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#Post#: 16836--------------------------------------------------
Learning Persian - resources and progress (or lack thereof)
By: Alharacas Date: June 13, 2019, 7:43 pm
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This is going to be a combination of a kind of progress chart, a
list of resources (and what I think of them), plus learning
methods, if/how my language partners help me, etc. - or so I
hope. Of course, you're welcome to comment, whether by
chivvying, calling me a lazy so-and-so, providing helpful tips,
telling me about your own language-learing successes or failures
- or whatever.
When it comes to learning languages, I'm severely handicapped by
my limitless capacity for procrastinating - read: laziness.
Seriously. I'm so lazy, I make the three-toed sloth look
positively vibrant. In case you didn't know, they move so slowly
that algae grow on their coat.
So, after having lethargically toyed with the idea of learning
Arabic for just about, oh, 3 or 4 decades (because I really,
really admire the calligraphy), I finally decided to learn
Persian instead. For the logically unassailable reason that over
the years, I've met quite a few Iranians I really liked and
clicked with. Plus, unlike Arabic, Persian is Persian, more or
less, at least in Iran, the country I would most like to travel
to one day. And the language is supposed to be mutually
intelligible with Dari (Afghanistan, no thanks) and Tajik
(Tajikistan, well, maybe). Whereas it would probably have taken
me another 3 decades to decide which particular variation of
Arabic I should learn if I'd kept to the original plan.
And apart from a few letters, the alphabets are the same.
Meaning Persian calligraphy looks just as beautiful to me as
Arabic.
Another one of my handicaps is that I'm... not exactly stingy,
no, but prone to impulse purchases. And then I keep reproaching
myself for having bought expensive stuff I'm not doing anything
with and in all likelihood never will. As a result, I may
ruminate forever about buying something quite cheap which I
actually need, but will spend a month's allowance without a
second thought, just because I feel like it. Oh well.
Anyway, step 1 was to buy a copy of "Le persan" from the ASSiMiL
series. Just the book, without the CDs (see above), therefore
not noticeably more expensive than the softcover version of a
novel.
Spent a couple of enjoyable evenings on the first few lessons,
then started looking for a language partner. Realized I didn't
even know how to say "Hello" in Persian (because that's ASSiMiL
for you) and started looking for youtube tutorials instead.
To be continued
Come to think of it, it might be rather interesting (unless
reading this post made you fall asleep, that is) or even quite
helpful if a few other members started to keep the same kind of
log, no?
#Post#: 16838--------------------------------------------------
Re: Learning Persian - resources and progress (or lack thereof)
By: Irena Date: June 14, 2019, 12:43 am
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Ah. Motivation. When you say you're lazy, do you think that's
because, despite really wanting/needing to learn Persian, you
just cannot get yourself to study on a regular basis, or because
you don't really want/need to learn Persian all that badly? In
the former case, there are things that can be done. In the
latter, well, it may just be best to throw in the towel. :-\
I rather struggled with motivation for Czech. My issue was that
I really needed to learn Czech (because, ahem, I'd moved to the
Czech Republic), but didn't really want to learn it (primarily
because I was terrified it would ruin my Russian, which just so
happens to be the linguistic love of my life, and also because I
would have preferred to just continue working on my Russian and
French, and I didn't feel like throwing in a third language).
So, what did I do? Partly, I made sure I got sufficient Russian
practice (so my Russian wouldn't turn into Czech; this relieved
my anxiety), and I simply made myself study Czech anyway. Maybe
not as much as would have been ideal, but still. Part of the
solution was to shamelessly throw money at the problem: book
plenty of lessons, which meant I'd have to (a) show up for those
lessons, and (b) prepare for them.
In case anyone is wondering: I'm doing much better now. 8)
Probably because I've reached a sufficiently high level in Czech
to be able to do legitimately interesting things with the
language (read articles, listen to interviews, etc.), and so I
actually feel like putting in the time now. Well. Good thing I'm
learning Czech, and so I got to this level after having invested
only about 200-300 hours total into it. If I had to learn
something like Hungarian, I'd still be a beginner...
