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Expug’s All at On(c)e Log - TAC14

 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
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Expugnator
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Brazil
Joined 5167 days ago

3335 posts - 4349 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento
Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian

 
 Message 329 of 415
01 October 2014 at 10:25pm | IP Logged 
Haven't written for a few days, it's been hard to keep up with everything, changes in my resources, work, family and even keep watching series. I have some things to comment on. I hope I didn't forget the essential, so I will try to comment per resource.

- Almost 'done' with Memrise HSK 4. I will plant the last level today and move on to HSK 5. I will review the characters in the next level so why keep watering? Besides, I will try to ignore everything at the web before loading the course at the app, in order to avoid sync conflicts.
- I was about to finish Tutu's series and realized it got updated to 60 episodes. Now I'm halfway through it. Still just a pale vision of the fun it used to be in the past seasons.
- Happy Journey Across China is a very good resource indeed. Sometimes I get more from it than from, say, Chinesepod's text, sometimes it's the opposite, but both complement each other. They're both beyond my level, that is to say, I don't know enough to be able to process the whole of Chinese (audio and script) while checking at the English subtitles.
- I dropped Anki, probably for good. No patience for my remaining decks with over 20k items that weren't likely to become finished soon. It may have caused a loss to my progress in German, less so for Chinese since I'm seeing sentences elsewhere, but I don't regret it.
- Tuldava's Estonian lessons are pretty much fine. I'm not retaining much of the vocabulary now but I'm starting to have some reading skills I wouldn't expect at my fifth month. As I'm paying more attention to each textbook now, I believe I won't need to work on two textbooks at a time when book2 is over. I will just wait till Tuldava's textbook is over and replace it with another one and, if things go well, proceed to multimedia courses and native materials. Btw, panglosskool.eu is more often down than working, which is a pity, as it is a rich resource.
- I still have mixed feelings regarding Perfectionnement Russe. I thought at first it wasn't that advanced and that I'm better off with more input, but it's what I need now. I'm working on activating skills too, and that's important. Like I might have posted before, I find it better to do with fill-in-the-blanks exercise as such, paying attention to the missing words, instead of treating it as another active version exercise the way I used to do. I tend to analize the sentence more focusedly that way, and there are already the standard exercises right before the former.
- Modern German Grammar leaves no complaints. I am grateful for the day I started it. No complaints. Want to make it my fixed resource for whichever new language I start. Russian, Chinese, Spanish, Italian all have their own editions. The workbook is even better, I get to do a lot of exercises that illustrate the language clearly, all within a short time.
- I'm reading a lot in French, because besides my permanent 20-pages a day in French alone, I'm reading an average of 10 pages from Pride and Prejudice in Chinese/French and over 10 from 20 lieues sous les mers in Georgian/French. I'm currently reading a book on the essenians and the and the vocabulary is pretty rich.
- Norwegian reading has been quite comfortable. My main source of active vocabulary are the exercises from Goethe=Verlag, but my reading of a novel based on the XIX century is going rather smoothly considering it's an extensive reading. I'm pretty much confident I can get an even higher level of comprehension in other genres of text.
- I'm also paying more attention to the films I'm watching in Norwegian (currently Sofies Verden), and I'm starting to get used to the sounds and common expressions of the language, even when people are talking fast, mumbling, chopping of words. It helps that I'm watching Side om Side every now and then, when the language is up-to-date and has Norwegian subtitles. When possible, I watch Side om Side intensively, pausing and looking up words, because the ones I'm missing are usually important colloquial ones. Nonetheless, I'm following Side om Side with Norwegian subtitles-only and enjoying the story, having fun, laughing at most of the jokes. That means my Norwegian isn't exactly that of a beginner and my effort wasn't in vain. I form a lot of sentences in Norwegian mentally, either imagining a conversation or translating lyrics.
- French listening is skyrocketing. When I'm focused, I can get most of the jokes in La Vérité si je mens. Sometimes I admit the sequences aren't that interesting and I wander a bit. Still, I'm happy about my current level. I do have to improve my active skills when it comes to following le bon usage, and for this I want to start a Grammaire Progressive (only got the Avancé, not the Perfectionnement) when I'm done with Modern German Grammar Workbook. Did I say that will be my 'slot' for using strictly haut de gamme textbooks to improve languages I was no longer using textbooks for? After this comes one for Norwegian then Georgian then maybe even Papiamento. I no longer want to waste good resources by just skimming through them. I will try to pay attention to what I read and imagine myself saying what I read in a proper context, so I don't finish textbooks with only a vague idea on grammar usage and nvery little vocabulary retained.
