Saim's log 2017-2019

[Osias]

You do not need linguistic Viagra flashcards a.k.a. flashcards. Or linguistic Cialis a.k.a. Anki. Or, God forbid, linguistic Enzyte. Your linguistic genitals are large enough already.

I would say this is white privilege of yours, only with "people who can study without this" instead of "white", but I never used those things either.

[vijayjohn]

Muh freeze peach!!!

[Yasna]

Check your privilege!

[vijayjohn]

*reads tumblr posts about the societal advantages of polyglots over everyone else*

[Saim]

I've been reading Wikipedia articles in Arabic, using Readlang's pop-up dictionary (I find that when I don't have to switch tabs it takes me much longer to get tired or bored, it's great how far technology has come!). I've made sure to read articles on similar topics - first I read the article on Pakistan, and now I'm reading the article on India (so words like nuclear, diversity, poverty, Indian Ocean and so on are repeated), and then from there I've also done the first couple of sentences on the articles on Gandhi, civil disobedience and nonviolence. I'm not noting down any vocabulary or doing any flashcards, I'm just trying to get as much reading in as possible.

This does a couple of things:
1) I more easily pick up vocabulary related to words I already know. For example, since I know the word diet (غذاء) it's been easy for me to remember the word malnutrition (سوء التغذية), especially since it occurred in a sentence along with "poverty" and "corruption".
2) Seeing words used in different contexts helps cement them in your memory. So I've managed to remember the word "nuclear" from expressions like الأسر النووية (nuclear families), قوة نووية (nuclear power) and أسلحة نووية (nuclear weapons).
3) It helps repeat words that I have tucked away in my passive vocabulary: I've noticed a lot of the time there'll be words where I'll go "oh yeah, I know that word" (words like reforms الإصلاحات or power قوة). I also get that feeling when I'm rusty in a language and go back to it, so hopefully the more I do this the less I'll have that feeling and these words will become part of my active vocabulary.
4) I don't have to worry about whether a word is common enough to be put into flashcards, or if the Urdu/Punjabi/Hebrew equivalent is too similar for me to bother trying to memorise it. If these words come up enough I'll acquire them naturally.
5) I'm getting exposed to the Arabisations of many placenames, cultural concepts, names of historical figures and ethnic/religious groups (Gandhi, Baloch, Sikh, ahimsa, Sanskrit) that I wouldn't otherwise bother with.

I think I might try and do a similar thing with the news: I'll read a news article, and then instead of reading another article on the same site I'll Google one of the key words in the headline and see if I can find an article on a similar event. So it'd be better to follow reading about, say (I'm making this up here), a general strike in Lebanon with reading about a general strike in Tunisia in 2010 than picking another article from the first page of the same site or trying to follow the news daily.

I'll also keep working on Glossika to make sure I'm not forgetting about speaking and listening.

[vijayjohn]

Sorry for spamming your thread so much btw!

[Saim]

Sorry for spamming your thread so much btw!

You're right. I don't mind at all: in fact, I always enjoy it when any of my log posts spark discussion.

[Saim]

I think I've managed to improve my accent because even when my parents were around people didn't switch to English on me (like, they would order in English, then I would order in Polish and the waitstaff would respond to me in Polish). I've also had three people say I speak 'without an accent' (perhaps they're exaggerated compliments but I imagine it at least shows some progress as that never used to happen before I put a concerted effort into improving my accent).

I've also finally started reading in Polish but I wish I could find a way to procrastinate in Polish...



I think I'm going to stop going to Arabic class. The fact that there are three different professors that all give quite extensive homework and very specific vocabulary to learn (I'm not exactly thrilled about memorising animal body parts, to be honest) has made it really difficult to keep up with while not falling back on the rest of my coursework. There were also lots of moments where I wanted to just practice Arabic (read Wikipedia or the news, write something on iTalki, work on LangMedia) but I couldn't because I would have had to do my homework first, so I'm not sure to what extent it's even helping my Arabic. I've missed two weeks of class already, one to a language revitalisation conference in Warsaw and one to the flu, so it'll be a huge hassle to catch up, especially considering the fact that I missed the first two weeks of class as well. Since I've been going to Hungarian and Finnish I'll just count one of those as my foreign language credit.

