TAC 2017-2018 dEhiN

[dEhiN]

I'm going to review my goals and add 2 more goals:

French:

• Use Unilang to practice writing and speaking (i.e. chatting with Antea and anyone else who is willing to chat in French)
• Use Tandem app to practice writing and speaking
• Go through En bon termes from chapter 1 and do all grammar exercises and add all vocab to Anki
• Read through The Hobbit in French, and learn the simple past tense

Spanish:

• Use Unilang to practice writing
• Use Tandem app to practice writing and speaking
• Go through Duolingo Spanish to learn vocabulary and grammar
• Go through ¡Adelante! Uno to learn vocabulary and grammar

Portuguese:

• Use Unilang to practice writing
• Use Tandem app to practice writing and speaking
• Go through Practice Makes Perfect: Basic Portuguese to learn vocabulary and grammar

Tamil:

• Take Tamil lessons with Kodai

Swedish:

• Go through Duolingo Swedish to learn vocabulary and grammar

I've been using Tandem quite a bit to practice both speaking and writing. I've spoken a little bit in both Spanish and Portuguese since Aug. 24 (when I first posted these goals). I was able to also speak in French but that was with Antea. Apart from that the only study I've done has been using Anki. I'm still hoping to list all the new words here; I actually have a few pages worth of new words that I have to add to Anki. But the practice I'm getting with Tandem, especially the speaking practice, is making me want to study Spanish and Portuguese grammar and learn more vocabulary. For Tamil, I added in the lessons I will be taking. They start next week Friday, and I'll basically done one per week for about an hour. I might put off doing anything new in Swedish for now and first try to get a regular rhythm going with "En bons termes", "¡Adelante! Uno" and "Practice Makes Perfect: Basic Portuguese".

[Dormouse559]

Which one of these sentences works? Or would a completely different translation be necessary?

I didn't know how to say this off the top of my head. After looking at various possibilities, I think a non-literal translation may work best for the first two clauses: "Le passé, c'est le passé." That corresponds form-wise to "The past is in the past."

As for literal translations, after my research, I'm not certain. French doesn't seem to have a fixed phrase with the same form as "That was then, this is now," so I can't find any kind of consensus. Maybe: "C'était avant, c'est maintenant"

[dEhiN]

Which one of these sentences works? Or would a completely different translation be necessary?

I didn't know how to say this off the top of my head. After looking at various possibilities, I think a non-literal translation may work best for the first two clauses: "Le passé, c'est le passé." That corresponds form-wise to "The past is in the past."

As for literal translations, after my research, I'm not certain. French doesn't seem to have a fixed phrase with the same form as "That was then, this is now," so I can't find any kind of consensus. Maybe: "C'était avant, c'est maintenant"

Well it doesn't have to be a literal translation; I would of course prefer one that makes sense to a French speaker. But with "le passé, c'est le passé", it's not necessary to include any reference to the present or any sort of contrast between the past and the present?

And thanks for responding to this. It means a lot to me!

[vijayjohn]

But with "le passé, c'est le passé", it's not necessary to include any reference to the present or any sort of contrast between the past and the present?

Why would it be?

"Let bygones be bygones!"

[dEhiN]

But with "le passé, c'est le passé", it's not necessary to include any reference to the present or any sort of contrast between the past and the present?

Why would it be?

"Let bygones be bygones!"

Yeah I guess that's true. I suppose that in this particular context, for me the essence of the English phrasing is that a contrast is specifically made to remind the person that their trauma happened in the past and now, in the present, the person who hurt them can't hurt them anymore. Maybe it's just me, but it doesn't have the same force if I just say "well that was the past". But then again, maybe these are just personal connotational differences I'm nitpicking about.

[vijayjohn]

I think the contrast is implied.

[Dormouse559]

Well it doesn't have to be a literal translation; I would of course prefer one that makes sense to a French speaker. But with "le passé, c'est le passé", it's not necessary to include any reference to the present or any sort of contrast between the past and the present?

No more necessary than with "The past is in the past." You can always add something else afterward if you want to explicitly reference the present. Here's what I came up with just now: "Le passé, c'est le passé; ce qui compte, c'est le présent; et je suis en sécurité." (The past is in the past, the present is what matters, and I am safe.) But I can't guarantee a native speaker would like the style.

