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The Self Study of a Language
A classical book with chapter episodes, old or new, or compiled texts with vocabulary lists form the central basis for a structured knowledge communication.
The availability of pronunciation, via dictionaries with sound files and phonetic transcription, enables self-learners to memorize the basic sound of new words and phrases, including various English dialects, from the very beginning.
Even without Internet access, free dictionaries, book and reference texts, language courses, sound files and video films can be stored on a computer at home or on data media to the extent of a library collection. With this almost inexhaustible basis, even financially weak households and institutions have an excellent learning or study basis, even with old and even very old computers for which free specialized lightweight operating system distributions are available, which convert old hardware back into a fast productive platform.
In addition to the classic exercises of your book or study materials, there are a number of autodidactic learning possibilities, which are presented in the following.
Ten-Finger System, learning the original
Keyboard Layout of your Target
Language
3.2 Personal Areas of Interest and Topics,
further Education
3.2.1 Locating of topic-related Websites in
your Target Language
3.3 Methods of Translation Optimization
3.3.1 Checking of the Naturalness of
Translated Words and Phrases
using Search Engine Statistics
3.3.2 Finding topic-related Basic
Vocabulary: Internet Encyclopedias
with Articles in different Language
Versions
3.4 Learning Pronunciation Ⅲ: Listening and
Reading Songs and Texts
3.4.1 Identification Possibilities of Songs or
of Song Melodies
or Sentences
3.5 [in preparation]
3.6 News Sites
3.7 Listening to Feature Films, TV Series and
Documentation Films in another Language
Version, Listening Comprehension
3.7.1 Subtitling systems
3.7.1.1 Television
3.7.1.2 DVDs
3.7.1.1 Youtube Videos etc.
3.7.2 Movies
3.7.3 Educational Films and Talks
3.7.4 Commercials
3.8 Children's, Youth and Fairy-Tale Books
3.9 Further Possibilities
Parallel to working through your language book, it is advisable to acquire the original keyboard layout of your target language, in the ten-finger system, in addition to handwriting new vocabulary and texts. This will give you a double written memorization. You can find further information in sections 1.4.1, “Free Software for learning the Ten-Finger System, Teaching Articles” and in 1.4.2, “Language and Keyboard Layout”. By learning the ten-finger system, you can save a considerable amount of time and increase the speed of reaction in telex dialogs.
Write down each newly learned word (or phrase) over several lines in the ten-finger system. In addition, the entire text of each chapter unit should be written down at least once in one piece. As with any skill acquisition, the beginning is arduous, but success will be evident very soon; the reward is a huge time saving in writing texts.
Most word processing programs have an autocorrect function built in, they check the written words for correctness by making comparisons via reference word lists. If there are discrepancies, such as typos, misspelled words are underlined in red or circled. If not already available, import one or more free dictionaries of your target language into your word processing program.
Create a sample document or template for writing texts in your target language. Make the necessary basic settings for this document and select your target language. You can then create working copies again and again.
Extract from the official LibreOffice help, “Selecting the Document Language” (March 26, 2020): “The language you select for your document determines the dictionary used for spellcheck, thesaurus and hyphenation, the decimal and thousands delimiter used and the default currency format.. [...]”
Dictionaries have only a limited vocabulary, but they can be extended by the user, see for LibreOffice the article “Spelling and Grammar”.
On the Internet, people organize themselves around every conceivable topic. Specialized web sites, portals, articles, newsletters and RSS news tickers offer comprehensive content. The exchange of ideas takes place via commentary sections (also RSS subscribable), via discussion forums, via mailing lists (e-mail newsletters), or directly via telex discussions (chatting), directly and unregistered on platforms, or via separate service providers (with user account).
Transfer your personal areas of interest into your target language area, e.g. into the Anglosphere: Look for topic pages dedicated to your main interests, pages that are in the target language you are aiming for. Find topic groups, forums (see also “Category:Web forum”), where you can of course just read along, and video channels of like-minded people. Explore the almost inexhaustible, freely accessible document sources.
Use RSS news tickers to stay up to date effectively and time-saving. From a certain number of websites of interest to you, you can only keep track of new articles and news via RSS tickers. Although there is the possibility to use mailing lists and to be informed about new contributions by e-mail. However, a few e-mail providers delete incoming mail from websites considered “politically incorrect”.[1] This sometimes also applies to outgoing mail to politically questioning web sites, which can also be filtered out.
However, the retrieval of RSS news tickers is similar to a normal internet page retrieval, if there is a filtering here, you will know immediately.
Use the bookmark function of your browser and save or export your bookmark collection regularly. At the same time, maintain a classic notebook in which you write down all the the website addresses (name and URL) that are important to you, as well as the addresses of specific documents.
