Judith's language learning blog » Languages

Summary of 2011

Judith — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:01:35 +0000

I just realized that I never posted my summary of 2011… sorry for that.

In 2011, I spent 712 hours learning languages, compared to 615 hours in 2010. That’s a great success, and my goal for this year is at least 712 hours but hopefully 800!
Distribution by language, with quick summaries:
220 hours of Mandarin – started reading books in Mandarin
124 hours of Arabic – slowly getting somewhere
118 hours of Dutch – from scratch to quasi-B2
111 hours of French – mostly reading
47 hours of Modern Greek – developing a series for GreekPod101
31 hours of Italian – just maintenance
26 hours of Swahili – just maintenance
26 hours of Spanish – just maintenance
9 hours of Russian – a brief stint, quickly abandoned

Around the World in 25 Books & 10 Languages

I planned badly – I didn’t take into account that I would be flying without check-in luggage to see my family for the Christmas holidays and to the Junulara E-Semajno, so I was out of space to bring the remaining books with me and couldn’t finish them. I probably would have come up a bit short, but because of this, I’m actually 8 books short.

I read 17 books in 8 languages, missing only Esperanto and Latin (easy languages for me). I am still proud of this result because 17 books is a lot more than I’d normally read in 2 months, particularly when it comes to foreign-language books, which are always more of a struggle. And I am particularly proud that I finished my first originally-Chinese book for this challenge, a classic by Lao She called “二马” (Mr Ma and Son).

If you’d like to read my reviews of the books I read during this challenge, have a look at this special Goodreads bookshelf.

Improve Your German Through Videos

Judith — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 17:25:25 +0000

I’ve recently discovered that there is a LOT of German TV available online – and not just as live stream either. Here are some selections that intermediate to advanced learners of Germans might find interesting:

News

15 minute news overview (watching Tagesschau before the movies is a tradition for many households)
Sports
Stock market

Magazines & Advice Columns

Cars & Traffic
Health
Home & Garden
Internet (tips & tricks)
Money
Technology
Culture magazine
Science magazine
Religious Messages (alternating weekly between Protestant and Catholic speakers)

Courses / Lectures

Beginner’s Cooking Course
Astronomy & astrophysics – explained in everyday German
Knowledge for kids
Biology for kids – much-acclaimed cartoon series
History for kids – much-acclaimed cartoon series

Documentaries & Expert discussion rounds

Traveling around the World
Animals around the World
Bundestag – live and archived video from the German parliament
Political discussions
More political discussions
Social discussions
On media – how reporting works in unfree places, the relation of media & politics/economy etc.
Various discussions
Various documentaries – a lot of surprising topics

Fiction

Türkisch für Anfänger – modern soap, transcripts and translations available
Tatort – the most popular German detective series
Lindenstraße – Germany’s longest-running soap opera
Verliebt in Berlin – telenovela
Jim Knopf – beloved old-style kids’ story, all done with marionettes
Naruto – an example of translated anime
Court show

This list is by no means exhaustive, but it’s a starting point for those who wouldn’t know what to search for. Enjoy!

Please let me know if you can’t open any of these videos – some might be geographically limited – or if any infringe on copyright. From what I can see, they were all uploaded by the producers or TV stations themselves.

Goals & Plans for 2012

Judith — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 12:16:54 +0000

I just spent some thought on what my goals for 2012 should be, and how I want to go about them. Here’s what I came up with, also noting my current level:

Mandarin Chinese
Currently, I can read a modern Chinese book if the style isn’t too literary and I’d understand what’s going on, but it’s not enjoyable for me. I can also have a 45-minute conversation in Chinese, but I’m often missing words, I stumble over words and make too many mistakes. By the end of 2012, I want to be able to do both in a more enjoyable manner.
Method:
* Reading “Confessions of a Shopaholic” in Chinese-English parallel and entering colloquial expressions from there into Anki
* Listening-Reading “Mr Ma and Son”, which I have already read but for which I now found an audiobook
* Reading or Listening-Reading the modern Chinese novels which I brought back from the USA
* Reading the Chinese-only novels I found in Berlin
* Watching episodes from the new Romance of the Three Kingdoms TV series and from 家有儿女
* Mastering the song 中国话 by S.H.E, which is fast and full of tongue twisters
* Hopefully lots of talking!

