Tlön language

Their language and the derivations of their language - religion, letters, metaphysics - all presuppose idealism. The world for them is not a concourse of objects in space; it is a heterogeneous series of independent acts. It is successive and temporal, not spatial. There are no nouns in Tlön's conjectural Ursprache, from which the "present" languages and the dialects are derived: there are impersonal verbs, modified by monosyllabic suffixes (or prefixes) with an adverbial value. For example: there is no word corresponding to the word "moon,", but there is a verb which in English would be "to moon" or "to moonate." "The moon rose above the river" is hlor u fang axaxaxas mlo, or literally: "upward behind the onstreaming it mooned."
The preceding applies to the languages of the southern hemisphere. In those of the northern hemisphere (on whose Ursprache there is very little data in the Eleventh Volume) the prime unit is not the verb, but the monosyllabic adjective. The noun is formed by an accumulation of adjectives. They do not say "moon," but rather "round airy-light on dark" or "pale-orange-of-the-sky" or any other such combination. In the example selected the mass of adjectives refers to a real object, but this is purely fortuitous. The literature of this hemisphere (like Meinong's subsistent world) abounds in ideal objects, which are convoked and dissolved in a moment, according to poetic needs. At times they are determined by mere simultaneity. There are objects composed of two terms, one of visual and another of auditory character: the color of the rising sun and the faraway cry of a bird. There are objects of many terms: the sun and the water on a swimmer's chest, the vague tremulous rose color we see with our eyes closed, the sensation of being carried along by a river and also by sleep. These second-degree objects can be combined with others; through the use of certain abbreviations, the process is practically infinite. There are famous poems made up of one enormous word. This word forms a poetic object created by the author. The fact that no one believes in the reality of nouns paradoxically causes their number to be unending. The languages of Tlön's northern hemisphere contain all the nouns of the Indo-European languages - and many others as well.

Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius by Jorge Luis Borges

I don't understand how anyone could learn Greek with Duolingo...

I know there's a lot of people who claim that the best way to learn languages is like a child. Might work for them, doesn't work for me. I don't understand the Greek articles at all. I don't know when you use mia and when ena. Until I go and check out the Greek grammar, and see that mia is the feminine article and ena the masculine/neuter. Now, I KNOW there's some grammar in Duolingo, and it would be a really smart idea to click the question mark, especially when learning, but - most people don't. And they don't always offer it in Greek either :-D

I think it's a really stupid idea to not allow transliterating. I mean, the Greek letters are pretty straightforward and easily transliterated into Roman letters.  But no... they start whining about how to PRONOUNCE the words... That there are several different letters and diphthongs that are pronounced [i].  How are you going to learn to SPELL like that? And when they accept the use of ι υ οι ει for [i] (only one of those is i), I don't understand why they cry over the FACT that one doesn't learn to spell Greek words in Duolingo. "there are surprisingly many advanced Greek learners who don't know how to spell!"

I mean, have they never heard of ghoti? Or that people learn to spell French, too, totally inspite of how it sounds? Or that in Korean, Japanese and Arabic they actually teach transliterating as part of learning the letters?  And THAT PEOPLE STILL LEARN KOREAN, JAPANESE AND ARABIC AT DUOLINGO!!! Duolingo taught me how to read Arabic. 

Seriously, the people who are responsible for the Greek course at Duolingo! Greek is not difficult to transliterate! 

α - a
β - b
γ - g
δ - d
ε - e
ζ - z
η - e/ei
θ - th
ι - i
κ - k
λ - l
μ - m
ν - n
ξ - x
ο - o
π - p
ρ - r
σ - s
τ - t
υ - u/y
φ - f/ph
χ - ch
ψ - ps
ω - o

And then just give people trick alternatives of words deliberately written wrong, and don't accept anything but the correct alternative. That's how you teach people when you write η and when ε. When to use omega and when omicron. Which letters are used to form the i-sound in this word. Not by accepting ι as typo for υ, "because it sounds the same". Idiots.

Anyway, about transliterating - you do it by exchanging a letter to a letter (or a specific letter combination) Like in Russian, С - s,Ш - sh, Ц - c,Ч - ch,З - z,Ж - zh, and Щ - shc.
This works like this: I sound the name of the letter when I write it. 
You know, cee, a, tee - cat. 
Gamma - alpha - tau - alpha - γατα - gata. 
ka - o - sha - ka - a - кошка koshka.
I mean... if I know democracy in Greek is written demokratia, it might make it harder for me to remember it's pronounced "ðimokratía", but easier to know it's spelled δημοκρατία and not διμοκρατία. That Duolingo accepts "διμοκρατία" as a correct answer - with a typo - but not demokratia, is just stupid.

