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Expug’s All at On(c)e Log - TAC14 | ||
Tags: Papiamento | Estonian | Georgian | Native Materials | Norwegian | Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC) | Mandarin | Russian | German | French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5164 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes  Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 121 of 415 12 February 2014 at 8:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you guys! prz_ , I sent you a pm with the link.
============================================================ == I couldn't finish Memrise in the morning. Maybe I can finish it in the evening, if I'm not that tired. Today is the day in the week I get home the latest. The new Chinesepod lesson is very interesting (Elementary level, which in the case of Chinese and thanks to Chinesepod's extensiveness means there was a lot going on before). This Elementary lesson is not as challenge as I thought, though, which isn't bad. Even the length of the text is similar to past level. I got an email early in the morning about a ebook from José Saramago published in Georgian. It's probably 'As intermitências da morte'. I recharged my lit.ge account and bought it. It is nice to have real literature as an option for my Georgian studies, even though I am likely to start with Paulo Coelho, which is easier. Funny how I will be reading directly Georgian-Portuguese, that is, Georgian/Native language, and not Georgian/2nd language. This is something I couldn't do for Norwegian, for instance (and now I don't need it anymore as I'm reading Norwegian without a full translation). I resisted as much as I could, but renaissancemedi drove me with her log into watching Russian films with subtitles at YT. I'm watching them with English subtitles. I have so much to learn. At least when I start reading or watching with Russian subtitles I'll be already familiarized with the sounds of the language. I know there is a lot of work before that, though. All the rest is ok (Duolingo is still missing as of now but I think I can do it). I'm deciding upon my goals for Super Challenge. I want to have at least 1 normal challenge (whatever is decided upon 'normal'), and if I can accomplish other video-only or reading-only challenges I will still be happy with myself. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5164 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 122 of 415 13 February 2014 at 6:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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Time for a shorter update, as not much happened.
Finished Memrise already in the morning, even if it meant arriving a few minutes later than planned. Something weird happened: I assumed since it is an online app everytime I'd log it be synced, but today I used first the old tablet for watering and it hadn't synced the watering and new chapter I had studied yesterday, so I did a lot of watering in vain. 'Basic Georgian' is over, on time, as planned. I wrote about it at 4 places already, so i'd like to say briefly that it is very well-organized, even though it is not suitable for entire beginners (who had better try Beginner's Georgian first). The vocabulary and idiom choice is wise. The author found a compromise between presenting grammar in a logical way, from simple to complex, and coming up with the most important structures as early as actually necessary. So, while at Aronson's book you get to learn about the passive verbs at an early lesson because they are 2nd conjugation, at Makharoblidze's Basic Georgian you get at least an idea of how to use important indirect verbs such as 'to like' and 'to have' already at the earlier lessons. The explanations are not that straightfoward and totally clear, though. I benefitted from my previous knowledge, so I can say the book came up exactly when I needed it. Just like I could only handle the huge amount of vocabulary per lesson thanks to my previous studies. The book has some typos which I hope get corrected in newer editions. Yet I believe it is the most consistent book both for self-teaching and as a grammar reference. You can easily get access to the main topics as you flip through the book and you don't have to get lost in details about every single grammar topic like in Aronson's or Hewitt's grammar+textbook works. The book misses audio and an answer key, and I hope this also get remedied at further editions. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5164 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 123 of 415 14 February 2014 at 7:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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Today I had my first conversation in German at Skype! I had to wake up before 6am. The italk student wanted to have Portuguese classes, but I don't have much time
since I started working full-time. Besides, she is still a beginner in Portuguese, and I thought one hour of beginner's classes wouldn't be so productive. I said we could just exchange German for Portuguese, and so we did. It went all very smoothly! I was impressed at how I could handle German sentences at German syntax quite fast. We talked about half an hour but I also gave some explanations on Portuguese in German. She complimented me for my pronunciation. I was slow, and I would shamelessly say a missing word in English. Sometimes I would forget well-known words from the tip of the tongue. Yet I was very happy to realize I could indeed speak some German, maybe enough to get by. Not only that: I could also understand her almost always, as we were dealing on familiar topics. Now I'm much more confident about accomplishing my goal of basic fluency for this year. I may even shorten my textbook period: I'm considering doing just the other two intermediate Assimils after this one, then i'd delve into native materials and leave room for Spanish. After all, I'm having a good input on grammar from the Assimils and from Duolingo, just as I've already done prior reading from the books on Georgian. German was a language I always did a lot of listening for, even before I knew listening was so important. This was due to my using Deutsche Welle courses (oh no, now I remembered another set of resources I'd like to use). So, now that I improved my vocabulary somewhow I am having less problem than usual at understanding what I already know. Chinese reading practice - This site I mentioned earlier is not officialy at my routine, but I just can't help it. Mouse-over translations rock! I'd like to know comments on the site http://www.fluentu.com/ . It seems to be a sort of Subs2SRS site, but I didn't get down to signing up. I started reading Georgian A Structural Grammar by George Hewitt. It has over 600 pages. I had set an ambitious goal of 20 pages a day because I don't want to spend half a year on it. Today I read up to page 40, but I benefited from an early start last month and from a couple of pages yesterday. I'll have to skim some familiar topics in the hope I can finish it by the end of March. At today's Assimil - was a bit surprised that Germany is a car-country. I mean, they see a car as a symbol of status as the US or Brazil, but fortunately for them they do have a good public transportation system and people don't have to rely on their cars for commuting. I decided to check the site http://learnrussian.rt.com after so much recommendation. I'd like to use it, reminds me of serbianschool. Unfortunately, can't use it here (blocked audio), which would make it impracticable. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4713 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 124 of 415 14 February 2014 at 8:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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Sounds amazing, man! Congratulations! I really wanted to make some time to study German this year, but work + life + wife + Japanese + the other languages are taking all of my time....hahhaa
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| yuhakko Tetraglot Senior Member FranceRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4630 days ago 414 posts - 582 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishB2, EnglishC2, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Korean, Norwegian, Mandarin | Message 125 of 415 15 February 2014 at 2:29pm | IP Logged | ||
Well I've never gotten down to actually paying for it but before, most of the site was free. It's not now unfortunately, but it's also gotten a lot better. I've been considering getting a month or so for a while and refraining that urge has just been getting harder and harder. The website is well organized and for all levels. When you watch a video, the subs appears under the video (not inside) and if you put the mouse on top of one, the video stop and you have a pop up dictionary as well. You can even look up example from that pop up if you click on the word. You can also download a pdf of the script, the audio only, and if I remember well, a pdf with pinyin and/or translation. Their videos are really good, ranging from everyday topics to business, and going through particular vocab families as well. As I'm going to Shanghai soon, I'm trying to not subscribe to it, but if you want something awesome for your listening skills, I'd say go for it. I believe they even have a "one-month free" trial kind of thing (they used to at least), so you could try it out first before making any harsh choice. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5164 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 126 of 415 15 February 2014 at 11:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you yuhakko! Once again, wise advice. We're coming from similar backgrounds, and
that helps (even though in a few months you'll be near basic fluency!). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| proudft Senior Member United States Joined 5151 days ago 124 posts - 156 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 127 of 415 17 February 2014 at 1:48am | IP Logged | ||
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I was also on fluentu when it was free. It seemed like it would have been useful if I didn't already have so much invested in my 3-year old Chinesepod Anki decks. They had a bunch of tools for making your own word lists from the videos and stuff, it was pretty neat.
Edited by proudft on 17 February 2014 at 1:49am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5164 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 128 of 415 17 February 2014 at 9:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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First, some news about the weekend. Not much language reading, but a lot of non-language reading, and I'm glad
I could resume that. I managed to keep up with the SRS (Anki, flashcards, Memrise) and Duolingo, and I read just enough to finish the 2nd tome of the medieval novel in French. I'm glad its coming to an end, even though the final tome is longer, 530 pages. I also read a couple of pages from Georgian: a structural grammar, and given the slowness of such readings it was quite important to do so. Then I started reading my first page with the Chinese built-in dictionary for ibooks. It was the article about Ant Tribes suggested at Ninibo's log .The first pages were disclaimers and titles, and I haven't got down to actual text yet, therefore it was slower. I do believe it will start working out, though. Sometimes the syntax is unclear, especially when you have to look up all the words and only then try to figure out the meaning of the sentence, but I'm glad with the tool itself and I have reasons to believe that it will start working out. Today I woke up early once again - at 5h40 - for an hour of German conversation before going to the gym. This time I sat at the computer and tried to translate words, but I still think I was slower and missed more words than the first day. Maybe it's natural since I'm abandoning the most common subjects and therefore I'm in need of more specific vocabulary. Just had to share this dialogue from Chinesepod - I think they are learning from Assimil how to make some humor. Aria 很高兴认识你。 田森 我也是！可以给你打电话吗？ Aria 可以。我的电话号码是911。 田森 天哪，真的吗？ Aria 对，我是警察。 TeleCuraçao video resumed playing here. That's good news. The pages I read today at the Papiamentu novel had several words I'd seen before but still haven't retained, so I had to spend a longer time looking them up. That pays off, because they are important words. Two days to finish the nice bilingual EN-KA novel 'Paloma', by Thea Lomadze. The author published a couple more novels, but I don't have access to them. I've started watching 'Les 11 Commandements'. No subtitles this time. I'm following most of the jokes. I'm leaving the Georgian series for the last, taking into account the days are calmer and I don't need much to listen on the background. Yet I'm still listening to it on the background. I start to extract sentences more often, but this is mostly due to studies elsewhere. It's still tiresome to keep focus at something you don't understand for 30 minutes. I'm not an advocate at immersion as a panacea. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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