Word Frequency List, anyone?

Today at work I’ve been looking up Persian and Linguistic articles on academic search engines through PSU. There are a lot of good ones, and I’m much better at understanding language through solid hard science and linguistic aspects. I think…

I found a word frequency list while searching, and it gave me the idea of making my own. It’s obviously made in Visual Basic, so if I can find a program and make one to read Persian words, I can get my own frequency list maker. Of course, with Persian, there are stems attaching to words (like Ketab = Ketabi / Ketabam / Ketab-e) so I’ll have to figure something about that. May have to chart out every stem in Persian first, which will be a joyous pain that I am completely unqualified for right now.

A breath of fresh energy

School got out last week, and I’ll admit that finals broke me. I stopped learning my flashcards, and basically Farsi. I’ll admit that the past year my Farsi actually got a bit worse. I just had not put the time in. I realized it when a classmate saw us and is 100x better than me now. There are a bunch of factors, but the main one being I didn’t put the time in.

Rule 1) To learn a language it takes time. Just putting the time in some form of learning makes you learn, regardless of how effective that method is. Just like investing (as long as you don’t count venture capital and stock market trading).

Tonight I spent the evening at Ava’s. It’s a coffee shop owned and ran by Persians. A new worker from Iran, Ramin, was working. He came and sat down with me and a few friends and we spend the next few hours speaking and discussing Persian. I learned more in those 3 – 4 hours than the past six months in Farsi. It reinvigorated my desire to learn.

Rule 2) Stay motivated. Even when you’re not, just force yourself to. It helps reinforce your willpower to do rule #1 of putting the time in.

Also last week my resolve strengthened when I acquired a HUGE dry erase board. It must be 4′ x 8′. I am using it for daily words and solely Farsi practice. I am a linguistics major, and I hope to one day make a language learning method that outshines all others. In that vein, I am trying every possible language learning method out there, from flashcards to whiteboards to immersion to syntax deconstruction.

Rule 3) Try learning your target language with as many possible methods as possible. Eventually, you’ll find one (or many) ways that you really enjoy, or keep you motivated, or teach you the language quicker. For me, I have learned Flashcards. Whiteboard seems to help too. Some write it down in notebooks, but I get disorganized too quickly. I have yet to try computer or audio programs.

A while back I got frustrated with a lack of good guidance on learning a language, nor a useful word frequency list for the different dialects, so I just opened a dictionary and began learning the vocabular one letter at a time. I got to C before I realized that many of the words are esoteric and rarely used. I have since then changed my plan to include the aide of friends and knowledgeable Farsi/Dari speakers. I am giving my dictionary to friends and having them highlight the words used most often, then focusing on those FIRST. I will eventually learn them all, but it’s a concise, 8,400 word dictionary, and I need to get crackin’ on the good words, stat.

Rule 4) Don’t be afraid to adapt your style or methods to suit you. A lot of methods are out there, and they all work perfectly, for some people. If you’re doing something, and it isn’t working, change it. I could say “hell, I’m 3 letters in, I might as well stick it out and impress people like Malcolm X learning the Dictionary in prison”, or I could just adapt to the realities of word frequency. Until I find a good frequency list, that is. ;]

Other than that, my free time is a lot more this week and the rest of September. I look forward to revamping this blog and making a lot of Farsi-only (and Dari-only) blogs, as well as a comprehensive flashcard set.

The reasoning behind Language

At the beginning of the book “How to Learn Any Language the Quick and Dirty Way”, A.G. Hawke puts the quote “To learn another language is to gain another soul. I think it’s entirely coupled with culture (probably why people living in total immersion learn quicker), and when you learn another language, the culture comes along with it. You also get to go somewhere completely out of your normal “comfort zone” and see how others live.

The other night I was telling someone that as a soldier in Afghanistan, I was somewhat (very loosely) like an Anthropologist–I got to go into houses and look around at how they lived. I also learned Pashto in two months enough to hold a decent conversation.

Right now I live with one Persian (Iranian) and one Tajik (Afghan). The house is a-changing more Persian every day. heh. I think that’s a good thing. Hopefully I’ll get some good language exchange out of it.

Leading by Example

Over the Army two weeks, we often had free time. Not enough free time to do anything productive, just a few minutes here, an hour there, throughout the day. You know what I did? I pulled out my stack of daily flashcards and went through them.

It impressed some soldiers. Envious that I was using my time instead of giving it all to the Army.

That’s all it takes with flashcards, a few minutes for those free moments.