Create systematic archives for your web pages, articles, films, and documents, archives that are structured in such a way that the documents remain retrievable even after years. USB flash drives have become very inexpensive. For the storage of extensive collections of articles (HTML documents, etc.) from the Internet, the use of compression programs such as ZIP or 7-ZIP can be useful in some cases, especially if the existing file names are longer than usual and optical disc authoring software may not be able to cope with them. For daily use, USB memory sticks are the easiest to use, they now offer the largest mobile storage capacities (besides external hard disks). However, please note the different durability of the data media, make backups regularly and in time. You should make printouts and image prints of your most important documents.
Use external hard drives with USB connection for archiving your data. They are available at a reasonable price in a classic version (proven HD drive technology), or as a somewhat more expensive SSD hard disk. If you want to use the external hard disk both under MS-Windows and together with MacOS computers, it is recommended to format it with the exFAT file system (or an NTFS driver for MacOS).
[1] MP-article “Political correctness”
https://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Political_correctness
Make a note of your areas of interest and call up a dictionary or translation system and write down the terms translated into your target language. Then call up a search engine. If it is a practical activity, you can search for instructions.
Example: You are interested in English pages and documents. Go to google.com/ncr, “ncr” stands for “no country redirect” (no country redirection), this will keep you in the English language superset search index. Combine a subject area with the word “tutorial”. Drawing search examples: drawing tutorial; drawing tutorial anatomy; drawing tutorial portrait. Search examples for the topic tailoring: tutorial tailoring. Also switch to the video category to watch tutorials.
“Introduction to [subject area]”, “Introduction to”: Effective search term combinations are also Introduction to tailoring or simply introduction tailoring, introduction drawing. Refine your search, within your field of interest there are sections that are of particular interest to you, translate them as well.
Describing the problem within a topic area leads to numerous articles, often you are then already on a corresponding (main) topic page when you call up the article. Translate the problem into the target language yourself or, for example, with the help of DeepL.
Internet encyclopaedias offer portals and categories, bundled overviews of subject areas and professions, mostly sorted alphabetically like catalogues.
Wikipedia: „Portal:Contents/Portals“ • „Categories“ • „Category:Translation“ • „Translation“ • „Portal:Sprache“ • „Portal:Sprache/Sprachen der Welt“ • „Portal:Sprache/Info“ • „Wikipedia:Sprachen“.
German Metapedia: „Metapedia:Kategorieverzeichnis“ • „Alle Seiten“ • „Kategorie:Portal“ • „Kategorien“ • „Category:Portals“.
Encyclopedia overviews: „List of online encyclopedias“ • „Liste von Online-Enzyklopädien“ • „Wikipedia-Alternativen“.
Encyclopedia articles are usually available in several language versions. Call up your area of interest, i.e. select the corresponding topic article. Then switch to your target language (if available) in the left-hand navigation menu to access the article version in another language. At the very bottom of the page, additional links to other websites and documents are often, but not always listed, in English WP articles in the “External Links” section.
Example Art: Information about the painter Franz Marc In the English Wikipedia you will find the article “Franz Marc” and can switch left to the German version “Franz Marc”, to the French version “Franz Marc”, the Spanish version “Franz Marc” and to other language versions. Articles about art at Metapedia, among others: “Deutsche Kunst” • “Kategorie:Deutsche Kunst” • “Moderne Kunst” • “Kulturgenozid”. A central documentation on the concept and essence of art: “Why beauty matters” von Roger Scruton, 59 min.
Discussion forums are a further point of contact. Example searches: tailoring discussion forum, discussion forum drawing, discussion forum photography, forum photography. tailoring discussion forum, discussion forum drawing, discussion forum photography, forum photography. Always remember which words might be included in your target text. For example, for product discussions:forum problem [concrete product name] topic.
You can use a range of methods and tools for creating and optimizing translations, in addition to the dictionaries listed in Chapter 2 and the most advanced machine translation system.
Search engines and digitized archives represent only a part or an excerpt of the vocabulary of a language, but they can provide clues as to how common words and phrases are.
To check how frequent one or more (translation) text variants are, proceed as follows:
1. Call up a search engine whose search catalogue contains results in the language relevant to you Example for the languages English and German: For text and video search queries on Google, it's best to generally use the much more extensive and less censored U.S. search index, which you can access via http://www.google.com/ncr (it also contains the German-language sources). This way, you will not be redirected to the highly censored German search engine catalog, but remain in the much more comprehensive search index superset. Official Google information about this in English.
[Restrictive note from March 28, 2020: The political censorship of the Google search engine superset is now as far-reaching and devastating as the country-specific search indexes.
At least in part, you get through Yandex.ru overall much more neutral result lists, without denying the original address and politically correct indoctrination articles on the first pages (search term example for comparison: Metapedia)].
