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Embici’s slow road to Greek | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| renaissancemedi Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Greece Joined 4143 days ago 941 posts - 1309 votes  Speaks: Greek*, Ancient Greek*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Russian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew | Message 49 of 108 01 March 2013 at 7:55am | IP Logged |
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Καλή τύχη! You don't need it really, you are very good so far so you do something right!
Whatever you have been working on it's ok. You can't do eveything all at once. Here is a proverb that fits language learning: Αγάλι- αγάλι γίνεται η αγουρίδα μέλι. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| embici Triglot Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4395 days ago 263 posts - 370 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Greek | Message 50 of 108 10 March 2013 at 7:46pm | IP Logged |
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It is maple syrup season in many parts of Canada. Last Sunday I told one of my teachers
(who is in Athens) about our plans for the day which included going to a maple festival. Well, he had no idea what a maple tree was let alone maple syrup so I prepared a little explanation for him: Το σιρόπι σφενδάμου φτιάχνεται από τον χυμό των δέντρων. Στην αρχή της Άνοιξης για μόνο λίγες εβδομάδες κάνοντας τρύπες στα δέντρα, συγκεντρώνεται ο χυμός σε κουβάδες και τον βράζεται, συμπυκνώνεται σε σιρόπι. It takes at least 40 litres of maple sap to make 1 litre of syrup, that means it has to boil for many, many hours. Αγάλι- αγάλι γίνεται η αγουρίδα μέλι. Έτσι δεν είναι, Πηνελόπη; My teacher is originally from Χίος so he compared it to a γλυκό του κουταλιού ("spoon sweet") from that island: Μαστίχα. I actually knew about this already from my partner but it's much thicker than maple syrup. Μαστίχα is more the consistency of maple toffee (or is it taffy?). As for Greek studies, I'm on lesson 7 of Ellinika A' (the text book my teacher uses). We're going through it quite quickly as a lot of it is review for me. It's interesting to use a book that is in Greek and geared to immigrants living in Greece rather than one that is in English or French and geared to tourists. I'm learning new vocabulary as a result. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| renaissancemedi Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Greece Joined 4143 days ago 941 posts - 1309 votes Speaks: Greek*, Ancient Greek*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Russian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew | Message 51 of 108 10 March 2013 at 8:55pm | IP Logged |
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It's better to say: συγκεντρώνεται ο χυμός σε κουβάδες, βράζεται, και συμπυκνώνεται σε σιρόπι. Good job, once again.
Μαστίχα! I adore it. Try to find the chewing gum, it's great. As for spoon sweets, give me any of them and I will not say no. They are very easy to make at home you know. This text book sounds just what you need, and I didn't know something like that existed. I wish I could find the equiveland in some of the languages I am interested in. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| embici Triglot Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4395 days ago 263 posts - 370 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Greek | Message 52 of 108 14 March 2013 at 7:31pm | IP Logged |
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The text book feels a bit like doing the Active Wave of Assimil. I'm familiar with all the concepts, and much of the vocabulary, but now I'm actually doing exercises such as listenting comprehension, fill in the blanks, conjugations, etc. Typically during the week I prepare my homework for my iTalki tutor and then when I have time I work on Teach Yourself Greek or Language Transfer, or simply listen to Vocabulearn or Book2. Assimil is still on hold.
I'm not sure that working through a text book with a tutor is better than just doing Assimil on my own, but I'm giving my tutor the benefit of the doubt, for now. At least I'll stay with him till the book is done. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| embici Triglot Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4395 days ago 263 posts - 370 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Greek | Message 53 of 108 04 April 2013 at 8:55pm | IP Logged |
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I could never make a living as an interpreter. I have done a bit of translating here and there but whenever I've been asked to interpret at a presentation or lecture, I've always backed away. I'm not very good at keeping two languages in my head at a time. Even if I understand every word, the translation just doesn't come to me very fast. I also find that when I travel to Latin America I need a bit of time for the Spanish to start flowing again.
Do others experience this? I also found that once I learned Spanish (in my early 20s) it seemed my French was pushed aside as I would get a lot of interference from Spanish. In the last few months when I've tried to do a bit of self-talk in Spanish I noticed a lot of interference from Greek. I would end up saying είναι instead of está, η instead of o for example. It's interesting but at the start of my Greek studies, I found myself inserting Spanish words here and there, now the reverse is happening. I even caught myself saying ναι instead of sí to a waiter at a Mexican restaurant recently. I'm interested to know if others have similar difficulties with interference. Edited by embici on 04 April 2013 at 9:01pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| renaissancemedi Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Greece Joined 4143 days ago 941 posts - 1309 votes Speaks: Greek*, Ancient Greek*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Russian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew | Message 54 of 108 05 April 2013 at 7:29am | IP Logged |
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Sometimes when I want to speak Italian, french comes out. I think it's something that many people experience.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4424 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 55 of 108 05 April 2013 at 2:26pm | IP Logged |
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Interference is quite normal, and the more languages you learn or speak the more likely you are to experience it. It happens to me as well, even in the languages I speak very well. I do not think it is such a big deal, sometimes it is simply due to tiredness or lack of concentration, and I normally notice it myself so that I can correct the "mistake". Obviously, if you are a professional interpreter you better avoid it, but then interpretation is really a technical skill that has to be trained and practised on a regular basis.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| embici Triglot Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4395 days ago 263 posts - 370 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Greek | Message 56 of 108 09 April 2013 at 6:18pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the encouragement. When I see the well-known polyglots on YouTube switching between languages it seems so effortless.
Spring is in the air and I've had a wandering eye lately (for languages, anyway). My original plan for this year was to experiment with Dutch in March and either Catalan or Italian in April (I can't remember which right now). Assimil Dutch seems delightful. Okay, the first lesson was a bit of an eye-roller with the mother-in-law joke, but my (early) impression is that Assimil Dutch could be quite do-able, perhaps accompanied by Michel Thomas. There is something nice about studying a language with many cognates with English after all this time struggling to remember Greek vocabulary. And to listen to a dialogue in a language I've had almost no exposure to and actually understand much of it is so nice! I've been listening to some Catalan lately. It's also a language I've had no significant exposure to. The couple of times I had tried listening to it, I found it completely incomprehensible. "Related to French and Spanish? It can't be!" were my thoughts. But, after listening to Curso Pons Catalan several times, I'm starting to get some familiarity with the sounds and it seems much more comprehensible. I guess that's what the Passive wave in Assimil is all about, isn't it? As for Greek, I don't find myself studying it very much these days. If it weren't for my Skype lessons I wouldn't get in as much time as I do now which is about one hour of homework and one hour on Skype. That's just two hours a week. Admittedly, when I was using Assimil on my own I often did two-three hours a week of study so I'm not really that far off. We may actually travel to Greece in the fall so there's my motivation to get moving on it. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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