I'm learning Arabic. My biggest issue there is finding resources for Levantine Arabic which I'm learning. I'm mostly learning Standard Arabic but want to focus on the dialect. For me culture and language are the same, so very important. I really enjoyed an Arabic TV show about the life of Omar ibn al-Khattab called Farouk Omar. It taught me a lot about early Islamic and it is a beautiful show as a whole as well. I also enjoy the music of Fairouz, Kadim al-Sahir and Akher Zapheer. I have not watched an Arabic movie yet but there are some that are on my IMDB and Netflix watch lists.
this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2024
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So I'm not sure if this is any good, but I thought I had stumbled onto a resource before to do with Arabic dialects and I'm also not sure this is the one I found before, but it does have Levantine as one of the dialects that it focuses on: https://talkinarabic.com/levantine/
Also found this while searching, which seems more of a formal study course than the other one: https://www.levantineonline.com/levantine-dialect
I am currently studying Vietnamese, which has a lot of benefits and drawbacks.
Some of the benefits are that modern Vietnamese has a crazy high number of Mandarin loan words, and as I studied that language previously, it is easy to remember a lot of that vocabulary. Being a Latin based script, it is quite easy to learn how to read and write.
There are some difficulties though. As my native language is English and my second language is Mandarin, both of these languages focus heavily on consonant sounds, and if you can get all of the consonants pronounced correctly and in the correct order, everyone will understand what you intend to say, even of your pronunciation is terrible. Vietnamese is exactly the opposite, the focus is very much on vowel pronunciation (and they have a lot of vowels), along with 5 (technically 6 if including 'no tone') tones, which are much more important than tones in Mandarin for understandability. Also, being a visibly obvious foreigner comes with some complications for practicing speaking. Living in a major city, English language education is quite good among the younger generations, so any time speaking with them, the vast majority are eager to practice their spoken English, even when conversation is initiated in Vietnamese. Among older generations, they know that their language is an incredibly difficult one and they do not expect foreigners to learn it, so much so that many older people will simply refuse to engage with a foreigner who tries to speak it, and just call over their child to translate for them.
What are some challenges you face while learning your target language? How do you overcome them?
There are so many Chinese characters to learn. O_O I am trying to stay focused mostly on the most common ones for now, through apps, to cover the most useful ground. Grammar is also challenging in its own way and to work on that, I've been using an app called TalkMe. I think I mentioned trying some other similar apps, somewhere on the grad, but this is the one I've been using lately; it uses AI for conversation to help with practicing it. I take it with a grain of salt cause AI can make errors more so than a fluent human, but it gives me a reason to put stuff I'm learning into practice instead of trying to convince my brain it's important to remember stuff I never use.
How important is it for you to learn about the culture surrounding your target language?
It's one of the reasons I'm learning, so pretty important.
What movies, songs, or books in your target language have you enjoyed?
Green Snake and Super Me, which I watched with subtitles. Super Me is a pretty interesting premise, writer who blurs the line between real world and dream.
When I studied Mandarin, I found it really beneficial to practice hand writing as a way to ingrain each character into my brain. Learning them visually and typing them can be fine for some people, but I found that practicing hand writing to be much, much better for memorization. Even a decade later, I can still remember the meanings of most characters, even if I have forgotten their pronunciation.
To paraphrase an old teacher of mine, "writing characters is similar to doing Tai Chi, the movements to create the characters are as symbolic as the written characters themselves, how we write carries as much meaning as what we write."
Everyone learns differently, so this might not be as helpful for you as it was for me, but best of luck! 好好学习天天向上！
Thank you! 谢谢！
It is something I've considered, but haven't found the right circumstances to keep up at that kind of repetition habitually. Some apps have character writing and I have a stylus with my phone, so that's already close to doing it by hand and then I can do it over and over without having to worry about paper and the like. But the lack of novelty in it makes it difficult for me to stick with—very likely have ADHD of a kind and so one of the ways I keep myself learning is by introducing new/novel alongside other learning. Sometimes that has taken the form of dipping into another language on top of Mandarin, sometimes I've done it by going through a whole new app's course different from one I've tried before; currently doing that via LingoDeer's Mandarin course and also because I wanted to find another app to have a "home base" for study after HelloChinese made some moves I didn't like.
Oh also, I came across this app Chinese Deciphered, which is along the lines of digging into meaning and construction of characters. I think using it to look up characters in detail is a similar principle to the repetition of writing them, in that it puts the focus on each component of the character, not just what they look like at a glance. Though I imagine writing probably has cognitive benefit that other stuff just doesn't, due to the tactile link.
Thank you for this!
So, as an Eireannach duine (I denounce ameriKKKa and I don't like its culture too much its too much yelling and being all around odd and I plan to move out to my relative's home country of Eire or until the revolution happens which then I plan to try helping then leaving back to Eire), I really have a problem finding anyone to talk to in it to better myself at it only having duolingo. I want to get better at it and learn other languages like
(I have a lot I want to learn so get ready and most either endangered or dead)
(Not considering irish thats already stated) Scottish gallic, Manx, Cornish, Breton, Welsh, Modern Gaulish, Phoenician, Russian, Arabic, Chinese, Assyrian, Farsi, Sumerian, Latin, and Gothic.
MOST I CANT SPEAK TO OTHERS WITH WHO AM I FINDING TO SPEAK PHOENICIAN TO? HANNIBAL? HE IS D E A D!!!
anyway the easiest for me to learn is Russian because gf is Russian but I'm dying inside with having no one to speak Eire with at least T ^ T
Also for the culture I'm an Irish pagan, I wear a Triskelion 24/7, I know IN DETAIL the history of Ireland and the Celts in general from both Galicias in Anatolia and Iberia to Cisalpine and Scotland. Literally from the Halstatt culture to modern day I know a lot. for the others I'm a big history nerd and my gf is Russian so I wanna know it for her but idc much about Russian history too much I'm not too interested in it as much as Middle Eastern Iron age or bronze age history, Chinese history, the Gothic invasion of the imperial Romans, and satanistic chants to scream at people to make them think I'm possessed:3
Also for movies I WISH I HAD ACCESS TO THEM GIMME SOME GAEILGE MOVIES
If anyone has any ideas for resources to be added to the link list let me know by the way! <3