TAC 2010 邪気ちゃん (邪悪歌）

[Æxylis]

Heya All... I'm interested in working on this too...
I've been thinking about my languages to work with, and I'm splitting them up into different categories. I study different languages for different reasons so my goals for each language will be different.

First off, my mainstay language, Japanese

What I know so far:
Generally speaking, my reading ability in Japanese is the highest out of the four (reading, speaking, writing, and listening). I can recognize anywhere from 500-1000 kanji. I may not always remember how to pronounce them, but for the most part I can remember what they mean get the feel for the compounds being used in a sentence based on context and the knowledge of the characters themselves. I have studied Japanese for two semesters in college and have since then been studying it on my own more than any other language. I learned hiragana and katakana at a young age, far sooner than when I took it in college. I also took a semester of Mandarin in college and this helped with my kanji comprehension. I have since learned a lot more about grammar than I used to know, but there is a bit that I have yet to learn.

Goals:
1. increase my ability in the other three areas
2. learn to at least recognize and use the remaining 常用漢字
3. be able to read Japanese using only hiragana and katakana
4. learn more about honorifics and levels of politeness

Resources:
Video Games (Excellent practice for reading in context and readily available), Anime/Manga, Gjiten, jisho.org, online grammar resources, courses, and testing sites, Japanese music, wikilang, and chatting with other Japanese speakers.


Next is a language I've been fascinated with for a while but have never really done anything with... Korean

What I know so far:
I know how to read and write in hangeul. I can more easily recognize sino-korean words that are similar in meaning and pronunciation with the corresponding Japanese words. I know a bit about the different levels of politeness in the verb conjugations. I know that adjectives or "descriptive verbs" operate similarly to verbs. I know a bit about the basic verbs "to be", "to not be", "to have", "to have not", and "to do". I've briefly covered a bit of grammar and I know that particles work somewhat similarly to the way they do in Japanese.

Goals:
1. learn more about particles, conjugations, and basic grammar
2. learn a bit more about hanja
3. learn about past tense and different levels of politeness
4. be able to have basic conversational ability

Resources:
Books, online resources, a few video games (korean video games are considerably more rare than Japanese ones), Korean music, knowledge of sino-japanese compounds that share similar pronunciations


Next are my two languages that I'm mainly interested in for their grammar and because they are interesting linguistically.

Swedish
What I know so far:
I have a basic reading knowledge of Swedish and for the most part can generally understand what I'm reading. I know words that are similar to corresponding words in German as well as a number of native Swedish words. I can understand the spoken language a little bit, but not well. I am not very good at writing it yet. As for my speaking ability, I have no idea if my pronunciation is anywhere near correct (though I can make some assumptions based on what I hear of it)

Goals:
1. learn the difference between usages of modifier words and the like that inflect for gender
2. learn how to better form past tense verbs and plural nouns
3. learn how to speak and write it better, as well as build listening comprehension
4. have basic conversational ability

Resources:
Video games (fan translations into swedish, although if anybody knows of any good text-intensive games that are natively in Swedish, that would be great ), books, online resources, chatting with speakers


Finally, my other grammatical interest
Arabic:

What I know so far:
I know how to read and write basic arabic without ligatures and in the normal book style. I know about the tanween and have somewhat of an idea about where to place the hamza, but I think this can be learned on an individual word or inflectional basis. I know some basic phrases and I know the basic personal pronouns and a bit about how to conjugate verbs for basic present and past tense for the different persons and numbers. I know a little bit about morphing words based on the tri-consonantal root system, but not much yet. I know the plural form of a few words, but I have not yet grasped the general rule behind it's use. I know about the use of the definite article and that the alif is generally skipped between words. Also, I know a bit about the use of the sun and moon letters, but I have not yet memorized which letters are which.

Goals:
1. ascertain that my pronunciation is correct for all consonants, including the ones that are uncommon to european languages.
2. memorize the sun and moon letters
3. learn more about the different inflectional forms for tri-consonantal roots
4. learn the rules behind forming duals and plurals
5. learn a bit more about arabic calligraphy, such as the ligatures and the different styles
6. gain basic ability in the language
7. after I've gained a bit of familiarity with MSA, I'd like to decide on a particular dialect I'd like to study for conversational use

Resources:
No video games (unfortunately video games, even fan translations, are difficult to find in arabic... if you know of any, please let me know... I know of one in the works, but it still has a long way to go before it's complete), several books (though no basic conversational/textbook style ones for MSA, if you know of any, that'd be great), online resources, chatting with arabic speakers

Anyway, those are my languages I have in mind, they should proceed like so:
Japanese >> Korean > Swedish = Arabic

[Bubulus]

2. memorize the sun and moon letters

I can help you with that one.



Essentially, the sun letters are all inter-dental/dental/alveolar consonants with the addition of ش.

[''']

ش fits the pattern. The way I learned was, all letters in the alveolar (dental, alveolar, post-alveolar) column minus ج which used to be /g/.

and since when are post-alveolar letters palatal?

[Bubulus]

Thanks for pointing that out. Already corrected it. I'm done fixing the table at Wikipedia too.

[Æxylis]

1/8/10

Japanese - little progress worth mentioning

Finnish - I am halfway through my Finnish copy of Chrono Trigger and can understand a good portion of it now without requiring a dictionary. I have submitted a number of pages on Wikilang about Finnish. I know about the possessive particles and have started diving more into the specific cases. I have memorized the nominative case for the first several numbers. I have started posting in the Finnish forum on UL and have joined the Finnish chat group on Skype.
current goal: find a better Finnish dictionary, complete work on the cases and numbers pages on Wikilang.

Hungarian - I have just started with Hungarian. So far I know some basic words like this and that, here and there, and, the personal pronouns, a few of the numbers, and have started working with the basic present tense indicative forms of the verb lenni.