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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 257 of 415 10 July 2014 at 11:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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The routine is fine and it's time to write calmly and focusedly here. I remember that a few weeks ago I used to watch the TV show 后厨 during my final hour of studies, and today I noticed I was watching it when there were over 3 hours left! I managed to do a lot more tasks while still keeping focused. I'm still studying from textbooks, they just aren't taking that much time as before. I believe language-learning experience helps you understand language lessons faster, while the complement with native materials makes the 'new' words at the language lessons seem less strange. It's not the case for Estonian, though, as so far I'm only using textbooks. But even in this case I seem to be taking more out of each textbook. I'm using two textbooks/resources at once the way I did for Georgian, but it seems I'm taking out much more from each lesson than I did with Georgian. I learned to be more focused when studying the lesson, as well as to understand the important explanations better. I also sense the resources for Estonian are better than the ones for Georgian, but on the other hand Georgian got me used to prepositions which abound in Estonian, as well as with an unusual word order. So, I can say that my experience with Georgian helped me take a different approach with Estonian and employ my time a little more efficiently. I'm still completely 'mute' in Estonian, no active skills whatsoever, but I'm confident as for what i've done in the past two months and a half and I'm enjoying the language a lot. As for TY Estonian itself, the dialogues now are harder and have more unknown/not-retained vocabulary. SInce the lessons are long, TY Estonian is taking me much more than the 30 minutes I find ideal. Still, I'll keep going for the final 5 lessons. I was having to translate dialogues word by word at Colloquial, anyway, and TY Estonian works in a much more reasonable and graded way than Colloquial, as Chung had already pointed out.
Speaking of 后厨, I finally figured out where it takes place, it's in Guangzhou. When the main character was writing a list, I could see the name of the Guangzhou municipality in English at the paper sheet she was using. More on the year of Chinese. Today I understood much more from Happy Journey Across China. This is important, because it doesn't have a dialogue format, but rather one presenter saying long sentences after the other. That means I understood even more from the TV series 'Don't Stop Believing', which I'm nearly addicted to. Having double subtitles do help but I dream with the day I'll be able to stick to only the Chinese one or even get rid of them, since I'm learning both written and spoken Chinese in balanced ways and I don't see such a huge gap between them. Now Russian. I'm fine with watching Bednaya Nastya through Viki and I noticed an improvement. I'm understanding better and better what is said in Russian and I'm also correctly anticipating what's going to be said in Russian after glancing at the English subtitle. I believe I'm having the feeling of improvement I had for Georgian a few months ago: I'm almost at that stage at which I know enough words at each sentence that I can focus on learning only the couple ones that I still don't know. Well, this doesn't happen all the time but for a few minutes within a 10-15 minutes video and that's already encouraging. AH, and today I wrote two parts, which means I went back to my normal 20-minute average of Russian video and it didn't cause any delays in my schedule or burnouts. By the way, I'm currently at lesson 76 of Méthode 90 which now consists only of native texts. They are still harder than the translated books I'm using, but I do believe they will push me forward, since I'll work on them intensively as they are part of a textbook. I could be even counting them for the SC, but nah...not worth the trouble. I'll keep doing my 5 pages a day from Agatha Christie till I feel like increasing this number. With Georgian itself, I can't wait to be over with TED's technical discussions in subtitles and try spoken Georgian again. I really hope it will seem much easier than before. I have good material waiting for me, two long TV series. Norwegian: I kveld med Ylvis' season 1 is over. I can't find the next seasons easily, so I decided I'm finally going to go for films. With Norwegian subtitles which I may later try to remove. As much as I enjoy watching Norwegian TV series, I think that's the change I need now. When I'm comfortable enough, I will go for the TV shows I have which don't have subtitles. Maybe one day I will understand Norwegian comedy without subtitles the way I'm almost fine with French comedy now! Oh, and I'm doing one test from Goethe-Verlag a day. They are 200, so maybe I should do more when I feel like. As much as they may sound clumsy, I see no other direct option for doing some output. I read the sentence in Portuguese, which sounds longer and clumsier, then I have to fill in the blanks at the Norwegian sentence, which is at least shorter, so, lower possibilities of mistakes. If things go well I may start doing them for Russian and maybe for Chinese if they're ok, too. Here's the first test for Chinese. Surprisingly, it's not beyond my level and some short sentences don't sound that bad. I know I may mkae mistakes, but I'd also be making them had I been trying to talk to myself, for instance. 