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TAC 2010 - Team K: M. Medialis - RU JP FR | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| M. Medialis Diglot TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member Sweden Joined 6355 days ago 397 posts - 508 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Russian, Japanese, French | Message 97 of 115 28 September 2010 at 11:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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TAC Log nr 22
----------------------------------------------------- Phew. Have had some really busy weeks lately. So much to do at uni.， but at least I get the chance to play with artifical intelligence and other cool stuff! My Japanese progress has been minimal, but I have at least moved forward a couple of centimeters every day thanks to my immersion and my bedtime parallel text reading.
Actually, having team members who pursue their language goals makes wanderlust so much more bearable. :) (However, Russian is standing behind my shoulder muttering impatiently and I don't know if I dare ignore him any longer..) About the books I've LR-ed so far: First, I should say that I have a tendency to (quite obsessively when I think about it) re-read books and chapters that I've already LRed. I don't know how many times I've LRed parts of "I am cat" by Natsume Soseki, and it becomes better each time. Unfortunately, I lost the book at the uni., so I guess I'll have to live without it until I buy the real Japanese version. So, here are the books I've LRed: Natsume Soseki: I am cat (Hilarious book) Kokoro Botchan (can read this one over and over again. The voice actor (don't know who he is) does a great job in capturing the personality of the main character. All the stories in Breaking into Japanese literature a number of times. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (completely brilliant!!) The Little Prince Conan Doyle - The Adventure of the Dancing Men I have to admit that the list of books isn't as long as I'd like it to be. But now I'm very determined to give my Japanese studies a new kick-start. My Japanese Dictionary Just wanted to share a Firefox plugin that has made life easier for me. For Japanese, the meaning of the words are often hard to understand even if I've encountered it in many contexts (and pop-up dictionaries rarely helps). And I've always felt that searching for example sentences in bigger web-based dictionaries breaks the flow of my surfing. So the grande solution is: The All-in-one Sidebar. Using this plugin, I can store a web dictionary in the side-bar. Whenever I press F4, the side-bar becomes visible and I can look up words and get example sentences without leaving the page I was reading. Right now I use Yahoo! Japan's search engine since it quickly gives understandable example sentences. Btw. I may add that I only look up words in dictionary that have popped out from my immersion. I never try to go from English to Japanese. Current Plan Seriously. I need to do something to break this inertia. My goal this week will be to apply some Overwhelming Force to my life, so I can get some new constructive language learning habits. ----------------------------------------------------- Team K - M. Medialis Edited by M. Medialis on 28 September 2010 at 11:31pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| M. Medialis Diglot TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member Sweden Joined 6355 days ago 397 posts - 508 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Russian, Japanese, French | Message 98 of 115 19 October 2010 at 2:20am | IP Logged | ||
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TAC Log nr 23
The last 7 weeks have been crazy. The amount of course work was simply overwhelming - constantly. On top of all this, my headset that I use for my Japanese immersion broke, so my opportunities to squeeze in language studies on my free moments evaporated completely. But, instead of crying (lol), I see this as the perfect time to alter my habits and start to study Russian again. After the exam on Thursday, I will pick up Dostoyevskijs Crime and Punishment (non-parallel text) and LR it for sheer enjoyment. It feels exciting to revisit Russian again! As soon as I get some momentum, I will start the last TAC sprint. Dreaming of filling those last two months with passion and languages! ----------------------------------------------------- Team K - M. Medialis 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5554 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 99 of 115 19 October 2010 at 10:48am | IP Logged | ||
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It's cool that you're returning to Russian, and I look forward to becoming a fellow traveler later in the year. Sorry to hear about the headset, and hope you get your hands on a new one soon. In the meanwhile, here are some words of inspiration I always liked from Rudyard Kipling for this year's final furlong...
If "If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or, being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise; If you can dream - and not make dreams your master; If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with triumph and disaster And treat those two imposters just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to broken, And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools; If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breath a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on"; If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch; If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run - Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!" Edited by Teango on 19 October 2010 at 11:13am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| M. Medialis Diglot TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member Sweden Joined 6355 days ago 397 posts - 508 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Russian, Japanese, French | Message 100 of 115 19 October 2010 at 8:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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W o w . Those words made my day -- probably my whole month!!