Army Training over. RS Spanish ordered

I just got back from two weeks out in the swamps and woods of the Oregon coastline, doing military training. I fell in a swamp and my phone died, I threw some grenades, shot some rifles, and had a blast. Now I have a tan, and some sore muscles.
Also during that time, I brought my flashcards out. I have a small, protective case that holds about 50 flashcards, and a 300 card case that I kept in the bay. I am now well into the C’s and though my learning curve slowed down (getting up at 5am and training until 8pm, only to go out and party until 2am didn’t help) along with my brain’s ability to retain information.

I learned probably 200 new words in 2 weeks. A little slower than my average, but still good progress in the right direction. Hopefully I’ll have it down by the end of summer to the last few letters of the alphabet.

Also I have a new roommate moving in. She’s Iranian, so now I’m living with an Iranian and an Afghan (Herati). As soon as my reenlistment bonus comes in, I’m going to get a satellite to get Iranian/Afghan TV, and just bombard my brain with Persian related anything.

Also I hit my six month mark at Rosetta Stone, so I’m getting a free level of Japanese, and ordering a 1,2 package of Latin American Spanish for $40 per level. My other job at the adult toy store has a bilingual sales woman (“passion expert”) who I can practice Spanish with while I work. For the time being, I’m keeping Pashto on hold.

A little update

I changed up the layout again to maximize ease of readability.

I changed up the links to ones that have helped me learn Persian and Dari. I’ll continue adding them, and feel free to give me suggestions on dari/farsi/persian/pashto websites that have helped you learn!

I also included the link to my other site, which is focused on the act of learning a language, whereas this site is just me blogging my daily struggle with gaining fluency in four languages at once, http://learnbyflashcard.blogspot.com

And I’m going to start doing more Persian blogs. My next one scheduled is an old ensha (composition) about why I chose the name Darius137.
This last week wasn’t too great as far as flashcards, because of that day I tried 40 words. Apparently 20 words a day is easy, and 40 words is damn excruciating.  =)

I’m in the B words now, and there aren’t that many. I think it’s feasable to get B done in a week, though it’s a hectic week before my 2 weeks of training, which might make me semi-AWOL from blogging.

A Complete; B in progress

Yesterday I finally got through the last of A’s flashcards. I will review those today, and attempt to add 20 B words. I’m still wondering what to do about keeping words in organized piles by letter, or just let the working pile of cards continue to grow. It’s about 8″ tall right now.

Also I went last night to a friend’s house and had some tea. Just being around people speaking 100% Persian (Iranian Farsi) helped me. I guess I’m at the point where I need to focus on vocab growth, go back and look back on the verb conjugation, and then hear native speakers and try to pick out all the useful idioms and common expressions.

I am also nearing the stage when I should begin cataloging. I need to start my running catalog of Persian words, complete with example sentences for proper use, and defining the word (spelling it in IPA for pronunciation, in Arabic letters for proper spelling–and cyrillic once I begin tackling Tajiki–and what grammatical category it’s in e.g., Noun, Adverb, etc. etc.) similar to how the English dictionaries have been created.

There’s an interesting book out there called The Professor and the Madman detailing how the Oxford English Dictionary began, and how one of the leading contributors was a retired US Civil War Captain who had gone crazy from STD’s and cut off his penis in an insane asylum. Good book; hope I didn’t ruin it for ya.

PS

Over at my language learning blog, I wrote a few reviews of methods I’ve used to learn languages. Check it out! And I put up an Adsense account, which means if you click on the ads, I get money

“Not too much”

My family (clan McKinlay) motto is “Not too much” lol

I think my trait of doing too much and then having it all collapse is a family problem. Last week I got 145 new words learned, and this week I started with 40 new words (Monday). It’s technically Wednesday, but Tuesday I tried learning another 40, upping from my 20-a-day method from last week. Well I barely learned 3 words. I was too busy with other stuff, and I think 40 is a bit past my breaking point. So this week I’m going back to 20 words a day. I guess I can’t rush enlightenment.
I also put up a new post on learning languages for free, and a post reviewing a book to learn langauges on my other site, LearnbyFlashcard.Blogspot.com

My theme this sumer seems to be finding a happy balance between motivation and contemplation; between doing too much of some things, and accidentally neglecting others. More on that, over at my OTHER blog at Myspace.com/Darius137

Methods and “Linguists”

Today was Monday and I started off my flashcard campaign with a bang this week. I did about 40 new words. A few are still sticky, but the amount of review I do (no Leitner cardfile system, just an ever growing pile that I review EVERY TIME) means they should stick by Wednesday for sure.