#Post#: 16841--------------------------------------------------
Re: Learning Persian - resources and progress (or lack thereof)
By: Nikola Date: June 14, 2019, 3:18 am
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[quote author=Alharacas link=topic=1155.msg16836#msg16836
date=1560473038]
Come to think of it, it might be rather interesting (unless
reading this post made you fall asleep, that is) or even quite
helpful if a few other members started to keep the same kind of
log, no?
[/quote]
I think this is a great idea. So this is the log, right? This
very thread? I'll start a new one to discuss the idea and if I
feel brave enough, I might start my own log. Maybe :)
#Post#: 16845--------------------------------------------------
Re: Learning Persian - resources and progress (or lack thereof)
By: Alharacas Date: June 14, 2019, 4:35 am
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[quote author=Nikola link=topic=1155.msg16841#msg16841
date=1560500281]
[quote author=Alharacas link=topic=1155.msg16836#msg16836
date=1560473038]
Come to think of it, it might be rather interesting (unless
reading this post made you fall asleep, that is) or even quite
helpful if a few other members started to keep the same kind of
log, no?
[/quote]
I think this is a great idea. So this is the log, right? This
very thread? I'll start a new one to discuss the idea and if I
feel brave enough, I might start my own log. Maybe :)
[/quote]
Thanks! :-*
Yep, this very thread is supposed to be it.
Wonderful - you go, girl!
#Post#: 16846--------------------------------------------------
Re: Learning Persian - resources and progress (or lack thereof)
By: Alharacas Date: June 14, 2019, 4:46 am
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Thanks, Irena, you're a star! :-*
When I say I'm lazy, I guess what I mean is that I'm not good at
keeping my nose to the grindstone. Yuck. Boooring. I've always
had a really hard time studying vocabulary. Trying to remember
disconnected words is... ugh. It's slightly better when I can
get somebody else to go through the vocabulary with me, but of
course, that means the other person has to be able to read
what's written on both sides of the little card. So, nix on that
in my immediate environment. Plus, the memory-thing gets
noticeably worse with age. You'd need a much higher frustration
tolerance for "Darn, I really should know what this means" and,
far worse, "I swear I've never seen this word before. - Oh.
Yeah. It IS on my list" moments. Instead, I feel my craving for
the little rushes of success - the ones you get from recognizing
a familiar word, reading a sentence with the right
pronunciation, figuring out what a new word means, understanding
a sentence, being understood, being able to give an appropriate
answer - has actually grown, not diminished. Gah.
That's what I did with Polish - kept throwing lots of time
(dates for skype conversations) and money (lessons) at it.
Progress: minimal. Basic problem: I like reading and I like
translating. So, when I've looked up every single word in a
sentence, have done my utmost to analyze it, and still don't
understand it because an interesting, hitherto unknown little
grammar twist has me stumped, that drives me over the edge,
motivation-wise. When it keeps happening, I mean.
Yeah, I did buy several books I like in Polish, and compared the
sentences in my German or English version with the Polish text.
This would have worked just fine (the texts really were
identical), except when I'd located every single Polish word
corresponding to its English/German counterpart, there were
always several unidentifiable words left over. Er.
But then, this thread is supposed to be about present progress
(Persian), not about past failures (Polish) - sorry. ;)
#Post#: 16848--------------------------------------------------
Re: Learning Persian - resources and progress (or lack thereof)
By: Irena Date: June 14, 2019, 5:59 am
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@Alharacas
Yeah, I've noticed that memory gets worse over time. And I'm
still only in my 30s! >:(
Personally, I have a much higher level of tolerance for grammar
drills and such than for studying vocabulary (from flashcards or
lists). When I was studying for the SATs, I had to memorize this
godawful list of 3000 low-ish frequency English words. I did it,
but it was very painful. (It paid off, mind you. I scored 740 on
the Verbal section. No mean feat for a non-native English
speaker. But lemme tell ya, it hurt.) That seems to have
permanently reduced my tolerance for vocabulary cramming.
