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5 years of 日本語 TAC 13 桜/Schnitzel | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5925 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 113 of 436 06 March 2013 at 10:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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I missed a whole two days of studying because I was away from home for work. I brought my Doraemon manga with me, but as it happened I didn't get any spare time to read it anyway. I'm not complaining, it was definitely worth the trip, but since this is a language forum and not a work forum, it makes sense to talk more about the language side of things here.
Anyway, I'm back to the usual routine today, and hit lesson 50 in German Assimil, which means the active wave also began today. It wasn't that challenging at all, because for some reason most of lesson 1 has already burned its way into my memory (partly because of a couple of false starts leading to more repetitions than normal, and partly because after my husband started giving Assimil a go we randomly ended up acting out the first lesson one night, clearly a sign that I need to get out more, even if it's just on work trips!) However, I think at least now I am 100% certain that Tee is masculine and Tasse is feminine. I also learned that Verzeihung is a noun and therefore must be capitalised, so I guess I'm making some progress. But I think the suggestion in Assimil that I am now starting to use the language "creatively" is a little, well, creative... Edited by g-bod on 06 March 2013 at 10:34pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5127 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 114 of 436 07 March 2013 at 1:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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I wish I had a study partner that lived with me. Sounds nice =).
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| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5925 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 115 of 436 07 March 2013 at 9:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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Oh, I wouldn't exactly call him a study partner. In fact we rarely talk about languages. Well, I often talk about languages, but it's usually one sided and I'm pretty sure he's not listening! He did ask me to try to explain the case system the other day, which was fun given that I'm barely getting used to it myself and explanations along the lines of "accusative is like を and dative is like に" won't really work with someone who hasn't got used to Japanese particles yet either!
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| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5925 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 116 of 436 08 March 2013 at 10:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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I just made an attempt at reading some real German! I read an article on Stern about comets and admittedly was aided somewhat by the fact that I'd already read an article on the same topic on the BBC. Nevertheless, it was real German, and I understood enough to get the gist of the article, which is a huge step forward from where my German was just a few short weeks ago.
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| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5925 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 117 of 436 11 March 2013 at 9:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well I understood enough of what they were saying on German radio last night to discover it was expected to reach -9C in Hamburg this week. Germany had better warm up before we travel there next week!
Obviously I've got a long way to go with German yet, but it's still quite amazing that little snippets like that are suddenly becoming comprehensible. It took me about three years of Japanese to start understanding the weather forecast... I also confess to having watched a couple of episodes of Sex and the City dubbed into German. I got bored of that series ages ago, but rewatching in a language I'm trying to learn is definitely getting more life out of the DVDs! My understanding is variable. Obviously huge sections of it go straight over my head, but then there will be a few lines that I can understand perfectly easily, and I'm pleasantly surprised every time that happens. All this is making me want to learn more, so I'm off to crack open the books again. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6028 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 118 of 436 12 March 2013 at 8:48am | IP Logged | ||
Yes, it's really chaos this morning, at least it is in Middle Hessen: snow, ice, Staus ohne Ende. The 16-Tage weather for Hamburg looks like it's supposed to warm up, but unfortunately a few degrees warmer usually means "snow". At least German has plenty of words to describe water in all its various states of frozenness. Ugh, I've had enough of winter :) but I'm sure spring will show itself eventually. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5925 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 119 of 436 13 March 2013 at 12:45am | IP Logged | ||
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We're not planning on travelling as far north as Hamburg but I was listening to NDR Kultur (classical music plus German is such a winning combination) so the forecast was regional. But I guess if north Germany is freezing, chances are mid and south Germany will be cold too!
I've been messing around with Anki again this last couple of days, since getting the Glossar to go with my textbook. Problem is it seems to deliver so many words per chapter (roughly 400 for chapter one) it quickly turns into an epic data entry task. And I'm still unconvinced how necessary it is. I know people who got to a high level in other languages after making a point of doing lots of vocab work with some form of flashcard (either Anki or paper-based). I also know someone who has almost thesaurus-like recall of various English vocab words but ends up using them in rather strange ways. And I also know people who have reached a high level without doing much specific vocab memorization work at all. I have noticed that German words generally seem to stick a lot better than Japanese words did when I was a beginner. I've also noticed that German spelling is an absolute breeze compared to kanji (and even compared to French). On the other hand, there is the gender issue, for which memorization of articles is usually recommended, which again lends itself to pulling out those flashcards (digital or otherwise) to at least build a mini dictionary of nouns in my brain. However, I recently spoke to a friend who has good German, memorized a load of vocab with Anki, including articles, but still makes mistakes with articles when speaking. So it's clearly not a perfect solution. After setting all that down, I think I've talked myself out of doing too much vocabulary work after all! Edited by g-bod on 13 March 2013 at 12:48am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6028 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 120 of 436 13 March 2013 at 9:45am | IP Logged | ||
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I can understand how Anki might lead to a usage problem. French as so many words that have different meanings (vrai can mean both real and true) and so I have to make sentences for context and since that takes time I usually drop out.
Even if you choose not to concentrate too much on vocab work right now, you could try building compounds like in Japanese. Have you thought about doing that with German? Compound nouns are good if you want to reduce the amount new genders you have to learn and still increase vocabulary. A compound noun always gets it's gender from the second noun. die Bahn, ---) die Fahrbahn, die Eisenbahn, die Achterbahn. Gender stays the same. It's almost like getting two or three words for the price of one! ;) die Stadt ----) die Heimatstadt, die Hauptstadt, die Kleinstadt it may be hard to find compound nouns starting with the second noun but www.Duden.de is a gut source. If you punch in the second noun, you usually get 2 or 3 useful words. (I tried it with "Bad") The dictionary is wonderful for compound nouns but since it lists words starting from the first noun, the genders are different. die Stadt + das Fest = das Stadtfest die Stadt + der Plan = der Stadtplan die Stadt + der Mensch = der Stadtmensch Great for vocabulary, but the dict. is not so great for the gender-weary ;) (Again, you already mentioned you talked yourself out of vocab, but just in case, worksheets can be found at "google" + "zusammengesetzte Substantive") :) 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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