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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 |  | |
| 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 337 of 646 26 February 2013 at 9:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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TUESDAY, 26 FEBRUARY 2013
This will be kind of a linguistic sweeping strike, or in other words a short summary of February and my plans for March. Russian: After completing Colloquial Russian, I will continue studying in a less formal way. I have begun to read Ну что, поехали - Russland in kleinen Geschichten, an easy bilingual reader with short texts about Russia and the Russians. Additionally, I started listening to and reading the transcript of a podcast from Radio Эхо Москвы about Russians in Kazakhstan. I got this idea from Steve Kaufman whose philosophy of reading and listening comes closest to my study habits. During March, I will also do some of the small challenges from the Team MIR team thread in order to practise writing. Icelandic: Still reading Hrafnkels Saga. I don't know when I'll have the time for consciously working on my grammar and vocabulary, but maybe I'll simply write some paragraphs in this thread once in a while. Scottish Gaelic: I have repeated lesson 9 in Lehrbuch der schottisch-gälischen Sprache and will continue with the upcoming lessons in March. Meanwhile, I'm still listening to a lot (!) of Gaelic songs. Italian: Although I wanted to start my brush-up of Italian after finishing Colloquial Russian, I decided I'm not really in the mood for that right now. Italian is an easy language for me, as I would only have to learn more vocabulary and turn my passive knowledge of the language into active skills by practising some grammar points. But at the moment, I'm hit by wanderlust and I would like to dabble in something more difficult and exotic, which brings me to... Japanese: Yes, you heard right! I'll finally bring my copy of Colloquial Japanese back into use. As you might remember, I bought it in September but never got really started on it. I decided this would be the best time for at least dabbling in it, so kanji and kana, here I come! Let's see how far I'll get. I must admit though that I was tempted by studying Mandarin as well, but I'll leave that for some other day. French: My copy of Madame Bovary is still lying on my pile of books next to my desk. I tried reading the first chapter, but this 19th century vocabulary somehow put me off. It describes things I barely know by their German name and as it's not an annotated version I would have to look up a lot of words, for which I haven't really been in the mood yet. But I'll get to it some day. English: Using it every day, reading it every day, hearing it every day. Not reading Wuthering Heights though, as even I have limits of how many books I can handle at the same time. Last and also least - Swedish: Haven't done anything in it for a while except listening to songs or occasionally reading in it on the internet. So, that's it for February. I hope March will be at least equally productive. Just in case Japanese doesn't work out for me, I still have Peter Baker's Introduction to Old English on the shelf, so I'll definitely have enough to do. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| liammcg Senior Member Ireland Joined 4398 days ago 269 posts - 397 votes Speaks: English* | Message 338 of 646 26 February 2013 at 11:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's great to see that you're making such excellent progress! I've also become very fond
of Gaelic songs, there are so many beautiful ones out there! Have a listen to this from the fabulous Julie Fowlis. 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 339 of 646 27 February 2013 at 10:58am | IP Logged | ||
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Great, I love it!
Thanks for the recommendation and for your kind words! I'm still fighting a bit with Gaelic prepositions though. 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 340 of 646 02 March 2013 at 7:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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SATURDAY, 02 MARCH 2013
At the moment, I'm frying my brain a little bit, because I'm studying five languages simultaneously in a Prof.-Arguelles-like way. At first, I will read two texts in Russian and go through my Anki deck, then I'll read my unit in Scottish Gaelic, learning new grammar and vocabulary. After that, I'll try to read a passage from Hrafnkels Saga and compare it to a German translation, then I'll go through a unit of Italian and finish off by making my first baby steps in Japanese, lerning pleasantries, pronunciation, and my first kanji and kana. I must admit, it doesn't really work out, so I'll have to reduce my daily pensum a bit. As originally planned, I'll leave out Italian for a while and I'll probably also cut short on Icelandic. I want to focus on Russian and Gaelic and dabble a bit in Japanese on the side. I have a huge collection of language learning books lying on my side table right now, and it's really hard to concentrate on a little selection for now. But I have to, because otherwise I'll really fry my brain sooner or later and there won't be any progress. I hate it when I have to choose between things I love, and why does a day only have 24 hours anyway? Русский На русском языке я уже прочитал два рассказы из моей книги. Они были короткими и интересными, но было много