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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6775 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes  Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 81 of 182 22 October 2009 at 8:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have the guy bookmarked but I'm still in the "learning" phase over here. In the near future I plan to switch to more "practical" activities, more internet reading, start practicing maybe and so on. My biggest problem is gonna be vocabulary, which I haven't done much about yet and it's not something that excites me much. Gonna have to experiment.
I'm sure it's not interesting when I post a sentence here and there but after all it's a novel that becomes interesting for its whole. It also has quite a bit of formal, indirect and generally euphemistic forms of speech, which is nice to learn. I just thought of a useful mapping for the past tenses, to Polish. Lo facevo = robiłem to L'ho fatto = zrobiłem to Edited by numerodix on 22 October 2009 at 10:25pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6775 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 82 of 182 24 October 2009 at 11:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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No time for study this weekend as instead I have to be a good host and play tourist guide. Today was the Van Gogh museum. If you haven't been I'm gonna give you the scoop right now: godawful. I've seen a lot of crappy paintings in my life, but this guy really takes the cake. And his most botched and hacky works are held up as the most valuable ones. I suppose that's fitting in an upside down reality kind of way.
Despite how packed the place was (rainy day, I guess people had nothing else to do) there weren't a lot of Italian voices. At one point I did track down a couple and I was greatly tempted to do some real life shadowing - follow them around listening to what they say to each other. But I think I'm too tall to pull it off. A kid might be able to do that unnoticed but they'd spot me. :/ A two day break, I've never taken this much time off yet. I hope it's not all gone by Monday. Edited by numerodix on 24 October 2009 at 11:30pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6775 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 83 of 182 27 October 2009 at 6:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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I did the first Pimsleur Mandarin today while walking to the station and waiting for a train. My first impression is.. -- the tones make me sound silly to my own ear. But this seemed to pass. Then I felt the thrill of listening really intently to something completely unfamiliar to me. It's a strange sensation. I can feel that there is a certain auditory comprehension at work here. Some syllables unfold quite easily, and others I can't seem to figure out. I especially love the "ren" (with the appropriate accent, I'm sure) which is something in between the English r, the Norwegian r, can't quite place it. I also love the "shu" (as in "to be") which I can utter quite easily and yet that particular sound is not how I would pronounce anything in any other language I speak, it rocks. :)
On tones, I've read the descriptions of them and seen the diagrams but honestly find it hard to put that together with what I'm hearing. My first reaction to the audio input is not "oh this was rising, this was falling", I just don't think of it like that at all. They just seem like tones that I've heard in non tonal languages a million times over and never given a second thought to. Makes me think that as long as the learning is all audio based I would more easily learn them by auditory memory than rising/falling instructions. I also find it very hard to reconcile the tone "shape" with the syllable when it's spoken quickly. So it seems the excitement about Mandarin might last. For the last weeks I've been reading a little bit about it and this is the first time I've done any learning. If all goes well on other fronts I'm thinking of starting on it about one year from now. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dragonfly Triglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 6471 days ago 204 posts - 233 votes Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: German, Italian, Mandarin | Message 84 of 182 27 October 2009 at 7:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi! I've been reading your journal for ome time, and I can say that I'm impressed by your progress in Italian and find your posts (epecially concerning language learning courses) very thorough and interesting. It makes me conider taking up Italian, too.
Interesting to find out you are thinking of starting Mandarin. As for r in "ren" it sounds very near Russian ж. Isn't there a similar sound in Polish? As for "to be", it's "shi" (or maybe it was the word for book, that is "shu"?) Keep on! Edited by dragonfly on 27 October 2009 at 7:52pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6775 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 85 of 182 27 October 2009 at 8:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hello dragonfly, glad you like it :)
I wouldn't know what that character sounds like in Russian, I don't know anything about the language. I also wrote down "shu" because that's how I guessed it would be written, but I have no idea. But since we're on the subject, what is Russian phonology like anyway? Do you have sounds that would be unfamiliar to me? Maybe you can show me some "exotic" examples on forvo.com if you find any.. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dragonfly Triglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 6471 days ago 204 posts - 233 votes Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: German, Italian, Mandarin | Message 86 of 182 27 October 2009 at 9:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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As far as I understood from descriptions, Russian Ж is similar to Polish Z with a dot or RZ. And I feel that pronunciation is very much alike, only scripts differ. When I was in Poland, I communicated in Russian in the hotel, shops, etc., and the personnel poke Polish to me. We understood each other without effort. The sound Щ can be unfamiliar to you, it's forth in the word http://www.forvo.com/word/%D1%81%D0%B2%D1%8F%D1%89%D0%B5%D0% BD%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9/ .
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7368 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes 12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 87 of 182 27 October 2009 at 9:27pm | IP Logged | ||
Do you actually speak aloud when doing Pimsleur on the way to the train? Or do you mumble discreetly? I tried a couple times in public but it can be a bit embarrassing to have people hear you speak in Chinese - alone ... What's your trick? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6775 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 88 of 182 27 October 2009 at 9:32pm | IP Logged | ||
I've heard this kind of thing, but I can't understand any Russian when I hear it, aside from the occasional word. But I spent most of my life in Norway where I had little practice listening to Russian. In the example you gave I think you're referring to the sound ś, accented s. This appears in words like śnieg (snow) and when s is followed by i as in się (oneself). How long have you been learning Mandarin? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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