I will be teaching myself Chinese and Arabic semi-intensely (when I actually can afford the time) over the next few years. Are there any good linguistics books on these languages? Also, please give any advice for learning new languages (these will be the first since my high school language).
Both very "geopolitical" choices...
If that's what you're after, trust me when I say you should learn Russian as well.
>>7389038
Thanks! That expedited my search in terms of Arabic, as long as that poster also dumps the rest of his stuff.
I'm still looking for accepted/recommended Chinese textbooks, though (really excited to read Chinese poetry).
Do you know anything, personally, about Chinese at all?
>>7389059
Do you have any experience with Russian?
>>7389071
Learning it right now, extended family.
>>7389066
I don't know anything about Chinese. You can get all those books online. The other guy is dumping Arabic lit and Persian lit when and if he gets to it.
>>7389086
How difficult is it pronunciation-wise, and are you using anything outside of contact with native (or at least proficient) speakers?
>>7389090
Giddy4that. Thanks for the direction
I don't know much about Arabic but learning Chinese, whatever your dedication and even with a full-time curriculum won't require you to work over the next few years but the next few decades, especially if you want to read literature and poetry. With Arabic, a semitic language, I can't even imagine how insane amount of work you will need to achieve your goal. You should maybe drop one of them, at least for the first years.
My advice to you is to be really sure you want to learn the languages before starting. I tried for Japanese for over three months straight studying each night on Anki and reading almost every day, and what got me wasn't physical inability to keep studying, but the outlook of what lie ahead. It would be over a year before I would have decent comprehension, which would take only months in a Romance language. I could also read source material of great literature after that time, whereas in Japanese it would take much longer.
I imagine Chinese is similar. The appeal is how exotic it is, but the load of the work is exhausting and soul-killing. I've never tried Arabic but I imagine it's similarly difficult. If you actually want to learn either, pick one and stick with it. You aren't going to learn both competently in less than a decade, sorry to say.
>>7389223
... except Chinese, for a Westerner, is much easier than Japanese. The Japanese writing system is the worst in the history of man and the word order is different (though I am told this turns out to not be a big obstacle). The "logic" of Chinese grammar is nearly identical to English and the rest consists of idiomatic formulas. Overall, the language should be seen as being really quite sparse and minimal in every respect. Learning the characters seems hard, but hardly anyone struggles with it and usually consider it their favorite thing about learning language.
However, be warned, for Chinese pronunciation is nearly impossible for the Western pig due to the congenital malformation of his overgrown tongue and regressed cognitive faculties for tonal memory. I have never met a Westerner who could go five sentences without making a tonal mistake.
I have studied Chinese for some time now, including a year of university study (unrelated to my primary studies). The best advice I can give you is to take a class if you can. If you can't, try to get a native speaker to tutor you. You need to read a lot, write a lot, listen a lot, and speak a lot to make any progress at all in Chinese. It's hard under ideal circumstances and brutally hard if you're working alone.
Resources: Check out the John DeFrancis Chinese textbook series. They are pretty inexpensive if you buy them used on Amazon. This is okay for learning characters and practicing reading and writing. You have to look up the simplified characters though, because the series uses traditional characters. The Graded Chinese Reader series and Capturing Chinese series are also great for easing into reading Chinese literature. That's also much more interesting material than textbook dialogues.
Unfortunately there's no good way to practice speaking by yourself. You can rehearse dialogues and imitate recordings but it's a poor imitation for actual conversation. Practice the fundamentals a lot, like getting the tones correct when speaking, and making your written characters correctly.
It's hard but if you have a good study plan, are naturally good at languages, and work an hour a day, you can make progress. Assuming all of that, you can easily reach intermediate level in 3 years. (For an easier language like French or Spanish I would say 1 year.) To actually approach fluency or advanced reading and writing ability, you would probably need to spend some time in China.
Good luck.
>>7389248
I can't claim to know anything about Chinese at all outside of its tones. My main point is that despite all the enjoyable and easy aspects of the language, it's regardless a lot of work for a very long time, and can seem crushing after a while due to slow progress. If you really want to do it, go ahead, but it's a huge commitment even though it is possible.
>>7389248
>Chinese pronunciation is nearly impossible for the Western pig due to the congenital malformation of his overgrown tongue and regressed cognitive faculties for tonal memory
topkek
>>7389248
I'm really excited to learn the characters. My handwriting is really bad right now, so I feel like learning them gracefully would somehow redeem my babby hands.
When I was young, there was this radical right-wing guy who I would talk to (and would always try to get me to join his "militia"), and he was learning Chinese through talking with people in parties on Xbox Live. His pronunciation, at least what I can remember of it, was actually pretty good. So I guess he'll be the goal.
My tonal memory is pretty good from training with instruments and I still have French tones down from my 1 month experience with the language. I really hope that this pre-disposition kind of helps with the development. Also the tonal memory for instruments probably doesn't relate much. We'll see! Thanks a lot for the advice by the way < 3
Waste of time.
>>7389614
it sounds like a joke but there is some truth to it. ive only met like 3 westerners ever who've had acceptable pronunciation. sometimes when i am asked to critique their pronunciation i will get them to repeat a syllable over and over (while i also repeat it) and they still cannot do it
>>7389066
>really excited to read Chinese poetry
Spoken Chinese will not help you with that
>>7389135
The key to accent and pronunciation is to listen to as much speech by a native speaker as possible. To accomplish this, I listen to an audio-book for 45 minutes a day. Don't expect to understand everything for years, the point is to get an intuition for the sound and music of the language.
>>7390394
Any works you like the language of in particular?
>>7390375
I'm not just doing this for speech
