Language Learning Journal - Somali #4 - Making life more simple

A very good evening to all

I'm going to start this post of on an unusually personal note to explain a little the direction my blog will be taking in the near future.

To get straight to the point, It dawned on me a few weeks ago that I may have been suffering some symptoms of depression for a little while, and really not been taking the best care of my emotional/psychological well-being.

I'm no expert, so I couldn't say exactly the true cause for these feelings, but my routine at the time was clearly not helping me - my life had become a never-ending list of things I wanted to achieve, with no thought whatsoever going in to why I wanted to achieve them.  I was functioning more like a machine than a human being, and so I've made a huge effort to simplify my life and enjoy it more; be more spontaneous.  As a starting point those "to-do" lists have been mostly scrapped and I must say that feels LIBERATING! :)

So you'll see a lot fewer tourism/general interest items on my blog going forward - sorry - as I take some time out to focus on one goal at a time, and one language at a time - Somali.

And the rest of the time?...

...who knows?!!  Whatever I feel like doing at the time.  :D

Somali Language Learning

This new philosophy transfers also to my language learning.  I'd gotten into the habit of making endless lists of words to contextualise - lists so vast that I was never reasonably going to get through them.

My new tactic?  Smarter thinking.

Am I up to date with with my personal Memrise vocabulary lists?  Then sure a few extra words couldn't hurt, but why not select words that I'm struggling to contextualise instead of trying to cover everything?  Surely that will help me progress faster, and in a more meaningful way.

So, bye-bye, mindless lists!  Hello "little grey cells"! (Apologies for the Poirot reference there).

Vocabulary Lists for languages surplus to requirements.  Destination: bin

Problem Vocabulary

waryaa; and

la

...are two pieces of vocabulary that consistently confused me, so I scratched the surface a little....and learned quite a lot:

• Waryaa is commonly translated in vocabulary lists as "hello/hi", but in reality it can come across as closer to "oi!", and so is best used with caution, or to address people with whom you have that kind of camaraderie.
• I came across the following YouTuber, who I may revisit when working on my pronunciation:
• la is a form of passive expression, as there is no real passive tense in Somali.  So...
  Goorma la dhisey?
  (literally: "When someone built?")
  Would express the English idea "When was it built?"

Success!

And with that, I'm off to bed early to watch a documentary about F***ING DINOSAURS!!!  :D

Take care y'all!

Reading Proust - French #1 - Language Learning Journal

I've had a few short sessions now tackling another 20 pages of this behemoth.

This time I've tried to immerse myself in the time period by listening to music.  Not everyone can read and listen to music without getting distracted, but I'd recommend it, if you can!  Try to avoid songs with lyrics, though, and opt for "mood pieces" instead.

One of the reasons why I love learning languages so much is that they connect to everything, so there's always something to be learnt just by doing a little research around your materials.  Wikipedia is fine for this.  I know that in education you're advised to avoid it like the plague, but for casual research it's honestly a great way to get a general overview on a new topic.  You can always diversify your learning with other sources if a topic really piques your interest!

So I looked up the date that Du côté de chez Swann was written - 1913 - and researched French music from that decade.  I learnt that Erik Satie was very popular in this era - whose Gymnopédies are still very well known - and also picked up a new name, Albert Roussel, who seems to specialise in very dramatic symphonies in the minor scales; filled with crescendos.

...then our wireless connection went to pot because my boyfriend was downloading another crop of b-movies for us to watch (check out my instagram for more on that! @saywhat_uk)... so in the Erik Satie vein I searched out a classical piano CD from my collection - Lang Lang.

I've amazed myself by how much I've understood these last 20 pages so am able to abridge slightly for a change rather than focusing on little details.

Things I've learned....

• Aunt Octave is nosy and a gossip, and gets very concerned at seeing people, and even dogs, that she doesn't know.
  
  
• Aunt Léonie is very specific about her company.  She has ailments that she feels others either preach to her about it or are too grim about it.  She takes comfort confiding in Eulalie, a local Deaf lady who understand her predicament.
  