I am not going to get myself a Greek keyboard. I got myself a Russian one, and then I forgot to change it back to Swedish, and closed the computer, and everything was in Russian when I opened it again... I can tell you it took some time to change it back to Swedish. And it wasn't easy. I almost cried before I got it back. I do not want to go through that with the Greek keyboard as well.

So - I'm probably not going to do much Greek in Duolingo. 

So, someone said "how are you going to learn to read and write Greek without a keyboard?"
The same way I LEARNED TO READ AND WRITE EVERY OTHER WRITING SYSTEM, you idiot! We didn't get a keyboard at first class when we taught to read and write my mothertongue, and it wouldn't have helped any with the reading. NO-ONE USES THE KEYBOARD TO READ. 

Also, when I'm learning things like "this is a woman, this is a man, I am a girl, you are a boy, cat ate fish" and so on - I'm still a beginner and will probably be for a VERY LONG TIME - I think my priority should not be to learn to touch-type yet another keyboard layout. Because that's how it's going to be. You see, the Greek keyboard layout is different from the Latin one, because they have created theirs according to the how their language works. 

Our keyboard is abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz.

Theirs is αβψδεφγηιξκλμνοπ;ρστθωςχυζ

You see, they don't have a c, h, j, q, u, v or w. But they do have ps, two es, th, two os and ch. Now, I think they should have put χ as h and ξ as x, but I suppose they have more use for μ and need it to be one of the most used keys in the middle... Anyway, it's different, and requires learning. (Of course it's easier than the Russian keyboard, but, alas, I have already started learning to touch type Russian, so...)

But on the other hand, I have a keyboard I can use, and then just copy and paste... though I don't like it. I'd much rather just write on Duolingo. And probably they'll remove the cut and paste option, too :-D

Anyway, I was using the word bank, but they have this vocabulary test, which doesn't give you options. You have to write it as it is. And they don't give you a Greek keyboard. So cut and paste it is. And when I was complaining about this, someone said they are pretty certain of that there's a button I can click. Yeah... I posted a screen shot and asked them to show me where the button is, because it's not there. Really easy for people to learn Greek.

And then we have the funny little fact that some countries that used to use Cyrillics to write their language, have changed to Latin alphabet - AND MANAGED TO MAKE THE CHANGE WITHOUT MUCH PROBLEMS.  

It doesn't make things better that I think the woman reading the words is hard to understand. Her Greek isn't very clear, and it's hard to hear what she says. 

So, no, Duolingo Greek is not something I would recommend.

How to practice speaking skills alone?

Now, I am talking about English. It's quite possible and not even difficult to get good at speaking English without ever talking with anyone. It's harder when it comes to other languages, but the most common languages are almost as easy as English.
When it comes to other languages - learn IPA, and you will get close enough. It's not perfect, of course, but it's good enough to get you understood and able to correct your mistakes.

1) Speak. Say everything you are learning. If you go to Duolingo, read all the sentences and words out loud. You don't need to put in any air in your speaking, so that you can do it in a public library or a bus or anywhere without getting attention. Just try it. Read out loud this sentence without any sound - you HEAR your voice reading this. You feel your mouth, tongue, lips making the movements.
Learn the pronunciation rules, and IPA, and get an estimation of how you think the words should be pronounced, and then compare your estimation to reality, and correct your pronunciation accordingly.
"Repeat after ---". Parrot the words.

1) Read texts aloud. Record your speech. Listen to it and compare to a native speaker. Try to get it as close as possible.
If you are having difficulties getting some specific words to sound right, there's plenty of sites where people pronounce specific words. (Like Forvo, for example.)
Again, in English you probably can find every word pronounced by a native speaker somewhere online, in Navajo, not so likely.
Audiobooks are excellent for this purpose, and it doesn't matter if the books are modern or in public domain. The anciency of the language is irrelevant.
You can also read along with the native speaker. You will be able to spot the differences better this way. :-D Make notes on what you usually miss and practice that.

2) Speak about things in your chosen language. It doesn't much matter if you get it right or not. Speak clearly, do your best, but don't focus on if you get it right. You don't know. You can't know. But speaking a lot makes you better at speaking. Yes, it is highly possibly you develop some bad habits or learn something wrong, but it will be quickly corrected, if you ever get to use the language in real situation. If you don't, then nobody cares - or should care. Also, that's why you would be doing the first thing I suggested, to get it right. THERE it is important to get it as right as you possibly can.

3) Sing.

4) Practice tongue twisters.

