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Josquin’s Language Symphony (RU, IR, 東亜) | ||
Tags: Gaelic (Scottish) | Gaelic (Irish) | Icelandic | Portuguese | Multilingual | Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC) | Italian | Japanese | Russian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Vinnet Newbie United States Joined 4208 days ago 19 posts - 22 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian | Message 209 of 646 29 October 2012 at 5:50am | IP Logged |
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Well that's a shame. At least you once had the experience!
Now you're going into Old Norse and Old English? Have you been reading the classic Norse tales? I don't have much background in those myths, but the ones I have read are interesting. Thank you so much for your recommendations. I truly appreciate it. I'll due as you've advised, and if I do have a question I hope to bother you once more! Best Wishes, Amanda 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4638 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes  Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 210 of 646 02 November 2012 at 8:03pm | IP Logged |
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FRIDAY, 2 NOVEMBER 2012
Here I am again! The contract with the publishing house at which I have been doing an internship for the last two months will be extended, so I have reason to be happy. However, I have a few free days before I'll start my new/old job, so there's a lot of time for making music and learning languages. I worked through lesson 11 of Colloquial Russian. It's about education in Russia. The text was rather interesting but there were a lot of unknown words. The grammar wasn't new to me, as the lesson dealt with verbal aspects. However, in the list of aspect partners were some verbs which I didn't know yet, so I'll have to learn them. I haven't done the exercises yet, because I wanted to learn all the vocabulary first. Additionally, I translated chapter 2 of Hrafnkels Saga. As I already said, Old Norse prose is rather easy to translate, but there were some idiomatic expressions I couldn't untangle on my own, so I looked them up in a German translation of the saga. Until now, I have only translated the preliminaries of the story, the interesting part will start in chapter 3. I haven't been working on Old English and Scottish Gaelic lately, so no update here. However, I borrowed a German edition of Daniel Everett's Don't Sleep, There are Snakes from the university library. It's about his life with the Pirahã Indians in the Amazon area and their unique language. This book has been discussed rather controversly, because Everett claims that the Pirahã language defies Noam Chomsky's theory of universal grammar. I think this is going to be an interesting read. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4501 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 211 of 646 02 November 2012 at 9:41pm | IP Logged |
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How do you like that Colloquial course, Josquin? I will finish it next Sunday if I am on
schedule. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4638 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 212 of 646 02 November 2012 at 10:30pm | IP Logged |
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I really like the Colloquial course, although I'm glad I did the Langenscheidt course first. It's really very thorough and intensive! What will you do after finishing Colloquial Russian, tarvos? Any more textbooks?
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4501 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 213 of 646 02 November 2012 at 11:08pm | IP Logged |
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Nah, I don't think I will use any more textbooks - I have worked my way through Assimil
Russian and TY Russian, and with Colloquial, it's more than enough. I already have a substantial ability to communicate with people (have tried in shops and I use VK messaging a lot with Russians, and my Swedish teacher happens to be Russian - and she understands me just fine) so my next target is to finish my easy reader and then start using Russian in the real world - I have some newspapers I can dissect, I'll download movies etc. And I have Russian friends whom I write to and talk with so I'll keep doing that. Besides, it's not really so much grammar I lack as vocabulary - I know the grammar rules (even though I'll screw up applying them), I just really need to get used to spoken Russian and talk to people a lot. So my plan is to just speak Russian more. Glad you like the text though! I also found an old copy in a bookstore of Colloquial Czech. It seems to be equally thorough. Such a shame they downgraded the new one, this - with good audio - is a goldmine. Edited by tarvos on 02 November 2012 at 11:11pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4638 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 214 of 646 04 November 2012 at 8:59pm | IP Logged |
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SUNDAY, 04 NOVEMBER 2012
I spent the whole day learning Scots Gaelic and listening to Scottish and Irish folk music on YouTube. I wasn't in the mood for Russian today, and doing another translation from Old Norse wasn't an attractive alternative either, so I decided it would be a good day for one of my minor languages. I repeated lessons 1 and 2 of Lehrbuch der schottisch-gälischen Sprache and then continued with lessons 3 and 4. Until now, there wasn't anything absolutely new, only some unknown words. But several things which weren't really clear to me while working with Beag air bheag have now been explained. I also listened to the recordings and once more noticed how beautiful Gaelic is, although some people claim the opposite. I had a look at lesson 5 and the definite article as well and I must say that's really complicated! In Gaelic, the definite article is determined by the first letter of the noun that it goes with, so it may be "an", "am", "a'", or "an t-". The difficult thing is that masculine nouns starting with a certain letter take another form of the article than feminine nouns with the same letter. Doesn't sound complicated? Well, it is, because those forms overlap: It's an t-uisge (m.) ("the water"), but an uinneag (f.) ("the window"), an seòmar (m.) ("the room"), but an t-sràid (f.) ("the street"). So you can get terribly confused! Furthermore, some feminine nouns have lenition when they're combined with the definite article: caileag ("girl") becomes a' chaileag ("the girl"). So, learning Gaelic well seems to be a demanding task. @tarvos: Yeah, it's a shame how all those language courses have been watered down. The new Colloquial Russian isn't worth its money compared to the old one. Your plans sound interesting. It seems your Russian has really taken roots. I hope I'll be able to say the same after completing Colloquial. But I have the same problem as you: vocabulary is my weak spot, too. Edited by Josquin on 04 November 2012 at 10:36pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4501 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 215 of 646 04 November 2012 at 10:30pm | IP Logged |
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Do those articles in Scottish Gaelic also depend on the first letter of the following
noun? It's like that in Breton and the articles seem similar (an, ar, al in Breton) Edited by tarvos on 04 November 2012 at 10:32pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4638 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 216 of 646 04 November 2012 at 10:31pm | IP Logged |
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Please, Марк, if you want to argue with tarvos, do it in his log, not in mine! Although you may have a point, common courtesy would ask for a different way of expressing your concern -- especially if you write in my log. Спасибо.
@tarvos: Yes, they do. Just as I wrote. Edited by Josquin on 04 November 2012 at 10:55pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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