Some of us need to take a class

First, I would like to say that I am amazed this blog has been hit over eight hundred times. With only a handful of posts, I find that number to be very impressive. I hope I will continue to post things that my readers would like to read about.

This morning, first order of business, I would like to comment on a video made by another Youtube Polyglot CodylanguagesBlog. He posted a video today updating his progress in the Chinese language.

Many of us in the online polyglot community teach ourselves how to speak different languages. We buy grammar books, study the grammar and do the exercises. We listen to audio cassettes. The key is that we know what to do and how the process works. There are many different programs out there to learn languages. These programs really do work. There is never any single language learning program that works; you must select at least three different programs. Any person can learn another language. If I said it once, I have said it a thousand times – any person can learn languages. The only thing you need is the passion to do so. You do not have to live abroad for a year. Let me repeat myself…YOU DO NOT HAVE TO LIVE ABROAD FOR A YEAR TO BECOME FLUENT IN ANOTHER LANGUAGE.

That being said, this morning I was thinking that even though I have been teaching myself Swedish, I am the kind of person that really needs to take a language class once in a while. I was thinking that if I was back in my home city of Seattle, I would take a course in Swedish at the University of Washington.

Anyway, in Cody´s video he said that he just finished a course in Chinese. During his winter vacation from classes, he is going to use some of his free time to practice his other languages. Cody speaks both English and German fluently. He is now learning Chinese and Swahili.

The reason I decided to write about Cody this morning, is because I like the fact that he discusses the actual language classes he takes. Teaching ourselves language at home is great, in fact, it is necessary when we do not have a University close by, cannot afford the tuition or the University does not offer the languages we want to study. I think the message I am trying to send is this.

Take a class if you can.

If you cannot take a class, then teach yourself at home. If you want, why not do both? One does not have to be a genius to learn more than one language. All it takes is passion and knowing how to learn a language.

Check out Cody´s channel if you have time.

How My French Interferes with Swedish

Last night I tried to write a few more sentences in Swedish. I wanted to write about what people drink, such as wine, water and milk. I also wanted to use some new vocabulary words that I learned from someone else's flashcard set on Live Mocha. 

ibland - sometimes
alltid - always
aldrig -never
och - and
eller - or
ofta - often
oftast - usually
nu - now
men - but
mycket - very
redan - already
båda - both
kanske - perphas
många - a lot
brukade - usually
all, allt, alla - all
nästan – almost
varje – each, every
varandra – each other

Here is my original writing. Note that it is completely wrong! Without having a Swedish grammar book to assist me, I made many mistakes.

Hur många vin dricker du?

Nu jag dricker inte vin. Ibland jag dricker vin rött men jag dricker inte ofta.
Ibland jag dricker vin rått men jag dricker altig vatten.
Pojken dricker inte vin rött och vin vitt. Pojken dricker båda mjölk och vatten. Flickan dricker hela vatten men nu, hon dricker inte.

Mistake Number One - in Swedish adjectives come before the noun. You would think that being an English speaker this would have been something that I would have thought about naturally. In English we say ' greeen house' 'big man' 'scary dog' etc...etc...In the languages that I have been learning for most of my life - all Romance languages - the adjectives usually go after the noun. In French we would say, ' une table ronde' ' un livre rouge' 'une femme italienne' . Only certain adjectives go before the noun. These adjectives describe goodness, badness, beauty, age and size. Sometimes, the location of a French adjective determines whether or not it its meaning is literal or figurative. 

Here is an example of this from About.com

Figurative: mes vertes années my green (fruitful) years
Literal: des légumes verts green vegetables

Figurative: un grand homme a great man
Literal: un homme grand a tall man

Figurative: un triste individu a sad (mean or bad) person
Literal: un individu triste a sad (crying) person

Figurative: mon ancienne école my old (former) school
Literal: mon école ancienne my old (aged) school

Figurative: un certain regard a certain (type of) look
Literal: une victoire certaine a certain (assured) victory

Okay, so lets go back to the point of this blog. In my little blurb, I wrote vin rött and vin vitt. The obvious problem is that the words for RED and WHITE are adjectives which modify the noun, WINE. Just as in English, they should be written as Rött Vin and Vitt Vin. The reason I wrote it the other way around, and English speaker who should have known better? I have only studied Romance Languages. When I wrote the sentences, I naturally applied French grammar rules to Swedish. 

This is one of the most common problems that polyglots make. The other languages we know interfere with the languages we are learning. It is not a big problem. Nor is it a reason to quit. If you think about it, everyone has some kind of interference from another language. Typically it is from their native language. These mistakes are easily fixed. It is easy to learn from them. 

