Surface Languages

I, like duh, run (as and when) Surface Languages and like so many others have language aims of my own. New year is a time for reflection, resolutions and so on and so forth and I don’t want to be left out.

My language goals for 2014 were :

To improve my Italian from B1 to B2 (on the CEFR) scale.

Learn to count to twenty in Polish and say more than hello, and slimak, slimak pokaż rogi.

Did I get there?

I didn’t reach B2 in Italian orally but am closing in on this. (My comprehension is above this so that’s cool).

I can count to twenty in Polish and know more of slimak, slimak.  So a big tick there as well. Aim high that’s my motto.

My language goals for 2015 are :

To improve my Italian from B1 to B2 on the CEFR scale.  I’ll carry on improving my Italian during 2015 mainly by reading and chatting. I like to talk, and I like to read, so nothing too onerous there. I particularly like reading Italian thrillers and as I like reading crime novels all I’ve done is shifted some of my reading into Italian.

To reach B1 in Polish.  I’m going to make a real effort with Polish this year. I feel (perhaps erroneously) that I’ve reached a point where the language is starting to make sense to me. I need to find someone to talk to and will do this the second half of the year.

To reach A2 in Russian (reading) 

I also wanted to dabble with another language, and especially with the current international situation Russian is particularly interesting.

Still, I know my limits and there is no way that I will have the time (or mental strength) to start speaking the language.

My primary interest is reading. I want to be able to read Russian. I’m particularly interested in reading the news (at the moment), and although it is definitely the case that slavic languages are difficult for English speakers this seems like an achievable goal.

Russian (like Polish) is a difficult language but my goal is only to read and not to reproduce or understand the spoken language.

We will see.

Besos,

MF

Time for a bit of a summary of 2014 as I see it.

2014 in general for the UK

Well, 2014 has been a pig of a year without much to recommend it, and much of this caused by the greed and stupidity of our politicians.

If you live in the UK, you can vote in a few months. Do it.

Vote Green or independent (and by independent I don’t mean in the sense of linking homosexuality with flooding).

The main parties have had their snouts in the trough for too long, with associated and oh  so legal benefits in the subtle British way such as  shares in companies, freebies, repairs to their moats and so on. These politicians only look after themselves, and their friends in the big corporations. I would never vote for any of the mainstream parties again.

Clegg, Cameron and Osborne should be ashamed of themselves when people are going homeless and hungry (there are more and more food banks in the UK), and more and more of the social safety net has been removed by legislation approved by these three.

And yet companies such as Amazon pay little tax, social housing in London is being sold off and in place investment properties are constructed.  No-one will live in most of these.

Tax empty second properties. Tax the big companies. Put money back into the social services.

Labour, the Tories and those Lib Dems (who also voted to allow secret courts), are in the main composed of career politicians, a political ‘elite’  who lack the desire to implement the changes we need to produce a fairer society.

A society where people can eat, where there is access to justice, a living wage and some sense of fairness.

Yeah. Roll on 2015. But vote independent. Don’t vote for the mainstream.

Surface Languages and associated Apps.

That is enough about the inept politicians that are ruining the country. What about Surface Languages and my other sites?

I’ve added three languages Tagalog, Portuguese (Portugal) and Belarusian to Surface Languages.

I’ve added lots of iPhone language apps.

I’ve added a few additional Android language apps.

I also completed the coding for some cool stuff I intend to add to Surface Languages early next year.

Polyglot People

I set up Polyglot People which was an experiment using the same audio as Surface languages. It has not been hugely successful other than as a learning experience for me – and as a basis for my Afrikaans site (see below). I’ll leave it for a year and probably ditch it.

Easy Afrikaans

Easy Afrikaans was a site I’d set up around ten years ago and then pretty much forgotten about. This year I returned, added a lot of audio, more tests and so on. It has been one of my success stories this  year, and next year I hope to add more to the site.

No more games

I until this year was also working as a games programmer. I’ve decided not to do this anymore – at least in a professional capacity. It took too much of my time and energy – and not in a positive way.

Besos,

Moonface

… to fluency.

There is this idea that if you learn 10,000 sentences (or so) you will more or less become fluent in a language.  There are wiki pages etc. written about this – perhaps in too much detail as the idea is straightforward.

And as ideas go, it is a pretty good one. I don’t know how good you would be knowing 10,000 sentences in whatever language, but it is certainly going to help.

So, I want to add sentences (with audio) to Surface Languages along with a kindof  SRS system. I’ve written the code. I’ve tested the pages. I have a database. I’ve done the technical stuff.

And now I come to the most difficult part of the process which is deciding on the sentences to include. (I’ve wittered on about the decision making process elsewhere, but it is not straight-forward – at least for me). Basically, I don’t think the content of the sentences matters as long as:

1. They do not include slang. (It is too specific to groups/age ranges).

2. They are useful. I don’t want to include ‘the elephant is in the bath’. ‘I am in the bath’ would be a more useful variant – and no I’m not  referring to myself.

