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Muddling through in TAC ’10 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| annette Senior Member United States Joined 5510 days ago 164 posts - 192 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 73 of 95 28 July 2010 at 6:20am | IP Logged |
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Today wasn't a total wash because I reviewed all my old vocabulary from recent weeks
(it took several hours but I think it was worth it!) and made flashcards for chapter 4. I didn't finish memorizing the words and I'm about to go to sleep now, but that's okay. I'm memorizing at a steady pace so I'm not too worried. Actually, the weird thing is that I realized about a minute ago that making the flashcards really doesn't take that long either, about 20 minutes for half a chapter plus grammar. I guess I must be wasting even more time than I thought on the internet! The example sentences in this book always make me laugh (most unintentionally), and the English translations are funny too. Some of the translations don't do a good job of conveying tone or connotation at all. And then some of them are just... well, here's a recent sentence that gave me pause: "Are you born with a defect or what? Why do you live in the charity home and not go out and work?!" Sadly (or fortunately?), the Chinese sentence this purports to be the translation of is much more polite! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6707 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 74 of 95 28 July 2010 at 7:03am | IP Logged |
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Thanks for posting the picture of the innards of a dragonfruit - I have eaten it without knowing what it was, but now my mind is at rest.
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| annette Senior Member United States Joined 5510 days ago 164 posts - 192 votes Speaks: English* | Message 75 of 95 31 July 2010 at 6:14am | IP Logged |
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Glad to be of help! I just had some of the dragon fruit I bought - I can't say it's my
favorite fruit but it is quite interesting. ---------------------------------------------------- This week has been stressful and full of lots and lots of family drama and financial drama. So I have once more failed to meet my schedule. However, I have been reviewing old flashcards and I recorded another diary entry in Arabic, something that I'm gonna try to make a pattern - just funny stories as they happen to me. The timing is still very hard for me to get right on the funny stories - because I don't prepare, I often have to stall by improvising while I try to think of how to say the punch-line, and that kind of takes the edge of the joke. But I'll get there some day. I think I might want to begin recording Chinese journal entries too, in which case I will post links here :). I am still on chapter 6 of the Chinese textbook with 5 more chapters to go for part one and 11 more for part two (which is less important for my means anyway). 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| annette Senior Member United States Joined 5510 days ago 164 posts - 192 votes Speaks: English* | Message 76 of 95 31 July 2010 at 8:11pm | IP Logged |
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To do today:
Flashcards for chapter 6 - 6 PM, done! 30 min Memorize chapter 6 Flashcards chapter 10 Memorize chapter 9 (yeah, I'm behind) Start flashcards chapter 7 Audio diary Arabic Audio diary Chinese (if time) Out-loud reading textbook 5.2 (record?) Review old flashcards: 4,5/7,8 - partially done Edited by annette on 31 July 2010 at 11:57pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| annette Senior Member United States Joined 5510 days ago 164 posts - 192 votes Speaks: English* | Message 77 of 95 02 August 2010 at 7:28pm | IP Logged |
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Yesterday I visited a friend but managed to catch up on studying during the TWO HOURS I
WAITED FOR HIS DUMB *SS... this is called bad planning! Apparently he forgot that he had work and neglected to tell me! At least we made up for it with delicious food and good conversation! I also had a chance to practice my Chinese. People often look askance at me when I open my mouth and start speaking Chinese. My hair and eyes are dark but something about a halfie just seems to throw people off sometimes. I have white friends who get fewer confused looks than I do. So now I've memorized chapter 6 and 9 (as I had meant to do day before yesterday) and reviewed old flashcards. It's already 1:25 PM today, but I'm hoping to make flashcards for and memorize chapters 7 and 10. Then if I have any time I'll record some sort of a diary or something cause I seriously need to practice speaking, even if only to myself! Plus, I love hearing my own voice :). I sound a little higher-pitched and more childish than I do in reality (it's not just the thing where you sound shriller to your own ears - other people tell me that when I record with this laptop I sound younger too), but it's fun to listen to the way I talk. I still have a hard time listening to myself in English though because I hate my lisp/accent/whatever it is. In Arabic I obviously have a huge (American) accent too, but I don't feel as badly about it because it's obviously not my native language and although my accent is still heavy, it's SO much better than it was when I started Arabic a year ago, so at least I'm improving! TO DO (if I work up the energy to actually study): flashcards chapter 7 - done but about to go for a walk memorize chapter 7 flashcards chapter 10 memorize chapter 10 reading from textbooks x2 record... something in arabic. diary about visiting j? record reading out loud in chinese Edited by annette on 03 August 2010 at 12:53am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| annette Senior Member United States Joined 5510 days ago 164 posts - 192 votes Speaks: English* | Message 78 of 95 04 August 2010 at 6:17am | IP Logged |
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Today was an emotional day; this week has been an emotional week. I have had a really
hard time getting anything done except flashcard review this entire week. I keep a spreadsheet of my studies and this is the first week that is colored almost entirely yellow (the color I chose for when I fail to complete an assigned task). Anyway I may have sort of sort of secured a language partner - we will see. I also freaked out on a bunch of people who probably all are scared of me now. Whatever. Sometimes nervous breakdowns happen. They'll get over it. I'm so sick of people catcalling me. I just don't understand. It's not that I dress in an especially revealing way (although I should totally be able to do so without douchebags catcalling me) or anything. I think I probably look like a good victim. I looked terrible today - huge dark circles, a little sick, breaking out from the enormous stress I have been under all week, couldn't even stand straight because I was too tired - and I still got catcalled by some truckful of assholes in Ed Hardy in the middle of a deserted road. It's really starting to take a toll on me emotionally. All my social anxiety is coming out in full force and I now automatically react