And thanks for responding to this. It means a lot to me!

No problem. I firmly believe a person learns a language best when they come up with ways to weave it into their daily life. I find your idea really creative.

[dEhiN]

I'm changing my goals again, slightly:

French:

• Use Unilang to practice writing and speaking (i.e. chatting with Antea and anyone else who is willing to chat in French)
• Use Tandem app to practice writing and speaking
• Review past material in Duolingo French and rearrange Anki cards based on the material
• Watch "Les Témoins (Witnesses)" in French on Netflix without subtitles and write out new vocabulary
  
• Go through "En bon termes" from learn vocabulary and grammar
  
• Read through The Hobbit in French, and learn the simple past tense

So I decided not to go through the French textbook I used for my course. I might in the future. But as I wrote here I had an opportunity to attend an event that was mostly in French. And it made me want to improve my French listening skills. I'm also going to remove the goal of reading The Hobbit in French, and instead try to watch a French tv show that's on Netflix. I watched season 1 of it before, but I copped out and watched it in English without even French subs! The part about Duolingo is really just some housekeeping stuff: basically since I've been organizing my Anki decks according to language + the resource/way I learned the term, I have a deck for Duolingo French. But in the past, when I did some Duo French, I wasn't organizing things this way and so I just added new cards into a master Anki deck. So essentially I'm going to try and figure out which words I learned initially through Duo and then put them in the appropriate Anki deck.

Spanish:

• Use Unilang to practice writing
• Use Tandem app to practice writing and speaking
• Review past material in Duolingo Spanish and rearrange Anki cards based on the material
• Go through ¡Adelante! Uno to learn vocabulary and grammar

I've been doing a lot of Spanish practice using Tandem. Me and this woman from Guatemala have really hit it off, and so we've been texting every day and trying to chat every day. Our basic approach is to alternate one day in English, one day in Spanish. The same goes for the chats: if we chat on a Spanish day, then the chat is in Spanish. Though yesterday night the chat ended up being in Spanglish. But all this practice had made me want to do some proper grammar study, especially because I'm constantly having to ask her how to say something in the past. I also want to do the same thing with Duo Spanish as with French, but my first priority will be to go through ¡Adelante! Uno.

Portuguese:

• Use Unilang to practice writing
• Use Tandem app to practice writing and speaking
• Review past material in Duolingo Portuguese and rearrange Anki cards based on the material
• Go through Practice Makes Perfect: Basic Portuguese to learn vocabulary and grammar

Last week and over the past weekend I managed to do some Portuguese writing and speaking practice using Tandem. However so far this week, that practice has kinda dried up. Partially I've been focusing on Spanish, and partially neither I nor the 2 or 3 Brazilian Tandem partners have made any effort to contact each other. What I might do is hold off on Practice Makes Perfect: Basic Portuguese until I finish the Spanish book, and instead go through Duo Portuguese like I plan to do for French. I'm also bad with Portuguese past tenses. I've just never taken the time to memorize them, and so even though in some respects my Portuguese level might even be B1, this area of my grammar sucks. But I know if I go through the tenses at the same time I go through the Spanish ones, I will get confused. So I'm going to hold off for now. Plus, if I think about it, I think I'm a little better in Portuguese with the preterite than in Spanish. I've used the 1st and 3rd person forms for -ar and -er verbs often enough that I more or less know them. But that's about it!

Tamil:

• Take Tamil lessons with Kodai

My first lesson starts tomorrow and I'm really excited! As I've shared before, on a personal note I've been going through trauma/abuse therapy. One thing i've been learning more about is triggers, and learning to recognize the times something triggers the memories. I think that things related to Sri Lanka and Tamil (the language, the people, and the culture) are triggers for me. Fortunately not everything related to SL and Tamil trigger me. But I think this is why I started learning Tamil almost 19 years ago and have barely progressed. As a result of realizing this, I can also now see myself getting anxious over the lessons. So this should be interesting! Hopefully I'll be able to focus more on language learning, which I enjoy, and that together with using the grounding techniques I've learned will be sufficient.

