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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5182 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 161 of 333 28 July 2012 at 10:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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I was in Berlin a while ago. Over 10 years ago. I did a walking tour of the city and it was a lot of fun... I also
did one of the bus rides they have. Thankfully all of the tours are available in English. I remember a older couple from Spain complaining to a tour guide that they wanted him to speak Spanish on the tour (they had to complain in English though or he wouldn't understand). I also did my own walking tour of the city using a book my sister gave me. The theme of the book was architecture and it was very interesting... but I think it's out of print (at least I didn't see it doing a quick search on Amazon). The guided tours are fun though I would recommend doing one. Oh and Berlin is awesome in the summer! I've been in January and in the summer and it was so much better in the summer lol. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5182 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 162 of 333 28 July 2012 at 10:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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Oh and I'm curious how long it'll take you to get used to spoken German too. I would have to say it was
several years before I was pretty comfortable with regular native speech. It was my 1st foreign language however and I didn't study it non-stop I took breaks. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Woodsei Bilingual Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Woodsei Joined 4795 days ago 614 posts - 782 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Egyptian)* Studies: Russian, Japanese, Hungarian | Message 163 of 333 07 August 2012 at 11:01am | IP Logged | ||
Same here. I studied some German 6 years ago, and I intend to seriously get back to it soon; it's all gone now, but I do see the parallels with Japanese. Maybe it's why I don't feel Japanese is hard? It feels very straightforward to me. I think the trouble with Japanese is getting used to it, because its almost opposite to English. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5980 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 164 of 333 08 August 2012 at 10:36am | IP Logged | ||
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Yeah word order for basic Japanese sentences is generally ok for me. I still can't produce complex sentences with long subordinate clauses on the fly but I guess that will come with time and practice. The only problem with Japanese is the vocabulary. I think that's why I was starting to get bored with it!
It's amazing here in Berlin. Suffice to say since I arrived I've been too busy being a tourist to study languages! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| rewire Groupie United States learninglane.tumblr.Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4545 days ago 82 posts - 90 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Mandarin | Message 165 of 333 08 August 2012 at 7:49pm | IP Logged | ||
I find that to be a lot of my issue, too, though I wonder if it will end up an issue regardless of what language I study? Or if it's literally that learning Japanese vocabulary always consists of like, pronunciation(s)/meaning/kanji reading/kanji writing, instead of the simpler pronunciation/meaning track you'd get in a phonetic system. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Woodsei Bilingual Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Woodsei Joined 4795 days ago 614 posts - 782 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Egyptian)* Studies: Russian, Japanese, Hungarian | Message 166 of 333 11 August 2012 at 11:24am | IP Logged | ||
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It's definitely the vocabulary. The more I know, the more fun I have, and grammar
intuitively gets better. I feel that I'm able to follow a little better everyday. Just keep at it. And enjoy your time in Berlin, and don't worry about language study. It's not going anywhere :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5980 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 167 of 333 11 August 2012 at 9:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well I'm back in the UK and on the final leg of my epic multilingual holiday, being on the train back to Cardiff from London. Germany was just amazing. For a language geek with a (professional, honest!) interest in transport, doing the trip to Berlin by rail was a fantastic idea.
As expected, my German sucked. I've realised my main priority, if I want to continue with this language, is to work up my passive skills. It's easy to memorize a few useful tourist phrases, but for me the most important thing is to be able to understand what is going on around me. I think I am starting to find German quite an attractive language though. Anybody who thinks it is a harsh sounding language has clearly never taken the time to really listen to it. My French got a little workout as well, as we spent one night in Brussels on the way out and had a short stopover there this afternoon. I was quite pleased to find I could follow quite a bit of the French conversation going on in the Eurostar carriage too. And even my Japanese came into some use. We spent two nights in Düsseldorf on the way back and took a trip to the Japan town for dinner on the first night there. I must admit by that point I'd reached a level of exhausted frustration at my lack of German comprehension (seriously, I don't get how some of my friends can happily travel around non-English speaking countries with only a knowledge of English). Anyway, I was presented with a bilingual German/Japanese menu and thanks to my understanding of Japanese, I could order with confidence! I managed to stock up on some more Japanese books in both Berlin and Düsseldorf. No cash savings to be had over ordering online, however the Japanese bookshops in Düsseldorf had the best selection I have found so far in Western Europe, so the browsing potential was simply fantastic. I also bought a German vocab book recommended by my tutor, a couple of easy German stories for elementary learners, and a copy of Der Spiegel and Le Monde just because I could. As for studying, well I haven't done very much. On the train to Berlin I listened to the whole of the Deutsche Welle Mission Berlin series, once with the manuscript and once without. I also got in a bit of study from my grammar book on the same train. While in Brussels I did one chapter of Assimil but haven't touched it since, too busy being a tourist. Think I'll have to review what I've covered so far before moving on with it again. I had German TV on almost the whole time in the hotel in Berlin. Wasn't sure how much to count for the 6wc on the grounds I couldn't understand much so I just clocked an hour. On the way back I was feeling generally too tired and lazy for study. I've been listening to a lot of Die Toten Hosen and though it doesn't count as study it really puts me in a good mood! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5980 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 168 of 333 12 August 2012 at 4:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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Phew I've just rearranged my bookshelf to accommodate my holiday purchases. I now have a beautiful language library, however my music books are now homeless. I can't quite believe how much stuff I've acquired, it's a shame this acquisition of materials hasn't translated into acquisition of ability (note to self, books need reading). I did well not to go crazy on the German books actually, I came back with more Japanese material. But I now own Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in 4 languages! I think I'm going to make a rule for myself that I can only buy another language-related book after finishing one I already own. I think I could actually get rid of some of my Japanese books, particularly some of the N3 texts, but maybe I should wait until the exam results, just in case. Anyway, that's enough procrastination for one afternoon, I've got some languages to learn!
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