Saim's log 2017-2019

[Saim]

This makes me wonder why rap/hip-hop versions of ghazals don't seem to be a thing yet. They shouldn't be too hard to create. I mean, the lyrics are widely available...

جنوبی ایشیا کا ریپ سین کافی نیا ہے۔ کچھ عرصے بعد کوئی نہ کوئی بنا‏ۓ گا۔

Somehow I totally forgot you were doing Turkish,

Bu ne cürret!

and I didn't even know you were doing Finnish!

I wasn't "doing" Finnish so much as attending Finnish class and doing the bare minimum to learn the material. I was too out of any sort of meaningful routine (luckily I've started balancing gym and uni and languages and stuff better, which is why I have more ambitious goals for next year) to find time to really get into Finnish on my own.

I think you'll be missed as far as Arabic goes for now,

And I'll miss Arabic. I will get back to Arabic, though, at least once I'm better at Turkish (it's ahead of Basque and Finnish at any rate), unless in the meantime I find some massively important external reason to learn some other non-IE language from scratch.

but hey, at least I'm doing Turkish, too!

What do you do for Turkish?

[Saim]

I will do this for some of my more advanced languages (Serbian, Polish, Urdu, Hungarian) as well as two that I would like to see a lot of progress in over the next year (German, Russian). Unfortunately the Urdu corpus on glosbe doesn't seem to be very good (a lot of it seems to be from the Urdu translation of the Bible and the Qur'an, which is not a register I necessarily need to get so used to), and I can't find any good monolingual Urdu dictionaries with example sentences on the internet, so I've also added some sentences directly from articles I've read (I'm advanced enough that I can more-or-less trust my own translation).

These Bible sentences actually aren't that bad. There also seem to be some texts which are commentaries on the Bible and Christianity which are also cool.

Each Christian should “examine his own actions.”

ہر مسیحی کو ’اپنے ہی کام کو آزمانا‘ چاہیے۔

Satan failed in the wilderness, but despite this he did not stop testing Jesus.

شیطان بیابان میں ناکام ہو گیا لیکن اسکے باوجود اُس نے یسوع مسیح کو آزمانا نہیں چھوڑا۔

Is not the abode for disbelievers in Hell?

کیا کافروں کا ٹھکانا دوزخ میں نہیں ہے؟

Besides that, the Hindi corpus seems to be a lot bigger, so I will often type the same word in Devanagari to find better example sentences, and then transliterate those to Urdu.

There most of the houses were made of mud bricks and the rooves were made of tin sheets or tarp
वहाँ ज़्यादातर घर मिट्टी की ईंटों से बने थे और छतें टीन की चद्दर या तिरपाल की बनी थीं।

وہاں زیادہ تر گھر مٹّی کی اینٹوں سے بنے تھے اور چھتیں ٹین کی چدّر یا ترپال کی بنی تھیں۔

[vijayjohn]

What do you do for Turkish?

Well, apart from whatever I do on UniLang (basically play games like TPAM, including in Ottoman Turkish as long as someone's responded to my last post in it ( ), and maybe try to help people with their questions and/or ask some of my own), I try using LangMedia, Easy Turkish 1 (from the Easy Languages series ), plus a couple of books I have in Turkish.

One is a short book called Kızlarıma Mektuplar by Prof. Emre Kongar, and the other is this huge, Bible-sized volume called Türkçe Bilen Aranıyor by Rejat Muallımoğlu and FWICT is about Turkish literature, comparing its history with that of English literature, and all kinds of things like that. I bought the second one on my last huge shopping spree at Half Price Books (I bought 22 books from there! That's so unusually many that I still have the receipt right next to me ) and the first from some bookstore I visited only once where the employees thought it was in Swedish or something.

[eskandar]

Bummer that you're putting Hebrew aside just as I'm getting into it, but I'm excited that you're going to be doing Urdu again! I haven't touched it in so long, maybe it will motivate me to read some stuff in Urdu again as well.

[vijayjohn]

Well, księżycowy has sort of managed to make me dabble in Hebrew a bit again, if that's any consolation on that front.

