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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Bakunin Diglot Senior Member Switzerland outerkhmer.blogspot. Joined 5123 days ago 531 posts - 1126 votes  Speaks: German*, Thai Studies: Khmer | Message 1 of 69 01 January 2014 at 2:09pm | IP Logged |
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Hi, I'm Bakunin, and this is my log for Thai, Polish, maybe some French and, God forbid, wanderlust.
I've been learning Thai since 2009, most of the time at a pretty decent level of intensity. I guess I'm somewhere in the B's, but it's hard to say with certainty. I'm pretty comfortable reading books, listening to the radio, writing emails and chatting with friends, but there's still a lot I don't know or can't express with ease. I learned Polish for about three years around 2000 and reached an intermediate level back then. Most of that is dormant, but I've been trying to wake it up since summer 2013. Now, at the beginning of 2014, I've recovered enough Polish to be able to enjoy reading books for young readers and get the gist of most podcasts I've subscribed to. However, I can't say much and am far from being able to hold a conversation. I started learning French in 2006, with a few intensive bursts here and there. Mostly, it has been on the back burner, though. Listening is my strongest skill since I regularly listen to a wide variety of podcasts. I also read books, often alternating between regular novels, which are vocabulary-wise still a bit of a challenge, and books for young readers. I did a fair amount of speaking in the first few years but haven't had many opportunities in recent years. Edited by Bakunin on 08 March 2014 at 8:34pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 6098 days ago 707 posts - 1220 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 2 of 69 01 January 2014 at 2:20pm | IP Logged |
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Witam Bakunin!
Best wishes in 2014 for all your languages (especially Polish of course!). 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Zireael Triglot Senior Member Poland Joined 4644 days ago 518 posts - 636 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, Spanish Studies: German, Sign Language, Tok Pisin, Arabic (Yemeni), Old English | Message 3 of 69 01 January 2014 at 6:35pm | IP Logged |
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Keeping an eye on this log, too.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6590 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 4 of 69 01 January 2014 at 7:44pm | IP Logged |
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Me too, and also because of Polish. What got you interested in the language btw?
(just in case: there's a "watch this topic for replies" link at the bottom. I know sometimes people think it's necessary to post something in order to tick the box) Edited by Serpent on 01 January 2014 at 7:45pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Fuenf_Katzen Diglot Senior Member United States notjustajd.wordpress Joined 4362 days ago 337 posts - 476 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Polish, Ukrainian, Afrikaans | Message 5 of 69 01 January 2014 at 7:56pm | IP Logged |
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Good luck in 2014, especially with Polish!
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Bakunin Diglot Senior Member Switzerland outerkhmer.blogspot. Joined 5123 days ago 531 posts - 1126 votes Speaks: German*, Thai Studies: Khmer | Message 6 of 69 01 January 2014 at 9:55pm | IP Logged |
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@Mooby: Thanks :) I'm looking forward to following your new log! You always dig up interesting stuff.
@Zireael: Witam serdecznie! Should I post stuff in Polish and you see glaring errors, you're very welcome to help me improve :) @Serpent: Dlaczego uczę się polskiego? Here's what I recently wrote on lang-8 regarding that question… Właściwie nie mam jakiegoś ważnego powodu by uczyć się polskiego. Zacząłem się uczyć tego języka, kiedy jeszcze byłem studentem w Niemczech, ponieważ był kurs na uniwersytecie i szukałem czegoś nowego, egzotycznego. Myślałem też, że warto uczyć się języka sąsiada, zwłaszcza, że łączy nas tak trudna, wspólna historia. Teraz też uważam, że znajomość języka polskiego to drzwi do świata słowiańskiego. Kiedy podróżowałem po Słowacji, Czechach i Azji Środkowej, czyli po Kirgistanie i Uzbekistanie, znajomość słów języka słowiańskiego była bardzo korzystna (jednak jestem pewny, że język rosyjski byłby jeszcze korzystniejszy w tym regionie świata). I also like the sound of Polish, it's a soft and melodic language. The food's great, as is Polish music, e.g., Grzegorz Turnau or Czesław Śpiewa. But most of all I probably just enjoy learning languages :)) @Fuenf_Katzen: Thanks, I also wish you all the best for your Polish and Ukrainian studies! Ukrainian is an interesting choice and will certainly be a good complement for Polish. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Bakunin Diglot Senior Member Switzerland outerkhmer.blogspot. Joined 5123 days ago 531 posts - 1126 votes Speaks: German*, Thai Studies: Khmer | Message 7 of 69 01 January 2014 at 9:57pm | IP Logged |
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I just finished volume 19 of Przygody Trzech Dektektywów, the third of three books of this series I bought during my bike trip around Bieszczady last summer. I've read this series ("Die Drei Fragezeichen" in German) when I was a kid, but I don't remember the stories. It's an adventure series about three boys who get involved in all kinds of weird adventures and criminal cases. The books only have about 100 pages each, and the stories are entertaining and fast-paced. It amazes me that I can read 100 pages of Polish within a few hours, whereas my reading speed in Thai, which I know much, much better, is still a factor 3 slower. I've ordered all 20 books of the series from siedmiorog, but they haven't arrived yet.
I'm going to try a little experiment to study the effect of extensive reading on my comprehension. For each of the next few books I'll read, I will select at random one page around page 20 and mark, and count, all words I don't know and can't guess from context. This gives me an estimate of my lexical coverage rate (at this point in time, for this particular book...), and I hope to see this rate improve over time. It will jump around a bit due to stochastic effects, but there should hopefully be a trend. I will then go back to this page after having finished the book to see how many of the words I couldn't guess at first have now become clear. This should be a nice indication of progress (if there is any). Here are the numbers for the book I finished today: 14 unknown words out of 256, coverage rate 95%. Having finished the book, I now understand 5 of those 14 words. Research on extensive reading (reading for pleasure, without looking up words) indicates that a coverage rate of 98% and above is ideal, and 95% seems to be something of a minimum in order to have adequate comprehension. As it seems, I'm just entering that range. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4861 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 8 of 69 01 January 2014 at 10:20pm | IP Logged |
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The page 20 experiment is pretty interesting! I might just try it out as well.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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