2. Enter a single word, or combinations of words or phrases in quotation marks.The quotation marks define phrases, sentence fragments and sentences as a search term unit and are not interpreted as unrelated individual words.
3. Check what frequency information is provided. Does the translated word or phrase not appear at all (0 search results)? Does one of your translation variants hardly occur at all, while another one occurs very often? In this
case, the listed extracts of probably not common phrases may be based on translations whose translators did not know better at the time. For example: “scanned at 300 dpi” (probably very common), “scanned with 300 dpi” (possibly common), “scanned by 300 dpi” (probably rather not common among native speakers).
Of course, there can also be several spellings of one and the same word or phrase. However, learners of German should take into account that the BRD-Endphase-Schriftdeutsch is only a small, mutilated subset of the naturally evolved written German. In particular, thousands of words have completely different meanings when written separately or together, which are unknown to the younger generations.
In many thousands of words, however, separate and compound spelling represent completely different meanings that are mostly unknown to younger generations. Examples: An Andersdenkender and an anders Denkender, wohldurchdacht and wohl durchdacht, so genannt and sogenannt, etc., each mean something completely different, separate and compound spelling have different content, it does matter whether words are written separately or together.
The Andersdenkende (dissident) has a different world view, a different view resp. opinion. The anders Denkende usually refers to the way someone thinks, to thought processes and -characteristics, etc., although of course it is also used in the sense of positioning a point of view resp. stance [Standpunktverortung] (“ich denke da anders”). “Hat er das Boot gesichert? [Did he secure the boat?]”. a) “Er hat es wohlvertaut [das Schiffstau, mooring].”, b) “Er hat es wohl vertaut.”, meaning a) written in one word: He has secured the boat thoroughly, meaning b) written separated: He probably tied it up (you don't know if it was secured). So genannt (so called) is a neutral information, sogenannt contains a critical evaluation.
More detailed information as well as many illustrative examples can be found in “'Rechtschreibreform': Getrennt- und Zs.schreibung”. Detailed overview: Site Map.
The deformation of the expressiveness of German took place with a very specific intention, which is discussed in the appendix article “Naturally Developed Written German”.
In many subject areas, (basic) formulations for facts tend to predominate. Dictionaries often contain a large number of context-dependent (reference frame-dependent) word translations or formulations, so that it is sometimes not easy to make a reliable selection. In addition to search engine statistics (3.3.1), online encyclopaedias and wikis are useful for finding the predominant context-related words and phrases; their topic articles are usually available in several language versions.
Encyclopedias: The “List of online encyclopedias” provides an overview of Internet encyclopedias. The most comprehensive multilingual encyclopedias include Wikipedia and Metapedia. Wikipedia is distinguished by numerous excellent technical reviews, but it also presents globalist or internationalist views and perspectives in key areas of life, as well as a prescriptive one in the field of language (at least the German section). Metapedia emphasizes that European/white peoples also have a right to exist as well as a right to preserve their cultures. Its authors represent the right to life of peoples and nations in their original (meaning) sense.
The German-language Metapedia contains 71 345 articles (as of March 21, 2020). It is the only remaining Metapedia language section (of originally 20), which was completely restored after the major database attack in 2018.
Wikipedia and Metapedia offer huge collections of articles and information on languages, linguistics, and language acquisition. [The green links are currently not activated because of the SHAEF “legislation”, which is still enforced by the occupying power[1]].
An overview of the respective language editions can be found at
über wikipedia.org
and
metapedia.org.
From there you can access the title pages of the respective language versions, for German via
de.wikipedia.org
de.metapedia.org. Both encyclopedias are directly readable, accessible without registration.
The WP-article “Wikipedia” as well as the MP-article “Metapedia” (dt.: “Metapedia (Enzyklopädie)” represent the respective self-conception or self-perception. Both encyclopedias have their own view of the other, seeing the other in a very specific light, e.g. MP-article “Wikipedia” (dt. “Wikipedia”)
A selection of Wikipedia-articles about language: “English language” • “Category:English language” • “American English” • “Category:American English” • “German language” • “Category:German language” • “Category:Language” • “Kategorie:Einzelsprache”.
Some of the numerous German language Metapedia-articles (de.metapedia.org) on the subject of language: „Deutsche Sprache“ • „Kategorie:Deutsche Sprache“ • „Deutsche Rechtschreibung“ • „Kategorie:Deutsche Schrift“ • „Kategorie:Alphabet“ • „Kategorie:Deutsche Kultur“ • „Kategorie:Deutschland“ • „Kategorie:BRD“ • „Sprache der BRD“ • „Anglizismus“ • „Denglisch“ • „Politische Korrektheit“ • „Kategorie:Sprache“ • „Kategorie:Englische Sprache“ • „Kategorie:Germanische Sprache“ • „Deutsche Literatur“ • „Literatur nach Sprache“ • „Sprachforschung“ • „Kategorie:Sprachwissenschaft“ • „Kategorie:Wort“ • „Metapedia:Schreibregeln“ • „Kategorie:Metapedia:“ • „Metapedia:Anglizismen“ • „Kategorien“ • „Kategorie:Liste“.
