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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| SladeWilson Newbie Canada Joined 3252 days ago 17 posts - 26 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 1 of 6 19 June 2015 at 11:53am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Slade's Language Log
Esperanto Biblical Greek French German Esperanto I've now spent three whole weeks on Duolingo's new Esperanto course, and have made it past the last checkpoint. I am enjoying it very much, the course as well as the language. In this log I might try to speak or write in Esperanto from time to time. We'll see how that goes. I got a start on one of the courses at Lernu.net, done a couple of lessons on the website and have reviewed them with the mp3 downloads. The lessons are short but useful, so far. It's the 'Mi estas komencanto' course. I need to practice pronunciation of Esperanto, because I find myself reverting to English or French pronunciations when I am reading Esperanto sentences. I need to do them one by one, because just throwing sentences at me like Duolingo doesn't grab my enough of my attention. Lernu is a little better at exposing pronunciation, it seems, getting you to repeat sentences and even just words. Biblical Greek Learning the language of the New Testament has been something I've wanted to do for a while now. I'm not out of the planning stage yet. I want to get a start as early as next month. That isn't completely true, as I have gone over the alphabet but have in no way mastered it, and will probably focus more on it before the month is up. Also, I have received a bit of advice as to what materials to buy starting out, for someone who doesn't want to spend a lot of money. The first book I will be using is Learn New Testament Greek by John Dobson. The rest, I'll save for later so I have something to say in later posts. French I'm currently on a break from French. I do hope to return to it when the mood strikes. I have a bit of a background, being Canadian and all. French is a mandatory part of schooling. At the end of all, I can't say I learned a whole lot. They did good at instilling some grammar, but I forgot a lot of conjugation rules after years of not using the language. Really it's been a life of not using the language. I was never given the enough of the right vocabulary to get me speaking and writing, or given an assignment to put that vocabulary to use. I have used the Michel Thomas method in the past, and a lot of other ways of picking up pieces of the language. Before I broke from studying, I was using Assimil, for which I have both New French with Ease (the one I've been working on) and Using French. I know when I get back into the language, which isn't too far ahead of me, I will be investing a little more time into each lesson and going through more of the lessons at a quicker pace. I've tried doing it the Assimil way, but I have to say I'm bored/sick of it. I think I can retain enough important vocabulary by doing it another way, so that's what I'll do. I also went through a few chapters of the Berlitz Self-Teacher, which I do want to continue with as it's a pretty light course from what I've seen of it. In fact, I might make it a part of my routine next month just to ease back into French. German I spent an incredibly small amount of time trying out German on Duolingo as well as Memrise. Let's just say German is on hold. I don't know when I will be studying German, but I will be. I don't really have as good a reason to learn German as I do my other languages. The one thing that I know I want to be able to do is to read scholarly literature about Christianity - early Christianity, the historical Jesus, the Reformaton, etc. I'll probably want to read the Bible in German as well. I plan to fast track my way to that type of literature by using grammar heavy texts like German Quickly by April Wilson. But first, I'll be going through a book by published by Barron's - it's called Master the Basics (German) and I picked it up at a thrift shop for $2.99 which is quite the deal. I could probably add more to this introductory post, but I'm pretty sure I have exhausted you already. Until next time, SladeWilson 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| SladeWilson Newbie Canada Joined 3252 days ago 17 posts - 26 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 2 of 6 21 June 2015 at 1:16pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Up late this weekend. Since I had the spare time I used it to practice the Greek alphabet. I know the names of each letter, and can produce sounds for most if not all of the letters. Because it's not phonetic I'm still at a loss for how to pronounce words. Decision time is almost upon us: Modern vs. Erasmian pronunciation. Either one is bad as far as it concerns me, because I hate the sound of Greek. I love the orthography, but the sound of spoken Greek is like nails on a chalkboard to me. I'm learning a language that I can't stand to hear! But still, I must learn to pronounce words or else reading Greek wouldn't actually be reading Greek.
