#amharic:goals

[guillemelgat]

Language Goals 2023

In the spirit of last year’s very reasonable and achievable goals, here are more reasonable and achievable goals for 2023!

Catalan - I’d like to get the C2 this coming year. I’d also like to read more; specifically Ausiàs March and Vicent Andrés Estellés, and possibly El Canigó and/or El comte Arnau. And if I can, I’d like to write one creative piece in Catalan that I can feel proud of!

Welsh - I’d like to listen to more of Pigion, watch more Hansh videos, and also to find more spaces to use the language in. I really want Welsh to start feeling like a language that I can do things in, because I’m at a level where I can.

Basque - I want to watch at least one or two things in Basque, and, the same as Welsh, for it to be a language that I can use for things, not just a language I’m learning.

Malayalam - I would like to get to a really basic home heritage speaker level of Malayalam by the end of the year—understanding conversations when I visit family, and being able to answer when spoken to. My goal is to watch one Elikutty video per week, and to try to integrate the language into my thoughts and routine more.

Spanish, Galician, Aragonese, Asturian - I’d like to brush up on Spanish for academic purposes, and also to learn a bit about the grammar of the other three. I’d like to start remembering to actually watch A escampar la boira, and to start listening to more music in Aragonese and Asturian. As for Galician, I’d like to go into breaking down lyrics for the many songs I already listen to in it, and maybe watch more videos in it as well. In general, I’m aiming to go into the sphere of Iberian studies, especially Iberian minoritized languages, and so I want to be more familiar with the larger panorama.

Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Cornish, Manx, Breton - Same as for the others above, I want to have somewhat of a functional understanding of more Celtic languages so that I can interact with speakers and media production without needing a translation. I also just listen to a lot of music in at least Irish, and it drives me crazy not to be able to at least superficially understand it. I think the Celtic cultural sphere is really interesting, and so I’d like to be able to learn more about it and talk to more people within it without needing to make them translate to English.

Russian - I really want to be able to understand what people are saying at my friend’s house, and I think that if I put in enough Russian listening practice and vocabulary study I’d be able to piece it together, at least partially; I can already figure it out sometimes with just a few words and context. So I’d like to actually put in some time on that, in the hopes that maybe afterwards, if I spend a few days at her house, I’ll come out understanding Russian sdfhksdhf

Amharic - I’d like to be able to speak some basic Amharic, so my goal is to learn a few basic sentence patterns and some vocabulary, and maybe be able to say one or two things by the end of the year. Nothing big, but just a bit.

I have no idea if I’ll even get close with any of these languages to the goals that I’ve set out here, but I think that if I do, it’ll pay off! And if I don’t, then at minimum, my goal is to learn one thing for each that I can feel good about in a year’s time, and I hope that at least I can do that.

#i really do learn a lot by passive input and it keeps me engaged with the language so i want to increase that rather than my studying time #i do think i'm going to try out anki but we'll see how that goes (?) #this is ambitious i don't think i'll manage it tbh #general:goals #catalan:goals #welsh:goals #basque:goals #malayalam:goals #russian:goals #amharic:goals #spanish:goals

[guillemelgat]

2021 Languages!

Okay so I think I’m starting to figure out things that work better for studying and things that don’t work as well, so hopefully this year will be a bit more consistent and better than last year. Here’s the breakdown:

5 Main Languages

These 5 languages were the ones that I decided last year I wanted to be my priority, and so I’m going to be focusing most of my study efforts on them (much as I would like to focus efforts on all of my languages, there are just too many ;;-;;):

Catalan - I really just have to be ready to take the C2 test, because I want to take it in the spring of my fourth year (2022). I’m going to try to keep watching shows, maybe attempt to listen to a podcast, read more books, and perhaps return to writing in Catalan more often. I would really like to try to do as many things as possible in Catalan, so the goal is to make as many of my daily habits in Catalan as I can. Besides that I’m not really sure what to do, since C1-C2 is really hard to maintain if I’m not living in Catalonia.

Basque - I know I say this every year, but I think if I put in hard work this time around, I will actually get to a B1-B2 in Basque. I need to review lots of grammar stuff and solidify it, and also need to learn lots more vocab, but I think if I do the thing where I look up words in songs that I don’t know, that might help. Also I’m going to try watching shows! Maybe if I have time, I’ll do the writing thing again as well, I think it helped a lot.

