Learning the Korean Language and Writing

My partner got back from his business trip to South Korea today and brought me two books for learning Korean, one in Mandarin and one in English. The English book is called The Korean Conversation (1) : The Korean Conversation Within Theme and I have to say that the title and preface will give you an idea of what’s in store. I’ve made a few photos of some choice phrases which had me and my partner in stitches.

That last sentence has a very philosophical feel to it.  Maybe I shouldn’t “pessimize” too much about the “desperate language”.

It surprises me that they didn’t ask a native English speaker to proofread (or should that be “rewrite”) the book before publishing it. Learning Korean is a challenge in itself without struggling to figure out what the English sentences are supposed to mean..

If anyone knows the proper English translations of the sentences listed above, please let me know.

Linear B and Other Ancient Scripts

I’ve been doing a bit of background reading on Linear B and other early writing systems for an essay for my Later Prehistory course. Long-time readers will probably have heard me mention that I’m taking a series of introductory archaeology courses offered by the University of Leicester. The current course, Later Prehistory, tackles a rather wide range of cultures, including the Minoans, the Bronze age cultures of Europe, the early urban civilisations of Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley and China, and the early states of the Americas (e.g. Olmecs, Maya).

Although I am only 1 week into this 12-week course, I have already begun to do some background reading and research for my essay. Students are given a small selection of essay titles to choose from and I’ve decided to choose the title which I felt would be an excellent way for me to combine my love for languages with my passion for archaeology : How did early writing systems differ in their material form and use within society? Discuss in relation to at least three writing systems. I haven’t made any firm decisions on the writing systems I’m choosing to focus on for this essay but Linear B is one of them. Other candidates include the oracle bone script of Shang Dynasty China, Egyptian hieroglyphs and Mesopotamian cuneiform.

I’m currently reading through John Chadwick’s Linear B and Related Scripts to get a better idea of how the Linear B script was used in Minoan society. One thing that becomes clear very early on in the book is that Linear B was used almost exclusively for administrative purposes. There is no evidence as yet to suggest that the script was ever used for historical or “recreational” purposes, which sets it apart from other ancient languages such as cuneiform and Ancient Greek, which were used for writing down their myths and were used for diplomatic affairs. The decipherment  of Linear B was quite a breakthrough in the understanding of the rise (and fall) of Minoan civilization. I found a copy of Andrew Robinson’s biography of Michael Ventris, The Man Who Deciphered Linear B, in the Amsterdam Public Library (Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam), which I will read as soon as I have finished reading Chadwick’s book. Once I have finished reading both of those books, I will move on to Steven Roger Fischer’s A History of Writing and Lesley Adkin’s book Empires of the Plain. Needless to say, I’m going to be quite busy for the next few weeks!

A to Z Challenge Update – I’m still working through Alan R. King’s The Basque Language. I’m trying to memorise some of the dialogues he’s used in the book using the sentence method and am trying to dissect each sentence in order to consolidate everything I’ve learnt so far. It’s good to see that I can finally understand basic sentences and am getting to grips with the case endings. If only the verbs were as straightforward…

Teppanyaki and the Passé Simple

I mentioned in an earlier post that I’m currently reading Christine Arnothy’s J’ai quinze ans et je ne veux pas mourir as my foreign language book of the month. One of the things I’ve learnt from reading this is the passé simple. This may sound odd but I wasn’t aware of this form until I started reading J’ai quinze ans. I certainly don’t remember learning it at school and this is the first time I’ve come across it in a French-language novel, though having said that, I’ve only read four French-language books in recent memory.

I won’t go into too much detail about the passé simple as my knowledge of French grammar is quite patchy. All I know is that it’s the literary equivalent of the passé composé and it can be identified quite easily (nous and vous forms end in âmes/îmes and âtes/îtes respectively). A quick introduction to this verb form can be found here and here.

My partner and I treated ourselves to an all-you-can-eat teppanyaki (鉄板焼き) buffet this evening, which included a lot of sushi and tempura, even though neither of these are cooked on the teppan (鉄板) itself. I wonder if this would be the correct way to say what we did this evening..

