Any two-digit number of languages being learned or micro-learned in rotation

[langmon]

- FR: Using it for short written conversations. The words started flowing more easily. Also reading an (advanced) phrasebook.

- ES: Doing some minor thinking in Spanish practice. Also reading an (advanced) phrasebook, like FR.

- JP: Using it in some mixed-language written conversations. JP to non-JP sentence ratio: maybe 20% : 80%. Writing in Romaji. Hiragana/Katakana: not actively learning, but familiarizing myself more with them. Looking up phrases when needed for writing.

- toki pona: Started re-learning it. Reactivating the old knowledge wasn't too difficult.

- FI, PL: Reading a bit about the culture and history of their countries.

- EN-CAR: Deepening by the means of exposure.

- IT: Started a non-major thinking process to deepen it a bit more soon.

- PT, EO, SV/DA/NO: Queued, neither learning nor micro-learning for now.

- SWA: Semi-queued right now, but I find myself returning to it mentally "too often" .

- NL: Did some small but nevertheless non-minor revisions for preparing myself to use it when communicating with some Plattdeutsch speakers.

- AF: Currently deepening it a bit by NL only.

- Slavic languages (PL, CZ, RU): minor steps of familiarization.

- TR: Some very minor steps.

- All of those languages: Still sticking to my "old" method that doesn't include rote memorization. However, started to write down notes once again.

- The language called communication: Actively practicing Brevity Without Loss of Important Information - simply loving that feeling .

- Interlinking the knowledge about languages and plants: Revisions, preparations, some steps of additional familiarization.

- Interlinking languages, communication and music (which is a language in the broader sense to me): this is what my Soundcloud activities are about, the tracks speak for themselves, I'd say.

[langmon]

Just added a "now I can always fully use brevity" note to the beginning of my three logs, and to the "ask SGP any question" thread .

[langmon]

JP:
- Not writing in Romaji any more.
- Started using pure Japanese for written conversations.
- Still a Kanji beginner.

toki pona:
- A little bit of Immersion and Exposure Spaced Revision (without flashcards/etc.)

French:
- Mindset-related activities, without any other practice since the last post.

Spanish:
- The same, but more.

Music:
- Increasingly using it as a means of communication. Story-telling. Example: a ten minute harpsichord solo.

Botany:
- Started a multi-language log about learning it like learning new vocabulary. (Without rote memorization). There is a major Languages Related Aspect, or more than one even.

The Language Called Communication:
- Very, very grateful for more and more dots being connected. Knots being untied. Marvelous.
- A subject of life-long learning for everyone.

[langmon]

Currently desiring to improve my pronunciation of English and others.
I am especially wondering how opera singers can achieve a near-to-native-pronunciation of any language. Some are really able to do that, including a certain well-known polyglot.

[linguoboy]

Currently desiring to improve my pronunciation of English and others.
I am especially wondering how opera singers can achieve a near-to-native-pronunciation of any language. Some are really able to do that, including a certain well-known polyglot.

IME, some are much better than others. And in general they're better at doing this while singing than while while speaking informally. That I think comes from having a very restricted text that you're working on very consciously.

[langmon]

Currently desiring to improve my pronunciation of English and others.
I am especially wondering how opera singers can achieve a near-to-native-pronunciation of any language. Some are really able to do that, including a certain well-known polyglot.

IME, some are much better than others. And in general they're better at doing this while singing than while while speaking informally. That I think comes from having a very restricted text that you're working on very consciously.

This is one of the puzzle pieces, no doubt.
For example, there is a (non-opera) singer who speaks German with a rather big accent. But as for his songs, it greatly differs.

[linguoboy]

For example, there is a (non-opera) singer who speaks German with a rather bigheavy accent. But as for his songs, it greatly differs.

Singers often adopt quite different accents when singing. I remember the first time hearing Sinéad O'Connor speak in an interview and being gobsmacked at how thick her Irish accent was since she shed it completely while singing her early pop hits.

[langmon]

Singers often adopt quite different accents when singing. I remember the first time hearing Sinéad O'Connor speak in an interview and being gobsmacked at how thick her Irish accent was since she shed it completely while singing her early pop hits.

Do you know anything on how they adopt them (other than what you already wrote, if applicable)?

[linguoboy]

Do you know anything on how they adopt them (other than what you already wrote, if applicable)?

There's been quite a bit written on the subject. Peter Trudgill, a founding figure in sociolinguistics, first began analysing the phenomenon over twenty years ago. It's linked to genre: certain styles of music have certain accents associated with them. It's why singers from the Canadian prairies adopt a "country twang" to sing country music, why Americans in 80s synthpop bands tried to sound English, why a Punjabi from Birmingham adopted a form of Jamaican patois to sing ragga, why a teenager girl from Sidney affected an Atlanta accent to sing Southern hip hop, and why people from around the world approximate an American accent when they sing international pop music.

