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Books books books. 语학子’s TAC 東亜 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| yuhakko Tetraglot Senior Member FranceRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4625 days ago 414 posts - 582 votes  Speaks: French*, EnglishB2, EnglishC2, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Korean, Norwegian, Mandarin | Message 1 of 203 21 December 2012 at 1:56am | IP Logged |
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TAC 2015 Beginning Post: Right here
TAC 2014 Beginning post: Right here TAC 2013 Beginning post Well then, New Year coming soon and I hope it will be full of new challenges as every other year has been! One will be my very first participation in the TAC! And as if just participating wasn't enough, I'll do it will 3teams and 4 languages! Obviously there will be some times when one or two will not be studied as much as the other ones but the point is to go on for the whole year! Now a bit of an intro! For the Asian Team, just so you know, my intro itself is the same I posted on the team thread. Japanese: I've been studying japanese for about 4-5years. I started when I finished high school with 2 classes per week of evening classes. Unfortunately, it was really slow (125 kanjis in 2 years..), so as a result I decided to take the 1st year students' test to get directly in 2nd year. So I had to learn about 300kanjis in a few months and catch up with the grammar. I succeeded and went in second year. I did one year like that but it was my last year of university for my other subject and I went on to another town so I started studying alone. This year, I got to spend a semester in exchange in Tokyo where I got more classes and saw my level increase dramatically. Oh btw, I took the JLPT N2 last december and failed by 5points and tried again in japan but this time without any preparation at all and passed (full score for listening! :p). I am planning on taking the JLPT N1 next december but I know my level is still far under so I will need to work on that. Korean: I started when I finished high school but just learnt the alphabet and then stopped. I started again one year later during the summer and got directly in the intermediate evening classes of the Korean Culture Center. I understood pretty much nothing at the start but caught up quickly by studying a lot on my own (hurray for TTMIK!) and thanks to the fact that the grammar is awesomely similar to the Japanese one for a good part. I then went to Korea for 2months and a half. Arrived being able to have slow, easy conversations and left much more at ease, talking most of my time in Korean (not specific topics and using easy vocabulary to say pretty much anything). I went out with a Korean girl for a small year also, which helped me getting to a comfortable Korean level. Unfortunately, because of that, I kinda stopped studying seriously Korean and pretty much just kept my level the same (obviously my listenning and reading has gotten better, but vocab is my worst enemy when it comes to Korean). As a result, I plan to work on my lack of vocabulary and hope to finally get out of that slump I feel I got myself into. Chinese: This is my newest asian language! I've just started in August with Assimil and worked around it too. Thanks to my knowledge of Japanese Kanjis, I am now more or less able to read (by that I mean understand the meaning) quite a few things but usually have no idea how to pronounce it. I haven't had too much practice speaking so I believe my speaking skills are not really good although my listenning is alright. However, as said earlier, next semester I will be back in school regularly and will have a lot of opportunities to talk to the (many : about a hundred or two) Chinese exchange students. I also started a reader and it's quite a good experience (my first with a reader). Norwegian: Now this is really my latest language and very first Scandinavian Language. Furthermore, as I haven't ever studied a language not asian on my own, this is going to be quite the challenge! I just started as part of the Assimil Experiment (and late furthermore) but I will certainly drop this experiment as I am really starting to get that feeling of wanting to dive in this language. Now for my goals this year! (Might be more interesting) Japanese: Pass the JLPT N1 in December 2013, but before that : Read the news without trouble and be able to use Keigo with ease! Korean: Get out of that slump I am in, which means develop my vocabulary, increasing my understanding of dramas/movies without subtitles, and if possible pass a TOPIK exam (still don't know which one though) Chinese: (Probably the language I want to increase most.) Be able to read not too hard (but not too easy) books, handle a conversation with ease whether writing or talking, and of course, Improve my accent!! Norwegian: Being my first totally new language for a long time, I don't really know what to put as a goal. Considering it's (incredibly) difficult for me right now, I'm just going to say : Be able to have a conversation without much trouble and understand parts of Movies/Series. If it gets easier, I might change the goals of course! Ressources : Japanese:Mostly Read, read, read. My housemate will certainly help out too. I'll also use the 総まとめ Collection for the JLPT N1 which are awesomely good. Korean:TTMIK, this site to get out of that slump, talk to my friends, write on lang-8, and watch more dramas/movies without subtitles. Chinese:The best website ever, Chinese Assimil, Chinese Graded readers, Lang-8, Movies/Dramas, etc. Norwegian: Norwegian Assimil, Lang-8, and anything else I could find! Well it was long but now my log is up and will soon be running! Now I'll just have to wait for 2013! Edited by yuhakko on 07 January 2015 at 11:54pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4861 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 2 of 203 21 December 2012 at 12:12pm | IP Logged |
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Great introduction, yuhakko. It's very interesting to read that you find Norwegian difficult after studying three languages which a renowned for being the most difficult languages :)
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| yuhakko Tetraglot Senior Member FranceRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4625 days ago 414 posts - 582 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishB2, EnglishC2, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Korean, Norwegian, Mandarin | Message 3 of 203 28 December 2012 at 2:59am | IP Logged |
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Haha, Yeah, I guess this is unusual to hear that, but I've gotten used to Asian
