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TAC 2013 Asian Team 鶴 (crane) TEAM THREAD | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| vermillon Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4670 days ago 602 posts - 1042 votes  Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, German | Message 17 of 457 13 December 2012 at 9:26am | IP Logged | ||
See the very first post of this thread? :) Druckfehler suggested 鶴, the crane, symbol of longevity, something to wish us all for this year-long challenge. It's quite eye-catching, short (doesn't take up half of your log title..) and recognizable. I'd personally go with that, but if you guys want to suggest something else, please do! :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6077 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 18 of 457 13 December 2012 at 9:42am | IP Logged | ||
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I just popped in to say -- niice Deckblatt Druckfehler! Gorgeous first post. Good luck to everyone. LanguageSponge, what an adventure, I look forward to reading about it!
Sunja 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| vermillon Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4670 days ago 602 posts - 1042 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, German | Message 19 of 457 13 December 2012 at 10:39am | IP Logged | ||
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Perhaps it's my turn to introduce myself! I'm Julien, currently living in London, and going to take part in the TAC for the second time, hopefully in a much more consistent way this year. I'll attempt to go with the five following: Mandarin, Korean, Japanese, Minnan and Classical Chinese. Now a little more detail, (please don't force yourself to read that, stating my goals is probably the only part that matters here... after writing, I've noticed this was more a log's first post than an introduction, I'm sorry):
Mandarin: That's a long story starting in 2008, starting timidly with some university classes in my engineering school. As can be expected from language classes in that kind of school, I didn't learn much in one year (probably the equivalent of two or three dedicated months), but it gave me the opportunity to take part in a new exchange program and live in Shanghai for 6 months, where I've spent most of my time studying Mandarin and travelling across China. This has been a great experience, and that's probably the moment of my life that has had the greatest impact on me, my personality and also my dedication to languages (I had always been interested in languages, but never put much time into them). After that, I've had to return to my engineering school where I was given the chance to do a semester-long private course where I would give weekly 30mn-long presentations on a period of Chinese history. This has been very intense, and my vocabulary has expanded enormously, probably the fastest improvement I've had during my study of Mandarin, and consequently something I'd love to repeat, but considering the amount of work required, it is quite hard to motivate oneself without the pressure of the deadline. Anyway, after that I've managed to get a position in Beijing for my final internship, this time living in the city rather than on campus, and my Mandarin has continued to improve. By that time, I've read my first Chinese novel (巴金《家》, which apparently is not really the easiest read you could find), and studying was taking the major part of my free time (pubs and shows apart, of course). Beijing has been my favourite city, as the rock scene over there is much better than in Shanghai (mostly only night clubs). After that I've had to return to Europe (France/Scotland/England), where I've been studying Mandarin on and off, never reaching the level I would like to reach due to a lack of dedication. I've passed the new HSK5 last year, perhaps 6 would have been ok, I just played it safe. I don't know what CEFR level that represents, but as can be expected, my passive skills are much better than my active skills. I can nonetheless express myself "fluently" (and I mean, in a fluent fashion, not in an elaborate or elegant one) orally and in writing. Apart from that, I'm regularly reading novels (completed 11 of them, usually around 300p), both in simplified and traditional characters (mostly for those novels that didn't get the censor's approval on the mainland) and I've been an editor for the Chinese-English dictionary CEDICT since mid-2010. Goals: for this year, I want to improve my Mandarin a lot in all aspects. I plan to read a bit more difficult novels (perhaps trying Lu Xun, if I like it enough), but my main focus will be on the three other skills: my listening is still bad for movies (not for news where the speech is clear, but the more colloquial style) and I want to be able to watch movies from China and Taiwan and understand everything without subtitles. I also want to improve the way I express myself, learn to construct argumentation etc: I want to sound educated when I speak Mandarin. Additionally, I'd like to improve my handwriting, but that's very likely not to happen given the practice it requires and it's not extremely useful nor a good investment in term of time spent vs returns. I'd like to pass the HSK 6, though it's not worth much, and the TOCFL 5, which should be much more difficult and probably not attainable this year (end of March...), but I can try to pass it next year and that way I won't be too nervous cramming all this vocabulary and all those traditional characters I can recognize but not produce. Classical Chinese (or call it whatever you want): this one is mostly for pleasure, but in late 2011 I've been through some textbooks and I've found it extremely pleasurable to read these ancient texts. It was one of my TAC'12 languages, and I've been through the biography of Huo Guang, which was a great confidence boost (wow, I can actually read complete texts, albeit with a lot of notes to help), and I'd like to go further. Goals: continue with perhaps a textbook or two as a refresher, and then try to read books I may actually enjoy: Confucius (that one is quite easy, right?), Zhuangzi and little stories like the 说苑. What would be amazing would be to find a teacher, but in London that's pretty hard to come by. I'd also love to join some group to learn writing it, but time may be too great a constraint here. So no clear goal, apart from trying to read completely 说苑. (no "B2-C2" here!) Minnan / Southern Min / Taiwanese: I have no experience with