pol-ski:

.❤️

lovelybluepanda:

Why flexibility is important in your language studies

Being flexible so you adapt to your circumstances, unexpected changes or new goals can decrease your stress by a lot.

Making a schedule that you hope you’ll follow can sometimes create useless pressure. Taking into consideration how you feel or what you should focus on, will work better in the long run.

Being flexible also allows you to improve faster in a language. If you notice that your listening skills are the worst, you won’t be able to improve too much with the rest. There will be limitations.

Prioritizing your enjoyment instead of your immediate progress, can make you study for longer too.

Changing your plans or goals to suit you better is 100 times better than pressuring yourself to stick to a rigid schedule.

wonderful-language-sounds:

Ways to Track Language Learning

Some people like to log their language learning time. I only sporadically track my time if I’m trying to set a certain goal for that month, but here are the different methods I have used and maybe they’ll be useful to you.

1.Toggl

You can set a language or activity as its own color and get different charts for different time periods/tags.

2.Polylogger

This is app is somewhat similar to LingoJournal, but it has a social aspect as well since you can follow other users and congratulate them on their learning. (image not my own)

3. LingoJournal

This app is very detailed in tracking your language learning. You can track by reading/writing/speaking/listening and then break it down into even more activities. It also has goals and how you can reach them, as well as a streak. This is only one of the many graphs of your data.

4. Google Sheets

You can get a pre-made sheet to track your studying time, but I prefer to use it to track new words learned from my reading.

5. Notion

You can make a checklist for each week such as with this template.

6. Forest App

You can track each language or activity learning session in the app and then get a nice graph and forest of your activities.

7. Bullet Journal

This is my preferred way of tracking as I like to make a list of goals and then see how much of them I actually complete :)

vlindervin7:

vlindervin7:

All I can think abt is that one quote that basically just describes that you can’t be your true self in your native language bc there’s too much emotional attachment, but that second languages allow speakers to be truly free with their words

“Some things could only be written in a foreign language; they are not lost in translation, but conceived by it. Foreign verbs of motion could be the only ways of transporting the ashes of familial memory. After all, a foreign language is like art—an alternative reality, a potential world. »

- Svetlana Boym, “Estrangement as a Lifestyle: Shklovsky and Brodsky”

“Bilinguals overwhelmingly report that they feel like different people in different languages. It is often assumed that the mother tongue is the language of the true self. (…) But, it first languages are reservoirs of emotion, second languages can be rivers undammed, freeing their speakers to ride different currents.”

- Love in Translation by Lauren Collins from the New Yorker, August 8 & 15, 2016

woozapooza:

vergilliusrex:

astynomi:

If there’s one thing I’ve noticed that’s common to tumblr and non-tumblr classicists, it’s hatred for Aeneas, from benign condescension to flat out antagonism. Admittedly, for many years scholarship advertised Aeneas as nothing more than ‘the founder of the Roman race’, which doesn’t really sell these days. Scholars swept under the carpet the qualities that make Aeneas such a gift of a character - his compassion for others, his pain, his humanity - because it’s not fashionable for a manly hero to have those qualities, right?! 

I cannot take it any longer. I must tell you how we have all been cheated, and why Aeneas is one of the literary figures I most admire.

Nowadays most people study Latin first, and then Greek, and the Aeneidis one of the first things everyone studies. But Vergil’s Roman readers will have already read the Iliadfirst. So Vergil’s Aeneas is Vergil’s take on a familiar character, and Vergil takes it for granted that we know all about him. What is Aeneas like in the Iliad?

• Aeneas is honoured by the Trojans as much as Hector is (5.467).
  
• Aeneas and Hector are rebuked for letting the allies fight in their place, and it is Aeneas who is addressed first (5.77).
  
• Priam does not appear to share his people’s favour for Aeneas (13.461). While Aeneas is brooding over this, he is sought out by Deiphobus: ‘Aeneas, counsellor of the Teucrians, you need to help the army’ (13.463-4).
  
• Glaucus appeals to Hector andAeneas to save the body of Sarpedon, unaware that Zeus has already done this (16.536-47).
  
• Hectorlistens to Aeneas’ advice. Are we going to argue with Hector? Everyone loves Hector, and Hector loves Aeneas. When Apollo rebukes Aeneas because he, Hector and others aren’t fighting (17.327-32), Aeneas recognises the god and tells Hector that it is shameful to retreat into Troy (17.335-41). Hector listens to him, although he doesn’t usually listen to the good advice of Polydamas, but threatens him instead (12.230-50, 18.296).
  
