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a3
Triglot
Senior Member
Bulgaria
Joined 5015 days ago

273 posts - 370 votes 
Speaks: Bulgarian*, English, Russian
Studies: Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish, Norwegian, Finnish

 
 Message 1 of 62
25 December 2011 at 12:41pm | IP Logged 
In case you're wondering why I've left, I've moved to Duowlingo - the single best website for language learning.

-------------------old and obsolete--------------------------
This is моят language learning log, I used it for TAC 2012 and now I'll use it for TAC 2013, beaing part of the teams *jäŋe/*ledús and Viking.
Team topics(delete any spaces the forum software may have inserted):
*jäŋe/*ledús - http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=30263&PN=2
Viking - http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=34530&PN=1

My target languages for this year are:

-Finnish - my skills have improved quite a bit. If a year ago I understood about every 4th word in a simple text, now I understand around 4 of 5 words, but it takes me some time to make sense out of the words in a sentence. I believe I'm also slightly better in writing, though I have hardly written anything and I'll definitely not be able to write this text.
Therefore the specific goals for this year will be to improve my active skills and acquire bigger vocabulary. I don't like any deadlines or plans, but I'll try to keep some consistency with the active use and listening.

-Norwegian - It can be said that I've started to learn the language seriously little over a year ago. I've progressed much much faster than in Finnish since the grammar is nearly identical to the one of English (and where it's different, it's similar to the one of my native language) and not even to mention of the lexical similarities. Still there is much unknown and I'm puzzled by the hundreds of small words which are so easy to confuse with each other. And the irregular verbs are a real nightmare! si - sa - sagt 'say' is one pair, se - så - sett 'see' another, gi - gav - gitt 'give' is one, gå - gikk - gått 'go' another - I even need to consult a dictionary to type in these basic words.
I really need to sit and learn them. The problem is that I have sitzfleisch for grammar, not for vocabulary.
My goals are similar to the ones of Finnish, namely to increase my vocabulary and improve (or rather get) some active skills. I don't even want to think of listening, because to me it seems every single person speaks a different dialect.

-Afrikaans - Yet another Germanic language. Given that I already know English, some German and a bit of Norwegian, it shouldn't be overly difficult. The cognates with any of the other three are easy to notice after a little practice and the grammar is almost as simple as it can get. I started learning it a few months ago, but stopped due to the lack of resources. Now I have some I can finally continue.
My goals for now are only to go through all resources I have and maintain a steady, if low, level.

-Ukrainian - I initially planned to study Russian, but the fact that I already had - I dare to say - a basic fluency in reading had a devastating effect on my motivation. It's simply not that interesting when you know it. I guess it'll be better with Ukrainian. I started studying it seriously like a week ago.
I don't really like CEFR, but to get an idea of what I'm aiming at, I'll say B1 is my goal in writing/speaking. Passive skills are by default not taken into consideration due to the existing to some extent mutual intelligibility

-Basque - The only language isolate in Europe, which also happens to be the only with ergative morphosyntactic alignment in Europe. I decided I want to learn it after seeing it used bilingually on an online forum. I checked the wiki article and saw the awesome grammar and phonotactics. However, I've never been studying it seriously (til now I hope) and I only can conjucate the verb to be, some other verbs, and also know some things about the noun declension and like 30 words.
I hope by the end of the year I'll be at least at A1 / A2 level.(yes, it has THAT different grammar, not even to speak about the vocabulary)

I don't know if I'll find time for any more languages, but there are candidates for certain, including Hungarian, Indonesian, Icelanding, Spanish.

---Old, unedited post:---
This is MoqT(моят) language learning log. I'll be using it for TAC 2012, being part of team *jäŋe/*ledús.

My target languages are:
-Finnish - currently my skills are pretty low. I understand only every 4th or so word in a text and can make only simple sentences with olla, mennä. I can understand spoken text only if it is slowly and clearly pronounced and with words I know, of course. As for speaking, I guess only I can understand myself at this point ;)
Goal: to be able to read and understand short texts and articles. To be able to express myself freely about everyday situations and things.

-Norwegian - if my skills in Finnish are low, then the ones in Norwegian are (almost) none. I know only the personal pronouns in nominative, the verb to be in present tense and a few words.
Goal: same as for Finnish, though Norwegian is my secondary target language

Secondary languages I might try to learn something of include, but don't limit to:
Spanish, Hungarian, Dutch, Swedish

Last, but not least: Csak az csatlakozzon hozzánk, aki ilyet szeret

Edited by a3 on 10 July 2014 at 8:12pm

2 persons have voted this message useful



Kisfroccs
Bilingual Pentaglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 5168 days ago

388 posts - 549 votes 
Speaks: French*, German*, EnglishC1, Swiss-German, Hungarian
Studies: Italian, Serbo-Croatian

 
 Message 2 of 62
25 December 2011 at 6:05pm | IP Logged 
Welcome ! So, if you decide to learn a bit Hungarian or Spanish, we will have some languages in common. I think that Finnish is an awesome language, and would learn it if I would have more time on my plate. Unfortunately, days only last 24 hours...

