Lakota Language Forum

Share your knowledge and become a helper


We are glad to see that the number of registered users and active members is growing. The number of members with advanced proficiency, however, is not growing at the same pace which means that the advanced members eventually won’t be able to give enough feedback to satisfy the needs of the forum in the learning process.

The only way out of this is for forum members to help each other by sharing their knowledge and giving feedback to posts. The forum and its community has been helping you all to improve your proficiency and your language skills. The community needs you to give something in return. What you can give is help to other members.


How to give help:

You can best help other forum members by commenting on their posts, especially on things that need to be improved. When you notice something that you know is not grammatical or idiomatic Lakota you can comment on it and suggest improvement. However, good feedback has to be backed up with reference. Unless you have an advanced proficiency level, you can’t simply say “this is how it should be” or “this is how I think it should be”. What you have to say is “I think this needs to be improved because it doesn’t match the usage shown in NLD on page XXX or the grammar description in this post: LINK”.
For instance, many members learn words and their usage in the Word of the Week section and they practice grammar rules in the Grammar of the Week. When you notice mistakes in things that you have already learned through these activities, you can point the errors out together with links to the relevant posts. By doing so you are not only helping others to learn Lakota but you are also improving your own proficiency.
In this way you would help to build the community of learners. The entire forum as well as each and every member, including you would benefit from this.

Remember, your feedback is good feedback only if you support it with reference. The reference can be to NLD, to an authoritative post in the forum, to a text (by a native speaker) or to one of the reliable textbooks.

Please answer the survey above or give us feedback below so that we know if forum members are taking notice of this important matter.

This is very good to bring up. I am very new here and am just beginning with my own learning. However, I am most willing to try to help other newcomers. Only if in doing so I can make specific reference of course! My way of seeing it is that having been here almost two weeks now, I have that much more under my belt than the one who joined two days ago. In helping others, I learn more!!! It forces me to be active in my own learning!!!! It is the concept of "I have to give it away to keep it!" I would hope that everyone here, no matter how new, can feel like they can contribute in this way!!!
I hope to be an active productive part of this forum for a long time to come!!! I am extremely greatful that you are here for me and it is only right that I should give of myself in return!!!

Philámayaye,
Colleen

I will occasionally chime in on matters that I feel I am knowledgeable about, but one thing that I've learned about this language is that there are a lot of "land mines" in terms of grammar. Just when I start to feel confident about a certain aspect of grammar, along comes an example or conversational situation that triggers yet another layer of grammar specifics or usage that I didn't see coming. This has kept me a bit hesitant to correct others in the public forum to this point. I'm sure this will subside over time, through more immersion, but because of this I've been laying back quite a bit.

I fully support the members-helping-members thing , and I will try to be more involved, but I feel we really need to get more advanced speakers involved and more active in the forum overall.

Mitch

I feel the same way as Mitch. I offer corrections when I know for sure that I am right. But most of the time, I doubt myself and so stay quiet rather than confuse the issue. Most of my comments now are more of a question than a correction because I am trying to figure out what is being done. I am always ready to help with suggestions and comments and hopefuly as I learn more I can provide more assistance to others. Perhaps users at my level could answer more of the 'first time user' questions and in doing so free more time for more proficent members to work on our higher level qestions in more detail? Would some division or allocation of responses help?

John

PS. I notice that Nancy always welcomes new members to the forum and congratulates upgraded members. This is very commendable and it shows one way how we could help distribute some of the functions of helping others.


Thank you, Nancy

But then again I don't think we want to make the into some formal structure taking up too much or our time. Just a thought here.

Hehe you're welcome John..I figure since I stink at grammar, the least I could do was welcome and congratulate people! ...Nancy

Thank you for your feedback and for taking notice of this important matter. I do understand the hesitation that Mitch, John and Nancy expressed; languages are complex and there is always something more to learn, something beyond the knowledge we have gained. That is what makes learning languages such an interesting and rewarding process.

We do not ask you to comment on everything and especially not on things that you are not sure about. But it is important that you try to help each other in language issues that you do know about, whenever you can give the reference to the correct usage. The forum cannot keep growing without this.
It is also quite likely that sometimes you will comment on something and your comment won’t be completely accurate or comprehensive. But that is OK because at least it helps to encourage the discussion and search for the appropriate usage reference in NLD.

The number of members with advanced proficiency who can give authoritative language feedback is small and they can't fulfill the needs of the growing number of forum users. Only if all of us are involved in the process can the forum function effectively.