Welsh - This is also definitely 100% the year where I break through and start speaking better Welsh. I have a friend to study with, I have a plan, and I’m ready to get the B1. I’m going to try to finish all of SSiW, and do more vocab stuff on Memrise, then actually practice by listening to music and talking to my friend.

Malayalam - By the end of the year, I want to have a larger vocabulary. I think I have somewhat of a grammar foundation, but I know like 10 words and I can never connect them into sentences. The goal is to listen to more music, talk to my dad, and compile some vocabulary lists that I then will actually study. I also just really need to practice speaking/writing and listening.

Romani - I’m going to try to be more active in the server that I’m in, talking with people more often so that I can learn more words. I’m also going to try to read more of my book and listen to the radio that someone on the server recommended. By the end of the year, I want to be able to have a conversation in Romani, and to be able to feel that I’ve officially moved on to being an intermediate learner.

Other Languages

I have a lot of time right now to study languages that I probably won’t anytime in the future, so I do want to work on improving/studying some other languages that I’ve kind of been neglecting. These are the top four that I really want to work on:

Amharic - I was able to talk a bit in Amharic with my Ethiopian friend last summer, and I want to get back into studying Amharic and actually get better at it this time so that I can talk to him (and stay in contact that way, because we’re both terrible at staying in contact with other people). I’m going to try to finish Colloquial Amharic and then I’ll see where to go from there.

Kurdish - I want to listen to more Kurdish music and also to finish the textbook that I was using in class. I might also try to take a look at the other textbook my teacher recommended, but the basic textbook is first priority, I’m just trying to build a base in the language atm.

Tamasheq - This is what I said last year, but I need to review vocabulary and also verb conjugations which are so ;;-;; complicated ;;-;;. And then maybe get the book that goes with the course I used on inter-library loan next fall (if I can) because that might help a bit to get used to understanding the language and serve as a stepping stone for understanding the lyrics to songs.

Bambara/Wolof - I haven’t decided which of the two of these I want to learn first, ideally I’d like to study both of them but I think I’ll probably study Bambara now because it’s the lingua franca of Mali, a place I would really like to go someday. I also do want to learn some Wolof, but it’s less important??? I have Peace Corps courses for both, so I think I’ll just go through that and see how far I get.

That’s pretty much it, the rest of my languages I’m going to leave dormant for now unless I really want to go back to them. Hopefully I can see some improvement in both my languages and the world in 2021, here’s to a new year of learning!

#this is so rambly i'm sorry #my brain is just fully unhinged at this point it puts words on page and i have no ability to regulate what it's doing #but yeah the goal is to just do a lot of strengthening and building of bases #also i really really need to just talk to people #like if i did that it would help so much #anyways we'll see how quickly i burn out :p #language goals #sdfhjsdhfjkhdsjkfhjksd edit because i said this was for 2020. it's not 2020 is dead and gone #general:goals #catalan:goals #basque:goals #welsh:goals #romani:goals #malayalam:goals #amharic:goals #kurdish:goals #tamasheq:goals #bambara:goals #wolof:goals #catalan:general #basque:general #welsh:general #romani:general #malayalam:general #amharic:general #kurdish:general #tamasheq:general #bambara:general #wolof:general

[guillemelgat]

January Goals

(posting this today because I didn’t start yesterday I didn’t want to spam your dashes)

The two languages I’m going to be working on in January are Welsh and Amharic. I’m going to be making the very interesting choice of attempting to study for 2 hours a day, which will probably last less than a day, but I’m going to try it all the same.

Welsh

Main goal: Have finished SSiW Level 2 and be able to comfortably have a conversation about any A1-A2 level topic with my friend

Daily goals:

Do one SSiW lesson

Practice vocabulary for 15min on Memrise or Duolingo

Weekly goals:

Talk with my friend

Listen to or watch something in Welsh

Try to read an article or a page of a book and look up unknown words

Content I will try to post:

Vocab lists from SSiW lessons

Grammar from SSiW lessons

Vocab dumps from reading practice

Amharic

Main goal: Have finished Colloquial Amharic and be able to tell my friend about what I’ve been doing in Amharic (and understand his replies)

Daily goals:

Take notes on chapter of Colloquial Amharic or do chapter exercises

Practice chapter vocabulary on Memrise

Weekly goals:

Message my friend

Write a page

Content I will try to post:

Vocab/grammar notes

Vocab dumps from conversations

Paragraph that I wrote

I can’t actually promise that I’ll post stuff, but I’m going to try, just because people seem to like Welsh content and there’s not much Amharic content on here at all. We’ll see how this goes, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to pull it off but hopefully I’ll at least learn something.

