Saim wrote:Definitely. I remember getting into Turkish after Hungarian I didn't have to pay much attention to the grammar (I started with Duolingo, which doesn't do much grammar, but the grammar didn't start confusing me until the very end when they introduced some advanced verb tenses).
Indeed, I agree very much with the idea that Turkish and Hungarian are among the languages that are the simplest to learn (from a Eurocentric view, at least). The morphology is 100% (well, 99.9%…) regular, and together with vowel harmony aids in swifter acquisition and consolidation of vocabulary, making pronunciations "stick" better.
Sok szerencsét!
Köszönöm!
(By the way, could you just confirm for me whether these two phrases are pronounced, respectively, [ʃok ˈsɛrɛnt͡ʃeːt] and [ˈkøsønøm]?)
Turkish is going well. So far I've been using Duolingo (trying to get the tree gold, I burned through it quickly the first time around), Glossika Turkish (one or two sets of 50 sentences every once and a while) and translations of pop songs I've found.
I had a few on-and-off spurts of activity on Memrise, but I've never had the occasion to try Duolingo, simply because it's never occurred to me to do so. I'm quite stubborn and meticulous when it comes to my methods, and I've become habituated to and highly dependent on Anki to consolidate the vocabulary, and to a certain extent the grammar, from each lesson I complete, precisely because it allows me to exercise strict control over the content while keeping the format simple. As several members of the polyglot community can also attest, Anki can start feeling meticulous once I reach a certain point, but if I muster the willpower to fight through the feelings of tediousness, the results will speak for themselves, thus the tediousness will become weaker and turn into excitement.
I've never held a Glossika book before, but as far as I can tell, they could prove to be an valuable supplement used alongside a standard didactic language course. I find the Glossika didactic method, which focuses on sentences, and subsequently syntax, to be attractively simple. Would you go as far as to recommend I acquire one? If so, I'm all ears!
How far do I want to go? I'd like to take it to B1 or so this year.
Sounds good! With the overflowing proliferation of Turkish media available at our fingertips, you'll certainly become addicted to Turkish music, which will consequentially help you to grasp its vaguely-melodic rhythm as well as the word order, as you know very well to be true. Looking forward to seeing your future posts in Turkish, as well as to myself being able to to produce basic but grammatically-correct material in Hungarian!
Without the dictionary? A large portion of the words, but I wouldn't have been able to read it comfortably, no.
Hmm, OK, so you're basically where I was at from Dec '15 to Feb '16, the initial 3 months, when I was still consolidating my first couple hundred items of vocabulary as well as mastering the more basic yet important elements of grammar. I didn't so much as dare read a BBC Azeri article!
voron wrote:No. To be honest with you even when I am spoken to in Belarusian (it happens sometimes; for example we have a network of petrol stations whose workers speak Belarusian), I reply back in Russian. Sad but true; I'm indifferent to this semi-native language of mine.
(I apologize in advance to Saim, as I don't intend to derail his blog, but I must join in in this particular sub-discussion, since I poorly comprehend the language politics of Belarus and Ukraine.)
voron, I'm curious as to what percent of the time you personally use Belorussian in comparison to Russian? Like, what is the overall national ratio of Belorussian usage against Russian usage? Does the language and its speakers still have a stigma attached to them? Also, could you rate the current cultural health of the Belorussian language with a scale starting from 0 (best-case scenario) to 10 (worst-case scenario), and give a brief explanation for your choice? I've been dying to get a picture of this particular situation for years, so your answers shall be very well appreciated.