That said, the classes have given me motivation to keep going with Arabic and have helped me notice some of the gaps in my knowledge. I'm going to keep going over the next year and see how far I get.



I've been doing a lot of reading (according to Readlang I've looked up a thousand words over the past couple of weeks; obviously some of them are repeats, verb forms etc.). I've also done some listening and I'm surprised at how much I already understand! I think the time has come for me to do 1) concentrated grammar study and 2) writing. After doing a bit of that I'll go back to extensive reading.

[voron]

I'm not exactly thrilled about memorising animal body parts, to be honest

Eww.
I bet you'll end up having more practical knowledge than your classmates, following your usual study approach.

before I put a concerted effort into improving my accent

How did you do it? I fascinate this idea of making my accent in Turkish more native-like. (Even though no one has ever had any problems understanding me, my accent gives me away as a non-native almost immediately. If not for the accent I'm pretty sure I could pass as a native because my grammar mistakes are rare).

[Saim]

I'm not exactly thrilled about memorising animal body parts, to be honest

Eww.

As in مخلب, خرطوم, فرو, عاج, etc.

I bet you'll end up having more practical knowledge than your classmates, following your usual study approach.

Besides the one that's an L1 speaker of Egyptian Arabic (his vocabulary and fluency in MSA are leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else's, he just screws up case endings and stuff a lot), you may be right. Thanks for the encouragement.

How did you do it? I'm fascinated by this idea of making my accent in Turkish more native-like. (Even though no one has ever had any problems understanding me, my accent gives me away as a non-native almost immediately. If not for the accent I'm pretty sure I could pass as a native because my grammar mistakes are rare).

1. THEORY - Read up on the phonology of the language and try and pay attention to where in the mouth the sounds are pronounced. Make sure you understand phonetic transcription for the language. Compare the phoneme inventory of the target language to other languages you know, especially the vowel positions (often ɛ in one language wont be exactly the same as ɛ in another language; Barcelona Catalan ɛ is a bit closer to æ than Polish ɛ is, and I have a feeling in Girona it's actually just æ).

2. PRACTICE - Spend time listening to the same audio again and again and speak the words back to yourself, try and notice any parts that don't roll off the tongue, comparing your pronunciation to that of the audio. You can even do this with people around you if you're inconspicuous enough about it, trying to imitate intonation.

It's a bit vague but in my case it seems to work at least for me. Some people suggest actually recording yourself but I can't say I've done that much.

(By the way I found Glossika's GMS-C files good for part 2; I know that certain people on the internet have access to the Turkish ones if you're interested.)

[Saim]

Actually, now that I think of it, I did record myself a fair bit for Polish. In the case of rooting out fossilised mistakes I think it's important to be hyper-conscious of the way you speak.



My plan for Hungarian, Hebrew and Urdu was to use basically the same technique: sentence mining (finding audio, then cutting out sentences from it, transcribing and translating them and then listening to them again and again). However, I don't think it's realistic to improve three B2-level languages at once, especially since I've never managed to do even one without being in the country where it's spoken. Since I'm also taking Hungarian class at university, I think it would make sense for me to focus on Hungarian. A friend of mine will also be in Budapest on Erasmus next semester so that's even more reason to keep active knowledge of it going.

I don't know when I'm going to go to Israel, definitely not in the near or medium future. Tickets are cheap (like, ridiculously cheap) and it's not so far but it's a bit of a hassle because I don't think you can just go randomly as a tourist, especially if you're an early 20-something male with an Islamic surname.

As for Urdu, I'm not sure when I'll be back in Pakistan again either, but if I go next September I could have the whole summer to practice.

[IpseDixit]

it's not so far but it's a bit of a hassle because I don't think you can just go randomly as a tourist

Why not? I mean, I understand your concerns for the Islamic surname thing, but if it wasn't for that, why shouldn't you just go randomly as a tourist?

[Saim]

it's not so far but it's a bit of a hassle because I don't think you can just go randomly as a tourist

Why not? I mean, I understand your concerns for the Islamic surname thing, but if it wasn't for that, why shouldn't you just go randomly as a tourist?

