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Stelle
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
Canada
tobefluent.com
Joined 3932 days ago

949 posts - 1686 votes 
Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish
Studies: Tagalog

 
 Message 137 of 336
08 October 2013 at 12:23pm | IP Logged 
sctroyenne wrote:


I can then continue to study Irish to intermediate level, Spanish to maybe advanced,
developing more French fluency (maybe finally taking a DALF exam), working on getting
some basics of Sgaw Karen, and maybe even starting a new language such as Portuguese.
All this would lead to the Polyglot Conference next year in Montreal (and/or New York
but Montreal is by far the one I prefer) where I'd be able to legitimately claim 3
languages at intermediate level or higher and 1 or 2 at beginning level (using some
Shekthman "trickery" to make the most of what I know) in addition to my native English.

Sounds like a plan?


Sounds like a great plan! I think it's really interesting that you're learning Karen - and also a great way to connect
with the person that you're tutoring.

Is there any information about the Polyglot Conference in Montreal? I'd love to go! Although with 3+1 languages,
I won't be a polyglot - I'd still like to spend some time surrounded by other language enthusiasts.
2 persons have voted this message useful



sctroyenne
Diglot
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5179 days ago

739 posts - 1312 votes 
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Spanish, Irish

 
 Message 138 of 336
08 October 2013 at 4:54pm | IP Logged 
Not much information yet (at least that I've found). Just that it will be sometime next
October in Montreal and New York. And they've said that people without a dozen
languages are certainly welcome to attend. :)

Wrote my first composition in Irish but so far it only has one view on Lang-8 :( If
anyone with any degree of fluency in Irish above mine is on Lang-8 let me know so I can
add you. Anyway, here it is:

Quote:
"Cén t-ainm atá ort agus cé as thú?"
Is mise Anna agus is Meiriceánach mé. Tá mé i mo chonaí i mbaile beag gar do San
Francisco agus Oakland, dhó cathracha cois farraige, sna Stáit Aointaithe. Tá mé gar
don áiseanna: siopaí, bainc, ollmhargaí, scoileanna, pictiúrlann, agus oifig an phoist.

(And how I would have answered when living in France):

Is as San Francisco mé ach tá mé i mo chónaí i mbruachbhaile darb ainm Neuilly-sur-
Seine in aice le cathair mhór Páras. Is breá liom bheith i mo chonaí anseo! Tá an Páras
go hailinn. Tá páirceanna, músaem, agus bialanna maithe.


Edited by sctroyenne on 08 October 2013 at 6:55pm

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sctroyenne
Diglot
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5179 days ago

739 posts - 1312 votes 
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Spanish, Irish

 
 Message 139 of 336
09 October 2013 at 6:43pm | IP Logged 
On to Unit 3 where I was promptly presented with an intimidating vocabulary list of
members of the family (which also included the version with the definite article and
the plural forms). I think my system for digesting the lessons is working, though. I
look at the list, freak out a bit, but instead of drilling those words to death, I go
straight to the dialogues (the only audio that works on my iPhone while commuting) and
just play them over and over (and over and over) again, pausing and replaying different
snippets to really get it down. I find that it's been pretty effective. Memrise helps a
lot with the vocab.

I've been downloading all kinds of Gaeilge apps and there's quite a few good ones. I
also discovered TG Lurgan which is some kind of Irish MTV or something. What's fun is
they do covers of popular songs in Gaeilge, such as this epic one:

Can't Hold Us

I also discovered (and confirmed last night at my language group) that Craig Ferguson
has a sort of cult cachet in France. So much so that someone copied his show down to
the smallest detail (and was highly criticized for it and almost sued but then Craig
paid him a visit). There are a ton of clips but this fairly NSFW one will help you
exercise your street French:

Ce soir avec Arthur

Edited by sctroyenne on 09 October 2013 at 6:44pm

2 persons have voted this message useful



sctroyenne
Diglot
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5179 days ago

