Theo Todman's Web Page - Notes Pages
Status Reports
Status: Languages (2023 - June)
(Text as at 06/07/2023 00:43:12)
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 was replaced by Bertie who – as a puppy – demanded more attention than could be shared with an iPhone. Happily, he’s now – as of April 2023 – 11 months old so I’ve been able to resume.
- 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 is the war in Ukraine. We’ve signed up (along with 200,000 others) to host a Ukrainian family, so I’ve been taking a look at Ukrainian. I’ve set things up so I can compare it with Russian, but this isn’t really happening and I’ve down-prioritised it doing so, though I’ve recently added Polish to the comparison.
Summary of Progress during April - June 2023
- I spent 74 hours in 23Q2 on this Project, or related work (117.75 hours YTD, where for "YTD" - Year to Date - I mean the (academic) year that commenced in October 2022). That's 192.2% of the planned effort (129.9% YTD). Overall, 9.7% of my Project effort in the Quarter was directed towards this project (making 6.1% YTD) - as against 5.1% planned (4.4% YTD).
- As can be seen, I spent nearly twice the allocated – though much reduced – time on this project over the last Quarter. Bertie the dog is growing up, so is less distracting when I’m out walking.
- I’d been reading a book on the history of Poland so – partly to work out the awkward pronunciation of Polish names – I added Polish to the list, whizzed through the first 5 lessons on Ling, and added it to the comparison of Ukrainian versus Russian.
- Further details follow:-
Languages (Total Hours = 74)
- Languages - Admin (Total Hours = 1.75)
- 23Q1 Status Reports (1 hour)
- Problems with Ling subscription on iPhone (0.75 hours)
→ See "Admin - Languages - Admin" (1.75 hours)
- Languages - Chinese
- Languages - French
- Languages - German
- Languages - Greek (Modern)
- Languages - Japanese
- Languages - Korean
- Languages - Polish (Total Hours = 7.5)
- Languages - Portuguese
- Languages - Thai (Total Hours = 46.5)
- Ling Language Learning, of which I’ve subscribed to the premium version, is back up and running now Bertie has grown up a bit. I’ve been cycling through 24 languages and recording my thoughts as Brief Thoughts on Language & Languages2.
- I’m reading through the NT, OT and LXX in the original Greek and Hebrew. This is quite a time-commitment, but time is booked to my Philosophy of Religion3 Project.
- Progress (if any) in the current quarter can be obtained from the relevant section of my Summary Task List4, and YTD in the current & future “automatic” editions of this report.
Plans for the Near Future
- Because of the need to focus on higher-priority projects, it ought not to be possible to schedule much time on this project, but for the coming quarter I’ve further increased the much-reduced allocation from 3 to 4 hours / week to reflect the fact that our lovely Tibetan Terrier puppy – called Bertie is now in his second year and somewhat less lively and inquisitive than he was and can – to a degree – be left to his own devices when out walking, enabling me to make some progress on Ling during otherwise ‘fallow’ times.
- I’ve decided to plough on with the ‘easy’ languages – namely Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German and Modern Greek – on Ling: I’ve completed up to the end of lesson 28 for all these, which brings me over 50% through the course, and also 80% through the ‘Upper Intermediate section’. I have to report that I’m having problems with the longer sentences while out walking, in that it’s easy to make a slip, or to give a perfectly adequate English translation that’s not in the order that the Ling database requires. So, I’ve decided not to worry if I don’t get full marks for such reasons, and to carry on regardless. My immediate aim in the coming Quarter is to reach the end of Lesson 30 for these languages.
- While Thai is far from easy, I’ve decided to add it to the ‘easy’ list and have now caught up to the end of Lesson 30 and have started on the Advanced Intermediate section, which is further than I’ve got on Ling with any other language.
- However, I’m rather stuck on the other languages on Ling, and am now revising lessons 1-5 on each, just to keep them ticking over. For now, they’ll only get a look in when I’m bored with Thai. I’ve now divided them into 3 priorities, as listed in my Brief Thoughts on Language & Languages5.
- As noted above, Ukrainian ought to be a major focus: I got up to the end of Lesson 20 on Ling, but need to start again. I’ve also set up a comparative database between Ukrainian, Russian and Polish on my Languages on Ling: Comparative Database Summary Page6. Reading "Bekh (Olena) & Dingley (James) - Complete Ukrainian Beginner to Intermediate Course" on Kindle is also helpful, though I’ve been skimming to get a feel, and it hasn’t got a look in for a while.
- Otherwise, I’ve 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:-
- General:
→ Brief Thoughts on Language & Languages7
- Scripts: Thoroughly get to grips with:-
→ Armenian: "Andonian (Hagop) - Beginner's Armenian",
→ Hindi: "Snell (Rupert) - Beginner's Hindi Script",
→ Japanese Kana (revision): "ToFuGu - Learn Hiragana: The Ultimate Guide" & "ToFuGu - Learn Katakana: The Ultimate Guide"
→ Korean: "Go (Billy) - Korean Made Simple: A beginner's guide to learning the Korean language: 1",
→ Persian: "Farzad (Narguess) - Complete Modern Persian",
→ Thai: "Juyaso (Arthit) - Read Thai in 10 Days" & ThaiPod101 - Learn ALL Thai Alphabet in 50 minutes/hour - How to Write and Read Thai
→ 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:
→ "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"
- Korean:
→ "Ling - Learn Korean"
- 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 here8. The document needs a review, but not a major update.
Table of the Previous 12 Versions of this Note: (of 65)
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, 2023