  
• Our narrator is partly (though innocently) to blame for a rift between the family and Uncle Adolphe - his grandfather's brother (on his mother's side).  He used to frequently visit Uncle Adolphe, though chaperoned, at a time when he was interested in the Theatre, though not allowed to go.  
  
  
  At this time he would go every day to see the new shows that were being announced and took joy in viewing the posters; his imagination filling in the other details.  He learns, at this time, that his "uncle" has many actresses in his social circle, something that the family does not approve of.  
  
  
  On one occasion he visits his uncle unannounced and on his own when his uncle is entertaining one of these actresses.  He's reluctantly invited in and later asked never to mention this to his parents.  Our narrator, though, feels indebted to his uncle and, naively, doesn't understand the need for secrecy.  He blabs and his uncle gets ostracised from the family unit.  He does see his uncle once more, but turns his head away in remorse.  Then his uncle dies alone.  Grim.

Vocabulary

On the subject of vocabulary I have a bit more advice for fellow readers - especially if your content is a little on the old-fashioned side...

• Note page numbers when you're recording vocabulary to look up later.  You might need this for context if the word has multiple meanings
  
  
• Otherwise, note the word class for more clarity (e.g. noun, adjective, verb).  In some languages, such as french, many nouns are formed from adjectives, so this can be important.
  
  
• Don't overburden yourself.  Pick out just a few words from those that you've noted to add to your vocabulary learning.  You'll never have time to learn every single word, and many of those you come across might be overly specific or dated, so pick wisely!  You probably don't need to learn words for turn of the 20th century garments that are no longer in fashion and not likely to return!

I've taken the following words to learn from this session:

mander - to summon

un flocon (de neige) - (snow) flake

un paon - peacock

irisé - iridescent

grognon - grumpy

le massepain - marzipan

une cocotte - mistress

embarrassé - ill-at-ease, bothered, discomforted (not embarassed!)

un fardeau - burden, load.

A Long Weekend in Bristol

...so it's Tuesday now and I've just about recovered from a cold, wet, tiring but marvellous long weekend in Bristol with friends.

This city really is becoming my home-away-from-home!  If I were to ever move away from Birmingham it would be sure to be top of my list.  I wasn't surprised at all to learn this weekend that it's been voted the Best Place to live in the UK for 2017!

On this trip we visited some old favourites as well as some amazing new places, which I'm going to try to get around to blogging about eventually.

Until then, here's a few photos that capture some of my favourite moments, just as a taste of what Bristol has to offer!  Click on any of the thumb nails to view the set at full-size images:

Language Learning Journal - Somali #3 - BBC Somali

BBC Somali is a resource that I'm already leaning heavily on.

One of the reasons for this is that, as a reputable organisation, I know that I can trust the quality of language being used...certainly more so than most sources for Somali on the internet (which are few and far between already in comparison to most foreign languages that I've worked with).

I also know that by dipping into this source I'll be learning from a variety of lexical fields, and be picking up vocabulary and phrasing that is current and relevant.

Even at this early stage in my learning I'm using the BBC Somali website to push myself to read Somali.  At this stage I'm just looking at headlines - short, succinct text conveying the essence of an entire article - to see what I can already understand, and what I can learn.

Learning a little about current affairs in the process certainly doesn't hurt.

Yesterday I was confronted with the following headline:

In ka badan 30 ku dhimatay weerar lagu qaaday cisbitaal

...and I must admit that I was darned proud (if a little bummed) to link one word - dhimatay - to death.

Following some of my usual vocabulary-learning techniques, I used Google Translate to get the full sense:

More than 30 killed in attached on hospital

...and to pick up some useful new vocabulary - just the basics for now (nouns):

cisbitaal - hospital (phonetic)

weerar - attack

...now I'm just hoping for some happier News to learn from!

Language Learning Journal - Somali #2 - Noun Plurals

Further to my previous entry on learning vocabulary, this one relates to a note that I'd made to learn more about Somali plurals.