Swedish:

• Go through Duolingo Swedish to learn vocabulary and grammar

I'm really not sure what to do for Swedish right now. Apart from reviewing stuff on Anki, I haven't done anything for probably the past month! I would like to learn to actively juggle all 5 languages, but perhaps for now I can only focus on the other 4, and just keep maintaining the little I know in Swedish.

[dEhiN]

This morning I woke up with a sudden desire to post on here the new vocabulary I've learned since the last time I posted that on here. Except that's about 600 new cards! Realistically what I really want to do is post the stuff I've been learning in my Tamil lessons. I'll try and do that later today or tomorrow, and I think it'll be a good challenge for me to also post the IPA transcriptions.

So this week I have been doing some good language study. It's primarily been in Spanish and Tamil. From my goals, really I've only been doing the Tamil lessons, using Tandem to chat and write in Spanish, and using Tandem to do a little writing in Portuguese. I actually rewrote my goals (again!) because things have been going well between mi chica chapina (o guatemalteca) (my Guatemalan girl) and so naturally I want to improve my Spanish! I met her kids the other day and I felt quite ashamed that they had to talk really slowly to me and I could barely respond back to them. But this means that I'm going to give less importance to Portuguese because I have a hard time doing both those languages at once.

I did start ¡Adelante! Uno, but found it difficult to use. It's a complete beginner level, so that's not the problem. But the book is meant to be part of a package that gives you access to audio/visual materials online; the book is meant to be used in a school's Spanish course. I bought the book secondhand from a former student because I was planning to take Spanish level 3 at my college and they use this book for levels 1 and 2 (and they use the ¡Adelante! Dos for levels 3 and 4). I thought maybe I could peruse through it and glean anything I didn't know already.

So my new plan is to use the site FutureLearn.com. In the past they offered 6 courses called Spanish for Beginners 1-6. I had signed up for all of them, but didn't do anything in them. Unfortunately I don't have access anymore to courses 2-6 but I still have access to the first one. So I'm going to go through that course instead. Hopefully by the time I finish, they will offer course 2 again.

[dEhiN]

One more thing: I removed 2 or 3 languages from the A0 line in my sig because even the handful of words I knew I've now forgotten. I also bumped Japanese and Korean down to A0. The good news is that I can still read Korean, and relatively quickly at that, but I barely remember any words. I still have all the Korean vocab I added to Anki from a year ago, but I've suspended the cards for now; I plan to get back to it some day. As for Japanese, well I can still read hiragana, but very slowly and I have forgotten some characters. And just like in Korean, I remember very few words. Though I also never learned as much in Japanese as I did in Korean, having never taken a course and only studying it intermittently.

[dEhiN]

Update time (split into two posts to make it easier to read):

I don't remember if I mentioned this already, but since September started I've been trying to put in a good 8 hours every weekday working on either language studies or things related to my business. I've been thinking of creating my own company that would provide language tutoring, translation, and interpretation services. Well, that's the end goal anyway. To start off, I would only provide English tutoring services. (Although lately I've been waffling back and forth between creating a company or just providing these services under my own name, akin to a consultant). The first week things were good: I actually did some work around both areas - language studies and building my business. I even met up with a guy who coaches entrepreneurs. (On a side note, he uses a resource and site called LeanStack to basically help you generate an easy to work with business plan, which, if you've ever thought of starting your own business, I recommend you check out to help you!) But then the second week and last week I kind of went for the easy route, and focused solely on language studies. Which is nice in that I got some solid studying done, but it's not good in that the more time I don't put into growing my business, the more time it'll take to get to a point where I am earning enough income to get off social assistance.

I met with this guy this past Thursday and he encouraged me to put some time every day into my schedule to work on my business. Then, yesterday (Saturday), a friend of mine encouraged me to set up my schedule to have specific time every day to study my languages. She suggested that since I want to primarily focus on French, Spanish, and Portuguese, to try and spend 1-2 hours every day on those languages, and about 1-2 hours every week on my secondary languages (which are Tamil and Swedish).

