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Team TAC 2011 - Team Ő - Lapislazuli | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Lapislazuli Tetraglot Senior Member Austria Joined 7036 days ago 146 posts - 170 votes  Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, ItalianB1 Studies: French, Hungarian, Esperanto, Czech | Message 17 of 27 14 April 2011 at 1:09pm | IP Logged |
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Today I did something I should have done long before. I contacted three possible language exchange partners, that I found on a local language exchange page. Two for Hungarian and one for Italian. Until now I was a bit hesistant, because I always told myself I had to study a bit more before doing this, but of course that was a cheap excuse for being lazy and a little cowardly. I kept telling myself "What if I don't like this person? What if this person doesn't like me? or thinks me a complete loser for not speaking Hungarian/Italian properly?" But then ... so what? There is the same chance this will be turning out to be a great idea. And having already done some language exchange before, back in Hungary, I know that it was actually a lovely experience. This morining I was in a very communicative mood and so I thought I'll have to make use of that. So let's see what comes out of it.
Last week something else happened that I find notable enough to write about here. I traveled to an English-speaking country for the first time in my life :-) I spent one really wonderful week in London. I did not get to speak very much English there, as I was traveling with my friend who is also Austrian, but I think this somehow changed my view on English as a language a little. For me it always was more like the language that is very useful knowing, because one can use it with most people in the world. Of course I had a lot to do with native speakers too, but they were here in Austria, in Hungary, Sweden or somewhere else. But being directly in a country where it is actually spoken is a very different feeling. Since I returend I have not done too much in my different languages. Not much in Hugarian except watching one episode of Vámpir naplók ("Vampire Diaries") and I try to do an Italian LingQ lesson every day. Somehow I was not very motivated for studying for the last few days. I have been thinking again of learning Icelandic. Years ago I wanted to, but then abandoned the idea as it is not a very useful language (even less then Swedish, and I was already frustrated about not finding any Swedish speakers arround here) Though a few days ago I had a conversation with some of my friends about possibly traveling to Iceland one day (anyway not in the near future, as no-one of us could afford it right now) And if we should really do so then I would definitely want to learn some Icelandic beforehand, as I already know, when being there I would hate myself for not having learnd at least a little of this fascinating language. So if communicating with exchange partners works out well, then the time for beginning with Czech is maybe coming closer. I just want Hungarian and Italian be good enough so they can be kept up without too much effort, as I am a little afreid I won't be able to maintain all of those lanuages once they're too many. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| hribecek Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5349 days ago 1243 posts - 1458 votes Speaks: English*, Czech, Spanish Studies: Italian, Polish, Slovak, Hungarian, Toki Pona, Russian | Message 18 of 27 15 April 2011 at 9:43am | IP Logged |
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Which website did you find these language partners? I need one too for Hungarian.
How well did you understand the English spoken on the street in London? It will be nice when you start learning Czech, I'll be happy to give you some tips and help you. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lapislazuli Tetraglot Senior Member Austria Joined 7036 days ago 146 posts - 170 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, ItalianB1 Studies: French, Hungarian, Esperanto, Czech | Message 19 of 27 15 April 2011 at 11:24am | IP Logged |
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I found the languagepartners here: http://sprachenzentrum.univie.ac.at/content/site/dk/de/sprac hlernboerse/pinnwand/index.html
But I am not sure whether this site could also be useful to you, as most people there are located in Vienna, made by the laguage-leraning-center of the Vienna University, and are looking for in-person exchange with German vs. other language. Though you could maybe find something similar where you live. As it was my first time in London I mainly did lots of touristy things, so the English I was exposed to was mostly in guided tours or theatre (I went to see some musicals), so my exposure to the so-called everyday-language was unfortunately quite limited. In general I could understand people better then I had expected to, though I remember there were situations when I also found it quite hard. What books did you use when starting to learn Czech? Did you already live in the Czech Republic then? I think I will start now to get the learning materials, that I am going to use then. One part will certainly be the Assimil course, which I am going to borrow from the library. I also read that they are planning to add a Czech section at LingQ soon. Do you know about any learning-magazines for Czech, that you could recommend? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| hribecek Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5349 days ago 1243 posts - 1458 votes Speaks: English*, Czech, Spanish Studies: Italian, Polish, Slovak, Hungarian, Toki Pona, Russian | Message 20 of 27 15 April 2011 at 11:53am | IP Logged |
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Personally I used the following textbooks to learn Czech -
-Chcete mluvit česky (Do you want to speak Czech) + workbook -Chcete ještě lépe mluvit česky (Do you want to speak even better Czech) -401 Czech verbs The first 2 are a complete course from beginner to advanced level (they are in both German and English at the same time). I liked them because they were very thorough, but lots of people don't like them because they're a little bit dull and intense. Most people recommend 'Czech: Step by step', there are 2 books in this series and they're by far the most popular and more colourful and presented in a more fun way. I started when I moved here so I also had access to lots of native materials. I bought books for children, watched a lot of TV, films etc. I also recommend www.locallingo.com. It's a forum a little like this but based on Czech (presented in English) and there are lots of native speakers there that you can ask questions to and they're very willing to correct anything you write and help you. There are also basic Czech lessons and tests there. I've never used a Czech language learning magazine so I don't know if they exist, I'll look into it. Why do you want to learn Czech by the way? Edited by hribecek on 15 April 2011 at 11:57am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lapislazuli Tetraglot Senior Member Austria Joined 7036 days ago 146 posts - 170 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, ItalianB1 Studies: French, Hungarian, Esperanto, Czech | Message 21 of 27 20 April 2011 at 1:52pm | IP Logged |
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@ hribecek: Thank you, I am going to look out for those books. When I was a the library the other day I found that most of the Czech resources were taken at that point. Next time will certainly check with the online-catalogue before I go there ;-)
I decided to learn czech because it is a language, which which, if I want to, I'll have a lot of possibities to use. From where I live it maybe takes me an hour to go to the Czech Republic, so I also won't have problems in getting native material. And I also find it interesting because of the cultural and historical background. Probably I will even become useful for my future job as a tourist guide, as it seems the area: Prague-Bratislave-Vienna-Budapest is lately more and more seen as one region by people visiting and I actually would love to be on tours that cover all those places. So I actually think I have quite a number of reason to keep me motivated :-) Yesterday I had the first meeting with one of my Hungarian exchange-partners and it really went better then I had thought. We met in a café, which was quite nice, as now the weather is already warm enough to sit outside, and we just talked for a while. At first for a while in German and then in Hungarian. She is going to have an entrance exam for university soon, so I am going to help her preparing for that for the next weeks. And we discovered that we both like to go to museums so we planned to do that together once her exam is over. So we can teach each other some of the vocabulary related to art and history and so on - which is also going to be very useful for me. Because once I am a guide I also want to be able to offer tours in Hungarian. We decided to correct each others every now and then, while speaking, but not all the time, as we find it more important to keep the flow of conversation. But I am already finding her corrections quite helpful. For example I learned that I should pay more attention to my pronounciation. For example my long vowels are apparently not long enough sometimes. But I think at the moment I am still too preocupied with getting things said and finding the words. I also saw this in my other languages, that once I did not have to think that much about the words and sentences, I also find it easier to work on my pronounciation. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| hribecek Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5349 days ago 1243 posts - 1458 votes Speaks: English*, Czech, Spanish Studies: Italian, Polish, Slovak, Hungarian, Toki Pona, Russian | Message 22 of 27 22 April 2011 at 11:22am | IP Logged |
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It depends how much you like studying languages for which book would be best for you. I love studying and so the more intense and detailed (but quite dull) first 2 on the list were better for me. If you prefer a lighter and more fun style then Step by Step is the best for you.
Good luck with your new language exchange partners. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lapislazuli Tetraglot Senior Member Austria Joined 7036 days ago 146 posts - 170 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, ItalianB1 Studies: French, Hungarian, Esperanto, Czech | Message 23 of 27 09 May 2011 at 4:36pm | IP Logged |
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Hm, I think I'll have a look on the different books in the language-bookshop and in the library, so I can maybe findout best, what might work for me. But anyway it is good to know what titles to look for.
Now I have two language-partners for Hungarian (somehow it did not quite work out with the Italian girl) and I meet each of them once a week, which means two language meetings every week. We always try to use as much time on speaking German as on Hungarian. Although with one of them I always seem to get more time for Hungarian. And last week I even did my first Hungarian guided tour in the museum I once worked at, with my one language-partner and her sister, who had been visiting and who did not speak any German at all. I spent quite some time preparing for that using the Hungarian audio-guide-transcripts that I had taken with me, while I was still working there. I can say it went better then I expected it to. Of course I often could not tell things in the way I tell them in my German or English tours, sometimes I had to simplify things a lot, and also some of the jokes usually make did not quite work out that well. But at least now I know what to work on. I decided that in a few months, when I'll be more experienced in speaking, I will try to do that again with my other language-partner. Apart from meeting my language-partners I have not done a lot language-wise. Tonight I am going to see a Norvegian movie, at the Nordic-movie-week here in Vienna. Last night was the opinging evening, and there I sang a few songs with the Scandinavian-studies-choir, that I joined earlier this year. We were allowed then to see the opening movie for free (a Lithuanian movie, which was also quite interesting) and then another movie of choice. I would have rather liked to take one of the Swedish movies they had, but on those evenings I either did not have time or the movie absolutely did not interest me. Now I am already quite curious about how it will be to see a movie in Norvegian, which I usually understand, but then I tend to avoid it as I am always a little afraid listening too much to Novegian could take some influence on my Swedish, but I think there is not really much reason to fear that ... 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lapislazuli Tetraglot Senior Member Austria Joined 7036 days ago 146 posts - 170 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, ItalianB1 Studies: French, Hungarian, Esperanto, Czech | Message 24 of 27 29 September 2011 at 11:33am | IP Logged |
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Again it's been a long time since I posted here. Not that I have been lazy in language activities, somehow it seems I just could not get myself to document them here. And well - there was also a whole lot of other stuff to get done. As I started the guide-education in spring I realized that there are really lots of things I have to study: history and arts and all kinds of stuff. But it also involves languages, as the final exam is also going to be in one or more languages that I have chosen. I'll take English and Italian. This means Italian will also be my main focus over the next few months (the exam is going to be in January)
So my plan for Italian is that I am going to do a lot of reading, as this is what always helped me most in reaching a higher level. At the moment it's part one of the series "The song of ice and fire". My friends are talking about this continously lately and I am the only one who has not read it yet. And I must say I was a bit reluctant about starting it, as there are so many other things I have to do and to read, but I think reading it in Italian is a good choice, so I won't feel bad for reading it. I planned to write something on a regualar basis and put it on lang-8 for also doing something actively. I just have the time at the moment for meeting up with language partners. But at work at least get lots of possibilities of talking to Italian tourists. I am not doing that much in Hungarian right now, just a bit of reading every now and then. Though in summer I succeeded in finishing my project of reading all the Harry Potter books in Hungarian. So yey for that. I was quite proud when I had finished the last chapter, as this has taken me about 4 years. As for given reason Italian has a very high priority for me right now, my other languages will have to wait some more. So I think I will start Czech at some point next year. But I am already collecting material and I am really happy that Lingq now also opend a section for czech, which I am definitely going to use, 1 person has voted this message useful |
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