#this is so much work but i'm kind of hype #i do really want to get better at both of these languages #and also finish colloquial amharic because i've done the first chapter 10 times and the rest of it zero #let me know if there's anything you guys want to see and i'll make it a priority to get that posted #language goals #language month #welsh #amharic #general:goals #amharic:general #welsh:general #amharic:goals #welsh:goals

[guillemelgat]

Language Goals 2020

Another year, another language-learning goals list! Yes, we’re back at it with the languages, and (hopefully) better than ever! I honestly wasn’t sure what to write for this year, since my main goal is really just to make progress I can be proud of in all my languages. In other words, I want to make sure I give all my languages the time they’re due, and do the work I need to get better at them. I’ve figured out that it might be better to divide by stages and use more or less the same methods for each level of language learning, so here are my goals for 2020:

New Languages (Wolof)

Wolof is the main language I want to add in 2020. While I’m not going to Senegal for study abroad like I thought I would, I still want to learn the language, and I hope it serves as an incursion for other West African languages like Bambara. I have several courses that I’ve found, so the goal would just be to go through them like I’ve done in the past for Romani, Arabic, and Tamasheq, and build the foundation for further learning.

A1-A2 Languages (Kurdish, Amharic, Bosnian, Tamasheq, Arabic, Malayalam, Romani, Western Abenaki)

These are the bulk of my languages, and I think in order to make any progress with them, I’m going to need to give them all the quality time they deserve. What that means is to do on my own what a normal language class would provide me: drills, drills, and more drills. So far, my goal is to prepare a weekly packet of exercises for the tougher grammar points and a couple of Memrise levels of vocabulary, and then spend the week working through them. I want to make sure I provide myself consistency, but not unrealistic goals, so I’m going to work on finding that balance. Hopefully it works out, and I’ll try to share things along the way.

B1-B2 Languages (Welsh, Basque)

I’m not sure if I can really say I even have a B1 in either of these languages, but I’m hoping that by the time the year comes to an end, I’ll be solidly in B range for both (and maybe with C on the radar??? probably asking too much though). I really want to build the base that I need to understand these at a higher level, I’m missing a lot of vocabulary and also practice. Because of that, I’m hoping to study vocabulary in both languages throughout the year, and try my best to listen to more things in them as well, be it music or radio or movies and TV shows. I haven’t entirely figured out how I’m going to go about it, but I want to be in a place where I’m comfortable enough in both languages to have actual conversations in them

C1-C2 (Catalan)

I am actually a solid C1 in Catalan now, and this year I want to work at maintaining that level and pushing for the C2. I want to try my best to listen to the radio in Catalan, watch shows, and read books as much as I can. I also want to expand my vocabulary even further, so that I can use more specific language in descriptions. In addition, I’m going to continue to work on pronunciation in spoken production and also precision and tone in written production, which are both things I need to improve to reach a C2.

Well, that’s what I’ll be working on for this year. We’ll see if any of this works out, and I’m sure there will be lots of surprises before the year is up, but hopefully I achieve my baseline goal: to get better at all my languages!

#is this reasonable? probably not #but is anything reasonable with this many languages? probably not #so it'll be fine #i just want to feel like i'm going somewhere with them #because it'll be a while before i get anywhere near good at most of them #but i want to prove to myself that i *can* get there if i put in the effort #anyway that's that #we'll see how it goes #language goals #general:goals #catalan:goals #basque:goals #welsh:goals #romani:goals #malayalam:goals #tamasheq:goals #kurdish:goals #amharic:goals #bosnian:goals #arabic:goals

[guillemelgat]

April Language Month: Amharic!

Hey everyone! This year has...not been great for me studying languages, to say the least, but I really miss them and want to get back to them, so with the start of a new quarter I’m trying to turn over a new leaf, and I want to get back to doing language months. If you’ve been around long enough to even remember what those are, you’ll know that I like to break my study down into month-long sprints because what even is consistently studying a language for more than four weeks. I’m not sure how much time I’m going to have, but I do have an awkward 40-minute block between two of my classes so I’m going to try to get some time in then to put towards studying. Aaaaanddddd that ends the giant block of text, let’s get down to business!

