A Strategy Plan for learning Na'vi

Started by neytiri.blue, October 10, 2010, 08:36:30 PM

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neytiri.blue

Hello All -

I am a Spanish and anthropology major and a lover of languages. I would also like to study French and Portuguese and I would LOVE to add Na'vi to the list. A few family members think that learning Na'vi is not very "practical", but I enjoy languages and it's very interesting! I find the growing community of Na'vi speakers absolutely amazing.

Do any of you encounter these non supporters? How do you handle it? Any advice?

Also! I've learned languages through taking college courses. I find it difficult and bit frustrating trying to figure out a strategy to start learning Na'vi. Those who are beginning or perhaps the intermediate speakers - how did you start learning? Did you work daily? Or maybe whenever you had spare time?

Thanks,

Neytiri =)

neytiri.blue

Please... I look forward to your responses.  :)


Kì'eyawn

Kaltxì ma tsmuktu  :)  

Yes, i've encountered my share of detractors.  My token response has become, "Your brain needs exercise just like your body.  Some people do Sudoku; i do this."  They tend to respect that, more or less.  

As for a learning strategy...  I've heard wonderful things about Tirea Aean's ProjectNgaynume.  At the very least, the Prezis they use (made by the wonderful Le'eylan) are a great learning tool.  If you've not yet seen Taronyu's dictionary, that's a must—but i personally wouldn't download it, as he updates it almost every day it seems  :D

There's also lots of good information on the wiki.  And if you ever get stuck, bring your questions here to the Beginners section, and there are always people ready and willing to help!

I hope that helps you  :)
eo Eywa oe 'ia

Fra'uri tìyawnur oe täpivìng nìwotx...

Eltusiyu

#3
I didn't use any plan... I had downloaded Pocket Guide with basic terms and I have been learnning by myself... no courses or lessons..

When I thought that I understand the basics I've started to speak here...
People had showed me my mistakes and I have been learning those parts of grammar which I were weak...
I had learnt so much time which I wanted... Sometimes 1-2h per day, sometimes nothing and on another day 3-4h :P

Set oe tsun pivlltxe nìNa'vi nìltsan slä oe zene tskxekeng sivi nìtxan

When I've started my adventure with na'vi almost 10 months ago... we didn't know so much as we know today...

Na'vi is changing every day, reach new things and words.

Of course today, you have a lot of materials,dictionares, lessons :)
You can choose the way which would you like of Learnning Na'vi :)

Kxangangang! - Oeyä Pìlok leNa'vi

Previously called Kxrekorikus

Tsuksìm atsawl (KaPTan)

Quote from: Kxrekorikus on October 11, 2010, 12:30:11 AM


Set oe tsun pivlltxe nìNa'vi nìltsan slä oe zene tskxekeng sivi nìtxan


damn... i almost had that whole sentence without having to look anything up...

anyway...

The first thing i did was learn the basic na'vi grammer Tenses, ergative/accusative. ect.

I'm not a very fast learner of na'vi seeing as how i'm very busy.  However, i've been able to learn a few words each week.  what i have done is i find a few words that I use in my everyday speech and start to replace them while talking with my friends (my friends are nerds and think this is totally cool. well at first they didn't but they have gotten used to it).  thus i have started learning targeted vocabulary that I will actually use.

I am a member of project ngaynume.  It's ok, but sometimes (most of the time) they are very unorganized and its difficult to get anything done. 
Also a member of the podcast known as Avatar Nation.  Come listen to our stuff! like us on facebook and chech out our blog at Avatar-Nation.net.

Sireayä mokri

I would advise you to spend some time every day, try fining even 5-10 min a day if you can't afford more. I believe that having some practice at regular basis is better than having it for several hours only once a week.
When the mirror speaks, the reflection lies.

’eylan ’angtsìkä


I'm a big believer in respecting one's own learning style.  You probably found that when you studied Spanish some techniques worked better for you than others.  I suggest you use that as your strategic guide. 

I've seen many great suggestions in various places on these boards, including the ones mentioned earlier here, so you may want to spend some time just looking around on the site.  (But don't necropost!  i.e. don't reply to a thread more than two weeks old.)

My own preference was to review the grammar with the on-line documents.  Then to start learning it by translating things into Na'vi.  But that may be because I'm primarily interested in a reading knowledge for the sake of building my linguistic skills.  (There are no Ugaritic chat boards <sigh>.)

In addition to "Na'vi in a Nutshell" (http://www.learnnavi.org/docs/Navi_in_a_Nutshell.pdf) and the dictionary (http://eanaeltu.learnnavi.org/dicts/NaviPlainDictionary.pdf), the Reference Grammer (http://www.learnnavi.org/docs/horen-lenavi.pdf) is a good comprehensive source for specific grammar points, and the Cheat Sheet (http://www.learnnavi.org/docs/navicheat.pdf) is a very handy tool when you just need a quick reminder of a grammatical form.





Tängal

There is no other way to learn anything that practicing. There are documents, first read them, then read them again and then once again, until you will know where to find things and then start using the language, first checking every detail in books, but soon you will start to remember things. All you need to do is never to give up practicing :)

ngima tstal, pxia tstal
frusìpa fngap na nantang

neytiri.blue

Thank you! I really appreciate all of your responses!   :D

I can't wait to get started!

kaltxi Angtsik

I've learned other languages in the past, or should I say, I've had some successful and some less than successful attempts at learning languages, both computer and human.