Ce soir, nous allâmes au restaurant japonais et nous mangeâmes des sushi et du tempura.

Well, folks, that’s all for the time being. I’m still feeling very full so I’m going to do what the Dutch do when they’ve eaten way too much : uitbuiken*.

* uitbuiken - the best way to describe this is “unbuttoning or loosening your trousers or jeans to make yourself more comfortable after a heavy meal”. Or more simply, “to let your belly hang out” (buik is the Dutch word for “stomach” or “belly”).

Book of the Month – February

One of my New Year’s resolutions was to read at least one foreign-language book a month. In January I read China : Centrum van de Wereld, a Dutch-language book on contemporary Chinese society written by Dutch Sinologist Garrie van Pinxteren. I’ve decided to choose a French book for February and found a copy of a Christine Arnothy’s J’ai quinze ans et je veux pas mourir, a tale about the author’s life and escape from Budapest during the Second World War.

I only managed to read two pages of the book so far as I fell asleep shortly afterwards. This isn’t a comment on the quality of the writing, rather on my stupid decision to start reading a new book after midnight. I’m not sure whether I can manage to read the whole book before the end of February, given that February is a short month and that I’m also doing a distance-learning course on classical archaeology. Still, there’s certainly no harm in trying and I’ve been meaning to return to my French studies for some time now.

I’m planning on reading Il nome della rosa in March so I’ll have covered Dutch, French and Italian before April. After that, I’ll be concentrating on Spanish, Chinese and Japanese. Does anyone have any recommendations for books in these languages?

Revisiting Persian

Readers who have been following my online exploits since the days of the original Aspiring Polyglot blog will know that I have dabbled with Persian (Farsi) in the past. This was before I started learning Japanese and taking my Dutch studies seriously so it was a short-lived adventure and I set it aside with a view to revisiting it someday.

I’ve been giving some thought to re-embarking on my Persian studies, even though I know I should follow my partner’s advice and stay focused on the languages I’m already learning. After all, what would I use Persian for? He may be right. Discipline and willpower are vital allies in the quest to master a language but I’ve also been blessed (or should that be ‘cursed’?) with an almost insatiable curiosity for languages. Persian is an age-old and fascinating language with a beautiful script and rich cultural heritage. Despite the turbulent political atmosphere, Iran is an intriguing country and a wonderland for archaeology enthusiasts, one I would very much like to visit someday.

Should I follow my partner’s advice and not succumb to wanderlust? Or should I satisfy my curiosity and set myself yet another challenge? Oral fluency is not my goal here as I’m more interested in learning how to read and understand Persian so I’m not particularly worried about not being able to speak it well. In some ways, I think I’m more interested in studying languages rather than learning them, though I have to admit I’m not that keen on linguistics and theories of language acquisition. What interests me most about languages are the words, the expressions and figures of speech, the cultural references that are embodied in what people say to each other. Do you really need to be a fluent speaker in order to enjoy these things? It certainly would help but I don’t believe it’s essential. People are able to admire Latin and Ancient Greek without speaking them so the same could be true of a modern and living language.

But I digress…

On the subject of learning Persian, I’ve tracked down a few books and courses for learning the language. I came across an electronic copy of Colloquial Persian by Leila Moshiri. I’ve had a quick look through it and it looks like it might be of some use. My main complaint with this book is that the Persian script is not used at all. Romanisation is fine for learning how to speak the language but I hate being illiterate in any language (I despise books which teach Japanese through rōmaji alone).

I also found a more recent edition of Teach Yourself Persian. The edition I bought a few years ago was an outdated edition which only seemed to cover grammar and the script (i.e. no dialogues). Its biggest flaw was that the Persian script was almost illegible thanks to the microscopic font they used. The newer edition, Teach Yourself Modern Persian, looks quite promising. It comes with audio CDs and, more importantly, teaches the Persian script from very early on. Romanisations are still used but only in the lists of new vocabulary and in conjunction with the Persian script and English translations.

