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Kerrie’s TAC ’12 Team Žá / Romantics Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5393 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 1 of 236 09 December 2011 at 6:13am | IP Logged |
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I'm getting excited about the new 2012 TAC Challenge. I will be part of the Romance + Slavic Team Žá and The Romantics.
Many of my languages and goals are close to what I wrote last year. I didn't get any of my 2011 goals met, but I have kept in touch with my Spanish, Italian, and French, and feel that they have all improved over the past year. I found out a few months ago that I have celiac disease, and a whole host of other food intolerances. (Don't worry. All this means is that I can't eat wheat. And rye, barley, gluten. Potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, beef, eggs, corn, milk, and bananas.) Everything I ate was making me... Sick. Tired. Sore. Sleepy. Unfocussed. Yuck. Blah. Blah. Yuck. The reason I am bringing this up is because I am feeling better (because I don't eat any of that stuff anymore!). And I can focus now. I feel healthier than I have in 15 years, so I am feeling really good about the 2012 TAC. My primary languages for 2012 will be Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese and Croatian/Bosnian. If that's not enough, I might... Oh, wait. That's more than enough! But there are others that are really calling me: Greek, Turkish, Russian, Hungarian, German, Japanese. I just found out that one of my friends at work is learning Turkish, so there is an incentive to pick up another language. Spanish My Spanish is probably about a B2 (passive) and B1 (active). I would like to get this up to an active C1. I will be working through Teach Yourself Improve your Spanish and Living Language Ultimate Spanish Advanced, then reading through the Harry Potter series. (You will see a lot of Harry Potter here. I am a little bit of a fan!) I will probably work through one or two of the Practice Makes Perfect grammar books, too. French My French is probably an B1 (reading) and A2 (active). My goal for 2012 is to get to (active) B2 and (passive) C1. I will be using Assimil, Living Language Ultimate French, and Teach Yourself Improve your French. Some grammar (Practice Makes Perfect) and some more Harry Potter. Maybe Le Petit Prince. Italian My Italian is a high A1 (maybe passive A2). I'd like to bring it to a solid B2, which should not be too hard if I am consistent with my studies. I'll be using mostly the same materials as I am for French. Assimil, Living Language Ultimate Italian, and Teach Yourself Improve your Italian. Some grammar (Practice Makes Perfect) and some more Harry Potter. Maybe Il Piccolo Principe. Portuguese My Portuguese is nearly non-existent right now. My goal for 2012 is to change that. Just a little! I find that I can read a fair amount of Portuguese, and it really intrigues me. So I'm going to try it. I have the Assimil Portuguese, Living Language Ultimate Portuguese, and Michel Thomas audio courses. I'm hoping those will be enough to give me a solid start. I'm hoping to find a decent grammar book to work through, and then read the first book or two from Harry Potter. Maybe The Little Prince, if I can find a copy. Bosnian/Croatian My BCS is nearly non-existent, too. I work with about a dozen Bosnians, so I hear it all day long. There's not many resources out there for Bosnian, per se, though. I'm planning to use Spoken World Croatian and the Assimil Serbo-Croat books. I'd like to get my BCS up to an A2 by the end of the year. I want to aim higher, but it's my first Slavic language, so I'll settle for that. =) German I am not planning to focus on German, but I would like to learn it, so I will probably do something rather slow-paced and spread over the course of the year, just to get a basic foundation. I've studied German before, but never for very long. I will work through the Michel Thomas courses and then work on Living Language's Ultimate German. Maybe one lesson every week or two. I have a number of other sources, and may decide later in the year to pursue that more seriously. So, to recap my goals: Spanish -----> B1 to C1 French ------> A2 to B2/C1 Italian -------> high A1 to B2 Portuguese --> 0 to B1 BCS ---------> 0 to A2 German ------> A1 to B1 I really enjoy listening to music in my target languages, and I'm planning to pick out one or two songs (in each language) each week to learn. I can listen to my mp3 player at work. It's too noisy to listen to lessons (besides, most of my attention has to be focused on my work!), but listening to music in my target languages won't be a problem. EDIT: Added Team Links Edited by Kerrie on 28 December 2011 at 2:42am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6595 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 2 of 236 11 December 2011 at 6:07pm | IP Logged |
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I'm glad you found out what was wrong and are feeling better now! I hope you've been able to find some yummie recipes for those with intolerances (: maybe there's something in your target languages too:-)
This is bound to be a better year for you<333 Added the link to the first post of our team thread btw:) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tennisace Newbie United States Joined 5612 days ago 39 posts - 43 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Croatian, French | Message 3 of 236 12 December 2011 at 3:20am | IP Logged |
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Hey Kerrie,
I'm excited to be on the same team with you again this year (although I hope we can keep it up the whole time!). I'm also excited that we seem to studying the same languages again this year. I saw that you were going to study Croatian/Bosnian and I'm glad that I'll have somebody to talk to who is studying these languages as well. Good luck! Edited by tennisace on 12 December 2011 at 3:20am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5393 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 4 of 236 13 December 2011 at 12:53am | IP Logged |
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Hey, tennisace. Welcome back! I have a good feeling about 2012 for both of us!