After I saw Avatar for the 12th time and it was leaving the theaters for good, I stumbled across this place while googling for Avatar related information. There seem to be lots of great resources here, so the big question is where to begin.

I've been going over all the "beginner" resources, and also, to make it interesting, I've been going through the Na'vi dialog from Avatar -

http://wiki.learnnavi.org/index.php?title=Na'vi_from_Avatar_Movie

I study the lines, and with the help of the Na'vi dictionary, try to make sense of them, and then I ask dumb questions here. There are a lot of smart Na'vi speakers here who are graciously willing to help, so I'd encourage you to just jump in!

Yawey ngahu!
Oe nerume fte pivlltxe nìNa'vi.
pamrel si ro [email protected]

neytiri.blue

Thanks so much! I've already started asking a few questions and people are very helpful! =)


Txur’Itan

There will always be people who do not like, do not agree, do not want you to do things that will make you fall outside of what they consider to be socially acceptable.

There is a thought process here that involves the concern over controlling the opinions of other people, whether it be yours, or complete strangers.

There is not any significant merit to it, but those that individuals apply.

To place a finer point on it.  Many people would tell you many things to try to convince of something that they think is in your best interests, and often out of ignorance of the facts.

You can inform them of things like:

"Languages, be they constructed, or naturally developing, serve the same intellectual purposes, the only difference is arbitrarily applied opinions on their value in careers, socialization, or the possibilities of becoming part of the larger social construct."

But, if they do not believe this to be true, or even possible, they will not accept the reasoning as valid, and continue to make indirect attempts to cause you to quit learning a constructed language.

If you spoke a bit of Esperanto, and did not tell them what language it was, they might be impressed, because they would think you were speaking Spanish, or Portuguese, or some Indo-European language they have not heard before. 

The common reaction to constructed languages, once it is known one is learning a constructed language, is purely a socio-psychological inference on perceived value, and not based on relevance or actual value.

------------

A planned or constructed language—known colloquially as a conlang—is a language whose phonology, grammar, and/or vocabulary have been consciously devised by an individual or group, instead of having evolved naturally. There are many possible reasons to create a constructed language: to ease human communication (see international auxiliary language and code); to give fiction or an associated constructed world an added layer of realism; for linguistic experimentation; for artistic creation; and for language games.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructed_language
私は太った男だ。


’eylan ’angtsìkä


I'd like to add a conlang purpose to Txur'Itan's list.  I'm in the process of translating a text into Na'vi, and in the process I am getting a deeper understanding of the original text.  I am forced to consider questions that I hadn't before - did that pronoun refer to two or three people?  was the speaker thinking of that event as a ongoing process or a completed one, was that use of a future tense immediate or not?  That had also been my experience when I translated the text into English, but Na'vi raises different kinds of questions.  Struggling with the demands of a constructed language takes me into questions that a natural language might not.

'Ivong Na'vi!


Kì'eyawn

Quote from: 'eylan 'angtsìkä on October 15, 2010, 01:01:51 PM
...I'm in the process of translating a text into Na'vi, and in the process I am getting a deeper understanding of the original text.  I am forced to consider questions that I hadn't before...

Oe mllte nìftxavang.  Translating texts into Na'vi is my favorite way to learn the language; and it's been fascinating for me to have to examine familiar texts in this way. 

For example, i recently translated a text from a TV show in which a character was relaying a deeply painful story, and found myself thinking very seriously about where he would and would not use the <äng> infix.  I ended up listening carefully to recordings of the actor to get a sense of the emotions he was conveying so i could make an educated guess which points he would emphasize his sadness were he to have delivered his lines in Na'vi.
eo Eywa oe 'ia

Fra'uri tìyawnur oe täpivìng nìwotx...

`Eylan Ayfalulukanä

Without having really learned that much grammar in school, I have become a pretty good English writer. I do technical and grant writing for my job, and I write fiction (and sometimes toturials, position papers, etc.) for my off-work time. I am not 100 percent sure why I am a good English writer, and I could not necessarily explain why a certain bit of text had 'correct grammar'. Learning Na`vi has changed all that. In just the last eight months, my understanding of both Na`vi and English has greatly increased, and I am doing more (English) writing. Na`vi is slowly catching up as I study text examples, have text examples of my own 'palulukanized'  :P, try to fully understand grammar and syntas, and build my vocabulary. I do these things generally  'in parallel', but only one at a time.

Kì'eyawn is very correct in trying to capture feelings. I am finding, as I am close to having a usefully large vocabulary, that capturing the Na`vi 'feel' is becoming very important. They way their language 'flows' is quite different from English, and my failure to grasp its nuances, is at the root of a lot of my 'communication failures'. This is just another thing to learn, and it is very much trial and error.

No one approach works right for most people, or even a few people. With no formal tools or approaches yet in existence to learn Na`vi, it behooves learners to experiment and find what works best for them.

Yawey ngahu!
pamrel si ro [email protected]