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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 |  | |
| YnEoS Senior Member United States Joined 4252 days ago 472 posts - 893 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian, Cantonese, Japanese, French, Hungarian, Czech, Swedish, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish | Message 161 of 415 20 March 2014 at 10:23pm | IP Logged |
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Heh, I read all your blog entries regardless, but thanks for calling that to my attention :)
At the moment I'm thinking that the finer understanding of declensions doesn't impede my passive understanding so much as my lack of vocabulary. So I'm thinking of focusing more on building up my passive vocabulary and not worry too much about grammar but just try to assimilate whatever I can. Then once Duolingo releases their Russian course, I'm hoping that I can use that to test how much grammar I actually know, and beat into my head the rest of it. 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 162 of 415 21 March 2014 at 8:58pm | IP Logged |
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You're welcome, YnEoS . I do think you might need some grammar training if you ever plan on activating your skills. Who am
I to say, anyway? i've been through all 3 Assimils but really retained very little. I'm learning Russian through onion layers, it's just that they are so thin that I don't manage to peel that much vocabulary for each book I use. This was a productive morning: my German sessions got resumed. We talked for an hour and my partner also spoke more Portuguese this time. Explaining Portuguese through German and not having to resort to English or even to a dictionary has been quite thrilling and exciting. My pronunciation might be suffering a bit, but my German starts to flow. And so does her Portuguese, though it is still behind my German, I think. My dreadful Georgian resources are closer to an end, though it will still take two weeks. That means April may be not feasible for Estonian. At Georgian: A Structural Grammar, I just finished Morphology and that's a relief. Syntax is gonna be much more fun. About 80 pages left that might take me two weeks. Georgian was chosen for opening this article on 4 Foreign Challenging Foreign Languages . Not much is said on the language itself, and there are many other resources than those mentioned, but it was good to see Georgian on spot. Today I watched the TED Talk from Shaolan Hsueh, who developed Chinese. A talk in English about learning Chinese with subtitles in Georgian and Portuguese. Can't find more synergy than that. Personally I don't use Chineasy, though I'd give it a try if I were a complete beginner at the language. Everyday Chinese: 60 Fables and Anedoctes is over and I miss it already. The stories are loght, humorous but also gave me an insight into the Classical Chinese literature and how much I might be able to learn from it one day. Don't get me wrong: these are modern adaptions, but the context is kept. Language learning is a means for culture and I am glad I can have this preview. The book has simplified text, pinyin, translation and a glossary. The stories are short, so they can be dealt with by those who went through Assimil and other similar textbooks. Some translations do get a bit too departed, there are some 4-hanzi idioms, but one can always look words up separatedly and try to make an even more complete sense of the structure of the language. Only the notes that show up after some 6 or 7 lessons are a bit off, anacronic, don't help that much, but one can just skip them. I'm really much more in the mood for reading short stories than dealing with textbooks. Well, on Monday I will try my Chinese Breeze book. I will follow Lorinth's advice and go for my first Chinese book! I really hope I will just miss a few words per pages and those will be easy to look up. I can take only a couple of pages a day if that's too much for me. The book is short, so no need to rush. No Duolingo German next week. I have two lessons from the final chapter and I might finish them anytime. Just not in a hurry. Today I got closer to the borderline of burnout when I was reading in French, but as I finished the French and the Norwegian readings and the activities got shorter and more balanced, I could recover and sharpen my attention. I even managed to finish earlier than expected. By the way, both the Chinese and the Norwegian books are close to an end. I expect to renew a large part of my current set of activities by early April, and that's good, because some of those materials were getting a bit boring. 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 163 of 415 24 March 2014 at 10:24pm | IP Logged |
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First, the weekend. I had so much free time that at one point I got burnout. I kept
