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Tarvos - TAC 2015 Pushkin/Scan | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes  Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 1217 of 1511 02 July 2014 at 3:47pm | IP Logged |
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Alright, I have my train tickets to Scandinavia booked (that is, an interrail pass for
Sweden, which also covers journeys at least to Oslo on Swedish trains, I think - not sure about from Oslo to Stockholm, but that would be just one ticket I might have to buy extra). I also have couchette train tickets to Denmark, namely to Copenhagen. Route: Köpenhamn - Göteborg - Oslo - Stockholm - Gotland - Malmö - Köpenhamn. If any of you will be passing by between July 18 and August 1, tell me, I will be around! "But why don't you fly to Denmark, Tarvos?" Because I hate flying and flying to Denmark is weird when you can also take a sleeper train. It's not that far, I do not have to cross an ocean to get there. It also doesn't take me 3 days and 20 stops to get to the country (and that didn't stop me going to Russia by train either). Besides, this is the ecologically prudent alternative. That, and I like Trains! "But why are you stopping in Copenhagen and Oslo? You don't speak Danish or Norwegian!" No, but I am also a tourist. Besides if you go by train you have to pass through Copenhagen anyway to get to Sweden. So I might as well! And also, I can read Danish and Norwegian most of the time. I don't speak them, but if you adapt a tiny bit, I do understand Norwegian most of the time. Danish is another story, though. "Where is all the money coming from?" I have a secret vault at Gringotts. Edited by tarvos on 02 July 2014 at 3:48pm 8 persons have voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 1218 of 1511 06 July 2014 at 2:16pm | IP Logged |
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I've been busy working a bit on my TEFL diploma, the world cup, and my languages.
Recently I have continued my studies of Greek (and have now got to the part where I have to understand verb tenses that are not the present), mainly the root formation that is useful to form the aorist and subjunctive/future tense. It's the hardest part about Greek, I find - the verbal system and the stress (although it's at least marked - take that, Russian!) Besides that I have been rummaging around in my brain for Romance language exercise, and spent 30 minutes on being instant-tutored in Portuguese yesterday. Miracle of miracles, something actually came out of it: I can actually produce quite a bit of Portuguese should I have to, and I have a pronunciation that is reasonably Portuguese- ish. I have to work on my verbs (this is indeed the problematic part with Romance languages and their endless verb conjugations), and I have to work somewhat on my listening comprehension skills. Tuesday I will try the same, for an hour, with Spanish. Colombian Spanish because I think I want to learn more Latin American Spanish - never been there and travelling there might be fun! (I also did some French last week, but French is another story, a language I am actually good at, and still I have problems there. On verra...) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 1219 of 1511 08 July 2014 at 11:31am | IP Logged |
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ESP: Ok, hablé español durante una hora, y no he tenido muchas dificultades entender que
dije la profesora (una colombiana). El acento de Colombia es muy claro (he aprendido el acento castellano/catalán, tengo familia en España), pero mi encanta el español latinoamericano, entiendo mucho! No se use vosotros en Colombia pero yo no sé como conjugar verbos en vosotros tampoco. Nunca escribí en español aquí, se puede que va a cambiar en el futuro. Durante la conferencia en Berlina hablábamos mucho en español, por eso entiendo muy bien ahora. ΕΛ: Και διάβασα ελληνικά επίσης, αλλά δεν μιλάω πολύ καλά, πρέπει να μιλήσω πιο πολύ. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 1220 of 1511 11 July 2014 at 1:28pm | IP Logged |
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I will be gone probably for most of two weeks during summer, focusing on the
Scandinavian languages (mostly Swedish, but maybe I will be able to understand some Norwegian or Danish?) whereas right now I am mostly occupied with Greek, Greek and more Greek. One thing I am noticing is how much Greece and Romania share in common culturally, not only in the words and grammar due to the Sprachbund effect but also in religion (they are Orthodox) - saying "Christ has Risen - Truly he has risen", for example, which is also done in Romania (and in Brașov particularly around Parada Juniilor). But it is even in the way stands sell tickets, which is the exact same in Greece and in Romania. Me like. When in Scandinavia, I hope to bring home a lot of reading material in those languages. Right now I am going to continue working on becoming an English teacher, and listening to polyglot metal. Polyglot Metal! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 1221 of 1511 14 July 2014 at 10:19am | IP Logged |
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Ce matin je me suis occupé du français, notamment avec la transcription correcte d'un
extrait du film "La vie d'Adèle". Il s'agit d'un petit abstrait avec beaucoup d'argot et beaucoup des phrases très familières et parfois insultants. Et murmurés aussi - j'avais VRAIMENT du mal à les comprendre, même si enfin j'ai compris presque tout (après, il faut le dire, 100000 réécoutes..)... Ça me donne l'impression de n'avoir rien appris, sauf que j'ai appris quelque chose. Edited by tarvos on 14 July 2014 at 10:21am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 1222 of 1511 17 July 2014 at 9:57am | IP Logged |
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Ok, since tonight I leave for Denmark (and then Sweden and Norway): I'm going to write