- Chinese reading is not bad when it comes to the novel I'm reading, Pride and Prejudice as said above. I don't always read it 'that' extensively, but my progress is noticeable. Sometimes I feel I could read the Chinese only and still follow the story, as I come through so many paragraphs with next to zero unknown characters. I've also started using Open for Business and I totally recommend it. The vocabulary you need for understanding contemporary China. There are texts with translations and then usage on adverbial and prepositional phrases with tenths of sentences that also get read on the audio. Again, I'm not doing it that 'intensively' like pausing till I 'grasped' everything, but what I'm doing has proven quite useful.
- Georgian reading: what I'm going to say also applies to Russian. I'm reading a book that is both interesting and easy (Saramago's As intermitências da morte was interesting but hard to follow with post-modern punctuation and blocked pages). I've come to a conclusion that I will read it almost intensively. Unfortunately I got an abridged version for the Georgian text while the French one is full, but that is manageable. I read 2 pages the first day, 3 today and will only increase if I feel comfortable doing so. I already start to find it easier, though. I select a large excerpt from the Georgian text, paste it at GT and try to read it intensively. There are typos that make my task harder, but I think I get more than just the gist. Then I read the corresponding original French, which is at least 3 times longer, since the Georgian one has 190 pages x 750 in French, and, even considering the Georgian pages are more crammed and with smaller fonts, that still accounts for large portions of initial paragraphs in each chapter that were simply cut away from the Georgian text. I checked. Anyway, I believe this method of pasting at GT and reading intensively is working for Estonian and will also do for Georgian. When a translation doesn't match or a word seems like an intruder, I isolate it and get its literal meaning, similar to the way Iversen would develop a hyperliteral translation. More often than not, I end up correcting the Google translation, both for Estonian and for Georgian. After that, I read the French original and get the same info but in a more colorful, vivid allure. Oh, and this book by Jules Verne has loads of dialogues! Search completed, somehow.
- Georgian video. I need to stay focused because I'm getting more and more from the jokes, even if I just understand words I was fairly familiar with. It's like with Assimil Russe Perfectionnement, I'm strenghtening the words I know, but now through listening. And I can also get some jokes when they consist of short dialogues with short sentences. Like, today I understood when a character told the other he had bought a Peugeot.
- German video. I'm also paying close attention to the audio, since I can quickly read the English subtitle and keep going. Actually, I decided to open the German subtitle in a Notepad window after a few days - the merger had failed because the German subs were out of sync. So, I listen to the audio, check the subtitle AFTERWARDS and then the English one if I still hasn't understood the meaning - which happens less and less frequently as it was the case with Norwegian. As a matter of fact, most of the times I will have read the English subtitle all in a glance before I've heard the German audio, can't help it, but the most important thing is that I'm doing an intensive L-R exercise with the German audio.
- German reading - ups and downs. I still don't feel confident to read extensively without a translation and German's different word order plays a role on that. So, my comprehension of sentences isn't optimal, but at least I'm getting most words well. I'm focusing on contrasting abstract words that had their meanings changed by a preffix. It helps that I get many of these words reinforced through my works on the Modern German Grammar Workbook.
- Chinese series - I started to enjoy 'I'm in Charge', funny that the hero in 'Dont' Stop Believing' plays an anti-hero. Still watching 'Behind the Kitchen' too. I get an increasing comprehension level when I stay focused but that's not what I do most of the time, sorry.
- Russian audio - I still find Bednaya Nastya boring, I wander in several parts like when you are watching boring TV but I still try to associate audio and meaning by paying attention to the Russian as I read the English subtitles, like I'm doing with Norwegian and German. It works because Russian has those vowel reductions anad palatalizations but still allows you to learn new words that way, which would be less practical in, say, Chinese.
- Russian reading. I've started Divergent, it's both easy and interesting, so I'm lucky about Russian and Georgian now. I'm also letting go about a minimal daily page reading. I'm reading intensively as far as I can go while keeping focused. I'm avoiding reading long excerpts from TL extensively and only then resorting to translation, as it doesn't help me learn much. And I'm seeing progress! So, my main points of trouble are being attacked: Russian reading, Georgian reading, Norwegian listening, German conversation.
2 persons have voted this message useful



fabriciocarraro
Hexaglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
Brazil
russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4716 days ago

