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Xenops Senior Member United States thexenops.deviantart Joined 3845 days ago 112 posts - 158 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese
| Message 17 of 32 23 September 2014 at 9:16pm | IP Logged |
Chao! (I felt the need to do something different)
Didn't get as much done this week--I'm not sure why. Oh well, there is next week. :)
For stats for Super Challenge:
Total Minutes: 730
Total Pages: 138
I think I have a harder time with the challenge is because even though Spanish is my strongest foreign language,
it is also the one that I am the least enthused about. The number of hours studied for each language outside of
the challenge also indicate such:
Spanish (outside of Challange): 3.67
Japanese: 7.42
Italian: 5.80
So sometimes I wonder if the Challange is not right for me; other times I think "if I get through this, then my
Spanish will be at a level that I can enjoy it!"
For other news, my wanderlust has (mostly) come to a stop at German and Hebrew. I wasn't originally planning
on Hebrew, but it satisfies some criteria: it is part of my heritage (both religious and possibly genetic); it is not an
Indo-European language (I want to branch out); I can use it to study old languages like Aramaic and Phoenician;
and it would be useful for reference and knowledge for working on my conlang.
What?! Did I say conlang? Yes! I started on a constructed language when I was in high school, took a break during
college, and want to get back at it. I'm debating if I want to reboot the old one (Mahnam), or leave it as is and
start anew. Mostly I had a writing system, some phonology that was too reliant on English sounds (and we all
know how confused that is) and verb conjugation that was long and ridiculous. I will give an example later.
I'm also interested in linguistics, and currently I'm reading "The Science of Linguistics", which is serving as a good
introduction. I can't find it on Amazan without the book at my side, so I will put that up later.
Cheers,
Xenops
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| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5395 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French
| Message 18 of 32 24 September 2014 at 2:01am | IP Logged |
Great log. I'm surprised I did not see it earlier. Where do you get your parallel books with both languages?
Some of the Narnia books are harder than others. I found the Lion, Witch and Wardrobe to be quite easy as well as the Magician's Nephew.... but I thought the Horse and His Boy was really tough (that is the only book I remember quitting).
Keep up the good work.
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| Xenops Senior Member United States thexenops.deviantart Joined 3845 days ago 112 posts - 158 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese
| Message 19 of 32 24 September 2014 at 5:40am | IP Logged |
Hello there, James! Thank you for your encouragement. For the books I have an all-in-one volume of "Las Cronicas de Narnia", and then I have individual copies of the books in English.
For an addendum to my previous post, I found the title of the linguistics book: "The Science of Language: An Introduction to Language" by John P. Hughes, and it's available here: http://www.amazon.com/The-Science-Language-Introduction-Ling uistics/dp/B00DV4ZDIQ/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1411529672&sr= 8-10&keywords=john+p.+hughes+language
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| Xenops Senior Member United States thexenops.deviantart Joined 3845 days ago 112 posts - 158 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese
| Message 20 of 32 28 September 2014 at 11:28pm | IP Logged |
iHola! Estoy muy feliz, porque en el martes pasado iba a grupo de conversación de español. Necesito más
práctica con mi hablando, y también ahora estoy más emocionada para estudiar español.
(I am very happy, because last Tuesday I went to a Spanish conversation group. I need more practice speaking,
and also now I more excited about studying Spanish)
For Super Challenge stats, here they are:
Minutes: 767
Pages: 143
And as I noted on my first post for new-comers, I decided to go crazy and add THREE (3) new languages to my
list (also noted in title). I figured that I'm on a break from school, and my next step would be a doctorate, and
now is the time to indulge in such things, because I might not have time again for years after.
So language hours outside of challenge are:
Spanish: 5.30
Japanese: 8.6
Italian: 6.6
German: 1.3
I started German this week, and will start the other two shortly. I figured I would plan on twenty (20) minutes or
so each day for each language, and gain more minutes as I get more disciplined ( language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=37591&PN=2">Expugnato r is the hero in this case--I have
many heroes!) For German I will work with FSI and "Teach Yourself Beginner's German" set.
For Hebrew, I will start out with the "Teach Me Hebrew" packet from
http://www.teachmehebrew.com and FSI.
For Hawaiian I will use
https://www.youtube.com/user/LearnHawaiian for
starting.