[Saim]

Turkish is the only "hard" language I'm going to keep working on. This means taking a break from Arabic,

Actually, I've started thinking: maybe this slot should be filled by Arabic? Arabic is such a slog that I should probably get used to going through it bit by bit over a long time rather than expecting to push through any level and then move onto something else. It's also a language I really want to get advanced in eventually but I'm not sure when I'll be able to go to any of these countries in the near future either.

The other thing that frustrates me is that I've managed to get my hands on Glossika's old Egyptian Arabic course, which is a pretty amazingly helpful resource (especially for a language with such little material available), but I'm not sure if it's smart at this point to switch from Levantine to Egyptian. There are also Disney movies in Egyptian so just between that and Glossika I think I could get to a fairly decent level, but I also really like Levantine and don't want to end up mixing the two.

Bummer that you're putting Hebrew aside just as I'm getting into it, but I'm excited that you're going to be doing Urdu again! I haven't touched it in so long, maybe it will motivate me to read some stuff in Urdu again as well.

I think I might go back to it in a year once I've expanded my vocabulary in Urdu and Hungarian a bit (and my new method for using Anki seems to be working wonders so far, before I used to have real trouble figuring out what activities I should do on my own at B2 level). It's just hard to get motivated for more consistent study given that I know so few Israelis and am not likely to go there any time soon.

[vijayjohn]

Actually, I've started thinking: maybe this slot should be filled by Arabic? Arabic is such a slog that I should probably get used to going through it bit by bit over a long time rather than expecting to push through any level and then move onto something else. It's also a language I really want to get advanced in eventually but I'm not sure when I'll be able to go to any of these countries in the near future either.

It's fun when you're around on the Arabic forum, too...I guess maybe just because there's something closer to a community there than there is on the Turkish forum these days.

The other thing that frustrates me is that I've managed to get my hands on Glossika's old Egyptian Arabic course, which is a pretty amazingly helpful resource (especially for a language with such little material available), but I'm not sure if it's smart at this point to switch from Levantine to Egyptian. There are also Disney movies in Egyptian so just between that and Glossika I think I could get to a fairly decent level, but I also really like Levantine and don't want to end up mixing the two.

Given my language choices, I think I'm frequently in this but-why-don't-I-learn-the-one-with-more-resources dilemma. But then, you know, that happens with Malayalam, too; there are way more resources out there for learning Tamil than for learning Malayalam (even though there aren't a ton for Tamil to begin with...).

[Saim]

Given my language choices, I think I'm frequently in this but-why-don't-I-learn-the-one-with-more-resources dilemma. But then, you know, that happens with Malayalam, too; there are way more resources out there for learning Tamil than for learning Malayalam (even though there aren't a ton for Tamil to begin with...).

Yeah, but you have a reason to learn Malayalam other than 'it's cool!'.

If I had family from any Arabic-speaking country I would obviously focus on the variety they speak regardless of the lack of resources, as I did with Punjabi for a while (although I eventually switched to Urdu when I realised my dadi prefers not to speak to me in Punjabi).

[vijayjohn]

Given my language choices, I think I'm frequently in this but-why-don't-I-learn-the-one-with-more-resources dilemma. But then, you know, that happens with Malayalam, too; there are way more resources out there for learning Tamil than for learning Malayalam (even though there aren't a ton for Tamil to begin with...).

Yeah, but you have a reason to learn Malayalam other than 'it's cool!'.

Sure, but I think my point still stands that what you choose to learn shouldn't be contingent on what (relatively good) resources exist for. I mean, I have (printed) materials for a few different varieties of Arabic but none for Damascene, yet of course I'm learning Damascene. Besides, didn't you also say you had friends or acquaintances or something who are native speakers of Levantine Arabic? Or was it just that you heard/used to hear it a lot on the street or something? Either way, that's a reason beyond "it's cool," too.

[Saim]

I just managed to go on an angry rant for several minutes in Serbian without faltering at all. This confirms for me that I'm around C2, but there's no chance I would be able to do the same thing in Polish so I'm removing a star from my profile. I'll start doing more intensive activities in Polish towards the end of summer.

