4 ms·

Learning Romanian

15 points by DanielRibeiro 12y ago

Dewie 12y ago
I use Memrise for the spaced repetition part. In the courses that I'm taking, the mnemonic techniques (associating pictures or whatever to new words) are just flat out horrible.
cbg0 12y ago
You need to make sure what you're learning is actually what you think you're learning; The blog post says "sobolanul" means "rat" but it actually means "the rat", "sobolan" is "rat".
- jacquesm 12y ago
  100% correct, the suffix 'ul' indicates the article is present. I'll correct the post. Thanks!
- threedaymonk 12y ago
  That's just the convention in how words are presented to learners in different languages, I think, and it's surely obvious to anyone with even a few minutes of exposure to Romanian that -ul is one of the enclitics for the definite article. Anyway, I don't know that's even a useful distinction on its own. The difference between "the X" and "X" doesn't map very well across languages, even within Europe. English drops the article in many circumstances in which Romance languages use it.
jliechti1 12y ago
I've had the most success with Spaced Repetition Systems when I create the cards myself, and the cards are all material that I am reviewing, not something I have never seen before. I think this makes a large difference for foreign language learning. I never focus on learning words. I always learn words in the context of a sentence. I choose my sentences by taking them from things people say, books I read, videos I watch, etc...This is especially helpful because when I review the sentences in the SRS sometime later, I will read the sentence and almost always recall the broader context in which I learned it (the page in the book, the scene in the movie). This works really well for learning how to use words (and idioms especially) in their proper context. Mnemosyne is my SRS of choice: http://mnemosyne-proj.org/ http://mnemosyne-proj.org/. Very customizable, but a lot easier to get started with than Anki. It's a local app, so no Internet needed, like Memrise. The one downside is no good mobile app version.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  Yes, context is everything. That's one thing that really strikes me about learning this way, the lack of context. But that should be fixable.
  - steveridout 12y ago
    Hey, it sounds like you might be interested in my webapp for reading to learn foreign languages: http://readlang.com http://readlang.com It lets you: - Upload texts to read, even entire novels, or read any webpage using a bookmarklet. - Click on words or drag across phrases to translate them. - Every word or phrase you translate is stored to your account, along with the context sentence, to learn with flashcards. - Flashcards are prioritised using word frequency lists so you learn the most useful words first, they also use a SRS similar to Anki to schedule future appearances of a word. Please give it a try, and if you are interested it could be cool to share some ideas.
dirktheman 12y ago
I don't speak a single word of Romanian, but it seems similar to italian and a little french. I can read a newspaper and 'get' the meaning of the articles, for instance. It's an amusing language, not slavic at all like its neighbouring countries. Good luck learning Romanian! Side note: the Danish have a similar word to 'gezellig': 'hygge'.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  I know a fair bit of Polish and keep seeing Slavic influences, but that could - now that I think about it - have been just as easy the other way around. Makes you wonder if Russian picked up 'Da' from the South or if that somehow crossed over from the North. Most other Roman language use totally unrelated terms for 'yes' or general affirmation.
  - cbg0 12y ago
    Relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlPqdhcoASM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlPqdhcoASM
  - amgaera 12y ago
    In the article you mention that Romanian isn't the hardest thing you’ve learned. Has any of the other European languages you know (Dutch, German, Polish) been more difficult?
    - mobiplayer 12y ago
      I've often heard that Finnish and Hungarian are probably the hardest european languages to learn. I don't know any, but I've got some Hungarian friends and the few bits I've been teached don't show the opposite :)
    - jacquesm 12y ago
      For me the hardest so far was Polish. But I did not know about SRS back then so maybe this time it will be a bit quicker :)
- 12y ago
jacquesm 12y ago
Very much worth reading is this post by gwern: http://www.gwern.net/Spaced%20repetition http://www.gwern.net/Spaced%20repetition (I've been reading that and the tons of references from there pretty much all day since writing that post).
octopus 12y ago
For me, best approach to learn a new language is to read a book in parallel in both languages. I tend to use novels that were translated in both languages, this way I won't get into trouble with the way a particular writer uses the language. Imagine trying to learn English by reading Faulkner or Mark Twain. For e.g, say that you are Dutch and want to learn Romanian, you buy a novel by Dostoyevsky (since this was written in Russian you can be sure it was translated in both languages) that you read before (this way you won't pay much attention to the story) and read it in parallel Dutch/Romanian.

