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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| yuhakko Tetraglot Senior Member FranceRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4625 days ago 414 posts - 582 votes  Speaks: French*, EnglishB2, EnglishC2, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Korean, Norwegian, Mandarin | Message 65 of 203 25 August 2013 at 10:00pm | IP Logged |
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So... I've taken a decision tonight. I haven't been feeling too good those days and my
life appears too.. monotone. I feel quite lonely and unless I'm with people or watching something, my mind wanders and I start feeling weird again.. Anyway, that's not the point. Here it is: I've decided to take a break of Japanese and Korean. I don't mean totally eradicate those from my life, but no formal study for now. I'll just go on with Chinese, Norwegian and Ainu. I will have to use my Japanese and Korean (pretty much) everyday, but I don't plan on forcing myself with anything and if I happen to spend a few days with literally no Japanese or Korean in it, so be it. All I'll do in Korean will be : read 와라! 편의점, as it is so refreshing, talk to my korean friends and (maybe) watch some movie. For Japanese, all I'll do will be: talk to my Japanese friends, watch 八重の桜, maybe read a bit here and there. My Ainu textbook is in Japanese too so.. I'm also translating some recommendations for clients in Korean for work, but I won't continue that in my free time (like I did for Japanese a week ago). That may not seem like a break, but taking that off from my "to do" list everyday has already made me feel lighter today. As off now, my program will be : - Ainu : Textbook (1 lesson in 2-3days) (about 15min a day) - Norwegian : Assimil + movies and soon TL - Chinese (main focus) : read one article per day for slowchinese, check out some grammar points a few times a week (about 3-4), Read a bit of graded readers and watch 中国好声音 (so happy it started again!!! I loved it last year. Plus it's easy to understand). I do plan on continuing Anki but no new words for a long long time I think. And no more than 10min per day. I will keep on writing what I've done in Japanese or Korean if I find it useful but we'll see. Edited by yuhakko on 25 August 2013 at 10:01pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| yuhakko Tetraglot Senior Member FranceRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4625 days ago 414 posts - 582 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishB2, EnglishC2, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Korean, Norwegian, Mandarin | Message 66 of 203 03 September 2013 at 11:55pm | IP Logged |
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Well, it's been about a week since I decided to "stop" studying Japanese and Korean. I
am indeed getting much much less study in those but I can't help but listening to some Japanese or Korean, or even reading a few news in Japanese. The other day I even ended up going to register for an advanced class for Korean in the Korean Culture center but it got full before I arrived. As a result I took an 일기 book from Yonsei from the library and I've been reading a bit from it. However, while I do look up a few words, I do not even try remembering them. It seems to much a pain in the ***. I've also been getting a bit of practice thanks to my Japanese clients, a Japanese friend of friend coming and tomorrow another friend coming. Same for my Korean, I've been talking to a few friends and I am considering watching Ruby's ring because of the entertainment weekly link Evita put on her log (thanks for that btw!) Related to Chinese, I've been doing a bit more than before but I still feel it's not enough. Just a bit of reading here and there (weibo, links from other learners of chinese here, the occasional chinese link I find). I need to continue watching the chinese version of The Voice but didn't "find" the time. I wanna start turning my chinese into something I can use so I am planning on working towards being able to do my check-ins in Chinese. If I can do that, I'll probably be able to have standard discussions in Chinese. Concerning Ainu, I haven't been doing much. Just 2 lessons since last times. I want to enter the 2nd one on anki before moving on, but can't seem to find the motivation to do so. Last but far from least, Norwegian! First week of the year (I think) where I actually think my Norwegian's the one language in which I made most progress. I've watched 3 movies (and about to start another one after this message if I don't fall asleep), checked a few things from Hugo in 3 months, and started the TY challenge I've been talking about. I'm going to create a new log for my "non-asian" languages and for now that'd be Norwegian mostly. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4861 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 67 of 203 04 September 2013 at 11:04am | IP Logged |
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Maybe sometimes you just need to drop your schedules and ambitions for a certain language and you'll see how much it still sticks with you. Even if I decided to stop studying Korean completely (I kind of did for the past 2 months) I'd still get exposure, which is a good thing. It sounds like a study break in Korean and Japanese won't hurt your language skills and you might find that you're more motivated after the break.
