Well, the doctor put me on new medicine and I feel less lethargic than I have in the past. I don't know if it's because I'm off the old medicine or I'm just looking forward to doing something since I've had class for the first time in a couple of weeks. Anyway, I feel like studying languages again for the first time in a long time (well, not that long, just for about a month, but it feels really long for me).
I think I've finally found the list of languages I want to learn.
Spanish
French
Italian
German
Esperanto
Japanese
Swahili
For a total of seven, and I have material for 6 of them. Right now all I have for Swahili is a phrasebook and 10 lessons of Pimsleur. Someone bought the last TYS Swahili in the bookstore before I could get to it.
To go through them quickly:
Spanish: my main language right now, and one that I want to study everyday. I took 2 classes in summer school in 2009 and that's about as far as I've gotten with the language, since I don't think I've progressed very far since then. I have tons of books for Spanish, since I went beserk back when I got materials for it. I've studied off and on for the past 2 years, and I'm still a mid-level beginner! I should be ashamed of myself . . .
French: another language I had in high school, although that was 7 years ago. I don't think I'll study French that much this year, since I really don't feel like doing so. Maybe later.
Italian: my most recent fixation. I bought a TYS yesterday and have enjoyed going through the book since then. I don't think I'll confuse it with my Spanish, like I was concerned, since it doesn't really sound anything like Spanish in my mind's eye, it sounds distinctively Italian. I'll see if the pleasure lasts long enough for me to learn a considerable amount of Italian.
German: I think I'll only go with one Germanic language, actually. I might go for Afrikaans later, since there's a great Website for it, and I like some of the songs on there, although knowing Afrikaans doesn't really serve any practical purpose for me at the moment. I had a lot of fun going through Deutsche Welle's online course and Pimsleur and Michel Thomas CDs, although I stopped shortly after the middle of January. I want to start again, although I'm a little hesitant about studying more than one languages at a time.
Esperanto: the most well-known IAL, and a great gateway into the world of IALs. I went through some of lernu's courses in the beginning of February, and would like to continue. My activity on lernu has dwindled for the past few weeks, so I'll have to start again soon.
Japanese: I have the first 4 CDs of Pimsleur, a TYS book, and a phrasebook, so nothing major. I should have bought the Japanese instead of the Mandarin Michel Thomas, but I guess my library will like it when I donate it, which I guess is what I'll do with my Mandarin MT. I've always wanted to learn a language that uses characters, and I guess Japanese has beaten out Mandarin since I'm more interested in Japan than China, there aren't really any tones (but it does have a slight pitch accent), and Japanese has a syllabary system, so you can always write out what you need to get across to native speakers using the syllabaries instead of using kanji, although that might look childish to native Japanese speakers and might actually be more difficult on the learner. This will be the first time I learned a language that doesn't use the Latin alphabet.
Swahili: I like how it sounds, it's non-Indo-European, it's grammar isn't supposed to be too hard, I would like to learn a little of an African language, and I like the movie King's Solomon's Mines and safari movies. Enough said.
The best part is I can learn any of these languages, with the exception of Swahili, whenever I want to since I have TYS books for all of them, with the exception of Swahili. I guess I should try to find a book for Swahili, but I'll just watch some YouTube videos on Swahili such I have far too much on my language learning plate as it is.
Other languages I might be interested in:
Indonesian
Afrikaans
Occidental Interlingue (an IAL)
Sambahsa-Mundialect (another IAL)
other IALs, although I have no intention of being the Moses McCormick of IALs
a Slavic language - Russian or Polish
Persian/Farsi
I want to learn a Slavic language because I have Slavic ancestry, Polish on my mom's side and Slovenian on my dad's side.
Ah, who am I kidding? I'll never learn that many languages!
Languages I have no intention of learning, unless I'm forced to:
Portuguese (can't stand how it sounds)
Mandarin Chinese (don't like the tones, too confusing)
Arabic (don't like how it sounds)
Dutch (really ugly, rather learn Afrikaans, most speak English)
Scandinavian languages (don't like the sound, doesn't seem too phonetic)
Anything too weird or obscure - people think I'm weird enough as it is
*****
Now for what I'm doing to improve my education.