It'd be a huge hassle to go just to not be let in. Maybe I'm just being paranoid but I'm kind of scared of them asking me about if I'm a Muslim, if I've been to Islamic countries (I've been to Brunei twice and Pakistan several times, and have a card for visa-free travel to Pakistan), if my grandfather was a Muslim, who my contact in Israel is... I wouldn't be sure whether to talk to them in Hebrew, either. I'd feel safer going there for a language course or a conference or something, something I'm actually signed up to and can have a document for.

[IpseDixit]

it's not so far but it's a bit of a hassle because I don't think you can just go randomly as a tourist

Why not? I mean, I understand your concerns for the Islamic surname thing, but if it wasn't for that, why shouldn't you just go randomly as a tourist?

It'd be a huge hassle to go just to not be let in. Maybe I'm just being paranoid but I'm kind of scared of them asking me about if I'm a Muslim, if I've been to Islamic countries (I've been to Brunei twice and Pakistan several times, and have a card for visa-free travel to Pakistan), if my grandfather was a Muslim, who my contact in Israel is... I wouldn't be sure whether to talk to them in Hebrew, either. I'd feel safer going there for a language course or a conference or something, something I'm actually signed up to and can have a document for.

I can understand that, but you wrote "especially if you're an early 20-something male with an Islamic surname." so I assumed that even without an Islamic background, you'd still have problems being a random tourist in Israel.

[Saim]

I can understand that, but you wrote "especially if you're an early 20-something male with an Islamic surname." so I assumed that even without an Islamic background, you'd still have problems being a random tourist in Israel.

You're right, I misspoke. That said, it'd still be more of a hassle than most countries that allow tourism without a visa (depending on your nationality, of course), since you have to show that you've reserved accommodation AFAIK. In Ireland they did ask me where I'm staying (and I've been pulled to the side for extra questioning in Singapore lately, but I didn't used to), but they didn't ask me to show any reservation. Which is just as well, because I was sleeping on the floor in my friend's room at a student college, and I even got confused and told them the wrong college.

A friend of mine gamed the system (in Israel again) and cancelled her reservation after she arrived to go stay with someone from couchsurfing, but I'd be too scared to do something like that, even without the whole Muslim thing.

[IpseDixit]

That said, it'd still be more of a hassle than most countries that allow tourism without a visa (depending on your nationality, of course), since you have to show that you've reserved accommodation AFAIK.

That's news to me. Nobody asked me that when I went to Israel in 2014. I said I was going to stay at a friend's house and they let me through without batting an eye.

But yeah, it's no secret that profiling is a thing so I'm pretty sure I had quite a lot of privilege being a white European.

[Saim]

That said, it'd still be more of a hassle than most countries that allow tourism without a visa (depending on your nationality, of course), since you have to show that you've reserved accommodation AFAIK.

That's news to me. Nobody asked me that when I went to Israel in 2014. I said I was going to stay at a friend's house and they let me through without batting an eye.

But yeah, it's no secret that profiling is a thing so I'm pretty sure I had quite a lot of privilege being a white European.

Good to know. In that case it's the same as Ireland, and since my friend is a blonde Polish girl she probably didn't need the fake reservation.

[voron]

Just recently it was on the local news that an aged Belarusian couple was denied entry to Israel with no explanation. Also I read that among Ukrainians the denial rate is high (don't remember the exact figure, I think it said around 20%). So yeah if it were me I would think twice before making Israel travel plans. Sorry for not easing your doubts.

Excuse my little rant, I have an issue with countries which restrict my entrance with visas which are hard to obtain or other humiliating conditions. Bite me Europe.

[Saim]

Just recently it was on the local news that an aged Belarusian couple was denied entry to Israel with no explanation. Also I read that among Ukrainians the denial rate is high (don't remember the exact figure, I think it said around 20%). So yeah if it were me I would think twice before making Israel travel plans. Sorry for not easing your doubts.

I don't need my doubts eased because I'm not planning on going until I can find a specific reason to (signing up for some conference or language course or something), so probably not in the near future. Thanks for the info.

[Saim]

I think the benefits from just reading are starting to level out, so I might do flashcards for a bit before I get back to it. I'm going to go through new vocabulary from the book Media Arabic and put them into a Memrise deck. Maybe after that I should do some writing as well.