How to Learn Any Language in 6 Months

Started by Kame Ayyo’koti, March 13, 2014, 05:51:04 AM

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Kame Ayyo’koti

"Your work is to discover your world, and then with all your heart give yourself to it."

Ezy Ryder

Not particularly applicable to Na'vi though.
Which doesn't mean one can't learn it in 6 months - vocabulary-wise, that would be only 10 words a day. Not even half an hour of work a day. The grammar isn't that bad, too. We should totally do that sometime :)

Kame Ayyo’koti

"Your work is to discover your world, and then with all your heart give yourself to it."

Ezy Ryder

If I remember correctly, he advises finding a language parent, someone fluent, who can correct you and explain stuff to you. How many fluent speakers of Na'vi are there? And how many of them would have the time for such a thing?

`Eylan Ayfalulukanä

Although there are some good speakers out there (it is a spoken language!), I don't think there is anyone out there (other than K. Pawl) who will claim they are truly fluent.

Both project Ngaynume and the Neytiri project provide for opportunities for more and less experienced people to get together and learn. Ngaynume is more group-oriented and the Neytiri project is one-on-one. There is also TeamSpeak, which could be used by anyone, and I know that project Ngaynume has used it.

The biggest problem I find in learning is the time commitment, and trying to line my schedule up with someone else's.

Meetups can be good places to learn, provided some time is set aside for working on Na'vi skills. In most meetups I have been to though, the conversation quickly gets off onto ay'u 'Rrtalok.

Yawey ngahu!
pamrel si ro [email protected]

Kame Ayyo’koti

It's true, there is maybe a handful of speakers who know the language well enough to speak it confidently, who would know enough to serve as a "language parent" to someone else. Sure, some of them wouldn't have time for such a thing, but then what was the Neytiri Project? How did that ever get off the ground at all, if no one had time for this sorta thing? Maybe only a very few would be lucky enough to get a "language parent," but that's better than nothing.

QuoteNot particularly applicable to Na'vi though.
And even if language parents aren't an option, why would you dismiss everything else this man said? I don't see what's wrong with the rest of his advice for learning Na'vi.


  • I've learned quite a few words in a very short amount of time, simply by learning words that relate to the things I like and care about.
  • I've learned word meanings by directly associating them with the concepts they refer to, for example thinking of my personal friends and saying to myself 'eylan.
  • Just as he said in his presentation, I've taken words and played around with combining them, and thinking about the meanings that I've created.
  • I've perused posts in nìNa'vi nì'aw just to see what bits and pieces I could understand ("comprehensible input").
  • There's been discussion of a "nìNa'vi nì'aw sandbox" section for beginners, which I'm interested in because I could ask questions and get answers entirely in Na'vi, which is using the language as a tool from the very beginning.

ALL of these are things he said we should do to learn a language, and the amount of success I've had in the very short amount of time I've been studying has shocked me. I still have a TON to learn, but many words pop into my mind without any effort at all, and I can already understand a surprising amount of what I read. I've had no previous experience with learning languages unassisted, and to have discovered a way that works so well feels like a miracle to me.

I thought this lecture was great, because learners could get better ideas of how to study, instead of doing things like making lists of Na'vi-English words and trying to memorize them. (Something I tried before, with absolutely no success.) It's also very inspiring to hear him say that you can learn a language without "talent" or having to immerse yourself. (Especially good in our case, seeing as it's a society that doesn't even exist).

I posted this here, and I have to admit, I find it extremely depressing to hear you dismiss it entirely just because one of his suggestions might not be practical for us. I don't know what depresses me more: That the rest of his perfectly usable advice was completely ignored, or that with regards to "language parents" you haven't considered alternative solutions. We face an obstacle with Na'vi in that we don't have a large body of native speakers to assist learners, but that hasn't stopped many people from creating workbooks and audio recordings and other things. Perhaps someone with proper pronunciation could create a series of videos like the professor showed, of them pronouncing words and allowing us to see their face. Maybe newbies could at least still be paired with more-knowledgeable speakers, if there are not enough "fluent" speakers; or they could just find another friend to practice speaking with, no matter how badly. These options are not as good as a language parent, but they are still better than nothing.

And even if none of that works, the rest of his advice is still valuable.

I'm sorry if this post bothers anyone, but it just frustrates me so much when I suggest something that would help (and most of what this man says HAS helped me), and people just completely toss it aside. I want to post things if I think there's even a little bit of usefulness in them, but every time someone just brushes it off, I feel less motivated to.
"Your work is to discover your world, and then with all your heart give yourself to it."