3. I couldn’t think of a third proviso – which may be where I’m going wrong.

I don’t have unlimited money or time and so am going at least initially to limit each language I do to somewhere between 500 and 1000 sentences along with audio.

I’m almost ready to get the first translations done. These will be Polish and Italian. I’ll also need audio in these languages and in English (so that say an Italian can learn the English phrases).

Have fun kids.

Pax,

MoOnFaCe.

Well, call me a geek but Vultus est index animi has long been one of my favourite expressions.

And now I know it in Spanish as well:

Los ojos son el espejo del alma.

Now all I need to do is Cautus metuit fovea lupus in Spanish and I’ll be happy.

All you need are a few handy expressions in other languages to sound intellectual, witty and ever so.

Or alternatively like you are a total numpty desperately trying to impress.

Besos.

MF.

I am (which isn’t surprising) as I run Surface Languages interested in language learning.

I’m not a particularly talented learner (I learn languages extremely slowly)  but I get a large amount of enjoyment through learning what I do, and as I do this my ideas on learning change and evolve over time.

I’ve been wondering for sometime how to best improve this site (other than adding further languages), and I think I know how to do this in part inspired by an email I received and in part by my rather frustrating attempts at learning Polish.

One of the great things about not selling a product or method is that you are free to experiment with different ideas, and you can (if you are me) implement these ideas on this website.

Look at Rosetta Stone (the language product that is). The manufacturers have this idea that clicking on pictures of horses jumping, people eating ice-creams and so on will help you learn a language.  Now, they can’t say ‘this isn’t effective’ even if they suddenly discover that clicking on pictures doesn’t equip you to walk into a bar and start chatting. Their whole product range is based on this concept.

I have started to believe that speaking and understanding (are while linked) such different skills that it is useful to treat them as such while in the initial stages of language learning. I’ve mentioned elsewhere the resources I’m using to improve my Polish comprehension, and there are many other resources to aid comprehension for other languages – in particular French and Spanish.

But what about speaking?

One way to improve is to learn the sentences by heart that you want to say in your target language. The difficulty with this is choosing sentences which are generally useful. I want sentences which use common verbs and high frequency vocabulary and that are also useful to me. E.g. ‘I’m going to the shop’ but not ‘the house needs to be rewired’. I also want sentences which use different tenses such as ‘I went to the shop’, and sentences expressing opinions ‘I’m happy because …’

I’ve started writing down sentences which I would like to be able to say in Polish, and these will form the basis of the sentences used on surface languages.

I’ve made a few observations which I’ve written down, partly so I don’t forget and partly for your delight and delectation.

The first observation is that languages themselves are structured differently, meaning you can’t pick one sentence to illustrate a grammatical point in say Spanish and assume that this will illustrate the same point in Polish.

I don’t think this matters. The sentences I will choose are ones which I want to use in normal life, and not specifically to illustrate structures and grammar.

The second observation is that many languages have different levels of formality depending on who you are speaking to, and different structures depending on the number of people you are speaking to.

The solution is to assume that you are talking to one person who is a friend. i.e casual but not slangy conversation.

The third observation is that in some languages (e.g. Polish) there can be  a difference depending on whether a man or woman is speaking, or being spoken to.

Adding these different combinations would be too complicated for what I have in mind (see below), and as I am male I’ve made the arbitrary decision that all the sentences are spoken by a male to a male. I don’t feel particularly happy about this, but I am one person and can only deal with a certain level of complexity.

I received an e-mail in Spanish basically asking why Surface Languages didn’t have any English phrases. The answer is that it was designed for English speakers, but that is only because I didn’t think about language learners other than English speaking using it.

But now I have. If all the sentences have the same translations in English, Spanish, French, Polish and so on, there is no reason why you can’t learn English from Spanish or French from Polish or any other combination that you wish. This is also great if you are trying to maintain a language.

And so dear reader, over the coming months and years I am going to add a ‘learn by sentences’ section to Surface Languages using some sort of Spaced Repetition System which will allow me (and you) to learn sentences using different language pairs.

But first, I need to decide on the first 1000.

Besos,

MF

It’s been a while since my last post. I’ve been working on various (non language related) projects – although I will before long (I hope) add some free iPhone language learning apps to SurfaceLanguages.

Enough of that.  I want to talk about my Polish progress. As anyone who reads or who has read this blog will know, I’m finding it extremely difficult.  This isn’t surprising as Polish is a difficult language for a non slavic language speaker to learn. And just to clarify I don’t mean it is difficult to say ‘my name is …’ or ‘I live in …’, but to have more meaningful conversations. (I’m approaching fifty and am not interested in saying how r u, wotz up, lol etc.)

