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Expug’s All at On(c)e Log - TAC14 | ||
Tags: Papiamento | Estonian | Georgian | Native Materials | Norwegian | Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC) | Mandarin | Russian | German | French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5158 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes  Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 345 of 415 28 October 2014 at 8:42pm | IP Logged |
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A good day for my languages today, especially for Chinese, Georgian and Russian. Pity that I've been having internet connection issues and couldn't load Poor Nastya's episode no matter what I did. The video would get stuck at one given point. Tried different browsers, different computers, anonymous mode, rebooting. Will try again at home. The same happened with the series I'm in Charge, but fortunately I was only 13 seconds from my daily bookmark.
I was reading one of my first posts from this log and I realized most of my goals for this year have been accomplished. Basic reading fluency in Georgian and Russian are the main shortcomings, but it's not that bad after all. I am close to basic fluency in Norwegian and in German - the way I'm following my current series demonstrate this. I can understand Norwegian if spoken to me slowly, I can read it and get more than the gist out of it and i can make myself understood in most matters. German isn't much behind. My reading skills aren't as good because the word order is so different, but I'm getting closer, and I have seen improvement on my active vocabulary. Other goals included being at around A2 for Estonian and just falling for Chinese and not seeing it as a burden anymore, and this is perhaps the most important accomplishment for this year. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5158 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 346 of 415 29 October 2014 at 9:23pm | IP Logged |
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Today I bought Communication Georgian I. It's from the same publisher as Biliki, but it can be bought as an ebook from Saba.com.ge . I was excited with the idea and bought it, to my regret. It's too abridged and behind my level for 12 Georgian Lari (17 reais). Anyway, my idea sharping edges for languages by working with one textbook at a time for the ones I've dropped textbooks for (French, German, Norwegian,Georgian) has proved to be consistent. I'm still working on Grammaire Progréssive du Français niveau avancê, but next I'm doing something for Georgian and later for Norwegian. This 'comeback' to textbooks at an upper-intermediate stage helps me consolidate what I only knew passively from the eearly textbooks for beginners and from expsoure. So, that's how it works for me: I work massively with textbooks, I get some basic vocabulary (as far as someone who dislikes SRS can retain) and I get a good understanding of the grammar, even if I don't actually memorize morphology. Syntax plays a bigger role here as I have to at least associate the L2 word with L1 translation. Once I run out of textbooks, I start doing billingual reading and I add input to vocabulary and it also helps consolidate grammar. I'm currently at this stage with Georgian.
It happens as such that some new materials show up in the meantime, even for Georgian and Norwegian. Since it's fresh material, I don't feel discouraged by the need of refiewing. So, after a hiatus of 6 months-1 year I'm going to use textbooks for Georgian and Norwegian again and I expect to have a narrower look at them and retain and consolidate. On another note, today was especially good for Georgian. I'm starting to understand longer excerpts from Jules Verne's novel. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5158 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 347 of 415 30 October 2014 at 9:06pm | IP Logged |
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It's been a day of changes. I finished another French book, "De mémoire les ésseniens". Now I'm going to read non-fiction, Economy.