So Erasmian pronunciation of Ancient Greek is taught in universities. It is taught in the U.S., and a quick Wikipedia search reveals it is taught in Italy without exception (I'm sure there has to be an exception though, right? You sly, Wiki!). The choice between Erasmian and Modern pronunciation then is not that clear-cut, at least not entirely. I don't actually have to speak Koine to anyone either, which is nice because it sounds horrendous. I don't know which is more practical. I feel like I can predict the argument why the Modern Greek model should be learned, and these are cultural sensibilities I could safely ignore because freedom. So, has anyone picked up some Ancient Greek? Which model were you taught, or if you study on your own which one did you pick? Also, I'm struggling to decide if I should just finish the Esperanto tree on Duolingo ASAP or use the Midas touch and turn everything gold. I'm really starting to lose ground and have been maintaining very few skills this week. As far as I know, everything not gold is still 4/5 in strength though, so it's possible to turn this around. So far I have 14 skills in need of refreshing, and 14 skills left on the tree. I really wanted to finish the tree early, but I'm already on my 23rd day, and I'm not collecting as much XP as in the beginning. But I'm finding myself making simple mistakes, although I chalk it up to the quick response I have in filling out the form without looking at the finer details. For example, I know that the -is suffix is past tense, but I end up translating the sentence in the present tense. Nothing I should worry about, as we learn from our mistakes. I'm just saying, all these mistakes pile up and cost me valuable minutes that could be spent completing more lessons. Also, while the course has been a lot of fun overall, I am already starting to get bored of translating random sentences. Currently, I'm reading Fluent Forever, and the author suggests not translating at all and using flashcards with pictures. I don't think I can give up translating fullstop, as I want to read in (a foreign language) Esperanto almost right away. The cognates and the regularity of the language should help to minimize the effort involved. But I did start making an Anki deck with pictures to make reading the material I want to read a breeze. I'll be starting with Wikipedia articles. It's not my favourite writing style, but literature I would enjoy is few and far between in Esperanto AFAIK, and they almost always have the Reference or External links sections at the bottom of the page so you can browse outside of Wikipedia. Pretty much it for now, SladeWilson 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| basica Senior Member Australia Joined 3332 days ago 157 posts - 269 votes  Studies: Serbian | Message 3 of 6 21 June 2015 at 1:53pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Good luck with your studies, Dobson is a good choice. I didn't use him myself when studying Koine Greek,
but I have heard good things about him. When I was studying Koine Greek I believe I was taught the Erasmus pronunciation but I can't really recall it to be honest as this was many years ago now since it's mostly for an internal model in your head - I don't think it matters which you choose. One day I hope to return to Greek, but since reading the NT isn't something that interests me anymore I might focus more on Ancient Greek as opposed to solely the Koine variety. In any case, maybe your log might invigorate my desire some more to learn it :) With regards to the translation side of things, I wouldn't really worry about translating so much in the early stages. Sure you can do pictures for some words easily, but others would be difficult and more than likely until you develop a base whenever you see the picture you'll think of the word in your native language (as has been my experience with this). Anyways, once again, good luck with your studies! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| SladeWilson Newbie Canada Joined 3252 days ago 17 posts - 26 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 4 of 6 21 June 2015 at 3:00pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I'm back because I figure I should probably list some of my goals.
For Esperanto, when I started I was just going to try it out but it turned out I really enjoyed the Duolingo course, and the language itself. I began looking things up in Google's Esperanto search engine. And it reared its ugly head! There really isn't that much available in Esperanto when it comes to some of my hobbies (and probably some of yours). This is opportunity to be creative and inventive. I could create websites in Esperanto, and even have a good generic domain name at that! Yes, so my stuff won't be seen by the whole world, but I will have made something I can be proud of at the very least. I also have decided to translate a few literary works into Esperanto when I am more proficient in the language. This is the biggest, most ambitious goal of my adventures in language learning at the moment. I don't know if it can be topped. French, right now I just want to get to a level where I can read french graphic novels or bandes dessinées as they are called. It's a short term goal, maybe by the end of August if we're determined. I do eventually want to travel to Quebec or somewhere to experience the culture of a french speaking people in Canada. I'm Canadian so it's not just an alternative to going to France or something. While I do love France from afar, my Canadian land is far more special. I think I already mentioned in my opening post that when I study German, my first main goal is to be able to read literature by scholars on the history of Christianity mostly. I want to get there as quickly as I can. And lastly, New Testament Greek. Obviously, I want to read the New Testament in its original language. I think actually that the Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) and the Didache were also written in what we call Koine, although if I'm learning New Testament specific stuff I don't know how much of the Septuagint, considering it is a translation, may still be unclear to me. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. The New Testament is also a literary work, one which I might one day enjoy translating (at least in part) into Esperanto. There are bibles translated into Esperanto, the founder of Esperanto actually translated the bible (but it followed the tradition of the KJV, which to me is one of its main detractors). It would be quite the project though. It's going to take a while before I can take on a translation from Koine into Esperanto though, and even to do it when I feel I'm ready enough... I doubt I could be taken seriously as translator. But it would be one of few translations unlike in English where we have dozens, I'm sure over a hundred versions of the Bible. So there's my list of goals I hope to accomplish, some are likely to happen soon, some are unlikely to happen at all, and some might just take a while. SladeWilson 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| SladeWilson Newbie Canada Joined 3252 days ago 17 posts - 26 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 5 of 6 21 June 2015 at 3:16pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Yeah, I'm just using Dobson for a start because I hear he gets right into using examples in the language, and I think it would be the best way to grab my attention in the early going.
Yeah. Personally, I swing back and forth with my hobbies. Instead of getting a fix for all things at once, I go through phases. It hasn't been the best thing for my language learning, but luckily I've had a surge in interest in language recently. I know I'm going to end up going back to my interest in many things religion related at some point. It would be cool to add that I can maybe pronounce words in the Greek New Testament, maybe even understand a few of them, next time I get sucked into it again. I hope I can keep updating this log. I'll try not to overdo it while I'm at it.
Thank you for the tip. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| SladeWilson Newbie Canada Joined 3252 days ago 17 posts - 26 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 6 of 6 29 June 2015 at 12:27pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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So I haven't been doing a whole lot language-wise lately. I may have been OK for a few days after my last update, but since then my efforts have disintegrated. I'm picking away very slowly at my Duolingo Esperanto tree (I'm talking like 10xp a day slow), and after having used some Anki decks I'm left with 100s of cards to review for each deck.
One thing I have stayed on is the Greek alphabet. Last update I was doing very well, almost too well. When you first learn something without the most repetitive drilling you tend to forget. Well, I've gotten past that hump. I think it's safe now to say I truly know the Greek alphabet. Thanks to an audio file of the alphabet being sung, found on teknia.com, I think I have mastered the names and the order of the Greek letters. I am also now able to write any lowercase Greek letter, which is the most common variant I will be seeing and reading; I will just need to pick up the uppercase letters through reading. For the very small amount of time and effort that went into all of this, I'm very happy with where I am at. Edited by SladeWilson on 29 June 2015 at 12:28pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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