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M ta renmen pale Kreyòl ayisyen | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5050 days ago 2237 posts - 6731 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 25 of 36 17 January 2013 at 6:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Thank you very much, daristani. This will be useful! :)
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| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5050 days ago 2237 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 26 of 36 19 January 2013 at 3:41pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'll start lesson 27 of Pimsleur today, It's hard to believe that I am almost finished with it. There's only 30 lessons total with no level 2 or 3. I am also almost finished with my audio book La mèt lawouze. I didn't realize that the "book" only has 12 "chapters". We're getting down to the real drama of the story now. I just did chapter 10 today. After I am finished, I am going to go back over it again to cement the vocabulary and phrases in my mind. The audio is only about 23 minutes long. I have some other material with text and audio which I will use as well.
This has been a huge help in my progress and it is free from the University of Kansas. La mèt lawouze is included within Chita Pa Bay after this, the rest of the book has a few pages of proverbs, jokes, folk tales and math problems each unit followed by comprehension questions which I answer orally and write out as well. In addition to Chita Pa Bay, I am also going through Ti Koze Kreyòl, a Haitian Creole conversation course from the same professor at the University of Kansas. It follows the same format of very little English, just in the explanatory notes, and no translation of the dialogs or comprehension questions. I love this kind of format. There's just enough English to get you "over the hump", but not so much to where you are translating and overly dependent upon English. I am on Chapter 11 "Bò pisin la" (Poolside) at lotèl Olaffson (Hotel Olaffson). The young couple, Jan ak Mari, have just been invited to a genuine voudou service. I've got eight more chapters to go on this one and the audio is still unnaturally slow. Fortunately, as opposed to French, Haitian Creole is written phonetically. One of the good things about Pimsleur is it has really helped with my pronunciation and accent. So, I can read with no problems and will be able to utilize the DLI course even without 'the unusable audio for lessons 4-8. After these lessons the audio is still bad but listenable. I think that will help as I will be forced to concentrate on listening. Today, at our local farmers' market, I spoke with some St Lucians in Haitian Creole and they answered me in St Lucian Creole- just the basics- "Bonjou! Kijan ou ye jodi a? Sa yo se bèl tomat. Konbyen dola pa sa yo, souple? - "Good morning/Hello! How are you today? Those are some nice tomatoes. How many dollars for these, please?" They got the biggest kick out of hearing a "blan" ("foreigner" or "white") speaking Kreyòl. I understood their questions and responses in St Lucian Creole- they asked me where I learned to speak Kreyòl and how much time had I spent in Haiti. They said they can understand most Haitian Creole fairly well. This is good because, being close to St Lucia, Dominica, Martinique and Guadeloupe I can take advantage of the "Scandinavian-like" discount when I visit these islands someday. When I get some more free time, I want to scan my copy of Ti prens lan (The Little Prince) into pdf and make my own bilingual text out of it. I am leaning towards making the combination Haitian Creole/Portuguese. So far, kreyòl ayisyen is a fun project. Orevwa! N a wè pita! Edited by iguanamon on 20 January 2013 at 1:01am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4635 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 27 of 36 20 January 2013 at 1:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
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That is certainly encouraging stuff. Keep it up!
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| renaissancemedi Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Greece Joined 4146 days ago 941 posts - 1309 votes Speaks: Greek*, Ancient Greek*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Russian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew | Message 28 of 36 20 January 2013 at 4:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Great log. I love this language and it s in my future. I love how it souds french at times, but then again it doesn't.
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| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5050 days ago 2237 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 29 of 36 23 January 2013 at 9:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Thank you, kuji and renaissancemedi for your support and encouragement- Mèsi anpil! Looking back on the past month, I have managed to finish both the 30 lesson Pimsleur course and Mèt lawouze. I'm still working on the rest of Chita Pa Bay and Ti Koze Kreyòl- 50% through both. I've finished the Army Corps of Engineers' Wayne Drop and the Book of Genesis in the Bible. I've started following Haitian Creole on twitter, listening to lavwadlamereik (VOA) and Radio Soleil in Creole. I am meeting a Haitian friend for lunch on Fridays. I am pleased with my progress so far.