Good luck with your Finnish (and Norwegian of course !),

Kisfröccs

Edited by Kisfroccs on 25 December 2011 at 6:05pm

1 person has voted this message useful



a3
Triglot
Senior Member
Bulgaria
Joined 5015 days ago

273 posts - 370 votes 
Speaks: Bulgarian*, English, Russian
Studies: Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish, Norwegian, Finnish

 
 Message 3 of 62
25 December 2011 at 7:55pm | IP Logged 
Hi there! I do want to learn some Hungarian and Spanish in the upcoming year, but as you say, day only lasts 24 hours, so only time will tell if I can handle more than two languages (not simultaniously though, more like 15 days per lang)
I plan to learn Dutch mainly passively and through immersion. Swedish will come only if I become advanced enough in Norwegian so I dont mix the languages.
Odds are I'll learn at least a little Spanish since I have learned a bit in the past
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hribecek
Triglot
Senior Member
Czech Republic
Joined 5108 days ago

1243 posts - 1458 votes 
Speaks: English*, Czech, Spanish
Studies: Italian, Polish, Slovak, Hungarian, Toki Pona, Russian

 
 Message 4 of 62
29 December 2011 at 2:07pm | IP Logged 
I too would love to learn Finnish but as you both say, there's only time enough to learn 2 or 3 languages properly and I've already comitted to mine. I will be learning the basics of Finish at some time this year though.

Good luck with your languages this year teammate!

Edited by hribecek on 29 December 2011 at 2:08pm

1 person has voted this message useful



a3
Triglot
Senior Member
Bulgaria
Joined 5015 days ago

273 posts - 370 votes 
Speaks: Bulgarian*, English, Russian
Studies: Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish, Norwegian, Finnish

 
 Message 5 of 62
30 December 2011 at 1:36pm | IP Logged 
2012 hasn't begun yet, but it's never too early to make a revision.
For most of the time I'll look at resources over the web and courses I have downloaded, compile the knowledge of what I'm looking for and post it here so I can later again revise everything quickly so I don't need to visit dozens of webpages to do so.
Such posts containing material for revision are subject of change if I decide that the information in them is incomplete, inaccurate or somehow unclear or confusing and can be written better.


Today I'll be revising the consonant gradation.
If an open syllable begins with a consonant or a consonant cluster, found in the column STRONG GRADE below, then upon closing the syllable this consonant cluster or consonant changes into its WEAK GRADE and vice versa.

STRONG GRADE         WEAK GRADE
(quantitive)
KK         K
PP         P
TT         T

(qualitive)
K           (disappears)
UKU         UVU
YKY         YVY
P           V
T           D

LK         L
LKI / LKE         LJE
LP         LV
LT         LL

RK         R
RKI / RKE         RJE
RP         RV
RT         RR

NK         NG
MP         MM
NT         NN

HK         H
HT         HD

It is important to note that not only the consonant gradation makes the strong grade to change into the weak one. If a strong grade consonant appears between two unstressed vowels, it changes to a weak grade one. And since in Finnish the stress always lies on the first syllable, this rule is applied to all strong grade consonants from the 3rd syllable onwards

A single consonant S also underwent consonant gradation with weak grade H, which subsequently was deleted if it was after a single unstressed vowel.
A single consonant D, if being a weak grade of T, also is deleted if it follows a single unstressed vowel.
This has some important consequences regarding the noun and verb conjugations, which I will revise later.

Edited by a3 on 12 January 2012 at 7:47pm

3 persons have voted this message useful



a3
Triglot
Senior Member
Bulgaria
Joined 5015 days ago

273 posts - 370 votes 
Speaks: Bulgarian*, English, Russian
Studies: Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish, Norwegian, Finnish

 
 Message 6 of 62
31 December 2011 at 10:49am | IP Logged 
Before revising the noun and verbal conjugation, it is useful to look at some historical sound changes that happened in Finnish, which will help understanding most of the suffixes variation and irregularities.