I'll print it out instantly, Thanks! :D 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| M. Medialis Diglot TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member Sweden Joined 6355 days ago 397 posts - 508 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Russian, Japanese, French | Message 101 of 115 25 October 2010 at 12:19am | IP Logged | ||
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TAC Log nr 24
----------------------------------------------------- And at last - I am Back!! I had my last exam on Thursday, and I have managed to do a multi-directional kick-start. The inertia is broken, and I hope I can accelerate more in the following weeks. I really don't know if I would have been able to lift myself up without this log. :) And, now I've also have a new headset (could take my dad's), so my immersion environment will kick in tomorrow. Dual madness (note: I haven't studied Russian actively since February) So, I've started to LR Crime and Punishment in Russian, which is an extremely fascinating book, with the best voice actor I've ever heard. I LR a couple of chapters every day (as I don't want to rush great books). It was a pleasant surprise to notice how fast my Russian was activated. After two days, all those words and expressions came back to me. I was a bit worried before that all my knowledge would be permanently lost, but regaining it seems just to be a matter of continuing LRing (topped with some scriptorium to get the details down). Kanji Writing Marathon Ok, a confession: I've actually fallen behind completely in my kanji reps, leaving me about 1100 cards in the due pile. This is not a bad thing, however, because I have looked forward to these days when I can get the opportunity to write out almost each and every kanji by hand. So I have gone through and written down about 600 kanjis the last days. Yes, I'm having a great time with my characters! Studying two at the same time I also activated my Japanese with LR and scriptorium. But when I tried to LR Russian a few hours later, the strong (and pleasant) Japanese taste didn't leave my mouth - destroying the Russian feeling I expect to get when I hear Russian. So the coming week, I will experiment as much as I can so that I can find a way to combine the two languages in a way that doesn't reduce the beauty of any one of them. Overlapping.. Now when I have two languages activated simultaneously, I have noticed that words from one language can pop up when I construct thoughts in the other: может быть あなたは ... I'm not worried about this, since the words are still strongly connected to it's parent language (it's not that I would mistake a Japanese word as being Russian etc.). I suspect this effect will fade away automatically when my experience and vocabulary in the languages become big enough, but I don't really know. Has anyone had this experience? Please share! :) Current plan Collect materials so I have them when the course work gets heavy again. ----------------------------------------------------- Team K - M. Medialis Edited by M. Medialis on 25 October 2010 at 12:29am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| M. Medialis Diglot TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member Sweden Joined 6355 days ago 397 posts - 508 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Russian, Japanese, French | Message 103 of 115 06 November 2010 at 2:48am | IP Logged | ||
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Hey Buttons! Thanks for the encouraging words - exactly what I needed right now!!!! :D
(When the current progress is not as good as one would hope, it's easy to forget how much ground that has actually been covered.) TAC Log nr 25 The previous week, I fell into some sort of "compulsive hobby programming behaviour". Lol. That sort of thing that only can happen when I've had too much to do and suddenly get free. My language studies fell into a low priority slot -> But this shall be changed. My Jp/Ru-balance And I can finally note that I have reached quite an interesing milestone for Japanese. Back in January, I wrote in my log that I had a hard time studying Japanese on a day when I've heard Russian - because my inner Russian voice was so dominating. Now it is the other way around. Japanese has become so strong in my mind that everything feels Japanese when I immerse in it for a little while. It can take almost three days before the Japanese engine cools down. I believe it (partly) is thanks to all those hundreds of hours of Silent Shadowing I did in the summer. As soon as I listen actively to another language, I automatically change the "home position" of my tongue and the way I breath etc. to fit my Japanese voice (I worked on this in order to mimic the Japanese sounds - I actually even visualize that little nod of the head that the Japanese tend to do when they end a sentence ;). I find this quite fascinating. :) So now I'm all into trying to find the characteristics of the Russian language, so I can tune into those sounds by will. Japanese LR I lost the momentum on the Japanese LR. I've simply run out of interesting LR materials.. This is of course not acceptable; So I'll set out for a quest to get some new and fresh books. This time I wont hesitate on the cost. -------------------------------------------- Team K - M. Medialis Edited by M. Medialis on 06 November 2010 at 2:48am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| M. Medialis Diglot TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member Sweden Joined 6355 days ago 397 posts - 508 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Russian, Japanese, French | Message 104 of 115 10 November 2010 at 12:21am | IP Logged | ||
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TAC Log nr 26
The upcoming week(s), I have decided to log a bit more frequently, posting updates on how much time I spend on my languages. I usually avoid logging time - but this is really the perfect moment to put in that extra force. Ideally, I'll catch some strong positive habits while I'm at it. Ordering LR materials Lol. I've been wanting to buy the bilingual Kenji Miyazawa stories for quite a while, but always hesitated because of the shipping costs (can't find it in Sweden..). Well, I promised myself that the cost should not stand in the way. And guess what I realized: The total shipping cost that I need to pay when ordering books from Amazon.co.uk is a brutal amount of....well 4 pounds. Realizing that I had been freaking out over a price that's not even half a lunch I truly felt like a moron (that is, a very happy and language-learning moron! ;D ). So, I will get my LR goodness in a couple of weeks. Sweet! M. Medialis' Adventures in the Scriptorium Paradise And here's my stats for yesterday and today. (I wont log any immersion hours.) ------------------------------------ * Kanji Writing Practice: 75 + 80 min = 2 hr 35 min * Japanese Scriptorium: 24 + 41 min = 1 hr 5 min * Japanese Sentence mining (SRS): 26 min * Japanese Parallel text: ~30 min * Russian LR: 32 + 37 min = 1 hr 9 min * Russian Scriptorium: 22 min * Russian Parallel text: 21 min To be continued.. -------------------------------------------- Team K - M. Medialis Edited by M. Medialis on 10 November 2010 at 12:27am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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