I also finished another book in Chinese, Pride and Prejudice. Now I'm going to read The Time Traveler's Wife. Translations of contemporary novels are still my best bet, even though I've seen a good improvement at the last one and even started to read some paragraphs extensively and actually understand them. I'm confident my Chinese is going somewhere. I believe I can speak a fair bit and understand conversations when context is clear. Forgot to say I had finished Tuldava's textbook yesterday. It took me a long time to decide which book to do next, and I ended up picking a French-based one, Manuel d'Estonien, even though I have good German-based ones Estnisch Lehrbuch - and Russian based ones - 'Eesti keel ma armastan...', which has audio and seems great, and what surprises me the most is that my Estonian isn't that far from my Russian. I believe my most difficult languages are finally leading towards a path that will allow me to learn and enjoy the process. Chinese, Georgian and Russian - I've never been so confident about my capability of learning them, even if I'm fully aware I'm at a shaky pre-intermediate level. It seems I'm close to reaching a critical mass. I learn a few words each day, but I keep forgetting. As I review more and more words, I reach a point at which I cease to forget the most important ones. It's my way of doing without SRS, with massive input but also explicit textbook learning. Most important, I'm avoiding with Estonian a lot of mistakes I made with the other ones. I know that the textbooks I've used so far allowed me to understand the language but to retain quite little, and I want to pay more attention as it becomes easier. I have a set of resources I want to use that would also do the job of SRS - nojn-linear, phrasebook like textbooks/videos mainly with sentences + audio. And I haven't started using the web-based courses yet! Today at the chat I said I'm close to reaching basic fluency in Norwegian and German, and that Russian isn't that far behind, given that I'm starting to mentally translate sentences in my head, and this demonstrates I'm starting to feel and to think in the language. With Russian, output exercises from Goethe-Verlag have been helping a lot. I wouldn't be surprised if I managed to update my list in a few weeks. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5158 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 348 of 415 31 October 2014 at 9:07pm | IP Logged |
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After I finished Tuldava's textbook for Estonian and started using Manuel d'Estonien, which has shorter lessons (at least at the early level), I managed to accomplish my tasks much sooner for the past two days. Strangely, I'm getting burnout. It turns out that I'm reading a lot. My numbers for both Russian and Georgian, for example, include an edition where pages are longer than average. For the record, each page in Georgian at 20.000 Leagues...equals to 2.5 in French; with Russian and Divergent, it's 2 for 1. And today I started The time traveller's wife and the ratio is perhaps 2:1 too. Not only that, I'm still studying/L-R from some textbooks (Assimil Perfectionnement Russe, Open for Business Chinese) and I'm reading 10 pages in German/Norwegian and 20 in French (apart from the grammar entirely in French and the novels for the other languages I read with the French edition - I surely count them too). I believe since tasks are taking a shorter time, the effect of reading a lot within a shorter time frame are leading me to burnout.
This happens with listening/watching, too. I'm watching so much that sometimes I just can't watch, and I decide to listen only. It was worse with Georgian as I got some defective videos with audio only at a channel. Luckily next episode is ok. When will this get better? When my level improves for these languages. As a matter of fact, I think I'm reading better and faster in Chinese, Georgian and Russian and this is increasing the effect of 'doing a lot at once'. It is a minor side-effect though, because once I become more comfortable with these languages it won't be that painful. All in all, I'm on the verge of improving my level and bringing up a lot of dormant vocabulary to a conscious level, at least a passive one (yep, I believe there is a difference from unconscious vocabulary and passive vocabulary and then active vocabulary; I believe everything we 'sense' goes to memore even if it is not acknowledge by the sense in a conscious way, but that's another issue). So, it's a matter of consistent exposure, some active output (which I always lack, but fortunately I found a compromise with Goethe-Verlag's tests) and there will be some sort of epiphany/quantum leap when much of the words you've been exposed to several times will come to the objective dimension and thus your comprehension will seem to have increased through 'bounds and leaps'. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5158 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 349 of 415 03 November 2014 at 9:46pm | IP Logged |
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I had the day off but I didn't see it coming. I stayed at home doing what I usually
do, i.e. studying languages. I even missed the air conditioning from work. Well, at least the new furniture for the office room here at home is all set up, I bought new batteries for the wireless mouse and the stereo is still working properly and plugged to the computer. Well, as a result of staying home, I couldn't read my usual Georgian, German and Mandarin books. The files are there, so are the bookmarks. Nothing that harms my progress for the SC: I read one book from Roald Dahl in German, I read from another book in Chinese and I read news in Georgian. The best thing were the Georgian news: I can understand much more from them than from a novel, not only in terms of vocabulary: I could follow quite long periods. I'm still so not in the mood for Chinese SRS, but tomorrow is my last day with Open for Business and, even though it helped, I think it was still over my head. Now I'm going to start a sort of a grammar with drilling, and I hope I can improve my active skills. My Norwegian isn't that bad when it comes to listening. Since I only have Swedish subtitles for Hjem, I'm forced to pay closer attention and I'm understanding quite a bit. But what impresses me the most is the Russian from Bednaya Nastya: Russian is much less like French/Norwegian where I have to decypher sound then meaning, and much more like German - most of the times, even if I don't get the meaning, I could still theoretically transcribe what is being said phonetically. And that means I'm learning a lot of vocabulary and expressions just by associating sound with English translation. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5158 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 350 of 415 04 November 2014 at 9:01pm | IP Logged |
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Enjoying Manuel d'Estonien from l'Asiathèque. Pity that the answer key is only for the grammar exercises, not for the production exercises. Manuals from l'Asiathèque are more suitable for when you've already been through a few textbooks: lessons are long and the learning curve is steep. The quality is quite good, nevertheless, especially when it comes to the grammar explanations.