reading excerpts from both Georgian books I need to finish. Therefore, I advanced quite bit on them: one is due this week, the other early next week. Unfortunately, there are still at least three other resources I need to work on for my Georgian before dedicating exclusively to native materials, which means Estonian will have to wait. Anyway, reading on Georgian grammar or an old-fashioned reader takes up a lot of mental energy for a Saturday of Sunday afternoon. I tried to overcome this by alternating those 'sessions' with playing games at the device - currently Fruit Smasher - and reading non-language related books in my native language. That way I also managed to make some progress in my non-language books, which were a bit too neglected. I also managed to read at a Georgian reader what takes me about 1 week to read, as normally I don't read more than 2 pages a day. Keeping up with Anki was easy. Duolingo German is over now. Memrise is still time-consuming, but at least during the weekend I can water the chapters part by part, I don't have either the early morning or the evening to do that. This morning I could watch the Papiamento video as well as Tutu, while doing part of the Memrise. I got only 4 hours of sleep last night due to an insomnia, but then I went to the gym likewise, exercised and ran a bit on the treadmill. I had a lecture on intelectual property rights in the afternoon, so I had to reschedule my studies, leaving the reading-only activities for the breaks (or not) during the lecture. I really enjoyed the lecture, payed attention to it but could also successfully accomplish my Georgian task of the day (Reader and Structural Grammar) as well as the French and Norwegian reading. I read the Norwegian one intensively and I'm happy with the results so far. I bet I really make it for a B1 passive. I was afraid sleep deprivation would get down on me, but I could overcome this. One more evidence that I was right in getting up and keeping working on everything as planned instead of complaining to myself that I was short of sleep and would never manage to do things right. Back into the studies, as there are new developments today. I started Chinese Breeze, and now I realize it isn't as dark as it seems. It is level 1 but it is also my first Chinese book ever! =D At the introduction it is said that those books assume the reader will meet 1-2% of unknown characters, and that is what I've missed indeed. So, my previous work hasn't been so erratic, that is, not so much from the HSK requirements. I actually knew some words in the glossary. I read just one page but will increase speed if it gets too easy. I missed 1 or 2 characters that weren't in the glossary, though, and I had to look them up by drawing them at GT, because, even though I could get the sound, GT's pinyin input wasn't working properly (which actually happens more often than not). Assimil La Pratique de l'Allemand is over! While years ago I thought I'd never reach a level that would make me use this book comfortably, now I can say it wasn't a breeze but it wasn't an overload either. The amount of new words was acceptable. It allowed me to follow the text and still focus on learning those new words. It doesn't have the note-craziness of the old Russian and German without toil, which was actually what slowed me down the most in those books. 'La pratique de l'allemand' does sound to its age, middle of the XX century, and some conversations are visibly old in their German form, and strikingly more so in the French form, as I know more French and can detect it better. Still, it's nothing compared to the good quality of pre-intermediate language stuff. I'm ready for Perfectionnement Allemand and I'm putting high expectations on this stage because this book and the work with Duolingo allowed me to feel so. What caused me the most discomfort was actually the typewritten font, which is typical of this 'without toil' time, but now we're speaking of longer texts and it also seems font size is small. The French translation is in italic and almost unreadable, and I'd often interpret a German word wrongly until I listened to it, as several letters would look similar. This isn't something to be fixed though, as the book already has another edition which I will start working on as of tomorrow, Perfectionnement Allemand, like I mentioned. Perfectionnement Allemand has 56 lessons, 9 more than La Pratique de l'Allemand. I don't want to spend nearly one month on it, which is what would take if I studied mon- fri 3 lessons a day as I did with La pratique. So, I will take a look at the lessons tomorrow and see if I can do more. As an example, today I did 5 lessons in a row in order to finish La pratique one day ahead than planned. It helped that there were no reviewing lessons and they were all part of a story - nice one, btw, but I'm considering I'm starting Perfectionnement at a better level ansd the book might also have a better quality. 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 164 of 415 25 March 2014 at 9:07pm | IP Logged |
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Today I was surprised that I could finish all my tasks at 3 pm. This might have to do with the fact I didn't have to interrupt my French and Norwegian readings that much, neither the Georgian grammar and reader I'm about to finish.