Practice what is most difficult to you, what you have most problems with, and pronounce it loud and clear (at least when you are alone). Pronounce the words as if you were talking to a person who can't hear very well, or if you were trying to teach someone how to pronounce it correctly. It's really easy to mumble and try to be quick, so as people can smooth over the possible errors and problems, but what will you learn of that? You will learn to mumble, you will learn to pronounce the words wrong and YOU WILL LEARN THAT YOU CAN'T LEARN TO SPEAK WELL.

"C2 is impossible to be reached by self-learning."

Oh... challenge accepted!

I would say most of my languages are at this point "self-learned", except Finnish (my mothertongue), English (9 years in school and then life) and Swedish (6 years in school, then living in Sweden since 1995).
I have studied German in school for 2 years, and French 1, and I have 2 lessons of Arabic, but German was 1985, French 1997 and Arabic also in the 80s :-D I haven't used any of this with another living person.

"C2 is quite hard to reach in general, even native speakers are not on this level (they're usually somewhere at B2/C1)."
Seriously? I have been living in Sweden for 24 years now, and my Finnish has deteriorated a lot, but my Finnish was definitely C2 when I lived there.

The CEFR test says my English is ""≥C1" means that you are at the C1 level, or “maybe even C2”, but the test does not assess the C2 level."
Now, it doesn't assess my spoken language, but I'm fully confident in it.
Anyway, if I can get any of the other languages (not Finnish or Swedish) to the same level as my English - which is my goal - through internet and self-studies only, then I have proven the statement in the subject line false.
And I am absolutely certain of that this is possible, at least in the most common languages with plenty of access to all kinds of materials online, like French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese...

Back from Finland

Well... I was back already on Friday morning. But that's when Language Jam started, so...

Anyway, I have been in Finland for almost two weeks, so there hasn't been much internet for me, nor much carrying books and other materials to and fro, but I have been using Duolingo and LingoDeer a lot.
It's the first time with Duolino on the phone for me, and I was gladly surprised to find that there are other languages there, and the nice little voice feature - in some languages you can test your pronunciation! Now, I have discovered that some sentences don't accept ANY pronunciation, and some accept ANY pronunciation :-D I tested it with Hinky Dinky Parlay Voo, and it said my pronunciation of "tu" is nice, but the rest wasn't good. :-D

I should be putting in time to get 1000 points...

I am studying 24 languages at the moment, and of them 3-4 are strong ones, ones that I can collect a lot of points quickly.
To collect 1000 points, I need to take 667 lessons. If I take one lesson in each language every day, that makes 360 points, and that leaves 640 points to be collected elsewhere... if I take one... circle... level? in all the languages, that's about 1800 points... hmm... 2 lessons in each language, a circle if that feels easy, that's 720+ points, and then 2 circles of each of the easy languages, that's about 150 points for each language, at least 300, and more if I feel like it. It shouldn't be too hard :-D
That would probably take some 16 hours every day :-D Sounds a bit... er... stupid?
Also, Duolingo has some... problems. I seriously wonder if I'm actually learning anything. :-D


 

Language Jam July 2019 - Indigenous languages

I am participating in the Indigenous Language Jam. I was given Cherokee or Tsalagi to learn. I am kind of sour to myself because I didn't choose out "foreign" letters... but - it's just to learn.

So... what should I learn...
the 65 first words and phrases to learn

Today, Friday, I am supposed to learn all the letters, the numbers and all the sentences on Omniglot.

Tomorrow I'll learn 1000 words. I'll name things around me. Hmm...
On Sunday I'll learn another 1000 words.

Wikipedia Cherokee

Cracking the code to speak Cherokee

Cherokee words

Cherokee Dictionary

Cherokee course

Cherokee language lessons on YouTube

 Cherokee

Cherokee language

Saturday 27th of July

I found a Cherokee language course on Mango Languages!

So... I didn't learn the alphabet, the numbers nor the sentences... *blush*
Well... I have excuses. A lot of excuses. But none of them is really interesting. I didn't need to go anywhere or do anything else, I just procrastinated and avoided studying.

Anyway, this is my first language jam, and I AM learning things :-)
I am learning things outside language, as well, and what I learn makes me so angry. :-( I feel powerless and angry and I hate certain people.

But, I am also falling in love with the people and the language and want to know more. I don't think this stops here.