Finnish
Due to a challenge I couldn’t resist, I will spend 45 hours on Finnish in February, despite it being nowhere on my hit list. Right now, I have zero knowledge of Finnish and it will be interesting to see where I’ll be at the end of the month… and where the others will be.
Method: mostly Assimil in conjunction with Anki, occasionally talking to a tutor for confirmation, possibly looking over other courses, children’s books or videos in order to keep up interest.

French
I can read any piece of French literature, including really old stuff, and my listening comprehension is also really good, but I feel that my active usage of French is lagging behind. I would also really love to exchange my German accent for a Québécois one. So my goal is to develop a good accent in 2012 and to reach a mistake quotient of less than 1/100 words. I shall also keep reading French classics.
Method:
* Talking to any Québécois who doesn’t run away fast enough
* Writing texts on lang-8 where they can be corrected
* Learning to imitate at least one recording of fast Québécois French
* Reading at least one French book per month

Indonesian & Korean
These were actually next on my list of languages to learn (I only know the Korean alphabet, and did a few lessons of Indonesian some years ago), but for now they’re taking a back seat to Finnish and Japanese. We shall see if there’s time, maybe in the second half of the year. For Indonesian I wanted to try out a translation-based course I have, and for Korean I just got Assimil Korean as a Christmas present.

Italian / Dutch / Spanish
I can read all of these with ease and make myself understood in conversations, but it’s more a case of make-believe than actual ability at this point (my Italian is full of Spanish and vice versa). I’d like to find time to work on one of these languages in particular and acquire real fluency in it. For that, I first have to find a language partner though.

Modern Greek
I’m happy with my ability to read Greek novels, but my speaking ability used to be better. Hopefully I shall have the chance to re-activate it at some point in 2012.

Japanese
I know zero Japanese at the moment, and I would love to be able to understand enough spoken Japanese in order to follow along in “Hikaru no Go” without the subtitles. Apart from that, it would be awesome to be able to watch Japanese Go lectures or Go TV. I am not interested in learning the written language because it would probably interfere with my knowledge of Chinese characters, which were difficult enough to acquire.
Method:
* Studying a quick course called “Le japonais tout de suite”
* Memorizing 600 of the most useful words
* Watching anime
* Whatever else I can come up with

Swahili
To my greatest regret, I stopped studying Swahili after completing 100 lessons of Assimil’s passive wave and 50 lessons of the active wave. In 2012, I intend to complete the rest of the active wave, assess my abilities then for the purpose of the experiment, and then start wildly using any materials I can get my hands on. My goal is to be able to comfortable read my collection of Swahili poems as well as understand Swahili audio news.
Method:
* Completing Assimil
* Scanning “Essential Swahili” and other courses I have lying around
* Creating & using Listening-Reading materials on the basis of Deutsche Welle’s “Learning By Ear”
* Reading the “Little Prince”, some children’s books and my advanced reader in Swahili
* Listening to news broadcasts

Update on Books Around the World Challenge

Judith — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 20:14:04 +0000

In November, I managed to read a record amount of 10 books and got half-way through another before I had to put it down yawning; it was no good and I shall not finish reading it. See which books I read, in what order and how I rated them at this site – clicking on the little “view” link on that page will reveal some things I had to say about each book.

Note that the order of reading differs from the trip plan, for several reasons:
1. I tend to read two books at the same time (one fiction and one non-fiction, or one in a harder language and one in an easier language, so that I have something to turn to at any time)
2. I started to read “Mr Ma & Son” early, but finished it among the last, because it’s almost 600 pages and in Chinese!
3. I temporarily skipped a few books because they didn’t make good companions on my journey. This could be due to size, due to having them electronically only, or because I was afraid the DHS might cause trouble if I showed up with a book on president Allende for example, considering the CIA staged the coup.

I will still read every book on the list though, now that I’m back in Berlin. That’s 14 books remaining and one month of time. Wish me luck!

9th of November

Judith — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 22:12:04 +0000

The 9th of November is a really important date for Germany. Three historic events happened on this date:

On the 9th of November 1918, the German monarchy was overthrown and the Weimar Republic was founded, the first German democracy. Two days after this, democratic representatives authorized the armistice/capitulation that ended the 1st World War.

In the night of the 9th/10th November 1938, the Nazis burned down more than 1400 Jewish prayer rooms, synagogues etc. in the Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass).

