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BAnna’s TAC 2014 Spaß-Lobo-IndRussian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| BAnna Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4623 days ago 409 posts - 616 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Turkish | Message 161 of 236 01 March 2014 at 10:32am | IP Logged | |||||
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Somehow I've got to squeeze in some time to learn a little Catalan before heading to Spain. I'm not going to
worry about German while I'm there, but if I don't do anything at all in Russian for two weeks, it could be a problem. In March my study and my log will undoubtedly be erratic due to my vacation. OTOH, I'll be in full immersion in Spain, so I`m not complaining. I've decided to just do a private self-challenge this year, since I don't want to be bothered dealing with tweeting, a "leader board" or any of that. Instead I'm just going to track here in my log whatever progress I make (or don't). There are a number of challenges going on, most of which I haven't done, so I can't speak to them, but I did do the Super Challenge (mid-2012 to end of 2013) and it was extremely helpful in improving my German. I recommend doing a challenge highly to anyone, whether it's a public one or just a private one. January's reading total was 1114 pages (DE 569 and ES 545) and the listening-watching total was 30 hours (DE- 12, ES-16, RU-2). February -WATCH/LISTEN Total 26 hours (DE 10 hr ES 11 hr RU 5 hr) DE: an episode about Nietzsche from a Swiss interview series called Sternstunde Philosophie, which has a lot of interesting topics. Also saw an interview with Hannah Arendt from 1964 in which she speaks, among many other things, about the difference between one's mother tongue and the other languages one speaks. Am almost done (6/8 discs) listening to an audiobook of Reiches Erbe, an Inspector Brunetti mystery, and heard a number of podcasts on various topics (interview with Swiss writer Peter Stamm, Tito and Yugoslavia, scientists doing recordings of nature, the future of newspapers, the Vatican bank). The most difficult one to understand was a radio show interview with "Annamateur", a difficult to classify singer/comedienne from Dresden. Also a movie: "La Habanera". ES: Watched some Mexican movies from the 1960s, for example "La edad de violencia" about juvenile delinquents who also sing. It was interesting to see Mexico City of 50 years ago and hear the Spanish covers of popular English-language songs from that era. From the film here is César Costa singing Heartbreak Hotel: Hotel de los corazones rotos and Manolo Muñoz doing the twist twist Here's his take on Pretty Woman from another movie: Preciosa And yes, the guy at the bar in that clip is Javier Solis. Here's one of his most famous songs, Sombras nada más He was the last of the Tres Gallos Mexicanos, all of whom died early. The other two were: Jorge Negrete, here singing México lindo y querido Pedro Infante, here singing Despierta On a different note, I watched a documentary on the Spanish poet Miguel Hernández, and more episodes of Filosofía Aquí y Ahora. (am halfway into the second season now), and listened to a podcast from "Lecturas de tabaquería" featuring a reading of the title story of "El gaucho insufrible". RU-1-9 of Brothers Karamazov (it's a 12-part mini-series) My local library has quite a lot of Russian videos. There was a wonderful scene (to me as a learner) in which the characters greeted each other with "Good evening", "добрый вечер" and I understood every word for about 30 seconds. I rejoice over crumbs! -READ total 1287 pages (DE-492,ES-795) DE: finished Elsa Ungeheuer, and am 220 pages into Die Mitte der Welt, a young adult coming-of-age novel. ES: a Tintin book "La oreja rota", a short story "El sur" by Borges, a journalistic report "La guerra de fútbol" by Ryszard Kapuściński, Roberto Bolaño's short story and essay collection "El gaucho insufrible", the first couple of items in Better Reading Spanish (structure of this book is by topic with increasing difficulty within each topic and it includes exercises based on the reading), the short story collection "Flores oscuros" by Sergio Ramírez, "Medianoche en México" about the drug cartels in Mexico, and interviews mostly with writers from the book "Revelado instantáneo", from a series for television by Mexico's Canal 22 Cultural Programming. RU: textbook readings, rather ho-hum, but I'm quite pleased to be able to read a paragraph of extremely simple sentences. And I was ecstatic the first time reading the cast names in the opening credits of Brothers Karamazov. -STUDY (grammar, vocab, other instructional, misc.) DE (prepositions, relative clauses, participles) Finished the Practice makes Perfect book on Pronouns and Prepositions, did online exercises (NThuleen) ES (subjunctive, words with two genders, adverbs, requests, commands): Still working through "Practicing Spanish Grammar" and "Adv. Span Grammar" and finished "Subjunctive Up Close". I tried FSI but I don't think I picked an advanced enough lesson. I'll try it again in future. RU (verb conjugation, plurals, prepositional case, possessive modifiers) Russian World I lessons 15-32 , Pimsleur 4-7 (I do one unit multiple times. I might just be very lame, but I find Pimsleur more challenging than any other of my current language study methods; I really like seeing the written word.) Face to Face 1-4, Russian for Everybody 1-4 (both had "pre-lessons" learning the alphabet), finished Reading and Writing Russian Script, but am just now really learning the non-cognate vocabulary contained therein. For Spanish and German vocabulary, I've been using Lingq to read online articles out of El País or Die Zeit or wherever and highlight/define words, but I pretty much never go back and review them, so I'm not sure how useful this actually is, but I enjoy it and it's easier than looking up words in a dictionary (online or paper-based). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 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 162 of 236 01 March 2014 at 12:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Oh wow, the post about Spanish and Catalan is so awesome!