The language I’m going to be studying this month is Amharic because my interlibrary loan is expiring in May and I want to finish the book. Here’s the plan:

Practice fidäl every day on Memrise and in my notebook

Practice vocab every day on Memrise (the course is for the book I’m using, Colloquial Amharic)

Do a lesson in the book every Monday and Wednesday between classes

Hopefully this is the right amount for me to handle, between all my million classes, and I’m really stoked to learn this language well enough to practice with my friend, so here’s to April bringing lots of language adventures!

#we went to an ethiopian restaurant and i could read some of the menu #and i've been listening to music and it's great i'm sold #i really really want to actually make progress in the language because i've wanted to learn it for years #so i'm going to actually put my nose to the grindstone this quarter i promise #amharic #language month #language goals #la vida sense queue #amharic:general #amharic:goals #general:goals #amharic:resources

[guillemelgat]

Language Goals Oct-Dec 2017

Hey here are my really unrealistic goals for the languages I want to learn by the end of the year. Also I have a cool idea for an end of year language challenge which is why I’m learning all of these, but I’ll write more about that once November wraps up.

LANGUAGES IN SCHOOL

Catalan

GOAL: To be able to write longer passages and use more complex language

Finish reading La plaça del Diamant

Read El comte Arnau

Write and finish a story in Catalan

Basque

GOAL: To increase my vocabulary and better my knowledge of case declensions

Learn all vocabulary for class

Translate at least two songs here

LANGUAGE MONTHS

Malayalam (October)

GOAL: To be able to talk to/understand family members

Finish all of currylangs’ Malayalam lessons - 1 per day

Talk to my father and aunt in Malayalam when I see them

Arabic (November)

GOAL: To be able to start to see patterns and basic grammar and vocabulary in the language

5 words a day

Get through Arabic grammar book (even just skimming)

Go through three songs and break down structures

OLDER LANGUAGES

Welsh

GOAL: To increase my understanding of the colloquial language and vocabulary

Listen to at least 2 new artists in Welsh

Watch S4C or something similar at least once a week

Try to talk to myself about life for at least 5 minutes a day

Turkish

GOAL: To be able to maintain a basic conversation in Turkish

Learn some simple conversational phrases

Talk with the people in my dorm who are Turkish!!

Western Abenaki

GOAL: To further familiarize myself with basic structures in Abenaki

Write a journal once a week in Abenaki

BONUS LANGUAGES

Amharic

GOAL: To have a simple conversation in Amharic

Do the beginning of the FSI Amharic course

Talk to Ethiopian people in my dorm

Tamasheq

GOAL: To recognize basic structures and vocabulary in Tinariwen songs

Break down at least one Tinariwen song

Read/skim through grammar notes

So the chances of all of these working out are about 0%, but hopefully one or two go okay and I can add or improve a few languages before the end of the year!

#these are always wildly unrealistic #i say all this and then i just listen to txarango and esne beltza and don't learn anything #BUT THIS YEAR WILL BE DIFFERENT #also i have more resources for people to talk to and stuff so that's a good excuse to get my life together #general:goals #catalan:goals #basque:goals #malayalam:goals #arabic:goals #welsh:goals #turkish:goals #western abenaki:goals #amharic:goals #tamasheq:goals

[guillemelgat]

Languages 2017

I won’t make this as long as last year. Clearly there are a million languages that I want to learn, but I think this will all turn out better if I keep the list a bit shorter.

Languages I want to study in 2017:

Arabic (yes I vaguely studied it last year but that doesn’t really count)

Amharic and Bosnian (for characters in my story mostly, but I’ve had my eyes on both of them for a while)

Malayalam (still trying, this will be the year I promise...*gets to 2018* okay I swear guys I’m going to learn Malayalam...*gets to 2019* (etc))

Kurdish (maybe but only if I have time so probably not)

Of course, it’s hard to say how things will turn out, but I think 4-5 languages is a decent goal, at least to dabble in. I’m really happy with how far I’ve come in Basque and Turkish this year, so I’m hoping that this will be the start of something great. That being said, I need to be a bit more consistent about learning languages and actually put in time to learn grammar concepts, etc. I also need to speak more with native speakers. I think that I have a better idea of what I’m doing now, though, so I’m hoping 2017 is a fruitful year for languages!

#language goals #general:goals #arabic:goals #malayalam:goals #amharic:goals #bosnian:goals #kurdish:goals