Your grandmother's Cherokee

Cherokee syllabary 

Cherokee syllabary practice printout

Let's Talk Cherokee; YouTube playlist 1-3 Cherokee

Let's Talk Cherokee

 Cherokee Reader Book One

ᏑᎵ ᎠᏓ ᎠᎵ ᎩᏟ
suli ada ali gitli
buzzard - wood - sweat - dog

ᏑᏓᎵ ᎢᎾᏓ ᎠᏑᎶ ᎶᎶ
sudali inada asulo lolo
six - snake - pants - locust

ᏌᎶᎵ ᏌᏌ ᎠᎵ ᏌᎵ
saloli sasa ali sali
squirrel - goose - sweat - persimmon

cherokee foods; they ate a lot of corn, squash and beans, wild onions, eggs, fish, deer, turkey. And, of course, persimmons. When the Europeans introduced pigs, that became very popular very quickly. There's a lot of things baked of cornmeal. A lot of stews and such.

Sunday, 28/7

I got into an argument with someone and no language studies were made. Basically. I did in my 200 points of Duolingo, and I continued with my Cherokee letters or syllables, but that's it.

I am not happy with my language jam. :-(
But I am happy with Cherokee. Definitely continuing with my studies there.

I am very pleased with myself :-D

I was sitting by the kitchen table, and my husband said "jag vill ha mamma-kaffe".
(It's a long story, but the short of it is that "mamma-kaffe" is the coffee mommy makes - basically he wanted me to make him a cup of coffee. No, I am not his mom, he's not my dad, but I'm the mom of the family and he's the dad. Anyway...)
Now, he is Danish but our home language is Swedish.
I have been studying Danish, with extra focus on pronunciation, so I started thinking how to say it in Danish.
It is written "Jeg vil have mamma-kaffe" but pronounced about the same. ABOUT the same...
So... I tried to pronounce it, and it went well until I got to "mamma". It came out Norwegian.
(Jeg vil ha mamma-kaffe)
So I started experimenting and trying to pronounce it in Danish, and finally I got it right :-D

Danish is spoken deep in the mouth and it uses the whole mouth. The other languages are quite light and airy and more sung... though Swedish sounds a bit pretentious and Norwegian a bit whiny ;-) No... Norwegian is very clearly articulated. You sound immediately more Norwegian if you articulate the consonants very carefully and clearly. And mind the vowels. Those are more important to getting the sound of the language right.

So - to get "mamma" to sound Danish, you have to use the Danish "a" and stød.
And I got it right :-D It sounded Danish and my husband approved :-)
YAY!

Then something different:

10 Most Accomplished Polyglots – They’re Truly Amazing!

10 Most Impressive Polyglots In World History 

I want to be amazing and impressive, too! 

13 books by Maltese Authors you have to read

https://lovinmalta.com/lifestyle/13-books-by-maltese-authors-you-have-to-read/

Yeah... except that you have to learn Maltese to read them... But sounds interesting. Especially Il-Ħajja Sigrieta tan-Nanna Ġenoveffa. (That one sounds so interesting it has been translated. Into English and... Norwegian?)

useful languages for studying the Byzantine Empire

"useful languages for studying the Byzantine Empire"

"As a baseline, you need to know Greek. But unfortunately, Greek from Attic to Modern is almost as wide a variance as from Latin to Standard Italian, especially since they roughly cover the same time frame.

Though you'd think that since you're studying the Byzantine era you'd want to learn Byzantine Greek, a lot of Byzantine documents are written with an eye on emulating either Attic or Koine Greek for prestige purposes. Procopius is a Byzantine historian writing in Attic that comes to mind. Also the resources for studying specifically Byzantine Greek are far less than for the other three. For that reason alone, I would recommend learning Koine Greek, as it's a bridge between Attic and Byzantine, and given that it's the language of the church, would be helpful in reading religious texts and their particular vocabulary.

After Koine Greek, I'd recommend learning French and German. This is in fact standard in the academic community, as most scholarship if it's not generated in English, will be in French or German, reflecting the three languages of the most prestigious and best funded universities in the world.

These three, Koine Greek, German, and French are the most essential for starting building blocks. The other languages are for depending upon which era you want to focus on.

If you're dealing with the Early Byzantine/Late Roman era (285-630), then Latin is also required, as there was still a lot of administration done in that language, and you'd have to have a solid command of it. Outside of Latin, maybe Coptic and Persian to deal with Byzantine Egypt and Sassanid Persia.

If you're dealing with the Middle Byzantine era (630 - 1025), then I'd recommend adding Arabic, as so much of that era is defined by Byzantine/Caliphate interactions. And for interactions with the west, you don't need to know Latin quite as much as you can deal with secondary sources written in English, German or French on those subjects, as by then the language of Byzantine administration is all in Greek, unlike in the early era. I'd also make a pitch for adding Russian to the mix, as the middle Byzantine era is when a lot of the Slavic polities really began to come into sharp focus in their conflict with Byzantium, however current Russian/Slavic research isn't "quite" as robust these days as English/German/French into this era.