This morning I could watch Tutu again; no technical problem for the moment, except that I have to wait 75 minutes of an ad I don't know how to skip yet (or if it is possible to). Unfortunately I had to share this time with doing Memrise, which took long again. I may finish HSK2 in about 10 days. Then I hope HSK3 introduces new characters, because I'm really intending on skipping the ones that are being repeated since HSK1. I'm spending a lot of time mechanically tapping on characters I've already known instead of learning new ones in new contexts. Well, at least these ones are consolidated. I went for my 2nd day of 'I really want to find her' and it really was a breeze. Unfortunately Google Translate stopped working at all when I was still at the Norwegian audiobook, so I did a much worse job at understanding the dialogue at Travel in Chinese and learning the sounds. At one point, though, I realized that I could just paste the text at the GT window and use Pera Pera instead, but it was too late for Travel in Chinese, anyway. Will do it whenever I have trouble. Part of the routine of a multiple language-learner is overcoming those technical tidbits that come and go. Sometimes I manage to find permanent alternatives, like today, so even those small quirks may come in handy. For example, I realized it's better to keep an ongoing video, like the TV series or film, being played at the player not directly associated with video and audio, for that way I don't risk accidentally opening an audio file from a textbook while the video is still there, paused, waiting for a repetitive work session. Je crains que pas tout le monde ne comprendra ce que je vais écrire désormais, mais j'ai fort envie d'écrire un peu dans mes langues d'apprentissage. D'abord je voudrais écrire sur le livre 'How to Pronounce Russian Correctly'. Cette oeuvre m'a beaucoup aidé avec les problèmes éternels de la phonologie russe. Jusqu'ici j'ai toujours eu du mal à prononcer les consonnes molles du russe et je ne le faisait qu'en mettant une semi-voyelle qui n'existait pas. En lisant ce livre j'ai enfin compri qu'il fallait amollir les consonnes avant d'émettre le son de la voyelle, et pas l'inverse. Au sujet de la lettre 'l' dure, j'ai décidé que le plus important est de ramener la langue un peu plus vers l'arrière, pour ne pas risquer de produire un 'l' mou. Ich habe ein neues estniche Lehrbuch gefunden. Das heisst "Lehrbuch Estnich", von Cornelius Haselblatt. Leider gibt es kein Audio, und es scheint so, als dieses Buch nich so praktisch für echte Anfänger ist. Ich soll es nach den anderen benutzen. I refrained from watching about Perfectionnement Allemand in German because I'd disprove my point. I've worked on 3 lessons today, and I regret not doing another one. The texts were actually easier to follow, thanks to more up-to-date language. Unfortunately, the notes became too long again. Part of the notes sounds like reviewing, which makes them even more boring. So, it's actually the notes that prevent me from progressing faster. I always read them in advance because I don't want to make interruptions, and when we have an average of 12 notes which are 5-lines long we get really a large amount of notes in 4 lessons. I'll keep trying, though. Maybe in more inspired days I can make 4,5 lessons in a row. I really don't want to spend more than 3 weeks on that book, because it starts to get too similar to actually enjoying the language in itself instead of trying to figure out how it works. Now comes the last issue to adress: finding time for brushing up active skills. Some activities: a) Voice chat in the morning, either Skype or Sharedtalk - I had a German conversation on Friday but I couldn't join ST on Monday or today. I found time only for Tutu and Memrise. b) Text chat at Sharedtalk - I can do it all day long, but I'm not having much luck finding speakers from Western Europe. Tried contacting people from Norway, no success. Most of the users are from Asia or Eastern Europe or Latin America. There are Georgians once in a while, but I need less practice in Georgian than in the other languages now. I want to work more on Russian before trying, because I can't seem to write a sentence and get any cases right, and that would slow down the conversation. Anyway, it's something I can keep trying to do once I'm done with my tasks. So, days like today, when I finished them rather early, are fine for this. c) Writing entries at my log - just tried it today. I was unlucky that I had to express in German some subordinate structures more related to nominal attributes, anbd those I'm not used to yet. Need to write in Norwegian, too. d) Lyrics adapting - trying to transfer my Brazilian thoughts into both Norwegian and German, as a way to keep those languages apart in my mind. Also need to find time to work on them. e) Adding texts to Lingocracy - I can do this for both Georgian and Papiamento - for the latter, only private texts, as I haven't found authorized stuff yet (don't know how author rights would work for online newspapers, though). f) Writing at lang-8 - I'm really out of inspiration for dialogues, but I can try just copying the excerpts from here and adding them there. That is to say, unless they are too specific to this context. I'll try to do one of these tasks whenever possible. Those active tasks, although not that time-consuming, can be indeed tiresome. I've had a few chats in Georgian and in German and in such days I was more tired than usual. I don't really want to neglect active skills, though, and I'm aware it gets easier with time. 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 165 of 415 26 March 2014 at 11:05pm | IP Logged |
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Well, I'm afraid I have a lot to report now, so better to start at once.
