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TAC 2013 Tandem Winnipeg-Berlin | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5323 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes  Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 33 of 137 04 February 2013 at 1:20am | IP Logged | |||||
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Today, Sprachprofi and I tried a different kind of oral exercise: consecutive interpretation. In essence,
she would tell a story in French and I would interpret it into German (and a bit into Esperanto), more or less two or three sentences at a time. In turn, I would speak German and she would interpret it into French. As much as it sounds like an extreme exercise, I think we did really well and it was actually quite encouraging: it gives a good -- and instant -- measure of what you can do, and points to your weaknesses right away. You can get immediate feedback from the native speaker about any word you can't find, or an immediate correction for any grammar or usage you get wrong. One downside, though, is that what we need to express is limited by the other's knowledge of their L3. Once we realized that everyday talk posed no real challenge, we moved to a list of more complex topics Sprachprofi has used with students in the past. Nevertheless, the problem remains the same. So for next time, we will each prepare a specific topic to discuss in our L3's (which is the bottleneck here, although it's actually my German in both directions...). I'm really looking forward to the next session. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6412 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 34 of 137 04 February 2013 at 11:43am | IP Logged | |||||
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I also really enjoyed the interpretation exercise! And I'm amazed that Arekkusu is not
making declension mistakes even at this speed. These days I've re-started to read "Io, Alessandro", an biographical novel about Alexander the Great told from first person perspective. He had trouble conquering Afghanistan... I'm studying Duolingo for Portuguese, but sometimes the mistakes in the system are too frustrating, so that I've been looking to supplement my studies. I'm now also using Michel Thomas Portuguese and I've created a parallel text of Aldous Huxley's "Brave new world". As I have the Portuguese audiobook for this, I started to do some non-intensive L-R.
I want to have at least 93% comprehension of Portuguese novels, so that I can comfortably read the three Portuguese books I had bought at some point. Also, I want to understand more of what's going on grammatically in these (right now I'm only guessing) and I want to have at least A2-level conversational ability, all without endangering my Italian or Spanish. Edited by Sprachprofi on 04 February 2013 at 11:49am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5323 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 35 of 137 04 February 2013 at 1:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
I was going to ask what's wrong with 92% comprehension, but actually, I'm more interested in how you plan to measure that... 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6412 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 36 of 137 04 February 2013 at 1:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
Known words per page divided by total words per page, using several random pages from a book I haven't read yet. I took this measure before starting on Portuguese and found I knew 80% of the words through cognates. 93% comprehension is pretty random figure, except I know that reading Greek at 90% comprehension was rather pleasant and 93% should be very comfortable. I'm curious, what percentage of words do you understand in a German book, for example the one I sent you? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5323 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 37 of 137 04 February 2013 at 3:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
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When dealing with cognates, what one thinks they understood and what one actually understood can be two very different things, but I get the gist.
I evaluated my comprehension of the novel you mention. It's sometimes not so clear whether I "understand" a word or not (sometimes I think I do, or I really do in the context, but I can't necessarily give an English equivalent...). In general, if I couldn't give an English or French equivalent, I didn't count the word. Out of three complete pages, I got an average of 97% -- I guess you could substract 1% just in case I was too generous in my evaluation. That seems like a high percentage, but nevertheless, I feel like I was missing a lot of words. Vocabulary was the only thing that hindered my comprehension of the text. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5789 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 38 of 137 05 February 2013 at 1:10am | IP Logged | |||||
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Hey, a tandem log: That's something new and I like the idea! Good luck to you both for the TAC 2013!
Fasulye 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5323 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 39 of 137 05 February 2013 at 3:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
Thanks Fasulye! A quick update on Assimil Romanian: I'm now at lesson 61 / 10. I've slowed down quite a bit, but I've also been reviewing some of the earlier lessons, particularly the explanatory lessons. I've also read a bit of the Little Prince, Micul print; in some parts, I understand everything! Coming along... Also reviewed some German vocabulary, wrote some emails and started reading Illuminati by Dan Brown (although I should finish that other graphic novel first...) Also practiced simultaneous interpretation into French and English for close to an hour with a CPAC video. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6412 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 40 of 137 05 February 2013 at 6:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Maybe I should practise simultaneous interpretation, too...
How are you doing on the active wave, Arekkusu? Is it still doable? -- I finished the next book! Book 1: "B.A.f.H. - Das Neueste vom Bastard Assistant" by Florian Schiel Book 2: "Το ταξίδι στη χώρα που δε βλέπουν τα μάτια..." by Αντώνης Καλογήρου Book 3: "Io Alessandro" by Steven Pressfield This was an Italian book, a biographical historical novel about Alexander the Great, told from a first person perspective, with incredible detail, really bringing the person alive and teaching me a lot about his campaigns that I had never known. I think it's fitting to cite from the last page: Triste è il canto della sarissa e risuona cupo e in sordina. Farei un mestiere meno brutale, dice, ma non conosco altro che guerra. Yesterday I broke my personal record in the amount of time spent learning languages: 6 hours and 50 minutes total. The biggest contribution was managing a 3-hour studio session recording Dutch lesson dialogs for DutchPod101, which involved listening to a lot of Dutch dialog (duh) and also speaking Dutch with the voice actors. Apart from that, I spent 70 minutes reading Italian, 75 minutes studying Portuguese on Duolingo, 25 minutes studying Spanish on Duolingo, 10 minutes studying French on Duolingo, 25 minutes copying the corrected version of a text in French, 10 minutes Japanese Anki and 15 minutes talking to myself in Greek. In contrast, I didn't do anything else that day, apart from commuting to/from the studio on the outskirts of Berlin. In Duolingo I'm now able to do my Spanish and Portuguese studies in parallel: for example, today I studied the lessons on family vocabulary in Spanish and then in Portuguese. Then I studied the lessons on words for professions in Spanish and then in Portuguese. I like that Duolingo forces me to type a lot, because this way I notice subtle differences in spelling that I otherwise would ignore. Having the lessons and sentences so closely modeled on each other is not generally something I'd approve of in a language course, but for my purpose (keeping Spanish, Portuguese and Italian apart in my brain) it's perfect. Edited by Sprachprofi on 05 February 2013 at 6:22pm 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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