Example: Compare the corresponding English and German formulations of the linked WP-articles “Quadratic equation”. and “Quadratische Gleichung”.
1] The Allied occupation administration in the occupied Rest-Germany is still based on the SHAEF-legislation (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force) [MP-article “Rechtslage der Bundesrepublik Deutschland” and “Besatzungsrecht”].
Learn your target language also by listening to and reading song lyrics. On the world wide web, there is a text for almost every song.
When you hear a song on the radio, write down what you understand; write down words, phrases, and even whole sentences. Then call up a search engine and enter, for example: song lyrics [“text fragment 1”] [“text fragment 2”] [“word 1”] [“word 2”] resp. song text [“text fragment 1”] [“word 1”]
An example: You hear a song on the radio and understand the following fragments, among others “and so it is”, „most of the time“. Start a search query with the following terms (put written text fragments in quotation marks): song lyrics "and so it is" "most of the time" resp. in your mother tongue, e.g. in German: Lied Text "and so it is" "most of the time".
The song title, the interpreter and the lyrics appear. Switch to the video category to view different video versions, including those on Youtube: “Damien Rice - The Blower's Daughter (Official Video Version 2 [Without Film Clips])”.
Es erscheinen der Liedtitel, der Interpret sowie der Liedtext. Wechseln Sie auf die Video-Kategorie, um sich verschiedene Videoversionen anzeigen zu lassen, darunter diese auf Youtube: „Damien Rice - The Blower's Daughter (Official Video Version 2 [Without Film Clips])“.
Some songs are sung by different performers, so that for a closer encirclement “original” or for example “man voice” or “woman voice” can be helpful. Text fragment searches and song references: song lyrics original “don't go changing” „I just want someone“ → “Billy Joel - Just the Way You Are (Official Audio)” • song lyrics “I hear laughter in the rain” → “Neil Sedaka - Laughter in the Rain (1974)” • song lyrics “into the night into the light” → “Joe Jackson - Steppin' Out (Official Video)” • song lyrics “the system has broke down” → “Phil Lynott - Old Town [HQ Music Video]”.
Many old and new feature films, TV series and documentaries are available in part or in full on video platforms such as YouTube or on the video pages of television stations.
Create a personal list of films and series to watch them in your preferred target language. Translations are often kept quite free or too free and simplified. However, you already know the main film content, scenes and dialogs, you already know what it is about, even if you only understand a part of the spoken scenes.
Example: You would like to see the original English language version of the film classic “Tarantula”.
1. Go to Wikipedia to enter the film title in your native language. Check the corresponding article to see what the original movie title is, or simply switch to the English Wikipedia article version (click on “English” on the left) to look up the title.
2. Call up the page google.com/ncr to remain in the higher-level main index of Google.com. “ncr” means “no country redirect”; this is less censored and contains as a superset all other search indexes (google.de, google.fr etc.).
3. Enter the movie title and the word “movie” as search term (Tarantula movie) and then switch to the video search category.
4. You can set search parameters, such as the length of the films or videos. Look for a complete film version (e.g. directly viewable at the Internet Archive, “Tarantula (1955)”, 120 min.) or for single parts.
Example: Operating principle of a car, “What's Under Your Hood? (1973)”, from the channel “US Auto Industry”
Good childrens and youth books, corresponding TV series and films as well as fairy tale books are excellent for learning a language:
- They use a manageable and limited, but absolutely basic everyday vocabulary
- The formulations are easy to understand and practically timeless
- In series and films the language is spoken clearly, sometimes the content is repeated for better memorization
- They deal with typical everyday situations, often in a humorous way
Example: “Peppa Pig” (German version: “Peppa Wutz”), is a worldwide spread animation series, it exists in almost three dozen language versions (English WP article).
Call up one of the episode lists held in your native language (search term example: Peppa Pig Episodes), which lists the episode titles held in English (WP episode list) in addition to the language held in your native language, or those held in your target language (French or other). The YouTube channel “PeppaPigSubtitled” carries English subtitled episodes.
Find the counterpart in your target language, for example, episodes in German. The German episode of the English original “Nature Trail” [Peppa Pig (Series 2) - Nature Trail (with subtitles)] is called “Naturpfad”
Youtube offers a video subtitling system function, which does not always work properly.