All in all, knowing more than one language still makes language learning easier. The advantages polyglots have still outnumber the disadvantages. 

The next mistake I made was basic syntax. This is a major mistake. I wrote, “ Ibland jag dricker”. This means, “Sometimes I drink” In Swedish, the correct syntax is, “ Sometimes, drink I.” I also wrote, “ Hon dricker inte.” This is also incorrect. It goes Verb and then the pronoun. The correct syntax is, “ Drink she not,” or “ Dricker hon inte.”
I wrote, “ Hur många dricker du?” When, I should have written, “ Hur mycket dricker du?” What is the difference between mycket and många? I really have no idea. I have been looking online and have not found an answer yet. If anyone could post the answer on this blog, that would be fantastic.

After the corrections, here is how the text should look. 

Hur mycket vin dricker du? Nu dricker jag inte vin. Ibland dricker jag rött vin, men jag dricker inte ofta. Ibland dricker jag rött vin men jag dricker aldrig vatten. Pojken dricker inte rött vin och inte vitt vin. Pojken dricker både mjölk och vatten. Flickan dricker helst vatten, men nu dricker inte.

Bad Criticism in Language Learning

Glossika

Today I have the privilege of introducing Glossika, (Mike Cambell). Glossika is both a linguist and a polyglot. I have been watching his YouTube videos for a few weeks. It is a rare event that I will actually go out on a limb and give a call out to another person. This is one of those rare occasions. Not only do I think Glossika is an impressive person, but I also recommend all my viewers to check out his channel immediately. You can find his channel simply by clicking on his name as it appears in this blog.

Glossika learns foreign languages because he loves them. There is not a single ethnocentric bone in his body. If only other people had this kind of open-mindedness. He does not express any negative attitude towards any particular language. He does not express any value judgment’s towards rare languages. He understands that there is no such thing as a useless language. Learning languages will give a person a richer and fuller ability to appreciation of things they otherwise would not have been able to appreciate.

 Glossika has no agenda other than sharing his love for languages. His YouTube channel contains dozens of fantastic videos. These videos not only show us his impressive language abilities, but also instructions and good advice about how to learn a language.

I grew up in a part of the United States, within a specific family culture that was and is VERY ethnocentric. I am sure you know the types. Those people who think that English is the best language on earth and everyone should speak English as a primary language. The same people who think that America is the best country on earth, yet they have never even lived in another country. These people place the English language at the top of an imaginary hierarchy and subsequently assigns other languages a lower value. They boast that English is allegedly the hardest language to learn, but they have never studied any foreign languages themselves. I do not see how any person can make that claim without having fluency in at least one other language.The funny thing is that the people who tend to make these ethnocentric arguments tend to be high school dropouts who could not even give a single English lesson if they tried. As you can see – I am very judgmental and openly admit it.

Glossika is not judgmental like me. At the same time, he embraces a lot of the qualities I wish Americans would embrace. That is one of many reasons he is one of my favorite YouTube Polyglots

Glossika’s goal is simply to teach and share with a large audience. He does not get involved in drama. He even makes it clear on his channel that all “subjective political and religious comments will be deleted.” He recently uploaded a video about some of the negative criticism one can receive when they upload a video in another language.

The reality is that Youtube is full of trolls. Their only goal is to tear a person down. In his video, Glossika gives some solid advice about how to deal with abuse, haters and trolls. He also encourages people to continue their language learning goals. I think that his message is important which is why I asked his permission to mirror the video on my channel.

I especially like his video about linguistics, polyglots, and philologistics. Not only does Glossika teach us languages, but he also teaches us about the science of language learning. 

Kudos to Glossika! Keep up the good work!

My progress on Live Mocha

   While I have been in bed with a broken rib, I have been making some progress on Live Mocha. I wish I could do some other things right now, but being on my back for the next two weeks is going to slow down my language learning a bit.

Correct my Swedish

This is an open invitation to any Swedish person who would like to help me learn Swedish. Below I wrote two simple paragraphs. The purpose of this exercise was to learn how to tell time, and what time of the day certain things happen. I know my Swedish grammar sucks right now. I am just beginning. To be honest, this is one of the most difficult languages I have ever learned. If any person would like to correct my grammar or suggest how things might sound better, please post a comment below. On live mocha, my Swedish friends correct my grammar then explain to me the corrections they made in Swedish. I need instructions to be in English.

Tak!