Lastly for the late Byzantine era (1025 - 1453), Ottoman/Modern Turkish will be of a massive help to study the final fall of the empire. There's actually a lot of good research and archaeology being generated out of Turkey on the Byzantine Empire of all eras that simply isn't being read because of the inability for most non-specialist scholars to read turkish. If you truly want to stand out in Byzantine study, I'd recommend tackling this language."

 Well... yes, please, I don't mind if I do.

Romanian

I like this language. It sounds nice. :-)

eu sunt; sînt
tu eşti
el este; e
noi suntem
voi sunteţi
ei sunt; sînt

eu am
tu ai
el, ea are; a
noi avem; am
voi aveţi; aţi
ei au

eu citesc
tu citeşti
el, ea citeşte
noi citim
voi citiţi
ei citesc

eu mănânc
tu mănânci
el mănâncă
noi mâncăm
voi mâncaţi
ei mănâncă

eu beau
tu bei
el bea
noi bem
voi beţi
ei beau

So... it's waning off again

I spent a couple of days creating myself an Autumn wardrobe. Apparently, it's not a capsule wardrobe, though... well. What ever. Nothing to do with languages.

I have been Duolingoing the whole time, though.

I really hate the Duolingo's... whatever it's called. You know, that thing that says what is right and what is wrong. It accepts a lot of wrong answers but then starts whining about petty details.
Like, in Danish, "a horse, the horse, horses, the horses" goes "en hest, hesten, heste, hestene", but it accepts "hästar" for horses, which is Swedish, so it's wrong for Danish. Duolingo is teaching me wrong. Which means that I can't use it to learn Danish. 

Well... it's not that bad, because it's a language and it's OK to learn it "wrong", because you WILL correct it as you go on. We all make these mistakes in our mother tongue all the time because we learned it "wrong" when we were young. You know, the "I always thought it was Dalmation!" things. 

I just recently noticed the "leagues". It is fascinating how competitive I am... just give me a challenge and I will do more. 
Unfortunately, it works only for a certain level.

language challenges

Also, a lot of language challenges started. I'm not going to participate in any of them. Most of them cost money which I don't have. I mean, I want to use it for other things. And there are quite enough resources for free. Especially considering that libraries exist and libraries have language courses.

So - the Add1 challenge might be interesting, but - I don't chat, and it costs, and it seems to be really complicated anyway, so - I'll probably hack it and do something of my own, with no sparring partners and so, so it's not the same thing at all. A lot of people use it and like it, so if you have the money, courage, and bother, go for it! It IS worth it.

LingQ's challenges...
So... OK, I get it, you need to live, too, and I have absolutely nothing against paying members getting benefits non-paying members don't get... but... as a non-paying member, I can create 20 lingqs.
That's it.
I can delete them and create 20 new ones, and that way learn 20 words at a time, so it's still a good program, and I recommend it for language learners. It really is very good. BUT - this means I, as a non-paying member, cannot participate in the challenges.
This makes me feel like a freeloader.
Instead of a poor cousin, I'm a moocher, a leech, a cadger, a beggar, a sponger - a parasite, taking something that doesn't belong to me. A do-nothing, good-for-nothing, ne'er-do-well. Someone hanging on hard-working, honest, good people's clothes, forcing them to work harder to support lazy bum me.
And that makes me angry.
I work as hard as anyone else for my languages. You can't steal languages. You don't benefit from other people's studies. Not one second of your study time benefits me in any way. I CAN'T mooch languages.

Now, I haven't done anything to create the material, and for that, I think the creators deserve all the praise and benefits that are reasonable.
On the other hand, as far as I know, everything I upload is for my personal benefit only, and it doesn't help me that I could read (read out loud) a lot of copyright-free material. I mean, everything Zacharias Topelius wrote is in the Public Domain. A lot of it has been translated. Minna Canth, Aleksis Kivi, Runeberg... Finland might not be a big country with a lot of literature, but there is some, and it would be wonderful for Finnish learners. I COULD help create content.
But... no. I'm poor, and I should feel bad because of that? Or, because 10 dollars a month isn't that much, and I do have that, but I choose to use it on other things - I should feel bad for that?
What do I get with that 10 dollars? Unlimited amount of lingqs and better statistics? Ability to import wordlists? Not worth it. I make my paper flashcards myself anyway.
The only reason I would pay is to be able to participate in challenges and to get my learner to grow. I kind of like that little thing. Neither of these is worth paying for to me.

So, the consequence is that I feel like a freeloader when I visit LingQ, and I don't like that, so I don't visit LingQ.

Then there's Yoyo Chinese July Study Streak. Yeah. Sounds good. I'll pass, thank you.

And so on, and so forth. Just google "language learning challenge", and you'll find plenty.