Sure, but I think my point still stands that what you choose to learn shouldn't be contingent on what (relatively good) resources exist for.

I mean, yes and no. My long-term goal is to be very proficient in several varieties of Arabic, so it's smarter to start with one that has more resources available, especially due to the lack of resources for vernacular Arabic in general.* Of course if I really really wanted to learn Yemeni or Hassaniya or something I would still give it a shot.

*Given this goal I really should keep working on Arabic at whatever pace I'm able to. It probably doesn't make sense to take a break from it.

I mean, I have (printed) materials for a few different varieties of Arabic but none for Damascene, yet of course I'm learning Damascene.

Do you really make sure to stick to explicitly Damascene forms? IME all the Levantine varieties are close enough to each other that you don't really need to differentiate them so much as a beginner.

Besides, didn't you also say you had friends or acquaintances or something who are native speakers of Levantine Arabic? Or was it just that you heard/used to hear it a lot on the street or something? Either way, that's a reason beyond "it's cool," too.

Nah, most of the Arabs I know are from the Maghreb (or their families are at any rate). If I was still living in Catalonia I would of course keep plugging through with Moroccan. In Poznań, on the other hand, I very rarely meet anyone who speaks Arabic; although last week I did meet an American Jew who lives in Jerusalem and speaks both Hebrew and Palestinian Arabic (he was a tourist), and maybe two months ago I met some Iraqis in a club (they were nice and I managed to do some basic Arabic with them but I never really saw them again).

[eskandar]

Given this goal I really should keep working on Arabic at whatever pace I'm able to. It probably doesn't make sense to take a break from it.

I agree - because Arabic is just so massive, learning it feels like a lifelong endeavor where one must slowly keep making progress. Chinese is probably similar. I've never felt like this about, say, a Romance language.

Do you really make sure to stick to explicitly Damascene forms? IME all the Levantine varieties are close enough to each other that you don't really need to differentiate them so much as a beginner.

They're certainly mutually intelligible enough, but even as a beginner at some point I think a learner needs to decide how to pronounce ق , and what word for "what" they want to use, how to handle negation, etc. These things can differ quite a bit across Levantine varieties, I think.

[dEhiN]

I agree - because Arabic is just so massive, learning it feels like a lifelong endeavor where one must slowly keep making progress. Chinese is probably similar. I've never felt like this about, say, a Romance language.

Maybe that's why the US ranks languages like Arabic and Chinese as the ones that would take the longest time (for English speakers) to learn, while languages like French and Spanish are ranked as being much easier? It's weird in a way when you think about it, because a Romance language is still a full-blown native language, which means beyond the grammar, there's the extensive vocabulary. You could make the argument that learning all the vocabulary of French should feel like a lifelong endeavour, but it still feels less of a mountain to climb than Chinese or Arabic!

[Saim]

You could make the argument that learning all the vocabulary of French should feel like a lifelong endeavour, but it still feels less of a mountain to climb than Chinese or Arabic!

I mean that's the thing, the vocabulary is still there but you're more likely to remember words on the first go or even guess the meaning in French than in Arabic or Chinese. There are obviously still lots of nuances, false friends, differences in frequency, etc. but you're not learning the language's entire set of word roots entirely from scratch.

[dEhiN]

You could make the argument that learning all the vocabulary of French should feel like a lifelong endeavour, but it still feels less of a mountain to climb than Chinese or Arabic!

I mean that's the thing, the vocabulary is still there but you're more likely to remember words or the first go or even guess the meaning in French than in Arabic or Chinese. There are obviously still lots of nuances, false friends, differences in frequency, etc. but you're not learning the language's entire set of word roots entirely from scratch.

Ça a du sens.

[vijayjohn]

Interesting, I thought the reason why Chinese was considered hard was just because of the writing system having a lot of characters, and the reason why Arabic was considered hard was because of all the grammar rules in MSA combined with all the dialect variation.

Do you really make sure to stick to explicitly Damascene forms? IME all the Levantine varieties are close enough to each other that you don't really need to differentiate them so much as a beginner.