I have an appointment with my adviser at school to schedule courses for next semester, since it's mandatory. I'm taking a Medical Assisting course, which is the only thing for certain now, plus I'd like to know a little bit about medical billing, since it might help me get a better job, like a management position or even a sales position later on. I'm also thinking about getting a Gerontology certificate, which would mean two or three additional classes beyond my Intro to Gerontology class, since aging is pretty interesting and a lot of jobs are going to open up in the future dealing with older people.
I always love to borrow books from the library, and it's one of my favorite things to do. Right now I'm reading through The Personal MBA, which claims to have all the content of an MBA program (highly doubtful, but my professor DID give me a link to a Website that really DOES have all the content of an MBA program). At the site (the personal MBA site, not the other one) it has a list of books on business, so I'll have to see which ones are at the library and get them on interlibrary loan.
Oh well, that is all.
Showing posts with label French. Show all posts
Showing posts with label French. Show all posts
Friday, March 25, 2011
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Something of Myself
Like I promised, here is a little more about me.
I live in Ohio, and have lived here for my entire life, the past 25 years. The depressing thing is I may live here for the rest of my life, LOL. Honestly, it's not that bad of a place to live.
I have a degree from the University of Akron in Business Administration. I attended UA from 2004 to 2009, but skipped 2008. I am currently enrolled at Stark State College as a health care student. I'm still not 100% sure what I want to do, but I'm thinking about Occupational Therapist Assistant, but it has a 3 year waiting period.
My main interest, and what I spend most my free time doing, is foreign languages. I'm currently interested in Spanish, French, German, Esperanto, and Mandarin, but really have been focusing on German. I really like German, and have been studying it for the past month or so. I would like to get into Mandarin since I have had some experience with the language and enjoyed it, it is different from the other languages I'm interested in, and think it could be useful in the future. I am interested in many other languages, mostly Romance and Germanic languages, but I don't want to list them because it will seem very unrealistic. There may be YouTube polyglots who say they've studied 40-50 languages, but I know myself. I'm not going to study a dozen languages, much less have any proficiency in any of them.
I've been studying Spanish off and on since early 2009, so it's been about 20 months. My progress in Spanish is embarrassingly slow, and have little to show for my efforts in the past. I took 2 years of Spanish in high school, and, like my math skills, my skills from high school Spanish wasted away to almost nothing. I bought and used Practice Makes Perfect: Basic Spanish in March of 2009 as preparation for taking college Spanish. I then took 2 Spanish classes in college and enjoyed them but took the classes as an elective, not as a requirement. I started self-studying Spanish seriously when I started Elementary Spanish II in June of 2009. After my college classes, I studied it off and on, studying seriously for a few months and then putting it aside for a month or two. I have not seriously spent time with Spanish since July of 2010, but would like to get back into studying it, as I like the language and think it can be very useful, especially since I'm thinking about going into health care. Pathetic as it is, I have yet to complete a beginner's book in Spanish yet. Very embarrassing.
I also studied French for 2 years in high school and, just like my math and Spanish skills, they have diminished. The good thing is it does seem familiar to me when I read some French in one of my beginner's books. I really like French, maybe even more than Spanish, but I don't intend to study French anytime soon, as I think it interferes a little with my Spanish.
It is a bit difficult to explain to people why you would want to study Esperanto. It doesn't seem to get the same respect as other languages of its size (about 2 million speakers) and even some language lovers on my favorite language forum, how-to-learn-any-language.com, don't seem to think it is a "real" language. The good thing is that you can learn Esperanto for free on lernu.com, a popular Esperanto site. You can also sign up for a free correspondance course, which I've signed up for last year at about this time but have yet to complete a lesson, since my interest in Esperanto waxes and wanes like the moon. I even bought some books for learning Esperanto, but really haven't gone over them. I don't want to argue about whether we need an international auxiliary language (IAL) or if Esperanto is the best IAL. I think some very interesting people know Esperanto, and you can learn one language and chat online with these interesting people in several different countries in one common language.
Well, enough about languages. I'll discuss other things I like.
One of my favorite classes in school, both high school and college, was history. I am particularly interested in military history and Medieval history. I'm not sure why, I just find that aspect of history interesting. The only problem is I read my last military history book (it was about the Battle of Stalingrad) in the summer of 2008 and I haven't read a book about Medieval history in a long time. I am changing this now, as I've borrowed books from the library about the Battle of Marathon and a rather large book on Medieval history. I have a break from school until the 18th of January and intend to use this time to the best of my ability.