But most of them cost. And when you don't have the money, it doesn't matter how good a purpose the money goes to, or what you get with it. It's all "I'll pass, thank you".

*sigh*

You can join my "learn a language in 10 days" challenge.
For free.
Amazing benefits. You'll learn a language for free in 10 days and have a solid base on which to build by reading books and newspapers and magazines and whatever you like to read, and by listening to radio and music, and watching movies and television, or if you're really adventurous and brave (or social) you can learn more by talking to real people!

It will be a challenge, that I can promise you. It is 10 days of hard work. But - even if you fail, it has not been in vain. You will learn SOMETHING if you stick to it for 10 days. And, yes, it is just 10 days. (You could round it up to two weeks or down to one week if that fits your schedule better. Or spread it over a month, or 90 days, or whatever time period sounds good to you.)

Now, however you decide to do this, don't use more than a week to learn everything I put in on day 1.

One thing you should learn on day 1 is the alphabet.

Also, learn to say something useful the first day you study the language.
Be it the usual "Hi! My name is Ketutar. What is your name? I am a woman, I am 50 years old, I am Finnish."
Also, learn the "good morning, day, afternoon, evening, night" phrases, and use them.
Learn also the common courtesy words, thank you, you're welcome, please, excuse me, I'm sorry, pardon.
It doesn't take long, and you will be able to speak the language from day 1.

On day 2 learn the numbers and get comfortable using them. Learn to tell the time and date in your language, and learn the lingo of buying and paying for things. Keep counting everything in the language you are learning.

Learn the rest of the list of phrases on Omniglot on day 3.
Find other lists of phrases on the internet and learn them. There's something like "phrases in ---" on YouTube in a lot of languages. Repeat after the speaker and record yourself, until you can detect any difference.

On day 4 you'll hunt down a frequency list of the most common words in your target language, with 3000 words.
If you can't find one, find one in English and find the equivalent in your target language. At this point, it is quite OK to translate the list with Google Translate or something similar. You will learn the correct meaning and usage of these words later if you get something wrong. Don't worry.
Learn 1000 words a day. Yes, it is quite possible. It takes an hour to learn 100 words, so it takes 10 hours to learn 1000 words.

Handwrite flashcards for the words. Divide the pile in 100 words. Carry with you two piles, one you are learning, and one you will start learning when you have learned the first pile. If you need to be outside the home for several hours, take the whole pack with you.
Use any mnemonics that work to learn them.
Yes, it is cramming, it's not a good way of learning words, and you would probably forget everything, EXCEPT THAT YOU ARE USING THEM FROM NOW ON ALL THE TIME. There is no chance for you to forget them.

Also, it will take you FIVE MINUTES to go through your 1000 flashcards in the morning, after you have learned them, because it is just to read them through, and the average reading speed is 200-250 words a minute. You can do that while you take your morning leak.

Days 4-6 you will learn the 3000 most used words of the language. That is the size of the vocabulary Native speakers use every day.
Now, their active vocabulary is a lot bigger than that, it's about 15.000-25.000 words. But one can manage fine with just 3000 words.
These 3000 words will also give you enough understanding of the language that you can recognize if a word is a verb or adjective or something else, and guess the meaning, or be able to find it in a dictionary because you will be able to deduct what is the basic form of the word.

As you learn the words, you are to learn:
- definite and indefinite form, singular and plural, all case declension of nouns
- comparison forms of adjectives
- conjugation in all persons, present and past tense of verbs

So, you will learn:
"I, me, my, mine" instead of "I"
"un día, el día, días, los días" instead of "día"
Sein; Ich bin, du bist, er/es/sie ist, wir sind, ihr seid, Sie sind; ich war, du warst, er/sie/es war, wir waren, ihr wart, Sie waren" instead of "ist",
"gros, grosse, plus gros, le plus gros" instead of "gros".

The first day is the worst because you are not used to this, but as these are very regular, you will learn the rules very quickly, and do this by automatic.

Keep in mind that you might not be able to separate the bits of information AT THE MOMENT, but you will be able to do that in the future. It's like learning the multiplication table by heart. At first, you might need to go through the whole table, but the more you use it, the more automatic it becomes, until you just KNOW what 4 times 6 is. The same thing with languages. At first, you might need to go through the whole list to get to how to say "he is" in German, but the more you say it, the more automatic it becomes until one day you speak fluent German :-D

And to those people who say "Babies don't learn it that way!", I would like to say "Babies take several years before they start speaking. We have 10 days." (or whatever time frame you have :-D)

So, from day 7 and on, you will be using these words you just learned.
Try to read, write, listen, and speak the language every day. Just something, if it's just 10 sentences.

ideas:
reading: not just books, magazines, and newspapers; try Wikipedia articles, blogs, social media, comic books and cartoons, recipes
writing: journal, copy texts, write letters, write short stories, movie or book reviews, blog, social media updates, song lyrics, collect poems or quotes...
listening: music, radio, movies and TV shows, dictation, audiobooks, shadowing, mimicking, news, podcasts
speaking: shadowing and mimicking, here too, make videos of you speaking, read out loud, talk to yourself, repeat what you hear, narrate your life. learn poems or plays (or parts of them) by heart and recite them

Also, use all the different learning and thinking styles.

