Theo Todman's Web Page - Notes Pages
Status Reports
Status: Languages (2024 - June)
(Text as at 11/07/2024 23:08:10)
Rationale for this Project
- I don’t claim to have any linguistic ability, and am usually too shy to utter anything in public in a language other than English – partly because of an obsession with accuracy, but also because of a lack of interest in the use of language for basic communication, leading to a lack of command of everyday speech.
- I’m interested in how languages function, and in particular how languages in related or unrelated groups compare as far as their grammar and vocabulary are concerned.
- I’m also interested in nativist theses about the innate hard-wiring of human brains for the acquisition of natural languages at critical phases of psychological development (see my BA Philosophy dissertation “Poverty of Stimulus Arguments for Innate Grammar1”).
- Anyway, at various times of my life I have made forays into various languages by formal or informal study.
- This used to involve listening on my iPod while walking to and from the station, when exercising down the gym, or in the car to and from music lessons. Now these opportunities have gone. I discovered the opportunity of using Ling Language Learning on my iPhone when walking Henry the dog, which has been quite transformative. Unfortunately, Henry had to be put down at the end of September 2022 and there was an intermission until April 2023 by which time our new puppy Bertie was old enough not to require constant attention.
- A problem with this approach is that it doesn’t lead to much grammatical understanding – for this, reading and careful study is required.
- Other reasons for bothering with languages are that Classical Greek, Hebrew and maybe Syriac, Arabic and Latin should be of use in my theological studies, and Brazilian Portuguese, Turkish and Thai are important with family-members as native speakers.
- I took an on-line course – "van Oostendorp (Marc) - Miracles of Human Language: An Introduction to Linguistics" – mid-2016, which was interesting and deserves following up.
- This project has varied in priority over recent years. However, now Nat has arranged to work remotely in Thailand and has married Fon – his Thai girlfriend – learning Thai has some relevance.
- The latest incentive has been the war in Ukraine. We’d signed up (along with 200,000 others) to host a Ukrainian family – not that this came to anything – so I’d been taking a look at Ukrainian. I’ve set things up so I can compare it with Russian and Polish, but this isn’t really happening.
- Having said all the above, as of mid-23Q3 I’ve decided to go all-out on my philosophical Thesis, and now use ‘walkies’ time to read philosophical papers on my Kindle. So, this project is now substantially in abeyance apart from Thai.
Summary of Progress during April - June 2024
- I spent 31.25 hours in 24Q2 on this Project, or related work (44.5 hours YTD, where for "YTD" - Year to Date - I mean the (academic) year that commenced in October 2023). That's 59.9% of the planned effort (56.9% YTD). Overall, 4.1% of my Project effort in the Quarter was directed towards this project (making 2% YTD) - as against 6.5% planned (3.4% YTD).
- I scheduled 4 hours / week on this project in 24Q2, but only spent 60% of that. I’m not worried by that as this project is not a priority.
- I continued with Thai daily on Mondly and occasionally using "Juyaso (Arthit) - Read Thai in 10 Days". These really deserve more of a focus.
- While I no longer subscribe to Ling, I’ve used the on-line database I’ve set up to revise lessons and dialogues 1-5 for Thai, and the first lesson for Chinese and Japanese. All while walking Bertie the dog! It seems to work fine, though I’ve not had the time to do much of it.
- I completed importing data into the above databases2 for 26 languages, but time was booked to my Web Tools3 project.
- I decided to include – while I had access to the Ling data – the 50 lessons for Lao and Khmer, for comparison with Thai, and spent some time looking at their scripts which are related.
- In July I restarted reading through the NT, OT and LXX in the original Greek and Hebrew, time being booked to my Philosophy of Religion4 Project.
- Further details follow:-
Languages (Total Hours = 31.25)
- Languages - Admin
- Languages - Chinese
- Languages - Japanese
- Languages - Khmer (Total Hours = 5.25)
- Languages - Lao (Total Hours = 4.25)
- Languages - Thai (Total Hours = 18.25)
- Progress (if any) in the current quarter can be obtained from the relevant section of my Summary Task List5, and YTD in the current & future “automatic” editions of this report.