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| BAnna Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4623 days ago 409 posts - 616 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Turkish | Message 163 of 236 02 March 2014 at 8:49pm | IP Logged | |||||
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@Serpent. Yes, the connection between history and language really is fascinating.
RU: Found a course on Coursera in English taught from the Higher School of Economics that I plan to take when I return from vacation: Understanding Russians: Contexts of Intercultural Communication From the course description: "The main focus of this course is to look at the interrelations between different types of contexts (cultural, institutional, professional, social, interpersonal and others) within the intercultural communication process using Russian – Western communication as an example. The purpose of the course is to provide the students with a broad overview of the basic principles governing past, present and future interactions between Russia and the West focused on the culture and national psychology of Russians and Western Europeans. This course looks at the cases when Russian basic cultural values show up through linguistic choices shaping language production which is consequently misattributed by Western partners. No matter what the language of intercultural communication is - Russian, or English - the meaning of many linguistic expressions may be reconstructed wrongly by the representatives of another culture." One of the books referenced sounds really interesting: "Understanding Cultures Through Their Key Words: English, Russian, Polish, German and Japanese" Also read an entertaining article contrasting American and Russian culture via the answer to the question, "How are you?" The 'How are you' Culture Clash 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| BAnna Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4623 days ago 409 posts - 616 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Turkish | Message 164 of 236 04 March 2014 at 7:05am | IP Logged | |||||
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From Pablo Neruda's Nobel Lecture:
"There is no insurmountable solitude. All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are. And we must pass through solitude and difficulty, isolation and silence in order to reach forth to the enchanted place where we can dance our clumsy dance and sing our sorrowful song." "No hay soledad inexpugnable. Todos los caminos llevan al mismo punto: a la comunicación de lo que somos. Y es preciso atravesar la soledad y la aspereza, la incomunicación y el silencio para llegar al recinto mágico en que podemos danzar torpemente o cantar con melancolía." Neruda Nobel Lecture 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5227 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 165 of 236 06 March 2014 at 12:46pm | IP Logged | |||||
I meant "Flores" is feminine, but... Do we? It depends on the kind of learner I guess. I am a terribly nitpicky person, so I pay a lot of attention to typographical conventions and such, and how they differ from language to language, etc. Last time that I had a couple of C1 students, though, I confirmed that even at a relatively proficient level most people are oblivious to this kind of stuff. This surprised me because I would have thought people studying a foreign language at a high level would actually read books every now and then, and maybe even retain something.
