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TAC 2015 - Rare Languages Team Thread

 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
113 messages over 15 pages: << Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 8 ... 14 15 Next >>
Expugnator
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Brazil
Joined 4965 days ago

3335 posts - 4349 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento
Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian

 
 Message 57 of 113
15 January 2015 at 8:34pm | IP Logged 
I had always been interested in the countries and people halfway through Europe and Asia. The choice was for Georgian first because of its unique alphabet, grammar (a small, autochtonous language family) and the culture behind it: architecture, hospitality, cooking. I don't regret my choice and any other languages in the region still seem of a lower priority.
3 persons have voted this message useful



druckfehler
Triglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4667 days ago

1181 posts - 1912 votes 
Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean
Studies: Persian

 
 Message 58 of 113
15 January 2015 at 8:43pm | IP Logged 
Sprachprofi wrote:
Reasons I'm learning Hebrew now:

Everyone's doing it. ;-)


Reason I stopped learning Hebrew a long time ago: no one else was doing it :D It was an interesting language, but unfortunately I had very little use for it except on one trip to Israel where it helped me find Jaffa :D It's surprising to see more and more people on the forum study Hebrew.
2 persons have voted this message useful



geoffw
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4487 days ago

1134 posts - 1865 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish
Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian

 
 Message 59 of 113
16 January 2015 at 3:36am | IP Logged 
There's no contest that Hebrew is an obvious language for me to learn. Hebrew is the language my kids learn at
school, so I want/need to keep up as they improve (doing well so far!). I already use ancient varieties of the
language regularly for religious ritual and study. In my community, the two languages I hear most commonly in
public (after English) are Hebrew and Russian, in no particular order. I can't avoid Hebrew, so the only question is
how much effort will I put in to understanding what's around me.
2 persons have voted this message useful



Zireael
Triglot
Senior Member
Poland
Joined 4450 days ago

518 posts - 636 votes 
Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, Spanish
Studies: German, Sign Language, Tok Pisin, Arabic (Yemeni), Old English

 
 Message 60 of 113
16 January 2015 at 9:19pm | IP Logged 
The first post of my log (Jan 2013) says why I wanted to learn Arabic, and it remains true.

Basically, I was drawn in by the beauty of the alphabet (I've just read [today] a Polish translation of a Spanish novel set in Al-Andalus and it has Arabic calligraphed chapter headings awwww).
To top it, I'm pretty interested in linguistics, so the trilateral roots and recurring vowels in forms I-IX made me very interested. I doubt I'll be ever able to master weak or defective verbs, though.
The insane dialectal variation (some 20 dialects recognized in Yemen alone) is a cherry on the cake - my tag reads Arabic (Yemeni) but should probably be Arabic (MSA) but I haven't gotten around to changing it lol.

Two days ago, I was reading about sign languages (I need a paragraph on them for my MA) and one theory postulated a location-movement-location schemata similar to the consonant-vowel(s)-consonant-vowel(s)-consonant(-vowel(s)) schemata seen in the Semitic languages.

The schemata thing will probably not make it into my MA, sadly :(
1 person has voted this message useful



Sprachprofi
Nonaglot
Senior Member
Germany
learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 6269 days ago

2608 posts - 4866 votes 
Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian
Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese

 
 Message 61 of 113
16 January 2015 at 10:08pm | IP Logged 
Expugnator wrote:
Could you elaborate on the concept of anchor languages,
Sprachprofi? I googled and found no results. You made me curious, after all in my case
Dutch and Italian are sinking in the North Sea and the Mediterranean, respectively.


Haha. What Richard meant (I think) is that you should select one language of each
language family and build it up to C1 or better, this will be your anchor which allows
you to then tackle the next one in that language family. The anchor languages also
help you keep all the other languages active: e. g. while reading Spanish you're
partly also reviewing Italian, because so many words are similar. So on the whole you
need less review time if you work this way. Without an anchor language, it may be that
you're "trading in" one language for another, as you will lose your languages when
they are not anchored, especially when learning a similar one. It's okay to do a
trade-off, Richard did that a couple times, but it should be a conscious one. Some
language families need more than one anchor, for example French cannot anchor Italian
or Spanish, they are too distinct.