This morning I was busy and couldn't make myself available for sharedtalk's chat either. At least I could watch Tutu, watch a Papiamento video and do Memrise. Unfortunately, I keep running out of time and thus have to conflict Tutu and Memrise, by doing reps while Tutu is being played. Just reminded me that I skipped Tuttle and will start working on it now. I couldn't book another German session either. And I have yet to find people willing to practice Norwegian. I just joined sharedtalk chat and noticed there are Scandinavians this time. Not much luck at italki. So, I should keep trying. Chinese Chinesepod lessons become longer and also more interesting. Only the grammar 'points' seem a bit too repetitive. I do learn a lot of vocabulary from it and from the SRS sources. Chinese Breeze is too easy. I get it now. Will keep working on this one, though. I need this feeling of accomplishing a book in Chinese. I don't have a 500-word or 1000-word reader to replace it. Travel in Chinese is okayish. A better day from a technical point of view. I still have trouble with longer sentences, but I think I'm actually learning from the dialogues, even though I don't study them all that intensively. The cultural notes are a joy and make me more interested each day. Russian So I got to the Upper-Beginner level at Russianpod! That means I have to get used to the new format, but that also means the dialogues start to get longer. I'm still at the point at which I try to consolidate vocabulary in spite of seeing the samr basic verbal forms with lots of different prefixes and not quite tracking the aspect thing on spot (that is, I don't see a verb in the perfective and think to myself 'this is the same verb I already know as ???at', only now with the prefix po????at'), and I might only see it happen when I work actively on it. I noticed how good the book exclusively on pronunciation has been for clearing this issue and I may need something that goes step by step for cases. I can't make a Russian sentence of my own because of the cases I wouldn't know. Georgian Tomorrow I may finished 'A Georgian Reader'. Next one will be 'Culture Talk: Georgian". I just checked and there are 86 videos with transcript and translation. That's enough to keep me busy for another 4 months! Oh my I wonder if the Estonian day will ever come. Fortunately I have two 'slots' for Georgian. So, next week when I'd done with Georgian Structural Grammar I will start 'Kurze Grammatik der Georgischen Sprache, then Georgian Syntax then maybe Die Georgische Sprache and so I will try my best not to add any grammar or textbooks. I will then have to work on my shortcomings by trying to write and get corrected. At most, I may agree with reviewing Aronson's book, but only the grammar excerpts and perhaps some exercises. All's well with TED talks and Paulo Coelho's book. I didn't study them that intensively today. It was a busier day and the TED talk was also longer (and so will be tomorrow's), which make sit counterproductive to pause it all the time to compare translations, but I believe something is sinking in and I hope in a few months my comprehension will allow me to dare start reading a few lines extensively. Btw, I read something surprising (to me) at Hewitt's A Georgian Reader: the Ossets have close relationship with the Georgians, to the extent of Georgian being spoke there among the nobility, being a lithurgical language - after all, it was the Georgians that introduced Christianity to the Ossets, kings being friends and even ossetian being written with the Georgian alphabet at a first moment. German I'm working less on German now that Duolingo is over. As for Pefecionnement Allemand, I've found a compromise: I will do 3 lessons when there's no review lesson; the next day, I will do 3 lessons again and the 7th will be a review lesson, so I will do it at the same day. This way I can finish the book at 16 workdays. I wish I could do more, but now I've come to reality: one of these lessons have 23 long notes! These notes really represent a waste of time when they take you away so much and so often from the lesson flow. After all, it's the main text that you should work on, that you should try to assimilate. If you have to deal with so many lessons with exceptions, vocabulary extensions and 'advanced' insights at the same time, you completely miss the point of the whole Assimil method. Norwegian Not much to report; still lacking opportunities to practice - I chat in Norwegian most often with two Germans. I think I'm having a good understanding of TV series, and I start to believe the book Beatles, which I'm about to finish, is indeed heavy on vocabulary, not to mention the non-standard forms that make it harder to look words up. So, my next book will probably be easier. French I was relieved to have finished Le chant des sorcières: tome III just to realize there's a sequel saga with two tomes! One thousand words more to read about sorcerers, medieval vocabulary and stuff. I just gazed at a couple of Émile Zola's books and they all seem much easier than this contemporary novel with a medieval fancy I'm reading now. Today I also finished the film Caché. I second Cristianoo's opinion: too boring. Hope there's a nice comedy awaiting. Papiamento This has been a week of completions. I've finished my second novel in Papiamento, 'E otro kara di solo', which is actually made by Lucille Berry-Haseth from Marijke Schweitz' book. I really liked this novel aimed mostly at teenagers but not so. I could imagine myself again at Curaçao spots. It brought me also important insights on the life of people from Curaçao across the Atlantic Ocean. Now I'm going to read something from Aruba, and since Arubans don't have that close relationship with the Netherlands, I'm happy I could read a work from Curaçao first. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4845 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 166 of 415 27 March 2014 at 1:18am | IP Logged |
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I've been busy, and I haven't been able to follow your excellent log lately, so I need to catch up. But I'm glad that everything is going well with your study routine.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| renaissancemedi Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Greece Joined 4356 days ago 941 posts - 1309 votes Speaks: Greek*, Ancient Greek*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Russian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew | Message 167 of 415 27 March 2014 at 8:27am | IP Logged |
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It's a good thing you have a lot to report!
Intresting comment on assimil. It made me think a lot about it, and how I may have misunderstood the way it works. As always, interesting log and notes! 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 168 of 415 27 March 2014 at 9:47pm | IP Logged |
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Thank you guys! You'll catch up soon, kuji. Keep working!
Today I finished two books: How to pronounce Russian correctly, which I liked a lot, and A Georgian Reader, which I disliked a lot. I started watching Tais-toi which doesn't have subtitles. When it's not too noisy here, I think I can get even the jokes, although I do miss some full sentences sometimes. I also started a selection of short tales by the Aruban author Quito Nicolaas. Aruba's orthography is too close to Spanish in an uncomfortable way (for a Portuguese speaker), but at least there are fewer Dutch words. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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