739 posts - 1312 votes 
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Spanish, Irish

 
 Message 140 of 336
13 October 2013 at 2:34am | IP Logged 
I finally attended a local Irish study group today after my English lesson with my
refugee. They seem like really good people and I already have some ideas for projects
we could put together jointly. I managed to get some corrections on my first
composition - some of which I understood, others not so much - and now I can work on
"mastering" that material. I also received the Gaeilge gan Stró book (straight from
Ireland)! Flipping through I'm a bit discouraged as it's clear you really do only
achieve A1 level by the end of the first course. But you know, that's part of the
reality of learning a more distant language, it just takes more time. I can be humble
and accept I probably won't manage to learn the language much faster than the
average person. But that's ok, at the end of 3 months I'll certainly know much more
than I did before and that's all that really matters.

For the remainder of the weekend I think I'll continue some intensive study, prepare
audio files for my commute and prepare my "islands" for this week's language meetup.
1 person has voted this message useful



sctroyenne
Diglot
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5179 days ago

739 posts - 1312 votes 
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Spanish, Irish

 
 Message 141 of 336
15 October 2013 at 3:09am | IP Logged 
I checked out some of the other courses I had looked at before but frustrated me too
much while learning. It's clear why - they're incredibly dense. It's nice to go
back now after using Gaeilge gan Stró and start to make more sense of what was
contained in only a few pages of the first lessons. They go into grammatical
explanations (which Gaeilge gan Stró hides from you until absolutely necessary) which I
can now make more sense of having had more exposure. During this morning's commute I
was having all kinds of aha! moments. So much so that I decided to check out the
Grammar Summary section at the end - that produced the opposite of an aha! moment. The
rules for lenition are quite convoluted and it's much better working on them one by
one. I find this is the best way to work on grammar - get some easy early exposure,
learn some phrases and simple dialogues. Then start learning some basic grammar
factoids based on phrases already encountered. Then go back to teaching dialogues and
phrases building on what has already been learned, then go for grammar explanations
again based on what's already been encountered. Checking out the "back of the book" let
me see just how complex it gets but no reason to stress out about it. I'll get to it
when I get to it. :)
3 persons have voted this message useful



liammcg
Senior Member
Ireland
Joined 4392 days ago

269 posts - 397 votes 
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 142 of 336
15 October 2013 at 12:23pm | IP Logged 
There are indeed many situations where lenition occurs. To begin with I'd advise you to
focus on lenition after the article (for feminine words).

e.g. an bhean- the woman
     an fhuinneog- the window
but an oíche- the night (still feminine but begins with a vowel so no lenition
occurs).

Then move on to lenition of the adjective that follows feminine words> an bhean
mhór, an fhuinneog bheag.

Next, perhaps get the possessive pronouns down and really focus on the lenition, n.b.
his vs hers.

It's only when I'd have these down that I'd move on to say, lenition in verbs or after
prepositions. Coinnigh ort leis an staidéar!

Edited by liammcg on 15 October 2013 at 5:01pm

3 persons have voted this message useful



sctroyenne
Diglot
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5179 days ago

739 posts - 1312 votes 
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Spanish, Irish

 
 Message 143 of 336
15 October 2013 at 4:55pm | IP Logged 
I think that's essentially the way to go about it, it seems much simpler that way. My
courses are teaching lenition after an for feminine words for the moment and I just read
about lenition after possessive pronouns.

Does it sound really wrong to native and proficient speakers if you don't leniate
correctly (the way getting masculine/feminine wrong in French and Spanish will stand out
immediately to native speakers) or is that a class of mistake that everyone makes from
time to time?
1 person has voted this message useful



liammcg
Senior Member
Ireland
Joined 4392 days ago

269 posts - 397 votes 
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 144 of 336
15 October 2013 at 4:59pm | IP Logged 
You don't need to worry about it too much in the early stages, if you make a mistake
there's no problem. Yes, even I make mistakes from time to time having studied the
language for fifteen years!


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