• Aeneas is a renowned warrior (8.108). But that doesn’t make him arrogant – Aeneas is sensibly reluctant to try to fight Achilles when he knows that Achilles is stronger (20.89-99), but he is goaded into it by Apollo, who protests that Aeneas too is the son of a goddess (20.104-9).
  
• The gods (20.115-31) and the poet (20.158-60) suggest that Aeneas is at least nearly equal to Achilles in valour.
  
• Aeneas’ reply to Achilles’ taunts is measured (20.200-58).
  
• Even though Achilles is the best warrior, it is by no means easyfor him to defeat Aeneas (20.288-90).
  
• Aeneas is rescued from his battle with Achilles by Poseidon, who is a pro-Greek god. Poseidon saves Aeneas on the grounds that: he’s unaware of his fate to survive (20.296), has done nothing wrong (20.297), always gives gifts to the gods (20.299), and most importantly is fated to survive (20.300-8). Poseidon’s only rebuke is that Aeneas shouldn’t have listened to Apollo and fought with Achilles; rather, he should stick to the otherwarriors, since none of the others will be able to kill him (20.331-9). Achilles muses in bewildered disgust: ‘Well then, Aeneas truly was beloved of the immortal gods’ (20.347-8).

In other words, Aeneas is one of the few characters in the Iliadwho is rewarded by the gods for being a good person. He is also not allowed to show valour in the way he wants to, like the other heroes, because the gods have plans for him.

In the Aeneid, we learn that Aeneas does not want these plans, but he has to follow them anyway. He does not regain his agency, but the gods’ protection is removed from him by the anger of Juno. How can anyone hate a character who is introduced like this:

This is a song of war, and of the hero who was the first to come,

by fate a refugee, from the shores of Troy to Italy and Lavinian

shores, and who was furthermore tossed all over land and sea

by the violence of the gods, because of cruel Juno’s unforgiving anger;

he suffered much in war, too, so that he might found a city

and bring his gods to Latium, whence come the Latin race,

the Alban fathers, and the walls of lofty Rome.

Muse, tell me the reasons – what slight to her divinity,

what grief made the queen of the gods drive to endure

so many misfortunes, to encounter so many trials, a man famed

for his goodness? Can there be such anger in the minds of the gods?

Vergil has a lot of feelings about Aeneas. You should, too.

‘But Vergil goes out of his way to make Aeneas a drip!’ NO.Vergil writes a realistic character. Vergil’s Aeneas behaves EXACTLY LIKE anyone should expect a war-torn refugee to behave. He is miserableand scared. But he accepts the responsibility put upon him, and he puts this responsibility before his own fears and his own desires. 

Vergil could have written a poem about ‘the founder of the Roman race’ just marching into Italy and lording it over everyone because that was his destiny and that was his right. But Vergil stopped to think, and he thought, ‘Wait, this figure is a refugee. This is a good man who loved his home and his people and would value that quality in others. This is a man who suffered and would not want others to suffer like he did. This is a man who would forget how to want his own happiness.’

I can’t go through the whole Aeneidhere, because I could write reams about every scene, but I’ll talk a little about two of the things for which Aeneas is most criticised, which I haven’t already talked about in my previous Aeneid rants (all in my tag here, but especially this one).

Lees verder

Thanks for taking the time to put this together and include all the references!

“Aeneas constantly puts others first and all he gets in return is misery.“ Ouch. That is so true.

This is a fantastic post. I could write a thousand words here elaborating on it but I’d probably just be reiterating stuff from your post that I just don’t think can be emphasized enough, so I’ll keep it short. I don’t understand why Aeneas isn’t more popular either. The classics fandom is rightly wild about Hector and Patroclus because they remain good people amidst the annoying violent masculine hero culture, so why not Aeneas? He’s a devoted family man who goes through hell but remains incredibly resilient and selfless. He’s a fairly understated, easily overlooked character in the Iliad, yet, as you showed, he’s already got a lot of good qualities there, and he’s not as flashy as Achilles or Hector but that’s exactly why he’s the one who survives, why he’s the one who’s worthy of carrying the destiny of the Trojans. It is tough, seemingly endless work to be the kind of hero the Aeneid requires but he does it, and IMO he deserves ALL the respect and sympathy for it. What’s not to love? (Well, there was the time he tried to kill Helen, but it was just one time and he was very upset and under a lot of stress so I can forgive him.)