15 points by DanielRibeiro 12y ago

Dewie 12y ago

I use Memrise for the spaced repetition part. In the courses that I'm taking, the mnemonic techniques (associating pictures or whatever to new words) are just flat out horrible.

cbg0 12y ago

You need to make sure what you're learning is actually what you think you're learning; The blog post says "sobolanul" means "rat" but it actually means "the rat", "sobolan" is "rat".

jacquesm 12y ago
100% correct, the suffix 'ul' indicates the article is present. I'll correct the post. Thanks!
threedaymonk 12y ago
That's just the convention in how words are presented to learners in different languages, I think, and it's surely obvious to anyone with even a few minutes of exposure to Romanian that -ul is one of the enclitics for the definite article. Anyway, I don't know that's even a useful distinction on its own. The difference between "the X" and "X" doesn't map very well across languages, even within Europe. English drops the article in many circumstances in which Romance languages use it.

jliechti1 12y ago

I've had the most success with Spaced Repetition Systems when I create the cards myself, and the cards are all material that I am reviewing, not something I have never seen before. I think this makes a large difference for foreign language learning. I never focus on learning words. I always learn words in the context of a sentence. I choose my sentences by taking them from things people say, books I read, videos I watch, etc...This is especially helpful because when I review the sentences in the SRS sometime later, I will read the sentence and almost always recall the broader context in which I learned it (the page in the book, the scene in the movie). This works really well for learning how to use words (and idioms especially) in their proper context. Mnemosyne is my SRS of choice: http://mnemosyne-proj.org/ http://mnemosyne-proj.org/. Very customizable, but a lot easier to get started with than Anki. It's a local app, so no Internet needed, like Memrise. The one downside is no good mobile app version.

jacquesm 12y ago
Yes, context is everything. That's one thing that really strikes me about learning this way, the lack of context. But that should be fixable.
- steveridout 12y ago
  Hey, it sounds like you might be interested in my webapp for reading to learn foreign languages: http://readlang.com http://readlang.com It lets you: - Upload texts to read, even entire novels, or read any webpage using a bookmarklet. - Click on words or drag across phrases to translate them. - Every word or phrase you translate is stored to your account, along with the context sentence, to learn with flashcards. - Flashcards are prioritised using word frequency lists so you learn the most useful words first, they also use a SRS similar to Anki to schedule future appearances of a word. Please give it a try, and if you are interested it could be cool to share some ideas.

dirktheman 12y ago

I don't speak a single word of Romanian, but it seems similar to italian and a little french. I can read a newspaper and 'get' the meaning of the articles, for instance. It's an amusing language, not slavic at all like its neighbouring countries. Good luck learning Romanian! Side note: the Danish have a similar word to 'gezellig': 'hygge'.

jacquesm 12y ago
I know a fair bit of Polish and keep seeing Slavic influences, but that could - now that I think about it - have been just as easy the other way around. Makes you wonder if Russian picked up 'Da' from the South or if that somehow crossed over from the North. Most other Roman language use totally unrelated terms for 'yes' or general affirmation.
- cbg0 12y ago
  Relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlPqdhcoASM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlPqdhcoASM
- amgaera 12y ago
  In the article you mention that Romanian isn't the hardest thing you’ve learned. Has any of the other European languages you know (Dutch, German, Polish) been more difficult?
  - mobiplayer 12y ago
    I've often heard that Finnish and Hungarian are probably the hardest european languages to learn. I don't know any, but I've got some Hungarian friends and the few bits I've been teached don't show the opposite :)
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    For me the hardest so far was Polish. But I did not know about SRS back then so maybe this time it will be a bit quicker :)
12y ago

jacquesm 12y ago

Very much worth reading is this post by gwern: http://www.gwern.net/Spaced%20repetition http://www.gwern.net/Spaced%20repetition (I've been reading that and the tons of references from there pretty much all day since writing that post).

octopus 12y ago

For me, best approach to learn a new language is to read a book in parallel in both languages. I tend to use novels that were translated in both languages, this way I won't get into trouble with the way a particular writer uses the language. Imagine trying to learn English by reading Faulkner or Mark Twain. For e.g, say that you are Dutch and want to learn Romanian, you buy a novel by Dostoyevsky (since this was written in Russian you can be sure it was translated in both languages) that you read before (this way you won't pay much attention to the story) and read it in parallel Dutch/Romanian.