Pimsleur was a big help. I know and agree with most of the knocks against it- too much English, no transcript, too few words taught, somewhat creepily suggestive dialogs, etc. That being said it was still useful. Useful because of the graduated interval recall system, native speaker pronunciation and ease of use- I listened in the car and while walking. If all I used were Pimsleur and nothing else, I would not have made the progress that I have, true. If you use it as a supplement it works very well. The course could be soooo much better if they would just tweak a couple of things- 1) get rid of dialog that either is, or could be construed to be, sexist. Fairly or not, perception is reality. 2) Though there were prompts in the Tl beginning around lesson 23, there should be more TL prompts earlier and less English. 3) Admit that your course is a good supplement to other methods and not a one-stop solution for your language learning needs. Market it that way and I think sales will increase. 4) While this course is fairly up to date. It would've been nice to have some reference to the digital age- email, internet and computer lingo, if only to say- "Is there an internet cafe near here? I need to check my email." 5 Though this course did not have any businessman talk- no references to dry cleaners, meetings, taking notes and other business related vocabulary and phrases, many of their courses do. They need to make their courses more relevant to people who like to travel and are interested in the country's or region's culture. This course, though only one level, did that to a large extent. 6) Drop the price. I think they'd sell more of their courses if they dropped the price by at least half or even 2/3. They should end the whole cd business and go all digital. Still, all that being said, Pimsleur was a really good supplement to my other methods. I like the audio only approach as it makes it independent of having to sit and can be taken anywhere. I don't need or want a transcript as I agree that it defeats the purpose of the course at least for western languages. I didn't bother with the reading lessons. So if you're going to use Pimsleur, use it as a supplement and try to get a copy second hand or from your library. I enjoyed the audio book with text, Mèt lawouze. The format of the lessons with very little English used is very much to my liking. The story is an adaptation of the great Haitian writer- Jacques Roumain's Gouverneurs de la rosée originally written in French and translated into English by the great African American writer, Langston Hughes. Here is a link to the story of Langston Hughes meeting Jacques Roumain. This was a good choice for an introductory book. Each "chapter" was about a page and a half long with a few selected words highlighted and defined/explained in English. All other words were included in the glossary. The story is about a Haitian village "yon bouk" that is experiencing a horrific drought, partly to blame on the actions of man as explained by the author, and a young man (Mannwèl) from the village who has been away for several years in pre-revolutionary Cuba, cutting sugar cane. He returns to find everything dry and sad with all the plants, animals and people on their way to death, if nothing is done. He is determined to do something. Boy meets girl. Girl considers him the enemy because of a "vye istwa" an "old story" that has led to a feud between the people of the village. They no longer work together. Mannwèl is determined to find water. He goes to the nearby mountain and sees a flock of birds entering a hole in the bush. He cuts his way through the bush to find a spring "yon sous dlo". It will take the help of all the villagers working together "tèt ansanm" to bring the water to the village. Along the way, there is love, revenge and death and a way out of the vicious cycle. I've just ordered the Haitian Creole translation from educavision in Miami. I will review the book and continue on with the rest of the lessons about folktales, jokes, riddles and the Sermon on the Mount. I am also over halfway finished with the Kansas University Haitian Creole Conversation course- Ti Koze Kreyòl. I am already looking for a conversation partner/tutor on-line. Orevwa. N a wè pita. Edited by iguanamon on 24 January 2013 at 8:20pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4954 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 30 of 36 24 January 2013 at 6:07pm | IP Logged | |||||
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So you're really into it, iguanamon?! I have Assimil Créole Guadeloupéen and a few other
resources for haitian, but I think it's not that straightforward even with a solid background in French. Grammar and vocabulary seem to have fallen apart between French and Creole. I'll scroll back and read the log later. Good luck! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5050 days ago 2237 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 31 of 36 25 January 2013 at 2:00am | IP Logged | |||||
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I am sticking with this for a while, Expugnator. It's fun. I think a native French speaker would advance more quickly than I am. I think a non-native speaker would run into more problems- possibly along the order of Spanish and Portuguese due to the similarity between the two languages.