1. Word final E becomes I

2. T preceding I (TI) becomes SI

3. Quantitive consonant gradation
originally it was limited only to
s becoming z
k becoming γ
p becoming β
t becoming δ
only a sonorant consonant or H + K/P/T or single S/K/P/T could have undergo a consonant gradation - SP for example did not
later those voiced frictives were lost:
nδ was assimilated to nn
lδ was assimilated to ll
rδ was assimilated to rr
mβ was assimilated to mm
nγ changed into ng
when without surrounding consonants, δ changed to d, β to v and γ dissapeared, unless it was preceeded and followed by U or Y, in which case was changed to v
z in all positions changed to H


4. Qualitive consonant gradation - because it happened some time after the quantitive, a weak grade(single consonant) of a double consonant still 'closes' the preceding syllable and triggers consonant gradation in it

5. h and d, if following an unstressed single vowel and preceding a vowel, disappeared and a combination of ID changed to J

6. Loss of word final K, which if followed by another consonant from a suffix, doubles it. For example word final K + T (KT) becomes TT

7. Second assimilation: ln, sn, rn become ll, ss, rr respectively and tn becomes nn
I've observed the last rule only in past active participles.

Somewhere in the process, word final KSI and NSI change to S and most word final T change to S, but not all and I'm not sure why

Note that I've gathered these all sound changes from various sources and only a very small part of them I've discovered myself. Also, I have also reconstructed the order in which they happened myself(I'm probably inventing the wheel here, but I couldnt find this information anywhere), so there may be some mistakes.

Edited by a3 on 31 December 2011 at 10:53am

3 persons have voted this message useful



a3
Triglot
Senior Member
Bulgaria
Joined 5015 days ago

273 posts - 370 votes 
Speaks: Bulgarian*, English, Russian
Studies: Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish, Norwegian, Finnish

 
 Message 7 of 62
02 January 2012 at 5:48pm | IP Logged 
Next step: reviewing noun conjugation
** WARNING: LONG POST **
Finnish has 15 cases, but in reality forming them is much easier for several reasons. Firstly, it has no genders, which means the same suffixes for ALL words. Secondly, the suffixes in singular and plural are the same, which means one only have to learn around 15 suffixes for ALL words in ALL cases. Compare this with Russian, which got only six cases, but has different suffix for every gender and singular/plural: 6*3*2 this makes 36 suffixes for 6 cases

Conjugating the Finnish words seems complicated, however it's fairly easy when one knows the sound changes I have listed in the previous post, which explain most of the irregularities and the Finnish case system is actually one very regular and easy to deal with.

To conjugate any word one has to know its four stems, besides the 15 suffixes: the nominative stem(N), the partitive(Pt), the genitive(G) and the plural one(Pl)

N is the dictionary form which one learns the words in - all other stems are derived from N

one final thing before the actual conjugation:
3S means words that mean any number and end in S
4S means most words that end in AS äS ES IS and also the word UROS
2S means words that are derived from nouns or adjectives and end in a vowel + US/YS
1S means all other words that end in S

deriving Pt from N:

in case the word ends in HI LI NI or RI, remove the final I
in case the word ends in E*, add T to the E
in case the word ends in SI, replace SI with T
in case the word ends in I and it's not foreign, change I into E
in case the word in 2S or 3S, replace S with T
in case the word ends in IN and it's superlative, replace it with IMPA / IMPä
in case the word ends in MPI and it's comparative, replace it with MPA / MPä
in case the word ends in NEN, replace it with S
in case the word ends in any consonant and it's foreign, add an I
words for 7 to 9 and 17 to 19 lose final N
*except for names and words that represent living object

as you can see from the previous post, word final E becomes I and this is why contemporary words that end in I replace it with E - that E simply was not affected by this sound change:
originally voore : vooreta became vuori : vuoreta and then vuori : vuoreda and finally vuori : vuorea
words that end in SI HI LI NI and RI seem to have dropped that old E
there used to be a large number of words that ended in EK. As you can read from the above post

6. Loss of word final K, which if followed by another consonant from a suffix, doubles it.

so puhek : puhekta due to this sound change became puhe : puhetta
most of the old words that ended in T changed to S and this explains the change happening to 2S and 3S
i is something like the default vowel in Finnish - most of the Pt, G and Pl need to end in a vowel and this is why it's added to foreign words ending in consonant
IN, MPI and NEN seem to be the only irregular suffixes

deriving G from N is a bit more trickier:

if the word is not foreign and it ends in SI, NSI, RSI or LSI, change it to DE, NNE, RRE or LLE
if the word is not foreign and it ends in I, replace it with E
if the word ends in E*, add another E
if the word is 1S, replace S with KSE
if the word is 2S, replace S with DE
if the word is 3S, replace S with NNE
if the word is 4S, remove S and double the last vowel
if the word ends in UT/YT, change it to UE/YE
however if it ends in UT/YT and it is a participle, change UT/YT to EE
superlative words in IN change IN to IMMA/IMMä
comparative words in MPI change MPI to MMA/MPä
words in NEN change NEN to SE
words in EN add another E
words in TON/TöN change TON/TöN to TTOMA/TTöMä
other words in N change N to ME
words ending in L and R add another E
words 7 to 9 and 17 to 19 lose final N
foreign words ending in a consonant add I
*except for names and words that represent living object

