Cebuano and the quest for B2

Discussion in 'Language Learning Logs & Super Challenges' started by Bob, Apr 18, 2014.

  1. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    I don't know if this will do anything, but here's the first thing I had trouble understanding without help. My best swing is "Nag-labad sa akong ulo nga imong kalaki da (diha?)" complete with disappearing l in ulo. I think I half hear it.

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  2. biTsar

    biTsar Active Member VIP member

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    Sure is a pretty sounding language.
  3. Peregrinus

    Peregrinus Active Member

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    Well I have to say that sample, even when slowed down, sounds like someone speaking with a mouth full of food. I can see your transcription for the last third of the sample, but not sure about the rest. Without being familiar myself with the sounds of Cebuano, I can't really judge.

    Further to my earlier suggestions about recording native speakers, as an alternative to recording a live conversation, could you come up with some longish Assimil types of dialogues and ask various speakers (two at a time) to record them for you? You could even try asking them to record two versions: one making an effort for slow and clear enunciation, and the other just as they would normally say it. Unless you come up on some treasure trove of comprehensible spoken conversational material, I see no way around creating your own (other than years more of learning).

    If for some reason you can't or don't want to record your own materials, then I would try to find audio sources with transcripts and use Audacity to slice and dice into small units for listening and study, IF you are sure they are actually representative of what you will hear every day.
  4. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    The Cebuano language is often called Bisaya here. This seems like the wrong term. It feels like calling Spanish "the romance language". There are 25 Bisaya languages according to wiki. One, Ratagnon has 2 native speakers! An expert points out that instead of being called different languages, this is more like a dialect continuum.
  5. Peregrinus

    Peregrinus Active Member

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    The concept of a dialectical continuum is well known among self-learners. Usually major portions of such a continuum will each have a significant number of speakers. If that is not the case, i.e. the entire continuum is not all that large, then it would seem difficult to gather relevant native materials, or even to anchor oneself on one part of the continuum. In other words, if every village on Cebu has its own dialect, then I don't envy you your task. All you can do is concentrate on the village you live in, and try to assemble your own materials (another hint at recording the speech of those around you and getting translations of same).

    As for the media, if you can't find soap operas or something similar, then perhaps you can find interviews. Those often contain every day speech that you could use.
  6. Peregrinus

    Peregrinus Active Member

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    BTW, do you have the Magbinisaya Kita Primer set of materials? It looks like from Amazon the Primer and 2 audio components would run about $70, and the phrasebook and audio about $45. And do you own almost every other book on the language one can find? Apologies if you have mentioned so before.

    The entry for the 2nd audio disc of the primer has a list of tracks for it (but not the first apparently), and it looks like it includes a lot of dialogues. Of course the question is how close is their version to that heard around you.

    Are you near to, or have you visited, the Cebuano Studies Center? One would think that they hold some learning materials, or perhaps even voluminous recordings of Cebuano that could be of use to you.
  7. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    Yes I've seen all of them except the study center. Good find.

    I have the binisaya kita 1 book, which is nice because it has recorded material. There's 2 issues with it though. One is that one person does all the parts, and you just have to know which part they are doing when. Two is that it is spoken unnaturally slow and quite clearly. This is good, just not for my level. Rest assured I understand that stuff perfectly.

    My current plan is to see if I can sit down with someone maybe 20 minutes a day to help decode the series. I did that with the first episode, and when I was told what the words were, I did hear them and didn't forget. It was only, as in that phrase I posted, some of the connecting words I was working out.

    Another tool I use is a Cebuano audio Bible from Faith by Hearing. It's free. The main narrarators are not so hard to understand.
    Last edited: Jun 28, 2014
  8. Peregrinus

    Peregrinus Active Member

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    This is an interesting observation, i.e. about connecting words. Perhaps those type of words are more prone to be either mumbled, reduced or spoken faster than others. It would be instructive to have the same text read by different native speakers at their own normal speeds, and see if there is a commonality among them for what parts end up being more difficult to make out.
  9. Peregrinus

    Peregrinus Active Member

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    Do you have difficulty with inflected forms of various words that you know, or with word order? Cebuano grammar seems pretty hairy. That wiki article links to a nice grammar resource that perhaps you are familiar with: Cebuano Study Notes.
  10. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    No, I don't really think the inflections are hurting my understanding. Sometimes I mess it up when speaking though. There was even one that I guessed the meaning of, then asked someone about how I should use it myself.

