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Radioclare’s TAC log 2014 (*jäŋe/*ledús) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5237 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 233 of 522 21 July 2014 at 11:20am | IP Logged | ||
I have to disagree! Don't sit there for the SC points, but I think it does help to sit in front of a movie you don't understand. You will pick out some words you know from reading. In fact if you understand less that 10% of the film, just watch it and try to do two things. 1) Pick out words you know from other sources (reading, study, etc) 2) Try to pick out words that are repeated. Have a notebook to hand and write those down. Then try to find them later in dictionary or google translate, etc. Bonus Exercise: Try to figure out which words are the curse words. I think you may have the same problem my neighbour has with French. She will not watch a movie without sub-titles because she insists on knowing everything. She is uncomfortable with just watching it and letting the language flow over her, and giving herself permission to not understand. But her perfectionism is holding her back. You can understand more than you think and if you watch the movie again, because you've seen it once you'll make more connections the next time. I love those "Ahhh! So that is what they were talking about!" moments when I've puzzled out what is going on. Also I've now watched a couple of films with sub-titles in Italian where I've read the sub-titles and thought to myself. "That isn't what he said." so sub-titles are a crutch you don't need. :) 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Radioclare Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom timeofftakeoff.com Joined 4584 days ago 689 posts - 1119 votes Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian | Message 234 of 522 21 July 2014 at 1:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you for the advice, rdearman :) I am trying to maintain a positive attitude towards films but I still don't feel like I'm doing very well, so all advice is appreciated!
You may have a point about perfectionism. I don't expect to understand every word but if I can't get the general gist of a conversational exchange then I start getting frustrated with it. If I feel like I'm missing more than I'm understanding I then start to get bored, my mind drifts, I may flick to another tab on my browser... and that's a really silly thing to do because if I'm not focussing on it then I'm guaranteeing that I won't understand anything. Then I look at the SC stats page and see that everyone else has somehow watched twice as many films as me, assume they must have understood every single word of their films and decide I am never going to be able to speak Croatian so I might as well give up now ;) I know you're right and that there is a benefit to just letting the language flow over you. But on the other hand, I'm not sure how much benefit there is if I watch something which is too far above my level? To compare it to reading, I wouldn't pick a Croatian literary classic at the moment because I know I wouldn't be able to properly appreciate it; I could turn the pages and pick out words I know, but I think I will learn more if I read something trashy where I stand a chance of understanding a high percentage of the words I see and will therefore theoretically be able to guess those I don't from context. Overall I think I probably just need to be more patient and give films more of a chance! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Radioclare Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom timeofftakeoff.com Joined 4584 days ago 689 posts - 1119 votes Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian | Message 235 of 522 22 July 2014 at 12:14am | IP Logged | ||
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If we ignore films - or the lack thereof - today was a good day :)
I started reading 'Pedeset Nijansi Siva' (50 Shades of Grey) in what I thought was going to be Croatian but actually turned out to be Serbian. I like literature as much as anyone - and this most definitely is not it - but my hope is that it will be a bit like 'Twilight', ie. easy to read, no complicated words, lots of dialogue (which I generally find easier to follow than descriptions). I read the series once in English when it was popular so have a vague idea of how the storyline goes. First impressions are that it's slightly harder to read than I thought. A few bits of vocabulary have thrown me (vazduh, trepezarija, sprat) and had me reaching for my Croatian-Serbian wordlist, but the most challenging thing for me is the ekavian spelling, as everything else I've read up to this point has been ijekavian. Of course, it's not rocket science to mentally insert -ij into words but it has slowed my reading speed slightly as I try to recognise basic words I should know perfectly well. Eg. this evening I read the sentence "Osećam vrtoglavicu i peckanje po celom telu" and I must have spent a good 30 seconds staring at the phrase "po celom telu" before it occurred to me that it was "po cijelom tijelu" :D But this is good - I need to have practice at understanding both spellings - and therefore I can officially say that reading '50 Shades of Grey' is educational. Anyway, the reason I said today was a good day is that I ultimately read 80 pages which takes me to 75.1 'books' and my fourth star :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| VivianJ5 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4263 days ago 81 posts - 133 votes Speaks: English*, French | Message 236 of 522 22 July 2014 at 6:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yay Clare! I'm back to reading English at the moment, and trying hard to increase my French film/TV watching, but
it's a slog. I enjoy reading so much more...but am having a hard time finding French books I can get into. I really try to avoid French translations of English books (well, except for Twilight, of course!), but might have to go there, since I haven't been blown away by the French novels I've read recently. Getting the numbers up for the films is HARD!! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4910 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 237 of 522 22 July 2014 at 7:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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For films, have you two tried documentaries? There's obviously no slang, and the narrator's enunciation is usually very clear. I have a set called Le peuple des oceans, and others have found that a lot of BBC documentaries have a French track.
EDIT: I missed what you wrote about seeing my infographic, which I had pasted here (I'm new to your log, Radioclare). Anyway, glad you know you can watch the news. Edited by Jeffers on 22 July 2014 at 8:36pm 2 persons have 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 238 of 522 22 July 2014 at 8:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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Now if you can tell us where to get documentaries in Croatian... :P
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 239 of 522 22 July 2014 at 8:21pm | IP Logged | ||
I'd say watch them even if they don't count. If you enjoy them, of course :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4910 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 240 of 522 22 July 2014 at 8:24pm | IP Logged | ||
Maybe http://stores.croatiagifts.com/, but I couldn't say for sure. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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