The Assimil course Le Persan sans peine also looks good. It’s only available in French, but thankfully my knowledge of written French is still quite good despite years of relative neglect. There’s also the fantastic EasyPersian.Com website. It feels like it hasn’t been updated in ages but the lessons are all still there and it’s still one of the best online resources for learning Persian.

One final resource I would like to mention is the Persian for You audio course available at the IRIB World Service site. The downside is that there are no transcripts available, at least none that I can see. The French edition has no audio but plenty of text and the Spanish edition has audio and transcripts (though you will need to really dig around for the audio files).

Has anyone tried learning Persian? If so, what are your thoughts on learning the language? Any advice or resources you would like to share with other Persian enthusiasts?

PS> New language learner interviews will be posted tomorrow. I have three new ones to read through and format.

Nederlands Dagboek – 20th January 2009

Ik ben nog steeds bezig in het boek China : Centrum van de Wereld. Het boek gaat over de moderne Chinese maatschappij en is geschreven door Garrie van Pinxteren, een Nederlandse journaliste en sinoloog. Ik vind het redelijk makkelijk te begrijpen, maar er zijn nog wat onbekende woorden.

Lezen is een hele goed manier om nieuwe woorden te leren maar ik wil ook mijn Nederlands schrijfvaardigheid verbeteren. Ik gebruik heel weinig Nederlands op het kantoor, dus ben ik van plan om korte ‘blog posts’ te schrijven.

Maar ik moet weg! Ik moet het avondeten maken en het is bijna half negen…

Tot zo.

PS. If there are any glaring mistakes, please let me know! I can only learn from my mistakes.

Fun With Words – 14th January 2009

One of the New Year’s resolutions I set myself for 2009 was to read at least one foreign language book a month. I’m currently reading China : Centrum van de Wereld by Dutch Sinologist Garrie van Pinxteren, a Dutch-language non-fiction book  about present-day Chinese society. In some ways, I find non-fiction more accessible to the language learner than a novel as the words used are commonly seen in the newspapers or heard in documentaries. Things are made even easier when you’re already familiar with the subject matter as you can make an educated guess about some of the unknown words you come across.

I’m impressed at how easily I can read Dutch books after two years of living in the Netherlands and can’t help but wish that my speaking skills were just as good! I still come across words and expressions that I’m not familiar with so I still have a long way to go before I can claim to read fluently (is there such a thing as fluency in reading?). I’ve made a note of some of the new words I came across today and will be creating an Anki flashcard set for them shortly.

• onuitvoerbaar - impractical, unfeasible
• overtuigingskracht (de) - persuasiveness
• drilpuddinkje (het) - diminutive form of drilpudding, a gelatin dessert or jelly pudding
• aframmeling (de) - a beating, a thrashing
• aanvankelijk - initially, at first
• huiverig - hesitant
• inlichtingendienst (de) – the intelligence service, the secret service
• marmeren (de) – marble (the material)
• ophaalbrug (de) - drawbridge
• spuugbak (de) - spittoon

That’s all for today. I’ll be writing some posts about Japanese onomatopoeia (擬声語/擬音語) and mimetic words (擬態語) later this week.

The Name of the Rose

My partner was in Italy last week on business and he brought me a copy of Umberto Eco’s Il nome della rosa (The Name of the Rose) back with him for me to read. While I’m not actively learning Italian, I enjoy reading Italian books and magazines and find it a brilliant way to improve my Italian reading skills and broaden my (passive) vocabulary.

Il nome della rosa will be the first Italian-language book that I will read which I haven’t already read in English. I read the Italian translations of The Da Vinci Code and Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince some time ago and didn’t have too much trouble reading them…of course, knowing what the book is about does help a great deal! I read one of Eco’s other books, an English translation of  Foucalt’s Pendulum, last month and, as I mentioned in my previous post, he has the habit of using rare words and intricate metaphor in his works.

Seeing that I stumbled on the occasional word in a translated edition, I’m certain I’ll have to keep my Italian-English dictionaries quite close by when I make a start on Il nome della rosa later this week…