TAC 2017 - Mike (Albanian, Old English)

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Michael
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Re: TAC 2017 - Mike (Albanian, Old English, Italian)

Postby Michael » 2017-09-06, 14:47

(en_old) Well, I completed "An Old English Grammar & Exercise Book", so I'm finally ready to take on Atherton with confidence! Learnt the two classes of weak verbs—easy-peasy—and also learned about the anomalous verbs, a subclass of which is called "preterit-present verbs", so-called, "because the present tense (indicative and subjunctive) of each of them is, in form, a strong preterit, the old present having been displaced by the new. They all have weak preterits. Most of the Mn.E. Auxiliary Verbs belong to this class." 17/17, 100%
American English (en-us) Neapolitan from Molise (nap) N Italian (it) B2 Spanish (es) Portuguese (pt) French (fr) Greek (el) Albanian (sq) B1 Polish (pl) Romanian (ro) A2 Azerbaijani (az) Turkish (tr) Old English (en_old) A1
„Çdo njeri është peng i veprave të veta.‟
Every human being is hostage to their own deeds.

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Re: TAC 2017 - Mike (Albanian, Old English, Italian)

Postby dEhiN » 2017-09-06, 14:49

Do you think that going through Atherton now will be a bit of review for you? Aren't the TY Complete series meant to be for those who have no knowledge, so they start from scratch? That's why I thought it interesting that you went through a grammar book first.
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Re: TAC 2017 - Mike (Albanian, Old English, Italian)

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-09-06, 15:22

Yay, congratulations on getting through the whole book! :)

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Re: TAC 2017 - Mike (Albanian, Old English, Italian)

Postby Michael » 2017-09-06, 15:44

vijayjohn wrote:Yay, congratulations on getting through the whole book PDF! :)

Iċ ġeþanciġe þē! But in all fairness, it was only 87 pages long. :P

dEhiN wrote:Do you think that going through Atherton now will be a bit of review for you? Aren't the TY Complete series meant to be for those who have no knowledge, so they start from scratch? That's why I thought it interesting that you went through a grammar book first.

Atherton is a great book overall, with detailed historical accounts to help understand the context of the various readings, but it teaches grammatical concepts seemingly at random and at a slow pace (well, at least too slow of a pace for an impatient grammar-addict like me). In addition to that, it doesn't mark vowel length 9 times out of 10, which really annoys me.
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„Çdo njeri është peng i veprave të veta.‟
Every human being is hostage to their own deeds.

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Re: TAC 2017 - Mike (Albanian, Old English)

Postby Michael » 2017-12-22, 9:18

Well, it's been a good three months and a half since I last posted an update, so here's a synopsis.

(sq) I didn't advance as far in Albanian as I planned on doing while in Italy—I only completed Part I/III of Lesson 15 and that was that. It was almost as if I wasted a kilogram of luggage space for no reason. :roll: Also, I tried to get the uncle that I stayed with for a month in Molise to arrange us a trip to one of the Arbëresh-speaking towns in the region, but it didn't end up panning out.

However, I've started getting back into it the last two weeks, tackling what must be 2½~3 months of backlogged Anki reviews one day, 100 cards at a time, so as to not burn myself out. I'm currently getting started on the exercises for Part II/III of Lesson 15. Not to mention that I've gotten quite a few opportunities to practice my Albanian here at home (well, not here at my own home, but you know what I mean), no matter that I was a little rusty for the first conversation I had upon coming back to Chicago.

(en_old) Regrettably, my Old English studies have all but come to a halt. I haven't even bothered to do a single Anki review since late September, but that could easily change at any moment if I just gave a fuck. I believe the culprit to be the fact that I cram-studied through C. Alphonso Smith's Grammar & Exercise Book while in Molise, burning myself the fuck out in the process, in an attempt to rote-memorize the entirety of the material as quickly as possible.

It remains to be seen whether I'll get back into OE, but now that I'm talking about it here, it's giving me a little inspiration to brush up on what I've learnt. Perhaps all I need to do is get my lazy ass to tackle those Anki reviews! :whistle:

(it) Despite the fact that I brought 1½ kg of Italian-language instructional books with me, I only ended up getting the most use out of the smaller Italian Verbs & Essentials of Grammar that I had brought with, and once again, I ultimately ended up wasting luggage space. I spoke exclusively in Italian anyways with the relatives that I stayed with in the city of L'Aquila (in Abruzzo) for a month and half (after I had stayed with the aforementioned relatives in Molise), as that aunt of mine is a secretary whose command of dialect is not as good as mine, and it just plain felt more respectful for me to speak to her in Italian for some reason, and her husband basically only spoke Standard Italian with a hint of a dialect that resembles Romanesco (he comes from a village in Lazio 60 km to the east of Rome).

All in all, despite doing little if any formal study, I definitely feel like my Italian improved during the 2¾ months I stayed in Italy. However, now that I'm back in the USA, I'll be putting Italian on the backburner indefinitely.

(zh) During my last month in Italy, I really got into Mandarin, and I continued taking baby steps in Mandarin for a month after I came back. I ultimately completed the Memrise Mandarin Chinese 1 course as well. I haven't made any additional progress in Mandarin, but then again, it's not like I ever prioritized it to begin with. I'm still at the stage where I'm more concerned about mastering the tone combinations in polysyllabic words and the articulation of said words in sentences, before I'd seriously devote myself to the language. However, even though I've only been dabbling in the language, I've learned a decent amount of basic phrases and introductory-level words, not to mention tidbits of beginner's grammar.

