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TAC 2013 Asian Team 鶴 (crane) TEAM THREAD | ||
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| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4865 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes  Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 1 of 457 10 December 2012 at 12:30am | IP Logged | ||
    
안녕하세요 여러분 大家好 こんにちは皆 สวัสดีค่ะทุกคน Dear fellow Asian language aficionados, it's great to see many people interested in doing TAC 2013 with a focus on Asian languages! I hope we can be an awesome team and motivate each other to keep studying these fascinating and challenging languages throughout next year. As other teams have already opened their logs, I wanted to get the ball rolling for our team as well. I think it's a good idea to start discussing what we want our team to look like. Team Name, Symbol, Motto? First of all, we need to choose a team name or symbol, and maybe even a motto. As we went with an auspicious animal last year and used the character for "dragon", it might be nice to continue this tradition. I thought about possible animals and remembered that a Korean friend once explained to me that cranes are very important animals in East Asian culture and that they symbolize good fortune and a long life. I quite like this description:
So I propose that we take the character for crane 鶴 as our team symbol and soar to new language heights in 2013. May the promise of longevity keep all of us studying throughout the year. Organisation and Rules: - There are two official TAC rules. The first is to update your study log regularly. What "regularly" means is up to you - for me once per week is ideal, others update more often. You don't need to adhere to a set time, but I suggest that you aim for updating at least every 2 weeks to let everyone know that you're alive, well and spending some time with your beautiful Asian target language ;) - The other official rule is that we should all read our teammates' study logs regularly. As we're quite a large group at the moment, I think it's fine if you follow some logs more closely than others. People with the same target language sticking together closer would make sense, but I'd like to ask you to pay some extra attention to the logs of our two Thai learners. As the TAC can be a long and lonely endeavor, I have learned last year that every comment on my log was a very welcome sight and encouragement. Let's all make an effort to not only read, but also try to comment often. - If you feel like you're stuck or have any questions, feel free to post on the team thread and I'm sure there will helpful suggestions. Leurre and iawia have kindly agreed to be our godfathers and answer questions about Korean, Mandarin, Taiwanese and Classical Chinese (everyone else is of course welcome to answer them as well if you can). And I'm sure everyone on our team has many helpful ideas regarding study techniques. - As discussed, I'd like to establish monthly challenges to make us grow closer as a team. Of course it's difficult to find appropriate challenges for a group with different target languages and proficiency levels, but I'll try to give you several options. You're free to adapt the challenges a bit to suit you, but I'd like to ask everyone to make the extra effort and take part in them. In the best case you might discover new study methods or find out that you can do more than you thought. In the worst case you'll find them useless, but still get some extra language practice. Please report back on the team thread as soon as you have completed the challenge (you always get time from the beginning until the end of the month). If you have ideas for challenges, please let me know! - As most of you may know, there will be several other challenges on the forum throughout the year. It would be great if we can make a good showing in the 6-week-challenges and the Super Challenge (for those participating), but that is of course up to you and entirely optional. If wanderlust should strike, vermillon came up with the idea of taking part in one 6WC with a language of the Asian team that you're not already studying regularly. I'll just leave that as a suggestion. - There have also been ideas about Skype meetings and exchanging messenger contact details, which we could do if there's enough interest. - I hope this comment won't bee needed: If you feel that you can no longer participate in the TAC for whatever reason or need to take a break, please drop in and let us know. In last year's TAC it was sad to see people just vanish without any comment. Good luck to everyone! The first challenge is to post a self-introduction in your target language(s) on the team thread. If you study more than one Asian language, feel free to either focus on one of them for the challenge or do a multi-lingual introduction. You can choose