Good luck with Chinese! I can't remember how long you've been studying, but I guess getting across that first hurdle of actually being able to use the language somehow is something that takes a lot of time and study... at least that's what it was like for me with Korean. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| yuhakko Tetraglot Senior Member FranceRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4625 days ago 414 posts - 582 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishB2, EnglishC2, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Korean, Norwegian, Mandarin | Message 68 of 203 04 September 2013 at 4:08pm | IP Logged |
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It's been about a year. My understanding's gotten (relatively) quite good, but my active
skills are non existent. that's why I want to start trying more now! Concerning the Korean and Japanese, I totally agree. The most important is to keep the language alive and I still end up having some exposure 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| yuhakko Tetraglot Senior Member FranceRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4625 days ago 414 posts - 582 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishB2, EnglishC2, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Korean, Norwegian, Mandarin | Message 69 of 203 16 September 2013 at 12:14am | IP Logged |
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so I've followed my "not studying Japanese". I've done literally nothing in Japanese
except when talking to my clients and some friends. As for Korean, all I did was read a (very) few texts in the book I borrowed and watch a total of 3 hours of videos since the last update (which is very little for me). Concerning chinese, I've watched 3 episodes of 中国好声音 and I've fallen in love with some of the music that I heard. Especially in the 4th episode （眼泪 and 领悟). I've read a few things in Chinese here and there, listened for 15-20minutes to a Taiwanese radio almost everynight, and just finished talking to an ex in Chinese （we usually talk in Japanese though). As for Ainu,I'm up to lesson 14. This lesson will be the first of the second "book". Although I feel like I'm lacking vocabulary to say anything in it, I think it's the right pace for me right now because I am learning enough to be satisfied but not too much so I feel overwhelmed. Plus, with each lesson, I can feel it was useful and I'm not coming back with nothing from it. I do need to do some more often though. Finally a small rant. Please do not hold it against me too much. I just had a horrible week at work. Since wednesday I've had basically horrible days with the worst clients and it turns out all of them were from south America (1 group from Venezuela and 2 from Argentina). I almost got hit by one Argentinian because he wasn't happy with the fact that there were stairs to get to the apartment.. (wtf..) and this group took my 3h15 to finally leave them happy in another apartment on the other side of paris. The next one tried to get a discount for 1h on friday saying they spent only 6h00 in the apartment the night before because they arrived at midnight (and of course I was the one who had to go welcome them there at that time, which already pissed me off quite a lot). And as if it wasn't enough, a group of venezualian insisted on paying 566.80€ separatly in cash when all they had was bills of 50 and 100.. and after that their cards (6!) did not work for the deposit. It took 3h30 to finally find a way. I did get a 10€ tip but finished 2h later than predicted. Oh, and all that was after 9 days of work with a single day of rest since I worked last weekend. As a result, I've decided to put my veto on check-ins with people from south america for a while. However, as an upside, I feel my Spanish got better. I guess having to do with angry or not satisfied Spanish-speaking people did do my Spanish some good. Hopefully this week should be calmer and I should have more time to work on my languages and see some friends, (and skype maybe?) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| yuhakko Tetraglot Senior Member FranceRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4625 days ago 414 posts - 582 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishB2, EnglishC2, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Korean, Norwegian, Mandarin | Message 70 of 203 27 September 2013 at 12:48am | IP Logged |
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A quick update :
Korean: had a 1h30 call which was quite nice and i might have some others in the near future. Also talked to a few clients in Korean. Apart from that I've been watching Enterntainment Weekly on kbsworld's youtube channel and a few videos here and there. However Evita's last post motivated me and I starting to miss korean so I might start doing some more. Japanese: After my skype with g-bod, having talked about my very first japanese book bought (and never read) ２０代あなたがやるべきこと, I've ended up starting to read it. I'm up to page 75 and I don't even need a dictionary. It's rather easy to read and only a handful of words escape me. I haven't done much apart from that. Just doing check-ins in Japanese a few days a week. Chinese: Really motivated, I've bought 2 comics of Tintin in chinese. Started one but haven't gone far yet. I've also started to watch strictly mandarin dramas on letv. it's good quality, subbed in mandarin too and there are mainland dramas, which I had never seen up until now (always Taiwanese dramas). I plan on starting to read the second story of the reader I bought a while back before the end of this week too. Ainu: I've just been doing the anki deck I've created. That's it. I need to print the next lessons before listening to it and go on. I'll print on saturday since I'll be alone at the office... Norwegian: An update tomorrow on my other log! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| yuhakko Tetraglot Senior Member FranceRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4625 days ago 414 posts - 582 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishB2, EnglishC2, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Korean, Norwegian, Mandarin | Message 71 of 203 06 October 2013 at 11:47pm | IP Logged |
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A rather busy week for everything. Didn't get bored at all, that's for sure.
