Don Hosek - Past reading - Linguistics

I'm fascinated by language. Never actually took a proper linguistics class (although I have studied no fewer than five languages formally and a few more on my own). Someday I hope to be able to put this knowledge to good use.

What I've been read in the past - Linguistics
DateAuthorTitle
Pimsleur Basic Czech
[Finished 6 February 2007] My first audiobook. In this case, it’s something which really can only be presented in audiobook format: Language lessons.

And I have to admit, that I like the Pimsleur format. The pacing is generally pretty slow (although lessons six and ten were both a bit fast compared to the rest of the ten-lesson set), and plenty of repetition means that as long as you’re consistent about doing at least two lessons a week, you don’t generally need to repeat lessons to get the learning from them (although I’ve let the lessons repeat into my iTunes playlist).

I’m not sure if I’m reading things into the conversations that aren’t there, but it seems like lesson nine has our male speaker trying to hit on the female speaker and getting shot down pretty badly. I always enjoy unexpected dialogues in languge learning materials.

But I’m not going to take their offer of a $50 discount on the comprehensive Czech CD set. There are two problems with this set. The first is that the lack of printed materials is a bit disorienting for me. I’m really a visual learner and not being able to see the words has been problematic for me. But even more of a problem is that the pronounciation on the CDs is bad. The male speaker has a tendency to add syllables to the ends of words that just don’t exist (I’ve checked with my father who speaks Czech on this). So whenever the male speaker on the CD says, e.g., “dobry den” it comes out as “dobry deno.” This is completely unacceptable for an audio-learning program. There are also other places where the pronounciation is unclear so, while it was a good introduction to the language, my further studies will be using more traditional paper methods. It’s a pity because it was a nice way to spend my walk home from work.

Greek Letters: From Tablets to Pixels edited by Michael S. Macrakis
[Finished 23 April 1997] A delightful collection from a variety of perspectives on the questions relevant to the production of Greek typefaces. It’s interesting in that the Greek printing community is seemingly unconcerned about the production of quality Greek typefaces, leaving the task to be done largely by Western designers.

A Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin by Carl Darling Buck
[Finished 25 June 1996] A rather heady linguistic work. At times I find myself drowning in a jargon which I don’t speak, but at other times, I find myself seeing linguistic connections that I was never aware of (or not a conscious level). Some of the patterns enumerated are ones that have entered my intuitive understandings of language, but seeing them explicitly defined helps me understand why they work the way that they do. I find myself interested in learning Sanskrit after reading through this book. I’ll have to look into auditing something at CGS when I get the chance.