Plans for the Near Future
- Because of up-coming holidays, I’ve had to reduce planned time to 3 hours a week on this project for the rest of the current Academic year.
- I’ve decided to leave the rest of the plans below displayed as they were, though little progress will be made in the near future.
- I had been cycling through 26 languages on Ling and recording my thoughts as Brief Thoughts on Language & Languages6. However, I can’t progress this at the moment, though I’ve recorded the Ling data for future use now I’ve cancelled my subscription.
- I’d decided to plough on with the ‘easy’ languages – namely Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German and Modern Greek – on Ling: I’d completed up to the end of lesson 30 for all these, which brings me over 60% through the courses, and thereby have completed the ‘Upper Intermediate’ sections.
- While Thai is far from easy, I’d decided to add it to the ‘easy’ list and had caught up to the end of Lesson 30 and also completed 50% of the Advanced Intermediate section, so up to the end of Lesson 35, which is further than I’ve got on Ling with any other language. I will continue studying Thai on Mondly.
- I was rather stuck on the other languages on Ling, and had been revising lessons 1-5 on each, just to keep them ticking over. I’ve now divided them into 3 priorities, as listed in my Brief Thoughts on Language & Languages7.
- As for Ukrainian, I got up to the end of Lesson 20 on Ling, but needed to start again. I’d also set up a comparative database between Ukrainian, Russian and Polish on my Languages on Ling: Comparative Database Summary Page8. Reading "Bekh (Olena) & Dingley (James) - Complete Ukrainian Beginner to Intermediate Course" on Kindle was also helpful, though I’d been skimming to get a feel, and it hasn’t had a look in for a while.
- Otherwise, I’d decided to try to ‘nail’ the various scripts that I’m still somewhat uncomfortable with (other than Japanese and Chinese, which are a life-time’s work).
- So:-
- This Quarter
- Thai:-
→ "Juyaso (Arthit) - Read Thai in 10 Days",
→ "Mondly - Learn Thai"
- Ling Language Learning: complete importing all 50 lessons for 24 languages into my database (time to be booked to my Web-Tools9 project).
- General:
- Brief Thoughts on Language & Languages10
- Other Scripts: Thoroughly get to grips with:-
- Armenian: "Andonian (Hagop) - Beginner's Armenian",
- Hindi: "Snell (Rupert) - Beginner's Hindi Script",
- Khmer: "Hok (Dara) - Cambodian Alphabet"
- Korean: "Go (Billy) - Korean Made Simple: A beginner's guide to learning the Korean language: 1",
- Lao: "Lao Lessons - How to Write in Lao: Lao writing workbook"
- Persian: "Farzad (Narguess) - Complete Modern Persian",
- Urdu: "Delacy (Richard) - Read and Write Urdu Script".
- Brush up on Biblical Hebrew & Greek and learn Qur'anic Arabic:-
- "Lambdin (Thomas) - Introduction to Biblical Hebrew", and
- "Williamson (H.G.M.) - Annotated Key to Lambdin's Introduction to Biblical Hebrew"
- "Wenham (John) - The Elements of New Testament Greek", and
- "Wenham (John) - Key to the Elements of New Testament Greek", and
- "Jones (Alan), Qur'an - Arabic Through the Qur'an"
- Priority 1
- French:
→ "Ling - Learn French"
- German:
→ "Tenberg (Reinhard) & Ainslie (Susan) - Deutsch Plus",
→ "Ling - Learn German"
- Greek (Modern):
→ "Matsukas (Aristarhos) - Complete Greek Course",
→ "Ling - Learn Greek"
- Italian:
