Multiligual log

Discussion in 'Language Learning Logs & Super Challenges' started by Bob, Oct 30, 2014.

  1. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    Ok well, I'm often enough straying into other languages that it's time to make a multiligual log.

    Italian: After previewing the vocab for FSI programatic, I looked at the course itself and discovered that there are no dialogs until 2/3 of the way through and there are no English translations to go with it. This is unfortunate because this is almost the only thing I use from languages courses to practice listening. It looks like you could use this course to get a doctorate in Italian sounds :p

    French: There was a phrase in 20000 leagues under the seas that was not translated in English. The phrase is something like "the goose was laying all different colors of eggs" meaning that the rumors were highly variant. I don't know if this is a French idiom or if it was a creation of the author.

    Cebuano: not really the language per se, but I wanted to get a jeep to BPI, and the driver did not understand me for some reason. BPI! BPI! They finaly got it and repeated it, I guess, with a slightly different rythm.
  2. Big_Dog

    Big_Dog Administrator Staff Member

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    Coincidentally I'm reading the same book. I'm only half way through - is this when they are trying to guess what the "monster" is?
  3. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    Yes, it's in the first chapter. If you're reading this in English the "standard" translation had 1/4 of the material cut out.
  4. Arnaud

    Arnaud Member VIP member

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    The original sentence is "Les canards eurent là une belle occasion de pondre des oeufs de toute couleur".
    In colloquial french "un canard" is a newspaper (perhaps you know the newspaper called "le canard enchainé"), and "pondre un article" is to write rapidly an article, so perhaps it's way to say that the newspapers published all kind of articles about the monster.

    Edit:
    Or you can also interpret it as Bob: the rumors were highly variant, because the quack (le cri du canard) in french is called "cancan" and "cancan" also means a malicious gossip, a rumor, etc: so there is an evident relation between the duck and the rumor.
    Finally I think Bob's interpretation is probably better
    Last edited: Oct 31, 2014
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  5. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    oh wow I didn't know that. hehe. I guess if that's the correct interpretation that would be hard to translate :p
  6. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    cebuano: yesterday someone asked me "kumusta vacation?" and I was like... why are the calling me vacation? what dies that mean? so I said "huh vacation?" and then they got indignant that I "still don't know cebuano". (later I realized it meant MY vacation). About half an hour later someone said a few things in Cebuano, and I responded and they were like "ha? you understand Cebuano?"

    I'm starting to think that one of the reasons why children are, in general, better language learners is because when they get something wrong they are "so cute", but when an adult gets something wrong they are a "dumb foreigner"

    Tagalog: Understood some of the TV I was watching... yeay!
    Last edited: Nov 2, 2014
  7. Big_Dog

    Big_Dog Administrator Staff Member

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    Not counting resources, do you think Cebuano is more difficult than Tagalog?
  8. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    I would say that the difficulty is exactly the same. As much as you might read about how the grammar is different, those differences are minor. The major differences are in vocabulary.

    More cebuano: I know that "what are you doing?" is "ga unsa ka?" and that "what did you do?" is "giunsa nimo?" but yesterday I wanted to help someone and wanted to ask "what do I do?" and I think the answer was "unsay buhaton nako?"

    The key part I was missing was the "-on" suffix, which has a future element. I know this suffix, just not when to use it, but I noticed it several times in the TV news today.
    Last edited: Nov 3, 2014
  9. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    Cebuano: what in the world? I it seems to be working all of a sudden today :p Impressed a banker today when making a cashier's check.

    NT Greek: Read Galatians today. It's 6 chapters. Wasn't that hard except for a few phrases. In 4:3 there was a word with a given translation of "elemental spiritual force". Wow is this guy talking about Star Wars :p? The word looks to be more like "elements".
    Last edited: Nov 6, 2014
  10. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    NT Greek: read Ephesians (twice as I normally do). After a bit of a boost, I think I'll try to go back and attack the last half of Acts (considered by some to be the hardest part)

    Cebuano: I discovered the one book on Gutenberg that is in Cebuano. It's actually several short stories by the same guy. I had some trouble getting into the first story "Amboy the drunk", mainly due to terms relating to coconut wine, and then got my head into it.
  11. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    Illokano: Yesterday I finished goldlisting the peace corp basic guide for Illokano, which is spoken on the same island as Manila. Grammar is still in the same neighborhood as Tagalog and Bisaya (which includes Cebuano) but the vocab seems largely unique.

    Tagalog: I've watched the same news episode many times. I still figure out something here and there, but most of it still just blasts on by. Not sure if it would be better to go to a different episode, stay with this one, or do some more reading.

    Cebuano: Comprehension has dropped. I went to a 2 hour seminar on an unfamiliar topic, and I think I got 80% of it, but that means that many of the statements were unclear. I suspect I wasn't processing the "small words". I did activate some vocab for words they used allot. Last night I was hearing words, but not thoughts. Part of this probably just has to do with the fact that I find to hard to concentrate the last few days. I was suspicious that Moby Dick was helping my Cebuano, because I had to think about everything that was said. When I instead read an easy-going novel that I didn't have to think about so much, my Cebuano comprehension dropped. Keep an active brain?
  12. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    nt greek: I Think I've gotten over the hump in Acts, but I think that's mainly because I'm familar with some of the later events regarding Paul. I've noticed recently that when someone comes up to me now, and wants to know the exact wording of a verse, I'm able to do it on the fly most the time.

