Wikibooks Kreyòl

Chapter 1	Prep work
Chapter 2	First weeks
Chapter 3	Beginning Kreyol, part 1
Chapter 4	Beginning Kreyol, part 2
Chapter 5	Intermediate Kreyol
Chapter 6	Advanced Kreyol readings
Appendices	Tables, links, and other resources

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KREYÒL (HAITIAN CREOLE)

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Kreyól

Kreyòl ayisyen is the primary language spoken in Haiti. It is a french creole language, with an oral tradition and a growing literature.

How to learn a language

Language is easy

Learning a second language is easy, all you have to do is go there. There's no better motivator than necessity. Without actually travelling, learning a language is still accessible: but you must substitute the motivation. Every day, you should practice the language - time spent seperate from study.

You should listen even before you can understand, to radio broadcasts and natural speakers. Watch the news on television to hear the language in a slow, consistant delivery and standard accent. Watch the daily television dramas for samples of more natural speach. Better yet, seek out native speakers! Language is a living concept, shared between its speakers. Similarly you can solidify your knowledge of the language by reading, even before you have mastered the basics: news articles and essays provide samples of clear, standard grammar. Blogs can illuminate more natural use of written language, and fables and children's stories provide insight into especially the more insular, unique aspects of the language. It does not matter if you cannot read it all, just so long as you spend time trying. Whenever possible, use a translation tool for grammar, and a dictionary for individual words.

You will also have to study, the old fashioned way, to memorize the structures of the language: its grammar, conjugations, pronouns, adjective-phrases and phrase construction, and vocabularly. Divide your study time in two parts: a short period to learn one lesson for the day, and a series of small "sprints" of memorization. If you are having trouble with something, work backwards from the details to the overall structure, so you can contextualize the new information: If you struggle with a grammatical tense, take a moment to review the general schema of all the tenses, how they differ from English, and what specifically the tense represents. If you always use a direct object pronoun where an indirect object pronoun is needed, review the system of pronouns, and when each is called for - create sample sentences to see it in action. Be proactive.

Flash cards work just fine for the bulk of study, for at least some people. If practice applications exist online, by all means use them! Other times, reading and writing will unify disparate parts of what you have already learned. Chatting online will let you pratice dialog, and reading, if you can find a native speaker to practice with. Be diligent, always try to do some study work.

Presentation

The old style of teaching a language is to project a "standard" version of the language, very closely tied to a written register of the language, and to teach this as the model of the language. As students explore the model, they will borrow from their native language, and also from implications in the structure of the new language, to extrapolate new uses. Those that match the model are reinforced (they got it right), those that match real registers of the actual language are also reinforced, but flagged with the register ("It's common to say 'wanna' in normal speach, but it is not technically a word in (standard model) English..."), while those that mismatch the language or only match habits from the native language are dissuaded (they got it wrong). There has been a shift in language teaching over the past half a century or so, to teach a standard spoken register as the standard model of the language: this gives a "center" of spoken accent, and replaces the emphasis from written to oral communication. This is difficult to accomplish, however, as language is always changing, resources especially for languages with small populations cannot manifestly maintain a parallel teaching corpus to the "real" language. The whole process of oral-based teaching does not lend itself easily to wikis. The text here will be presented with a projected standard version of the language.

Segments

Each segment in the presentation covers a set of related, basic elements of the language. More information is included in the material. These are the milestones in the course.

Familiarization - a presentation of the language, culture, and history
Orthography and phonetics - the written system and the sounds of the language
Simple present tense
Pronoun schema - the table of pronouns and when each is used
Basic vocabulary - about 600-1000 words, sufficient for general conversation
Basic grammar - the general components and structure of the language
Differential grammar - rules and exclusions
Simple tenses - enough to make basic assertions throughout the timeline
Modisms
First readings, dialog
Conjugation schema
Foundational tenses - all the simple, commonly spoken tenses
Vocabulary
Readings, Dialog - general material for standard registers
Advanced grammar - archaic, or seldom used tenses
Advanced readings and dialog - sample material from legal, relgious, archaic, academic registers

Haiti_elections_2006.jpg

intermediate
- verbs as affected by tense, mood, aspect, etc (comparison of conjugation schemas)
- verb conjugation tables
- all the generally spoken tenses
- k-12 level vocabularly filled in
- drilling all tabular information
- beginning readings: normal register (newspaper, television, magazine, blog essays, etc)

Gaga en San Luis.jpg

advanced
- advanced readings - text covering registers: academic/technical, legal, religious, archaic (classical texts in the language)