I'd noticed that a couple of plural nouns in my memrise vocabulary list seemed to follow the same pattern of an "-o" ending, so looked into this over the last couple of days.  One example:

albaab - door

albaabbo - doors

I often view learning a new language like tackling a puzzle!  Indeed, perversely, it's this aspect of language learning that attracts me the most, far more than the social aspect.

In this way, my own curiosity is a great guide to follow.  I'll spot patterns and strive to understand them so that I can apply them freely in new situations.

Curiosity did also kill the cat, though, and boy-oh-boy do I wish a little bit that I hadn't bothered unraveling this particular ball of string so soon!

I read through a couple of neat websites, some of the top hits in Google that, rather than being simple grammar guides, turned out to be LINGUISTIC ESSAYS

Source 1: http://www.ling.upenn.edu/courses/Spring_1998/ling202/nouns.htm

Source 2: http://www.linguist.univ-paris-diderot.fr/~nlampitelli/lampitelli_14IMA.pdf

It seems that the "basic rule" is indeed...

"add o"

but there are also a shocking number of exceptions including...

"double the last consonant and add o" (after certain consonants)

"add yo" (after certain consonants)

"change the final consonant altogether and add o"

"lose a vowel and add o"

"repeat the last syllable"

"change nothing"

"add ooyin" (if the singular already ends in "o")

my notes on Somali plurals.  Shortly after this my will to live diminished and anarchy overran the page.

As a beginner, this can be pretty daunting to tackle.  I've coming across a lesser extreme with German previously and will be tacking Somali in much the same way.  And that is to learn the plural form of the word along with each singular noun that I add to my repertoire and test both at the same time.

As someone who likes to analyse and understand, I do not agree with the school of thought that grammar is something that should be avoided when learning a new language.  In this instance, though, I will aim to build up a sense of Somali's pattern and become comfortable with it through repetition.

That said, I could not have come to this decision and formed my "plan of attack" for Somali nouns without first researching this grammar rule.  I'm hoping that over time I'll be able to revisit the linguistic essays above and better understand the grammar behind the rules....or better still, develop an instinct for the exceptions.

Language Learning Journal - Somali #1 - Vocabulary

A very good Sunday to you all!

I'm aware that I'm not posting too often at the moment, so I'm trying my hand at incorporating my blog into my language learning a little more ...to document my techniques and give you all a little insight into what works for me (and perhaps also what doesn't).

I'm going to try not to reflect so much on my posts being so polished and allowing them to be more ephemeral; to show a journey.  After all, making mistakes is key to learning a language, so I'd be a hypocrite to preach about language learning without showing my own!

I'm also hoping hereby to shame myself a little into progressing a little faster than I have been.

This evening's learning is Somali - a language that I started looking at around 18 months ago when I found myself suddenly unemployed and reflecting on the lack of applicable language skills that I possess - believe me, French and German do not get you very far in the jobs market!

I've not got very far - due to my being very much settled in a new job and also as Somali's a very tough nut to crack - but my desire to learn new languages never completely fails so I'm prepared to attack it with fresh vigour!

I'm finding that one of the complexities with Somali is the lack of available materials - be it text books or online resources - so here's how I've been going about learning new Somali vocabulary thus far: 

1 - Memrise

There are some decent user-created lists already to hand on Memrise (example: https://www.memrise.com/course/52251/somali-for-beginners/).  Unfortunately there aren't any sound files attached to aid with your pronunciation, so that will require a different approach.

2 - Google Search

In order to try and keep my vocabulary contextual I've been using Google to help me to further my learning on Memrise

This means simply typing my memrise vocabulary - one word at a time - into Google along with "Somali" to see what word combinations come back.  The top searches are likely to be the most frequently used combinations in the Somali language, so I record any complete ones.