Tìtstewan

#6
^This.
In my opinion, every help, methods and learning resources are useful for learning a language, especially for those people who never have learned another language in their life. But I think, it's also important to find an individual way for learing which one feel it's most successful for him/her. There are people, who learn alone without any partners, but also there are peoples, who have success with learning together with other people. What I mean, is that there are many many ways to be successful at learing. One who study a language would like to see some ways which one didn't know before, hence every information of ways and methods of learing are useful. Also, learing a language should make fun!

As for me, how I learing Na'vi? I learning/ed it by using it. Translating textes, songs, poems, haikus etc. and I knew I errer often, but I see myself that I learn by my own mistakes. "Learing by doing" It's also interesting, if one know other languages. I can German, English and Romanian and this knowledge is often useful (different structures) but also confusing. Example, you can't believe how much I confuse with the Na'vi and the Romanian si both words means the same, or I used an incorrect Na'vi sentence stucture and I didn't see it "wrong", because the influence of the indoeuropean language which German, English and Romanian are. Anyway, I also read sometimes in the nìNa'vi nì'aw to see what the people have wrote there. Of course, no one is perfect in Na'vi and the discussions I did and read are also quite useful to burn words or meanings into my brain. But this way I use is only one way of many!
The knowledge that Na'vi isn't "complete" haven't stopped me. ;)

As for the audio stuff, there is an audio section, but unfortunately, it's actually "death". Alternatively, there is a Pamtseo nìNa'vi nì'aw, with songs translated in Na'vi.

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Niri Te

 I am a very aural learner, and I am married to Ateyo, so the two of us speak it back and forth. She is not "Fluent" but is better than me, but now that we SPEAK it back and forth, as well as PM each other with daily conversation. I am getting better faster, and I suffer from Aphasia.
Tokx alu tawtute, Tirea Le Na'vi

Ezy Ryder

I'd like to start with saying that I didn't mean to demotivate anyone. And I admit I have forgotten certain parts of this talk, the language parent idea seemed to be the biggest thing though.

-Learning words describing things you like and care about is a good idea, just, how many words like that are in Na'vi?
-Not relying on translating is a good idea. Though according to research I've heard of, it requires reading/listening to about 100k words of comprehensible input. Not sure if available in Na'vi (at least about multiple topics).
-Being creative is certainly a great asset in Na'vi, seeing how much circumlocution it requires.
-Comprehensible input is a text which you are able to understand (95-98% text coverage), allowing for incidental learning to occur, plus getting used to/acquiring grammar naturally (so that you don't develop a monitor). However, comprehensible input is required only for extensive reading (meaning you just read). If you're studying the texts, then it's intensive reading, which can be done with close to 0% comprehension. Also, extensive reading should be done with correct texts, so that you get used to correct grammar, and (not that I'm any better) many contributors to the thread you've mentioned make mistakes. By the way, if you're learning words used in the thread, as you read it, you're learning from context, which many say is good. What would be best, is if someone had written/translated a novel in(to) Na'vi. That way we could mine the text for vocab/sentences, and have more motivation to continue because of the story. I think one of the better speakers here was writing a fanfic/story (Blue Elf perhaps?). We could also try to translate something from Project Gutenberg, since the texts aren't copyrighted anymore (my suggestion would be "Three men in a boat", a really great and humorous book).
-When should the production start, is a disputable matter. There are people advocating the "Speak from day 1" approach (Benny Lewis for example, he even has one article about Na'vi on his blog). And there are people saying we shouldn't force the output (like Krashen, you can read more about his "Natural approach"; or Steve Kaufmann). My own (not particularly experienced) opinion is, that speaking from the beginning develops automaticity and communicative abilities earlier, but you may get used to expressing things incorrectly, or simply unnaturally.

Tìtstewan

As I'm working on that "most used Na'vi words" project, I saw a lot of mistakes. They are often in older textes from a time where weren't so much words avaliable. There are some fanfictions/translations by Alyara Arati, Blue Elf, Plumps etc. here on the forum or in their blogs where one can read many many words. A problem are the "pseudo-Na'vi words" to describes things like *tìralpeng for "translation" but isn't canonical. This makes translations of books difficult. Especially technical stuff is extremely difficult like "carriage, train, car, castle, fortress etc". Na'vi has actually 2000 words, there must be much more...
We have in the LEP tons of words, which waiting for confirmation and other words aren't sent yet. Also there are some grammar questions we trying to solve. Example, I built my own bow. in Na'vi? Actually impossible, because we have no word for "own" yet (I hope this changes soon).

Anyway, as I said, every useful information, tips, ways or methods are welcome for learning and no matter if only a part of a method is usable.

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