Luckily for me, Czech is full of Russian and Serbian cognates,
and so I've done, oh, approximately zero flashcard/vocabulary
list work. I read a text, look up words I don't know, and trust
that important words will pop up again and again, and that I'll
eventually memorize them.
#Post#: 16852--------------------------------------------------
Re: Learning Persian - resources and progress (or lack thereof)
By: Alharacas Date: June 14, 2019, 7:11 am
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Today: 2nd attempt at asking a language partner to talk to me
about a picture, in Persian only. Unmitigated disaster. Even
more so than the 1st attempt, to be honest. The first girl at
least managed to teach me the words for "blue" and "trousers",
before she started bombarding me with words for random objects -
translation thoughtfully provided by her.
Which is why I'd not only begged today's lovely language partner
to make very, very short, easy sentences, always repeating the
one word she was aiming to teach me. I'd actually written to
her, word for word, an example of how I would have liked her to
talk to me: "This is a door. That's another door. I can see
three doors here. There are three doors. One door, two doors,
three doors. This door is red. That door is also red. There are
three red doors here." At which point it was to be hoped I'd
have understood what "red" and "door" meant. And then she might
try to patiently point out that 2 of those red doors were open,
while the third one was closed. Was she okay with that?
Answer: "Oh, that sounds exciting! Can't wait to try! So, very
short sentences, focus on one word at a time, correct?"
"Yes, please, Lovely Language Partner!"
Nope. Not a chance. Instead, she started to describe, seemingly
at great length, what was happening in one particular picture
(in Persian, obviously): "There's a woman in that room, having a
conversation on the phone." So far, so good, several cognates
from Turkish in there. Next, for all I know, LLP may have gone
on to say that the woman had called the help-line for suicidal
language learners because she was about to cut her wrists with
the shards from a broken audio CD. I have no idea, I just know
that I didn't recognize a single word in her next 5 sentences or
so, nor did any word appear more than once, as far as I could
tell.
"Er, Lovely Language Partner? You know my Persian vocabulary is
minimal, don't you? Please - short and simple sentences. One
word at a time, okay? Doors? Red? Remember?"
"Okay."
And then she started telling me all kinds of things. One couple
was doing that, another one something else. The girl was busy
with a third incomprehensible activity, the boy with a forth,
while yet another couple... Rinse and repeat. Until my time was
up and I said so, with infinite relief.
At which point Lovely Language Partner remarked: "I feel you
haven't learnt a lot today."
"Er - well, I still don't know the Persian word for "door",
see..."
"But if I made sentences like that, you'd be so bored!"
"No. You might be. Me, I'm a beginner. As long as you make me
understand the simplest of Persian sentences, I couldn't be
happier. 'Boring' isn't even on the horizon."
#Post#: 16855--------------------------------------------------
Re: Learning Persian - resources and progress (or lack thereof)
By: Irena Date: June 14, 2019, 7:27 am
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Meanwhile, I learned the Czech word for bodybuilder. It's
kulturista. I was watching this interview with "kulturista Petr
Vaniš," and apparently, he had a doping-induced heart-attack. It
was very confusing. I assumed that kulturista had something to
do with, you know, culture (literature, theater, music, etc.),
and I couldn't figure out why he was doping. I was also most
confused because he was some sort of champion (world
champion...?), and I never knew that culture-people had world
championships. ??? Yeah. That's what Google's for. ;D
#Post#: 16864--------------------------------------------------
Re: Learning Persian - resources and progress (or lack thereof)
By: NealC Date: June 14, 2019, 10:55 am
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I don't know. You should see the sh*t I take whenever they drag
me to a classical concerto.
#Post#: 16877--------------------------------------------------
Re: Learning Persian - resources and progress (or lack thereof)
By: Aliph Date: June 14, 2019, 3:53 pm
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@Alharacas سلام
I guess you already saw the Langenscheidt Deutsch/Persisch
dictionary.
HTML https://de.langenscheidt.com/deutsch-persisch/hallo
I hope it is as good as the Deutsch/Arabisch which is amazing, I
use it every day.
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