druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4869 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian
| Message 345 of 457 30 April 2013 at 2:56pm | IP Logged |
And again, I think you completed the challenge, Evita ;)
Quote:
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. |
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The challenge was to make the effort and try communicating in the target language and that's what you did. I think you did well, too. A year of Korean study isn't much, it takes time to get used to the structures and everything and active usage is always more challenging than passive understanding.
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Bakunin Diglot Senior Member Switzerland outerkhmer.blogspot. Joined 5131 days ago 531 posts - 1126 votes Speaks: German*, Thai Studies: Khmer
| Message 346 of 457 30 April 2013 at 6:20pm | IP Logged |
Haksaeng wrote:
But with the April Challenge in mind, what I did this month was download the app for KakaoTalk onto my phone. Everyone here in Korea uses this app for their messaging and I'm really not into messaging a lot. But one evening I was having dinner with my husband's former secretary and she convinced me I should use it. Even though I don't know a lot of Koreans to message with them, it's good to have this as an option for communication. So far this month, I've only used it with 2 Korean-speakers: one of my classmates and my husb's secretary. The secretary is fluent in English of course, and I wouldn't be comfortable speaking with her in Korean, but I do enjoy messaging her in Korean. I have a few other bilingual friends I might use it with in the future, too, so I think it's a good option and might give me opportunities in the future for more natural exchanges. |
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I also chat a lot with (a selected few) friends, and I think it's really useful practice. It often takes the place of making a phone call (which can be expensive or inconvenient) and therefore really serves as a means of communication. It helps with practicing spelling (in Thai an issue, probably less so in Korean). Since it's text based it allows a bit more time to reflect on what and how to write. It also helps to learn to be sufficiently precise because there are fewer non-verbal cues to resort to (there are emoticons and equivalent expressions, but that's much more restricted than having a real conversation). All in all it's a really cool addition to my toolbox, and I hope you'll get something out of it as well.
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maurelio1234 Triglot Groupie BrazilRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6081 days ago 61 posts - 92 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishC2, French Studies: German, Mandarin
| Message 347 of 457 30 April 2013 at 7:48pm | IP Logged |
Hi,
Well, this month I puts little bit more of effort in communicating with people in
Chinese again. I installed WeChat and Line in my computer and tried to find people are
to chat again. I found some random people and had some conversations, but in fact, I
think it much more difficult to find people to chat in this place than it is in other
place such as Skype and sharedtalk. I tried also to talk more frequently in Chinese to
my girlfriend, even if I can't do more than some words or sentences...
That's my April's challenge ;-)
Now I'm waiting for the next six weeks challenge that starts tomorrow!
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druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4869 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian
| Message 348 of 457 30 April 2013 at 10:34pm | IP Logged |
maurelio1234 wrote:
Now I'm waiting for the next six weeks challenge that starts tomorrow! |
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Good that you're reminding us of the 6wc, maurelio! I've seen Hidden Linguist also signed up and is studying Cantonese for the challenge. Good luck to you both! Anyone else taking part?
I'll also be posting the team challenge tomorrow - this time I'm not going to be late ;)
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druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4869 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian
| Message 349 of 457 01 May 2013 at 9:30am | IP Logged |
MAY TEAM CHALLENGE 蛇 snake
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.
As June is the month of the TADOKU (Read More or Die) Challenge, we're going to have a reading challenge.Thought I'd warn you early in case you want to get reading materials. I'll be posting a list of websites with Korean stories for different proficiency levels and it would be great if we can also collect such resources for the other languages.
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Evita Tetraglot Senior Member Latvia learnlatvian.info Joined 6553 days ago 734 posts - 1036 votes Speaks: Latvian*, English, German, Russian Studies: Korean, Finnish
| Message 350 of 457 01 May 2013 at 12:01pm | IP Logged |
Oh, this is my favorite challenge yet! I think I'm going to choose grammar. I will easily learn 50 new words anyway but many of them will probably be context-less so it would be hard to write sentences with them. It should be easier with grammar constructions.
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Hidden Linguist Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4360 days ago 64 posts - 87 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Mandarin, Sign Language, French
| Message 351 of 457 01 May 2013 at 10:20pm | IP Logged |
Thanks for the heads up on the June challenge druckfehler. I think I’m definitely going to struggle with that one.
My reading skills are practically non-existent in Chinese outside of very basic sentences. I’ll need to have a look around to see if I can find any reading materials for my (very low) level of knowledge. I’d really appreciate it if someone could recommend something for Mandarin (I’m not holding out much hope for Cantonese). Who knows, if I use this month’s challenge to work on my vocab, I might actually be able to take a shot at next month’s.
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druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4869 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian
| Message 352 of 457 02 May 2013 at 2:43pm | IP Logged |
Hidden Linguist wrote:
My reading skills are practically non-existent in Chinese outside of very basic sentences. I’ll need to have a look around to see if I can find any reading materials for my (very low) level of knowledge. I’d really appreciate it if someone could recommend something for Mandarin (I’m not holding out much hope for Cantonese). |
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Children's books and Comics generally seem like a good choice for beginning to read native materials. You can have a look if you find something at the International Children's Library. They have a lot of books in various languages you can access for free. There might also be easy readers for Chinese It doesn't really matter what and how much you read and it definitely doesn't matter whether you understand everything. Even if there's a lot you don't understand it can be beneficial to just identify and reinforce words you already know. As long as you can follow the general trajectory of your text it shouldn't be too boring either.
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