to either write a text or post a link to an audio or video. What you write or say and how much is up to you. Ideally, you'll do something that suits your level of proficiency and is a little challenging: If you're a total beginner, it's perfectly okay to just post 3-5 sentences, if you're quite advanced feel free to write an elaborate post/make an elaborate speech about your language studies and anything else you'd like to share. The only thing I'd like to ask of you is that you post a rough translation of your text in English so that all team mates can understand you. You have time to post your introduction until January 31. Completed: Bakunin - Hidden Linguist - maurelio1234 - druckfehler - js6426 1, js6426 2 - Homogenik - Leurre - vermillon - BloodyChinese - billyshears66 - iawia - Vegemighty 1, Vegemighty 2 - Evita - Silbermond - LittleBoy - Kami - picnick - yuhakko Time for the second team challenge. It's a short month, so I thought we should have some fun while learning some new words and maybe also grammar. As Asia is pretty big on Karaoke, singing can be counted as a survival skill ^^ If you're planning a holiday, it's definitely useful to know a song in your target language very well - I learned this the hard way, stumbling through verses I couldn't read fast enough. You have time until February 28 to learn a song of your choice by heart. Just as was the case last time, ideally you'll pick a song that is challenging for you: if you're quite advanced you might want to focus on difficult lyrics or fast rapping. If you're a complete beginner, try to understand the whole song by looking up words and grammar and asking your teammates for help. If learning all of it by heart is still too difficult, try to get at least the chorus down. You can complete the challenge in one or several languages. Once you're done, please tell us how it went on the team thread and post a link to your song (if possible), as well as the lyrics and a translation. For the brave among us: posting a recording of you singing your song is a plus ^^ Completed: js6426 - maurelio1234 - Bakunin - BloodyChinese - Hidden Linguist - Evita - Haksaeng - Kami - iawia The March Challenge is to work through a GLOSS lesson in your target language(s). They are free online lessons by the Defense Language Institute and are available in Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Thai, covering the team's main languages. The levels roughly correspond to the CEFR scale: A1 = 0/0+, A2 = 1, B1 = 1+, B2 = 2/2+, C1 = 3/3+, C2 = 4/4+. The lessons all use native materials like TV snippets and newspaper articles and focus on different skills. It's up to you how intensively you study your chosen lesson. Ideally, you'll do something that suits your level of proficiency and is a little challenging. You have time to post about your experiences with the lesson until March 31. Completed: Bakunin - iawia - Hidden Linguist - js6426 - Haksaeng - maurelio1234 - druckfehler - Silbermond - yuhakko - Evita - Kami Language study can be a lonely hobby. The April Challenge wants to change that. For this month, the goal is to communicate in your target language(s). As always, it's up to you to define how exactly you want to tackle the challenge. If you're well advanced, you might look for a language tandem or prepare a challenging topic for discussion with someone who speaks your target language. If finding someone to talk to in your target language is difficult where you live, you could try chat sites like Shared Talk. If voice chatting isn't possible, you can resort to text chatting or penpalling on sites like InterPals. Communicating through writing is also a good option for the less advanced learners, just like ordering food at a restaurant in your target language. We could even have a Skype meeting and complete the challenge together. It doesn't matter how much or little you say or write, as long as you've made an effort to put the language you're studying to use. Ideally, you'll do something that suits your level of proficiency and is a little challenging. You have time to post about your experiences with the challenge until April 30. Completed: Bakunin - yuhakko - Hidden Linguist - js6426 - druckfehler - Haksaeng - Evita - maurelio1234 Sometimes cramming is what really makes a noticeable difference when learning a language. For the May challenge you can choose whether you'd like to focus on grammar or vocabulary. If you choose grammar, the goal is to learn 10 new constructions and write 5 practice sentences for each. If you choose vocabulary, the goal is to learn at least 50 new words - maybe from a specific word field - and write sentences including all of them. Your sentences can be very simple (along the lines of "This is a …" or "The child walks") or more complex, depending on your level of proficiency. Ideally, you'll do something that suits your level