Arabic is a hard case given the diglossia and the large number of dialects: on Al Jazeera you can hear all the Arabic varieties (MSA in news reports, dialects in interviews, and a mix MSA and dialects or "educated spoken Arabic" in talk shows) so it makes it even harder. It's still impressive that you can understand most of it!
You're right, I should add Preply and italki. I've been using italki for Turkish for the past few weeks and it helps a lot.
Turkish is an interesting language. I'm very curious about iTalki. Thanks for your reply! You're right, Arabic is a very special case. It seems with Spanish, English speakers are already doing great with 3000 words.
The number of words is a bit misleading. If you're an English-speakers and you know 3,000 words "actively" (you're able to translate them to and from English) you actually know way more words because of the "passive" knowledge due to common Latin or French roots, especially for educated learners. For instance, you may not include a complex word such as "xenophobia" in your 3,000 word count and you may never use it in a discussion, but for sure if you read a newspaper or hear on TV the word "xenofobia" you'll recognize it and understand it. For more distant languages such as Arabic, Turkish, or Mandarin you can't leverage etymology to "passively" increase your vocabulary.
This is very true. The relative distance between two languages is what determines how “leveraged” the learning is. For linguists though, I think the greater the relative the distance, the more interesting the language is.
There's so much you can do with 3000 words but tbh, I'm 5000 words in with Arabic, and still struggle to understand Al Jazeera unless I have a dictionary handy. However, for every day life I'm good. I'm technically almost done with B2 and will be C1 soon.
I don't think I could get there were it not for preply and doing an intense 4 hours a week of conversation IRL for a year. Pricy but worth it, although 2 hours a week is the recommended. Check out preply.
Congrats on your Russian progress so far, Antoine.
I’m towards the end of my first month (lesson 21) of Russian with Pimsleur. Knowing the magic of assimil for contextualizing my book knowledge in French and letting me speak within weeks, I am getting bored with pimsleur. It’s moving slow, doesn’t focus on phrasal context as much as assimil and it focuses way too long on repetitive content (till when are we going to talk only about food?!).
Now I understand assimil has a basic Russian in English but the advanced is only in French. My French is intermediate so I hope the Russian/French helps me learn Russian while I improve my French. Wishful thinking or a good plan?
A really cool project, bro. And great that you have written a lot about the apps you have been using and the progress you got from them. I don't like DuoLingo myself - I think it's rubbish and a waste of time. And yes, your Russian accent is really good ;-)
Thanks! Actually, Duolingo is rubbish to learn a new language from scratch. But if you start with another method (such as Pimsleur and/or Assimil) and then after a few weeks start Duolingo you can choose on Duolingo to do a placement test and because you already know the basics of the language, you'll skip the boring exercises at the beginning and directly jump to more advanced lessons. Then Duolingo is more fun, less boring, and more useful!
Interesting. In class today we were talking about apps to supplement classroom learning. Did you have any knowledge of Russian, especially in its alphabet, when you started ? Or were you what we call a 'raw beginner'?
Hi Jools. I didn't know anything about Russian and the Cyrillic alphabet when I started. Are you learning Russian? When did you start and how is it going so far?
Arabic is a hard case given the diglossia and the large number of dialects: on Al Jazeera you can hear all the Arabic varieties (MSA in news reports, dialects in interviews, and a mix MSA and dialects or "educated spoken Arabic" in talk shows) so it makes it even harder. It's still impressive that you can understand most of it!
You're right, I should add Preply and italki. I've been using italki for Turkish for the past few weeks and it helps a lot.
Turkish is an interesting language. I'm very curious about iTalki. Thanks for your reply! You're right, Arabic is a very special case. It seems with Spanish, English speakers are already doing great with 3000 words.
The number of words is a bit misleading. If you're an English-speakers and you know 3,000 words "actively" (you're able to translate them to and from English) you actually know way more words because of the "passive" knowledge due to common Latin or French roots, especially for educated learners. For instance, you may not include a complex word such as "xenophobia" in your 3,000 word count and you may never use it in a discussion, but for sure if you read a newspaper or hear on TV the word "xenofobia" you'll recognize it and understand it. For more distant languages such as Arabic, Turkish, or Mandarin you can't leverage etymology to "passively" increase your vocabulary.
This is very true. The relative distance between two languages is what determines how “leveraged” the learning is. For linguists though, I think the greater the relative the distance, the more interesting the language is.
There's so much you can do with 3000 words but tbh, I'm 5000 words in with Arabic, and still struggle to understand Al Jazeera unless I have a dictionary handy. However, for every day life I'm good. I'm technically almost done with B2 and will be C1 soon.
I don't think I could get there were it not for preply and doing an intense 4 hours a week of conversation IRL for a year. Pricy but worth it, although 2 hours a week is the recommended. Check out preply.
Congrats on your Russian progress so far, Antoine.
I’m towards the end of my first month (lesson 21) of Russian with Pimsleur. Knowing the magic of assimil for contextualizing my book knowledge in French and letting me speak within weeks, I am getting bored with pimsleur. It’s moving slow, doesn’t focus on phrasal context as much as assimil and it focuses way too long on repetitive content (till when are we going to talk only about food?!).
Now I understand assimil has a basic Russian in English but the advanced is only in French. My French is intermediate so I hope the Russian/French helps me learn Russian while I improve my French. Wishful thinking or a good plan?
Hi,
Yes if you're a fast learner Pimsleur may be too slow for you. I still think it's the best way to get a good accent.
Regarding Assimil, you can download the first 7 lessons for free here, you'll see if your French is good enough: https://www.assimil.com/fr/e-methodes/988-e-methode-perfectionnement-russe-9782700562194.html
You can similarly try basic Russian in English here: https://www.assimil.com/en/e-courses/1047-e-methode-russian-9782700562477.html
Let me know if that works for you!
A really cool project, bro. And great that you have written a lot about the apps you have been using and the progress you got from them. I don't like DuoLingo myself - I think it's rubbish and a waste of time. And yes, your Russian accent is really good ;-)
Thanks! Actually, Duolingo is rubbish to learn a new language from scratch. But if you start with another method (such as Pimsleur and/or Assimil) and then after a few weeks start Duolingo you can choose on Duolingo to do a placement test and because you already know the basics of the language, you'll skip the boring exercises at the beginning and directly jump to more advanced lessons. Then Duolingo is more fun, less boring, and more useful!
Really? Well, maybe. I might give it another try some time in the future, far far away ;-)
Interesting. In class today we were talking about apps to supplement classroom learning. Did you have any knowledge of Russian, especially in its alphabet, when you started ? Or were you what we call a 'raw beginner'?
Hi Jools. I didn't know anything about Russian and the Cyrillic alphabet when I started. Are you learning Russian? When did you start and how is it going so far?