Sources of Short texts for practicing?

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E}{pugnator
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Sources of Short texts for practicing?

Postby E}{pugnator » 2014-09-01, 19:35

Hi all,

I've been through a long plateau in Georgian. I believed I tried extensive reading before doing some intensive reading. So, I was thinking of sources to use for intensive, careful, detailed reading. The texts should be short so that I don't spend hours on them - I want to work on 1 each day, almost as a textbook lesson.

My first option has been Radio Free Liberty's news items, which get equivalent, even though not direct translations, in English and often audio. The app is currently not working, though. Any other suggestions? There's no such thing as Georgian podcasts, at least as far as I can tell.
Learning Georgian, Mandarin Chinese, Russian and Papiamentu from scratch. Trying to brush up my Norwegian up to an advanced level.

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Re: Sources of Short texts for practicing?

Postby stibbshoo » 2014-09-03, 6:20

You probably know about the reading passages in Georgian a Reading Grammar (Aronson) and have the audio files. I've copied and translated all of them to English to the best of my ability. You can download them here. I split up the vocabulary lists in each lesson and put them below each paragraph, like in the Georgian Newspaper Reader book. I revised the passages several times over for mistakes/typos, so I don't think there are any but I'm not 100% certain. The translations are far from perfect in regard to accuracy, so don't hold me to anything regarding that.

Do you have a copy of the Georgian Newspaper Reader book? There are audio files for it out there, and the passages are relevant to modern Georgian, especially for news items. The format is comfortable because the passages are short and the vocabulary lists for each are directly below each paragraph. There are translations and a glossary in the back.

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Re: Sources of Short texts for practicing?

Postby E}{pugnator » 2014-09-04, 14:12

Great job! Would have worked wonderfully when I was studying Aronson's book. Actually I've already been through both books, and at my current stage it doesn't make much difference to read from a textbook or from a website aimed at native speakers, even more so that Google Translate works sufficiently well now (not the case two years ago). That said, your work is impressive, it has to be shared among other learners!

I think I 'wasted' these resources by studying them when my level was still too low. Now would be the ideal time, but since I don't like reviewing... :hmm:
Learning Georgian, Mandarin Chinese, Russian and Papiamentu from scratch. Trying to brush up my Norwegian up to an advanced level.

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Re: Sources of Short texts for practicing?

Postby stibbshoo » 2014-09-05, 0:35

Thanks for the feedback. The only other sources of short reading texts I know of are ones you are probably already familiar with. The reading sections in the ice.ge elearning course, the small reading passages at the end of each exercise in Einführung in die Georgische Sprache, plus the Chrestomathie. Georgian Language and Culture has many long prose texts and dialogues, the latter being a great and substantial example of conversational Georgian (despite being rife with mistakes that look like the product of a flawed OCR of a scan of the original material), but their lengths probably won't suit your desired method.

If you have anxiety about reviewing like many people do, you can try using the Anki flashcard program. It's a good way of forcing you to keep up with vocabulary and sentences, since the cards start to pile up the longer you go without reviewing.

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Re: Sources of Short texts for practicing?

Postby HoneyBuzzard » 2014-09-12, 12:55

The dialogues were written specifically for the book by Dodona Kiziria, so this is the original material. My guess is hasty editing, though I didn't notice too many oddities in the dialogues part of the book.

Me, I've been pecking away at the New Testament for a while. In the synoptic gospels at least the vocabulary is very repetitive, the subject matter is simple, the language is formal, and translations abound. It's also a good chance to check out some Old Georgian since you can easily find side-by-side translations in Modern and Old Georgian. The texts are very episodic, but the subject matter might not appeal to everybody. For me it's mostly a historical interest.

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Re: Sources of Short texts for practicing?

Postby E}{pugnator » 2014-09-14, 21:53

I should be using the New Testament, too. It's the most familiar material I can think of which I haven't actually "read" yet. I'm in no shortage of translations of well-known books in Georgian, but these are books I haven't read in other languages yet. So, in the case of NT I know excerpts but can't say I will be reading 'spoilers', so it's like a compromise.

Today I got a book for children. I'm still reading a book from Saramago but it's extensively - I read it in Georgian and then just read the Portuguese, not caring for how much I understood from the Georgian. I need to work on a text line-by-line so that I can see some progress.
Learning Georgian, Mandarin Chinese, Russian and Papiamentu from scratch. Trying to brush up my Norwegian up to an advanced level.


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