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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    Cebuano: Transcribing appeared to be my big silver bullet the last time around, and then seem to do.. not so much. I noticed a little boost when I did some Bible the other day, so I'm still doing this. I find it much better to do this on unlined paper, so I have room to mark my corrections and mistakes. (This is how it did it at first, and then I started putting it in a notebook so someone could easily check later.)

    I am still getting the wrong sound here and there. I'm finding also at this stage, that I'll get the sounds right, but get the word break wrong :p such as.. I put "daghana" instead of "daghan na". I also had something not make complete sense because of a homonym. "nia" means "there" (and seems uncommon) "niya" is "his".

    Hebrew: I'll probably finish headlisting in a few weeks here.

    Greek: Venturing into II Corinthians... some consider this the hardest one. Certainly Paul's style is different here, and gives me pause sometimes. Some idiomatic phrases are found here.
  2. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    Cebuano: After transcribing 2 Chapters of 2nd Corinthians, I'm making far less mistakes. My last one concerned another homonym. I thought it was the word "mga" (a pluralizer) and it was instead "manga-" (an outdated prefix... future continuous?). I then listened to a new soap opera episode, and it was rather clear... the main problem seemed to be sound quality... the background music/sounds were overpowering the voices.
  3. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    Hebrew: In a push to finish my Goldlist headlisting, other languages have taken a back seat. It's all listed up last week. This will probably be my last large Goldlist project for a while. I've already got enough vocab in my "highly useful" category. I expect to start reading the Old Testament proper somewhere in the middle of May.

    Tagalog: Started reading the New Testament in Tagalog (as my familiar text). I can read maybe half a chapter at a sitting and then have to take a break. But with allot of Goldlisting for this language, most of it sticks after I sort it all out. Though I can read alright with a dictionary I'm kind of waiting for that "fluent barrier" to happen.
  4. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    Tagalog: had some kind of breakthrough when I got to around the 5th chapter of Matthew. Reading has suddenly become easier... & TV is just a little more comprehensable. Then I went to read 1st John with 2 breaks.

    Since I'm working with a familar text.. I'm guessing I'm at a shaky B1 reading level.

    while I'm at it, here's some fun Tagalog words:
    pananampalataya -- looks like they used this for faith
    nangangailangan -- need

    make sure you say all your ng's right on that second one :p
    Last edited: Mar 10, 2015
  5. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    Cebuano: I went back to transcribe some of the earlier episodes of a soap. What I discovered was there were several scenes that I got the main idea of (and so didn't spend too much time with it) But there was a bunch of stuff that I missed. I think I'll continue transcribing -- even the stuff I did before because it's been so long that I won't remeber the exact wording, My audio New Testament sounds extra clear now that I've started going back to this soap. The vocab of the soap is generally easier, but the speakers are less clear.

    Hebrew: feeling the downhill slope of Goldlisting... all my 1st distillations are done.
  6. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    Cebuano: something strange happened today while transcribing the soap. There were several times where I had a real problem getting all the words piece by piece ( VERY fluid speech) but when I just listened to the whole thing it all made sense... though I could not reproduce the exact wording :p Here's hoping that my brain just decided that it's easier just to listen to speech instead of transcribing it all.

    Hebrew: I sat down and just tried to read the first chapter with the help of an interlinear. It went well :) I dipped a bit into chapter 2 even, which is as yet unexplored in Hebrew. Based on past experience I might stop taking my Goldlisting to the "silver level" and just do the first 3 distillations.
  7. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    Hebrew: 3 days spent, three chapters read. It took about 4 hours yesterday... not so bad today. I'm starting to remember how the grammar works, but I couldn't really explain it to save my life. I found a recording of Genesis, and listened to chapter 1 several times (modern pronunciation, I don't want any of those ayins pronounced :p) Most of it was a blur but I was able to pick out "and god said let there be...", words for water & sky and "it was so" but really not a whole lot. Really I just want to make sure that I'm saying the individual words correctly.
  8. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    French: I pulled out Mark in French and had no problems reading it, but I tried listening to it, and as expected it was a disaster. I managed to transcribe a few verses (very poorly) but after checking it what I tried to transcribe was much clearer.
  9. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    NT Greek: finaly made it through 2 Corinthians. The last the chapters (of 13) were so different from the rest of it. I probably spent 2/3 of my time on those final chapters. Apparently there is a theory out there that those chapters were from a different letter and got stuck on the end of this one.

