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Cantonese Odyssey 2012 -Team 龍 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6580 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 49 of 67 25 January 2012 at 7:07am | IP Logged | |||||
They seem to actually want to get things right. I'm currently finalizing an agreement with them whereby I'll correct their (at the moment pretty terrible) transcripts for a small fee. I'll probably start this tomorrow, and then the transcripts should be getting better as I work through them. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| hkboy Groupie Hong Kong Joined 5674 days ago 65 posts - 86 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Cantonese, Mandarin | Message 50 of 67 25 January 2012 at 8:29am | IP Logged | |||||
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They seem to actually want to get things right. I'm currently finalizing an agreement with them whereby I'll correct their (at the moment pretty terrible) transcripts for a small fee. I'll probably start this tomorrow, and then the transcripts should be getting better as I work through them.[/QUOTE]
That's great to hear Simon. I subscribed for awhile and left. Now I see they have some Intermediate lessons. Also Popupcantonese has 1 Intermediate lesson now. It's getting better. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| zhanglong Senior Member United States Joined 4927 days ago 322 posts - 427 votes Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 51 of 67 25 January 2012 at 2:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
That's great news! I'm glad you are able to work this out because it means that one of our own is raising the level of quality education for a sometimes poorly documented language. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| zhanglong Senior Member United States Joined 4927 days ago 322 posts - 427 votes Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 52 of 67 25 January 2012 at 10:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Day 25:
I find that learning another language is sometimes like catching water with a net. Unless you keep using it, words, grammar, and syntax just leak out of your head, and things that you thought you knew, you quickly forget. That just means I didn't really learn it. I listened to another hour of Cantonese and found that while I understood most of it, I couldn't produce it quickly. I need to do some more mental gymnastics and drills to keep the language structures fresh in my mind. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| zhanglong Senior Member United States Joined 4927 days ago 322 posts - 427 votes Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 53 of 67 27 January 2012 at 9:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I've studied for the past two days and while I'm getting faster while talking to myself, when presented with a live, unpredictable speaker, it takes some time for the brain to adjust.
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| zhanglong Senior Member United States Joined 4927 days ago 322 posts - 427 votes Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 54 of 67 30 January 2012 at 4:35am | IP Logged | |||||
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I am doing more conversation now, while still listening to native speakers.
I'm trying to stay away from reading and writing and flashcards for Cantonese and just throw myself into the deep end of the pool, as it were, in contrast to how I'm studying Mandarin. In the past few days, I've learned that the 7th day of Spring Festival is everyone's birthday, that two chopsticks applied on opposite sides of an afflicted person's middle finger will drive away the ghosts that bedevil their mind, and taught several Chinese people about the history and culture behind the lion dance. I have to admit though, I don't have enough vocabulary for that last task! I need to ramp up my listening comprehension and speaking ability. I am meeting more and more people who speak 0% English and 5% Mandarin. For them, life is ACATT. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| zhanglong Senior Member United States Joined 4927 days ago 322 posts - 427 votes Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 55 of 67 30 January 2012 at 4:47am | IP Logged | |||||
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Also, I've learned that being comfortable is not the best way to learn. I am experimenting now with exercising in some way while practicing my active listening to Cantonese. If I close my eyes in a chair or in a bed, my mind will wander and I will even start to dream! Professor Arguelles' shadowing approach of combining language work and exercise seems intriguing. I will see how I can combine some kind of physical labor with listening practice to better imprint language patterns on my poor brain. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| zhanglong Senior Member United States Joined 4927 days ago 322 posts - 427 votes Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 56 of 67 31 January 2012 at 2:28am | IP Logged | |||||
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I fall asleep listening to Cantonese and wake up listening to it, but passive listening is not nearly as effective as active participation.
Yesterday, I actively listened to an hour of Cantonese and am slowing improving my speed. I had a class with a native speaker where I learned simple physical directions. I also listened to an hour of podcasts from CantoneseClass101. They had some suggested websites for learning Cantonese, but... It seems as if the podcast is a direct translation of a Mandarin course. All of the resources that they claimed taught Cantonese and used JyutPing, guess what? These resources taught Mandarin and used pinyin. It's like going to SpanishDict.org and seeing a website full of Italian. Mandarin and Cantonese are related, but they are NOT the same language. The CantoneseClass101 "dictionary" doesn't even have the character: 系 or 係, which is a pretty fundamental concept in any language. It's the verb "to be", though admittedly, it does appear in some of their lessons. So I'm suspecting that their course is riddled with these kind of inaccuracies and wonder if I would be better just studying FSI Cantonese. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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