One activity that I would like to get into is birding, or bird watching. I decided this would be a good hobby because I took an online survey and bird watching was the top match, which I somewhat agree with, since social aspect, researching, and a hobby that can be done inside and outside were my most important aspects in a hobby. I've always enjoyed watching birds, especially as a kid, when I was the family's self-proclaimed bird expert (well, as much of an expert as a kid with an identification guide could be). There are two Audubon Societies near me, one in Akron and one in Canton, and I might try to go to one or the other, or possibly even both if one meets at a more convenient time and the other has more field trips. I guess I should find a more experienced birder to show me the ropes and teach me the proper technique, as well as show me good locations. I hope to go to an Audubon meeting soon.
I am also interested in music, both as a musician and as a listener. I've learned to play the cello, recorder, trombone, and violin, the first three in elementary school and the violin I took my first lesson in May 2009. The trombone is the only instrument I feel comfortable playing in public, and I hope to start playing the violin more, but I don't think the violin is a very good instrument for me, as I need to use my hands. I don't have good manual dexterity. Oh well, at least it isn't the piano. As far as listening to music, I've come a long way from only wanting to listen to classical and hymns, since my religious leaders wanted me to think everything else was evil. I don't know what I really like, although I still like classical. Whatever sounds good, I guess.
Since this is a blog, I guess I should talk about religion and politics, as they seem to be a popular subjects to blog about. I have to say, I feel really uncomfortable about writing this. I really hate talking about religion and politics, as they are subjects that good people demonize other good people for not having the same values they do. I was raised Baptist, first GARBC and then independent. I really have a dislike for the fundamentalist Christianity I was raised with, for a variety of reasons. I'm not really sure what my religious orientation is, but I don't think I'm completely ready to give up on Christianity, just to find a less fundamentalist variety. My politics were very conservative and I considered myself a member of the Religious Right for a time. Now I am much less conservative and really dislike the major conservative pundits - like Hannity, Beck, Coulter, Limbaugh, and Pat Robertson - as much as I dislike the major liberal pundits, so I guess I'm a moderate on most issues. What I once considered major issues that I thought God would judge America on, such as abortion and gay rights, I now think is really none of my business. Ah, one religious fundamentalist ultraconservative American down, a few million more to go.
My favorite saying for religion and politics is:
If it's stupid, but it works, it isn't stupid.
Oh well, that's enough about myself. I'm not a very good writer. Thanks to anyone who's read this far.
See you later.
I live in Ohio, and have lived here for my entire life, the past 25 years. The depressing thing is I may live here for the rest of my life, LOL. Honestly, it's not that bad of a place to live.
I have a degree from the University of Akron in Business Administration. I attended UA from 2004 to 2009, but skipped 2008. I am currently enrolled at Stark State College as a health care student. I'm still not 100% sure what I want to do, but I'm thinking about Occupational Therapist Assistant, but it has a 3 year waiting period.
My main interest, and what I spend most my free time doing, is foreign languages. I'm currently interested in Spanish, French, German, Esperanto, and Mandarin, but really have been focusing on German. I really like German, and have been studying it for the past month or so. I would like to get into Mandarin since I have had some experience with the language and enjoyed it, it is different from the other languages I'm interested in, and think it could be useful in the future. I am interested in many other languages, mostly Romance and Germanic languages, but I don't want to list them because it will seem very unrealistic. There may be YouTube polyglots who say they've studied 40-50 languages, but I know myself. I'm not going to study a dozen languages, much less have any proficiency in any of them.
I've been studying Spanish off and on since early 2009, so it's been about 20 months. My progress in Spanish is embarrassingly slow, and have little to show for my efforts in the past. I took 2 years of Spanish in high school, and, like my math skills, my skills from high school Spanish wasted away to almost nothing. I bought and used Practice Makes Perfect: Basic Spanish in March of 2009 as preparation for taking college Spanish. I then took 2 Spanish classes in college and enjoyed them but took the classes as an elective, not as a requirement. I started self-studying Spanish seriously when I started Elementary Spanish II in June of 2009. After my college classes, I studied it off and on, studying seriously for a few months and then putting it aside for a month or two. I have not seriously spent time with Spanish since July of 2010, but would like to get back into studying it, as I like the language and think it can be very useful, especially since I'm thinking about going into health care. Pathetic as it is, I have yet to complete a beginner's book in Spanish yet. Very embarrassing.
