Language update for today:
Finished Baza Radikaro 3, about to start number 4.
At 33% on the large Catalan vocab.
Also decided to dive in to the full Pandunia vocab list of just over 700 words. Am at 10% on that one.
Saturday, September 1, 2012
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Aprenent de avui
At the 30% mark in the larger Catalan course on Memrise. Also completed Baza Radikaro 1 and halfway thru Baza Radikaro 2.
Also learned the 70 words presented in the Pandunia lessons available on the wiki. Will consider going thru the full 740 word list later...
In non-language related stuff, downloaded GarageBand for the iPad and have been having fun with it!
Also learned the 70 words presented in the Pandunia lessons available on the wiki. Will consider going thru the full 740 word list later...
In non-language related stuff, downloaded GarageBand for the iPad and have been having fun with it!
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Language Updates
The last few days have been rather productive as far as the language projects go. I have been working thru a larger Catalan collection on Memrise (about 1000 words) and by the end of today will be about 25% of the way thru it.
Other Catalan activity: following Kato Lomb's advice to start reading from the very beginning, I headed over to Project Gutenberg and downloaded La Mare Balena by Victor Catala and started reading it and trying to intuit the text.
I have also been doing the Baza Radikaro (basic root collection) for Esperanto just to fill in a few gaps in my knowledge there. This is a set of about 2500 words and roots collected by the Akademio de Esperanto which enable wide-ranging everyday conversation. Due to the word formation rules of Esperanto, it actually corresponds to something like 15000 words in other languages. Many of them I already know, but as I wrote before, it's good to fill in gaps.
Other Catalan activity: following Kato Lomb's advice to start reading from the very beginning, I headed over to Project Gutenberg and downloaded La Mare Balena by Victor Catala and started reading it and trying to intuit the text.
I have also been doing the Baza Radikaro (basic root collection) for Esperanto just to fill in a few gaps in my knowledge there. This is a set of about 2500 words and roots collected by the Akademio de Esperanto which enable wide-ranging everyday conversation. Due to the word formation rules of Esperanto, it actually corresponds to something like 15000 words in other languages. Many of them I already know, but as I wrote before, it's good to fill in gaps.
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Words of the day
Picked up another 21 common verbs (infinitive form only) in Catalan today. Now up to 143 known items.
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Aprenent de Avuí
As of now, my Catalan lexicon count stands at 112 items. :)
I started a new deck on Memrise with Catalan prepositions, and after that I will do one on common verbs.
On that note, I need to look into the conjugation patterns and figure out how the principal parts method will apply.
I started a new deck on Memrise with Catalan prepositions, and after that I will do one on common verbs.
On that note, I need to look into the conjugation patterns and figure out how the principal parts method will apply.
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Aprendizaje de Hoy
Well, yesterday was a little slower on the Catalan and Esperanto. I harvested the words that were in my short-term memory but didn't really learn new items. This morning so far I learned 10 new items in each language, and plan to double that at least by the end of the day.
I am looking forward to selecting my next Catalan course thru Memrise.
In other language news, I feel like my Spanish conversation skills are improving. Yesterday, I was able to sustain 15-30 minutes of conversation with a couple different people without resorting to Spanglish and with perhaps 80-85% comprehension on my part. It felt good :)
Fins després!
I am looking forward to selecting my next Catalan course thru Memrise.
In other language news, I feel like my Spanish conversation skills are improving. Yesterday, I was able to sustain 15-30 minutes of conversation with a couple different people without resorting to Spanglish and with perhaps 80-85% comprehension on my part. It felt good :)
Fins després!
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Català i Esperanto Avui
Learned another 20 words of dirty Esperanto today, along with 15 more high-frequency items in Catalan.
In other news, I think that the language spoken by the family we met near the Zocalo is not in fact a variety of Nahuatl, but probably something in the Zapotecan family. I have written down a copy of the 100 item Swadesh list in English and Spanish, and will try to collect their words to better determine what it is that they speak.
Fins després!
In other news, I think that the language spoken by the family we met near the Zocalo is not in fact a variety of Nahuatl, but probably something in the Zapotecan family. I have written down a copy of the 100 item Swadesh list in English and Spanish, and will try to collect their words to better determine what it is that they speak.
Fins després!
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Català Avui
Picked up another 25 words/phrases of Catalan today!
Also while we were out near the Zocalo today, we talked with a family from Oaxaca. The grandmother spoke no Spanish, although she understood some. Her grandsons speak and understand both Spanish and Nahuatl, but no English. We managed to ask them how to say several different common words and phrases, and so I collected about 50 samples of their dialect. Very interesting!
Fins després!
Also while we were out near the Zocalo today, we talked with a family from Oaxaca. The grandmother spoke no Spanish, although she understood some. Her grandsons speak and understand both Spanish and Nahuatl, but no English. We managed to ask them how to say several different common words and phrases, and so I collected about 50 samples of their dialect. Very interesting!
Fins després!
Memrise, an experiment
So, as I mentioned yesterday, I have started using Memrise to learn Catalan and to practice some other language skills. The site aims to make learning anything fun.
It combines flashcards containing mnemonics with spaced repetition to help learners. It also has a nifty garden metaphor where new items to be learned are seeds to be planted, then nurtured in the greenhouse of short-term memory, then moved to the garden of long-term memory. Periodically you water (review) your plants (memories) to keep them from wilting (being forgotten). It's clever and it works.
Also good is the fact that there is lots of pre-made (largely community-contributed) content. However, the quality of the flashcards varies; not all items have mnemonics (called mems on the site), and some of the items have typos. There is a curation system to make corrections to cards, but I haven't really explored it yet.
The site incorporates a point system so that you can track how well you're doing with your learning and various leaderboards by day, week, month, etc.
The site also has an iPhone app so that you can review on the go, but it is in beta and still needs some work.
All in all, Memrise shows a lot of promise and I will keep using it. I hope to learn more about how the site works and possibly take part in its growth and future direction.
www.memrise.com
It combines flashcards containing mnemonics with spaced repetition to help learners. It also has a nifty garden metaphor where new items to be learned are seeds to be planted, then nurtured in the greenhouse of short-term memory, then moved to the garden of long-term memory. Periodically you water (review) your plants (memories) to keep them from wilting (being forgotten). It's clever and it works.
Also good is the fact that there is lots of pre-made (largely community-contributed) content. However, the quality of the flashcards varies; not all items have mnemonics (called mems on the site), and some of the items have typos. There is a curation system to make corrections to cards, but I haven't really explored it yet.
The site incorporates a point system so that you can track how well you're doing with your learning and various leaderboards by day, week, month, etc.
The site also has an iPhone app so that you can review on the go, but it is in beta and still needs some work.
All in all, Memrise shows a lot of promise and I will keep using it. I hope to learn more about how the site works and possibly take part in its growth and future direction.
www.memrise.com
Friday, August 3, 2012
Today's Learning
Another 15 words/phrases of basic Catalan and 10 words of Esperanto slang...
BTW, I am using Memrise to learn these and finding it interesting. I may write more about Memrise later in a separate post!
BTW, I am using Memrise to learn these and finding it interesting. I may write more about Memrise later in a separate post!
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Reviving This Blog
I want to come back to writing at least a little something on here every day. I thought a good topic might be to post at least one thing I have learned each day.
Today it was 20 words/phrases of basic Catalan :)
Fins després! (see you later)
Today it was 20 words/phrases of basic Catalan :)
Fins després! (see you later)
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