In the evening hours of the 9th of November 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. East Germans were suddenly free, dancing with their West German counterparts and starting to dismantle the Wall. There was no way this could have ended in anything but an official re-unification, but the bureaucratic process took until October 3rd 1990, which is now the German National Holiday, even though it is much less remarkable.

It is a pity that all three events share the same date, because I would have loved to celebrate the two democratic revolutions that happened on the 9th of November; they were vital to German history. Instead, the 9th of November is almost exclusively associated with the Kristallnacht. I’m not saying that it isn’t important to remember of course.

For the linguistically-inclined, here’s a famous song called “Kristallnaach” (Kristallnacht) by BAP, a German band singing in the dialect of Cologne. I shall give a translation of this dialect into Hochdeutsch and into English. Listen here.

Es kütt vüür, dat ich mein, dat jet klirrt, Dat sich irgendjet in mich verirrt, E Jeräusch, nit ens laut Manchmol klirrt es vertraut Selden su, dat mer’t direk durchschaut Mer weed wach, rief die Aure un sieht En’nem Bild zweschen Breughel un Bosch Kei Minsch, dä öm Sirene jet jitt Weil Entwarnung nur half su vill koss Et’rüsch noh Kristallnaach	Es kommt vor, dass ich meine, dass etwas klirrt, dass sich irgend etwas in mich verirrt. Ein Geräusch, nicht einmal laut, manchmal klirrt es vertraut, selten so, daß man es direkt durchschaut. Man wird wach, reibt die Augen und sieht in einem Bild zwischen Brueghel und Bosch, keinen Menschen, der um Sirenen etwas gibt, weil Entwarnung nur halb soviel kostet. Es riecht nach Kristallnacht.	It happens that I think something is clinking, that something loses its way into me. A sound, not even loud, sometimes it clinks in a familiar way, rarely in a way that you immediately know what’s up. You wake up, rub your eyes and, in a picture between Brueghel and Bosch, don’t see anyone who reacts to sirens, because the all-clear signal costs only half as much. Smells of Kristallnacht.
En der Ruhe vür’m Sturm, wat ess dat? Janz klammheimlich verlööß wer die Stadt. Honoratioren inkognito hasten vorbei, offiziell sinn die nit jähn dobei, wenn die Volkssseele – allzeit bereit Richtung Siedepunkt wütet un schreit “Heil – Halali” un grenzenlos geil noh Vergeltung brüllt, zitternd vor Neid in der Kristallnaach	In der Ruhe vor dem Sturm, was ist das? Ganz klammheimlich verläßt wer die Stadt. Honoratioren inkognito hasten vorbei, offiziell sind die nicht gerne dabei, wenn die Volksseele, allzeit bereit, Richtung Siedepunkt wütet und schreit: “Heil – Halali” und grenzenlos geil nach Vergeltung brüllt, zitternd vor Neid in der Kristallnacht.	In the calm before the storm – what’s that? In all secrecy someone is leaving the city. Notable people are hurrying past incognito, officially they don’t like to participate, when “the people”, always ready, boils in rage and shouts “Hail – Tally-ho” and boundlessly lustful screaming for revenge, trembling in jealousy in the Kristallnacht. ( a greeting/shout used by hunters)
Doch die allles wat anders ess stührt, die mem Strom schwemme, wie’t sich jehührt vör die schwule Verbrecher sinn, Ausländer Aussattz sinn bruchen wer, der se verführt. Un dann rettet kein Kavallerie, kein Zorro kömmert sich dodrömm. Dä piss höchstens e “Z” en der Schnie un fällt lallend vüür Lässigkeit öm; “Na un? – Kristallnaach!”	Doch die alles, was anders ist, stört, die mit dem Strom schwimmen, wie es sich gehört, für die Schwule Verbrecher sind, Ausländer Aussatz sind, brauchen wer, der sie verführt. Und dann rettet keine Kavallerie, kein Zorro kümmert sich darum. Der pisst höchsten ein “Z” in den Schnee und fällt lallend vor Lässigkeit um: “Na und? ? Kristallnacht!”	But those, who feel disturbed by anything that’s different those who go with the flow as is respectable for whom gays are criminals and for whom foreigners are trash they need a demagogue. And then no cavalry saves you, no Zorro cares. He’d only piss a Z into the snow and fall over nonchalantly babbling “So what? – Kristallnacht!”
