Slashdot Mirror
Learning a Language in the Digital Age
UmmRa points out his discussion of four flash-card programs for language learning, excerpting "As someone who has learned three dead languages in the past six years (Latin, Egyptian, and Akkadian) I have had my share of experience with language software....If there is one thing I have learned from the experience, it is that no program is a panacea. Until we all have Matrix-esque jacks at the base of our skulls, learning a language will be a process that requires some amount of work and time. However that does not mean there isn't cheap (or free!) software out there to greatly simplify the process." None of the program compared are free (or Free), though two are shareware; two of them are for Windows only, one is Mac-only, and the other is "Java based, so it can operate on any platform." Update: 03/21 02:34 GMT by T : The actual link got dropped -- my fault -- in editing this post; now fixed.
the slashdot editors can use the software to learn english?
Dead Languages I was once fluent with:
Pascal
Paradox
DB-III
68000 Assembly
Countless Application specific scripting languages and APIs
Considering the grammar and spelling travesties on Slashdot, not to mention the execrable comprehension of story headlines, summaries, and TFAs themselves, this pseudoliterate community is the last place to ask that question.
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make install -not war
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_language
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akkadian_language
But as for the comparison and programs, you're on your own. This is Slashdot. "News for Nerds." Nerds are supposed to have all the answers, right?
Keep your eyes to the sky.
Actually, learning Latin is a pretty good idea. It's a base for many European languages, and the subject object verb structure matches several more languages not based on it (and gets English speakers used to forming and reading sentences in this structure). Having a good Latin vocabulary will let people studying Spanish or French or Italian recognize words that used Latin roots, and the grammar concepts do carry over some.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Sprite through the nose... ahaha...
:-D
/me Wishes he could mod you up.
It's hillarious, words cannot describe the pain of laughter I recieve from seeing such a professionally made website describing "leet speak"... and being so incredibly serious about it.
I'm a signature virus. Please copy me to your signature so I can replicate.
How I did was brute force, using the Breen dictionary site and various on-line Japanese new sites. I'd find an article, and read it. Words I didn't know, I'd look up. Then I'd read another article and do the same thing. Over a year, I had built up a good vocabulary. I was working a Help Desk, so believe me, I had nothing but time to keep looking up the same word over and over until it stuck.
I wrote my own flashcard programs (one in JavaScript and one in VB) that brought in audio and pictures. Unfortunately, this method (for me) was not long term effective. I'd gain an extra 500 words of vocab that I'd loose just as fast. For me, only words that I saw all the time really stuck. Pictures, audio, etc., although nice, didn't seem to add much to my learning effort. Just straight and constant reading and watching TV and looking up words is what did it for me.
The hardest challenge is crossing the line to real fluency and reading novels. I can get through the newspaper fine but can't get past page one of a novel yet. The reason is all the words that every Japanese person knows that only show up rarely in written material (English is the same, how often do you say "ermine", "demarcation" or "orbital insertion" in conversation?). I've gone back to the flash cards for words of this type.
In short, there's no magic to learning a language. It is a grotty, tedious, intense and rather lonely project involving memorization, dictionaries and lots of time.
Coptic isn't derived from hieroglyphics, but from the Greek alphabet. It has 24 letters from the Greek alphabet, 7 letters to represent sounds that Egyptian had but Greek did not, and one monogram.
However, Coptic is a written version of the Egyptian language, as are hieroglyphics, which might be what you are thinking of.