up a big post today summarising the last 6 months of learning (in which I've made another 5000 leaps forward, thankfully, and another 3000 backward in other languages). Unfortunately Korean got shafted (though I have been working on my vocabulary). Dutch and English have not changed, but there have been a whole lot of developments in other languages. French I`m pretty good at this now. I'm doing some really complicated exercises in order to practice my high-level French, because I want to sit either the C1 or C2 exam in the coming year. (Probably the C1). I have an excellent tutor helping me with this (unfortunately good tutors don't come cheap, but she is worth the money you spend. And there are some famous polyglots who agree with me on this ;)) Verdict mid-2014: low C1 German Nothing ever seems to happen here, but I can still speak it. Passively I understand almost all of it. German just never will have priority. Verdict mid-2014: B2 Russian I have been practicing this less the past months. Russian... it's become a bit less pertinent. I can still speak it of course and sometimes I do and I will, and it's a candidate to get certified later on, but right now it has no huge priority. Verdict mid-2014: B2 Swedish This is the easiest language for me to improve and also the next one I am going to do a bit of travel in. I recently did an hour of tutoring in Swedish and could easily explain the advantages of cannabis legalization in the Netherlands to a Swede. (There may have been a few grammatical errors, though). Not a language I have trouble with, and I did surprisingly well on the listening comprehension. Usually 1-on-1 I understand and speak Swedish, it's movies and noise that I don't understand as well. Verdict: low C1 Breton I've let it rot. One day I'll get back to it. My real problem is I don't speak Breton in daily life. That needs to change. Verdict: A1 (maybe A2 reading/writing) Hebrew I improved it during the beginning of this year, but let it slide a bit since April to focus on other things. No doubt I could pull off quite a bit in Hebrew, though. I still need patient native speakers to improve, and my reading is abominable, but I could do something in this. I certainly could travel. Verdict: B1 (A2 reading/writing) Romanian I speak it very very well, especially after my 6 weeks of immersion. At the conference someone told me it was the best Romanian she'd ever heard a foreigner speak. (She also thought I spent three years, not 6 weeks, in Romania...) Romanian is one of my very comfortable languages. Verdict: High B2 (low C1 passively). Korean I still remember some grammatical structures and am improving my vocabulary through Memrise right now. But I would never claim to speak Korean. Verdict: A1 Greek It's going quite well. I am getting a handle on the verb system, I know how to decline nouns and adjectives (mostly nouns, but adjectives usually copy nouns). I have trouble with the irregular verbs, and I need a wider vocabulary in Greek, but I am getting somewhere. I really need to master more of the basic nuances and syntax before I get into the B range, though. Verdict: A2 Portuguese I've not really studied it much after April, but I have been doing some spoken classes lately. Clearly the thing that kills me is the verb tenses here - I am not half as bad at speaking it as I think (understanding is another story though). I think this might be one of my next projects. Verdict: A2 Spanish See Portuguese, but I speak with worse grammar and understand more. Verdict: A2 Icelandic I have forgotten most of it, but one day... Verdict: A1 Other stuff I could reasonably try to understand, but haven't attempted to study seriously Mostly cognate languages with what I already know, but I could understand a fair amount of Esperanto at the conference. Same for Italian although I know NO Italian grammar. Danish and Norwegian have the same fate. Languages Projected Chinese will probably come into the picture seriously soon. I have PLANS. Other interesting things are Serbian, Czech, Malagasy, Swahili, Mongolian and a few other things. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 1223 of 1511 20 July 2014 at 9:59am | IP Logged |
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Now in Denmark. I am having a linguistic
battle with the Danes, but we usually end up speaking Scandinavian, although I find their spoken variant hard to understand. But I get by here. If I were here longer, I would have learned more Danish. But given that I can manage without using Swedish maybe another time. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 1224 of 1511 29 July 2014 at 10:40pm | IP Logged |
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Jag har nästan kommit till resans slut. Det finns nog några dagar kvar, men på fredag lämnar
jag Skandinavien och åter hemma på lördag morgon. Nu kan jag bekräfta att jag talar svenska - ok, kanske bryter jag lite men det är nog ingen fara. Vad jag har lagt märke till är att svenska är mycket lättare att förstå med en gång än till exempel franska. Som jag har sagt förr, det verkar ibland vara en dialekt av nederländska, även om det är nog inte sant, särskilt när vi betraktar ett historiskt perspektiv. Vad jag nog mer har förstått är att det finns ingen behov att lära sig de andra två stora skriftspråk (nynorsk vet jag inget om). Däremot är det en bra idé att lära sig det danska uttalet och enstaka uttryck på båda språk - då klarar man sig med alla tre. Alla norrmän har förstått min svenska och de danskar mestadels också. Jag fattar för lite av danska svar - norska är vanligtvis klarare från sammanhanget. Nu har jag lagt till ytterligare två länder till min redan besökte reselista. Därför att Kina verkar vara mitt nästa steg, har jag köpt mig ett lärobok till (med svenska som basisspråk). À part les langues scandinaves, j'ai lu «le journal intime d'un arbre» par Didier van Cauwelaert (il est cependant français), et j'ai parlé un vrai gamme de langues cette dernière semaine, aussi que étudier le grec moderne. Ca fait plus que dix langues qu'on a pratiqué. On vit la vie des polyglottes, et on la vit bien! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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