For example:
visual learning: make illustrated flashcards
verbal learning: copy texts
logical learning: etymology and grammar rules
auditory: read aloud, sing; put word lists into jingles, children's songs and carols
social: find people who speak the language in your neighborhood, video chatting
intrapersonal: write a diary, read your favorite books in the language
physical/tactile: take your flashcards for a walk with you; follow tutorials in the language, for example, cooking, try teaching the language to someone else, even if it just words or sentences
naturalistic: describe things in the new language, learn the names of animals and plants, and take the language out to nature with you

Busy day...

Yesterday was a busy day. Busy day with un-language related things, that is. So not that much language was studied. Some, though.

A couple of days ago I finally got to my mailbox and saw that they have released Arabic as Beta on Duolingo. Yay!
  I like it. I think they have got right the teaching letters. They might actually stick this time :-D

I was thinking about my "learn a language in 10 days" thingy, and thought of learning Vulcan. We have a summer party with SciFi theme and I plan going as a Vulcan and it would be cool to just speak Vulcan all the time :-D

Then I studied a bit of Hungarian. Duolingo isn't good for that. I need to find another way of learning Hungarian.

Then I took a couple of steps with Danish. I'm irritated by Duolingo accepting wrong spelling. I spell in Swedish. The Danish is not spelled Swedish. :-( Duolingo is teaching me wrong.

And then some Turkish. I like Turkish. It's interesting.

How to learn several languages at the same time

Yes... most people will tell you not to do this. I say, why not.

I am not a good example of this, because I am a seasonal animal. I will study languages 24/7 for three weeks or less, and then I'm off to doing something else 24/7.
But there are people who are good examples of this. Like Tim Doner. A lot of language learners dive in languages when they are presented with a chance to learn it, totally inspite of whether they are currently studying something else, or how advanced or secure they are about that subject. Also, quite a many of us have been through normal schooling, and those who have studied several foreign languages, have studied them at the same time, and some of them they started studying at the same time.
I have never noticed there being any interference from one language to another when one starts studying several languages at the same time, simply because these are different languages. Might be that I am somehow specially talented to be able to keep the languages separate, might be that I do something differently, but... the words SOUND like the language they belong to. Just think about a man. An Englishman. Now think of his name. I'm pretty sure it's not Juan Carlos or Sven.
In Spanish this: 🐕 is /ˈpero/, in French /ʃjɛ̃/ in Portuguese /ˈkɐ̃w̃/, in Romanian/ˈkɨj.ne/ and in Italian/ˈka.ne/. Now, let's say you are learning all the Romance languages at the same time and you need to say this: "the dog is eating meat", in Spanish. "El --- come carne". Which word will you put there? Just try all of them. El /ʃjɛ̃/ come carne? Doesn't sound good. /ʃjɛ̃/ doesn't sound at all Spanish. Neither does any of the others. And, of course you could try to say a foreign word in correct accent and hope it works - but a) you KNOW it's not the right word and b) the receiver will probably be able to figure out what you mean, and if they are nice, they will give you the correct word, or they don't understand what you mean, and ask, and then you have to somehow convey the meaning of the word without using the right word, because you don't know it.

It is language, not chemistry. :-D You won't blow up the world or poison someone because you use the wrong word, wrong grammatical formulation, wrong case, wrong tempus, you can't spell or your accent is so thick it could kill a cow. Come on, people.

So - it is possible for you to learn a language adequately well in a week. It takes just an hour to learn 100 words by heart, and even shorter time, if those words are in sentences. Most people use 3000 words in their everyday lives. (It doesn't matter which language one speaks, it's about 3000 words.) So you can get the average native speaker's vocabulary in 30 hours. Two 15 hours' days. Then you just use the rest of the week creating sentences with these words.
(It has been calculated that it takes about 500 hours of study to learn a language. So if you study 10 hours a day, it takes you a couple of months to learn a language, and so on and so forth. If you study 20 minutes a day, it takes you about 4 years to learn a language.
Most people don't learn a language in a week.
Most people don't. Most people spend just a limited amount of time to learn languages and have quite reasonable goals. Like "I'll reach level B1 this year". If your speed of learning is that slow, it's about an hour of learning a day. And then you can easily do several languages a day, and reach B level in them all the same time.