So that's what I've done. I just spent about 1 hr changing my weekly schedule to be specific, creating set times to work on each language and also to work on my business. In total, I'm going to try and put in about 7 hours a week on my main 3 languages, and 2 hours a week on the other 2. I still need to firm up an actual study plan for each language, though I have some ideas in mind:

[dEhiN]

1) For Tamil, I'm just going to use these private lessons. The Toronto school board has extra curricular Tamil lessons for kids, and my teacher I guess does work for the school board. So she has a copy of the book they use, and last week she started using it with me. As a supplementary resource I'm also using that Facebook group I mentioned previously. I'm able to ask various questions there, especially linguistic ones that my Tamil teacher might not be able to answer, and also sometimes learn some new vocabulary and grammar.

2) For Spanish, I'm currently using a Future Learn course called Spanish for Beginners 1. The course is actually not currently offered, but I signed up for the course back when Future Learn still allowed anyone who signed up unlimited access, which means I get access to the course even though it's officially done. Back when it was active, I didn't have the time nor inclination to go through it, so I'm doing so now. I'm also going to keep doing self-study, and of course chatting with my friend in Guatemala whenever I can. Once the course is done I'll figure out a new resource to use.

3) For Portuguese, I'm thinking to go through Practice Makes Perfect: Basic Portuguese. I've tried to go through it before, but only did a little bit of it. I'll also continue doing self-study and chatting with the 2 or 3 language exchange partners I have.

I am a little concerned about mixing up Spanish and Portuguese, since it's been easy for me to do this in the past. But I guess like anything else, practice makes perfect (no pun intended ), and I do notice myself catching myself quicker and quicker before I mix up the two languages.

4) For French I'm going to start with going through Duolingo French. I think the only reason I want to is there's something within me that feels incomplete if I don't finish something I started, especially when I know I could finish it. I don't quite expect to learn anything new in Duo, but every bit of practice helps, and doing something more simple like this allows me to concentrate a little more on Spanish and Portuguese. I do want to start reading books and watching shows/videos in French, but I might just wait until I finish Duo.

5) For Swedish, I'm not sure what to do. Well my options so far are Duolingo or Teach Yourself. I've decided to go through Teach Yourself Complete Swedish.

And of course, while doing all of this I'm going to keep using Anki to help remember the stuff I learn. But now my Google Calendar looks all colourful, like a school timetable!

[dEhiN]

I've finished day 2 of my new schedule and it's going pretty well. I'm using a mix of Google Calendar and Todoist to keep me on schedule. I'll list out my schedule here just for fun:

Every morning from 9-11 I try and do some work on my business. Right now I'm working on my business plan using that site I mentioned. Then on Mondays I do 1 hour of Portuguese followed by French. After lunch I do 1 hour of Spanish. After that I go for my Tamil class, and I study Anki while on the way there. After my class, when I get home I spend another hour on Tamil, reviewing what I learned and updating Anki with the new vocab.

On Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays, after working on my business I study Portuguese for 2 hours. After lunch I do some Anki followed by 1 hour of French and 2 hours of Spanish. On Thursdays I start at 12 because I'm busy in the morning with some other stuff. I do about 3 hours of French and 2 hours of Swedish.

[dEhiN]

I should probably write an update. So my new schedule lasted all of a week, and then I gave it up! I also decided not to worry about learning languages for work - I'm just going to be an English tutor - and learn them for fun. It's more enjoyable for me that way. I'm still trying to figure out some way to maybe schedule my language studying. Last week I did some studying in all 5 languages, including learning new words. I could not worry about a schedule and just try to do some studying in each language every day or every week. But my concern with that is that there won't be as much progress as there could be with a more scheduled approach. I think I want to try Vijay's approach which is to go through each language one at a time, and then pair that up with one or several specific goals for each language. I'm also trying to slowly learn all the new/unlearned cards in Anki. Between the 5 languages, I have 2868 cards in total. I've learned/studied 1557 of them, leaving me with 1311 new ones. Currently I'm learning around 25 new cards a day.

[dEhiN]

Yesterday night I tried my hand at translating some song lyrics from English into French. The song is Samantha J. feat. R. City - Baby Love. I found a site with the lyrics and that also allows you to do translations. There are Spanish and Italian translations that are 100% complete, an Indonesian one that is 98% done, a Hindi one that is 51% done, and now the French one that is 86% done. It was like 2% before. You can see the French translation here.

I'm also going to post the English lyrics and what I translated here; maybe someone could review them and correct any mistakes?