[langmon]

ES: Connecting more dots. Intentionally not spending more time on ES than on ("my") Micro-Learning Languages for now.

HV: Started (again).

Mandarin: Some phrases that have the Pinyin Bar Above The Letter Tone.

NO: A tiny mix of revisions and new learning.

NL: Connecting [some dots / NL to DE].

FA: There are many "... kardan" compound verbs.

FI: Difficult? Ei ole, it is just the Scandinavian Swahili .

BG: Restarted micro-learning using transcriptions and Grammar Decoding.

TR: A bit of Immersion and Exposure Spaced Repetition (by reading some phrases; without flashcards).

JP: Entirely grateful for the new possibility of learning. (Absorbing it Like a Micro Sponge Sometimes).

ES slang: First steps of reading about it. Differs much more from Standard Spanish than I expected. But not calling it difficult.

EN slang of several countries: A brief glimpse.

PL: Adding some depth to the (micro-)learning process. There is a type of double negation that also exists in FR and ES.

URD: First steps of familiarization. Reading some transcripted phrases.

DE-CH: Comparing it to Standard German and some dialects I know.

Communication: Another in-depth and (very) detailed look. Observations related to daily personal communication, and also to some videos of people talking.

[langmon]

This post: EN, DE, ES, JP, NL [also NO related]

EN, DE: Some two-way interlinking.

ES: - A bit of additional attention to Same Category Words that could be mixed up easily. Like numbers and colors.

- Real World Phrases.

- "Démelo": two objects (me, lo). But never read "délome".

- Planning to closely look at some Expressions With Very Non-Literal Usage. EN/DE example: "know-it-all" / "Besserwisser", usually said to express the very opposite.

JP: - When I logged that I stopped using Romaji, I only was thinking of my written conversations. And I did it like this. Except maybe two words in a non-JP message when tired . But I still could use it sometimes, especially for the log. Not every JP learner can already read Hiragana and Katakana.

- "kore" contains two Building Blocks. "ko-": [near/close to] the speaker. "-re": things and items ("Sachen und Gegenstände").

- Personal memory: "Items" reminds me of an anime. So there was a girl who wanted to buy some food or whatever. Don't recall. Then she said, "Oh no, I haven't got any money with me. Nevermind. I'll just sell some useless items!" . BTW, entirely stopped watching both cartoons and anime a long time ago. Not doing it any more, not even because of language purposes.

- Japanese contains some Word Classes (or Word Categories). Not the same as Swahili's, but there is some overlap. Maybe agglutinative languages simply tend to introduce some classes. As for JP, it is (at least) about the verbs and about counting. So there are several verb patterns. We could also call them templates. But I don't know yet if there is a Single General-Purpose Verb Template for negation.

- "hito": human. Japanese nouns are both singular and plural. But there is "hito-bito", said to be plural only. Some mentioned that it is rather common in JP to slightly change a sound like that one (h -> b for the second occurrence).

- Decoding some grammar: "densha o ari-mas[u]": "train - [o particle] - leave". Taking notice of the "o" particle, adding it to the Exposure Based Learning Queue of Particles . "Wa" and "ga" already were added some time ago, then removed later.

NL: - "Zullen we gaan... ?" vs. "Sollen wir ... gehen?" - different word order.

- Very glad to realize once more that even the verb tenses are similar to German.

- That "-je" Diminutive Postfix has many uses.

- Trying to figure out if there is any Generally Applicable Formula to "ü vs. je". Even if that formula would be about the Netherlands (or Belgium/...) only. And I do know that in some countries, it isn't that easy. But I read that in Norway, they simply started sticking to "du" (source: a used pre-2000 book ).

[langmon]

This post: BG, FI, TR, HV, DE-CH, ES slang, FA, URD, Mandarin, NO, PL

BG: Skimming through a phrasebook.

FI, TR, HV: A bit of Grammar Decoding.

DE-CH: Seemed rather non-familiar at first. But there are some underlying dialect patterns also found elsewhere.

ES slang: Easier than it seemed.

FA, URD: Skimming through a word list. Some extended micro-learning based on Indo-European Similar Expressions (more about FA) and Arabic loanwords.

Mandarin: A single ultra-short activity. Returned to the Pinyin Bar Above The Letter Tone. This is something I grew up with (as a monolingual native of German without any Mandarin/Cantonese exposure). Read some words with that tone (silently, without even whispering), and it feels like hearing it.

NO: phrasebook.