Today I was looking at notables in the field of language learning. I have not really looked into Linguists (meaning people attempting to learn languages using the science of applied linguistics), but I guess it doesn’t really matter if you know a language’s complex grammar rules and somebody else just “knows” 9 languages fluently, now does it? If people with 70 IQ’s can learn one language, you don’t need a doctorate to learn one more language. And that’s the gist of these following two linguists I found:

Steve Kaufmann

and

Alexander Arguelles

Both are experts and speakers of multiple languages, and operate methods of learning language. Both stress flashcards, immersion, people speaking the languages to become familiar with them and dogmatic methods.

Alexander’s methods were particularly exacting, and made me think about MY methods. I didn’t really think I had any; I just wrote words down on flashcards and learned them. But like any connoissieurship, you can take it and break it apart and analyze it far more than you need to. And that’s what I just did

First off, I try to stick to 5 – 50 new words a day. Depending on how much free time you have, how motivated, and how long you’ve been doing it, this number can fluctuate.

Second, do it every day. Doing 100 words in one day might impress you, but the biggest hurdle in language learning is the wherewithal to stick with it. It’s easy to learn a language, all you have to do is not quit, and do it every day.

Third you have to know your memory’s limits. In Afghanistan, I had nothing to do all day on guard duty, so I could easily learn 100 words a day. And they stuck. At least for a while (eventually, things you don’t use go away no matter how ingrained they are.. except bicycles lol). Right now, with the two jobs, military and full time university, I can handle 20 – 40 new words a day. It sounds daunting, but really quite simple if you break it down. If you can’t handle it, you’re going to quit or fail.

Fourth is the method. Get a method that works. Try all the methods you can find out, and eventually one will click. For me, I use flashcards. And more in detail, I wake up and review the cards I’ve learned. Then after breakfast, but before lunch, I input the new words. Then a second time during the day I look at the new words, and then review all of the flashcards before I go to bed. Studies show that you are most receptive to language learning when you first wake up, and when you are about to go to sleep (which is when your body solidifies all the information you have gained that day). During the day I only focus on the new words, and any words I missed that morning. I pick 5 new words, then learn them. Then quiz myself over and over. Then add 3 new words. Then quiz. And keep doing it in increments of 3 (with the 3 being added to the ones learned so far that day) until my day’s flashcards are learned. A small set of 20 can easily be referenced throughout the day, and I figure that learning 40 new words a day can’t take more than 45 minutes out of your schedule.

Heck, I spend more time than that just waiting for buses, for computers to load, or for food to be ready. The beauty of flashcards.

Discovery vs. Progress

I made this blog rather recently, and it’s still in its’ infancy. I have decided to use this blog as a notation of my journey through language learning. I will record what I do and how it is helping me learn language. I will also post my Persian, Dari and eventually Pashto compositions to show progress.

But alas, many of my friends are over at Blogspot.com, so I made a blog over there as well. This blog, LearnByFlashcard.blogspot.com, will be my blog about the act of language learning itself.

Confused?

Basically refer to this to join me in learning spoken and written Farsi, Dari and Pashto. Eventually Spanish. Refer to Blogspot for tips on how to best learn a second (or third, or fourth) language.

The Leitner flashcard system

In the 70’s, a German named Sebastian Leitner created a system to learn flashcards, whereas you have different “groups” of flashcards based on how well you know them. Wikipedia says this:

“A widely used method to efficiently use flashcards was proposed by the German science popularizer Sebastian Leitner in the 1970s. In his method, known as the Leitner system, flashcards are sorted into groups according to how well you know each one. This is how it works: you try to recall the solution written on a flashcard. If you succeed, you send the card to the next group. But if you fail, you send it back to the first group. Each succeeding group has a longer period of time before you are required to revisit the cards.”

“The advantage of this method is that you can focus on the most difficult flashcards, which remain in the first few groups. The result is, ideally, a reduction in the amount of study time needed.”

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashcard

Today I’ve added another 20 A-words to my list of growing vocabulary. I like this system, and have seen it used by various free sites online (because it’s from the 70’s and past the copyright time). I am not going to use this system, because I can easily learn my daily 20 words without having “difficult” words that slip through. If I upped it to 30 or 40, which I’ve done before, I’d probably have to use this. But everyone has their own level of recall.