Creole languages are very interesting. I imagine, from what little I know, that Crioulo (Cape Verde and Guinea Bissau) is similar in its relation to Portuguese. For those of you who are French-speakers and you want to read some of Jacques Roumain's work, you can find La proie et l'ombre and La montagne ensorcellé at the Digital Library of the Caribbean site. You can read online or, as I do, print to pdf. Click the "print" icon for the print menu. I've found so many good resources at the dLOC site. Last night, I found a very interesting basic course You Can Learn Creole- "A simple introduction to Haitian Creole for English-speaking people" with pronunciation, grammar and simple exercises. This book dating from 1945 and 1953 was written by one of the creators of the first orthography for Haitian Creole, H. Ormonde McConnell. It is surprisingly readable if you only know the modern orthography. Too bad they dropped the circonflex for nasal vowels.
(New Orthography: Nou pa kapab (ka) travay nan kay la. Nou pran anpil bagay. Mwen (or) m vle fè premye leson la. Translation: We can't work in the house. We can take many things. I want to do the first lesson.) The Digital Library of the Caribbean- dLOC is useful for anyone interested in the history and culture of the Caribbean. Books and materials are also available in English, Spanish, French, Kreyòl, Papiamento, Dutch, and Portuguese (there are even a few documents in Danish from my territory's history). Orevwa. N a wè pita. Edited by iguanamon on 25 January 2013 at 3:56am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5050 days ago 2237 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 32 of 36 30 January 2013 at 4:11am | IP Logged | |||||
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Having finished Pimsleur, I am continuing with Ti Koze Kreyòl. I'm on lesson 12 now. Lesson 11 was all about a voudou ceremony. The lessons are increasing in length and complexity, although the audio is still unnaturally slow for my liking. There was a lot of new vocabulary, some of which I have seen already from La mèt lawouze (Gouverneurs de la rosée) such as "lwa yo" which means (sa vle di) spirits associated with the one God who have specific functions in the lives of people on Earth. Again, voudou is no stereotypical Hollywood "pins in dolls". It is a genuine religion based on a west African faith and culture.
One of the new words I've learned is "potomitan" or "poto mitan" which means "middle post in a voudou "peristil" (covered area open on one side) where the drumming ceremony takes place. The word (compound word) also has the figurative meaning of "mainstay" or "pillar". I first encountered the word here www.potomitan.info. This is a website in French and Kreyòl with lots of good resources available. A lot of people get freaked out by religion. It's a presence in a lot of cultures and I feel it is a subject too important to be ignored. How could I learn Haitian Creole without knowing anything about voudou? It is intrinsically Haitian and Caribbean. I see no conflict with also using the Bible as a resource and have moved on to Egzòd - Exodus in the Bib-la. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to locate an audio version of the Old Testament so, I may move on to the New Testament, which does have audio, soon. Still, I like the Old Testament stories. It sure helps with vocabulary and grammar. Twitter:
My translation: "Friday will be the last day for Hillary Clinton in the State Department. Senator John Kerry is replacing her as the US Secretary of State."
My translation: "New Secretary of State, John Kerry, is a Vietnam war veteran. President Obama named (nominated) him in December 2012. He was a candidate for president in 2004" Relatively easy translations. Twitter is good practice throughout the day. The content is fresh, topical and short. I usually know what the news is in English, Portuguese and Spanish so it helps with vocabulary. In the above quotes we have four verb tenses- present, present progressive, future and past. New vocabulary: war, candidate, nominate, state, senator, veteran. That's not bad for two tweets of 140 characters each. If you're not using twitter in your language learning, it's a really good free resource to have. That's all for now. Orevwa. N a wè pita. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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