七 - 乱 - 以 - 作 - 吗 - 吸 - 圣 - 在 - 失 - 当 - 明 - 服 - 蔬 - 请 - 饭 - 1. O que devo fazer? > 我 该 什 么 ？ 2. O restaurante está aberto? > 这 家 店 现 在 营 业 吗 ？ 3. Não faças asneiras / (Bras.:) Não faça bobagem / bobeiras! > 别 干 蠢 事 ！ / 别 来 ！ 4. Mas é claro que sim! > 然 ！ / 没 错 ！ 5. Feliz Natal! > 诞 快 乐 ！ 6. Tem uma lista telefónica? / Tem um guia telefónico? > 您 有 电 话 号 码 簿 ？ 7. Ela esteve doente, por isso não veio. > 她 病 了 ， 所 没 来 。 8. Pode trazer-me a factura? / (Bras.:) Me faz a conta por favor? > 我 可 以 要 发 票 吗 （ 一 般 指 饭 店 想 结 账 ） ？ 9. Fogo! > 着 火 了 ！ / 火 了 ！ 10. Hoje é terça-feira, dezassete de Abril / (Bras.:) dezessete de abril. > 今 天 是 星 期 二 ， 四 月 十 日 。 11. Por favor engoma / passa a ferro a tua camisa. > 熨 您 的 衬 衫 ！ 12. Os sapatos são muito confortáveis. > 这 双 鞋 很 舒 。 13. Eu gostaria de comprar selos para dois postais / bilhetes postais / (Bras.:) ... cartões postais > 我 要 两 张 寄 信 片 用 的 邮 票 。 14. Eu queria uma sopa de legumes. > 我 想 要 份 菜 汤 。 15. fumar cachimbo > 烟 斗 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4513 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 258 of 415 10 July 2014 at 11:43pm | IP Logged | ||
Not sure if I've mentioned it before, but you can find some Norwegian films on youtube. I've spotted a bunch of Stig Frode Henriksen movies there and even "Sophie's verden". At least some of them have Norwegian subtitles. Edited by daegga on 10 July 2014 at 11:43pm 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 259 of 415 11 July 2014 at 9:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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@daegga: you're absolutely right! I even have a few ones bookmarked. So far I've only found films subtitles in English, though. Btw, I've found Død Snø, will watch next. I've just started watching 5 løgner.
=================================== Today Is definitely not a rant day. I just want to say how happy I am to be in contact with so much literature, cinema and TV and to become aware of so much around the world. I'm enjoying the film 5 Løgner so far. It's nice to be back to all-Norwegian. I'm still not trying to understand without subtitles, but I'm aware I have to do it. Better sooner. The book Elskede Poona is coming to its end and I'm happy both with the story and with my progress in Norwegian. I believe I need to look up much less words per page by now. Nearly all of the books/videos I'm using for learning languages are being of much fun. I'm enjoying the French book by Marc Levy, the Singaporean TV show, Por Nastya, the French films I'm watching (started Le Grand Chemin today) and even the exercises. Georgian keeps being the language with the most accessible ebooks (about 1 US$ even the best-sellers). Today I found out many of the recommended contemporary authors in French can be found at my favorite Georgian ebookstore, like Amélie Nothomb and Michel Houellebecq. I've already read a book by Michel Houellebecq and it's a bit too grey for me, but I'll certainly give Nothomb a go, even more so now, that I can read itin Georgian, too. For the record, I decided I'm counting Méthode 90 for both Russian and French at the Super Challenge. That's totally worth it, given that the material is advanced and it only has a few notes. So, today I did lesson 76 and thus counted 2 pages read in Russian and 2 in French for the Super Challenge. TY Estonian was a bit more manageable today. Still took over 40 minutes but I managed to learn quite a bit. Only 4 lessons left, so I have to keep on moving. Next week will b holidays, so I may not be able to study on Thursday, for instance, but maybe I can do a lesson at the weekend. Now I feel I need a book with more explicit and consistent grammar while I try to let the repeated vocabulary sink in. I still have no clue on how to tell cases apart, especially when it comes to pronominal forms and how you use different cases for different indirect constructions. It's much more complex than in Russian or Georgian. 后厨 - I understood it much better because I had seen it before. I mean, this time I understood more of the Chinese because I knew the actions that were taking place in the scene, not because I had already had exposure to the sounds or text. It had the same effect of reading/watching a story in a foreign language which you already knew from another language you master (which, for the record, I don't do because I dislike reviewing). Funny how wanderlust happens more often when I'm happy with the current level of studies. I feel like I'm eager for more. I wish I'd be studying other languages just for the sake of reading contemporary literature and watching TV series in them. I feel like watching/reading in Italian, in Modern Greek, languages that, whenever I start, I may reach passive fluency sooner at than in Georgian or Chinese, for instance. It is a sure thing that I'm holding a lot of books and films I'd like to see before I get down to learning their respective original languages. And that's not suffering, it's actually an incentive to keep going! As much as I'm still struggling with the several different languages I picked up, I'm enjoying the way more than never now! 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 260 of 415 14 July 2014 at 8:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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Not much at the weekend. The 5 Russian pages as usual, 2 on Saturday, 3 on Sunday. I'll stop being obsessed about seeing progress at Russian reading for a while. I'm having a good time at watching TV, so, there is some progress going on.
