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Where is Chip?
16 years ago
I apologize to everyone for dropping off the face of the earth.
I have a fascination with too many different things, music being only one of them. Languages are another.
I've been taking Arabic classes, and... though the grammar was easy for me, the vocabulary wasn't. I had been falling far behind in learning vocabulary.
I concentrated on that, using a flashcard program that (supposedly) maximizes your ability to learn while minimizes the time you need to take.
Guess what?
Even with computer help, learning vocabulary is hard. Especially since I have a brain like a steel trap. (Everything inside gets mangled beyond recognition.)
My spare hour per day went there, not to writing music.
I'm going to put more time into my art, and in about a week or two, I'll be posting music again.
Take care.
I have a fascination with too many different things, music being only one of them. Languages are another.
I've been taking Arabic classes, and... though the grammar was easy for me, the vocabulary wasn't. I had been falling far behind in learning vocabulary.
I concentrated on that, using a flashcard program that (supposedly) maximizes your ability to learn while minimizes the time you need to take.
Guess what?
Even with computer help, learning vocabulary is hard. Especially since I have a brain like a steel trap. (Everything inside gets mangled beyond recognition.)
My spare hour per day went there, not to writing music.
I'm going to put more time into my art, and in about a week or two, I'll be posting music again.
Take care.
*offers hug?*
I did pick up enough to say "Salaam alekum! Ismii Threetails Fanakh. Wa n'ta?"
Arabic is a weird language. I adore any language that uses the same basic word (j-m-') for Friday, university, and to fuck. (Maybe the Arabs just know college students?)
And "Alei-ak assalaam!"
Learning Arabic is a lot of fun, but don't go too far.
Absolute agreement.
I don't plan to convert to Islam.
And I'm about the least likely person to convert to Wahabi / Salafi-style Islam (the branch out of Saudi Arabia that led to people like Osama bin Laden.) I'm a little too open-minded...
(Okay. I'm so bloody open-minded that I've been accused of having no opinions whatsoever.)
On the other hand, I would be happy to learn from Sufis (the mystical branch of Islam that led to the poetry of Rumi, wonderful music, and the famous twirling dance.)
that's cool hehe languages expand the mind in vast ways
Especially a language like Arabic, which is extremely far from Western languages in how it thinks.
reading the Uplift Saga by David Brin, languages are a big point... so many different "Galactic Civilizations" and taking understanding all those languages for granted... (simply by italicizing the translation, or adding symbols, etc) I was able to grasp the concept of "thinking" in another language, cause active thoughts are so wrapped around your language, to define what it is you feel. The more languages you know, the more "colors" you have to paint you OWN thoughts with, wether or not you have a frequent opportunity to put it to otherwise practical use ;)
konichi-wa!
db
A major reason to learn another language is to expand your thinking.
Arabic has 1,500 years of written history -- exciting history, of battles, travel, and trade. Music groups that have been going for a thousand years. The first university (predating Europe's first university by fifty years.)
And it's changing now. From what I've seen as an extreme outsider, it's starting to go through its Renaissance now. Large groups of Arabic-speaking people have been educated in the West, are going home, and are bringing ideas (and the Internet) with them.
And, heck. Even if I'm wrong, I love the music.
Where is Chippy?
Here I am!
Here I am!
How are you this morning?
Very well, I thank you!
Run away.
Run away.
Ch ch ch ch ch.
There's my Chippy.
have luck with arabic, I know it's very hard, and I respect someome going out trying to learn it!
Thank you so much!
Okay, you'll be back. Thanks and good luck!
*HUG*
As an engineer-type, you and I are probably really similar in our problems... and hopefully solutions.
I found learning the alphabet only mildly hard. The grammar is about the same difficulty as Spanish. But...
I have a terrible time learning vocabulary. There's so few cognates!
Last month, I found a solution: Anki, a "spaced repetition system" that, essentially, times flashcards for you. It's free, and it works across many platforms. I've created about 3,500 flashcards in it, and I'm slowly working through them.
It's not. Not in the least bit.
Learning the abjad isn't painless. ("What do you mean there's FIVE ways to write the character 'ha' in the most important style?") But it takes a week or two, then it's done. I have a hard time imagining learning the tens of thousands of kanji.
If you ask any person who speaks Arabic, they'll tell you that Arab letters have four forms: initial, medial, final, and isolated. But 'ha' has two common medial forms that look nothing alike. Luckily, most characters tend to be similar across the four forms.
On the other hand, even "just" 1,945 different symbols for a written language is HARD. I'm impressed!
The only sane system I've ever seen was… I take that back, no writing system has ever been sane.