languages a long time ago and thus, however the "official" difficulty, it doesn't appear that difficult to me.. 이상 하죠? I know the TAC hasn't started but I am kind of lazy to write a bit in each of my old logs so I'll just start writing here. I've gone back in my Japanese mode it seems. Those past weeks I was getting more and more again into Japanese and a skype talk with a friend (whom I had surpassed while in Japan) who is in Japan now and who got (again) better than me got me over-motivated again. Thus I've read in the past few days about 100 pages of a book I bought in Japan but had read only bit by bit here and there. I have only about 40-50 pages left so I am planning on finishing it by saturday. I have 2 other books but (like this one) they are not stories (this one is called "すごい勉強法、（短時間のやり方）" ) but more about lifestyles and what not. I will probably start one in January but on the side and wish to read a real "normal" book with a story too, so I will go buy one tomorrow. I also re-started reading the newspaper in Japanese but read only about 5 or 6 articles for now (one among which I missed only about 5-6words !) I am watching some movies and dramas here and there without subtitles, and had a 2hours skype in Japanese with a friend today too. As a result of all that, I am starting to feel a steady increase in the results and thus in my motivation too. As for Korean, I have (finally!!) restarted today listening to some TTMIK lessons. I listened to 2 "old" ones I was not sure I mastered well (길래 for instance), read a small article about 겸손 on a (well appreciated) website given by my dear teammate (yes you druckfehler :p ). I also finally decided to really start watching dramas without subtitles. It had happened before but now it's time to dive in really. I will still keep them for movies as I get less time to understand the whole story. Oh! And finally, I started again talking to some korean friends. Some of them through voice message, some through normal message. For Chinese... I've had a few hard working days but unfortunately too many were not. I've gotten pretty tired of the Assimil and am doing a lesson here and there although I could finish it quickly considering I am at lesson 101. I'll do the active wave seriously later. I want to get into more interesting things now. The days I studied well I spent a lot of time on Fluentflix but working more seriously on each video instead of lurking around learning bits here and there. It worked well as I still remember those words now even though it's been almost a week. Anyway, looking forward to the new semester to finally get that chinese working! Unfortunately, for this update the amount of work goes decreasing. So for Norwegian, I almost did nothing, just a bit of review. I've decided to wait until I move in my new appartment the 2nd of January to start again. However the difficulty I seem to have with it made me want to get more ressources to work from different angles. So I am taking care of that. I just got myself today Hugo's Three month Norwegian. I have never used any of those but heard good things about it. I also found a few Norwegian movies but not enough yet (any recommendation??) so I am still searching! Anyway, for the last few days of the year, I'll be concentrating on Japanese because I am spending my New Year's Eve with about 10 Japanese and 2 french friends (with whom I might speak in Japanese), so I want to get as close as possible to my Level from last time we met! (which was in Japan for most of them) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Julie Heptaglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6896 days ago 1251 posts - 1733 votes 5 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French | Message 4 of 203 30 December 2012 at 7:48pm | IP Logged |
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Good luck with your languages during TAC 2013, and it's interesting indeed that you consider Norwegian difficult, despite all the stereotypically "difficult" languages you have on your list :)
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| yuhakko Tetraglot Senior Member FranceRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4625 days ago 414 posts - 582 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishB2, EnglishC2, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Korean, Norwegian, Mandarin | Message 5 of 203 31 December 2012 at 1:37am | IP Logged |
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Haha, thank you! Yes, everytime I look at norwegian it "looks like chinese" as we say in
French ^^ which means I don't understand anything but in my case.. I should say that it looks like Norwegian! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| yuhakko Tetraglot Senior Member FranceRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4625 days ago 414 posts - 582 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishB2, EnglishC2, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Korean, Norwegian, Mandarin | Message 6 of 203 31 December 2012 at 1:58am | IP Logged |
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2012 is still not over but I have a great news (for myself at least) : I have finished
my very first book in Japanese! Furthermore, it was my first time to try to read a book in Japanese so I am quite happy about that. Unfortunately, it was not a story so it stayed "difficult" all the way until the end. I then started straight away a new book from 村上 (Murakami) which appears to be famous (or so I heard) : 海辺のカフカ (Umibe no Kafka). I wanted to read 3-4 pages to get the gist of it but it was actually so easy to read that I read the whole introduction (14 pages) in about 30min. All this made me decided to restart reading more, like I used to years ago. I will try to read an average of 10pages per day in Japanese and hopefully get around reading a few books in Korean by the end of 2013! 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5975 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 7 of 203 31 December 2012 at 3:05am | IP Logged |
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Well done on reaching such a great milestone (even if it is still in 2012!)
I'm just a few pages away from finishing my first proper grown up book in Japanese too. It's such a great feeling - as if finally I can actually do something kind of useful with this language after nearly five years of study! Good luck with your goals for the 2013 TAC. I'm hoping to pass N2 this year (I expect I failed in December), so I will be looking to you to lead the way (no pressure!) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Bakunin Diglot Senior Member Switzerland outerkhmer.blogspot. Joined 5123 days ago 531 posts - 1126 votes Speaks: German*, Thai Studies: Khmer | Message 8 of 203 31 December 2012 at 6:46am | IP Logged |
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Gosh, this is a long list of languages. Good luck with all of them, and I'm looking forward to being on a team with
you. Good on you for starting your first real book in Japanese! I love Murakami, and I've read all of his books (in English or German, however). It's already ten years ago, but I found that I could very much identify with his characters, and I just loved his style. After having read books like A Wild Sheepcase and Dance, Dance, Dance, I really wanted to travel to Hokkaido, which I finally did this year. Anyway, keep on reading, and please tell us how you like Kafka on the Shore... 1 person has voted this message useful |
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