En der Kirch met dä Franz Kafka-Uhr, ohne Zeiger, met Striche drop nur ließ ne Blinde nem Taube Strubbelpeter vüür hinger dreifach verriejelter Düür Un dä Wächter ‘mem Schlüsselbund hällt sich em Ähnz für jet wie e Jenie, weil’er Auswege pulverisiert un verkäuf jäjen Klaustrophobie en der Kristallnaach.	In der Kirche mit der Franz Kafka-Uhr, ohne Zeiger, mit Strichen darauf nur, liest ein Blinder einem Tauben Struwwelpeter vor hinter dreifach verriegelter Tür. Und der Wächter mit dem Schlüsselbund hält sich im Ernst für so etwas wie ein Genie, weil er Auswege pulverisiert und verkauft gegen Klaustrophobie in der Kristallnacht.	In the church with the Franz Kafka clock, without pointers, just lines on it, a blind guy is reading Struwwelpeter to a deaf guy behind a thrice-locked door. And the guard with the set of keys really considers himself a genius because he’s pulverizing exits and selling against claustrophobia in the Kristallnacht.
Währenddessen am Maatplatz vielleich, unmaskiert, hück mem wohre Jeseech, sammelt Stein, schlief et Mezz, op die, die schon verpezz probt dä Lynch-Mob für’t jüngste Jereech. Un zem Laade nur flüchtig vertäut - die Galeeren stohn längs unger Dampf – weet em Hafen op Sklaven jewaat, op dä Schrott uss dämm ungleiche Kampf us der Kristallnaach	Währenddessen, am Marktplatz vielleicht, unmaskiert, heute mit einem wahren Gesicht, sammelt Steine, schleift das Messer, auf die, die schon verpetzt, probt der Lynch-Mob für das jüngste Gericht. Und zum Laden nur flüchtig vertäut, die Galeeren stehen längst unter Dampf wird im Hafen auf Sklaven gewartet, auf den Schrott aus dem ungleichen Kampf aus der Kristallnacht.	Meanwhile, maybe on the market square, they’re without a mask, showing their true faces today, collecting stones, sharpening knives, and the lynch mob is practicing for Judgement Day using those who have already been ratted out. Just barely moored for embarkment, the galleys are ready to go, they’re waiting for slaves in the harbor, waiting for the trash from the unequal fight from the Kristallnacht.
Do, wo Darwin für alles herhällt, ob mer Minsche verdriev oder quält do, wo hinger Macht Jeld ess, wo stark sinn die Welt ess, vun Kusche un Strammstonn entstellt Wo mer Hymnen om Kamm sujar blööß en barbarischer Gier noh Profit ‘Hosianna’ un ‘Kreuzigt ihn’ rööf, wemmer irjend ne Vorteil drin sieht ess täglich Kristallnaach!	Da, wo Darwin für alles herhält, ob man Menschen vertreibt oder quält, da, wo hinter Macht Geld ist, wo stark sein die Welt ist, von Kuschen und Strammstehen entstellt. Wo man Hymnen auf dem Kamm sogar bläst, in barbarischer Gier nach Profit, “Hosianna” und “Kreuzigt ihn!” ruft, wenn man irgendeinen Vorteil darin sieht, ist täglich Kristallnacht!	Where Darwin is used to justify everything, whether you expel people or torture them where money is behind power, where being strong is everything, distorted by yielding and standing at attention where people blow hymns on a comb even in barbaric greed for profit shouting “Hosianna” and “Crucify him” if they see any advantage in it THERE Kristallnacht happens daily!

Listen to the song.

This song was written in 1982, so I was amazed to find that it’s still up-to-date, for example also referencing the gays, or the problem of too much greed.

What Makes Reading Fun?