of proficiency and is a little challenging. You have time to post your sentences until May 31. Completed: js6426 - Haksaeng - yuhakko The goal for this challenge was to read, at whichever level and how much everyone thought was suitable for them. Completed: Haksaeng - js6426 - Bakunin - yuhakko TAC 2013 is slowly approaching its end and we've decided to end the year with two more challenges. By now there's been a lot of studying and we probably all have a good idea of our strong and weak areas in our target languages. This month's challenge gives you the opportunity to finally tackle something you've been putting off or to cement your progress in an area that's going well. What you decide to do for this penultimate challenge will be completely up to you. You can set your own goal and post it on the team thread any time before the end of the month. When you're done or the month is over let us know how it went for you. Completed: js6426 - druckfehler - maurelio1234 - yuhakko - vermillon It's time for our last team challenge! To bring our TAC year full circle I suggest that we once again have a production challenge. That means you can either post a text or a link to an audio or video of you speaking in (one or more of) your target language(s). You're free to choose a topic of your liking. For example, you could reflect upon the past year and the TAC challenge: What did you learn? How did you study? What was difficult? Are you satisfied with your progress? What are your plans for 2014? You could also talk about other things that happened this year or your plans for the next. As always, you'll ideally do something that suits your level of proficiency and is a little challenging. Please also post a rough translation in English so that all team mates can understand you. You have time to post your text until December 31. Completed: Evita - druckfehler - yuhakko - js6426 - maurelio1234 - Silbermond TAC SURVIVORS druckfehler: Korean, Mandarin 牛 兔 龍 豬 鼠 yuhakko: Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Thai 牛 兔 龍 蛇 羊 豬 鼠 Evita: Korean 牛 虎 兔 龍 鼠 vermillon: Mandarin, Classical Chinese, Minnan, Korean, Japanese 牛 豬 js6426: Mandarin, Khmer 牛 虎 兔 龍 蛇 羊 豬 鼠 maurelio1234: Mandarin 牛 虎 兔 龍 豬 鼠 Bakunin: Thai 牛 虎 兔 龍 羊 Hidden Linguist: Mandarin, Cantonese 牛 虎 兔 龍 UNDEAD MEMBERS ;) Silbermond: Mandarin, Korean 牛 兔 鼠 Kami: Korean 牛 虎 兔 DEAD MEMBERS Vegemighty: Mandarin 牛 Haksaeng: Korean 虎 兔 龍 蛇 羊 LittleBoy: Mandarin 牛 BloodyChinese: Mandarin new log: Mandarin, Korean 牛 虎 Takato: Mandarin, Japanese, Vietnamese picnick: Korean, Mandarin 牛 iawia: Japanese, Thai, Cantonese 牛 虎 兔 Leurre: Japanese, Korean 牛 billyshears66: Mandarin 牛 Homogenik: Mandarin 牛 Youngbin: Mandarin, Japanese Crush: Mandarin GODFATHERS KOREAN: Leurre MANDARIN, TAIWANESE, CLASSICAL CHINESE: iawia  Edited by druckfehler on 31 December 2013 at 9:32pm 10 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4865 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 2 of 457 10 December 2012 at 12:33am | IP Logged | ||
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Study Resources
Korean 한국어 Evita's Recommendations Talk To Me In Korean undisputedly the best website to learn Korean from. They have 235 grammar lessons as podcasts and each lesson also has an accompanying PDF file. For intermediate learners, they have the Iyagi podcast series where they talk about various subjects in Korean but slower than in real life, and they provide full transcripts of these conversations. They also have lots of other stuff, too much to describe it all here. Korean Wiki Project a good place to learn Hangeul, also has a ton of grammar. Click Korean 20 beginner lessons on the Seoul National University's website. Include vocabulary, grammar, listening and reading practice, various exercises. Very good. Sogang Korean Program another set of lessons for beginners by a Korean university. [druckfehler: often said to be too fast for complete beginners] My Korean two textbooks with accompanying audio by the Monash University, available for free on their website. Recommended. Korean verb conjugator very useful and reliable Online Intermediate College Korean an excellent course for intermediate learners. Korean Language Adventure looks like a good resource for intermediate learners but registration is required. [druckfehler: they say you need to register, but it works fine without registration] KoreanClass101.com I hear it's a bit similar to TTMIK but it requires registration. Korean Grammar Database contains lots of grammar but the example sentences may have some mistakes Korean Flashcards might be useful, not sure Naver dictionary Naver is a really big website for Koreans but this link is to the English - Korean dictionary (both directions). Daum dictionary similar to the Naver dictionary More links available here druckfehler's Recommendations Lessons, Practice with Native