I'm glad my early evenings finally allow me to read some non-linguistical stuff, in either English or Portuguese. I'm starting to work on a long list of to-read books that aren't language books. This includes Benny's book which I just finished, but not only. I feel now that I can broaden my horizons much more than just language studies. That is, I have optimized my language studies to the extent that I can once again add non-language stuff without being worried about not making enough progress at my languages. It won't happen everyday, for sure. The shortest appointment I'd have, things to deal with, will prevent me from doing this non-language reading, but I believe it won't happen often. Holidays are coming, and I'm going to my hometown. No idea how the routine will be like there. I'll have to find a way to go to the gym at least 3x a week. After that I will spend the day studying during the workdays, as my family is all working. Will try to do some running more often, as I'm usually too busy to run longer than 15 minutes a day. I started Chinesepod101 lessons at the Upper-Intermediate level. No difference whatsoever from the previous upper-beginner, lower intermediate and intermediate levels. The format is the same. Only the words used seem to be of lower frequency. Anyway, I'm still learning a bit and I don't know if I'm already prepared for a lesson entirely in Chinese. We'll see in the next level, Advanced Audioblog, 24 lessons from now. Adjectival declension in German is terrible. Worse than Norwegian. Easier when articles aren't involved, though. Loooking at Chung's posts on Slovak and Czech, I realized I can at least sense what's going on, thanks to Russian. Can't wait to profit from the mutual slavic inteligibility! 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 261 of 415 15 July 2014 at 11:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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Today is about Russian. I finished Russianpod's intermediate level. Since there's no upper'intermediate level, I'm going to start the Advanced Audioblog, which is basically native materials. Similar to what I'm already doing with Russe 90, only that the texts will be fairly different. That will change my routine in the morning a bit: since the pod101 lessons given in English are long, I used to listen to them while performing other tasks at home, then I'd read the text from the lessons, which actually taught me more than the audio. The audio is usually 15 min long. Now I'm going to do a plain 2 min text which I can do in the afternoon anyway, that is, the material from pod101 now for Russian is a plain resource. I can either keep doing it in the morning, hoping it won't take that long to understand the text intensively, or move it to the afternoon and treat it as another 'textbook' slot for Russian, while doing something else in the morning at home, something for which I need to be away from audio/video block: an online Estonian lesson, for example, though I think it's still too early for more audio-rich materials. I better save them for when I can have a better understand of them, since they are rarer.
I might end up taking the first option and just enjoy the extra time in the morning. Well, it may not even consist of extra time, because so far I'd listen to the Russianpod lesson in the background and then sit at the computer and read the lesson in about 5 minutes. Now I'm going to have to finish my tasks silently and then sit down and study the lesson fully and intensively. I'll see how things work themselves out starting from tomorrow. Taking up another language is no choice. Not even as a false beginner. That would require me to finish the textbook 'Aprenda Sozinho Alemão', and this will still take me a couple of months. The texts from Russe 90 aren't that exciting. They are old texts from the soviet times on subjects I'm not nearly as interested now. I'm really enjoying Poor Nastya and the improvements it has been helping me pursue. And today I finally notice an improvement on my understanding of the Russian translation from the Aghata Christie's novel I'm reading. I could understand much more now from the Russian before turning to the translation. 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 262 of 415 16 July 2014 at 10:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm finding the tests at Goethe-Verlag to be quite effective. I'm just waiting for a few days before I can start doing them also for Russian, Mandarin and German (currently doing them for Norwegian). Exercises are best done in an interactive way: no paper, no time wasted writing things down and I still get to run through the whole sentence, so the mnemonics effect also takes place. I'm doing 3 everyday for Norwegian, it's enough to learn a bit and keep the pace.
