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Books books books. 语학子’s TAC 東亜 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| yuhakko Tetraglot Senior Member FranceRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4620 days ago 414 posts - 582 votes  Speaks: French*, EnglishB2, EnglishC2, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Korean, Norwegian, Mandarin | Message 121 of 203 08 March 2014 at 8:31am | IP Logged | ||
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@Expugnator: Thanks! I'll try, yeah!
Well, it's now H-4 ! In exactly 4hours and 20 minutes, I'll be leaving France! About time! I still can't believe it but I'm pretty much ready. I did everything written above although I stopped reading the Chinese reader one chapter away from the end because of lack of time. Anyway, I've talked about it for almost 2 months now so it's time to go forit and use my chinese as much as possible! I'll be giving some news as soon as I can of course! Arrival predicted : 星期天上午9点50分（上海时区） 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ninibo Diglot Groupie Germany Joined 4004 days ago 88 posts - 116 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 122 of 203 08 March 2014 at 11:05am | IP Logged | ||
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Have fun in China!
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| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5970 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 123 of 203 08 March 2014 at 12:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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Good luck with your move to China!
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| yuhakko Tetraglot Senior Member FranceRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4620 days ago 414 posts - 582 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishB2, EnglishC2, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Korean, Norwegian, Mandarin | Message 124 of 203 15 March 2014 at 4:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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Alright! I've arrived safe and sound in 上海！ Quite a lot's happened since I arrived
but let's go through everything bit by bit. The plane: Went pretty smoothly. The person next to me took a bit too much space in the plane so I had trouble sleeping but in the end it helped me not having too much trouble with jetlag. The airport: Did everything in English in order to be sure not to make any mistake as it was pretty important. The "inspection dog" smelling bags stayed a long time on mine so I got scared a bit but in the end, it didn't get taken. (probably my tobacco for my e-cigarette). I was kind of surprised by this inspection dog though. Is it common in a lot of countries? The first day: got lost (and it;s not the only time I did). Got off at 人民广场 instead of taking another metro. So I walked for 1h30 before finally getting to the guesthouse. After checking in, I went to buy some instant noodles and while eating ended up talking to a chinese... in Spanish! His major was Spanish so he wanted to practice and I thought it'd be easier than Chinese. After 1h30 talking, he left and I went back to my room for a while and met the others in my room : 3 chinese who didn't speak a word of English. Result : spent the rest of my time with them (especially one) talking in Chinese. 5h of Mandarin in a row. I had to go out after 4h to get some fresh air and let my head rest a bit. It hurt like hell. But good thing is: it kept me awake until 11:30pm and I could sleep at a normal hour. Afterwards: Next few days went fine. Work was interesting and freaking difficult at the same time. In the evening on Monday and Tuesday I talked chinese for 3-4 hours and went to visit one place with the Chinese guy from my room. On wednesday I went to visit a houseshare with 2 french, one Italian and one Chinese (the Italian speaks chinese). They have all been living in Shanghai for 3 to 5 years. It went great but they couldn't let me know whether I could get in. Thursday: Same as monday and tuesday : work and then 3-4 hours of Chinese talk. Friday: work and then went to eat and then drink with the people from the 2nd place I visited. 3 of their friends (2 Italian and one chinese) were there and turns out that one of the 2 Italians is a translator for Japanese and Chinese. So I talked a bit in Japanese with him and used a bit my chinese as well. Saturday : Had planned to change guesthouse (no rooms left for the other one) and go to the bank. Result: met 2 chinese in the street who took me to a tea house. I felt sth was off but went with it. We had an incredible tea experience and got to know about what each had special, etc. But at the end she showed the total price of 1200元。I had ony 100 left.. So one of them payed the rest for me and we went to the bank where... my card got eaten by the machine! So I didn't give them back anything.. and went to a different bank alone get a bit of money. I'm pretty sure they were trying to rip my off for some reason. Is there anyone who knows who much it costs usually? And tonight I got a message to tell me I'm in for the apartment so I'm moving in tomorrow! Sum-up: - ａ LOT of practice for Chinese speaking and listening comprehension. - a LOT of reading practice from signs, ads, weixin messages I saw in the metro (yeah I read other people's weixin :p) and apartment descriptions online. - A bit of Chinese writing practice with Weixin. - A 2-3 episodes of 유인나's podcast and one 2h30 other korean podcast. - One episode of 니하오코리아 (fully chinese podcast) - NO japanese nor Korean reading practice - A bit of Kakaotalk for Korean written conversation - 1 Korean Movie with Chinese subs. Plan for the following week: Now that I don't have to look for a place --> - Read a LOT of Chinese. I have to catch up. - Listen to at least 3 Korean podcasts - Practice practice practice speaking Chinese. - Re-start the 15-min episodes of 朝ドラ before sleeping. - Read at least 1 chapter of Japanese. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4856 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 125 of 203 15 March 2014 at 7:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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Sounds like you're going to have a great time!