PL: phrasebook, reading some cultural notes, too.

[langmon]

FR: There is something that still keeps me puzzled about spoken French. It isn't sufficient to be able to understand Standard Spoken Textbook French. There also is the need of, afterwards, learning which letters would be eaten and which would be spared.

[langmon]

@two of my logs (this one and All Things Communication): I still do like you very much. But I recently removed that "main project" status from one of you (A.T.C.). Now going as far as even removing the "Major Project Special Status" from both of you. Because of more than one reason. Only telling you one. Some other logs could need some more attention, too.

[langmon]

Swahili, Japanese:

There are four songs I have been repeatedly listening to these days.
This was (and still is) sort of a comprehension exercise. It doesn't mean that I relate to everything they sing about. Also, it doesn't mean that I would be a big fan of their videos or anything like that. But as we know, one could listen to something without watching them. As for the first JP song in particular, it has been covered too many times anyway (so the videos greatly differ).

Kigeugeu by Jaguar
Thamani by Ice Boy and Barakah Da Prince
Happy synthesizer [JP original] and Skip Sequence Music by EasyPop

[langmon]

[strike]Very[/strike] incredibly happy to be able to tell you that there was a significant learning process directional change. Because of that, I really had to edit the title, too. Now nothing but this one does fit the log's new purpose:

Any two-digit number of languages being learned or micro-learned in rotation

I am not even thinking of inserting any particular number, because it could be more or also less any time. Switching my learning approach to "on demand", which means learning or micro-learning whatever language/s I currently "need" the most in my life. This could be putting the main focus on Spanish or French for some days in a row, or learning a few phrases in a multitude of different idiomas, including (for example) Hausa, Slovene, Bengali and maybe even Faroese or any native American one. You get the picture, I guess .

[langmon]

Language: Any African/Caribbean way of speaking English

Tried to find any graphics or any video about the Places of (Sound) Articulation, but wasn't able to do so.

One solution would be to read about that flavor's IPA letters, then to refer to some graphics/videos explaining how to make those particular sounds.

If there is anything pronunciation related that cannot be expressed by IPA, I would also like to know it.

I wouldn't speak English in any African/Caribbean way without verifying first that whoever I talk to understands my motivation (explained elsewhere on this forum a long time ago). Also, I have been talking to more than just one or two persons that way anyway (but only after themselves knowing my reasons). If my pronunciation would be more native-like, maybe it would be even easier to know that there isn't even the slightest thought of mockery involved.

(More details about my usage of African English, with some Caribbean elements as well, were recently mentioned in the German log called "Angewandte Kommunikation".)

[langmon]

Jamaican Patois: Something about phonology/phonetics.

Sinhala (-> Sri Lanka): Learned a few basic phrases. And read some Language Structure Background Information, as well as something about the grammar.

Plattdeutsch: A few phrases, and revising Dutch.

A certain African tonal language: A few words and phrases. Not naming it right now, because I may or may not continue. Right now, it was more of a proof of concept. Set a deadline for myself, a very tight one even (approx. one hour). Revised them a few times within that timeframe. Recalling most of these (very few) phrases was possible without looking at the notes again. #TonesAreEasyTheyExistInEnglishToo #HighLowAndMidTonesAreEspeciallyEasy

[langmon]

Everything in this post is about the minimum speaking ability.

FR: Some steps towards B2. Triggered when someone was talking to me in French. #ActivatingLatentKnowledge #ComprehensibleInput

ES: Coming a bit closer to C1. Happened when conversing with someone from Romania in an ES / IT / (RO) mix.

IT: A1 is a bit closer now.

RO: The same. (Although the reading ability differs. But this post has got a one-line intro.)

PL: The same, too.

SWA: Approaching B1. Started singing in it once again.

[langmon]

PL: Some short but interesting conversation practice.
One could be surprised how some people from Poland react to even very simple phrases like "nie wiem" (I don't know).

About all of those on the (profile's) learning list and the second one which is mental only:

Just wrote a Pen and Paper List mentioning all that I intend to learn in rotation right now.

Unqueued Esperanto. Queued some, like Italian and Portuguese. And by that I mean pushing the stop button, not just pause. Also, some of the previously micro-learned ones remained queued up to now, and nothing changed about them. Without pushing the stop button sometimes, rather than pause only, what (for example) I am doing would be a plain overkill. That's why I do like to push that button.

Currently queued to be learned in rotation:

(1) Spanish, French, Swahili, Japanese, Esperanto,
Jamaican Patois, Polish, Russian, Romanian, Dutch, toki pona.

(2) Wolof, Akan, Ewe (a.k.a. Efe), Ga (all African), Sinhala, and Tagalog/Filipino.