989 posts - 1454 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French
Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese

 
 Message 330 of 415
02 October 2014 at 11:36pm | IP Logged 
Expugnator wrote:

- Russian reading. I've started Divergent, it's both easy and interesting


Just how easy? I'm in need of a nice Russian book, but all my previous attempts failed miserably =P
1 person has voted this message useful



Expugnator
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Brazil
Joined 5167 days ago

3335 posts - 4349 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento
Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian

 
 Message 331 of 415
03 October 2014 at 10:19pm | IP Logged 
fabriciocarraro wrote:
Expugnator wrote:

- Russian reading. I've started Divergent, it's both easy and interesting


Just how easy? I'm in need of a nice Russian book, but all my previous attempts failed miserably =P


Really easy. You already speak Russian so it will be like a walk in the park. Anyway, the problem is that what I got is a fan translation. Even so, I'm really enjoying it, already caught up by the story.
1 person has voted this message useful



Murdoc
Triglot
Senior Member
Georgia
Joined 5255 days ago

113 posts - 208 votes 
Speaks: Georgian*, English, Russian

 
 Message 332 of 415
07 October 2014 at 12:15am | IP Logged 
გამარჯობა, როგორ ხარ?

ვიფიქრე დაგაინტერესებდა, მახსოვს ქართულ ვიდეოებს ეძებდი სუბტიტრებით:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeQuhkpse_8
2 persons have voted this message useful



Expugnator
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Brazil
Joined 5167 days ago

3335 posts - 4349 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento
Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian

 
 Message 333 of 415
07 October 2014 at 1:32am | IP Logged 
კი, მაინტერესებს! მალე ვაპირებ ვუყურო. მადლობა რჩევისთვის.

ახლა ცოტა ქართული ვიცი, მაგრამ არა ბევრი. ჯერ ვსწავლობ და მაინტერესებს.
შენ როგორ ხარ?
1 person has voted this message useful



Murdoc
Triglot
Senior Member
Georgia
Joined 5255 days ago

113 posts - 208 votes 
Speaks: Georgian*, English, Russian

 
 Message 334 of 415
08 October 2014 at 9:32pm | IP Logged 
გმადლობ, კარგად.
მიხარია რომ აგრძელებ ქართულის სწავლას. რამე დახმარება თუ დაგჭირდა, მომწერე აუცილებლად.
1 person has voted this message useful



Expugnator
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Brazil
Joined 5167 days ago

3335 posts - 4349 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento
Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian

 
 Message 335 of 415
08 October 2014 at 10:01pm | IP Logged 
Not much new to report. Chinese is the one lagging behind now. I'm enjoying Open for Business, only that the pages with sample sentences are too long, over 10 pages and 10 minutes of audio after the main texts, I get lost and don't retain much.

At Unilang someone posted this link to a list of Georgian verbs conjugated!! Oddly enough, the author 'concluded' the third screeve wasn't that important in spoken language, which is absolutely untrue, since everytime you negate a fact in the past you use the third (perfect) screeve. As a result, only the verb to be has all screeves, but at least for the rest it seems a fairly comprehensive chart:

Georgian verbs

I'm riping good results from my bilingual readings in Georgian and Russian since I started doing it more intensively. The good stories help: Divergent for Russian and Jules Verne's 20000 leagues...for Georgian.
1 person has voted this message useful



Expugnator
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Brazil
Joined 5167 days ago

3335 posts - 4349 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento
Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian

 
 Message 336 of 415
08 October 2014 at 10:47pm | IP Logged 
მადლობა, Murdoc! ასე გავაკეთებ.


1 person has voted this message useful



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