Learning Quenya - Discussion Thread

[the guy who be short]

Aiya, neri ar nissi Atanion! Aiya, vendi ar hini Endoron! Aiya, ingolmor i lambeon Quendion!
Hail, men and women of the race of Men! Hail, maidens and children of Middle-Earth! Hail, loremasters of the tongue of the Elves!

Thus, in rather shaky and basic Quenya (the last sentence is liable to be flawed), I welcome you to the Learning Quenya Discussion Thread!

This thread is solely for those of us learning Quenya. If you are not learning Quenya with us, please do not post in this thread (unless you're a Mod, in which case, do whatever you want! ). Please also remember that we are all students at this stage, so do not ask us, publicly or privately, in this thread or any other, to act as a translation service for you, as we probably won't be able to!

Right, now that I've scared everybody else away, here's what the thread is for!

As you know, we are learning Quenya in our pairs, meaning we're more able to help one another out. However, something else that many people have requested is a place for us to share our experience of learning Quenya with others. And here it is, now that our number isn't entirely laughable.

This thread will be used for discussion of how we find learning Quenya, talking about things we find difficult, techniques we use to learn in pairs, etc. etc. It is meant to encourage us along the way, a larger group to share ideas with than just your Study Buddy.

The thread will not be used to discuss things like the appearance of Quenya in Tolkien's works, or the accuracy of the course, or whether standardisation is a good idea, or anything of that sort. Other threads can be created for this. It is simply another tool for the whole learning experience.

Existing Pairs:

Kath and TGWBS
dancing spawn of ungoliant and Lhunardawen
Encaitare (Alone)
Kitanna and Orominuialwen
Arwen Imladris and Esgallhugwen
CaptainofDespair and durelin
Joy (Alone)

[the guy who be short]

I'll start us off, then.

To everybody starting off, don't be disheartened by the length or complexity of lesson one - the following lessons are much shorter and far less complex.

It was a bit of a challenge comprehending aspiration and voicing and all the rest of it. Once you get past it (and not all of it is essential) the rest will seem easy as pie. I had trouble not aspirating my "t"s to begin with.

Something both Kath and I had trouble with is pronouncing "h"s. Fortunately, we classed all the different pronunciations and there were only about 5.

Another trick which I use is to copy and paste all the summaries of the lessons. When I'm not sure of something, I can quickly reference it by finding the piece of paper instead of having to start up the computer.

Finally, a useful source for Quenya vocabulary is, again, Ardalambion. I don't really trust other sites, and would advise people to stick to Ardalambion.

[Lhunardawen]

Originally Posted by tgwbs

Something both Kath and I had trouble with is pronouncing "h"s.

My, that was the worst lesson for me the first time around, too! I only got a measly one point in the exercises. Hopefully I'll do better as spawn and I start this week. We'll keep you posted.

[the guy who be short]

Lhuna: I still haven't memorised all the "h"s. Whenever I find one I'm not sure of, I look back at exercise and find out how to pronounce it. The underlying theory behind this is that eventually they will stick in my mind.

How Kath and I learn:
A step by step guide
1) Both read the lesson beforehand.
2) Meet at pre-appointed time on Instant Messenger.
3) Discuss the lesson. What we found easy, what we found hard and whatnot.
4) Help one another and try to explain things to one another if one of us finds something hard.
5) Do the exercises together. One of us writes the answer to an exercise, the other verifies that they think it's correct (or, if not, corrects it).
6) Check the answers and celebrate.
7) Arrange next meeting.
8) If we catch one another online between meetings, we talk to one another, interspercing Quenya into the conversation. This means we can keep up to date with vocab.

It works really well, actually. We've got to lesson 4 already.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

You guys have got Encai and I beat. Due to me being rather busy right now, we've agreed to snail's pace for the next two weeks or so. We've both got the introduction and first five lessons downloaded and presumably started. Once I'm no longer insane enough to offer up my time modding (kidding.. it's worth it... game starts in five minutes), I'll have more time to sit in front of the computer doing other things.

[Kath]

2) Meet at pre-appointed time on Instant Messenger.

Or, as is the usual way, try to meet at a pre-appointed time and then find that you have something else to do or your parents have chosen that particular moment to begin a 3 hour phone call and have to grovel later.

[the guy who be short]

Hehe, Kath, you're doing fine at plurals!

But, really, is there any reason for the gender imbalance? Is Quenya more appealing to women? Are Elves too nancy for men? Is it just a coincidence?

