persian

 
 Message 3 of 76
31 December 2010 at 12:15am | IP Logged 
سلام فیلیپ جان! خوشبختم! امیدوارم بتوانیم همکاری کنیم
Hello, dear Philip. It's a pleasure to meet you. I hope we can work together.


Some bad news: I don't think we'll ever get the Persian text to behave on this website. I don't even see a R > L option. :( Can't help you there. Luckily, I think I can be useful to you in other ways! Do you like Persian music? Poetry? Movies? TV shows? Food? I hope I can give you some useful recommendations to make Persian more fun again. Unfortunately, I think I've had a bit too much fun and a bit too little grammar!

This is a tad off topic, but I saw on your regular log that you got an iPod Touch for Christmas. If you have a minute, could you tell me how it has been helping you with languages? I want one, but I need a bit of convincing before I spend $400.

Go Team چ!
1 person has voted this message useful



ellasevia
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2011
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 5930 days ago

2150 posts - 3229 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian
Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian

 
 Message 4 of 76
31 December 2010 at 1:38am | IP Logged 
شب بخير الان

Sadness about the text. :(

I do very much like Persian music (the traditional kind; I don't know anything about modern music...from anywhere really), and have read some Persian poetry (in English) which was nice. I would assume I like Persian food, as I generally like Middle Eastern food very much, but to my knowledge I don't think I've ever tasted any. I don't know anything about Persian TV shows or movies though. However, I think just having a partner for Persian is exactly what I need to keep my motivation up! I was very excited when I saw you sign up for TAC for Persian. :)

My new iPod is really amazing! However, you should note that this is coming from someone whose previous one was barely recognizable as such by his peers because it was so old. Anyways, I haven't figured the whole thing out yet, but it's making things a lot easier for me. One big way is that I can now take my work with me! I can now do my Anki and kanji reviews while lying in bed as opposed to being stuck in an uncomfortable computer chair, or can look up words without having to go find a computer. Another obvious plus is that it has a lot more space (in comparison with my last one at least) so I can hold more material on it. For example, one feature is where you can download books/PDFs onto your iPod and take them with you. I currently have about 30 language books on there so that I can reference them and study without having to bring the actual book with me, or print out pages from the PDF. There are lots of other useful and cool features as well, like the ability to take notes. Last night I was sitting in bed, listening to the Michel Thomas Polish course for two hours, and using my iPod to look up the spelling of the new words and note them down in a vocabulary list I was making to add to Anki later. I'm probably forgetting a lot, but I'm really enjoying this new tool. :)

فيليپ
1 person has voted this message useful



Élan
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5232 days ago

165 posts - 211 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Persian

 
 Message 5 of 76
02 January 2011 at 3:59am | IP Logged 
Thank you so much for the useful reply. I think I may have to go purchase one! I am carpooling to school for all of January (1 hour each way) and since I am not driving, it would be great to be able to do flashcards in the car. I travel a lot too and while I bring my laptop, I don't like to take it out with me while I am walking in an unfamiliar country. The iPod is much less obvious in my purse. Thanks again!

I'm very happy to be able to officially start the TAC! Yesterday and today were spent completing lesson 12 of TY Modern Persian and catching up on my Anki reviews so I can start with a clean slate.

Although most of us have just celebrated the new year, Persians celebrate it on the first day of spring with a 3,000+ year old festival called Norooz. One interesting aspect of this holiday is a fellow called Amoo Norooz (Uncle Norooz), a white-bearded man who leaves presents for children. Sound like someone you know?
1 person has voted this message useful



Élan
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5232 days ago

165 posts - 211 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Persian

 
 Message 6 of 76
06 January 2011 at 3:38am | IP Logged 
So I went ahead and bought the iPod Touch. I am loving to so far, although I wish I had a Persian keyboard. I generally post on Facebook in Persian and it is a pain to use the Arabic keyboard. But it has lots of other nice features.

I am having trouble getting over this pneumonia, so this week I have been feeling really sick + going to school for 8 hours per day. My evenings are spent doing homework and writing lesson plans (I am getting my TEFL certificate), so I haven't done much studying. I did, however, manage to add 100 new cards to Anki. They contain sentences from TY Modern Persian. I was also able to work some sentences from Pimsleur into a conversation I had. Success!
1 person has voted this message useful



Préposition
Diglot
Senior Member
France
aspectualpairs.wordp
Joined 4902 days ago

186 posts - 283 votes 
Speaks: French*, EnglishC1
Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Swedish, Arabic (Levantine)

 
 Message 7 of 76
06 January 2011 at 3:44am | IP Logged 
Élan wrote:
So I went ahead and bought the iPod Touch. I am loving to so far, although I wish I had a Persian
keyboard. I generally post on Facebook in Persian and it is a pain to use the Arabic keyboard. But it has lots of
other nice features.

I am having trouble getting over this pneumonia, so this week I have been feeling really sick + going to school for 8
hours per day. My evenings are spent doing homework and writing lesson plans (I am getting my TEFL certificate),
so I haven't done much studying. I did, however, manage to add 100 new cards to Anki. They contain sentences
from TY Modern Persian. I was also able to work some sentences from Pimsleur into a conversation I had. Success!


They are on the Arabic keyboard, if you keep your finger on the key, a little list will appear with more letters,
including the Persian ones, than you can select easily.
2 persons have voted this message useful



Élan
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5232 days ago

165 posts - 211 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Persian

 
 Message 8 of 76
06 January 2011 at 3:56am | IP Logged 
Préposition wrote:
Élan wrote:
So I went ahead and bought the iPod Touch. I am loving to so far, although I wish I had a Persian
keyboard. I generally post on Facebook in Persian and it is a pain to use the Arabic keyboard. But it has lots of
other nice features.

I am having trouble getting over this pneumonia, so this week I have been feeling really sick + going to school for 8
hours per day. My evenings are spent doing homework and writing lesson plans (I am getting my TEFL certificate),
so I haven't done much studying. I did, however, manage to add 100 new cards to Anki. They contain sentences
from TY Modern Persian. I was also able to work some sentences from Pimsleur into a conversation I had. Success!


They are on the Arabic keyboard, if you keep your finger on the key, a little list will appear with more letters,
including the Persian ones, than you can select easily.


Thanks... I have been doing this, I just wish there was a keyboard with the Persian keys as default since I am not a very good "touch typer". And some of the keys are really not where I expect them! Hopefully Apple will do a Persian keyboard sometime, since I don't think it would take too much work to get rid of the Arabic-only letters and move the Persian letters to default. :)


1 person has voted this message useful



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