It is also good that many of you try to find your own area of interest in which you want to be useful in the forum. Mitch is doing a great job in initiating a lot of communicative activities (which is important!!) including Skype conversations, Ali is active in listening, others are more involved in reading or translation or helping in welcoming new members etc. This is all good and important and it helps the forum community.

But you should add the “comment on language usage” component to your responsibilities in giving back to the community. Bear in mind, that this way of helping other learners is another effective way of learning, because when you formulate your comments you internalize the knowledge of the language usage in question and thus make your own knowledge more active. So the advantages of helping each other by commenting on language usage are multifold.

When someone provides you or others with good comments, give them reputation points as a way of appreciation. When I see someone helping, I give him/her the highest reputation points, which is why Kevin has so many of them, because he helps a lot. Kevin also mentioned somewhere, that giving feedback to others helps him internalize the usages for himself. Which is exactly how I feel about it.

Ho čha, mitákuyepi, blihíč’iyapi na ókičhiya po.

Jan wrote:When someone provides you or others with good comments, give them reputation points as a way of appreciation. When I see someone helping, I give him/her the highest reputation points,

Can anyone give reputation points? How would I give them as there are those that have helped me quite a bit, you being one, that I would give them to.?

Just for my own clarification, was I on track with my own thinking on trying to actively help people at least at my level?

Colleen wrote:My way of seeing it is that having been here almost two weeks now, I have that much more under my belt than the one who joined two days ago. In helping others, I learn more!!! It forces me to be active in my own learning!!!!

Colleen

Colleen wrote:Can anyone give reputation points?

Yes, look in the right sidebar on each post, under the person's profile information. You will see "thumbs up" and "thumbs down" icons (you won't see thumbs on your own posts, only others'.). Click on the "thumbs up", then from the drop-down, choose the number of points that you want to award, and type in a brief reason. Then submit the form.

Mitch

Thankyou very much Mitch! I did not know this!!!! I appreciate your response. This is good to know!!!

Tókša akhé,
Colleen

Colleen wrote:Can anyone give reputation points?

Members who have posted 50 or more posts and earned 50 or more points can give reputation points. You are pretty near.
Mitch describes above how you can give points.

Just for my own clarification, was I on track with my own thinking on trying to actively help people at least at my level?

Yes. Everyone has to help at their own level.

Colleen wrote:My way of seeing it is that having been here almost two weeks now, I have that much more under my belt than the one who joined two days ago. In helping others, I learn more!!! It forces me to be active in my own learning!!!!

Héčheȟčiŋ.

Colleen

There is a post by Jan about this under Reputation I believe. You need you need 50 points and 50 posts to enable this option.

Tókša akhé,

John

Thankyou Jan and John. Yes, I was looking for the thumbs up and down and they are not there.... Just know that you have virtual points added by me...hehehe!

Thankyou also for the clarification about me being able to help at my level!

Tokša akhé
Colleen

Mitch wrote:I will occasionally chime in on matters that I feel I am knowledgeable about, but one thing that I've learned about this language is that there are a lot of "land mines" in terms of grammar. Just when I start to feel confident about a certain aspect of grammar, along comes an example or conversational situation that triggers yet another layer of grammar specifics or usage that I didn't see coming.

This is exactly, why I often hesitate to give feedback, too. That's why I voted for the second option in the poll above, though this also mixes up with having too less time to give appropriate and helpful feedback to others. Sometimes I'm happy to manage reading aaall the new posts and topics.

Haŋ Mitákuyepi,

I have read everyone's input here so far and I agree with Mitch. For myself, I lack confidence, although I think I am improving.

I also don't wonder if us less experienced students may make some matters worse by trying to help, someone else. Then those advanced people, who already are overworked, just have more posts to keep an eye on.

But that is just my opinion. I may end up changing it after jumping in and trying to help with others. I'll give it a try.

Kyle

Kyle wrote:Haŋ Mitákuyepi,

I have read everyone's input here so far and I agree with Mitch. For myself, I lack confidence, although I think I am improving.

I also don't wonder if us less experienced students may make some matters worse by trying to help, someone else. Then those advanced people, who already are overworked, just have more posts to keep an eye on.

But that is just my opinion. I may end up changing it after jumping in and trying to help with others. I'll give it a try.