Also (if I wasn’t dead set on this dictionary method) there is a cool site I found called Quizlet. This site has made lists of flashcards on numerous topics, that turns flashcard-vocabulary-building into games.

Now back to my style….

I am going to start the tedious task of harassing native speakers of both Iranian Persian and Afghan Persian (if you know any Tajik nationals in Oregon, contact me!) and get example sentences for each word on the vocabulary list I’m learning. It’s good to learn that “Allowance” is مقرری but if I can’t use it in a sentence, it’s only good for my listening skills.

لغات های روزانه

لغات هایر روزانه:

(Agriculture), اِیدز (AIDS), هوا (Air), هواپیمایی (Airline), فرودگاه/میدان هوایی (Airport), خط هوایی (Airway), خارجی (Alien, Foreigner), کوچه (Alley), معروف (Famous), دزدیدن (To steal, to rob), چرت زدن (To nod off, to nap), پرت کردن (To throw), کتک زدن (To beat), سرایدار (Janitor), مقری (Allowance), متحد (Ally), الفبا (Alphabet), تقییر (Alteration), بلندی (Altitude), آلومینیوم (Aluminum) کشاورزی

می فهمم که این لغات ها بسیار کتابی است اما چند تا اش مهم است

22JUN 3×5 List

Like I said, I am going down the list of a concise dictionary. Hopefully the concise part means I am not learning too many bookish, rare words. But you’ll have to see for yourself. It reminds me of the part of David Sedaris’ book, Me Talk Pretty One Day, where he goes to France and learns a slew of odd French words–usually involving strange, rare medical conditions. I’m also throwing in new words that I come across and actually think I’ll need, or have already made flashcards for and haven’t learned.

Imposter دغل باز

Sun خورشید

Singer خواننده

Song آهنگ

Verb فعل

Magician مجوسی / حادوگر

Ancestor جد

Anatomy کالبد شناسی

Anarchy هرج و مرج

Analysis تجزیه

Analogy قیاس

Amusement سرگرمی

Amphibian دوزیست

Amount مقدار

Ammonia آمنیاک

America امریکا

Ambulance آمبولانس

Amber کهربا

Ambassador سفیر کبیر

Amateur آماتور

I think I have about a week left of A’s. A is a pretty stacked letter, though, so I think things will move along a lot quicker once I get past N.

Summer of 3×5 love

Today at work I’ve been making flashcards. Whenever I learn a language, I seem to have the best vocabulary growth with flashcards and steady, daily practice. I can learn 20 words a day without much effort via flashcards.

Of course, the more grammatically complex words and uses don’t really work with simple flashcards, it does help build my noun repertoire; most words people use are nouns. Even with no understanding of a language, you can point and say a noun. So I’ll use the flashcards this summer to build my list of nouns.

I’m using the Hippocrene Concise Dictionary “Farsi-English English-Farsi (Persian)” which has 8,400 total entries. At least with American books, I know they use word frequency lists–lists of the most common words used in a language, and then take the X-amount of most used words and put them in the dictionary. So in theory, and against the advice of that previous website I posted (which seemed more like an ad for barrons audio tapes than anything, though it had some good advice), this system works for me.

I’m just going to go down the list starting at A, and make a flashcard for whatever word I don’t already know. I’ll skip the grammar and “guts” of the language, and focus on only Nouns.

Dictionary I use

Online Dictionary I use

L2 – Second Language Acquisition

This fall I begin LING438 at PSU ~ Second Language Acquisition, or L2 in linguistic terms. The course details and maps out the progress people make in various methods as they learn a second language.

Language learning has always been a joy and mystery to me. I’ve only recently learned what I was doing when I was learning. I tried learning Japanese in high school, via gradeschool texts and ingenius use of flashcards by my teacher. I learned Pashto in Afghanistan really quickly, though I’ve since forgotten it, and now have about 1500 words at the tip of my tongue every time I see an Afghan, but only able to repeat the same initial conversation you have with an Afghan who knows you speak Pashto:

“Pashto khabari ke?”
“Wo. Ama zuh faghat lugh lugh Pukhto pohegum”
“wow! De cherta Pukhto zda kre?”
“Pu Khost ke zhwend kro.”
“Dera Pukhto heir khro “

Basically saying I speak Pashto, but only a little. I lived in Khost, and I have forgotten most of it.

Also, while perusing WordPress blogs, I found a person under the name Bootslack.

They put this link down, which looks to be pretty helpful for language learning:
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/index.html