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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4657 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 17 of 57 01 March 2014 at 8:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'm a little surprised surprised. I found Italian pretty useful when learning French at school. I know nothing about Catalan, but excluding that one I would have thought that French was the one with the least commonality when compared to Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. (I've not tried EuRom so I'm not doubting that it is as you've found it, but it's not what I would have expected.) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sizen Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4331 days ago 165 posts - 347 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Catalan, Spanish, Japanese, Ukrainian, German | Message 18 of 57 05 March 2014 at 11:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
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@dampingwire I'm no saying that it doesn't help. I just feel that knowing a lot of French doesn't help me much in learning Italian when compared to how much the little bit of Spanish I know helps me learn Portuguese and Catalan (French helps a bit with Catalan too).
I guess it's just my knowledge of Spanish interfering, because despite the high percentage of lexical similarity between French and Italian, Italian is still much harder for me than Portuguese and Catalan (but still relatively easy). I guess I should have said an Italian with a bit of Spanish would find French harder than Portuguese and Catalan. I realize now that what I said was a little silly. Anyway, this isn't based on any research or numbers, but I feel that, more often than not, Portuguese (P), Spanish (S) and Catalan (C) all match, while Italian (I) and French (F) don't. Even less often, PS match up while CIF are all different. After that, a little less often, PSCI all match up, and F is different. Sometimes, PSC match, and then IF do too but with a different root. And then least often of all, no languages match. The only time they all match is with some incredibly common words (often with slightly different meanings), or obscure words. So all in all, French feels like it's probably one of the most disadvantageous languages to start EuRom5 with. Then again, anyone starting with another language has to get used to French. Starting with a good knowledge in one and a basic knowledge in another definitely makes the experience easier and more enjoyable. Examples from my lessons of what I'm talking about above in the order that I mention them (all conjugated as they are in the textbook): PSC/I/F Last (week) [masculine]: P, passado; S, pasado; C, passat; I, scorso; F, dernier. PS/C/I/F Closed (past tense): P, encerrou; S, cerró; C, va tancar; I, ha chiuso; F, a fermé PSCI/F Births: P, partos; S, partos; C, parts; I, parti; F, accouchements. PSC/IF (He) feels (hatred) [prova un odio]: P, sente; S, siente; C, sent; I, prova; F, éprouve. P/S/C/I/F Fissure: P, racha; S, grieta; C, esquerda; I, spaccatura; F, fente. PSCIF To be able to: P, poder; S, poder; C, poder, I, potere, F, pouvoir. or Flint: P, sílex; S, sílex; C, sílex, I, selce, F, silex. Back to our regularly scheduled posts later this week! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sizen Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4331 days ago 165 posts - 347 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Catalan, Spanish, Japanese, Ukrainian, German | Message 19 of 57 08 March 2014 at 4:59am | IP Logged | |||||
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French
Having great fun with French lately. I've written 3 articles on lang-8 since the beginning of the month, which have all been received positively and have boosted my confidence in French. A comforting thought is that I still have a couple ideas for other topics that I can share with lang-8 in the upcoming days. I've also been in contact with a few French friends through facebook, email and lang-8, so I've had many opportunities to chat in French as well. Finally, I've been talking with my dad a bit everyday, despite how busy he is, and it's been a reassuring exercise for my French. I'm not as bad at French as I sometimes feel that I am! In preparation for my French exam on the 22nd, I've gotten into the habit of reading articles on Radio Canada every morning before I get out of bed. This has obviously contributed to my recent case of late-riser syndrome. Then again, it's not a terrible trade-off. In fact, I don't mind staying in bed for 30 minutes every morning reading news about the elections in Quebec and the crisis in Ukraine. Japanese I haven't had this much fun with Japanese in a long time! My brother and I continue to watch Fullmetal Alchemist, and we're already at episode 48. There are less than 20 episodes left already! We've been watching at least an hour or two of the show every day for the past week, so it's not surprising. We're considering tackling Durarara when we're finished with this series. I have a bit of free time right now, so I might work through an old textbook during the upcoming weeks to reactivate the production part of the language, since I don't feel like I've lost any comprehension over the past 2 years. Spanish I've been trying to do a little bit of Spanish every day to build a little vocabulary. Some days, it's only 10 minutes, others it's an hour, but I make sure I get it in. I discovered the series of documentaries "La noche temática" and watched the episode on the earth's magnetic poles, which was highly interesting and became one of the topics of conversations between me and my dad. I also had my first real experience with google's automatic subtitles. To be honest, they were quite helpful. They were correct most of the time, and didn't hinder me too much when they were wrong since I they helped me guess what was actually said more easily. The only problem was that it was the kind of documentary where they dub over the voices of the interviewees without hiding the original voice. This was somewhat problematic sometimes as it confused the subtitles. Nevertheless, I would highly recommend using these subtitles if you have an easy time reading, but need a little help when it comes to listening to your target language. Catalan, Portuguese, Italian I finally finished EuRom5 yesterday! I'm so happy I went through with it, too. I may not be functional in any of these languages, but I definitely have a solid base of comprehension that I'll easily be able to build on from now on. I think one of the greatest advantages to having finished this textbook is that I can listen to music in these languages and understand some of the lyrics. Given the lyrics in written form, I can sometimes even understand the songs completely! I've taken a liking to Catalan, so the first thing I did after finishing was looking up Catalan music on youtube. I hit the Jackpot, too. Ràdio Arenys was one of the first things I stumbled upon, and it's proven to be a real treasure trove of Catalan music. Just by clicking through the suggestions, I've already found a few groups and plenty of songs that I really enjoy. Blaumut is one of my favourites so far. Pa amb oli i sal El llimoner Els Catarres is also lots of fun. Vull estar amb tu Tokyo 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sizen Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4331 days ago 165 posts - 347 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Catalan, Spanish, Japanese, Ukrainian, German | Message 20 of 57 08 April 2014 at 10:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
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A quick update because I've been absolutely terrible at keeping up to date.