with fear when strange men try to start conversations with me in coffee shops (which happens all the time unfortunately and it's never people I actually would want to speak to me, but it doesn't matter because I'm so on edge that even if some incredibly attractive and interesting man who also just happened to speak perfect Arabic and German started talking to me, I would still freak out). I don't know. Now I'm just venting and it has absolutely nothing to do with my original statement, which was just that I have been stressed and am having an especially hard time studying. I think I'll feel better tomorrow if I ever manage to get some sleep. (Oh right, and the stress has given me insomnia too. Yay!) On the sort of bright side, I've had some sort of an anime dubbed in Arabic open in a different tab for the last four hours or so, and I haven't really been watching it (I don't really like anime that much) or even trying to understand, but every once in a while I catch myself doing that thing where you aren't paying any attention at all but you automatically understand what's being said. It's not perfect - just phrases here and there and very short sentences - but I'll take what improvement I get. In Chinese, I have now memorized 560 words/terms (with some repeat of characters) since I began my cramming approximately three weeks ago. Edited by annette on 04 August 2010 at 6:19am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| annette Senior Member United States Joined 5510 days ago 164 posts - 192 votes Speaks: English* | Message 79 of 95 05 August 2010 at 6:15am | IP Logged |
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For some reason I've had stress incidents like this about once a month for the entire
summer. I don't know why things are so much messier right now than usual. TODAY Reviewed flashcards, as always Finished studying chapter 7 flashcards... at long last. I hate Chinese fonts that make dots look like lines. Or maybe I hate my bad vision. Did a lot of listening to cartoons and TV shows in C/A (no news in Chinese - too tired). Got around to activating Arabic input on my laptop - turns out I have little familiarity with the lay-out Need to find my Arabic keyboard stickers thank god Chinese is much easier there Will switch to different textbook for more basic review - I have not much time left before my placement exam and need to make sure that my foundation is relatively stable. Am going to start taking melatonin at night, hope that will help resolve some of my sleep issues. ------------------------------------- TODAY (Aug 5): - checked flashcards for ch. 7 - memorized flashcards for chapters 5 and 6 (with varying success, a little tired) - listened to about a gazillion hours of TV and radio, most of which i still don't understand - took a break from chinese characters to give me time to heal... Tomorrow I intend to review all my old characters from chapters 1 to 7 for Chinese. I have not yet gotten my mitts upon the other textbook I need. Fascinating how much harder media Chinese is for me than normal conversational Chinese. I listened to a radio segment today in which I had absolutely no problems with the interview portions but could barely grasp the headlines of the news. Edited by annette on 06 August 2010 at 4:03pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| annette Senior Member United States Joined 5510 days ago 164 posts - 192 votes Speaks: English* | Message 80 of 95 09 August 2010 at 4:23am | IP Logged |
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Today:
- checked flashcards for ooold textbook's chapter 9 (arabic... yup, doing beginner review!) - checked flashcards for old textbook's chapter 10 (arabic) - did some very minor, very brief review of old arabic vocab Need to: - secure the damn chinese textbook already although it is SO expensive Actually, I only need the vocabulary appendix as I already know this grammar. So maybe I'll purchase it from the bookstore, run and photocopy the vocab glossary, and then return it to the bookstore!! That would save me money. (I could also just borrow it from the library and do the same, but I owe mad money for a lost item and I don't feel like paying that fine right now.) I'm currently trying to decide which flashcard website (that is, not a downloadable program like Anki) is best for Chinese flashcards. I personally am used to quizlet.com for all my flashcards. Quizlet doesn't have the most beautiful interface, but it is very simple - so simple even a technological ape like me can figure the damn thing out - and it works perfectly for my very basic needs. However, I'm not sure how well it would work for other students of Chinese, and my mother wants me to find a good website for her students. (Oh yeah, did I mention? My mother teaches Chinese right now! How diulian for me! Cue the tiny violins.) So I'm busy test-driving other sites and seeing how they go. Honestly, I'm sure there is some wonderful site perfect for this that I just don't know about yet, but right now I am basically choosing between my old stand- by Quizlet (which I admit I probably have a bias towards just cause I'm comfortable with it) and smart.fm (which is very shiny and pretty but which I came away from with a negative impression last time I tried it six months ago). Smart.fm is probably winning on the basis of how attractive it is... but then I remember how the pinyin input kept on messing up last time I tried it, and how much of a hassle it was to put new flashcards in because of how I couldn't import in bulk the last time I tried it... I'm hoping these issues are resolved now but I'm still poking my way around the site and don't quite know yet for sure. Another thing is that my mother sucks even more with technology than I do, so I can't pick a site that is too complicated for her! Anyway, remember how I just mentioned that my mother is actually teaching Chinese right now? Actually, she's been doing that for a while... but she won't teach me. Go figure. It's really kind of embarrassing, especially as my Chinese isn't that great yet. It's actually been getting worse ever since I came home for the summer - I'm starting to mispronounce everything and choose all the wrong words, probably out of nerves and shame! My mom has a very special ability to make me feel like crap about myself when it comes to academics (I've never been a straight A student) or, in this case, my grasp on the mother tongue. You gotta love Asian moms. She now spends most of her day jokingly picking on me for not understanding news in Chinese ("Hey, you huibuhui read this baozhi yet? No? Aiya!!! And you listen to Chinese all day long!") and I spend most of my day jokingly picking on her for only mostly understanding newspapers in English ("You listen to English all day long!"). Once in a while my brother, who understands almost no Mandarin, will come out of his video game haze in order to tell us to "stop yelling in Chinese about whatever you are yelling about." It is all in good fun... although I don't think my monolingual brother knows that yet! Every once in a while he surprises us by picking up on the topic of conversation, though - especially when it concerns him! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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