Concerning poetry competitions: I've had a look, and you need to get up to lesson 5 to write anything decent (when lesson 5 is complete, students should understand present tense verbs, nouns and adjectives, which is enough for a basic poem). If not enough people get that far by September, the first poetry competition could be rescheduled for October.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

The gender imbalance reminds me of my old Spanish class (fat lot of help that was... I'm going to miserably bomb my college proficieny test in about two weeks). There were about twenty of us... three guys.

And has anyone else noticed how torturously long the Introduction is?

[the guy who be short]

The intro isn't vital reading, Fea. I skimmed through it. The only thing of real importance was that some Quenya had been standardised (ie, "k"s turned to "c"s) because Tolkien changed his mind about spelling lots of times throughout his life. The rest is really babble.

Interestingly, in my German class, there were more boys than girls. German is usually thought of as quite a masculine language though.

French, usually thought of as feminine... I think there were a few more girls than boys.

I see Quenya as a feminine language. Maybe that's it.

Than again, maybe I'm pulling this all out of my donkey.

Summary of TGWBS's babble: Don't bother reading the whole intro properly Fea.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

I read the first third of it between Monday night and yesteday afternoon, and then I gave up. I hadn't really planned on finishing it any how, since my attention span is notoriously bad, and it's very long-winded and infused with big words. Also, I'll be away from home probably tonight, definately tomorrow (though no worries, my players, I'll get in a death post on WW6 before I leave), and I'll be quite busy Friday. I love when summer gets busy. Keeps me on my toes. Don't worry though, Encai, I'll get Lesson 1 read in between goofing off and shopping (hey, I didn't say what I was gonna be doing was important ).

[dancing spawn of ungoliant]

I just got back from a few days' vacation and Lhuna and I start our collaboration tomorrow.

Originally Posted by Quenya course, Lesson 1

Since the Finnish language was evidently Tolkien's foremost inspiration...

...I'm having a breeze with the pronaunciation. It's just the length of the lesson that is killing me (or is it that horrible headache I feel coming?). Anyway, at this point I feel optimistic about the course. Can't wait until we can begin writing poems!

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

I've thought of an all-important question: what is the nationality of the guy who wrote this tutorial? Because I'm having trouble with pronunciation and when I read the words he gives (examples being "for" and box" to help with [size=2]ó) it occurs to me that I pronounce the "o"s in those words differently. But then it occured to me that to try and explain the differences would make zilch sense to an English English speaker.[/size]

I mean... for me, "box" rhymes with "rocks". But since I'm sure it does also for all of you, it's a bad example. The best way of stating the difference is that "box" sounds like "bah-ks" whereas "for" sounds like "foe-er". And these are two very different sounds. Ah versus oh. So... is [size=2]ó ah or oh? And then there's those darned follow up sentences. I say the words he gives aloud several times, finally think I've got it right, and the next sentence proceeds to tell me that under no circumstances should I be saying it like that.
[/size]

[Kath]

So basically Fea, you're screwed unless you can get an audio version of how these thigs are supposed to be said.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

You got that right. Nevertheless, on I plod.

[Kath]

Didn't someone on one of the thread actually have an audio version? It might have been on this but it might have been on the original sign-up thread.

[dancing spawn of ungoliant]

So basically Fea, you're screwed unless you can get an audio version of how these thigs are supposed to be said.

But we can't let you to be "screwed", now can we? From Ardalambion:

"H is pronounced [x] (German ach-Laut) before t, unless this combination ht is preceded by one of the vowels e or i, in which case h is sounded like German ich-Laut. Otherwise, h may be pronounced like English h; the digraphs hy and hw however represent ich-Laut and unvoiced w (like American English wh), respectively. The combinations hl and hr originally represented unvoiced l, r, but by the Third Age, these sounds had come to be pronounced like normal l and r. "

And some audio samples for the assiduous student. Examples: thúle (archaic), silme, formen, halla, aha, Mahtan, tehta, hyarmen, hwesta

ps. Lhuna and I are moving on to the exercises of lesson 2. We're catching up!

Hello there
i'm French and I feel I'll need a hand learning Quenya. I'm afraid to say that Ardalambion's equivalent in French is rather a pity so I'm settling myself to learning Quenya on my own, unless some charitable soul takes pity on me and comes to my help!
Good luck to you all in this incredible task.
Alcarnarmo