неизвестных слов, которые мне надо выучить. Первый текст рассматривает типичные клише о России и русских, обсуждая значение дачи для русских. Второй информирует о географическом положении России и следующий будет заниматься Новгородской Русью. Gàidhlig Tha mi ag ionnsachadh Gàidhlig fhathast. Tha e doirbh ach glè intinneach. Tha mi a' leughadh an t-aonad a deich an-dràsta ach feumaidh mi ionnsachadh na faclan agus an gràmar fhathast. Bidh mi a' sgrìobhadh na h-eacarsaichean agam a dh'aithghearr agus an uair sin bidh mi a' tòiseachadh air an aonad a h-aon deich. Íslenska Ég hef ekki lesið mikið af Hrafnkels sögu í þessari viku, en ég mun kannski lesa meira næstu viku. Við skulum sjá. Italiano Ho ripetuto un poco d'italiano, ma non molto. Ho letto le prime tre o quattro lezioni nel mio libro, ma non ho trovato molto che non già sapessi. Naturalmente trovo molte espressioni che ho imparate qualche anno fa e poi dimenticate, ma leggendole me ne ricordo e così ameglioro il mio Italiano a poco a poco. Però devo aspettare col mio studio dell'italiano perché sto imparando troppe lingue e l'italiano non è tanto importante per me in questo momento. 日本語 I already know the following kanji: 中 山 田 本 上 下 川, as well as 16 hiragana and three katakana. I'll practise reading and writing them during the next days while learning simple Japanese greetings and pleasantries such as こんにちは! Edited by Josquin on 04 March 2013 at 2:16pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 4850 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 341 of 646 02 March 2013 at 9:39pm | IP Logged | ||
"обсуждая" лучше заменить на что-то вроде "в нем говорится о", тексты сами обычно ничего не обсуждают. 2 persons have 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 342 of 646 02 March 2013 at 10:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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Спасибо! Ваши исправления как всегда очень полезные. Я не знаю, почему я написал "рассказы" - неправильное слово и неправильный падеж! Это как-то глупо...
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| renaissancemedi Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Greece Joined 4152 days ago 941 posts - 1309 votes Speaks: Greek*, Ancient Greek*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Russian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew | Message 343 of 646 08 March 2013 at 8:52am | IP Logged | ||
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Your log always impresses me Josquin. Yes, 24 hours are not enough most days...
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 344 of 646 09 March 2013 at 6:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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SATURDAY, 09 MARCH 2013
Thanks, renaissancemedi! I’m glad you like my log. And I’m proud to announce that this is my 1000th post on HTLAL! During the last week, I managed to study several languages. I repeated the first two texts from Ну что, поехали and entered the unknown vocabulary into Anki. I have already started reading the third text Господин Великий Новгород, which is about Novgorod and the role it played in Russia during the Middle Ages. Concerning Gaelic, I finished units 10 and 11 in Lehrbuch der schottisch-gälischen Sprache. There were some foreign concepts to master, such as the way static actions (sleeping, sitting, standing, lying, etc.) are expressed, namely by a combination of the preposition "ann" + possessive pronoun + verbal noun: Tha mi nam shuidhe ("I am sitting", literally: "Am I in-my sitting"). Another difficulty is expressing pronominal objects, which are formed by fusing the possessive pronouns with the preposition "aig" that normally accompanies the verbal noun: Tha mi gad fhaicinn ("I see you", literally: "Am I at-your seeing"). Needless to say that, of course, the lenition and prefixing rules that apply to the possessive pronouns have to be obeyed in these constructions as well: Tha i na suidhe ("She is sitting"), but Tha e na shuidhe ("He is sitting"); Tha mi gur faicinn ("I see you (pl.)"), but Tha mi gad fhaicinn ("I see you (sg.)"); Tha e gam aithneachadh ("He recognises me"), but Tha e gar n-aithneachadh ("He recognises us"). Luckily, I already knew the construction 'S e ... a th' ann, which describes indefinite subjects: 'S e oileanach a th' annam ("I am a student", literally: "Is it student that is in-me"). So, Gaelic has been quite mind-boggling lately, but the next unit will deal with telling the time, which is a bit easier. Be that as it may. If Gaelic is mind-boggling, what should I call Japanese? Everything is foreign and exotic in this language! I am still working on unit 1 in Colloquial Japanese. I can write and read all the kana and kanji that have been introduced by now and I know the most important greetings and pleasantries. However, I still have to do some exercises and learn some expressions. The left-branching nature of Japanese syntax is already giving me some headaches though. 下田の山本です ("Shimoda no Yamamoto desu") means "I am (Mister) Yamamoto from Shimoda" (literally: "Shimoda-from Yamamoto am"), so the word order is the exact opposite of English or German syntax! I guess this won't get any better when sentences become more complicated. Last but not least, I read chapter 5 of Hrafnkels Saga, but as announced I didn’t do any Italian. That would have been too much. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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