French March 22nd, I went to Regina to take the TFI. I wasn't sure how it would go since I had never taken a test like this for a European language, but it seems I did well despite a short night and lack of food. My score, which I wasn't expecting so early, was 950/990! I'm quite happy with this score, though I feel like had I prepared for the exam itself I could have done better, as I didn't have an difficulty understanding the questions. My tip for anyone considering taking this test: when you get to the listening comprehension part, read the question and as many of the multiple choice answers as possible before you hear the recording as you won't have much time after you hear it to choose your answer. This is where I messed up and it cost me a few questions that I know I could have gotten right had I the time to read through all of the answers. Anyway, I'm quite happy with the score as it should help me get into a university. Oh yeah, did I mention I applied for UdeM and Laval in Quebec? 'Cuz I did. I've also been trying my hand at more literary writing in French. Here's my latest lang-8 entry for those who might be interested. I think my style needs some work because I feel that the flow is often interrupted, but I don't really know how to deal with that yet. Hopefully I'll be able to figure it out later. Japanese I've starting studying seriously again. I'm going through the 新完全マスター I have for N1 grammar. I've already passed the N1, but it doesn't hurt to study some of the stuff I don't understand as well. My plan is to do half a lesson a day and see where that gets me. I've also started to go through and review my Kanji. I have 4 or so Kanji books in total that cover more or less all the Jouyou Kanji, and while I know the large majority, I'm a little rusty. I think I'll go back to my old study habits and write out every kanji and compound from my books for 15 minutes every day. Once I'm caught up, I'll start going through the Kanji that I never took the time to study properly. I'll also go through all my books again, this time at a slower pace. After I'm done that, I need to find something to help me work through more academic Japanese, I think. Right now, I mostly read novels in Japanese, so I'm not really used to that kind of writing. I suppose I'll start reading Wikipedia, but would anyone have any suggestions for a textbook that works on academic Japanese for more advanced learners? I've also started writing a bit in Japanese again, even if it feels a little unnatural to do so. Here's my latest article on the Catalan language. It was fun to write because it was the first time I translated a passage in Catalan to Japanese, French, Spanish and English. Other languages Taking a break from these for now. I'm thinking I might do some Catalan and Spanish now and then, but I would really like to just focus on French and Japanese for the next year and a half, as I'm probably going to have to study other languages for my major. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sizen Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4331 days ago 165 posts - 347 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Catalan, Spanish, Japanese, Ukrainian, German | Message 21 of 57 30 May 2014 at 1:52am | IP Logged | |||||
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Am I dead? Far from it. In fact, things have been going great with my French. I suppose
the reason why I haven't been posting much is that my progress isn't all that interesting to be honest. I've settled into a bit of a schedule, in the sense that I have a number of podcasts that I listen to when new episodes come out, I pick up books now and then when one interests me, I watch shows in the same way and I've started skyping with my French-speaking friends on a regular basis. Things are going well and I'll most likely be moving to Quebec for the year in mid-August. I'm a little nervous because I know I'm not as fluent as I could have been if I had been working diligently to improve my French, but I've managed to be very consistent by simply doing things I enjoy. I don't think I should worry myself with what-ifs when I have clearly made progress. Japanese, on the other hand, has been a bit of a battle for me this entire year. I've had trouble finding the motivation that I used to have with studying this language. I think that this is due to the fact that I don't read as much manga or anime as I used to. The current anime industry kind of turns me off, but I know that there must be good series out; it's just a matter of sifting through heaps of harem anime that simply don't interest me anymore. Tadoku will be happening pretty soon and I'm hoping that it might help me ease back into my Japanese. Other than that, I will be studying Spanish and German in university, so I'm going to need to brush up on the former. As for German, I've decided to wait until the school year starts to start working on it. I'm pretty excited to start learning German as I have some good German friends and always dreamt of learning it when I was younger. Anyway, that's it for now. I'll try to post a bit more regularly, but I don't really know what to post about half the time. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5201 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 22 of 57 01 June 2014 at 3:00am | IP Logged | |||||
That's excellent news! When do you know whether you'll be at Laval (Quebec) or Université de Montréal? Whichever, your fluency (which I expect is absolutely fine, in any case) will surely improve tremendously after August, non? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sizen Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4331 days ago 165 posts - 347 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Catalan, Spanish, Japanese, Ukrainian, German | Message 23 of 57 25 June 2014 at 9:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
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@songlines I'm sorry for my late response, but I didn't notice that someone had posted!