3 - Google Translate

Whilst not an ideal tool for all types of translation, this is still a valid tool for garnering a basic understanding.  If I type my newly discovered phrase into Google Translate and it doesn't make sense then I can try breaking it down until it does.  This way I can learn new words and - more importantly - new constructs that will help me to build up my comprehension of the language.  If I understand the phrase but something still doesn't quite make sense I note it down for later - there's most likely a grammatical rule that I don't yet understand that's causing this!  Reversing the source and target languages often helps reveal things too!

4 - Back to memrise

Finally, I load my new vocabulary into my own vocabulary list on Memrise

5 - Repeat

To illustrate how this works...

I learnt from memrise that dayuurad means plane (1).  My first hit on Google gave me dayuurad ku burburtay Soomaaliya (2).

 which translated to "plane crashes in Somalia" in Google Translate (3).

This sentence makes perfect sense, but I still haven't learnt any new words.  I already know ku to mean "to", roughly, Soomaaliya is Somalia, so the only unknown is burburtay, which is a verb, and I don't yet understand enough about verb constructs to understand how this has been conjugated, or surmise an infinitive form.

...so I make a note to look into the basics of verbs in my next grammar session, and I will learn this phrase as a whole until I am able to understand its components (4).

If anyone reading this is also learning Somali I'd be very interested to hear how my own methods compare with your own!  I do also use mine for other languages, especially in the early days where my level is not sufficient for me to read longer texts.

Baltika Cooler Light - From Russia, No Love

I'm afraid that this post might come across rather inflammatory, given the title and my final opinion, but I will try to be fair.

Before I get started on subjective matter, though, a little background...

I say "a little" background, as I have dug up very little of interest concerning Baltika Breweries' methods for producing this, or any of the other beers in their range.  My research was brief, but most breweries these days will push information on their methods to the forefront in an effort to market themselves as "wholesome" or innovative and compete with the increasing popularity of craft brews.  Baltika's website, however, is more focused on advertising the success of their brand, and other top search hits do likewise, or simply sell the products.  The only innovation that I can see being pushed is Baltika Cooler Light's pull-off lid....inspiring!

Even advertising seems to be more about making noise about the product and it's "cool" credentials than anything more substantial.

Here is what I did learn: Baltika are part of the Carlsberg Group, following the privatisation of the Baltika Brewery in Saint Petersburg in the 1990s.  They produce several well-known brands including Carlsberg (obviously), Kronenbourg, Corona Extra and Asahi Super Dry.

According to Carlsberg's Group's own site, Baltika Cooler Light, a Pilsner, was launched to "strengthen Baltika's lead in the Russian beer market", which currently stands at over 34%.  Baltika's brand recognition is already very high in Russia.

This was all surprising to me, because - as you might have guessed - I did not enjoy this beer.

In fact, I'd go as far as to say that it's probably the worst beer I've ever tasted - both in terms of personal preference and quality.

There was a familiar smell to it when I cracked it open that, for some reason, was overwhelmingly reminiscent of the dog we had when I was much younger, and the smell that used to come from the metal "bin" in which we kept his supply of dog biscuits.

The taste was not awful, to be fair, but there was a definite lack of flavour.  I couldn't really give any tasting notes, other than to say that the after-taste was slightly medicinal in quality, as this beer was so incredibly bland.

I don't believe that I'm alone in my criticism.  I've looked up other user reviews of this beer on YouTube and there opinions are much the same as my own...maybe minus the dog biscuit revelation...I think that one's specific to me.

I tried to salvage something more from this experience for this blog post, but I'm afraid my research into the Russian alphabet only served to confirm that the Russian characters on the bottle are a phonetic translation of  "Cooler".  I failed to distinguish enough of the remaining characters to make any translations elsewhere

к = k

у = oo

л = l

е = e

р = r

So, conclusion:  I didn't dig this one, and am irritated that I didn't even manage to learn anything culturally from it

Still, don't take my word for it, feel free to judge for yourselves.

You can find out more about Baltika here, and buy Baltika Cooler Light (and many other much better brews) at Beers of Europe