    I just went through another episode with native help. Now I know what it says but allot of it just goes by too fast for me to get it all at once. I feel like it did when I started that Magbinisaya Kita book. Thus far the speed (of news) has been helped greatly by listening to the sounds first, and letting the meaning come by itself, but now the sounds themselves are just too fast. I'm thinking of editing down some more difficult phrases, and listening to them over and over. Maybe try and do a transcript.

    In my Hungarian dabblings, when I had a speed issue, I would go around saying the phrases myself for a while, trying to memorize them, then the recording came easier.
  11. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    Pain in the neck, but i got something that makes sense finally.

    Hilom? Anak?
    o pa.
    Dili makaya nato masigi ka kaluya.
    nimingaw no ko sa kaluha pa.
    ay, kinsa nga wa namigawa sa imong igsoon? Sa imong kaluha?
    comosta na pa siya no?
    uhf, ah, labing siguro anak, ah nasugud siya nageskwela karon. (This line was quite clear)
    ah
    (ben?) anak, tabagi kabas ang mga sagbot
    gusto (ben?) mo ang makabot ang trisikad.

    Silent? son?
    Yes pa.
    We can't keep having you so weak.
    I miss my twin pa.
    ay, who doesn't miss your sister? your twin?
    how is she pa?
    uhf, ah, be very sure son, ah she will start school today.
    ah
    (come?) son, help cut the grass.
    you should have (come?) to the tricycle.

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  12. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    I had someone check my work. They just looked at it at first and just knew it was "gimignaw" and not "nimingaw". There was a "no" that should have been "na". The word I put as "ben" is "li", but contextualy I got the correct meaning,

    The last line though, was completely and utterly wrong :( It was this:
    puslan man nga wa ka magdrive imong trisikad.
    since you are not driving your tricycle.

    perhaps it's because I didn't know the world puslan?
  13. Peregrinus

    Peregrinus Active Member

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    Not knowing "puslan" shouldn't keep you from being able to distinguish the other sounds when play the recording again, though naturally if you stick on not knowing that word, the others will be spoken before you can concentrate on them. I played that last line over and over and the transcription doesn't help me. You sure it is the right transcription for the last line on the sample before the other music and noises? Perhaps the underlying problem is that the transcription of Cebuano does not match the sounds well.
  14. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    [​IMG]

    I could almost replace the top frame with learning a language, and the bottom frame with listening.

    After trying to sort out some of that series earlier, Listening seemed a bit easier because no one around here talks quite like that. Perhaps it's more of a provincal accent (and that's where the people are from in the story) Maybe I didn't sort out the words of my freinds, but the sounds seemed easy. Today and a bit yesterday my listening dropped again. I keep having to ask what was that? what was that? This usually happens when I don't listen to the news for too long.
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  15. Peregrinus

    Peregrinus Active Member

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    Most courses strive for "proper" pronunciation, whether commonly heard in the streets or not. In line with my suggestions above to ask friends to make recordings, perhaps the very best dialogues to record would be those in your course books. That way you get to compare "proper" with "actually heard in the field." Of course you would have to ask your friends to just speak "normally" instead of making an extra effort to be clear. It would also be interesting to find out from such an exercise whether you in general find the speech of men or women easier to understand than the other.

    Funny picture above. At least it looks like someone with stick-to-it-iveness would be able to actually complete it, as opposed to it merely being a Sysyphean undertaking.
  16. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    sigh the last few days have been horrible for listening. I'm used to the cycle though. I think last time I broke out of a dip like this with some reading.
  17. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    Listening is back on par. Might have to do with some extra sleep. Had a misunderstanding today. Someone said "unsay maayo?" and I was like "what is good??"
    In that context it means "what is good for you?" Also a joke that happened to us. There was a Tagalog show where part of what someone said was "para s' amin" (for us). I walked up to some shiny glass and both me and another person said at same time "para samin!" (cebuano for "for a mirror")
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  18. Peregrinus

    Peregrinus Active Member

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    Glad to hear your listening is better again. Regarding the misunderstanding, does "unsay maayo" contain an affix of some kind that should indicate "for you", or is it the context around that was supposed to indicate that?

    Re the joke, is there something that either the speaker did not clearly enunciate, or you did not clearly hear with " 's ", such as a glottal stop? Not to detract from the joke, I am wondering how native speakers actually distinguish the difference, if it does not involve the surrounding context there either.
  19. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    To the first part yes, it was contextual, and they were talking about possible times to have a class.

    To the second part, it's "para sa amin" but I think the "a" got telescoped.
  20. Bjorn

    Bjorn Active Member VIP member

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    Read your log at HTLAL, quite interesting log I must say.

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