    OT hebrew: I've started Goldlisting again the OT dictionary, from Strong's lexicon. I think this is the best "non-religous" lexicon around. (aside of course, from an ancient greek lexicon proper) I could push this through after 6 months I'm sure, but I'm kind of taking it easy right now. I'm skipping allot because I'm not doing Proper nouns, or words that obviously have the same root. Allot of that even looked the same before they added vowels anyway.

    French: somewhere around chapter 4 of 20000 leagues. It seems harder than when I last put this thing down. It's like I had a complete block when I picked it back up. I have my underlined vocab words, but I haven't done anything with it yet.

    Cebuano: everytime I watch something twice, I get the magic understanding. I just wish this would happen the first time, because people find it annoying to repeat in real life.
  13. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    Hmm the last few days I haven't been able to concentrate on much due to illness :(

    Cebuano: Speaking seems ok today. I didn't really get stuck. I think I've noticed something though. When my desire is to communicate I don't do so well, or if my goal is to "prove" myself to a native. Every time though, that I have the chance to "show off" to a non-native standing nearby, I seem to communicate just fine. Maybe I'm more conceited than I thought.

    I've started dreaming about speaking Cebuano. Although in retrospect when I wake up, I have no idea if the words were right or not. :p

    NT Greek: It occured to me lately, that there are sometimes now words that I know the meaning of, but that I can't quite think of the English equivalent for
  14. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    Greek: Turned some Aesop's Fables into a kindle book, and the kindle store has an ancient Greek dictionary :) These are in the same basic style of Greek as the NT. I found I could read "The Good things and The Bad things" at least roughly. Then I saw a translation and was like huh? Here's my hack:

    The Good things and the Bad things.

    The good things were persecuted by the bad things as they were weak; they went up into heaven. The Good things asked Zeus how to be with mankind. He said not to go with each other all at once, but to go to men one by one. Because of this indeed the bad things come upon men together hemming them in, as they are neighbors, but the good things come down slowly out of heaven. because indeed no one meets quickly with good things, but each one is struck with bad things (all the time?).

    Compare to: http://www.mythfolklore.net/aesopica/perry/274.htm

    Cebuano: Yeay, talked to someone at immigration, who was also getting a visa. Nice to find a clear as day speaker.

    end of day edit: cebuano comprehension seems up today. I can't explain this. I got stuck a few times but it's because the words were being used in an unusual way. My plan at the moment is to just listen to news broadcasts cold, to get used to listening to people who wont repeat.
    Last edited: Nov 24, 2014
  15. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    greek: almost through acts. I hit a speed bump in the next to last chapter because of allot of nautical terms.

    Cebuano: Tried to transcribe some news. I had about 44 seconds. It was an intro where they talked about traffic. As per the advice in "Language master key" I listened only once before writting it down. It went surprisingly quick. the gaps where I had to replay the most was the small gramatical words again.
  16. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    Cebuano:
    I just finished a huge novel in English, maybe now I'll have a bit more time for this.

    I went back to start working with a Cebuano soap that I have worked with previously. I started at episode 2. The first thing I noticed is that I understood allot more very easily. I saw this like 6 months ago and didn't spend much time with it because I could follow the gist. Bit of a motivator that.

    I did find one section completely unintelligible the first time around, and sat down and started transcribing. It was much harder than when I did the news the other day, but easier than in the past transcribing this series. I'm not the whole way through yet. I'm not really checking my answers, because I think the exercise of having to distinguish sounds is where the real improvement is going to come from anyway at this point. I wouldn't take that attitude with a language that I can't read well though.

    Greek: Finished Acts! yeay
  17. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    Japanese: this is expected to go even slower than Hebrew right now. There are some Japanese people around here, and so it seems that even a low level knowledge of this would be useful. I was inspired to Goldlist the Hiragana while in a Japanese airport, and that just got completed today. I went and took some words off of the Level 5 list (of which there is 800 total). I'm not doing this as the creator of the Goldlist did, but instead, I'm writing the word in Japanese (the Kanji way) on two lines, making the first line the pronunciation and the second line the translation. Now what that means is roughly 64 headlists. I wonder when I'll get around to all THAT. (I have read through some Chinese graded readers in the past)

    Cebuano: listening to a variety of materials. It's so odd when I'm really following this stuff, then somebody comes in and says one thing, and I don't get it :p

    Tagalog: In re-reading "ang mini" I'm also reading the facing Tagalog translation. Progress is rather quick. I accidentally changed my Cebuano audio bible over to Tagalog and almost didn't notice :p (very familiar text though).
  18. Big_Dog

    Big_Dog Administrator Staff Member

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    The 3 entry per word method is pretty common for Japanese word lists/flashcards. 頑張ってください!
  19. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    Portuguese: Goldlisting is done for FSI programmatic II. If I ever get a chance to sit down I can go through the conversations. I realized in my last reading excursion that I'm still missing some basics, one of which is a highly irregular verb. (and it's why I didn't know what to do with the word "for")

    Cebuano: In the zone briefly last night in my listening exercises.
  20. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    Hey look I'm featured! :)

    Cebuano: one of those days when I ask myself, "what did I do?", so that I can do it more. Started understanding everyone this afternoon with a degree ease, which is weird because I didn't do any Cebuano earlier that day. Longer statements were a problem. I'm again feeling the balance of listening for sound, and listening for meaning.

    Here's a word for word translation that doesn't work: "gahi mag-trabaho" could literally be "hard working", but means instead "hard to get to work"
    Last edited: Dec 4, 2014

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