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Köln to Kiev TAC ’14 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Fuenf_Katzen Diglot Senior Member United States notjustajd.wordpress Joined 4361 days ago 337 posts - 476 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Polish, Ukrainian, Afrikaans | Message 9 of 55 23 January 2014 at 4:50am | IP Logged | ||
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Every so often I have breakthrough moments. They aren't always a "click and understand it" experience (though those have proven to be motivating), but they're always helpful. Today I went to a German conversation group at my old university. It was probably about 70% native speakers 30% mix of beginner through lets just say "basic fluency." What was different about this one was that I spent the whole hour without somebody commenting on my level of German. It was only afterwards that my old teacher told me how much of a difference she noticed (when I was studying I legitimately answered every question incorrectly on the first assignment, that's how far along I've come!). It's strange that actually not being recognized or acknowledged was really the best acknowledgment-- I wasn't somebody "learning" German, I was somebody who was seen as a legitimate "speaker" of German. Great feeling!
Interestingly, I also got to speak Polish with someone during this meeting. He is a Nigerian priest who spent a good amount of time in Germany and Poland. Quite an interesting person to talk to, and a great chance to practice my Polish! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Fuenf_Katzen Diglot Senior Member United States notjustajd.wordpress Joined 4361 days ago 337 posts - 476 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Polish, Ukrainian, Afrikaans | Message 10 of 55 29 January 2014 at 7:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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Adventures in Samo Życie and having a language barrier:
- It seems like Łukasz and Paweł are getting along now, right after Łukasz wrote a note saying he was going to be meeting with his mother. Missed something there! -I saw one episode where Henryk smiled...and completely missed the context. Something about a guy named Antek. -Oh no...Agnieszka is taking a preganancy test. She's already my least favorite character. I will say, I do seem to be understanding more in the series--although maybe that has to do with setting it on full screen mode so that I'm not tempted with reading or checking my Facebook while listening to the dialog. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 6097 days ago 707 posts - 1220 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 11 of 55 30 January 2014 at 2:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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I got irritated by nearly all the characters, and haven't watched a single episode this year! Yes, Agnieszka is attention-seeking and plays the 'poor me' role to the extreme. Despite all that I got a lot of colloquial listening practice, and I may pay them a visit again (if I'm in a calm and forgiving mood!).
Edited by Mooby on 30 January 2014 at 2:50pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Fuenf_Katzen Diglot Senior Member United States notjustajd.wordpress Joined 4361 days ago 337 posts - 476 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Polish, Ukrainian, Afrikaans | Message 12 of 55 02 February 2014 at 2:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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It was a big German and Polish listening week this week. I've found out where my biggest challenges are with listening. When I watch a tv show and characters start to get either very excited or angry and start yelling, I'm lucky if I can figure out what the topic is.
With German I watched several documentaries this past week about Sterbehilfe in Switzerland, girls with eating disorders, an a few programs from NDR spending seven days in a mental health institution, a child hospice center, and at a ballet company. So in the course of the last week I've heard speech from Swiss Germans (speaking Hochdeutsch), children, north Germans, and people with developmental or cognitive disorders. By far, the Swiss Germans speaking Hochdeutsch were the easiest to understand. These are all speech patterns which in your native language are fairly easy to understand, but in a second language present their own challenges. I think I've generally seen comprehension issues as only being related to accents, but now I'm wondering if accent is one of the easier things to work out. It was still interesting to get the exposure though, and I think I'm beginning to understand the northern German accents a little more (it took me awhile before I realized they kept saying "heilt" instead of "halt.") By the way, I do enjoy the program 7 Tage, and it's actually not a bad way to hear informal conversations. Has some interesting subjects too! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ryanl321 Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4356 days ago 94 posts - 101 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 13 of 55 02 February 2014 at 4:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hallo Fuenf Katzen! Ich studiere auch Deutsch und habe ich dein Log mal verfolgen gewesen. Ich hoffe, das
du viel Glück in 2014 haben wirst, deine Sprachen zu lernen. Ich habe eine Frage für dich. Wo findest du deine Deutsche Filme? Auf DVD oder Youtube? Benutzt du auch Untertitel auf Englisch, wann du diese Filme anschaust? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Fuenf_Katzen Diglot Senior Member United States notjustajd.wordpress Joined 4361 days ago 337 posts - 476 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Polish, Ukrainian, Afrikaans | Message 14 of 55 03 March 2014 at 7:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm back after a month-long hiatus. Between multiple deaths in the family, a lot of snowstorms, an increased workload, and getting a sixth cat (yes, you read that correctly, I have six cats now), language learning hasn't taken much of a priority this past month. Wow am I looking forward to this winter ending!