Judith — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 19:43:11 +0000

… and if reading in a foreign language isn’t fun, how can I make it so? If you want to read in your target language, there are ways to make it possible and enjoyable. This blog post comes in three parts:
1. summary of my “Around the World” reading challenge progress
2. the underlying factors for enjoying books
3. how to use this knowledge in order to pick enjoyable reading in your target language

Quick update on the challenge: I already finished two books, Egypt (Ramsès), which I had started to read before this challenge, and Turkey (Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran – fun insight here). Both of these were in French – even though I read English, German and Esperanto more easily than French, I tend to buy a lot of French books, because I hope that it will help me finally get my degree in French Studies. In other words, I ought to get better at French. And I do: when I started on Ramsès, my reading speed was close to 2 minutes per page, now it sometimes reaches 1 minute per page. The next book, which I started reading today, is a challenge though. One because it’s excerpts of Greek classics, including some poetry, so it is linguistically more challenging, and also because I’ve never done better than 4 minutes per page in reading Greek so far.

Enjoyment of a book depends on two factors: reading speed and the amount of interesting things per 10 pages. “Interesting things” may vary depending on the type of book (surprising facts in a non-fictional book, thrilling events or funny dialog in fiction) and of course depending on the reader’s interests. However, if you read very slowly, it is so much more difficult to stay interested in a book, because you don’t hit many interesting things when you read for 10 minutes. At that point you’ll sit back and think that nothing has happened or that you haven’t learned anything new, so of course you lose interest. If you’re a quick reader, lots of books suddenly become interesting that other people find boring, because within 10 minutes you find a lot more action or amazing insights.

What this means for language learners

As someone reading in a foreign language, your reading speed will initially be abysmal. You have several options to combat this and make reading fun:

Do exercises to improve your reading speed. Your reading speed will naturally improve in time, but to get a quick boost, I found Tim Ferriss’ exercise invaluable.
Choose an easier book. You can read faster if you recognize more words, but Easy Readers also tend to be more boring than regular books, so you might not gain much.
Choose a thrilling book. Suspense and unexpected turns count as “more interesting things per 10 pages”, so that reading at slower speed becomes more supportable. Dan Brown for example is a great choice for this.
Choose a book you’re dying to read. Again, there should be more interesting things per 10 pages. Ideally, you’d browse your favorite section of a bookstore in your target country, forgetting about the language issue and just picking whatever looks fascinating.
Choose an “oldie but a goodie”. There are books that we like to re-read many times, delighting in discovering nuances and foreshadowing, or maybe using them as a basis for philosophizing. These books won’t be boring when read slowly either, and the foreign language will even help you see the content in a new light. “The Little Prince” is such a book for example, and also has the advantage of being easy. Among my women friends, “Pride and Prejudice” is also a popular re-read.
Set yourself a challenge. No matter whether the challenge is to read “around the world”, to discover logical fallacies in the book or to find all the times the author uses a particular word, you will stumble upon more interesting things that make reading more fun.

If you’re not sure where to get books in your target language, try Bookdepository; they have a great selection even for obscure languages and they offer free shipping worldwide. If you click on “Advanced Search” you can search by language. Select “paperback” in order to weed out some mismatches.

Around the World in 25 Books & 10 Languages

Judith — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 17:07:39 +0000

The downside of living in Berlin is that there are way too many awesome bookstores here. There is one that is a particular danger to me: the Café Tasso. All books cost 1 EUR there, and since the money from sales goes to charity, lots of people donate awesome books to this place; books that are still worth much more than 1 EUR. The Café Tasso even have a large section of books in foreign languages, so I never leave without buying some. However, I don’t usually read much – in the latest Tadoku month I only read 748 pages. Now I have an ever-increasing pile of unread books.

I want to make a big dent in this pile in the next two months. My idea is an “around the world” theme. I picked 25 books representing 25 countries and all continents, and I will read all of them before January 1st. These books are written in 10 different languages, and I avoided German & English for the most part, so this will also be a linguistic challenge. Languages represented, in rough order of frequency: French, Esperanto, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Chinese, Latin, Greek, German, English.

Journey plan:

Join me!

This is a great chance to discover foreign cultures and authors who are less known in the English-speaking world. Have a look at the books I will be reading, maybe something interests you as well, or maybe you also have unread books that you can use for your personal round-the-world trip. The details of my journey, following the path on the map:

Egypt: Christian Jacq – Ramsès, fils de la lumière (Ramses, the son of light). This bestselling novel about Ancient Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II is written by an Egyptologist, meaning that it’s classes better than some wanna-be historian’s image of Egypt.
Turkey: Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt – Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran. Another French best-selling book about the Middle East.
Greece: Από πού έρχεστε; A bilingual Greek-German reader about Greece.
Italy: Dino Buzzati – Lascia o Raddoppia; bilingual Italian-German
Sweden: Merit Müller – Mara en de kleur van het geluk. This is originally a Swedish book, but I have it in Dutch.
Netherlands: Arthur Japin – De grote wereld
UK: Lao She – Mr. Ma & Son, a Sojourn in London; A bilingual Chinese-English novel that sounds funny.
Canada: Michel Tremblay – Les Belles-Soeurs. I am looking forward to the liberal use of Joual (Canadian French dialect) in this drama.
USA: Gustaaf Peek – Ik was Amerika. The story of a Dutch POW who was shipped to America. A chapter of history that I hadn’t heard of.
Mexico: J.M.G. Le Clézio – Le rêve mexicain (The Mexican Dream). Essays on the Aztecs, the role of Cortes, Montezuma etc. and how the Western world might look today if the Aztec culture had been allowed to survive.
Colombia: Patricia Lara S. – Las Mujeres en la Guerra. Women telling about their role in the Colombian conflict.
Peru: Mario Vargas Llosa – Der Geschichtenerzähler. This book was selected as this year’s Free Book to be given out all across Berlin, that’s why I will read it in German rather than the original Spanish (El Hablador), maybe re-reading it in Spanish later. It’s about a man who goes to live with the Native Americans in the Peruvian jungle and learn their stories.
Chile: Joan E. Garcés – Allende y la experiencia chilena.
Suriname and the Dutch Antilles: Dylan van Eijkeren – Witboi. Another topic I never heard of before: about the relations between the Netherlands and their former colonies, and what’s really going on over there.
Tunisia: Apuleius – Apologia. Apuleius was a Roman writer, but he was also a Berber(indigenous North African), a very interesting person. The Apologia is said to be one of the funniest Latin texts to survive.
(Various African countries): An anthology of notable works by French-speaking black Africans, “Conteurs francophones noirs”.
Chad: André Gide – Le Retour du Chad. André Gide is a well-known name in French literature, and I have read far too little about Africa.
Congo: André Gide – Voyage au Congo. Ditto.
Australia: Trevor Steele – Flugi kun kakatuoj. An original Esperanto novel about an Aborigene tribe and the arrival of Europeans.
Japan: Kenzaburo Oe – Insegnaci a superare la nostra pazzia. As I’m not studying Japanese yet, I don’t feel bad for reading the great Kenzaburo Oe in Italian.
Ancient China: Shan Sa – Impératrice. I love Chinese-born French author Shan Sa for her novel “La Joueuse de Go”, which was horribly mistranslated in “The Girl Who Played Go”. Read this in French or don’t read it at all. Meanwhile, I’ll try another one of her novels.
Modern China: Annie Wang – From Mainland to Mainstream. Despite the title, this book is all in Chinese and I hope I will be up for it.
Afghanistan: Oriana Fallaci – Inciallah. Oriana Fallaci is an Italian reporter and this book, which I had started on before and found beyond my level, is a really interesting read. She illuminates not just the current situation in Afghanistan but also the historic causes, the Syrian-Lebanese conflict etc., all in the course of a long novel. I’m dying to read this; hopefully I’m not throwing the book down in frustration again.
Russia: Mikaelo Bronŝtejn – Oni ne pafas en Jamburg. An Esperanto novel about the legendary youth movement in the 70s in Soviet Russia.
Siberia/Russia: Julio Baghy – Viktimoj. A classic of Esperanto literature, about life in a Siberian gulag, written by someone who has been there and who is counted among the greatest of Esperanto-speaking poets.

Reading all these books before the end of the year will be a tough challenge, especially as I still have to work and I will be traveling a lot within that time span (our annual trip to the USA and Christmas visits to family). However, I am also looking forward immensely to reading every book on this list, and to buying more books.

Post your recommendations, tips and comments below.

My First Book is Out!

Judith — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 14:42:10 +0000

If you love foreign languages as much as I do, your mouth is probably watering at the idea of picking up a new alphabet without much effort. I know some people who’d do it just for the fun of it, or for bragging rights… yes, I like to hang out with crazy language lovers.

Anyway, there are also practical reasons you might want to know another alphabet. Especially if you’re living in the country, you need it for everything, from reading street signs and maps to figuring out where to ring at an apartment building.

