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Mani’s language confusion in Lux. | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4693 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 17 of 28 29 December 2011 at 8:22pm | IP Logged | ||
That's a pretty good reason ... now I'm thinking about consolidating my logs too! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Mepisevaerg Newbie United States Joined 4515 days ago 15 posts - 16 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Mandarin | Message 18 of 28 02 January 2012 at 10:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi mani! I'm also doing the challenge this year, and I'm on your team! This year I'm learning Spanish, French, German and Mandarin. I look forward to reading about your progress.
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| Mani Diglot Senior Member Germany imsprachendickicht.b Joined 4709 days ago 258 posts - 323 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Swedish, Portuguese, Latin, Welsh, Luxembourgish | Message 19 of 28 06 January 2012 at 11:23am | IP Logged | ||
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So, today my first official TAC 2012 post this year. In fact I don't have so much to write as my holidays have passed rather quickly, I'm back at work since Monday and I still have to straighten up my flat from my move last month. Therefore I'm rather glad when I can squeeze in some time for study which honestly wasn't very much. :-(
BUT I'm rather glad that my 30 day programme experiment to study some French (at least 10 Minutes) is working for me till today (day 23) - so no New Year's resolution, more a mid-December experiment (okay the only one of the 4 that succeeded) - 7 more days and it's quite likely to turn into a habit. To challenge myself with more French (apart from office talk) I decided to paticipate in the January Tadoku challenge with French and English. In French I'm reading Dean Koontz - "Le Visage de l'ange" (org.: "The Face") which - to my surprise - I can follow quite well, even though there's some (okay, a lot) unknown vocabulary, but I decided rather to follow the plot than to translate each word, which is okay because I've read the book twice before in German. I'm also eagerly awaiting the used Assimil - Französisch in der Praxis (German version of Using French) course which I found only 3 days ago and of course instandly bought (half the price a new one would have cost me). So in a few days from now I'll see if I'm ready for it yet. Huh! I'm excited. English: No tandem the last weeks due to Christmas preparations and holidays. But I've listened to some audiobooks and started reading the Sherlock Holmes stories. :-) Lovely! I've always wanted to read them in original. Luxembourgish: Still only passive radio listening. Kurdish: The result of the last weeks is nearly as sad as it is for Luxembourgish. From 15th to 21th December about 20 to 30 minutes daily, mainly Rojbaş exercises and rewatching Dersa Kurdî lessons, 22nd December finally some live Kurdish since I was visiting my friends and he tried to soothe their baby girl to sleep by talking and singing Kurdish to her (so cute!). And so proud that I actually understood a word or a grammatical feature here and there. Since then unfortunately no Kurdish apart from some Anki reviews, but as I plan to tidy up my flat from the last remains of my move this weekend, I think I'll have more time from next week on and be able to study more. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Mani Diglot Senior Member Germany imsprachendickicht.b Joined 4709 days ago 258 posts - 323 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Swedish, Portuguese, Latin, Welsh, Luxembourgish | Message 20 of 28 27 January 2012 at 3:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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So, another 3 weeks have passed and I'm sitting here and trying to remember what for heaven's sake have I done? I've written the exam in my bookkeeping course which hardly counts as language learning. Well, unless you count listening to the holiday tales of a fellow participant mumbled in very fast Luxembourgish as language learning...
