Tag: languages

Refreshing my vocabulary

Vocabulary has always been my weak point with languages. My Spanish vocabulary was once extensive from years of studying, reading, and conversation, but even though my grammatical knowledge is as strong as ever I now find it hard to pinpoint the words I’m looking for. In learning Farsi, I find myself itching to have more conversation but held back by the limited number of concepts I know how to express.

So I dusted off the Memrise app and have been spending my evenings reviewing all the languages I once knew (Spanish, Catalan, German, Japanese) and expanding my Farsi vocabulary. I could do this all day. 😊

Studying another language

I have been trying to build Farsi (Persian) study into my daily routine again. It’s hard to make it a habit but it’s so fulfilling when I actually sit down and do it.

I’m back to using Teach Yourself Modern Persian, one of the first books I tried learning with. Although I think other resources are probably objectively better, I find that the lessons provide a bite-sized amount of information to encourage a daily habit. And the book serves as a physical reminder to study.

The downside is that I don’t trust all the grammatical details. My husband disputes some of the book’s examples, and aside from that I have found internal inconsistencies. In one case, I found the book using two different prepositions for the same context and decided to make a note so I can investigate later:

You may have noticed the backwards “OR” between those Farsi sentences. No, that was not on purpose. When I first learned to write, I taught myself … backwards. I wasn’t paying attention here and my brain just decided to stick with right to left, I guess. Hah!