I downloaded the ChineseSkill app and I can't possibly stress enough how much it helps me improve my pronunciation skills. The more I study Chinese, the more I fall in love with it.
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„Çdo njeri është peng i veprave të veta.‟
Every human being is hostage to their own deeds.

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Re: TAC 2017 - Mike (Albanian, Old English)

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-12-22, 21:29

Michael wrote:(zh) During my last month in Italy, I really got into Mandarin

Omg you're studying Chinese now, too?! :shock: How did that happen?

It's like UniLang decided to give me an early Christmas gift. First księżycowy expressing interest in a lot of the same languages I've been studying, and now this...!

Also, what kind of opportunities do you get to practice Albanian?

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Re: TAC 2017 - Mike (Albanian, Old English)

Postby Luís » 2017-12-22, 21:35

You should have met OldBoring while you were in Italy!
Quot linguas calles, tot homines vales

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Re: TAC 2017 - Mike (Albanian, Old English)

Postby Michael » 2017-12-23, 5:32

vijayjohn wrote:Omg you're studying Chinese now, too?! :shock: How did that happen?

It's like UniLang decided to give me an early Christmas gift. First księżycowy expressing interest in a lot of the same languages I've been studying, and now this...!

As with the great majority of languages that I've learnt over the last decade, I simply wanted to satisfy once and for all my burning curiosity about Mandarin and Chinese languages in general.

Also, what kind of opportunities do you get to practice Albanian?

Well, the first opportunity I got was while in line at the airport in Detroit waiting to board my transfer flight to O'Hare, after I noticed that the two men behind me were conversing in a Gheg dialect. I turned around, said Më falni, a jeni ju shqiptarë? "Excuse me, are you guys Albanian?", and it took off from there. All the subsequent opportunities I've had have been every time I visit my local barbers, as you already know.

Luís wrote:You should have met OldBoring while you were in Italy!

In fact, I did keep in touch with him, throughout my stay in Italy, but when I finally did get to Rome, staying there for a good week and a half, he was extremely occupied with his family's shop and we were not able to arrange a rendezvous.
American English (en-us) Neapolitan from Molise (nap) N Italian (it) B2 Spanish (es) Portuguese (pt) French (fr) Greek (el) Albanian (sq) B1 Polish (pl) Romanian (ro) A2 Azerbaijani (az) Turkish (tr) Old English (en_old) A1
„Çdo njeri është peng i veprave të veta.‟
Every human being is hostage to their own deeds.

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Re: TAC 2017 - Mike (Albanian, Old English)

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-12-23, 14:52

Michael wrote:As with the great majority of languages that I've learnt over the last decade, I simply wanted to satisfy once and for all my burning curiosity about Mandarin and Chinese languages in general.

I had no idea you were so curious about Chinese languages. :o Maybe I can help!
All the subsequent opportunities I've had have been every time I visit my local barbers, as you already know.

I completely forgot about that, to be honest. :oops:

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Re: TAC 2017 - Mike (Albanian, Old English)

Postby dEhiN » 2017-12-23, 16:41

Hey Michael, it's good to see you on here again! I hope your trip was good. I don't know if you have checked out my TAC, but I recently started (slowly) learning Albanian. I have the Peace Corps Albanian course on pdf, and I also borrowed my library's copy of Colloquial Albanian (though it's an old version). Anyway, I actually had a question about Albanian, which I posted here. Vijay was able to answer it a little bit, but I was wondering if you could shed some light since you've been learning Albanian for a while now. Faleminderit!
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Re: TAC 2017 - Mike (Albanian, Old English)

Postby Michael » 2017-12-23, 19:57

vijayjohn wrote:I had no idea you were so curious about Chinese languages. :o Maybe I can help!

You best believe it! :wink: You had no idea about it because for the longest time I disregarded it and unconsciously suppressed that desire, probably because I had the hindsight that I'd immediately fall in love with it if I so much as skimmed through the Wikipedia article on Mandarin, but you know what they say about suppressed desires…

dEhiN wrote:Hey Michael, it's good to see you on here again! I hope your trip was good. I don't know if you have checked out my TAC, but I recently started (slowly) learning Albanian. I have the Peace Corps Albanian course on pdf, and I also borrowed my library's copy of Colloquial Albanian (though it's an old version). Anyway, I actually had a question about Albanian, which I posted here. Vijay was able to answer it a little bit, but I was wondering if you could shed some light since you've been learning Albanian for a while now. Faleminderit!

(sq) Të falënderoj për përgëzimin tënd, dhe urime që ti ke vendosur të mësosh gjuhën shqipe të këndshme dhe të larmishme! Po të ndihmoj menjëherë; kënaqësia ime!
(en) I thank you for your kind words, and congratulations on deciding to learn the entertaining and unique Albanian language! I'll assist you at once; my pleasure!
American English (en-us) Neapolitan from Molise (nap) N Italian (it) B2 Spanish (es) Portuguese (pt) French (fr) Greek (el) Albanian (sq) B1 Polish (pl) Romanian (ro) A2 Azerbaijani (az) Turkish (tr) Old English (en_old) A1
„Çdo njeri është peng i veprave të veta.‟
Every human being is hostage to their own deeds.


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