Materials: DLI: G.L.O.S.S. online lessons (lessons are available for every level and use a wide variety of native materials with audio, vocabulary lists, grammatical explanations and exercises with an answer key. They have encouraged me to take the leap and study with native materials in Korean.) Grammar: Korean Grammatical Forms (I like the one Evita suggested better, but this is a good supplement) Free listening Material: Audio Books, Naver Children Book Videos, Daum Children Book Videos (many of the videos have Korean, sometimes also English, subtitles) Free reading Material: Daum Online Comics, 좋은 생각 - magazine with short texts Interesting sites for advanced students: Advanced Korean (Newspaper articles with translations and explanations), Korean Champ (How do you say... in Korean), Korean Language Notes (Vocabulary and Hanja) Miscellaneous: Korean Multimedia Dictionary (dictionary of many basic Korean words with pictures and audio, sorted by topic), Korean Through Music (very thorough explanation of Korean song lyrics) Mandarin 中文 BloodyChinese's Recommendations Skritter Best tool for writing practice and also a great SRS. You can load pre-made vocab lists from pretty much every Chinese textbook out there, too. Consider buying a bamboo pad if you want to get the most out of it. If you are already practising your writing for more than an hour a day, the monthly charge($15) is well worth it. Anki SRS tool for offline practice. Consider downloading the Pinyin Toolkit plugin(File->Download->Shared Plugin->Search for "Pinyin"), and then downloading one of the pre-made decks(File->Download->Shared Deck->Search for "Pinyin Toolkit Sample Deck") so that you only have to enter the Hanzi. The plugin auto-completes the Pinyin, translation into multiple European languages and also downloads the audio. You can download shared decks here as well. You can select from -HSK lists(old and new) -popular textbooks(New Practical Chinese Reader, Practical Audio Visual Chinese, Integrated Chinese etc.) -Remembering the Simplified/Traditional Hanzi(if you are interested in the Heisig method) -Frequency lists -custom decks like irrationale's "Mandarin Master v2" allsetlearning Grammar If you want to learn Chinese grammar, look no further. Often times, their explanations are better than those you can find in the popular textbooks. nciku and mdbg chindict Two of the best online dictionaries. You can even sentence mine on both websites if you are already at that stage. chinesepod and popupchinese The two most popular podcast series on the net. They complement each other in that Popupchinese is geared towards HSK preparation and embraces grammar, while Chinesepod covers more slang and is more about learning essential expressions you are going to use daily. Popupchinese Premium subscription costs about $100 a year, while ChinesePod runs at $124 for a Basic Subscription to $249 for a Premium one. If you are a cheapskate like me, most ChinesePod lessons can be *cough* acquired. smgbb and cnnews Two of the most recommended radio stations(talk radio!). One is based in Beijing, the other in Taiwan. Chinese Forums From Speaking/Listening/Writing/Reading skills in Mandarin to how to go about scholarships and living in China/Taiwan; it's all being discussed there. Sinosplice , Easst Asia Student , Chinese Quest Three great blogs, covering all aspects of the language. If you want to study in Taiwan, Chinesequest is especially useful to read. Pinyin Sogou Best input method based on Pinyin I've found. Understands common phrases and you can switch between Chinese and regular input with the tab button(which is handy when you are entering new vocab into SRS) Pinyinput If you want to type in Pinyin, this is a simple, yet effective tool. Perapera Firefox, Perapera Chrome Pop-up Dictionary for Firefox and Chrome. Also available for Japanese (and Korean in the future) - Comics Speadsheet Want to read Chinese comics on the Internet? This is the master list. Tudou and Youku You can find Chinese TV series and movies there. Takato's Recommendations Speak Mandarin in 500 Words Introduction for beginners. (It uses the traditional characters used in Taiwan. It's freely downloadable with mp3s.) Slow Chinese Has good podcasts with transcripts for intermediate learners. Hidden Linguist's Recommendations BBC Languages - Chinese It has quite a lot of free information and resources for learning Mandarin. Useful for beginners. Edited by druckfehler on 11 April 2013 at 10:20pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Haksaeng Senior Member Korea, South Joined 6195 days ago 166 posts - 250 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Korean, Arabic (Levantine) | Message 3 of 457 10 December 2012 at 11:57am | IP Logged | ||
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Good ideas. I like the mini challenge idea since it creates a team event.
