|
 |
Dabbling in which languages in 2011? | ||
Tags: Dabbling | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5146 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 1 of 26 02 November 2011 at 11:41am | IP Logged | ||
|
2011 was supposed to be the year where I would focus totally on Russian. But life doesn't always work out the way it is supposed to, and sometimes, dabbling in another language works just as well as comfort as a really huge bar of chocolate. Plus journeys or events turn up, that make you shift your priorities. So which languages have you dabbled in in 2011? For the purpose of this thread, as dabbling you count any language you have looked at, however briefly,and collected some sort of study material in, but have not taken on as a main language.
For me the first one out was Greek. I knew I was going to Greece in June, so as soon as my trip to Ukraine was over at Easter, I started with Greek. I loved it, and I got to use what little I had learned when I got to Greece, and even got a few compliments for my pronunciation and writing skills (when they expect nothing, they think you are a genius if you can write two words in the Greek alphabet, even with spelling errors).I will go back to Greece, so when things have calmed down a little, I will take it up again, and possibly turn it into a main language. I read through the first 8 lessons of the book, which equals one semester of evening classes, but as I didn't do the exercises, I guess I will have some work just to learn that again. Then my sister suggested we go to Zanzibar and I got a Swahili course. I hadn't done more than a couple of lessons in "Le Swahili sans peine" before I found out that we were going to Mauritius instead, so I dropped the Swahili course, but may come back to that later. It was a really sweet language. Then I decided it would be practical to learn Slovak,since I come across quite a lot of people who speak Slovak, but no English or Norwegian, and bought Colloquial Slovak. I never got beyond the first lesson, but that is probably one of the languages I would have most use for, so I am hoping to have a further look at that next year. Since I was planning to go to Turkey now in November,I started learning a little bit of Turkish, but since I am not quite well, I do not know if I'll actually get to go there. A shame really, but the trip is in just 8 days, so I do not know if I'll make it. My motivation for Turkish is therefore at a low point right now. So that was my dabbling in 2011. What have you dabbled in? Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 02 November 2011 at 11:42am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5659 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 26 02 November 2011 at 12:15pm | IP Logged | ||
|
For me generally dabbling does not give any satisfaction, therefore I don't dabble in any unknown languages. And I'm not a traveller either, therefore I will not be confronted with the languages of other countries. Typically, I haven't dabbled at all in this year 2011.
Fasulye Edited by Fasulye on 02 November 2011 at 1:49pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6515 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 3 of 26 02 November 2011 at 1:42pm | IP Logged | ||
|
For me dabbling is a truly enjoyable passtime, but I know where to stop so the whole thing doesn't end up in pure unmitigated Wanderlust. On the other hand just reading about a language doesn't qualify - you have to do some hardcore studying, else it isn't dabbling.
I often dabble after a travel to a country whose language I don't know, and sometimes it is a thread here at HTLAL that cause me to do some dabbling. For instance reading a grammar in a dialect of Sardic in a library on Sardinia and listening to some clips in Sardic on Youtube after my return home must definitely count as dabbling because I haven't done more about it since August. In the same manner I have just returned from Myanmar, and even though I didn't try to even learn the alphabet (only the numbers!) I have read the section about grammar in a small language guide so that I know a little about how their main language functions - it used romanized examples so it was fairly easy. I have also read through an article at Wikipedia about the alphabet and read something about their 3 (or 5) tones. Earlier this year I read a complete Greenlandic grammar (in Danish) to learn about polysynthetic languages, and the language of our own Northern compatriots was the obvious choice. I had actually expected this language to be more complicated than it seems to be - but maybe all the difficult things come later. I have also worked my way through texts in Anglosaxon and Old High German this year, but unlike the preceding examples I here worked my way through real genuine texts of some length (the Beowulf thing is actually fairly long) rather than grammars. I also read one of H.C. Andersen's tales plus some internet pages in Romantsch when the number of speakers of its different dialects was discussed here, and I did the same with a number of pages from a Frisian homepage when the same topic came up for that language - it has apparently more speakers than I would have expected. And so forth ... this is not an exhaustive list. Dabbling is fun. Edited by Iversen on 02 November 2011 at 1:52pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5146 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 4 of 26 02 November 2011 at 2:01pm | IP Logged | ||
I agree. I don't quite understand why so many look down at dabbling. I am sure that for many it is the start of a serious study, and in any event it beats Paradise Hotel or Big Brother as a passtime. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6394 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 5 of 26 02 November 2011 at 2:19pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I tried to learn Esperanto at one point this year, but failed miserably. I've made several attempts at learning Spanish, too, but I've been forced to throw in the towel there, as well. Does thinking "I'm totally going to learn this language!" and then giving up a few weeks later count as dabbling? If not, I can't really say I've dabbled to any extent. I've read ABOUT many languages, but I haven't started actually looking at learning material.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6362 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 6 of 26 02 November 2011 at 2:20pm | IP Logged | ||
Same here. The 5 languages I'm studying right now are sufficient for 2012. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| PaulLambeth Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5185 days ago 244 posts - 315 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Icelandic, Hindi, Irish | Message 7 of 26 02 November 2011 at 3:15pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I had dabbled last year in Swahili too, when I was expecting to volunteer in Tanzania in the summer. I agree with Solfrid - a lovely language that I really want to study properly. I suppose my Irish study can be counted as little more than dabbling right now.
I spent a day on Navajo and did not find it ridiculously tricky. Then again, I was only looking at a couple of structures and it's totally different to any language I've come across. I know a lot of Swedes, Norwegians and Danes now (lots of Scandinavians do their exchange years in Iceland) so I'm learning the odd word in a mixture of these languages, although mainly Norwegian. A good friend here is from west Norway and she's been trying to teach me to pronounce things in the Bergen dialect, written in Nynorsk. I want to concentrate on Norwegian sometime, but after this year and for once I've finished my degree. I've dabbled in Tok Pisin partially for the enjoyment of learning a useful English-based creole, although even just dabbling in that language cements a fair amount of passive speaking knowledge. I'm probably more comfortable speaking Tok Pisin than Hindi after a couple of afternoons of looking at a worksheet, but that's hardly surprising. I think that's all for this year. I WANT to dabble in the Cyrillic alphabet, as in learn to pronounce it. However I have a question: is Russian pronounced (fairly) phonetically? I've heard Bulgarian is, with the addition of a couple of letters, but I've not heard about Russian pronunciation. I ask this because if I'm to pronounce things written in Cyrillic, the chances are they'll be mostly Russian words, and I'd like to know if the words'd sound totally wrong. 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
