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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| snovymgodom Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5729 days ago 136 posts - 149 votes  Speaks: English*, Russian | Message 73 of 160 10 August 2009 at 4:15am | IP Logged | ||
I think things would have turned out differently if all of the anime, video games, comics, etc were produced in the Middle East rather than Japan. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| bouda Senior Member United States Joined 5601 days ago 194 posts - 197 votes Speaks: English* | Message 74 of 160 10 August 2009 at 4:27am | IP Logged | ||
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For sure! It's just mildly frustrating how many great resources I've come across in
Japanese and how few they are in comparison for Arabic. For example, I was thinking to myself one day that I'd love to see a program that puts short voweling on all the words, so that I wouldn't have to guess all day (this was before I bought and learned how to use a dictionary). Then lo and behold, I come across a site that puts hiragana on all the kanji in any submitted webpage! Go figure. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| bouda Senior Member United States Joined 5601 days ago 194 posts - 197 votes Speaks: English* | Message 75 of 160 10 August 2009 at 5:25am | IP Logged | ||
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I wrote this in the Your Language History thread in General Discussion but then didn't
want it there. So I'll put it here instead. ------ The language I am most advanced in is Mandarin Chinese. I have always been embarrassed when people ask me about my history with Chinese because of one simple fact: my first word was in Mandarin. I have worked very hard to attain the level of proficiency that I currently enjoy. But somehow, all my dedication and skill suddenly seems insufficient to others when they hear that, although I am not native level, Chinese was actually my primary language until I turned 3. I entered kindergarten when I was 3, and everything changed. Previously, my American father had been frequently absent or absorbed in his work; now, with his tenure, he began to spend more time at home. My Taiwanese mother then decided to improve her English. As for me, well, I wanted to be white, all-American, like my Mayflower descendant friends. All my "self-portraits" from that time show a pale blond girl with blue eyes (I look like my mother). I also refused to eat Chinese food anymore. And there was an incident in a park when, upon a stranger telling my mother how cute her little girl was, I cut in with "She's my nanny." After that, it felt to my parents like the most natural thing to do was simply to stop speaking Chinese altogether. My father had never had very good Chinese anyway, so he was not hard hit. And my mother was working on her ESL. So no harm done, right? Even today, my now-teenaged little brother knows no Chinese. I started studying Mandarin in earnest in the summer before my freshman year of high school. I had decided to embrace my cultural heritage and learn what I thought privately of as my mother-tongue. In early summer we registered for our courses and, well, as I am apt to do, I made a mistake. Instead of signing up for Chinese 1, I hit the 3. And once I had sent that out, I sure as heck wasn't going to correct the mistake, because that would entail admitting that I was wrong. (I was a bit stubborn- headed back then.) So I went to my mother and asked her to simulate for me an immersion environment in Mandarin. I would speak no English. I would read no English, apart from my textbooks. I would certainly write no English. Instead, I talked to my mother constantly. I wrote my Taiwanese cousins letters once I knew enough characters. I watched films and listened to music in Mandarin. And slowly, I began to remember what I had forgotten. At the beginning of this escapade, I knew only basic phrases at best - "My name is Julie," "How are you?" By the time I entered school in September, I was able to keep up with my class. A third year Chinese class in high school is certainly no intense adventure, but the fact that I could now speak on basic topics with fluidity was definitely a boon, especially to my mother, who was tired of English. My pronunciation was generally good (probably a remnant from infant days), although it still needed and still does need a bit of work - the qu4 sound, the jue2 sound, the zh and j sounds. My tones were fine. Ever since then, I've been working relatively consistently though not intensively on Chinese. I began reading short stories in my third year of high school and novels in my fourth. I'd say that that year was the year when I gained what I consider general fluency. I can make myself understood on almost any topic now, and although my grammar is inconsistent in conversation but decent in writing, I think I generally veer on the side of acceptable. I do currently tutor/help a few people in Chinese and so I often write teaching materials and in doing so review grammar, which I think helps me. Reading newspapers is still a chore for me, something I hope to work on this year, but as I do about a page/3 minutes in novels with a pretty good level of understanding, I think that's a question more of habit/interest than genuine incomprehension. One thing I have very little background in is Classical Chinese, something I hope to study this fall. But in general, I am happy with my level of proficiency in Chinese. When studying a language, my goal is always native-level proficiency. In fact, my ultimate and probably unachievable ambition is to be more native than a native, to understand more words and contexts than the average speaker of whatever language I am studying. I know that for Chinese - and much more for the rest of the languages I dabble in - I still have a long way to go. So I'll just keep going. J 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| bouda Senior Member United States Joined 5601 days ago 194 posts - 197 votes Speaks: English* | Message 76 of 160 10 August 2009 at 4:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm about to do my morning Anki now. I'm also going to watch the last half of an Arabic