I would also be interested in background info from participants about how they've studied their language until now, to get an idea of where they are with it, but even more to see what kinds of methods have worked for people at various stages (this is my only foreign language and it took me forever to build up steam on it, so I'm always curious about how other people learn languages). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| LanguageSponge Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5763 days ago 1197 posts - 1487 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Welsh, Russian, Japanese, Slovenian, Greek, Italian | Message 4 of 457 10 December 2012 at 12:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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I agree with Haksaeng, the mini challenge idea creates an extra element to our
challenge and in binds us closer together in some way. I also agree with Haksaeng's request for background information on how we've all studied our chosen Asian language up until now, and I'll give mine below, however mine will not provide any insight other than to show the little progress I've made thus far. Oh well, I need to start somewhere: I've been living in China since 16th October of this year, teaching English. I have no intention to leave this country permanently until I've cracked Mandarin. I literally knew nothing more than hello, goodbye, how are you? one, two, three and thank you when I stepped off the plane - about as much Chinese as my three year- old students know in English. Now I am not much better as I only talk when I absolutely have to, but I am building words up slowly. I have two Mandarin lessons a week but I am about to start paying for one every day because I need them! The only resources I have are FSI Mandarin, A Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar, some little books aimed at teaching very young children the basic radicals, and the Internet. I am also slowly building up an Anki deck. I don't have a course to follow - I've never used a course for a self-taught language before (I've only ever used one in school because we had to) but this is the first time I feel like I need one. Any recommendations would be great if you're to it. I feel out of my depth with Mandarin at the moment as I hadn't started a completely new language for about five years, and as Mandarin is nothing like the Romance, Germanic and Slavic languages I know, it's very much an uphill struggle. But one that's not discouraging me too much - it's just very slow. Hope that's enough and I'll post my Chinese introduction a little later on. It will be a reflection of what I'd like to be able to write on the fly sometime in the future, not at all a representation of what I can do now. I'm really looking forward to studying with you all this year and I'm sure we'll all see massive improvements in our languages by the end of the challenge. I think using the character 鶴 as our symbol is a really good idea - we might all need some of that good fortune along the long road we're travelling on! Jack Edited by LanguageSponge on 10 December 2012 at 12:41pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Vegemighty Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4485 days ago 45 posts - 67 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 5 of 457 10 December 2012 at 1:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well I may be new to these challenges and the forum, but we could possibly have a points and leveling up system. I was thinking about creating one of these anyway since I'm living in China too, but I find it quite difficult to talk to people, I'm just not a talkative person. So I was thinking I could award myself experience points for accomplishing small or large interaction goals. Hold a five minute conversation +5, Ask for directions +3, etc. And whenever I get to the next level I reward myself with say a candy bar or new book, these are only ideas right now.
I've been living and working in Sichuanese speaking Chengdu since July, and I've so far completed pimsleur and am working my way through FSI and the NPCR books with some skritter and chinesepod on the side. My main challenge is finding people to speak with. Here is a video I made in August. Video introduction This is my log: Vegemighty's Mandarin log 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Evita Tetraglot Senior Member Latvia learnlatvian.info Joined 6549 days ago 734 posts - 1036 votes Speaks: Latvian*, English, German, Russian Studies: Korean, Finnish | Message 6 of 457 10 December 2012 at 2:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'd like to be an unofficial member of this team (with Korean). I don't want to change the name or the first post of my log but I can fulfill all the other requirements and participate in team activities. I hope we can have fun and success together in 2013.
I started studying Korean in March 2012 basically just for the fun and excitement of it. I was jobless at the time and had nothing better to do. I still have that excitement, I think it's largely thanks to the Korean dramas I've been watching and also because Korean is so very different from any other language I've learned before. I get a lot of satisfaction and enjoyment from studying it. I like the challenge it poses. I'd rate myself as a beginner still with the vocabulary size of about 850 words. My very vague goal for 2013 would be to get to the intermediate level. Right now I don't feel confident enough to write anything about myself in Korean yet.
I've got an idea - let's all memorize the lyrics for the same song and then sing it together on a Skype session! LOL. Okay, that was a joke. Seriously though, I don't think this would work very well because of our different levels in our target languages. What may be a big challenge for one may not be a challenge at all for someone else. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| LanguageSponge Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5763 days ago 1197 posts - 1487 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Welsh, Russian, Japanese, Slovenian, Greek, Italian | Message 7 of 457 10 December 2012 at 2:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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I agree with Evita about the challenges; they would have to be quite general if they are
going to be accessible to all of us. But then, more difficult challenges would also push the less experienced ones among us out of our comfort zones more often and theoretically we'll gain a lot from that happening on a regular basis. I suppose it is quite easy to come up with challenges that are accessible to us all though - even the one druckfehler suggested in the original post can be interpreted as either a high-level challenge or a low-level one depending on how in-depth you want to go with your introduction. I'm in the process of drawing up a list of challenges for when the challenge begins officially. Jack 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| The Real CZ Senior Member United States Joined 5646 days ago 1069 posts - 1495 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 8 of 457 10 December 2012 at 3:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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Evita, you're not required to change the title of your thread. I haven't done it for the past two challenges and it never hurt me.
As for challenges, those would be hard to do because of different levels and different learning styles. If someone said "learn 500 new words this week" for the challenge, that'd be really hard for the people who rely on SRS (though it's doable, just very painful) or at the beginner level where learning new words is hard. Then there are people like me who might see 100-200 new words a day without trying to memorize them 100% and still retaining a large percentage of those words. When you mention watching videos without subtitles, I watch everything without subtitles, regardless of my level in the language. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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