► Show Spoiler

Baby, baby, baby, baby, baby
Bébé, bébé, bébé, bébé, bébé

Yeah, yeah
Ouais, ouais

Samantha J.
Samantha J.

Rock City get busy
Rock City

If I need it oh you go and get it for me
Si j'en ai besoin oh tu vas le chercher pour moi

You my lover, you my other, you my homie
T'es mon amour, mon autre, mon pote

Oh yeah you already know love how you hold me
Oh ouais tu déjà sais amour comment que tu me tiens

You hold me, love oh you hold me
Tu me tiens, amour oh tu me tiens

I swear to God I know this is the real thing
Je jure devant Dieu que je sais que c'est la vraie chose

You give me such a wonderful feeling
Tu me donnes un sentiment si merveilleux

I mean it, got me higher than the ceiling
J'suis sérieux, tu m'as plus haut que le plafond

The ceiling, oh what a feeling
Le plafond, oh quel sentiment

Yeah-oh, yeah-oh
Ouais-oh, ouais-oh

It can't get no better
Ça peut pas être mieux

Yeah-oh, yeah-oh
Ouais-oh, ouais-oh

Once we stick together
Une fois qu'on reste ensemble

What's the only thing I'm thinking of?
Quelle est la seule chose à laquelle je pense ?

Oh, na-na-na
Oh, na-na-na

In the morning when I'm waking up
Dans le matin quand je me reveille

Oh, na-na-na
Oh, na-na-na

People now they tell me that I'm crazy
Les gens maintenant me disent que j'suis fou

Oh you know you'll always be my baby love
Oh tu sais que tu seras toujours mon cœur

See all I trust, devoted but
Vois que je fais confiance à tous mais

You know you'll always be my baby love
Tu sais que tu seras toujours mon cœur

I'm thinking of
J'suis en train de penser à

Can't get enough
J'peux pas en avoir assez

Know you'll always be my baby love
Sache que tu seras toujours mon cœur

We ain't worried even though we got some haters
On est pas inquiet même si on a des ennemis

We be startin', we be ballin' like the Lakers
On commence, on est riche comme les Lakers

It's ok, we know that they will never break us
Ça va, on sait qu'ils se cassent jamais

Break us, never break us
Ils se cassent jamais

Call me your angel, but you know I keep it real
Appelle-moi ton ange, mais tu sais que je garde une valeur sûre

You and me, we blowin' up torpedo
Toi et moi, on explose comme une torpille

May hide alright but you know me never leave you
Je me cache peut-être mais tu sais que je te quitte jamais

Leave you, for real
Je te quitte jamais, vraiment

Yeah-oh, yeah-oh
Ouais-oh, ouais-oh

It can't get no better
Ça peut pas être mieux

Yeah-oh, yeah-oh
Ouais-oh, ouais-oh

Once we stick together
Une fois qu'on reste ensemble

What's the only thing I'm thinking of?
Quelle est la seule chose à laquelle je pense ?

Oh, na-na-na
Oh, na-na-na

In the morning when I'm waking up
Dans le matin quand je me reveille

Oh, na-na-na
Oh, na-na-na

People now they tell me that I'm crazy
Les gens maintenant me disent que j'suis fou

Oh you know you'll always be my baby love
Oh tu sais que tu seras toujours mon cœur

See all I trust, devoted but
Vois que je fais confiance à tous mais

You know you'll always be my baby love
Tu sais que tu seras toujours mon cœur

I'm thinking of
J'suis en train de penser à

Can't get enough
J'peux pas en avoir assez

Know you'll always be my baby love
Sache que tu seras toujours mon cœur

Hey, Yeah!
Hé, ouais !

Here we go!
On y va !

How you do that?
Comment tu fais ça ?

Are you that
Es-tu ça

Me love that
J'aime ça

Gal you know you're mine from your bond
Fille tu sais que t'es à moi de ton lien

Love the way you're flinging back and go on


Ah you my baby lover till the day that me gone


Ah you my number one, you my true champion


Ah you my number one, you my true champion


Hey you girl inna the tight skirt


Sexy in a dress or in a buttoned-up shirt


You up and close when you start to whine


You the only one who always there 'pon me mind


What's the only thing I'm thinking of?
Quelle est la seule chose à laquelle je pense ?