But as for Luxembourgish: Haha! Not only passive radio listening. I agreed to typewrite 15 short stories manuscripts for a friend of mine. Great to read some actual prose! Although I wish he would have been more consistent in his spelling - he definitely has to spell check his texts again! French: Still reading "Le Visage de l'ange", but going a lot slower at the moment, I'm not in the mood for reading more than a few pages a day. I feel bad about it. In fact I think it's been too much French the last days. My brain refuses to string the simplest sentences together. I feel like a fool! While talking French with my colleagues I'm missing really simple words I used quite often before and now writing this post in English French phrases keep popping into my mind (ones that make no sense at all on this topic). I think I need a few days break! Therefore I won't start my new (used) Assimil - Französisch in der Praxis before next week's weekend. (I'm really happy I finally got it!) Kurdish: My sweet little language! Yesterday I started lesson 3 of my Rojbaş textbook - present tense, I had to read the explanation quite a few times before I got it, but actually it seems not to be as complicated as it sounds. Let's see if I can explain it. Apparently the Kurdish (always bear in mind I'm talking about Kurmanji, I don't know (yet) if Sorani works this ways, too) verb has two verb stems, a present stem and a perfect stem. The Kurdish verb in indicative mode has the perfect stem. The present stem on the other hand you’ll find within the imperative. (Still with me?) So you get your Kurdish verb presented in the form indicative (imperative) so you can see both stems. The example in my book is xwendin (bixwîne) = to read/to study, so you have the perfect stem xwen and the present stem xwîn. The present also takes the prefix di-. So if I want to say: "I read/study", I'll go: (personal pronoun (casus rectus)(1) + di(2) + present stem(3) + suffix(4)) Ez(1) + di(2) + xwîn(3) + im(4) Ez dixwînim. Quite interesting, isn't it? Edited by Mani on 27 January 2012 at 3:10pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Mani Diglot Senior Member Germany imsprachendickicht.b Joined 4709 days ago 258 posts - 323 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Swedish, Portuguese, Latin, Welsh, Luxembourgish | Message 21 of 28 15 February 2012 at 11:46am | IP Logged | ||
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So here is my more or less regular update (only 2,5 weeks since my last entry - heh, I'm improving ...). If only I knew what to write ... ;-)
No honestly, for me it isn't that easy 'cause on one hand I don't want to keep this log and write I studied language A for X hours Y minutes and language B for X hours and Y minutes and language C for ... you get the idea (and apart from the 6WC I'm just too chaotic to regularly stop the time I spend studying) and on the other hand I don't want to write any blabla (though I'm sure I often do exactly that). I'm a little frustrated today, but looking back at my log that seems to be the general mood when I write an entry, so nothing to worry about. There is both sunshine and rain in my life and I simply prefer to write on the rainy days. Having said that let's look at my achievements over the last days. Luxembourgish: Still typewriting the manuscripts (22 not 15) and I'm only with the 10th manuscript. I learned quite some expressions like op eng Kéier (suddenly, at once) which my friend apparently likes a lot. When I'm alone I read them out loud to practise pronunciation which in most cases works well. Still listening to the radio each day. French: Still mostly passive learning like listening to the radio, music or podcast. I try to read a bit each day as well (mostly Wikipedia or other online materials). Only active activities in French are the daily small exchanges with my colleagues. I feel like I'm going nowhere with French at the moment. And I definitely have to redo the tenses! I'm thinking about taking a B2 exam at the end of the year or next year in spring to motivate myself, but I'm not sure about that yet. Kurdish: I'm fighting with the vocabulary of Rojbaş lesson 3. I haven't found a proper way to remember both verb stems yet - nightmare! Vocabulary learning has always been my weak side. So wish me luck - please! Other: I played a bit with Hindi and Japanese insofar that I found some of my old textbooks while I was looking for another book, so I read a bit and I listened to some Hindi podcasts. Gosh! I wish I'd find something similar for Kurmanji! And I'm still resisting Armenian (one month already). It's tempting me again! And I've promised myself not to start it before 2013 and not to postpone Russian again. I knew it wasn't good to look for music on youtube. Kurdish music - fine, found some real nice music. Russian music - okay, I want to start that language soon, some really cool bands out there. But how on earth did I end up with Armenian rock music and the desire to crawl into this video and beg the band "Teach me your language! Teach me your language!"? Aargh! Not yet! You'll have your time Armenian, but next year. EDIT: I've officially lost my marbles! Went to the city during lunch break (had to get some coins from the bank for parking) and into my local bookshop, returned with Assimil - L'Arménien sans peine! Complete course with audio. It was just sitting there on the shelf. I swear I didn't want to touch it but nonetheless I did and then I simply couldn't put it away again. I don't know if I want to laugh or cry, probably both. Last time I was so positively shocked was when I found out that I could trace back the mother's side of my grandma's family (who doesn't know her father and didn't know much about her mother) to the start of the local church register (first ancestor born ~1590), that means before the Thirty Years' War where a lot of these records were destroyed or lost ... Edited by Mani on 15 February 2012 at 1:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Mani Diglot Senior Member Germany imsprachendickicht.b Joined 4709 days ago 258 posts - 323 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Swedish, Portuguese, Latin, Welsh, Luxembourgish | Message 22 of 28 29 February 2012 at 2:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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Okay, as there was a question in our Romance team log who is still participating in the challenge I think that it's about time that I write another update.
