20 Endangered Languages in 2020: Progress Report #07

20 langs in 2020 progress 07

I had a fun weekend away from London, hence being a little later with this update. In other news, Nahuatl is going pretty well, I think, though it does seem like time is flying by very quickly!

I’m still having a lot of fun learning Nahuatl. Truth be told, I don’t know how much of it is sticking—like I said last time, I do understand pronunciation rules, which is a nice change, but there’s such a difference in word roots that I’m having difficulty remembering terms.

I probably need to sit and spend time on them but truth be told, there’s not much time left for me with this language and, sadly, it’s one that’s come at a difficult time in terms of how busy I’ve been with work/personal stuff.

Still, positively; I have managed my minimum of thirty minutes’ learning every day. Lots of it has been on Memrise more recently, as that’s the easiest tool for me to use when I’m trying to fit my studying in throughout the day, but that means I’m being exposed to all that vocab, right?

The Transparent Language course has also been invaluable in showing me how to put words together (clarifying some of the stuff I didn’t understand from the UoT online course), so one of the things I’m learning this year is how to put together a good amount of materials that all complement each other. You can start learning a language by just reading one textbook, sure, but it’s a lot easier if you’ve got resources that work together well.

And here’s what I can say (without looking, promise!):

Piyali! Notocah Charlotte. Nimomachtia Nahuatl.

Yeah, yeah, not a lot, but I think that’s not terrible!

Some stats:

In my second six days, I spent 189 minutes (3.15 hours) studying Nahuatl. That averages out to 32 minutes per day; overall, I’m at 385 minutes (6.42 hours), which still averages out at 32 minutes per day. So, I’m seeming pretty married to that number right now! I’m going to try and see if I can push it up, but with only three days remaining, I doubt I’ll boost it up much more.

I’ve learnt 104 words on Memrise (across two decks) and 47 words from the Transparent Language course. I’m not sure which ones I’ve learnt since this post should have been up, but probably not loads more. I definitely need to go in and refresh those Transparent Language ones!

Here’s my breakdown:

chart (12)

I’m honestly surprised that Memrise hasn’t overtaken the Nahuatlahtolli course yet but once I plug all the numbers in for the full eighteen days, it just might. However, the combined Nahuatlahtoll and Transparent Language time should still be higher, so that’s fine. I’ve not spent any more time on YouTube (there aren’t many videos that aren’t Classical Nahuatl) or with the app (might go back to that).

A note for the end of this language: I’m away again this weekend (for work this time) so won’t have time to record the video until Sunday. I’ll post my Nahuatl review and Welsh opener then, though of course I’ll start learning Welsh on the 13th, as I should. It’s kind of tricky to keep these posts on track when they’re so dependent on things I’m actually doing!

Also, as I’m going on the Polyglot Cruise from 18th April, I’m changing the language I’m going to study there. I was supposed to be learning BSL, but since this is going to involve recording a lot of video (and I’m not going to have much alone time as I’m sharing a cabin), I’m instead going to learn BSL after Welsh and do Māori whilst on the cruise. Updates will be a little sporadic that week as I’ll be without wifi, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it!

Either way, I’m off to do today’s Nahuatl study now; I’ll be back at the weekend!

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