I mostly agree with you on this, but don't even the most artificial materials contain in themselves the bits and pieces you need to go and make your own stuff up? I would even say especially artificial or otherwise boring materials are especially motivating --when one has to go through them-- to make me switch off and come up with something that I would actually say/reply/etc. Overly interesting stuff has the occasional ability to make me ditch all the 'I'm learning the language' and go find a translation/translator to understand it NOW. I guess I get my priorities mixed sometimes too ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| BAnna Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4623 days ago 409 posts - 616 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Turkish | Message 166 of 236 07 March 2014 at 5:24am | IP Logged | |||||
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Gracias, padrino. ¿Qué haría sin tu ayuda? Las tonterías que cometo me sorprenden y me avergüenzan. Admito
que no es tan fácil como quisiera, olvidar mi ego y aprender a aceptar las vaivenes que son parte del proceso del desarrollo. I did say I have a tendency to make a fool of myself, no? And am inconsistent, full of contradictions, annoying habits, etc. Such a thoughtless mistake, compounded by another one, but I hope if nothing else it will make me more compassionate toward the person I'm tutoring who keeps saying "letusi" for "lettuce". Sometimes the wrong thing gets anchored firmly in one's brain and is resistant to removal. Although self-study has much to recommend it, one of its inherent weakness is the blindness we have to our own performance. I'm starting to think more and more that either a class or tutor can be valuable, especially to provide a reality check and directed practice addressing one's weaknesses. Obviously, I simply cannot see my blind spots. A good teacher can facilitate the struggle of maintaining the balance between tasks that are “difficult” (push us to stretch) and “easy” (via repetition strengthen associations). That balance really seems to be one of the keys to constant, continual improvement when learning a skill. And for each of us the challenge of finding the balance is different, depending on our individual circumstances, inborn tendencies and day-to-day energy levels. And yes, I do know it can be difficult to find a good teacher/tutor, the right class, etc. I do Skype with native speakers of German, but both in the conversation are very tolerant of the other's mistakes, and of course my husband understands and forgives my mistakes in Spanish, like a three-year old child's mother understands every word he says while to the rest of the world it sounds like gibberish. Hmm, something to think about while I'm on vacation. Below is the German challenge for this month. DE: Ich möchte euch eine Freundin vorstellen. Sie heißt Eve, ist verheiratet und hat zwei Töchter, die dreizehn und sechzehn Jahre alt sind. Eve arbeitet Teilzeit in einem Büro in der Stadt aber wohnt in einem Vorort von München. Ihr Mann und sie kommen ursprünglich aus einem kleinen Dorf in Bayern. Sie wohnen seit vielen Jahren in der Nähe von München. Im Winter jedes Jahr fährt die Familie zu Skifahren in den Alpen und im Sommer nach Italien oder der Türkei um die Sonne und den Strand zu genießen. Sie spielt Klarinette und früher hat sie an einer Musikgruppe teilgenommen. Ich habe sie durch skype kennengelernt und wir sprechen miteinander jeden Sonntag. Letztes Jahr, musste ich eine Dienstreise nach München machen, und sie hat mich zu ihr eingeladen. Ich habe eine Nacht bei ihr und ihrer Familie übernachtet, was eine sehr schöne Erfahrung für uns beide war. Sie liest gern Krimis auf Englisch und wir verbessern unsere Sprachkenntnisse zusammen. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| BAnna Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4623 days ago 409 posts - 616 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Turkish | Message 167 of 236 09 March 2014 at 1:43am | IP Logged | |||||
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About to go dark for a while as I get ready for vacation. I have no idea how much if any German or Russian I'll do
in the next couple of weeks, but Spanish will be no problem...I didn't end up doing much of anything with Catalan, but at least I know how to pronounce passeig. We went to the do-it-yourself store today and I was tickled to see this sign at the door, though there's no German --what's up with that? ;) 
RU: Did my usual study routine with Russian: another unit of Russian for Everyone, more Pimsleur and Russian World (the second conjugation and nationalities/languages). I probably won't forget everything while I'm on vacation, but I've accepted that I'll probably have to go back and cover the same material again. I learned an alphabet song that's an earworm, so that will probably be the extent of my "studying". ES: I finished a young adult novel from Spain, "Noche de alacranes", which won a prize for young adult literature in 2005, but wasn't all that great. I thought (foolishly) it would be a piece of cake to read. Wouldn't you know it, there was lots of unfamiliar vocabulary, and an indecent amount of it seemed to be related to plants...just like the German book I read a while back. Ack! The plant world once again is out to get me... ;) For example: arce (maple), abedul, (birch) and ortiga (stinging nettle) . Guess what the Latin names are? Acer, betula and urtica. I really should have paid more attention in botany class... The book was not very believable. It's about a woman recalling her first love and experiences as a teenager in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. DE: No formal study, instead I spent time reading articles about the Ukraine, listening to an audiobook and skyping. I have put aside the young adult novel until I get back, unless I break down and bring it on the plane. I have mixed feelings about both mysteries and young adult books. They are good language practice since the writing is usually not overly complex, but that's also what can be not so good, in that the plot and characterization may not be very compelling. Or maybe it's just my overall distracted frame of mind? The mystery I listened to was "Reiches Erbe", a translation of "Drawing Conclusions", by Donna Leon. I while ago I had watched some of the German TV series featuring Inspector Brunetti, so I was familiar with the characters, but I found the book rather disappointing. Working with a translation or dub is probably most useful when doing side- by-side intensive reading/listening to pick up nuances and idiomatic expressions. For extensive reading, watching or listening, it may not make as much sense, unless one lives in the country and are doing it as a shared activity with native speakers. I don't know, have to think about this some more. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| BAnna Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4623 days ago 409 posts - 616 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Turkish | Message 168 of 236 30 March 2014 at 3:34am | IP Logged | |||||