(Of me you are think 'bout baby)
(À moi t'en penses bébé)

In the morning when I'm waking up
Dans le matin quand je me reveille

(And I mean, yeah)
(Et je veux dire, ouais)

People now they tell me that I'm crazy
Les gens maintenant me disent que j'suis fou

Oh you know you'll always be my baby love
Oh tu sais que tu seras toujours mon cœur

The one thing I can't get enough
La seule chose que j'peux pas en avoir assez

Oh, na-na-na
Oh, na-na-na

What's the only thing I'm thinking of?
Quelle est la seule chose à laquelle je pense ?

Oh, na-na-na
Oh, na-na-na

In the morning when I'm waking up
Dans le matin quand je me reveille

Oh, na-na-na
Oh, na-na-na

People now they tell me that I'm crazy
Les gens maintenant me disent que j'suis fou

Oh you know you'll always be my baby love
Oh tu sais que tu seras toujours mon cœur

See all I trust, devoted but
Vois que je fais confiance à tous mais

You know you'll always be my baby love
Tu sais que tu seras toujours mon cœur

I'm thinking of
J'suis en train de penser à

Can't get enough
J'peux pas en avoir assez

Know you'll always be my baby love
Sache que tu seras toujours mon cœur

Know you'll always be my baby love
Sache que tu seras toujours mon cœur

There's one part in the middle - R. City's part - that I haven't finished translating. I was too tired last night. I used a mix of WordReference, Linguee and Google Translate to help me. I also tried to keep the style as casual as I could since the way Samantha J and R. City sing are more casual. I also wasn't sure the best way to translate "baby love" since it's more informal and I think intimate than just "love". The best I could think of was "coeur".

[vijayjohn]

Yesterday night

I think I once said this to an Irish colleague of mine in grad school, and she was surprised to hear me say that instead of "last night."

You can see the French translation here.

Whenever I try to access any part of musixmatch.com, I get an error message saying, "A secure connection cannot be established because this site uses an unsupported protocol."

I'm also going to post the English lyrics and what I translated here; maybe someone could review them and correct any mistakes?

Do you want anyone to translate the parts you didn't translate, or do you intend to try doing those yourself first?

[dEhiN]

Yesterday night

I think I once said this to an Irish colleague of mine in grad school, and she was surprised to hear me say that instead of "last night."

Huh! To me they're synonymous and of equal weight in terms of usage.

You can see the French translation here.

Whenever I try to access any part of musixmatch.com, I get an error message saying, "A secure connection cannot be established because this site uses an unsupported protocol."

That's odd! I tried using that same link even after I signed out of musixmatch.com and it worked fine. I even tried refreshing with http instead of https and it rerouted to https. Maybe try the main lyrics page for that song - https://www.musixmatch.com/lyrics/Samantha-J-feat-R-City/Baby-Love?

I'm also going to post the English lyrics and what I translated here; maybe someone could review them and correct any mistakes?

Do you want anyone to translate the parts you didn't translate, or do you intend to try doing those yourself first?

Good question; I think I would like to try doing those parts myself first. I'm a bit stuck on the next line "love the way you're flinging back and go on" which I know refers to dancing or more specifically whining. The Spanish translation someone gave is "ama la manera tu estas regresando y yendo" which I'm not sure captures the proper gist, though it is I guess a more literal translation? Actually, if you're ever able to access that site, check out the Spanish translation. My Spanish is worse than my French but even then I'm pretty sure some of the Spanish translations don't quite work.

[vijayjohn]

Maybe try the main lyrics page for that song - https://www.musixmatch.com/lyrics/Samantha-J-feat-R-City/Baby-Love?

That works for me. Thanks!

[dEhiN]

Maybe try the main lyrics page for that song - https://www.musixmatch.com/lyrics/Samantha-J-feat-R-City/Baby-Love?

That works for me. Thanks!

You're welcome; can you from there choose a translation?

[vijayjohn]

Maybe try the main lyrics page for that song - https://www.musixmatch.com/lyrics/Samantha-J-feat-R-City/Baby-Love?

That works for me. Thanks!

You're welcome; can you from there choose a translation?

Yep!