Teaching foreign scripts has been my particular fascination, because traditional textbooks consistently do it wrong (or, more commonly, don’t do it at all). My first experiment in that area was the creation of a Greek alphabet course at Wikibooks. Next, a site to learn the Korean script – I still get several e-mails with feedback or support requests every day from that one, but no income. Earlier this year, I quickly threw together a course for the Ukrainian Cyrillic alphabet (in Esperanto) for those who attended the Internacia Junulara Kongreso in Kyiv. That one was received really well – knowing Cyrillic is a lifesaver in the Ukraine!

So I started working on book about an alphabet that gives a lot of students trouble: the Arabic one. This is an all-new course with lots of words for practice, unrelated to my failed 2008 attempt at RWP Arabic. I learned a lot since, both about writing this kind of course and about the Arabic language.

You can read a preview of the book and buy it from Lulu. There’s a paperback and a DRM-free ebook version. Please have a look and let me know if you like it.

How to Memorize Chinese Characters

Judith — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 12:21:21 +0000

If not for the characters, Chinese would be one of the easiest languages in the world. Yet, I would be the last to suggest for characters to be abolished – they are what drew me to the language. As a teenager, I read this popular science book on linguistics and it had these lines from a Tang poem by Han Yu, describing the characters:

年深岂免有缺画？
快剑砍断生蛟鼍。
鸾翔凤翥众仙下，
珊瑚碧树交枝柯。
金绳铁索锁钮壮，
古鼎跃水龙腾梭。

Time has not yet vanquished the beauty of these letters —
Looking like sharp daggers that pierce live crocodiles,
Like phoenix-mates dancing, like angels hovering down,
Like trees of jade and coral with interlocking branches,
Like golden cord and iron chain tied together tight,
Like incense-tripods flung in the sea, like dragons mounting heaven.

As beautiful as they are, that doesn’t make them easier to learn, it just gives you the motivation to keep going. I wasted a lot of time trying to learn characters the Asian way, by writing them over and over and over again. Writing them like that commits them to muscle memory – your hands can trace them, like your PIN at the ATM, even if your brain cannot remember their shape. However, muscle memory only works with very regular re-inforcement and I don’t intend to hand-write Chinese often enough for that to be viable, at least not beyond the most common 600 or so characters (it explains why this method works for Asians though, or used to work, getting weaker with the advent of computers and cellphones). What’s left is trying to commit the characters to your real memory, so that your brain can recall how to write them when your hands cannot. That’s where it helps to have a photographic memory, or even any kind of memory that’s good with pictures – I don’t have either, I think in abstract terms only, and yet I really wanted to learn Chinese characters!

The Solution

First, stop seeing the characters as a series of almost-random strokes. Familiarize yourself with the basic elements and their inate meaning. This will also help you distinguish 王 (king) 壬 (ancient burden) and 玉 (jade) or 土 (ground) and 士 (knight). You will notice that the vast majority of Chinese characters are not new, they consist of two or more of the basic elements. If you know the basic elements, you can then construct a mnemonic to link the elements to their meaning, a little story to help you remember or even a downright explanation. For example, the character 明 meaning “bright” consists of sun and moon – not difficult to remember, is it? The character 休 meaning “to rest” consists of a person and a tree – mentally fix the idea of an exhausted hiker resting against a tree and you’ll never forget this character again. This works for complex characters as well, and for each character you can choose into how many parts you split it, e. g. if you want to think of 偷 meaning “thief” as (person + making a canoo) or as (person + Chinese roof + moon + knife) – I went for the latter, with a story involving a thief on the roof of a house in moonlight, knife in hand, in order to climb into one of the windows and steal stuff. Stories can be colourful, absurd, racy, nonsensical even, as long as you personally find them memorable.

For the purpose of learning a large amount of characters this way (I memorized almost 2500 in one non-intensive year), it makes sense to go from basic characters to more complex ones, also so that you don’t have to memorize all possible basic elements at once. Unfortunately quite a lot of frequent words involve characters that are complex combinations of 4 or more elements. So character study has to be somewhat separate from regular textbook study at first, until you have a foundation. It is possible to go this path alone; Zhongwen.com gives you an analysis of each character’s components. But I don’t recommend it, because then you’ll encounter the issue of having one peg word corresponding to several characters, or inadvertently learning out-of-use characters, or learning complex characters before learning the parts that they’re made of.