Kyle

Kyle, thank you for your input. I think that you in particular have come a long way since you have become a member here. You have achieved much and your Lakota has improved a lot. That means that you have been able to study NLD or the forum posts very well. When you study NLD (or other materials) for your own posts you have to think analytically about the language. All we ask members to do, is that they do the same on behalf of others. And that they try to balance their posts between their own posts and commenting on posts of others. And they can decide whether it is 50-50 or a different proportion.
If the advanced members are overwhelmed and can no longer give feedback to everyone then what? What we suggest above, is the only solution to this.

This also means that we ask you give in return for what you learned through the forum. You can do so by helping others and helping the community.

Háu Mitákuyepi!

mitchmiye wrote:... but one thing that I've learned about this language is that there are a lot of "land mines" in terms of grammar. Just when I start to feel confident about a certain aspect of grammar, along comes an example or conversational situation that triggers yet another layer of grammar specifics or usage that I didn't see coming. This has kept me a bit hesitant to correct others in the public forum to this point.

That's exactly the way I'm feeling, too.

I am willing to help, I feel, I should do so, but I think, I'm still too weak in grammar.
I am angry with myself each time I forget one of the simplest rules.
So give me a little time to become more confident.
And many thanks to all those forum members who have been helping me up to this day.

Tókša akhé

Christoph

Friends,

Believe me, I do understand the reservations you all have, but I think we're missing the point. We're not being asked to teach, only to help. Remember, we're all learners here and, no matter what our proficiency level is, there will always be things that we don't know, or are unsure of. But on the other hand, there are things that we DO know, and we can help others by sharing that knowledge, backing up our comments with NLD or Forum references. Often there is only one thing in a post that needs improvement, it might only be incorrect or missing stress, a wrong conjugation, or even a simple typo. And as we continue to learn, a sentence might just "look wrong". Then we can analyze it in the same way that we construct our own sentences and see if we can offer a suggestion for improvement. Helping needn't be scary, those of us who have moderated a Word of the Week or a Reading have been helping – probably without realizing it!

Colleen wrote: My way of seeing it is that having been here almost two weeks now, I have that much more under my belt than the one who joined two days ago.

That's the way we should all look at it. For many of us, school is in the distant past, but don't you remember doing homework together? Helping each other out? We should think of the Forum in this way. It isn't a school, we don't have classes and teachers, but we're all learning because people like Jan, Kevin, Paha are sharing their knowledge with us. It's great that the number of active members is growing but we can't continue to sit back and wait for them to respond to every single post, especially when such detailed replies are often called for. There just aren't enough hours in the day.

mitchmiye wrote: but I feel we really need to get more advanced speakers involved and more active in the forum overall.

The only answer to that is for the current members to continue studying and increase their own proficiency!!!

John Vander Veer wrote: Perhaps users at my level could answer more of the 'first time user' questions.

Yes! And new members will be joining who know absolutely nothing!

This Forum is amazing, unique, and every single one of us has benefited enormously from our membership. It belongs to us all, and it's up to us to ensure that it continues to grow in the way that it has done over the past year.

Onwards and upwards!!

Nina

I have a technical question about acknowledging good posts from others. That is, I've seen the use of a link to a particular post that has a form like this:

viewtopic.php?f=?????=?????=?????#?????

How is that link created?

My apologies if I missed the obvious.

Stephen

Stephen wrote:I have a technical question about acknowledging good posts from others. That is, I've seen the use of a link to a particular post that has a form like this:

viewtopic.php?f=?????=?????=?????#?????

How is that link created?

I am assuming that you are refering to the reputation/appreciation points. Those are given by clicking on the "thumbs up" icon to the right of each post (then follow the steps: assign number of points, write a short comment, submit). The link to the topic is created automatically through this process.

If you want to give a link to a particular topic within your own post, then open the topic in another window, copy the content of the address field and paste it in your post.

I hope this helps.

I was thinking of points, yes. Thanks, Jan.

Stephen

I'LL DO WHAT I CAN. AS I POSTED BEFORE. MY FAMILY SPEAKS LAKOTA FLUENTLY, MY UNCLE TEACHES THE LANGUAGE IN MONTANA AT THE BOARDING SCHOOL. I WILL HELP THE WINYANS. BUT... I CAN NOT HELP THE WICASA'S. IT ISN'T PROPER OR ALLOWED IN LAKOTA TRADITION. I WILL NOT BREAK MY TRADITIONS. PILAMAYAYE...