    French: continuing to do some Bible listening comprehension off and on. This is by far the hardest language for me to understand that I know how to read.
  10. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    Cebuano: A new milestone I suppose. I have some native students who feel free to ask and answer questions in Cebuano :) I've gotten better at asking people the one word that they said which I didn't catch. Which is to say that my one on one seems ok, but when listening to other's conversations I usually can't follow them.
  11. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    Cebuano: something defiantly clicked last night. I was speaking Cebuano and not getting stuck. I found myself not having to check my grammar so much. This continued until I was forced back into an English speaking situation.
    pensulo likes this.
  12. pensulo

    pensulo Member VIP member

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    When I use to study Koine Greek back in the day I stuck to the Johannine Epistles, far easier for me to grasp the little I did - congrats for being able to get through any of the Pauline :)
  13. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    Cebuano: I said something correctly, but apparently it was a bit archaic and the native didn't understand and thought i did something wrong :p
  14. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    Cebuano: Had a native check my work for something that I just could not understand. Some of the problems were words that are more provincial. Well that's where I plan to go anyway. In my transcription if I listen to a whole sentence at once and try to write it down, I often end up with something that means the same thing worded differently.
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  15. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    Cebuano: I've started a notebook to keep track of my transcriptions, complete with time time on the video and today's date. That way I can quickly find the stuff I want to review later... and leave, say a two week gap before I review it as in Goldlisting. No brick wall speakers today :)
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  16. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    WIN_20150411_093508.JPG
    WIN_20150411_093626.JPG
    Did the best I could but the first picture came out fuzzy. This is my transcript from yesterday. I've still got a ways to go to understanding this stuff well. The native that helped me out fixed everything very quickly :p
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  17. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    Cebuano: after that last exercise in listening, my ability actually had dropped over the last few days. I have noticed this pattern in the past, and so I just keep listening to news and Bible until it starts making sense again. Then I'll go back to transcribing. To do anything else would probably be a waste of effort.

    I'm guessing that this is happening: When I do eventually figure out something myself, then my comprehension goes up, but when there's this much that I missed it goes down for a while.

    NT Greek: slow going because of other responsibilities but not too hard. 1st timothy took a little longer because there's allot of new vocab, but no really weird grammar going on. I expect the next big hurdle to be Hebrews (certainly the longest hurdle)
  18. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    cebuano: I really haven't felt like transcribing for several days. This is probably a good indication not to. Most recently when reviewing old episodes, I'll understand most of a scene, there will just be one phrase that went over my head. I do seem to be at a place now where I always hear the sounds someone is saying, and some words, instead of a wall of humming noise.

    Japanese: finished level 5 goldlisting of vocab/ kanji today. Still don't know where to find some level 5 stuff to try it out, I would like allot of audio with transcripts for this basic level.

    NT Greek: Timothy has an added challenge because of all the 2nd person sigualr stuff. I went and reviewed all those forms and they looked so weird to me :p

    Chavacano: I switched over the news to this dialect again. Last time I did this I couldn't really follow it but I thought that it might be pure spanish. I realize now that it is not. I understood it though, and it feels like spanish with philipino grammar. I watched a second time to just pay attention to the grammar.
    Last edited: Apr 22, 2015
  19. Bob

    Bob Active Member VIP member

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    I went back and looked at Iverson's Guide to learning languages, part 5: listening. I can't believe I didn't click the "useful" button until today :p

    Here's a few lines that caught my eye today.

    The last few days, I've been able to keep hearing (most of) the words that people are saying in Cebuano. Sometimes I just understand by trying hard to do this. Sometimes I don't get it, but distracting myself from just picking out the words only makes things worse.

    I haven't really done anything with Tagalog in a while, and yet today, I lie down on the couch with my eyes closed and hear the words coming out of the TV. And my Tagalog Bible... but every time I try to stop and think about a word I lose the next word.

    It appears that his solution to grabbing meaning is... to read.
  20. Big_Dog

    Big_Dog Administrator Staff Member

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    According to the word brain, it takes 1500-2000 hours of listening to be able to parse correctly. For me, nothing comes suddenly, and reading is only one of the keys to understanding.

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