I must mention here that words that ended in M later changed that M to N
initially, Finnish seemed to add 'e' to G where the word ended in a consonant in N:
EK : EKE; KS : KSE; T : DE (due to consonant gradation); NS(from earlier NT) : NNE; S : SE; EN : ENE; M : ME
these ending later changed due to sound changes:
E : EE; S : KSE; S : DE; S : NNE; EN : ENE; N : ME
S : SE is more trickier - there was always a vowel before it - for e.g. A
due to consonant gradation S changed to H and since it was always after a short unstressed vowel, then it dissappeared:
AS : ASE became AS : AHE, which became AS : AE However, in all such cases, H seems to make the previous vowel to assimilate the next one(I have seen this so far in all dissappearences of H) AS : AA this explains the doubling of the vowel

as you can see, here again most of the irregularities are explained via the sound changes, so it is useful to at least look at them and it's going to help a lot in memorising these between stem changes

Pl can be derived from N, but it's much easier to derive it from G:

if the word is foreign, replace I with EI
if the word ends in a long vowel, shorten the long vowel and add I
if the word is one syllable and ends in UO, Yö, IE (from earlier OO, öö, EE), replace them with OI, öI, EI
IMMA / IMMä, MMA / MMä, TTOMA / TTöMä change to IMMI, MMI and TTOMI respectively
if the word ends in a single O U Y or ö, add I
if the word ends in ä, change it to I
if the word ends in A and it's a two syllable with the first syllable containing U or O, change A to I
all other words change A to OI
for all other words: change the last vowel to I if it isn't I already

as you can see, the general plural marker is I


now, onto the conjugation itself - it's the easy part

Nominative sg: N pl: G + t
Accusative sg: G + n pl: G + t
Genitive sg: G + n pl: N + en for all words ending in 'i' in N, Pl + den/tten for words 4S, ending in t, e*, or a long vowel, Pt + ren for 1S, 4S, l, n, r, hi, li, ni, si, ri and Pl + en for all others
Partive sg: Pt + a/ä or ta/tä pl: Pl + a/ä or ta/tä - Ill explain it below
Inessive sg: G + ssa/ssä pl: Pl + ssa/ssä
Ellative sg: G + sta/stä pl: Pl + sta/stä
Illative sg: G + seen or (h)Vn pl: Pl + hin - explanation also below
Adessive sg: G + lla/llä pl: Pl + lla/llä
Ablative sg: G + lta/ltä pl: Pl + lta/ltä
Allative sg: G + lle pl: Pl + lle
Essive sg: G + na/nä pl: Pl+ na/nä
Translative sg: G + ksi pl: Pl + ksi
Adessive: G/Pl + tta/ttä
Comitative(only plural exists): Pl + ne + genetive pronoun ending
Instrumental: G/Pl + n (not all words can form it)


partitive ending was originally only ta/tä, but due to consonant gradation t changed to D after single vowels and later it dissapeared since it was unstressed. So add a/ä for sg/pl if the word in N ends in a single vowel and ta/tä otherwise

illative is a bit trickier - its original ending was sen, but again due to consonant gradation it changed
only words that ended in EK in the past and now in E* have preserved it as SEEN in singular and SIIN in plural
for other words it has changed to HEN and this H made E to be assimilated from the preceding H vowel
so we got HAN HEN HIN HON HUN HYN HäN HöN for sg and always HIN for plural
finally if the word is polysyllable H appeared after an unstressed vowel and dissappeared
note that although this closes the syllable it happened after the consonant gradation, so always use strong grade in illative!

dissapearing of K in EK and S in 4S also happened after the consonant gradation and this is the reason strong grade for these suffixes always to be used in G and Pl

==============================================

I also did some revisement of words in memrise only to see how much I have forgotten. It is suprising that I do remember some words such as avanta 'hole in the ice' due to unusual association ( ANTs hAVe broken A hole in the ice )
I'm continuing to revise words from memrise and learning new ones - and I got to use unusual associations more often, it helps a lot
3 persons have voted this message useful



cathrynm
Senior Member
United States
junglevision.co
Joined 5884 days ago

910 posts - 1232 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese, Finnish

 
 Message 8 of 62
02 January 2012 at 9:17pm | IP Logged 
Interesting, I like your summary here of the changes for all the endings. I'm starting to recognize the endings, but I'm still hopeless with production and I need to drill on these, I think.


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