I am about to post a first update on my Hebrew studies in my log.

Edited by Sprachprofi on 16 January 2015 at 10:09pm

3 persons have voted this message useful



Stelle
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
Canada
tobefluent.com
Joined 3943 days ago

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

 
 Message 62 of 113
17 January 2015 at 12:31am | IP Logged 
I'm learning Tagalog because my husband and his family are all Tagalog-speakers. I'm going to be honest...if I didn't
have a personal investment in the language and culture, then Tagalog would probably never have made it on my
radar.

But it's a really interesting language, for so many reasons...

- Spanish and English loan words abound. In some cases, like numbers, all three languages are used: numbers from
1-10 in Tagalog, higher numbers in English, time in Spanish.

- Despite the loan words, Tagalog syntax (and vocabulary) is a huge challenge for me. Up until now, my languages
(English, French, Spanish) have generally followed a basic SVO word order. The VSO word order in Tagalog feels like
a puzzle sometimes! And multi-syllabic Tagalog words can be hard to remember.

- I love markers and particles! Want to turn a statement into a question? Just add a "ba" question marker. Talking to
someone older than you or in a position of authority? Add a "po" respect marker.

- There's very little differentiation between males and females in language. Siya means both he and she. Niya means
both his and her. Asawa is spouse - no difference between wife and husband. (edited to add: there exist words for
man and woman: lalaki and babae. But occupation words are gender neutral)


- THE SPELLING! Oh, the spelling is a beautiful thing. Tagalog and loan words are spelled *exactly* how they sound.
So for example, the word for Wednesday is Miyerkules (from the Spanish miércoles), you type on your "kompyuter"
and you don't have to try to figure out how to sound out a crazy-long word like "pinakanakakatawa" (although you
can't tell from the spelling which syllable will be stressed). I read "hawswayp" in a text and it wasn't until I read it out
loud that I realized it was "housewife" (the "f" sound doesn't exist in Tagalog).

- It's really a rapidly changing language. Anyone interested in the dynamics of a changing language would do well
to take a look at Tagalog.

- Code-switching. Love it or hate it, you can't really avoid code-switching if you're talking to Filipinos.

edited to clarify

Edited by Stelle on 17 January 2015 at 2:40pm

5 persons have voted this message useful



tristano
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Netherlands
Joined 3846 days ago

905 posts - 1262 votes 
Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English
Studies: Dutch

 
 Message 63 of 113
20 January 2015 at 11:18pm | IP Logged 
druckfehler wrote:

Who's going to join me? ;)



me me me me!!! Persian <3

Ok, Dutch. I don't like it. But I like even less that I live in the Netherlands and I still need to use English with the
locals.

Why Dutch is worthy studying? Well, because the Netherlands are a very nice place where to live, just to start.
Because the Dutch can be very nice people but will not invest on you if you don't speak their language. It gives you
an headstart of German and it has a unique sound: you cannot mistake Dutch with any other language in the world
(well, if you exclude Afrikaans, that it's basically simplified Dutch). Because the grammar is quite weird but there is a
sort of elegance behind it. I actually like it when it's written. And the Dutch women are among the most beautiful in
the world. Also, speaking Dutch will make pronouncing Klingon easier.
1 person has voted this message useful



Stelle
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
Canada
tobefluent.com
Joined 3943 days ago

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

 
 Message 64 of 113
22 January 2015 at 2:08am | IP Logged 
I know that GLOSS is already linked in the resources post:

GLOSS

...but I just wanted to say that I completed my very first lesson, and I thought it was great! I checked out their list of
languages, and it looks like they have lessons available for Persian-Farsi, Hebrew, Arabic, Indonesian, Albanian,
Hindi, and Thai..

It might be worth taking a look if you haven't already!


3 persons have voted this message useful



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