this language past a few simple sentences, but as I may spend a few weeks this summer in my girlfriend's family, I thought it would be nice being able to use their real language. The main problem with Minnan is the limited material available, and I'll probably have to learn the Taiwanese variety and then do my best to be understood. I'm still trying to put my hands on the textbook by Maryknoll, who apparently sell only in Taiwan (if you're living in Taiwan and read this, please be kind and drop me a line!). Goals: Do my best to be as close to conversational as possible by August. My two main challenges will be to get hold of some study material and to learn how to learn a language with limited resource, particularly "how to learn the language from a native who's not a teacher". Korean: I'll try to be brief now. When living in Beijing, I was in an area densely populated by Koreans, and it got me intrigued but I never got the chance to study Korean over there, until I was in Edinburgh in 2011 where I've attended around 30h and I've loved it. It was one of my TAC'12 languages, and even though I didn't keep Korean for the full year, I managed to bring myself to pass the TOPIK 2, which I consider enough of a success. Goals: This year, I want to quickly refresh what I've learnt in 2012, and push myself to pass the TOPIK 3, or to aim at TOPIK 4-5 for next year. I want to put more Korean in my life, watching movies (and dramas, which seem to help more developing speech), reading manhwa and hopefully start reading novels. For this year, it is still very likely that my focus will be mostly on passive skills, and I don't promise at all to try to develop "the 4 skills" evenly, but I won't leave the active skills untouched. I'm giving myself a bit more time (it's not 2013 yet!) to set clearer goals for Korean. Japanese: That one should be the shortest. I have no experience with Japanese apart from a very brief course in engineering school many years ago (2007?). I really want to be able to watch Japanese movies and read Japanese books, and I think it's time that I start studying it. I expect my knowledge of kanji to simplify the task, allowing me to focus more on the language itself than on its script. I also expect that this knowledge should make reading Japanese books much easier than for Korean, as I shoud be able to infer a lot of vocabulary, and hopefully the similarity with Korean grammar means that my brain will be better accustomed to the grammar and syntax. Goals: To give myself a head start, I'll try to pass the JLPT N4 in July, and the N3 in December. This looks doable for now, and hopefully I won't have to revise this statement, but it may be a bit optimistic. TL;DR: this year is going to be intense. If I manage to make it to the end, it will indeed deserve to have "annihilation" in its name. I hope to have a lot of fun this year and, above all, to share this learning experience with you. I hope we'll be able to help each other, and as there are quite a few Mandarin beginners here, please don't hesitate to ask, I hope I can help! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5326 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 20 of 457 13 December 2012 at 11:18am | IP Logged | ||
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If you chose a letter the rest of us do not understand, perhaps you could write either the translation or the
word in Latin letters, so we know what to call you? Team incomprehensible Chinese letter doesn't really work for the rest of us :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| vermillon Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4670 days ago 602 posts - 1042 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, German | Message 21 of 457 13 December 2012 at 11:32am | IP Logged | ||
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You can use copy-paste, or simply say "the Asian team"? But I guess the team thread could be called "鶴 (crane)", so that everyone knows what it means.. is that what you're suggesting? I mean, I'm not sure if you're suggesting that we use both the character and a translation or only the translation (in which case I disapprove...)
I personally don't mind, I just want to be able to spot my teammates from the list of logs, and 鶴 has the double advantage of being easy to spot and not to take much space, as titles are very limited in length. Edited by vermillon on 13 December 2012 at 11:33am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5326 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 22 of 457 13 December 2012 at 11:46am | IP Logged | ||
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I just want us to be able to call you something - which we can't with a Chinese letter. Go team &@/6)& is a
tad unhelpful. Whether you do it in addition to or instead of the letter is your choice, I have no opinion on that :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| vermillon Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4670 days ago 602 posts - 1042 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, German | Message 23 of 457 13 December 2012 at 12:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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"Go Asian team, long live the Asian team!" :-)
This is all part of a plan to force you all to learn Mandarin or, in your case Cristina, to get back to it! ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kami Groupie United States Joined 4511 days ago 55 posts - 62 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Korean | Message 24 of 457 13 December 2012 at 11:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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So I just posted on the main sign up sheet thanks for welcoming me! I'm actually living
in the U.S but I by accident hit U.k as my country and now I can't change it. If someone could tell me how I would be super grateful :)Anyway I'm in high school now and started Korean at the beginning of the school year but haven't really had time to study so I literally know nothing. I'm totally ready to learn though. My friend was telling me about Korean music and dramas and she got me into them too. The language seems really fun plus I love a challenge so I decided I would try. That's pretty much it. My goals are to learn basic conversation and comprehension. I guess readings important too so... to just have a general understanding of the language. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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