→ "Freeth (Mariolina) & Checketts (Giuliana) - Contatti 1: A First Course in Italian",
→ "Ling - Learn Italian"
- Portuguese:
→ "Whitlam (John) - Modern Brazilian Portuguese Grammar: A Practical Guide",
→ "Ling - Learn Portuguese"
- Spanish:
→ "Gordon (Ronni L.) & Stillman (David M.) - The Ultimate Spanish Review and Practice",
→ "Ling - Learn Spanish"
- Thai:
→ "Mondly - Learn Thai",
→ "Ling - Learn Thai",
→ "Becker (Benjawan Poomsan) - Thai for Beginners",
→ "Juyaso (Arthit) - Read Thai in 10 Days"
- Ukrainian:
→ "Bekh (Olena) & Dingley (James) - Complete Ukrainian Beginner to Intermediate Course",
→ "Lonely Planet, Pavlyshyn (Marko) - Lonely Planet Ukrainian Phrasebook & Dictionary",
→ "Ling - Learn Ukrainian",
→ "Wikipedia - Ukrainian Alphabet",
→ "Wikipedia - Ukrainian Language"
- Priority 2
- Arabic (Modern):
→ "Ling - Learn Arabic"
- Chinese:
→ "Ling - Learn Chinese"
- Hebrew (Modern):
→ "Raizen (Esther) - Modern Hebrew for Beginners: A Multimedia Program for Students at the Beginning and Intermediate Levels",
→ "Ling - Learn Hebrew"
- Hindi:
→ "Ling - Learn Hindi"
- Japanese:
→ "Lammers (W.P.) - Japanese the Manga Way: An Illustrated Guide to Grammar and Structure",
→ "Ling - Learn Japanese"
- Turkish:
→ "Celen-Pollard (Asuman) & Pollard (David) - Turkish (Teach Yourself Complete Courses)",
→ "Ling - Learn Turkish"
- Urdu:
→ "Ling - Learn Urdu"
- Priority 3
- Amharic:
→ "Halcomb (T. Michael W.) - Introducing Amharic: An Interactive Workbook",
→ "Ling - Learn Amharic"
- Armenian:
→ "Schumann (Johannes) - Armenian for beginners",
→ "Ling - Learn Armenian"
- Danish:
→ "Koefoed (H.A.) - Teach Yourself Danish",
→ "Ling - Learn Danish"
- Dutch:
→ "Shetter (William) - Introduction to Dutch - A Practical Grammar",
→ "Ling - Learn Dutch"
- Khmer:
→ "Hok (Dara) - Cambodian Alphabet"
→ "Wikipedia - Khmer Script"
→ "Wikipedia - Khmer Language"
- Korean:
→ "Ling - Learn Korean"
- Lao:
→ "Lao Lessons - How to Write in Lao: Lao writing workbook"
→ "Wikipedia - Lao Script"
→ "Wikipedia - Lao Language"
- Persian:
→ "Ling - Learn Persian"
- Polish:
→ "Lonely Planet, Czajkowski (Piotr) - Lonely Planet Polish Phrasebook & Dictionary",
→ "Ling - Learn Polish"
- Russian:
→ "West (Daphne) - Russian",
→ "Ling - Learn Russian"
- Swahili:
→ "Wood (Laurence) & Shadrack (Jaba Tumaini) - Learn Swahili Quickly and Easily: The theory made simple",
→ "Ling - Learn Swahili"
- Swedish:
→ "McClean (R.J.) - Swedish: A Grammar of the Modern Language",
→ "Ling - Learn Swedish"
- Priority 4
- Coptic:
→ "Layton (Bentley) - Coptic in 20 Lessons: Introduction to Sahidic Coptic with Exercises and Vocabularies"
- Egyptian:
→ "Collier (Mark) & Manley (Bill) - How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs: A Step-by-step Guide to Teach Yourself Hieroglyphs"
- Latin:
→ "Duolingo - Duolingo Latin"
- Syriac:
→ "Robinson (Theodore) - Paradigms and Exercises in Syriac Grammar"
Materials for Use
These can be followed up here11. The document needs a review, but not a major update.
Table of the Previous 12 Versions of this Note: (of 69)
Summary of Notes Referenced by This Note
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Summary of Notes Citing This Note
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Authors, Books & Papers Citing this Note
| Author |
Title |
Medium |
Extra Links |
Read? |
| Todman (Theo) |
Brief Thoughts on Language & Languages |
Paper  |
|
Yes |
Text Colour Conventions
- Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2024