|
 |
Geoffw in TAC2015: RU, HE and Friends | ||
Tags: Football/Soccer | Yiddish | Hebrew | Dutch | Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC) | Russian | German | French | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4681 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 81 of 251 10 February 2013 at 3:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
Recordkeeping update:
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4681 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 82 of 251 10 February 2013 at 6:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
SUPER CHALLENGE UPDATE - Added Italian audio entries 25-26, French audio entry 42, French book entries 17-18
and Dutch Audio entry 32 I think this is progress. I finished a reasonably sophisticated book in French (that I'd already read in English) of 700 pages in 2 months, and with pretty decent comprehension. This was the first book where I felt reasonably confident that I was correctly understanding the tenses of the verbs, etc. According to my schedules, that's pretty good, especially in a language that I was really struggling to read a few months back. Game of Thrones in French was a bit too tough to enjoy when I started it a few months back, but I may try it again now. I can already tell that it'll be a bit easier now. Listening comprehension in French is getting easier, too. I recently was watching and enjoying/understanding a documentary on TV5MONDE about an archaeological excavation project in the Nile, uncovering all sorts of ancient Egyptian inscriptions, sculptures, etc., and trying to determine exactly what technologies were used in making and transporting obelisks. Neat stuff. BOOKS (Italian): 0. ... FILMS, ETC. (Italian): 25. Serie A: Torino - Sampdoria 26. Serie A: Juventus - Fiorentina BOOKS (French): 17-18. Le Seigneur des Anneaux (Livre II) FILMS, ETC. (French): 42. TV5MONDE: news, documentary, etc. BOOKS (Dutch): 28. ... FILMS, ETC. (Dutch): 32. Beatrix: Achter het Koninglijk Masker, NOS Beatrix 30 Jaar Koningin I am not entered in any Super Challenge for German, but I also am still reporting for my log: BOOKS (German): 12. ... FILMS, ETC. (German): 43. ... 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6590 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 83 of 251 10 February 2013 at 7:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
i watched fiorentina too... sigh...
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4681 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 84 of 251 10 February 2013 at 8:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
I take it you weren't pulling for Juventus. As someone with little emotional investment, the first goal was at least pretty to watch (though resulting from a very unfortunate defensive header). BTW, depending on your age, Juve's uniforms look, to American eyes, like either 1) referee's uniforms (esp. as seen in American football, but also in ice hockey), or 2) old-timey prison uniforms. All kinds of subliminal ideas coming across there... Edited by geoffw on 10 February 2013 at 8:02pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6590 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 85 of 251 10 February 2013 at 8:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
Yeah I support Fiorentina in Italy.
LOL about prison uniforms:) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4681 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 86 of 251 12 February 2013 at 4:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
From emk's log:
Yeah, I can relate. Yesterday I came back to the Game of Thrones book translation in French, and today I came back to the same book translated into Italian. In both cases, it was as if a thick veil had been lifted. The French one was less dramatic, because I already had a reasonably good understanding of it, but I was still very hazy on the details and was missing a lot of key vocabulary until recently. The Italian was a much bigger change, going from struggling mightily to follow anything to now being able to read (at least in the beginning, where I remember the storyline very well) with about 95% comprehension, as long as I don't try to rush. My improved French vocabulary probably helped a lot with figuring out the Italian vocabulary. It also helped that I learned the progressive past tense this morning, as it showed up a lot in the few pages that I read. As you know, I'm doing a 6WC right now in Russian, which is going ok...except I may have lost my time for yesterday. I had it written down on the same piece of paper I used as a shopping list, then I think I threw the list away after I finished the shopping. I'll look for it again and maybe just guess if I can't find it. I'm sure I had at least 2 hours of Russian to log, but maybe not more than 20-30 minutes in any other one language. I'm mostly using Assimil in the most passive way possible, basically reading the translation a couple times and then listening to the lesson over and over and over and over until I completely tune it out. Then I go back and read all the notes and do the exercises, which tend to be very easy after this overexposure to the lesson. Also review completed lessons frequently. I've finished the first three weeks of lessons (some of it was pretty basic review for me) and feel comfortable with what has been covered so far. I'm trying to see how much of the passive wave I can get through this way before the end of the challenge. Italian active wave starts now! I wish I'd finished the French active wave already...20 lessons to go still... 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4681 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 87 of 251 12 February 2013 at 5:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
SUPER CHALLENGE UPDATE - Added Italian book entries 1-3
The big news here is that I finished my first ever book in Italian! As was the case with French, and to a lesser extent, Dutch, I did not understand everything, or even close to everything, but I understood a lot, and my reading comprehension improved tremendously over the course of the book. After debating whether to try another Harry Potter book or something else, I've stuck to "something else" for the moment and am working on Il Trono di Spade (Game of Thrones, first book). It's looking unlikely that I'll finish even a half Super Challenge in Italian before time expires, but that was always the case, especially since I joined so late in Italian. But based on my recent experiences with French and Dutch, if I can even get my book count (i.e. 100 pages X n, where n is a non-negative integer) in Italian up even to 10-15 or so, I should expect to be able to push my reading comprehension into a usable (~B1/B1+) level, which is probably all I will need to do everything I want on my as of yet still theoretical trip for later this year ("B1 = can handle almost all situations likely to arise while traveling," generally, IIRC). BOOKS (Italian): 1-3. Harry Potter e la Pietra Filosofale FILMS, ETC. (Italian): 26. ... BOOKS (French): 18. ... FILMS, ETC. (French): 42. ... BOOKS (Dutch): 28. ... FILMS, ETC. (Dutch): 32. ... I am not entered in any Super Challenge for German, but I also am still reporting for my log: BOOKS (German): 12. ... FILMS, ETC. (German): 44-54. Dracula (audiobook) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5525 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 88 of 251 12 February 2013 at 5:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
That's the thing that really amazes me these days: If you start from, say, A2 or B1, progress really is an almost mechanical function of (semi-)comprehensible input, at least for receptive skills. It's like: 500 pages -> you can more or less read 2000 pages -> you can read a great many books for pleasure, with or without a dictionary 5000 pages -> you can read fast and fluently, and only have problems with really unfamiliar styles and materials 20 episodes of a TV show -> you can understand at least 60% 80 episodes of a TV show -> you can understand at least 80%, often more add other TV shows and movies -> you broaden out to understand new voices Of course, the exact numbers will vary from one person to the next, depending on background, aptitude, the language, the media chosen, etc. And all this assumes some modest curiosity about vocabulary and grammar (e.g., you occasionally look up interesting words and flip through grammar books). And maybe you watch the occasional movie with subs on and rewind a bunch. The other thing that I find amazing is the sheer speed of adult language acquisition under these circumstances. Seriously. 5000 pages is a few dozen Hardy Boys books. 80 episodes of a TV show is a few weeks on the playground for a kid. You still won't be anything like a native, but they get 20 years of full-time immersion and school before anyone expects them to sound like an adult. Adult language acquisition: Surprisingly fast and predictable, if you're talking about receptive skills. A full Super Challenge will get you a large fraction of the way to C1. 5 persons have voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