I’m gonna stop here before I spend all night ranting in praise of my small son Aeneas.

The Performance Grammar Correspondence Hypothesis (PGCH) was put forward by John Hawkins (2004) as an explanation for why grammatical patterns and the frequencies of those patterns cross-linguistically are the way they are.

In essence, it says that linguistic constructions which are easier to process are more likely to be grammaticalised. Conversely, those which are harder to process are less likely to be grammaticalised. Furthermore, processing ease is hypothesised to underlie our preferences for certain constructions over others (where there is competition between constructions) in usage. Linguistic performance thus shapes the grammar.

Hawkins suggests that there are three principles behind the hypothesis. Simplifying horrifically:

Minimise Domains: this basically means make the distance between elements which go together syntactically and semantically as small as possible, e.g. if an adjective goes with a particular noun, put them as close together as possible.

Minimise Forms: this basically means make those elements mentioned above as small and as meaningful as possible, e.g. consider spoken English “I’mma be there” where “I am going to be there” has very much had its form minimised.

Maximise Online Processing: this basically means arrange those elements in such a way that a listener will be able to process the structure of what you’re saying in the most efficient way possible. This involves making structures easier to recognise but also avoiding potential misinterpretations of structure, e.g. “I looked the number up” – consider where you place the “up” as the object gets longer. “I looked the number of my friend who just moved in next door up” vs. “I looked up the number of my friend who just moved in next door”. If the object is going to be very long, it is better to put “up” straight after the verb so that the verb (and its idiomatic meaning) can be recognised sooner. When the object isn’t so long, as in “I looked the number up,” efficiency isn’t greatly affected.

Note that language users flout these principles all the time, e.g. for stylistic effect, and are not consciously aware of them.

Using these three principles, Hawkins’ theory makes some very strong and interesting predictions about the types of patterns found in the languages of the world, and about which patterns are more likely or unlikely to be found.

Reference

Hawkins, J. (2004). Efficiency and Complexity in Grammars. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Scotttrembls raised an interesting point: “Do you know if there’s any evolutionary relationships between SVO, SOV and VSO languages? The evolutionary explanation never seems to come up- has this already been disporved or do we not understand enough about language evolution?”

There’s no evolutionary relationship in the sense that all SVO languages are genetically related and separate from all SOV languages etc. SOV, SVO and VSO languages are distributed throughout the world and are found in many different language families. But we know that languages can change types over a period of time so, in this sense, there are evolutionary paths from one type to another. For example, Old English and Latin are considered to be canonically SOV languages but their descendants (English and the modern Romance languages) are SVO languages. You might wonder when an SOV language stops being an SOV languages and becomes an SVO language. You have to bear in mind that these types refer to canonical structures, languages may use other structures at the same time but their use will be more restricted (although there are languages which many would characterise as being ‘free word order’ in which case they would not fall into any of these categories). For example, English is canonically SVO, but English uses other word orders for questions, focus structures etc. So the relative frequencies of particular structures within a language may change over time resulting in what appears to be a single type-switch.

Work on implicational universals (universals of the form which says if a language has structure X then it will have structure Y) initiated by Joseph Greenberg and taken further by John Hawkins makes some interesting predictions for language change. Greenberg’s formulations were for the most part tendencies, i.e. if X then Y significantly more often than not, but Hawkins aimed to identify exceptionless universals which often involved adding extra conditions, i.e. if X then, if Y then Z. This places more constraints on the forms languages can take but it also makes strong predictions about evolutionary paths of language change. The reasoning is roughly: if these formulations hold for the present situation and if there is no reason to assume things were any different in the past then languages can only move through allowed ‘states’ as determined by the strong implicational universals.

We understand enough about the evolution of some language families to be able to test these predictions and the predictions have been largely correct so far. However, many would not take this evolutionary picture to be an ‘explanation’, rather it is seen as a ‘description’ of the facts which allows us to characterise possible evolutionary paths of change and distinguish them from impossible ones. Given that each stage of a language is a present-day language in its time, it is still ultimately up to the explanations offered by formal and functional approaches to account for the form a language takes at any particular point in its evolutionary history.