Finished Open for Business Chinese. Will take a break and study grammar, because grammar books come with sentences and this will allow me to drill sentences, too. Next I want to do Practical Chinese for Official Purposes. Modern Chinese Grammar + Workbook, Streetwise Chinese, Chinese TV Plays, Boules de Neige and then I will work mostly with short texts (that is, unless I find anything that is similar to Assimil in an intermediate stage). I won't search for textbooks anymore because I think I'm learning a lot from using native materials, especially reading with Pera-Pera and translation. I'm currently reading The Time Traveller's Wife and it is already much easier than the previous one. Sometimes I understand whole paragraphs before seeing the original, and I only look up a few words with Pera-Pera. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5158 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 351 of 415 05 November 2014 at 9:34pm | IP Logged |
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Today was a bit busier and I chose to write here briefly instead of reading the forum. Better luck tomorrow.
Still happy about Manuel d'estonien. The dialogues are particularly interesting: they sound much more 'living' and contemporary than the ones in the previous textbooks. I believe when I get down to Goethe-verlag texts for Estonian I am going to activate a lot of dormant vocabulary. I started Intermediate Chinese and it just fits with my level! As a matter of fact, I know most of the sentences being used as examples, so I'm learning a few words now and there and, most important, I'm learning to say things naturally. Lessons are a bit long, but it's only 25 of them and I don't want to be stuck at that book for a long time, because there's a lot I want to study from, especially now I've realized I'm not that bad. I'm taking longer sessions of reading from The Time Traveller's Wife before having to resort to the original, only with Pera-pera. Only longer paragraphs actually make a bit lazier. Georgian reading is also getting better. I have the feeling, which gets stronger and stronger, that I will soon reach some sort of milestone for each of my weaker languages, a time at which I will start learning words through context, as it is the case from Norwegian now. For these three, I still know too little to be able to figure out the missing words as often as I would like. It's funny how one language tends to 'catch up' with the others. This is one more evidence of the so-called plateaus. Russian caught up with Georgian, German caught up with Norwegian. Estonian will soon catch up with Russian, in terms of reading. As for speaking, I believe Chinese is better than Russian and Georgian, but these seem to be catching up too. Then if I reach a plateau again, I'm sure my daily activities on all of these languages will allow me to build up on them until they 'click' again. I'm definitely at a B1 stage for all but Estonian now. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5158 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 352 of 415 06 November 2014 at 8:57pm | IP Logged |
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I wasn't so busy but a bit agitated today. I felt some reading burnout. It turns out that the book I'm reading in German deals into a topic that is difficult to understand, that is, regardless language matters. So, when I finished it I was exhausted about reading and am missing the Russian one for today. I kept doing the video part of my daily activities - it was particularly good for Chinese, as I'm understanding more and more from 'I'm in Charge'. Btw, I finished Deutsch Plus and am going to watch Deutsch Direkt, which lacks subtitles, but sounds very elementary, so I may do 1 episode and see if it is actually worth it.
I'm watching a French film that I recommend for learning slang: Les visiteurs, avec Jean Reno (among others, Comme un chef). I got subtitles but some slang used seems totally unintelligible, even if I can get the meaning from context. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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