 

Jag vaknar klockan åtta. Jag äter och dricker kaffe klockan half åtta. Tio över nio bostar jag tänderna. Klockan kvart över tio duschar jag. Jag går till kontroret clockan elva. Jag går till skolan klockan tre, Jag kommer till huset klockan kvart över sex. Jag går till bankomaten kvart över åtta. Jag går till en restaurang. Jag dricker rött vin. Jag går hem klockan kvart över nio. Jag ska inte gå till jobbet nu. Jag tittar inte på teve. Jag skriver och läser svenska nu. Klockan tio studierar jag spanska och svenska. Jag förstår spanska. Jag förstår inte svenska. Jag gillar svenska språket. Jag pratar engelska. Klockan tolv jag går in i sovrummet. Jag läser och sover.

Du vaknar klockan sju. Klockan kvart över sju lager mat i köket. Du äter och dricker mjölk klockan halv sju. Tio över åtta går du till kontoret. Du kommer till huset klockan sjutton. ( klockan fem) du tittar på teve klockan kvart över fem. Du lyssnar på radion klockan arton. Du äter en smörgås och du dricker vatten klocker halv sex. Du borstar tänderna klocker arton.

un ángulo oscuro

Today I did a quick Spanish lesson on Live Mocha. (FYI - I love this website and recommend it to EVERYONE). Anyway, the lesson was rather simple but the thing about Live Mocha that I like is that they introduce vocabulary Rosetta Stone does not introduce. Rosetta Stone is more about guided immersion, repetition and absorption.Rosetta Stone is a great program, but like all language programs it must be used with other language learning programs.

So today on Live Mocha I had to write some simple Spanish sentences. Estoy frente al banco cruzando le calle. Estoy en la esquina opuesta al banco. I was not familiar with the word la esquina, I figured by the context it meant block or corner.

I moved onto the next lesson and had to write some more simple sentences. Again, most of the stuff I already know but occasionally they use new words. One of the sentences I had to write was, Siga derecho dos cuadras y doble a la derecha. What got my attention was the word una cuadra. I wondered, how is that different from la esquina.

In English, we say Walk one block. Walk to the corner. We pretty much use the words block and corner. In Spanish however, it is just a little different.

Consider this sentence - The poets were meeting in a corner of the restaurant. What about this sentence - in a dark corner of the room.

Which word do we use? Do we use la esquina? Nope. Do we use la cuadra? Of course not - it would not make one bit of sense in Spanish. What we say is this.... Los poetas estaban reuidos en un rincón del restaurante. Del salón en un ángulo oscuro.

*  El osito de peluche estaba sentado silenciosamente en una esquina.
*  El osito de peluche estaba sentado silenciosamente en una esquina obscura del closet.

*  El hombre pensó detenidamente, solo en la esquina del café. 
*  La mujer siempre se sienta en una esquina solitaria. 
*  El hombre observó escalofriantemente, mirando en blanco desde un rincón del café.



 If one is speaking about outside a corner, where one street meets another street or where one sidewalk meets another sidewalk, the Spanish word is esquina.

Me van a esperar en la esquina de Palma y Verde.

When you are not speaking about a corner of a room, a box, restaurant or sidewalk, but rather the intersection itself we use the word bocacalle. Note that the word bocacalle tends to be used in Spain more than Latin America.

* Cuando llegue a la bocacalle, doble a la izquierda.
* Cuando llegue al topar con la calle, doble a la izquierda.

In Spain, for city block they say manzana .. yes, the word for apple. In Latin American they say una cuadera. But... Hispanic Americans say the word bloque. Then again, Mexican Americans have been accused many times of butchering the Spanish language. I am not an expert on that. I suppose some people on my friends list are in a much better position to judge that one than me.

The English way is much easier and much simpler. It is a block, a corner, or an intersection. But, you can say block or corner interchangeably.

Thanks for reading this blog! If you would like me to write about anything in particular, feel free to send me an e-mail and let me know.

naomijchambers@yahoo.com

Swedish Online - A Website Just for learning Swedish

Hello everyone,

One of the great things about learning languages online is the people you meet. I just meet a female on Live Mocha. ( As many of you know, I am addicted to Live Mocha ) She too is learning Swedish. We exchanged a few emails on Live Mocha, and she introduced me to a new website for learning Swedish. The website is called Swedish Online. I have not checked it out yet, as I am currently in Mexico City doing things with the family. But I decided that is was worth writing a short blog. If you are a Swedish learner and know anything about this website, please post some comments and tell me all about it. I will link the site again in case you missed it. SWEDISH ONLINE.