I tried to at least keep up with reading and watching movies and tv shows. I finally managed to finish reading "Das Innere Auge" and have started "Die Verbotene Frau." I was a little hesitant about starting this one because I realized a lot of what I've read in German has been translations, so I didn't know if it would be more challenging to read something originally written in German. I'm very pleasantly surprised to find out I really haven't noticed a significant difference for now. I watched a movie last night called "Vision," which is about the Saint Hilegard von Bingen. It was a really interesting movie and very well done, so I would definitely recommend it. Now THAT was a tough one to get through--there was a lot more religious and poetic terminology used, which I'm not used to hearing or reading. I'm glad I was able to at least get the exposure, but I think next time I'll try and actually write down some of the vocabulary. I noticed the same thing when I watched "Faustina" in Polish; the vocabulary was on a completely different level. I started looking up different LLM programs (for those who may not know, my law degree is a J.D., but I could go back and get a second law degree, which is an LLM). I do want to be able to use my German background at some point in law, and use it in some other capacity than the dreaded document review. I shouldn't be completely negative about document review--it actually has paid very well and really is almost the ideal way to start using a language ability in the law. But to get beyond that, I need to have some kind of knowledge about the different legal systems, and actually study in the language, instead of just trying to read it and hope it sinks in. I've been extremely impressed with the language levels I've seen from others, but I think for me, there are some areas where I just can't study on my own. So I started looking at LLM programs over in Poland and actually found a few German ones. The fun part is that I tried to look through it in Polish, and actually managed to read through the program descriptions and requirements without any real problems. Maybe my Polish isn't as bad as I thought! Now that March is here, I hope to be able to get back into studying more regularly and have a much more interesting update next time! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Fuenf_Katzen Diglot Senior Member United States notjustajd.wordpress Joined 4361 days ago 337 posts - 476 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Polish, Ukrainian, Afrikaans | Message 15 of 55 03 March 2014 at 7:43pm | IP Logged | ||
Hallo ryan1321! Danke für den Besuch! Normalerweise finde ich meine Deutsche Filme bei YouTube. Wenn ich eine Wahl habe, benutze ich Untertiteln nicht. Vorher habe ich das versucht, aber ich finde, dass ich nicht zu dem Audio, sondern nur zu den Untertiteln beachte. Doch gestern habe ich einen Film mit Untertiteln angeschaut, und fand dass es mir sehr hilfreich war, denn das Wortschatz war spezifisch für Religion und war sehr poetisch. Edited by Fuenf_Katzen on 03 March 2014 at 7:44pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Fuenf_Katzen Diglot Senior Member United States notjustajd.wordpress Joined 4361 days ago 337 posts - 476 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Polish, Ukrainian, Afrikaans | Message 16 of 55 12 March 2014 at 5:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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Facebook ad creators must know me very well. The two things I post about the most on my Facebook tend to be languages or healthcare reform. So, Facebook created the perfect ad for me: multilingual healthcare.gov. And yes, I did click on it because Polish is one of the languages offered. Oh how tempting it is to call the number and ask for Polish speakers, but that would probably be taking away resources from those who need it! Still, that's the only time I've been happy to see an ad appear on my Facebook page.
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