Do you use Chinese for your work as well? Or any other of your foreign languages? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Warp3 Senior Member United States forum_posts.asp?TID= Joined 5523 days ago 1419 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean, Japanese | Message 126 of 203 15 March 2014 at 9:18pm | IP Logged | ||
Am I correct in assuming that means "Shanghai" since it reads as "상해 (sang-hae)" in Korean? (I love trying to decode Chinese via Hanja. It doesn't always work out as a one-to- one mapping, but at least it gives me an excuse to actively utilize all the Hanja I spend so much time learning.) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| yuhakko Tetraglot Senior Member FranceRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4620 days ago 414 posts - 582 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishB2, EnglishC2, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Korean, Norwegian, Mandarin | Message 127 of 203 30 March 2014 at 5:54pm | IP Logged | ||
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＠Warp3： Indeed you're right! :) Truth is that when I told one of my korean friends I
was going to Shanghai, she answered "상해?! 진짜로?!" and that's when I realized that indeed that's how we pronounce those characters in Korean ^^ Well well, after 3 weeks in Shanghai and a quarter into the year, I guess it's time to see where I stand. Warning: this will be long. I'll first update language wise and tomorrow my impressions of China. Japanese: ups and downs. Reading: I did read quite a lot before coming to china but nothing since I arrived so for the past 3 weeks. I have just bought a packs of stuff including a book called ツナグ earlier today though and will read it a bit after this post (read 3 pages for now). Listening, I have found a GREAT tool for improving Chinese while keeping using the others (a post will come in the Chinese team's log tomorrow) and I've been watching City Hunter in Jap subtitled in Chinese. Up to episode 25 in a (busy) week. I did watch a lot of stuff before coming here also. Oral Conversation: a few before coming to China and once since I've arrived at a conference with potential prospects. Written Conversation: Pretty bad. Almost non existent. I did talk to my ex- flatmate earlier today in Japanese though but it just showed me how much I've regressed. JLPTN1 Objective: A bad start for now. Although As you can see in the picture at the bottom, I bought 3 books related to that. - One is a list of the grammar points for the N1 explained in Chinese with some examples. I plan on using it mostly as a list to refer (why not buy it when it's only about 1.75€? :p). - One is a book of 2000 words for the N1. Translations in Korean, Chinese, English and same for the examples. I've never worked through such a book before so we'll see how it goes. (again, why not buy it when it's only 3.75€?) - And probably the most useful, a book of mock tests to practice. I might buy some more afterwards considering the price (3.50€ while in france it was minumum 30-35€). Korean: Listening listening listening... Reading: Not so much.. Actually almost nothing. Just some words, parts of articles. Listening: Did a LOT of listening since the beginning of the year. At least 30- 45 podcasts from 유인나, and a few others as well. I've watched a few movies in Korean as well. And I plan on watching more when I finally figure out a stable schedule. Oral Conversation: Non existent. Written Conversation: I talk a few times a week with some korean friends but nothing out of the ordinary. Goals 2014: Bad bad start. Obviously, this is normal considering my situation, but I still don't like it. I've realized that I'm never gonna pass the TOPIK this year so I guess I'll first have to actually start learning Korean one day. When I started it, I was quite proud of my rapid learning, but turns out it was too sporadic and thus now I have basic holes that I need to fill and it's just so darn hard to find the motivation to go back to the beginner level. Ainu: Not forgotten, the "new year" of lesson is gonna start next week so I reviewed a bit what I know already this past week. Mandarin: Reading: I've been having a shit load of reading around me everyday so that's not really a problem. I am having troubles finding the time to properly study what I read though. The only real reading study I've been doing is in the metro, looking a the ads, I'll try to read perfectly what's written. That includes drawing the character on Pleco and understanding how the sentence is built so rather nice. I have finished reading my 3rd (or 4th?) Tintin in order to finish the month's goal. As you can see in the picture at the bottom, I also bought 3 bilingual books for learning English which I'll use the other way around. They are so cheap I might go buy the rest of the collection afterwards (the 3 books for a total of 3.5€) Listening: A lot everyday in the street, restaurants and now that a new chinese is coming to work with us surely there too. I've also been listening to 你好韩国, a 30- minute-long podcast about many aspects of Korea. I do want to get more active listening during conversations but I lost contact with that (weird) Chinese guy who helped me the first days so I need to find some other people. Written Conversation： A bit here and there through Weixin mostly. I should start using Weibo more. Oral Conversation: As just said, I need to find someone to talk to in Chinese some more because it'd be too bad to come here and not improve conversation-wise. This week the only conversations I've had were with people in shops telling me "your chinese is good" Although they were having trouble understanding me. (Just today a I was asking were the Japanese books were and the girl kept telling me: "well right here" in chinese and after a while a chinese guy told me "you can tell me in Japanese" so I switched and he translated". When I left I heard the girl say I spoke rather well Chinese..) Goals 2014: Getting up to speed. Definitely gonna reach them if I continue like this but I'd like to not only reach them but destroy them, so more work is required! English: I've been learning words and acronyms related to the technical field I got myself in. Unfortunately, I couldn't find out how to add a picture here. Is there someone who knows how to do? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4856 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 128 of 203 30 March 2014 at 6:43pm | IP Logged | ||
(IMG)link(/IMG) - replace round brackets with square ones. I can understand your lack of motivation for going back to studying the basics and filling holes. I actually feel the same with Korean. Ever since I stopped attending classes I have not studied grammar regularly. I learned what I needed immediately, but there's a lot I have to revise. After a long time I'm finally motivated to get over that hurdle once and for all and plan to work through Korean Grammar in Use Intermediate and Advanced at the same time. Those books seem quite a good choice for filling holes. Although I guess most of it could be had for free in some form or another, I just can't be bothered anymore to locate all that information on the net. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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