I don't, actually. But I only have one print resource for any variety of Levantine Arabic that looks boring as hell and not terribly useful compared to Syrian Colloquial Arabic, GLOSS, and LangMedia. (Who knows, though? Maybe I'll end up using it eventually. Idk).

[Saim]

Interesting, I thought the reason why Chinese was considered hard was just because of the writing system having a lot of characters, and the reason why Arabic was considered hard was because of all the grammar rules in MSA combined with all the dialect variation.

I think it's all that combined with the lexical distance, i.e. it makes lexical distance harder to surmount.

[Saim]

I think I've discovered the only way I want to be regularly doing SRS. I can't really be spending more than say, 15-30 minutes on Anki a day, anything beyond that makes me start leaving decks, so I think I'll keep training recognition (no recall) on sentences (with audio recorded by me so I don't have to go through the pain of finding, editing and exporting audio, and I guess it also counts as speaking practice). I've noticed that even though it's only a couple of minutes of work I now have random Serbian, Urdu and Hungarian sentences in my head all the time.

I've set all my decks except for Hungarian to a limit of 5 cards per day. Hungarian is set to 25 or something (which in practice means no limit because I'm not going to make more cards than that in a day). If a have a number of different sentences for a single example word I make sure to distribute the sentences over different days.

[dEhiN]

What do you mean by "training recognition (no recall)"? I didn't fully follow your post a while back when you talked about changing from focusing on single words to sentences. However, now I'm thinking of maybe doing the same as you, or at least a mix of sentences and single words. I wrote about this on my last TAC update; my girlfriend had suggested the idea for French after seeing the review cards I had one day and realizing they are a random mix of beginner, intermediate and advanced vocabulary. I like the idea of having random sentences floating around in my head all day.

[Saim]

What do you mean by "training recognition (no recall)"?

I mean that the target language is on the front of the card rather than the back.



(On the front of the card there is also a recording of me saying the sentence).

It's not "recall" because I'm not actively trying to memorise anything, all I'm doing is make sure I repeatedly see/hear sentences I've found elsewhere.

I didn't fully follow your post a while back when you talked about changing from focusing on single words to sentences. However, now I'm thinking of maybe doing the same as you, or at least a mix of sentences and single words. I wrote about this on my last TAC update; my girlfriend had suggested the idea for French after seeing the review cards I had one day and realizing they are a random mix of beginner, intermediate and advanced vocabulary. I like the idea of having random sentences floating around in my head all day.

Give it a shot, IME I find it works much better than working on single words. I find single words rather frustrating and not so effective, especially if you're juggling multiple languages. Originally my decks were a mix of sentences and words but I've now switched over completely to sentences because I enjoy it more.

[Michael]

I think I've discovered the only way I want to be regularly doing SRS. I can't really be spending more than say, 15-30 minutes on Anki a day, anything beyond that makes me start leaving decks, so I think I'll keep training recognition (no recall) on sentences (with audio recorded by me so I don't have to go through the pain of finding, editing and exporting audio, and I guess it also counts as speaking practice). I've noticed that even though it's only a couple of minutes of work I now have random Serbian, Urdu and Hungarian sentences in my head all the time.

I can relate so much to that feeling. As much as Anki has been the backbone of my language learning, I must admit too that the reviews become tedious real fast. However, if you saw how I format my cards, you'd see that the program itself isn't to blame 100%…

I've set all my decks except for Hungarian to a limit of 5 cards per day. Hungarian is set to 25 or something (which in practice means no limit because I'm not going to make more cards than that in a day). If a have a number of different sentences for a single example word I make sure to distribute the sentences over different days.

My daily limit for reviews per deck is 100, and I'm only maintaining 2 decks at the moment, but I think I should take some inspiration from you and lower that limit by at least half … because what happens is that by the time I'm done with 100 reviews on one deck, which takes about a quarter of an hour if I'm dexterous and focused enough, I already start getting burned out. Then, I "pause" my review session for the second deck 10-20 cards in, or at least that's what I tell myself, that I'll get back to it in 10 minutes—except that that almost never happens in the end…

Here's a couple screenshots of my own Anki, so you can get an idea of my "style", which I am quite particular about: