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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 5991 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 233 of 265 03 May 2010 at 10:34am | IP Logged |
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It's really late (past 2 in the morning) and I have decided to call it a night. As you might have guessed, life happened and things got in the way of my studying for most of the afternoon. I didn't really get to studying under later on, so that's why I haven't actually completed everything I intended to. But enough excuses.
I wanted to get a few things done, let's see if I did them: - Finish reviewing kanji --> yes - Finish Ultimate German lesson --> yes (this means I'm done with Ultimate German!) - Finish TY Swahili lesson 3 --> partially - At least 1 lesson of Ultimate Japanese --> yes, one - Finish at least SEGR lesson 13 --> mostly - Learn passato remoto tense in Italian --> yes, but only the regular formation I will discuss these in a bit more detail now. I am happy because today I have finished off two different language book, my Cortina Brazilian Portuguese and now my Ultimate German! I have a few options for courses of study for German now, and I think that since I'll be taking German next year at school, I will go through and learn the vocabulary from the school textbook, just to make sure that I will be on par with the other students in the class who supposedly know all that stuff. The textbook is called Deutsch Aktuelles and there are two levels so far, and I have made photocopies of the vocabulary lists from both. I also have a workbook called German Grammar Drills, and I think that I will be using this every week in conjunction with my Deutsch Aktuelles. After these I will move on to using German Vocabulary (from the same series as Spanish/Italian/French Vocabulary) and Teach Yourself Improve Your German. I think that it is safe to say that I should be at at least basic fluency by the end of that. For Swahili, the vocabulary lists that the book gives are huge and I'm just not seeing any benefit from studying the words in BYKI. So from now on (unless there is some extenuating circumstance), I will just enter all the vocabulary into Anki and learn it through SRS-ing, which seems to work a lot better for Swahili. So, that's what I did this evening with that lesson 3 vocabulary, finally. I studied it about 3/4 of the way in BYKI (up until you have to start producing the words in Swahili), but then realized that it was futile and came to this decision. Yay! I love Japanese. I did another lesson and I am really seeing the benefits of all of my study, especially kanji study. Learning new words is so much easier if I know the kanji already, and when I see the dialogues written out in my book in roomaji, it is really hard, but if I type it up into the correct kanji and kana, it's soo much easier. Today's lesson was all about job-searching, which a great many people all over are doing now. Here is the dialogue for anyone who can read Japanese, because I don't feel like giving the translation. 児島：暫くですねえ。 村井：ええ，本当に。毎日お忙しいですか。 児島：コンピューターの学校で教えているん ですけど，今夏休みですから，あまり忙しく ないんです。村井さんは。 村井：私は今仕事を捜しているんです。 児島：どんな仕事がいいんですか。 村井：ジャーナリズムの仕事を見つけたいん です。 児島：ああ，そうですか。僕の姉が雑誌社に 勤めているんです。その会社がもう直ぐ新し い人を募集するそうですよ。姉に訊いて見ま しょうか。 村井：その会社はどんな雑誌を出しているん ですか。 児島：主に美術の雑誌だそうです。会社の名 前は三河者です。 村井：三河者ですか。私もよく知っています 。あの会社はいろいろな面白い美術の雑誌を 出していますね。 児島：ええ，昔は小さい会社だったそうです けど。実は姉もこのパーティーに来ているん です。あ，あそこにいます。会いますか。 村井：ええ，お願いします。 In addition for Japanese, I found a reference on someone's log to a website called Smart.fm, where there is a very nice learning system and Japanese vocabulary drilling course. I signed up, because it says it teaches the 2000 most important words (and then there is a follow-up course that teaches 4000 more), and did one session. It takes a while to do, but is VERY nice. It also has pronunciation and example sentences for every word, along with activities. I will try to do this as often as possible, but I don't know how much that will be. It will probably be a lot more once I finish up RTK (!!) in June. As for Swedish, I translated the opening text last night and I will post it here now. I also read through the lesson (a very short one actually) and typed out the vocabulary. There was a lot of it, so I decided to just do it sometime tomorrow. Here is the opening text, about the conversion of the Vikings to Christianity (please excuse the horrible translation of the poem in it, which was in Old Swedish, and many thanks to the members who helped me with that): FORNTIDENS SVERIGE Kerstins allra bästa vännina heter Eva Andersson och hon läser Nordisk fornkunskap vid Stockholms universitetet. Hon är särskilt intressad av runstenar från forntiden. En dag föreslog hon att de skulle ta en båt från Stockholm till Birka för att titta på ett av Sveriges mest berömda gravfält frång vikingatiden. Brika var en gång den mäktigaste och största hamnstaden i svearnas rike. Denna stad var centrum för handel mellan öst och väst och låg på Björkö, en mindre ö i Mälaren. Hit kom vikingarna tillbaka ända från Grekland längs Rysslands floder med tungt lastade skepp. Svearna var hedningar och dyrkade asagudarna. På sina större offerfester offrade de hundar, hästar och till och med människor till krigsguden Oden, åskguden Tor och kärleksguden Frej. Under offerfesterna sjöng de, men deras sång lät mera som hundars tjut än mänskliga röster. Till detta grymma folk kom från Tyskland en sommardag år 830 en ung munk, som hette Ansgar, för att predika om ’Vite Krist’. Aldrig hade hedningarna hört vackrare sånger än de som munkarna sjöng, och de blev också väldigt förtjusta i det strålande gyllene korset. Lättast var det för munkarna att döpa kvinnorna, som fick behålla sina vackra vita dopskjortor. De krigiska männen trodde att munkarnas gud kunde vara lika mäktig som guden Tor, om inte mäktigare. Och så liknade Tors hammare det kristna korset. För att vara på den säkra sidan, lät några döpa sig strax innan de dog. Men att folket i Birka inte blev helt övertygat om den nya gudens kraft visar några utgrävda gravar, där de döda har fått med sig både hammaren och korset. Det skulle ta lång tid innan de krigiska vikingarna blev kristnade. Följande fornsvenska vers som Torkel ristade på en runsten omkring år 1000 visar att hedendomen levde kvar: Fem söner Gulle födde den gode. Föll vid Fyris frejdige Asmund. Assur fick sin ände i Grekland. Halvdan dräptes under holmgång. Kare dog hemma, Död är ock Boe. SWEDEN IN ANCIENT TIMES (my translation into English) Kerstin’s very best friend is called Eva Andersson and she studies Norse archaeology at Stockholm University. She is especially interested in rune stones from the ancient times. One day she proposed that they should take a boat from Stockholm to Birka to look at one of Sweden’s most famous burial grounds from the Viking Period. Birka was once the most powerful and biggest seaport in the ancient Swedish kingdom. This city was a center of trade between east and west and was on Björkö, a smaller island in Lake Mälaren. The Vikings came back here from as far as Greece along Russia’s rivers with heavily laden ships. The ancient Swedes were heathens and worshipped Scandinavian pagan gods. For their bigger sacrificial feasts they sacrificed dogs, horses, and even human beings to Woden, the god of war, Thor, the god of thunder, and Frey, the goddess of love. They sang during the sacrificial feasts, but their songs sounded more like dogs’ howling than human voices. One summer’s day in the year 830, a young month called Ansgar from Germany came to these cruel people to preach about the ‘White Christ.’ Never had the heathens heard more beautiful songs than those that the monks sang, and they were also very fascinated by the radiating, golden cross. It was easiest for the monks to baptize the women, who got to keep their beautiful white baptismal robes. The warlike men believed that the monks’ god could be just as powerful as the god Thor, if not more powerful. And then Thor’s hammer was like the Christian cross. In order to be on the safe side, a few of them allowed themselves to be baptized before they died. But that the people in Birka weren’t wholly convinced about the new god’s strength is shown in some excavated graves, where the dead had received to take with them both the hammer and the cross. It would take a long time before the warlike Vikings became Christianized. The following Old Swedish poem that Torkel carved on a rune stone around the year 1000 shows that paganism lived on: Five sons of Gulle born of the good. Fell at Fyris brave Asmund. Assur met his end in Greece. Halvdan was slain during holmgång. Kare died at home, Dead is also Boe. Finally there is Italian. I did learn how to form the passato remoto today, but since I didn't have much time I contented myself with only the regular verbs. Here is the paradigm: -ARE (arrivare) io --> -ai (arrivai) tu --> -asti (arrivasti) lui --> -ò (arrivò) noi --> -ammo (arrivammo) voi --> -aste (arrivaste) loro --> -arono (arrivarono) -ERE (vendere) io --> -ei/-etti (vendei/vendetti) tu --> -esti (vendesti) lui --> -è/-ette (vendè/vendette) noi --> -emmo (vendemmo) voi --> -este (vendeste) loro --> -erono/-ettero (venderono/vendettero) -IRE (partire) io --> -ii (partii) tu --> -isti (partisti) lui --> -ì (partì) noi --> -immo (partimmo) voi --> -iste (partiste) loro --> -irono (partirono) Simple. Very simple. Unfortunately the irregulars are not, and will take a while to learn. I intend to learn those next weekend. I should think about learning this tense in French too... Okay, that's it. I really want to go to bed now. I just have to make one more note, and that it that this week's obsessively-organized, color-coded schedule/to-do list worked very well and I am going to try it again for next week (it's already constructed and colored). However, next week I'm putting more reasonable goals because this week's were way too lofty. There was no way I could get all of that done and still have my mind intact. God natt. --Philip 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 5991 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 234 of 265 04 May 2010 at 7:39am | IP Logged |
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Today's summary:
- Kanji reviews (~108) - New kanji (to #1530): 刻, 該, 劾, 述, 術, 寒, 醸, 譲, 壌, 嬢 - Anki reviews (406) - 4 Spanish vocabulary lists - Portuguese Frequency Dictionary: #1250 (I'm resuming Portuguese and French studies now) - Finished SEGR vocabulary, will post translation tomorrow I also had in my goals to start my new Colloquial Brazilian Portuguese 2 book and do the first lesson, but I didn't have time. Hopefully I'll do it sometime in the next week. Tomorrow is French (and Esperanto), and also the date of my AP Spanish test. Therefore, I should go to bed now. Boa noite! --Philip 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 5991 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 235 of 265 04 May 2010 at 8:48pm | IP Logged |
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I'm writing from school now. I have an extra long lunch period because I was excused from some classes because of the AP Spanish exam. I finished that, yay, and it wasn't too difficult. I especially thought the writing and speaking parts went really well. :)
I was also able to get up a reasonable (aka, early) time this morning so I reviewed my kanji and learned my new ones up through #1540 (毒, 素, 麦, 青, 精, 請, 情, 晴, 清, 静). I also reviewed Anki and did one of my French tasks for today. I have fifteen minutes left of lunch before math, so I think I'll try to start on that TY Improve Your French lesson, or maybe the Colloquial Portuguese lesson that I was supposed to do yesterday. Anyways, that's the latest news and I'm happy because I had a nice morning and I think my AP test went well. :) --Philip 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Emme Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 5196 days ago 980 posts - 1594 votes Speaks: Italian*, English, German Studies: Russian, Swedish, French | Message 236 of 265 04 May 2010 at 10:18pm | IP Logged |
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Great to hear that your AP test went well. Keep up the good work both at school and as a self-taught polyglot.
Emme 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 5991 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 237 of 265 06 May 2010 at 9:39am | IP Logged |
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Summary of the rest of yesterday (5/4) and today (5/5)
- New kanji to #1550: 責, 績, 積, 債, 漬, 表, 俵, 潔, 契, 喫 - Reviewed kanji - Reviewed Anki - TY Esperanto lesson 12 (I'm rushing to try to finish the book so I can stop studying Esperanto, at least for a while; I think there are 15 lessons total in it) - Ultimate Italian lessons 33 and 34 - Did some Swahili listening practice as review, was hoping to begin lesson 4 of my Spoken World Swahili, but didn't get around to it - Started reading through the beginning of TYIYF lesson 5 - Translated the ending text for the SEGR lesson from before To be caught up to the goals for May 5, I still have to finish my Colloquial Portuguese lesson, my TYIYF lesson, and my Spoken World Swahili lesson. For today/tomorrow (since it's after midnight), I hope to accomplish the following, but I am not guaranteeing anything: - Kanji to #1560 - Kaji reviews - Anki reviews - Deutsch Aktuelles: Kapitel 1 - German Grammar Drills: Lesson 1 - 4 Spanish Vocabulary lists Finally, here is my ending translation exercise for lesson 13 in Swedish: An Elementary Grammar-Reader. I had some trouble translating some of the expressions into Swedish, so there are probably lots of errors in this one unfortunately. IN English The ancient Swedes celebrated one of their bigger sacrificial feasts in a temple at Uppsala north of Stockholm. The pagans worshipped many gods. The most celebrated were Woden, Thor, and Fray. In the eleventh century a monk called Adam of Bremen was sent to Sweden from Germany to baptize this people which was the most heathen of the Northmen. Adam never saw the temple himself, but one of the Christians told him what it looked like. It was more beautiful than any other temple in Scandinavia, and in it the heathens worshipped their three gods. Thor, who was the most powerful, stood in the middle of the temple. The pagans worshipped the god they believed most in. Thor was the god especially of the farmers, and Woden was the god of the more warlike Vikings. Uppsala was also famous for its sacrificial well where human beings were sacrificed. It took time before the Swedes were baptized, but when they saw that the new god was just as mighty as Thor they became Christian. PÅ SVENSKA Svearna firade en av deras större offerfesterna i ett tempel vid Uppsala norr av Stockholm. Hedningarna dyrkade många gudar. De mesta firade var Oden, Tor, och Frej. På 1000-talet sändes en munk som hette Adam av Breme till Sverige från Tyskland för att döpa detta folk som var den mesta hedniska av nordborna. Adam såg aldrig templet själv, men en av kristnarna berättade om hur såg det ut för honom. Det var vackrare än något annat tempel i Norden, och i det hedningarna dyrkade deras tre gudarna. Tor, som var den mäktigast, stod mitt i templet. Hedningarna dyrkade guden som de trodde på mest. Tor var guden särskilt av bönderna, och Oden var guden av de krigiskare Vikingarna. Uppsala var också berömd för dess offerkällan då offrades människor. Det dröjde innan döptes svearna, men när de såg att den nya guden var lika mäktig än Tor blev de kristna. Buona notte. :) --Philip 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 5991 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 238 of 265 07 May 2010 at 7:06am | IP Logged |
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Today was a nice day in that I think I will have completed all of my goals for it for once! And gotten all my homework done too.
Today I have... - Reviewed kanji (101) - Learned new kanji (#1560): 害, 轄, 割, 憲, 生, 星, 姓, 性, 牲, 産 - Reviewed Anki (399) - Typed up 4 Spanish vocabulary lists--they were advanced biology, chemistry, and physics terms! - Deutsch Aktuelles I Kapitel 1: I knew all the words in this lesson as I predicted, and only 15 of them were not in Anki already, so this was an easy goal I also need to do the chapter/lesson/whatever I'm going to call it of my German Grammar Drills book. I think I did the first lesson last year already, so I might review that and then do the second one. I also found out today from my French teacher that on the National French Exam, which we took in March, I scored in the "lauréat national" range, which means the top 10% in the country. Three of us in my class scored within that, and I think she said I got the highest of the three. :) She didn't know the specific scores at the moment, so I might find out more details later. I was not really surprised by this though, because I got the same thing last year (I placed 6th in the nation), and apparently lots of people in my class did really well. This says to me that the test just has really low standards since I would judge that most people in that class (no offense intended, it's mostly probably from the fact that it's a typical high school French class) are at no more than a low- to mid-intermediate (high A2? low B1?) level. SWEDISH PROVERBS I've also found a list of Swedish proverbs, which I really like. I'll be posting one per day on here with a translation and I will be learning all the new words in them. Fun, right? They're from this page. I'll be doing them in alphabetical order just so that I can keep track of which ones I've already done. Here's today's: Alla vägar bär till Rom. - "All roads lead to Rome." ANKI STATISTICS: ESPERANTO: 1925 FRENCH: 3612 GERMAN: 1925 GREEK: 2100 ITALIAN: 2078 JAPANESE: 799 PORTUGUESE: 2752 SPANISH: 3558 SWAHILI: 450 SWEDISH: 1595 TOTAL: 20,794 Edited by ellasevia on 07 May 2010 at 7:20am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 5991 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 239 of 265 08 May 2010 at 6:46am | IP Logged |
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Today was a very nice day--up until I went to my grandmother's house for Greek. It completely ruined my whole day, because we got into a huge fight. She is the sort of person who is essentially never happy no matter where she is (and what she might like to believe) and likes to take her unhappiness out on people who she knows will eventually forgive her. So today she was complaining as usual, perhaps a bit more strongly, and it just escalated to the point where she was blaming me for all of the misery and unhappiness she has experienced here (despite my overtures to try and help and sympathize with her) and had reduced me to a whimpering puddle on the floor. Naturally this was both emotionally and physically (because I was tired already) straining. I was quite literally about to take my stuff and leave her house and take the bus home. I had to walk away and sit in another room for a while...
Luckily, this was the last lesson with her (for five months at least), because next week she and my grandfather are leaving for Greece and won't be returning until October. I'm actually a bit relieved, in light of today's events. What this all means is that I feel quite incapable of doing ANY studying this evening because I'm just so...tired and distressed. I even came home and continued to cry about it for a while. It was not a good situation at all. I hope I can catch up tomorrow. I still have lots of Anki to review that expired while I was at school today and over 60 kanji to review still. I did learn my kanji up to #1570 (隆, 峰, 縫, 拝, 寿, 鋳, 籍, 春, 椿, 泰) before school, so at least that's done. And somehow we managed to actually finish that Νέα Ελληνικά lesson without me having to run away. I don't have too much homework at all this weekend, but I really should do some major study for my AP World History test. Otherwise, I am mostly free to work on language stuff. I have a bunch of stuff planned, so I'm just going to go to bed now and sleep well so that I can be very productive tomorrow. Two positive notes: - National French Exam: I found out the exact scores; I got 2nd place in state (Colorado and I think Wyoming is included too) and 6th in the country - Only 10 more days of actual school left. :) We also then have 4 days for finals, meaning that our first day of summer is very soon and beginning on May 28th. If only it would be now... I'll keep to my promise of doing a Swedish proverb: Allt är inte guld som glimmar. - "All that glitters is not gold." Hoping for a better tomorrow, -Philip The end. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ruskivyetr Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5330 days ago 769 posts - 962 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Russian, Polish, Modern Hebrew | Message 240 of 265 08 May 2010 at 7:28am | IP Logged |
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I'm sorry to hear of your situation Philip :(. Hopefully you two can work something out.
That's AMAZING that you scored that high on the French National Exam. Congratulations! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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