The February 6WC is on and I'm participating with Kurdish and doing really bad so far, 6h40 only for a whole month (okay I virtually did nothing since last Wednesday) - bad bad me! Most of my energy is absorbed by Luxembourgish and French. See why: Luxembourgish: The clock is ticking. Deadline for the manuscripts is coming nearer and after work I'm tired enough to fall asleep in front of my computer, so I try do type a bit during my lunch break, not very effictive, but heh only 8* more. *Likes to cry when thinking of the workload... French: Finally capable of talking to my colleagues beyond weather and gossip. I sometimes seem to be able to speak French. Wow! There was a time I thought I couldn't reach this point. I obviously still miss vocabulary and my grammar - well, better not talk about it, I still have to work on it - but I'm at a point where I just can answer without mentally translating into French. Seems the language finally found a way into my brain. Reading more might have helped. Finally finished Dean Koontz' "Le Visage de l'ange", started reading "Jour Fatal" which is a real experiment for me 'cause I haven't read it before so I've no idea of the storyline. Page 67 now and still knowing what's going on. :) Kurdish: Still Rojbaş lesson 3, did both text and dialog, translated them into German and the next day back into Kurdish. Was okay, still struggle with some words, but I hope I'll get them into my head when doing the exercises. Repeated lesson 1 and 2, too. Gosh that was relaxing! Watched Dersa Kurdî lessons 14 and 15. This show is so funny! But number 15 contained way too much vocabulary. Armenian Okay, as I already admitted I gave in. I couldn't resist it anymore. I'm beaten. And I absolutely love it! I'm doing Assimil - L'Arménien sans peine (yes, L2-->L3, with L2 being French (usually it's English in my case)). Yes, only lesson 5, but it is so beautiful (!), though the alphabet is killing me. I remember I did struggle a little with Cyrillic, but the Armenian alphabet seems to be more difficult for me, in my opinion some letters look very much alike. But I guess I have to be more patient, re-reading my own entries Cyrillic (printed and cursive) took about a month to read and write and I remember I practised more regularly than I can practise Armenian at the moment. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| blackdahlia Pro Member United States Joined 4533 days ago 64 posts - 66 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, French Personal Language Map | Message 23 of 28 29 February 2012 at 6:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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Congratulations on your progress in French. I haven't started to talk to anyone yet, but it seems that I'm starting to hear and understand more spoken French, which was always my downfall and it makes me excited. All this wasted time and I could have been fluent by now....sigh but that's water under the bridge now.
Side note, and this may make me sound dumb, but I've never heard of Luxembourgish before. What language is it similar to? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Mani Diglot Senior Member Germany imsprachendickicht.b Joined 4709 days ago 258 posts - 323 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Swedish, Portuguese, Latin, Welsh, Luxembourgish | Message 24 of 28 01 March 2012 at 9:16am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks blackdahlia! But it's just a small step, I'm quite aware that I'm still far away from even basic fluency, but it's nice to see that in my "somehow immersion situation" French finally seems to sink in.
About Luxembourgish (Lëtzebuergesch), you don't sound dumb. I bet about 50% of all Germans don't know that Luxembourg is a neighbouring country. I remember the trouble my Luxembourgian friend had to go through when she started studying in Germany. She went into the registration office to state that she just moved to this town (you have to state every change of address in Germany) and they instantly started yelling at her, what she thought she was doing as a foreigner she had to go to the aliens office, you can't just register in Germany, etc. My friend was close to tears (who wouldn't?) and what the officials told her was of course nonsense. As EU citizen you can choose where you want to live within the EU as long as you don't need social welfare and have a health insurance. So no aliens office whatsoever, she was quite right to go straight to the registration office, it just turned out that the officials had no idea where Luxembourg was. Red tape at it's best! So, after having told this story, returning to your question Luxembourgish is similar to German, in fact it belongs to the Central German dialect continuum and there still is a controversy going on whether it is a language or a dialect. Wikipedia also gives a nice brief explanation on Luxembourgish. Edited by Mani on 01 March 2012 at 9:48am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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