Now, it's best to do this if you can use ready-made courses, like books or Duolingo or so. And then just do what is asked of you. Read the text. Answer the questions. Do the exercises.

If you want to learn faster and better, do other things.

Write something every day, read something every day, speak something, listen something.
There are several options for you to get your pronunciation and writing corrected, if you wish to, but just talking to yourself is fine. Just writing to yourself, writing without no-one ever knowing what you write, is good.
Listen to radio, music, movies and tv shows.
Read newspapers, magazines, comics, books, internet articles. Wikipedia has a lot of articles. 

But - the only thing that matters here is how much work you put into studying a language, and that you do something every day. It's better you put in 20 minutes every day for a year (about 130 hours), than to put in 15 hours a day for two weeks.
But - if you put 20 minutes in 20 languages every day for a year, you will learn 20 languages, no doubt about that.

wordlist from installment :-D

bir - one, a, an

bu - this

da, de - as well, too, also

ve - and

için -     1) for, as as to, in order to, since, because...
    2) it's inside
    3) y'all drink

ben - I bana - me
sen - you sana - to you, for you
o - he, she, it

ne - what
neydi
neyi
niye

nasıl - how

sonra - later, after, otherwise

mi - question particle (a bit like -ko, -kö)

gibi - alike

ki - that

kadar - quantity, extent, how much

daha - comparative, more

yemek - he, she, it eats, consumes, drains

var, vardı - there is, there was,

yok, yoktu - there isn't, there wasn't
çok - much, many, a lot

her - every, each

yıl - year

sanki - as if
sandik - chest
sandığı - chest in accusative case
sandiga - chest in dative case
sandigin - chest in genitive case
sandıkta - the ballot

oldu - olmak - to happen, to become, to ripen, to pass -> 3.s past definite
olduğu
olduğunu

musun - question word (you put it last in a sentence to make a definite sentence into a question)

küçük, küçüktün - small, small in predicative past tense 3.sg. What the heck is that supposed to be?! Is it one of these "existing in a state of being small" kind of verbs?

hepsi, hepsini- all, all in accusative

eski - old (for objects)

bazı - some
bazen - every now and then
bazilari - some people

bakmak - to look
bak - imperative 1.s. (look!)
bakalım - subjunctive 1.pl (had we looked)
baktım - past definite 1.s (I looked)
son baktığımda - last time I checked

anlamak - to understand
anladım - I understood
anlamadım - I didn't understand
anlaşılabilir - understandable
anlaşilmayan - not understood
anlatmaya
anlaşıla

anne - mother
annem - my mother, anneme - dative annemin - genitive
annemle - with my mother
annesinin - his mother's

bilmek - to know
bileyim - subjunctive, 1.s.
biliyorum, biliyor - present 1.s. and 3.s.
bilmiyor - present 3s negative
bilmece - riddle, puzzle
bilir
biliyor'
biliyor

Oh dear... this is taking forever! I do learn, but...

bıraktırmak - to leave
bulmak - to find

bu, bunu - this -> bunlar - these, burada - tässä and so on

değil
değiştirdim 

muydu
muyum
muyuz


Greek frequency

με - with, by, on
και, κι  - and
να - subjunctive mood suffix
μαμα, μανα - mother
ἐγώ, μου - I, me
τις, τι - something
δε, δεν - not
για - for, by, about
γιατι - για+τι - what for, why
πως - in any way, at all
είναι - he/she is
ήταν(ε) - he/she was
ἄλλος - other, another, different else
αλλου - m.sg.gen
αλλον - m.sg.acc
απο - from, at, by

The definite article
number	singular			plural
gender	m	f	n	m	f	n
nominative	ο	η	το	οι	οι	τα
genitive	του	της	του	των	των	των
accusative	το(ν)	τη(ν)	το	τους	τις	τα

The indefinite article
number	singular
gender	m	f	n
nominative	ένας	μια	ένα
genitive	ενός	μιας	ενός
accusative	ένα(ν)	μια	ένα

 
In German the most common words are, of course- personal pronouns
- articles
- to have, to say, to be

aber
auf
diese
in, im
kein, keine
klein, kleinen
mit
mutter
nicht
schon
und
was
wie
wieso
würde
zu

and the same thing with Spanish
- articles
- personal pronouns
- to have, to be, to say, to know
- mother

a
aquí
con
cuando
cómo
de
en
muy
más
ni
no
para
por
que
qué
si
vez
y
ya