As far as conlanging and linguistics goes, I found the delightful "Conlangery" podcast. The sound at the
beginning is a little rough, but it improves. They discuss linguistics and developed constructed languages.
Well, I think I wrote enough for now. :P
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| Xenops Senior Member United States thexenops.deviantart Joined 3845 days ago 112 posts - 158 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese
| Message 21 of 32 05 October 2014 at 11:09pm | IP Logged |
iBuenas tardes!
Well, prudence gave me a tug on my ear. I had two solid days where I attempted to study six foreign languages
for twenty-minutes each, and found two things:
1. I didn't like the superficial approach to so many languages
2. related to 1., I realized that I love Japanese too much to cheat with other languages
3. I would be in the beginner stage, again.
4. learning new languages cost $$
So I only added Hawaiian to my list of currently studying languages, mainly because I want to have a conlang
(that awful word!) that belonged to a series of "islands" that woul be situated north of Hawai'i in the Pacific, so I
would use Japanese and Hawaiian as influences. Plus, why not learn it? :)
Since the learnhawaiian Youtube videos require a textbook, I decided to buy a more-complete system. I scored a
cheap copy of
ie=UTF8&qid=1412543103&sr=8-1&keywords=learning+hawaiian+at+ home">Learn Hawaiian at Home
complete with CD's.
For the super challenge, I am doing much better at reading pages. I am finding that Spanish vocab does get
easier as I add more to my arsenal.
For Japanese, I have been reading through Gabriel Wyner's book, and am fiercely tackling the Anki project.
I am too lazy to give numbers of minutes this week, so stay tuned. :)
Edited by Xenops on 05 October 2014 at 11:10pm
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| Lakeseayesno Tetraglot Senior Member Mexico thepolyglotist.com Joined 4354 days ago 280 posts - 488 votes Speaks: English, Spanish*, Japanese, Italian Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 22 of 32 11 October 2014 at 4:54am | IP Logged |
Hey! I saw your comment on my log and wanted to check yours out. Hope not to dissappoint with my Nahuatl updates (as soon as I go back to it, anyway). :)
A quick correction, though:
Xenops wrote:
Estoy muy feliz, porque el martes pasado fui a grupo de conversación de español. |
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Here's a tip: whenever you do something once and then it's over, use plain past ("fui", in this case) or "he ido", in case you're studying Castillian Spanish. Both of these are conjugated as "Perfect" past verbs, which means the action finished without repeating.
"Iba/hacía/comía"/etc. are conjugated in imperfect, which is used when you describe an action in the past that you no longer do (now) but that you did often or were in the midst of doing when the sentence takes place (back then). The equivalent in English of "iba" would be "I used to go" or "I was going".
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| Xenops Senior Member United States thexenops.deviantart Joined 3845 days ago 112 posts - 158 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese
| Message 23 of 32 12 October 2014 at 6:55am | IP Logged |
Thank you, Lakeseayesno! After I posted that Spanish bit, I was wondering if I should have used "Fui", since it was a single action. Thank you for the correction, and I post more language bits, I hope I continue to get corrections. :)
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| Xenops Senior Member United States thexenops.deviantart Joined 3845 days ago 112 posts - 158 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese
| Message 24 of 32 12 October 2014 at 10:16pm | IP Logged |
Aloha awakea kakou! (good noontime everyone!)
I got my copy of "Learning Hawaiian at Home" Kahikahealani-Wight/dp/1573062456/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8 &qid=1413144224&sr=1-
1&keywords=learn+hawaiian+at+home">Amazon link here , and I am finding it to be a fun, approachable
language. Some languages you find really really COOL...But are intimidated by the script or the complexity (i.e.
Arabic, Korean).
This week I got more hours at my job, and getting used to that wiped me out, so not as much studying this week.
For Spanish Super Challenge, here are my numbers:
Minutes: 900
Pages: 166
Yay! 10% of the listening is done! Woot. :)
For hours of language study, here are the number of hours:
Spanish (outside of Challenge): 5.92
Japanese: 12.3
Italian: 8.20
Hawaiian: 1.18
For Japanese, I have made extensive use of Anki, Forvo and Google images, using the Gabriel Wyner method. I
think this will really help my vocabulary.
I am contemplating of applying to Japan and South Korea to work as an ESL teacher, since I am taking a break
from school, I figured I should do something interesting. We'll see.
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