I learned a while ago that I would be going to Quebec city! I'm going to be doing international studies and modern languages, so I need to buckle down and get to work because I have 2 more languages I'll need to study. So how are things going with me? Rather well. This summer has been all sorts of odd, but in a good way. I feel like I'm really starting to develop a positive attitude towards language learning. A few questions I've bee asking myself. Am I a better language learner now than I was, say, when I started Japanese. This has been bothering me a lot. I think I'm now able to absorb more information in one "sitting" than I could when I started with Japanese, but I think I've lost an important skill as well. When I started Japanese, I don't remember ever setting any schedules or goals for myself. I would just open up grammar books and study kanji books when I felt like it, which was often because I was honestly interested in the language. I feel that I've somewhat lost this interest in languages other than French over the years because I'm always setting goals for myself like study all your languages for 30 minutes everyday. The idea behind this being that I won't make progress if I'm not serious enough, but I think it's more damaging to my studies than anything. Whenever I listened to polyglots talking about their study schedule and their passion for languages, I always thought that I was more or less like them in the sense that I too was passionate and that I always strove for the most rigid study schedules. It's becoming very clear to me, however, that I was fooling myself. My motivation was too superficial and my schedule too forced. Why am I always looking for other languages to study? I think there are two reasons that are at fault here. One, things that I don't understand, not because of the complexity of the idea it expresses but rather the means of communication, intrigue me. Two, I'm looking for another language that will fascinate me to the point where I study it as I used to with Japanese. Why is it a bad thing that I act in this way? Well, for starters, I think that I often lose interest in languages quickly due to the first reason. As soon as the language is at all transparent, the language loses its mysterious charm and I lose my drive. As for the second reason, I think that it's looking at things from the wrong angle. I shouldn't be looking to reproduce my passion for Japanese with another language, but adjusting my methods to recreate the sensation with the languages I'm currently learning. With all this in mind, I've tried to let my curiosity guide me and to act more on my impulses. The result is that I've been spending more time with languages that I had difficulty maintaining recently and in the past: Japanese and Spanish. I haven't really been studying the languages at all, but I've been paying more attention to small things that intrigue me rather than studying every unknown word I come across. The funny thing is that I feel like I'm progressing faster like this as I remember the things I "studied" more vividly. Another unexpected result is that I've been much more communicative lately. Usually I've had trouble regularly posting on lang-8, but this past week or so, I've had the uncontrollable urge to write and share my thoughts. I've also found myself having even more interesting conversations with my French-speaking friends. I just want to talk now, you know? It's an odd sensation, especially considering that I'm completely aware of it. Normally, improvements and changes in my life come unnoticed to me, but here I almost felt the change immediately. I hope that by analyzing this change I haven't jinxed myself. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4901 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 24 of 57 26 June 2014 at 11:54am | IP Logged | |||||
I have to say, when I try to force myself to study, it usually doesn't work out. If I have a plan to "study x language 30 minutes a day", I generally stop pretty soon. One of the problems is that it becomes a "guilt-driven" activity rather than an "interest- driven" activity. For me, I study languages because I enjoy it, not because I have to. I'm really enjoying the Super Challenge and so I'm putting a lot of time into my languages.
I think I never really started learning until I took this attitude. Like you, the more I enjoy what I'm learning, the more I actually learn. On the other hand, especially when you're starting out, you do need to do some things that are chores rather than fun. Especially when you're a student taking classes. Unfortunately, most classes are oriented to getting students to complete more chores, and less to getting students to have more fun with the language. So when you start your formal studies, bear in mind that you will have to do work you don't enjoy as much. I think it will be much more bearable if you keep the end in view: that you will be able to do what you like with the language one day. Get through this homework assignment now, so that later you will be able to hold conversations with new friends, express yourself on lang-8, etc. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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