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| 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 263 of 415 19 July 2014 at 1:52am | IP Logged | ||
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One missing day at which a lot happened. At my first day of holidays, I tried to do as much as possible at the computer before I had to go take the bus. I left the reading part for my trip, as it is rather long. I assumed I'd be able to read from tablet while on the road. It didn't happened, but now I will tell why.
When I got to the bus I saw an American old man talk to a Chinese guy. They were talking in English. And they were going to take the same bus as I was! 23 hours till Salvador, the capital of the state of Bahia. I wouldn't stay that long but at least 14 hours. So I adressed the Chinese guy in Mandarin. He was surprised, but we start talking. He was an authentic tourist not an old immigrant who wouldn't know mandarin, for instance. So I had my first conversation in Mandarin and we would talk again during the stops. He complimented me and said he could understand everything I said. I could understand most of what he said as far as the main 'islands' were concerned: I managesd to say how and how long I have been studying Chinese, he also said he learned Portuguese on his own by studying 14 hours a day through 3 years He said the economical relationships between Brazil and China were getting really intense and that. knowing some Mandarin, I should seize the opportunity and that 1 year in China would be enough for me to reach fluency. During the trip I got more tired and sometimes wouldn't understand much, sometimes nothing, but I still think I understood quite a bit and could also say much more than I thought I could. That was pretty encouraging and I may even try some Chinese at snack bars' owners here. So, as a side-effect my reading part of yesterday was left almost entirely undone. I didn't feel like making up for it today, though, Don't think it was necessary. I got home at 9h30 AM and didn't get any extra sleep. Just managed to accomplish the schedule. Some notes: - TY Estonian does have a steep learning curve and requires you to go through 4 long dialogues at the final lessons. It's quite tiresome and slowed me down the past three days, notably today. Again, I don't see the point in having a coursebook do that to learners. A translation would be just fine and wouldn't feel like cheating to me. I feel that when I try to crack down the dialogue word by word I tend to miss the main, contextual, verbal, phrasal, conversational meaning of the sentence which I could easily grasp even with a versional, non-literal translation. So, they aim for one thing and end up rendering the opposite effect. Chinese reading: I had got The World is Flat as a doc file, opened at BR Office. When I opened it at another software, the pagination differed. So, pretty insane. Will resume it when holidays was over. Bad things come to the better: I decided to do Pride and Prejudice, for which I already have a web version I can use Pera Pera on. ANd it's being much more fun reading this novel! I really have an idea of what's going on just by reading the Chinese! The text consists mostly of dialogues, my strongest reading skill. Besides, the way I was reading the non-fiction book seemed much denser! And it is, there's way more than 400 characters at each page from the .doc file I got for the non-fiction book, about twice as many! So, I was working hard on something above my level at a rate that is unfair to myself. Well, I'll get back to it when the holidays are over but will consider the effort it takes: it's not me that am being too slow at reading 8 pages in Chinese, it's actually these 8 pages that are almost 16. I just did the July challenge for Team Rare, in Georgian, and realized my reading level for those contextual-rich short news items have improved a lot since my previous two attempts. That's some good news, pun not intended. 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 264 of 415 19 July 2014 at 6:54pm | IP Logged | ||
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I finished the awarded Teach Yourself Estonian and I must say it was disappointing in terms of didactics. It makes use of 'euphemic' forms for the grammatical terms, like second form, third form instead of just genitive and partitive. The learning curve is too steep: even though I've already been through two other textbooks, when I got to the half of TY Estonian I no longer could follow the dialogues comfortably. I had to manually translate everything word by word as the dialogues lack translations. That was time-consuming and didn't help much. The lessons are long, with 4 dialogues and over 20 exercises. They could be split in four. I should have got down to this book later on at my studies. All in all, it has good sentences, dialogues and examples, but presented in an unfriendly way.
After 51 days and three textbooks I must say my Estonian level is an early A1, though grammar is starting to make sense. Now I'm going for Basic Course in Estonian. I also got Estnisch Lehrbuch by Cornelius Hasselblatt which seems good but lacks audio, so I'm saving it for later alongside with Tuldava's. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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