I recommend getting a book to guide you. Depending on your background, there are three books I can recommend for learning characters:

1) Alison and Laurence Matthews’ “Learning Chinese Characters” proposes pictures and stories to go along with every character and the stories will even help you remember the pronunciation and the tone if you choose. On the down side, this book only covers about 1000 characters, sorted roughly in order of appearance in textbooks (!); it’s really great as a textbook companion for a beginner with little prior knowledge of characters and methods.

2) William McNaughton’s “Reading and Writing Chinese” (simplified characters or traditional) is a better choice if you have already learned more than 200 characters and taught yourself how to make mnemonics based on the character parts. This book is also guided by frequency and teaches you more than 2200 characters but doesn’t feed you the stories.

3) T.K. Ann’s “Cracking the Chinese Puzzles” is for the pros, sinologists and the like, covering almost 6000 characters, basically all that you’ll ever need, even when reading literature. The book doesn’t give stories so much as etymology – etymology with a bit of fantasy filling in the gaps – usually making characters very memorable. On the down side, you will find frequent characters mixed with infrequent ones, so getting this book only makes sense if you’re planning to learn all characters anyway, and if you have time to wait e. g. till the end of the first volume to learn some characters that will come up in the first few lessons of your Chinese textbook. T.K. Ann also provides lists of words using the characters, but again you have to be careful – some of these words are clearly literary or outdated, without being marked as such.

4) I guess I should mention James Heisig’s “Remembering the Hanzi” (with traditional or simplified characters) for completeness’ sake, but I would not recommend it except possibly if you already used Heisig to study Japanese Kanji. His book has several drawbacks. The biggest is that he doesn’t provide Pinyin (pronunciation) with the characters, even though in Chinese it makes sense to learn pronunciation at the same time (characters with the same elements usually have a very similar pronunciation and characters usually only have one possible pronunciation). Also, Heisig made the mistake of largely copying his Japanese Kanji book for this, giving little thought to how frequent/useful these characters are in Chinese, or whether a different order of introduction might make sense for Chinese.

Note that you probably won’t need to graduate e. g. from “Learning the Chinese Characters” to “Reading and Writing Chinese Characters” to “Cracking the Chinese Puzzles” when you’re ready to learn more – once you’ve learned 800+ characters this way, the method and the meaning of basic elements should be so ingrained that you can learn all future characters on your own as you encounter them. The main advantage there would be if you’re making a push to learn lots of characters BEFORE you encounter them.

Good luck with your studies!

Getting Used to Non-Vowelled Arabic

Judith — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 11:58:55 +0000

Vowelled vs. non-vowelled Arabic was actually a huge issue for me when I started out. I started on and stopped using a lot of textbooks because they did not indicate vowels in crucial places. Finally I found that “Ultimate Arabic” uses vowelled texts throughout (except in Review sections), but as a textbook it’s much worse than Teach Yourself for example. The solution came in the form of Langenscheidt Praktisches Lehrbuch Arabisch (2007 edition), which gradually makes the shift towards less vowels and I was able to follow along. The system I now use for my cards is also taken from this book:
1. assume that each Arabic consonant is followed by a short A; the only exception is if it’s the last consonant in a word (i. e. words tend to end in consonants)
2. if the vowel sound is something else, which doesn’t happen all that often, then the other vowel will be indicated with a vowel diacritic, yaa or waaw.
3. if there’s no vowel, i. e. if there’s a consonant cluster, sukoon is on the letter, as usual
4. before long vowels, it is superfluous to indicate the same vowel using a diacritic.

Essentially, it treats Arabic like Devanagari, and with very good results. Arabic texts written this way really have a minimum of diacritics, so it’s easier to get used to not having the vowels. Rule 1 in particular helped me a lot in becoming less dependent on vowellisation. It’s strange that nobody else came up with this suggestion.

Sample text (randomly taken from a children’s book) with full vowellisation:
يَزُولُ خَوْفِي حِينَ يُشْعِلُ بَابَا النُّورَ الصَّفِيرَ فِي غُرْفَتِي

Same text with this system:
يزولُ خَوْفي حينَ يُشْعِلُ بابا النّورَ الصّفيرَ في غُرْفني

Same text non-vowelled:
يزول خوفي حين يشعل بابا النّور الصّفير في غرفني