Na'vi Visual Dictionary

[Robert Nantangä Tirea]

One thing that learning Na'vi has taught me is that when it comes to languages I am a very visual learner. I can read a book and take in information all day and a year later when someone asks a question about it I can pull it right up and remember. But when I try memorizing a long list of names I'm terrible. Often I can't remember someone's name unless I write it down and see how it's spelled, otherwise I see their face and I recognize it but I have no name to associate their face with.

For this reason, I want to create a Na'vi visual dictionary for myself and for other people who would find it helpful in learning. I don't really have prior experience with this kind of thing so I wanted to present my ideas and get some feedback and/or better ideas. Mostly I want this to be a source for powerlearning the primary vocab of the language and helping people build that mental association so that when they see the word kilvan they don't think "river", they actually think of a river!.

- I plan on starting with the nouns first because that's simple and there's enough to work with. From there I will see how it's going and move on to tackle verbs with action images or something, we'll see about this. There's not TOO many adpositions/conjunctions/particles than I'm not really worried about defining, Hunter's Dictionary works fine for that.

- My only programming experience is HTML, and while I /could/ make a webpage out of it (with fancy roll-over javascripting for the images that shows the defenition when you mouse over them), I want to make it something that you can print out or save to document format easily as well as share (websites are subject to availability of internet and special code doesn't transfer to document format.) So basicly my plan is just a simple grid of images with their Na'vi name subtitled beneath each. Maybe 8 by 10 per page depending on a good image size. The following page will then have the same grid setup up but no images (save some poor ink LOL) and the english translation at the corresponding point in the grid.

- FOR PRINTING - My plan personally is to print this out for myself once I complete it. Ideally it will be printed double sided (saves paper!  ) but also so that the english translations for each page are tucked away nicely on the back of each page. Getting free prints through your school/college is nice (I'm not going to waste MY ink haha).

This is just my plan so far. I plan on starting to collect all the images I need and crop/scale them down to a consistent size tomorrow but before I start assembling it I just wanted to know if anyone had some suggestions on better ways to organize a visual dictionary for maximum efficiency.

Thanks! - Robert

['eylan na'viyä]

there might be allready similar work in progress here http://forum.learnnavi.org/your-projects-other-resources/na%27vi-rosetta-stone-possible-with-some-help/
and here:
http://forum.learnnavi.org/your-projects-other-resources/na%27vi-language-tool-%28audio-images-vocab%29/

[Robert Nantangä Tirea]

While creative projects, neither of those are downloadable+printable materials and require you to be actively on your computer to access.

['eylan na'viyä]

Shure, you should of course continue your project. I only thought that you might save work if you share some of the data with them.