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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6771 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes  Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 1 of 19 04 July 2015 at 9:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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I haven't been active here in quite a while. I decided to start another log to maybe
organize my thoughts a bit. (I used to be over here.) Italian Once studied intensively. Pretty good level of fluency (once C1/C2 ish) and I've done tons of input learning. Want to: Maintain what I have, find more opportunities to practice speaking. French Probably B2/C1 ish level of fluency at this point. Have studied at a slow pace for a number of years now. A bit vague on the more complicated verb tenses (passé simple, subjonctif). Feel like I don't have quite enough vocabulary to be able to speak freely. Want to: Keep refining my knowledge of the language. Find opportunities to practice it more. Dutch Probably around A2 in terms of active skills, B2 or a bit higher for passive. I feel I understand the fundamentals quite well (NOS Journaal kind of thing), but expressing myself is a challenge as I constantly forget many common expressions and my vocabulary is small. From time to time I struggle to understand people's accents when talking to someone for the first time. The main challenge is lack of excitement about the language, so things don't stick as they do in Italian/French. Want to: Become comfortable speaking, so reaching B2 or so. Portuguese It's a nice to have language, so my ambitions aren't that high. Probably A2 territory or thereabouts. Have done quite a bit of input, but have many holes on syntax, morphology and verb tenses. Vocabulary is very small. Want to: Get to B2 ish land so I can a) understand everything I read and hear and b) write/speak it sufficiently well to get my point across on non-complicated topics. Mandarin For now, nothing. Thinking about starting up gently a few months from now once I have a better grip on Portuguese. Edited by numerodix on 05 July 2015 at 12:46pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6771 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 2 of 19 04 July 2015 at 9:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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Portuguese
Recently finished Umberto Eco: Numero zero (just came out when I was in Portugal in May of this year) José Saramago: Que Farei Com Este Livro Robert Ludlum: Estrada para Gandolfo José Saramago: A viagem do elefante Just ordered Frederick Forsyth: A Lista da Morte José Saramago: Levantado do Chão My Portuguese has lain a bit dormant for the last year or two. It got reinvigorated with my recent vacation in Portugal (which was awesome!). I feel I now have a decent grip on the phonetics and reading a book is enjoyable, where it used to annoy me because I'd be uncertain about the pronunciation. I have quite a few holes in the fundamentals, so I'm back on Assimil Portugais du Bresil, which is quite fun. The early lessons are really easy at this point, so I'm doing them 3 a day. I have a bit of a split brain problem - when I started on the language at the very beginning I was learning the European version, then realized that many/most of the native resources I could find where Brazilian. At this point I'd rather have the Euro Assimil version, but oh well, I'll manage. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6771 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 3 of 19 05 July 2015 at 1:41am | IP Logged | ||
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Oh right, I could actually be writing in the language itself.
French Je suis en train de lire "Commencer par le pourquoi" par Simon Sinek. J'aime bien l'auteur, il écrit beaucoup autour du leadership (il y'en a pas de mot français pour ce concept, que je sache) et j'ai vu pas mal de ces conférences sur youtube qu'il a donné un peu partout. Même si, je m'ennui pas mal en lisant ce livre. Parfois j'achêtes de livres genre business que j'ai envie de lire en français avec l'idée que ce sera plus intéressant comme ça, une langue qui n'est pas l'anglais comme toujours. Mais des fois ça échoue... Je connais la façon d'écrire de Sinek et quand je le lis en français c'est pas lui que j'entends, c'est le traducteur. La vigueur d'écriture ne se voit plus, c'est tout plat quoi. Et tellement répétitif. Dommage. Toutefois je me sens un peu obligé de terminer les livres que j'ai acheté, donc j'essaie de terminer même quand c'est pas génial. Edited by numerodix on 05 July 2015 at 1:42am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6771 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 4 of 19 05 July 2015 at 7:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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Portuguese
Assimil wrote: Le r situé entre 2 voyelles ou suivant une consonne est légèrement roulé: para, ladrões. Pour sa part, le r initial (rua), précédant une consonne (insuportável, abertas, portas) ou final (calor) est "râclé". Vous entendrez d'autant plus la nette différence lorsque le r est double comme dans carro. Yeah, that would be nice, but that description doesn't agree at all with the recordings, where all the cited words (calor, insuportavel, abertas, portas) have a rolled R. It's only rua and carro that don't. Worse still, I have the sense that when the dialog has two speakers sometimes one speaker will use the throaty R while the other will use the rolled R. I can't be 100% sure, because they rarely say the same words, but that's my impression. Assimil is also funny in trying to be super precise about pronunciation with phrases like "les lettres qui se prononcent plus légèrement" and "très nasalisé". I'd love to see someone actually understand exactly what is meant based on these explanations and nail it. I've come to think this overspecifying is just pointless - you won't grasp this level of phonetic nuances until you've listened to a whole lot of speech, and by then you won't need this level of detailed explanation anyway. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6771 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 5 of 19 06 July 2015 at 9:51am | IP Logged | ||
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Dutch
I did this multipart test today: PCI-Dutch-language-proficiency-tests I spent about 40min start to finish. = A1 35 correct out of 37 (94.6%) = A2 - Grammatica en woordenschat 38 correct out of 45 (84.4%) = A2 - Luistervaardigheid 1 correct out of 2 (50%) = A2+ - Grammatica en woordenschat 25 correct out of 28 (89.3%) = A2+ - Leesvaardigheid 5 correct out of 5 (100%) = A2+ - Luistervaardigheid 7 correct out of 10 (70%) = B1 - Leesvaardigheid 3 correct out of 6 (50.0%) = B1 - Luistervaardigheid 5 correct out of 6 (83.3%) = B1+ - Leesvaardigheid 6 correct out of 7 (85.7%) = B2 - Leesvaardigheid 5 correct out of 6 (83.3%) On this basis my passive skills are indeed in B2 territory. Edited by numerodix on 06 July 2015 at 9:54am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6771 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 6 of 19 08 July 2015 at 5:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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French/Italian
I've thought about doing it for years and now I finally have. I'm a youtuber! I figured what I really need to practice in these two languages is telling stories. So I'm now planning to keep making videos - the first few will be prepared ahead of time with an outline, and looking up words I know I'll need to give me the confidence that I can express myself. I'll be trying to move away from that and just do unprepared recordings later on, as that is a more realistic form of self expression. First French video. I mumble at times and it's hard to understand. On the whole not terrible for a first try I think. First Italian video. Clearer enunciation, which also is easier in Italian I feel. I did prepare the topic with a long outline ahead of time and looked up forgotten words like "ormeggiare". It's almost shocking to see myself on tape. What feels like interminable pauses where I search for a word are barely noticeable. And if I speak at my normal pace it goes way too fast, so I have to try hard to speak more slowly. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Arnaud25 Diglot Senior Member France Joined 3830 days ago 129 posts - 235 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Russian | Message 7 of 19 08 July 2015 at 7:26pm | IP Logged | ||
Good accent and pronounciation, all is clear and easy to understand (just one problem on "répétant" that I almost hear as "répétons" at the end of the video). Little classical grammatical mistakes here and there, that don't hinder the understanding and perhaps a little weakness with de preposition "de" that you use/don't use or "swallow" too much (on a du mal, peur de l'échec, zone de confort, truc de nouveau) For me, that's rather good, but I can say that "on the whole it's not terrible" if you have a tendency to self-flagellation :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6771 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 8 of 19 08 July 2015 at 7:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks, Arnaud! :)
2 persons have voted this message useful |
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