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Liammcg-TAC’13 Team Romulans & Clan Lugus | ||
Tags: Gaelic (Scottish) | Welsh | Gaelic (Irish) | Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC) | German | French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| liammcg Senior Member Ireland Joined 4596 days ago 269 posts - 397 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 17 of 89 24 December 2012 at 12:01am | IP Logged | ||
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French
I'm getting a fair bit done in French. I spent today working on some grammatical problems that rose in the past few days concerning that pesky little preposition "de" and its various forms depending on context. I thought I had this fairly well covered, but alas! This evening of been gathering together interesting resources to use. A special thanks to emk and tastyonions for finding some gems! I've also found the film Amélie on Youtube with French subtitles and so I think I'm going to spend a whole week watching this a number of times. Gaelic As with French, I've been focusing a great deal on native materials this week. The difference between the recordings that come with my course and the way the language actually sounds at full speed is huge! As is to be expected I suppose. I find it quite hard to follow some speakers who seem to elide whole syllables in speech. Also, the discord between certain dialectal speech and the written word is becoming apparent. However, this isn't a big deal for me, as I love comparing dialects of languages (I've been known to bore friends to death with detailed accounts of the difference between this and that in Irish). There really isn't anything to it but to knuckle down and listen to the subtle lilt of this beautiful language! Tha mi a' smaointinn gu bheil mi ag èirigh nas fhearr aig a'Ghàidhlig gach uile seachdain. Tha i deacair ann uaireannan, ach tha an cànan a' còrdadh rium gu mòr. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| liammcg Senior Member Ireland Joined 4596 days ago 269 posts - 397 votes Speaks: English* | Message 18 of 89 28 December 2012 at 4:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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The Christmas holidays have been great for developing a solid routine of study, and
I've made the most of it. French I've begun a regiment of fairly intensive listening where I listen to RFI or Amélie many,many times in order to pick up on subtle elements of pronunciation. I've also begun reading a book of short stories that I got a few months ago but hadn't really liked. Last night I read "Apprendre à Vivre", a short story by Frédéric H. Fajardie. The story tells of Patrick, a young boy who finds himself in a "no-mans" land of life, stuck between childhood and adulthood. The struggling boy wearing his new pair of roller blades grabs onto the back of one Antoine Lopez's car in an attempt to flee quietly from his (Patrick's) childhood crush. Lopez is also going through a distressing period in his life and it is this meeting that results in Patrick's tragic death. It's a parallel text, so looking up vocab isn't a problem. At the end of the story I made a list of some useful vocab that I hadn't come across before (un volant, le salaud, maudire etc.) and I was able to recall them all today from memory without opening the book. I'm going to flick through the story again tonight to make sure I understand everything. Tonight I'm also going to begin reading "David", by Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio. From flicking through it, the level of language seems very relaxed, with some nice snatches of slang filled dialogue to balance it out. I wonder would anyone know where I could come on a recording of "David", it would be a huge help! Slim chance, I know. Going of on a tangent, here's an interesting interview with Le Clézio, it begins with a talk on languages: id=1047">Interview Scottish Gaelic I've covered most of the main grammar points so far, and the main task now is to acquire vocabulary. Yesterday I went through some dialogues from the book and first translated the Gaelic dialogues to English, and today re-translated them back to Gaelic. I had little difficulty doing this, with the odd spelling mistake. Furthermore, I'm still working with interviews found on this site(Guthan nan Eilean ) , and focusing on the flow and pronunciation of the language. When I return to Dublin, I must buy a couple of CDs by Julie Fowlis or Kathleen MacInness. Edited by liammcg on 28 December 2012 at 4:39pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| liammcg Senior Member Ireland Joined 4596 days ago 269 posts - 397 votes Speaks: English* | Message 19 of 89 05 January 2013 at 4:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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TAC has begun! However, I won't be able to focus on languages for the next week as I'm
doing exams. Once they're finished, I will have a week off, so I expect my next update this time next week. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6612 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 20 of 89 05 January 2013 at 5:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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Good luck on your exams!
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| liammcg Senior Member Ireland Joined 4596 days ago 269 posts - 397 votes Speaks: English* | Message 21 of 89 19 January 2013 at 1:03am | IP Logged | ||
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Well, time for a quick update as to how I'm doing so far.
French I'm feeling very comfortable in French lately, I feel I've broken through a barrier and now am able to produce the language at a higher rate than ever before. This is not to say that the production rate is lightening fast, it is at a normal rate, but with more of a flow. One thing I've noticed since I started focusing on grammar is my improved ability to correct myself fairly rapidly upon using the wrong gender etc. Perhaps it's time to update this language to "Basic Fluency". We'll see what progress I can make between now and this time next month. Listening is still ropy at times, more so with colloquial language and so I am going to set aside more time for watching some good films. Also, I'm going to join the Alliance Française in Dublin (something I should have done a LONG time ago!), so as to benefit from their library. I may look into taking classes, but because of my busy college schedule this is unlikely. Scottish Gaelic During my week off I put aside 45 mins every night to watch a program on BBC Alba. Some of it was tough going with heavy reliance on subtitles but there were some programs, particularly an interview program (cannot remember the name) that I was able to get the gist of most of what was being said from just the audio. I'm quite happy with this, considering I've only been studying for a few months. The plan for the rest of the month is to keep listening and reading (for vocab), while studying any grammatical irregularities that differ from Irish. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| liammcg Senior Member Ireland Joined 4596 days ago 269 posts - 397 votes Speaks: English* | Message 22 of 89 21 January 2013 at 11:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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Chan eil mòran a' dol leis a' Ghàidhlig. Bha mi a' faicinn air videon air Youtube an-diù,
ach cha do thuig mi a' chainnt a robh ro luath. Ged tha, d'èist mi pìos beag ri Julia Fowlis agus Ailean Dòmhnallach cuideachd. Feumaidh mi a'ràdh gum beil an dithis aca go taghta math. Fhuair mi leabhar bhon leabhar-lann an-diugh fo dhual-chainnt nan eileanan an iar. Bidh mi ga leughadh bhon dràsta. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6612 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 23 of 89 22 January 2013 at 8:11am | IP Logged | ||
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I have no idea what you just wrote, but Celtic languages just look beautiful, don't they?
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| liammcg Senior Member Ireland Joined 4596 days ago 269 posts - 397 votes Speaks: English* | Message 24 of 89 22 January 2013 at 10:04am | IP Logged | ||
Definitely! I'm really enjoying the Scottish orthography, because a) the grave accent makes it look like an old or "cool" version of Irish,and b) Scottish seems to be much less homogeneous in terms of spelling than Irish. For example, the use of the ' mark shows more closely how the language is spoken. In Irish, one generally wouldn't use such conventions in formal writing. Edited by liammcg on 22 January 2013 at 10:05am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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