Japanese: I've been reading my book and am up to page 129. I was quite busy during the day so couldn't read much but still managed to advance a bit in the book. The chapters are really tiny (2 to 4 pages) so I usually read one chapter in 5-10 minutes top. Sometimes it takes me 3 stops of metro for 2 pages which makes me rather happy for some reason. Korean: Did pretty much nothing. Which, after reading my last post, kinda depresses me. All I did was listen to 2 TTMIK lessons and to some music everyday. Exchanged a few messages too. Ainu: Did one lesson and it finally made me understand why this program usually does one lesson per week. Although the first 13 lessons were not "too" long, the 14th (and the others after) are MUCH longer with much more vocabulary and grammar points. This week, I'll be writing down all the dialogues I haven't written down (since lesson 10 or 11 if I remember well), and then will listen to lesson 13 and 14 while reading the pdf at least 2 times (if possible 3) in order to assimilate well those as lesson 15 is a detailed version of those 2 (explains a few nuances). I'd like to find some place to write a bit but no idea where I could do so though.. Chinese: Well, I did pretty much nothing compared to what I said last time but I did get a really nice week for mandarin. First of all, on tuesday I had strickly chinese clients (4 groups) and learnt a bunch of words, expressions and practiced a LOT (one group pretty much didn't speak English so not much choice). Among others, the word I learnt and used most was probably 押金. I'll have other chinese clients tomorrow so hopefully they won't be good at English! ^^ I've also watched about 4-5 episodes of 中 国好声音. I need to catch up to wherever they are now. The people in there are incredible! I've even downloaded a few extracts to listen just to the songs I liked. Apart from that, after reading a really interesting post from Tarvos (http://how-to- learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=30913&TPN=1 11), I registered on Interpals and sent a few messages. I got answers rather quickly and although I did find one to be a bit too frank (saying : "Your chinese is very bad" and then "I don't know if you'd understand so I answer in English"), when I answered again in chinese and precising that I do understand a lot, she replied this time saying that my chinese was "cute" and after correcting my message, went on writing in Chinese. I've also started talking to a few other people and one even writes in traditional characters. So I decided to answer in traditional too! First time and it was quite the fun recognizing the simplified characters through them! I'm going to continue trying to find good penpals! Thanks tarvos for motivating me so much with that! Edited by yuhakko on 06 October 2013 at 11:51pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| yuhakko Tetraglot Senior Member FranceRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4625 days ago 414 posts - 582 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishB2, EnglishC2, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Korean, Norwegian, Mandarin | Message 72 of 203 02 November 2013 at 6:04pm | IP Logged |
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Well it's time for a monthly update and then onto the objectives
Korean: Not so much done (or to be more precise, almost nothing done) but I did get Korean properly back into my everyday life. I'm listening to music everyday, reading at least 2 와라!편의점 and 1 news article per day (I started those two last monday). I've also been listening (in the background) to a 45min podcast a few days a week but nothing really regular. Ah and finally I've just started talking to someone in Korean on Interparls. Unfortunately, that's pretty much it. Japanese: Unfortunately stopped my book but I'll get back at it this Month. Apart from that, I'm back at reading news articles everyday (at least 2) and listening to NHK news radio for 10-15min per day too. I started a few days ago to also learn one kanji per day and 6 examples that use it. Not too much, not too little. I've written one about 又聞きの強さ on Lang-8... but it turns out I mixed it up with 口コミ.. Apart from that, just talked a bit with the japanese clients I had. Mandarin: My main focus for now. I've been talking in chinese with a few people on Interpals, exchanging a lot especially with one person. Most of the people I exchange with are from taiwan so I'm getting used to reading/writing traditional characters without actually spending time "studying" them. I am also working on some characters with memrise and learning some HSK4 vocabulary. I've finished (today) watching 中国好声音. Still not over the fact that 猛楠 lost before the finals but I'm still rather happy with 李骑 winning. Now I'm going to go back to the small chinese drama (still without chinese subs only). Ainu: Haven't done anything since last post.. Will try to do so this week.. If I can. Onto objectives! As part of the November challenge for the Asian team, here are my objectives (with the ones of Norwegian added compared to the team thread) 1) Finish reading 丁丁历险记：七个水晶球 (Tintin) - Mandarin 2) Finish reading ２０代あなたがやるべきこと (which I stopped for lack of time) - Japanese 3) Learn (at least) one Kanji (plus 6 usages) per day - Japanese 4) Read at least 15 news articles - Korean 5) Read at least 50 와라!편의점 - Korean 6) Write 3 times in each language on Lang-8 - Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian 7) Do 20 Assimil lessons - Norwegian 8) Read at least 4 articles on https://wiki.ucl.ac.uk - Norwegian nb: for my Norsk log, I'll be putting an update around mid-month 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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