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March 29
I've just finished catching up on reading everyone's logs. At the moment, Team Lobo (Spanish) seems to be much more active that Spaß (German). Trip update: We spent a little over 2 weeks in Spain: Madrid, Albacete to visit relatives, Valencia for Las Fallas, Barcelona and Sevilla. It was interesting adjusting to peninsular Spanish. My husband (native Latin-American Spanish speaker) resorted to English a few times since he at times had some trouble understanding what some people were saying. I mostly had an easier time, which is strange considering English is my mother tongue, but maybe the mental adjustment is easier if you expect things to be more difficult or maybe it was the red wine that helped :). Sometimes I found myself explaining to him what someone had just said. It was very weird for me to "translate" Spanish into a very slightly different Spanish. We attended a concert in Barcelona and we were sitting having coffee and sharing a table with a couple of women beforehand who were having a conversation. My husband had a very puzzled look on his face and whispered to me "Are they speaking Spanish?" I shook my head no, though it seemed to be a combination of Castilian (to the waiter and to us) and Catalan (to each other). The concert program was in Catalan only. On two separate occasions people thought we were Italians speaking in Spanish. A funny thing happened in the Metro as we were buying tickets: A young man asked us, "English?" and I thought he was asking if we needed help to understand how to buy the tickets, so I answered "No". Only a few moments later did I realize that he was the one who needed help and was looking for an English speaker...duh. Another time I was more aware and was able to translate between Spanish and German for some fellow tourists ahead of us in line, since the Spanish speaker had a very strong accent in English that was difficult to understand. We were in Madrid just around the time of massive demonstrations (Dignity marches against the austerity cuts) and the funeral of Adolfo Suárez, who was key in Spain's transition to democracy after Franco. We didn't spend much time watching TV, mostly just news. While we appreciated the news coverage, the content on the non-news channels looked terrible (soap operas, game shows, very strange reality shows, and dubbed American/British junk). I didn't find anything on TV interesting enough to recommend to anyone, I'm afraid. Las Fallas is a celebration devoted to St Joseph. The culmination is during the week leading up to St Joseph's Day. During it there are round the clock parties, and lots of noise (fireworks, firecrackers, music, etc.), processions of people in traditional costumes that last hours, and firecracker filled monuments that take months to build and get completely burned up on the final night. Here's an article in English: Fallas Many of the monuments (called ninots) had ironic or satirical references to Spanish politics, which we were not knowledgeable enough about to really appreciate (compounded by the fact that the humorous verses were in Valenciano). As far as I can tell, Valencian is a dialect of Catalan, not a separate language, but apparently there is controversy about how different Valenciano and Catalan actually are (and a different political outlook in the different areas about independence/belonging to Spain) See Wikipedia article on the language controversy: Valencian language A non-political example of a humorous ninot was the one where Cristiano Ronaldo (soccer/football player on Real Madrid) is sitting on a throne being worshipped by the press. Speaking of soccer, my husband watched El Clàsico, the big game between Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, in a Chinese restaurant, while I stayed in due to an allergy attack (nothing serious, but I needed the rest). A lot of the plants I'm allergic to in California come from the Mediterranean originally, something I really should have anticipated, but of course did not. On the bright side, I had a long conversation with a friendly fellow in a pharmacy (and got the right medication I needed to get some relief). As you can imagine with all the sight-seeing, I didn't do much studying, but did manage in the two weeks to do just 2 hours of Russian study, read a novel in German, and use lots of Spanish (read one book plus a hundred pages of another one, read El Pais daily at breakfast, listened to audioguides, and carried out almost all daily interactions exclusively in Spanish). I brought back a newspaper in Catalan to puzzle through for fun...someday. We went to a bookstore in Barcelona and a very nice woman there told us about the suppression of the Catalan language during the dictatorship and gave us some recommendations for fiction writers to check out. I managed to be very disciplined and only buy a couple of books (well, ok, four...but it could have been much worse). Some of the author recommendations: Rafael Chirbes, Jaume Cabré, Quim Monzó, Javier Marías. There were a couple more I scribbled down but unfortunately I can't make sense of my scrawl. I'll do a summary of the month's study in a day or so. For now, I need to do some laundry and resist taking a nap, since it's back to work for me on Monday. Edit: my husband's difficulties in understanding were due to a previously undiagnosed hearing loss. It's difficult to understand if you can't hear what someone is saying. I knew my Spanish couldn't be that good. LOL Edited by BAnna on 11 May 2014 at 7:33pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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