film today - I saw the first half several days ago and was surprised that I actually picked up a few words and phrases! My Chinese blog is coming along swimmingly. The main problems are 1) it's not purdy enough (I just want it to be aesthetically pleasing!), and b) it turns out that I write looooong posts. I ramble. I think I need to cut it down a little for my (future) readers' sake, but there's so much that has to be said. So far I've done basic post about tones w/recording basic dialogue - need to finish recording notes for basic dialogue - need to finish recording Today I'll put everything into mp3 format and start writing a second basic dialogue. I want to have a little bit of material up there before I start sharing the fun. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| bouda Senior Member United States Joined 5601 days ago 194 posts - 197 votes Speaks: English* | Message 77 of 160 10 August 2009 at 8:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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So I skipped my Anki. That's okay; I know I'm going to do it at least once a day
anyway, so it's not like I'm going to totally lose my Arabic. Instead, I worked on my Chinese blog this morning. I spent a long time recording and rerecording my first beginner monologue. The text is not hard, obviously, but I want to make it as good as possible. I noticed during my recording that I had a slight pronunciation problem - not enough to have me cast out of the fluency league forever, but enough that it bothers me and would infuriate any nitpickers. My final recording is not perfect, but the mistake is now slight enough that I think most people won't notice. Progress on Chinese blog: - basic post about tones w/recording - DONE. I didn't want to do this post initially as there are already so many resources for tones online, but I decided I might as well, just in case. This recording is fun because you get to hear me speak English nervously. In daily life, I don't enunciate very well - 'asked' becomes 'ast' - and I speak very quickly. In the recording, I tried to slow down... I really tried to slow down. Well, it's funny to me, anyway. - monologue #1 for beginners w/transcript and recording - DONE. - basic notes for monologue - DONE. - vocabulary notes w/translation, example sentences, and recording - 20% 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| bouda Senior Member United States Joined 5601 days ago 194 posts - 197 votes Speaks: English* | Message 78 of 160 11 August 2009 at 1:01am | IP Logged | ||
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I did not write my example sentences for my blog. However, I translated (roughly) half
a page of Arabic* and ate some ice cream, among other unrelated things. So I don't feel too badly about it. I am going to do my Anki now. *I switched to a different book because I have a translation for it that I can double check against. It's very exciting because I can sometimes catch when the translator is inserting extra padding! I ventured into the Polyglot forum just now to see what I was missing out on by not reading any of the posts in it before. (I confine myself largely to this thread.) Well, there sure are a lot of accomplished polyglots. And then there are those who know a little of a lot of languages but don't seem to speak any of them with fluency. A little bit like me, perhaps. I'd rather know one or two languages and know them well. Edited by bouda on 11 August 2009 at 1:46am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| bouda Senior Member United States Joined 5601 days ago 194 posts - 197 votes Speaks: English* | Message 79 of 160 11 August 2009 at 5:09am | IP Logged | ||
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Need to go back and look at how my textbooks explained 3+ third tones. I'm not
entirely sure what is going on, but it looks like my pronunciation is right but my transliteration wrong. I'll do that tomorrow morning. My pronunciation of everything with the ue sound in it is deteriorating. I think I'm developing a bit of a lazy tongue! I've just procured some Michel Thomas Arabic, so I'll review with that soon. Edited by bouda on 11 August 2009 at 5:14am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| bouda Senior Member United States Joined 5601 days ago 194 posts - 197 votes Speaks: English* | Message 80 of 160 11 August 2009 at 4:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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Going to start keeping track of time spent:
Anki - 10:30 - 11:00, studied 105 cards, was surprised at how many masdars I STILL don't remember. With time... Textbook - 11:00 - 11:20 - looked briefly through the grammar (not the vocab) for chapter 19. I'll go back and do the exercises and drills later in the day. 12-12:30 (inconsistently) - navigated Arabic-language bookstore for Arabic-language books; guessed or learned words for "shipping," "order"; succeeded in purchasing one of my favorite novels in the Arabic. Paid $13 and felt a twinge of grief. Edited by bouda on 11 August 2009 at 8:26pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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