At the moment I’m not focusing on speaking (as I don’t have time for a regular conversation partner) but I want to understand and read. One thing I have noticed about many language learning blogs is that the writers are younger. The advantage of being young isn’t that you can’t learn languages when you are older, or that it is more difficult, but you have less commitments.

Less commitments = more time.

I don’t have much spare time, but what I do have is an hour in the morning when I walk my dog. I also have fifteen minutes in the evening. As I said, I have many demands on my time.

I no longer use Assimil Polish, and wouldn’t recommend it. It becomes too difficult too quickly. Instead  each evening I spend my fifteen minutes going through one of the stories from Mr Real Polish (there are one hundred along with variations, questions and answers and so on) , and during the walk listen to these at random.

Fifteen minutes is the time I need to understand a story when I hear it at random on the playlist.

My comprehension is definitely improving, and many of the more common Polish words are now starting to stick.

I am making progress – albeit slowly.

Besos,

MF

Hi y’all.

I’ve been metaphorically speaking umming and aaring about whether or not to carry on learning Polish. I’m finding it extremely difficult. I learn a Polish word. I forget it. I read inspiring stories about language learning. Enthused I try again. I crash and burn. And so on.

I was going to quit, but then I read somewhere that 3% of the UK now speak Polish. Three percent! That is a lot of people. That is so many people that I want to know more about the language.

And so I am continuing. I am NOT going to find a conversation exchange. My level is so low that it seems pointless.

My strategy (such as it is) is to alternate between the Polish stories from Learn Real Polish and Assimil Polish. (BTW I’m recommending Polish stories not because I am affiliated in any way, but because I think they are good).

Assimil. Hmmm. I would not recommend Assimil Polish  as a first course unless you either already know the basics of Polish grammar or another slavic language.

I found that the lessons moved too quickly and I struggled to understand and make sense of the grammatical structures. I like to understand why a sentence is put together so I can make my own.

For example, I found a simple sentence like Są ciastka i dobre wino ‘there are cakes and good wine’  (taken from Assimil lesson 12)  confusing. I now know that ciastko ‘cake’ is a neuter noun and in the accusative plural becomes ciastka ‘cakes’. I know that wino ‘wine’ is a neuter noun and in the accusative singular dobry ‘good’ becomes dobre  to agree with wino and so on. I understand the syntax.

I’m now on Assimil lesson 15 and the second time around it makes a lot more sense.

I will let you know how it goes l8r.

Ciao 4 now,

MF

I have a dilemma.

It is pretty much halfway through the year and I’ve now been learning Polish for a year and a half. My level is very low although I more or less understand how the language works and how to construct a basic sentence.

I know the basics, I can order food, introduce myself, exchange a few pleasantries, but I can’t have an interesting conversation. My language level is way, way, way to low.

I’m not bothered by my level as I haven’t spent much time with the language, and I know what I need to do to improve.

The steps I know I need to take would be :

1. Spend the next week ensuring I know the basic verbs and revise basic vocabulary.

2. Find a conversation partner/teacher and spend several hours a week talking.

I know what I need to do to improve. I also know that although Polish is difficult, it is not impossible.  In fact the more Polish I have learned, the more interesting I have found it and the more it makes sense.

For the record I think that you probably need triple the time to learn Polish as opposed to a language like Italian.

The problem is that I have no need to speak Polish, no trips to Poland planned (or likely) and am not surrounded by Polish speakers. In other words although I  like the language, I lack the impetus I require to make decent progress.

Conversely with Italian, I’ve made friends (on the internet) and talk regularly. My level is improving constantly.

And so I don’t know whether it is worth continuing in the same vein (i.e. learning bit by bit) , because while I know the steps I need to take to actually be able to speak the language, I’m unlikely to take them. I don’t have unlimited spare time.

I really can’t decide what to do. I don’t want to stop learning Polish, but at the same time am starting to feel frustrated by my lack of progress. And yet, I don’t have time to commit to another evening (or two) chatting (or trying to) in Polish (as well as Italian and Spanish).

And yet that is exactly what I need to do.

Besos,

MF

I think Polish my have defeated me for the time being, and am considering taking a break in my attempts to learn it.

The problem I face is that I don’t really need it. In fact I don’t have any need to use it in my day to day life. I like it as a language, and I like how it sounds.

But …

… the languages I need are Spanish and of course English. Italian is handy for holidays and I hear a fair amount of Catalan spoken.

So what do I do? I like Polish. I really do, but I have no compelling reason to learn it. I am working in a vacuum as it were. It is not the kind of language you can dip in and out of, pick up without effort etc. It is difficult and requires time and dedication.

I have arrived at a point where I more or less understand how the language works, and how to construct a sentence.

I know that to make real progress I need to find conversation partners and start talking several times a week. I not sure that I have either the time or the motivation.

As I said, I am thinking of taking a break.

Peace,

MF