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5393 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 5 of 236 13 December 2011 at 12:55am | IP Logged |
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I am reserving this space on the first page for things I get done in 2012. =)
SPANISH Assimil Spanish with Ease (April 2012) Assimil Using Spanish (September 2012) Charlie y la Fábrica de Chocolate [December 2011] Harry Potter y la Piedra Filosofal (June 2012) FRENCH Assimil French with Ease (June 2012) PORTUGUESE FSI From Spanish to Portuguese (Harry Potter list is on page 14) Edited by Kerrie on 15 September 2012 at 3:50am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| AlephBey Tetraglot Groupie India Joined 4786 days ago 41 posts - 137 votes Speaks: English, Hindi*, Urdu, Japanese Studies: German, Spanish | Message 6 of 236 21 December 2011 at 9:56am | IP Logged |
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I'll agree with Serpent- it's great that you eventually did find out what the
issue was; hopefully you'll be feeling much better now. Think of it as an exciting challenge- to explore cuisines you weren't too familiar with till now. Try looking into cuisines that are more rice-based. Anything East Asian, of course! Plus, as an occasional substitute for pancakes, you can try dosa. It's a pancake-kind of thing made of rice batter. It tastes savory with just the slightest sour tinge. Okay, I tend to ramble a lot. Forgive me. :P Goodness gracious, your inventory of languages intimidates me! It's been one of my goals too; being fluent in all the major Romance languages. However, my other languages are bound to keep me busy for a couple of years at the very least. You sound quite motivated, I'm going to enjoy reading about your progress. All the best! Edited by AlephBey on 21 December 2011 at 9:57am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5393 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 7 of 236 24 December 2011 at 12:41am | IP Logged |
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Hello, AlephBey.
I have been exploring lots of new foods, and it's actually a lot of fun. Whenever I bring up my food issues, people look at me like "Well, what can you eat?" Um, lots of things! I actually made brownies (with black beans!) and brought them to the Christmas party at work the other day and people didn't believe me that they were (relatively) healthy! My language list shouldn't intimidate anyone. Except for Croatian (which I hear at work every day), all my primary target languages are - in essence - cousins to each other. The only thing that intimidates me is the German. I've been playing with Turkish the last week or two, and it's so logical. And some of it is even sticking in my head. The wacky thing is that it seems to stick better than German, which is crazy, considering I'm a native English speaker! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5393 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 8 of 236 28 December 2011 at 4:47am | IP Logged |
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I have a German question.
When I was in high school (umpteen years ago), we were taught that there was a distinction between a male friend der Freund and a female friend die Freundin. My Bosnian friend (who claims to speak German as well as she speaks English) wrote me a lovely little Christmas note and called me mein Freund - which I found odd, considering I'm female. When I called her on it, she said she just dumbed it down to be like English, and that they don't do that so much anymore. Does German still have this distinction, or is it not used as much as it used to be? Edit: Punctuation. Doh. Edited by Kerrie on 28 December 2011 at 5:04am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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