I also studied French for 2 years in high school and, just like my math and Spanish skills, they have diminished. The good thing is it does seem familiar to me when I read some French in one of my beginner's books. I really like French, maybe even more than Spanish, but I don't intend to study French anytime soon, as I think it interferes a little with my Spanish.
It is a bit difficult to explain to people why you would want to study Esperanto. It doesn't seem to get the same respect as other languages of its size (about 2 million speakers) and even some language lovers on my favorite language forum, how-to-learn-any-language.com, don't seem to think it is a "real" language. The good thing is that you can learn Esperanto for free on lernu.com, a popular Esperanto site. You can also sign up for a free correspondance course, which I've signed up for last year at about this time but have yet to complete a lesson, since my interest in Esperanto waxes and wanes like the moon. I even bought some books for learning Esperanto, but really haven't gone over them. I don't want to argue about whether we need an international auxiliary language (IAL) or if Esperanto is the best IAL. I think some very interesting people know Esperanto, and you can learn one language and chat online with these interesting people in several different countries in one common language.
Well, enough about languages. I'll discuss other things I like.
One of my favorite classes in school, both high school and college, was history. I am particularly interested in military history and Medieval history. I'm not sure why, I just find that aspect of history interesting. The only problem is I read my last military history book (it was about the Battle of Stalingrad) in the summer of 2008 and I haven't read a book about Medieval history in a long time. I am changing this now, as I've borrowed books from the library about the Battle of Marathon and a rather large book on Medieval history. I have a break from school until the 18th of January and intend to use this time to the best of my ability.
One activity that I would like to get into is birding, or bird watching. I decided this would be a good hobby because I took an online survey and bird watching was the top match, which I somewhat agree with, since social aspect, researching, and a hobby that can be done inside and outside were my most important aspects in a hobby. I've always enjoyed watching birds, especially as a kid, when I was the family's self-proclaimed bird expert (well, as much of an expert as a kid with an identification guide could be). There are two Audubon Societies near me, one in Akron and one in Canton, and I might try to go to one or the other, or possibly even both if one meets at a more convenient time and the other has more field trips. I guess I should find a more experienced birder to show me the ropes and teach me the proper technique, as well as show me good locations. I hope to go to an Audubon meeting soon.
I am also interested in music, both as a musician and as a listener. I've learned to play the cello, recorder, trombone, and violin, the first three in elementary school and the violin I took my first lesson in May 2009. The trombone is the only instrument I feel comfortable playing in public, and I hope to start playing the violin more, but I don't think the violin is a very good instrument for me, as I need to use my hands. I don't have good manual dexterity. Oh well, at least it isn't the piano. As far as listening to music, I've come a long way from only wanting to listen to classical and hymns, since my religious leaders wanted me to think everything else was evil. I don't know what I really like, although I still like classical. Whatever sounds good, I guess.
Since this is a blog, I guess I should talk about religion and politics, as they seem to be a popular subjects to blog about. I have to say, I feel really uncomfortable about writing this. I really hate talking about religion and politics, as they are subjects that good people demonize other good people for not having the same values they do. I was raised Baptist, first GARBC and then independent. I really have a dislike for the fundamentalist Christianity I was raised with, for a variety of reasons. I'm not really sure what my religious orientation is, but I don't think I'm completely ready to give up on Christianity, just to find a less fundamentalist variety. My politics were very conservative and I considered myself a member of the Religious Right for a time. Now I am much less conservative and really dislike the major conservative pundits - like Hannity, Beck, Coulter, Limbaugh, and Pat Robertson - as much as I dislike the major liberal pundits, so I guess I'm a moderate on most issues. What I once considered major issues that I thought God would judge America on, such as abortion and gay rights, I now think is really none of my business. Ah, one religious fundamentalist ultraconservative American down, a few million more to go.
My favorite saying for religion and politics is:
If it's stupid, but it works, it isn't stupid.
Oh well, that's enough about myself. I'm not a very good writer. Thanks to anyone who's read this far.
See you later.
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