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Hidden’s TAC 2013 Log Team Asian 鶴 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Hidden Linguist Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4357 days ago 64 posts - 87 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Mandarin, Sign Language, French | Message 41 of 68 18 April 2013 at 4:55pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I think this is pretty much the only thing I can do. Unfortunately I’m still not very good at being able to distinguish the tones but (hopefully) the more I do it the easier it will get.
I’m not too fond of using romanisation myself, but I have found it to be useful (I try to stop using the romanisation of a word as soon as I can, which seems to working ok for me in Mandarin so far). @Bakunin How did you find learning a language using your ‘silent period’ approach? It sounds interesting, but I’d be worried that it would be difficult to start speaking it after so long just listening. Did you have any problems with that when you switched over? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Bakunin Diglot Senior Member Switzerland outerkhmer.blogspot. Joined 5128 days ago 531 posts - 1126 votes Speaks: German*, Thai Studies: Khmer | Message 42 of 68 18 April 2013 at 6:31pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
What kind of problems would you expect? I had a quite long silent period (about 22 months), that's certainly unusual. When I then finally started speaking, I had to go through something like a transition period, maybe a few months. But even during that time, communication was perfectly possible because I was able to understand what people said to me and I was able to use those words back. Now I can handle many situations and don't think the silent period has held me back in any respect. Actually, to the contrary, in particular in terms of pronunciation. I rarely encounter Thais who have to ask me to repeat what I've just said, most people seem to understand my Thai immediately. I also am able to self-correct my pronunciation because I have a strong model of how it should sound. One of the arguments for a long silent period is that early speakers tend to borrow sounds and prosodic features from their own mother tongue [or some other L2] because they lack a strong internal model of how it should sound correctly, and then 'hard-wire' those compromises. But who knows what's right, everybody has to find his own way. Ah, and how did I find it? Lots of fun, actually. What I enjoyed most was the absence of any anxiety or stress about speaking. I consumed a lot of media during that time and also worked with a tutor (we looked at picture books, he talked, I listened) for many tens of hours. My mind was never absorbed with thoughts about what I would say next, how I would respond to this or that, etc., and that helped me to fully focus and enjoy the content. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| mike245 Triglot Senior Member Hong Kong Joined 6970 days ago 303 posts - 408 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Cantonese Studies: French, German, Mandarin, Khmer | Message 43 of 68 21 April 2013 at 7:07pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Hope you have fun learning Cantonese! I don't have any specific recommendations for pronunciation guides, but I believe that Greenwood Press has several books that are pretty good (all with audio). I have looked at their intermediate level materials, and they are fantastic. I believe their books "Listening to Cantonese - Basic Skills" and "Spoken Cantonese for International Students" might be helpful -- although I don't know if they use jyutping or Yale. I myself have been using Sidney Lau's Elementary/Intermediate Cantonese series, which I find incredibly thorough and very high-quality (although the books are neither modern nor fun). They do not come with audio, but there are third-party created recordings floating around on the Internet that you can easily find and access. Sidney Lau has his own romanization method though, which is a bit hard to get used to. Edited by mike245 on 21 April 2013 at 7:08pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Hidden Linguist Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4357 days ago 64 posts - 87 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Mandarin, Sign Language, French | Message 44 of 68 27 April 2013 at 3:08pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Personally I’d be worried about being silent at the beginning making me more hesitant to speak later. I expect I’d feel more uncomfortable speaking when I’m not used to it, although I find that difficult anyway even without a silent period. I can see how it could help though, especially with listening comprehension, as you’d be much more used to hearing how the words sound. I can also see how that might help with speaking as well; if you’re not having to strain to understand what’s being said you can concentrate more on what you want to say.
Hi mike245. I’m having a LOT of fun with Cantonese so far. Thanks for the recommendations. The fact that there are such limited resources for Cantonese (when compared to Mandarin) is a bit annoying. I may have to resign myself to learning more than one form of romanisation just so that I’m able to use the resources that I can find. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Hidden Linguist Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4357 days ago 64 posts - 87 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Mandarin, Sign Language, French | Message 45 of 68 27 April 2013 at 3:11pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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April
This month started off really well. I was able to get a lot done in the first couple of weeks and was happy with what I was doing. Unfortunately, as the month has progressed, I’ve found myself ‘slacking’ on the language front and for the last couple of weeks I’ve managed to achieve very little. I’ve been caught up with college work, essays and exams which are taking up a lot of my time at the moment and eating into my language studies. Mandarin I managed to complete one of the language goals that I set myself at the beginning of my log by ordering a meal in Chinese. :) Unfortunately I’ve also broken one of my ‘Language Resolutions’ as, for over a week now, I’ve done absolutely nothing Mandarin related. :/ Time for me to refocus and get the momentum going again. I’ve found a small group of Mandarin learners that meet near me. I won’t be able to afford to attend every week, but I should be able to go occasionally. Cantonese I was finally able to work up the courage and have my first lesson on italki which (despite me being very nervous) I enjoyed. I will be having more lessons this way and (hopefully) I will become less nervous as I get used to it (it was also my first time using Skype). I’m having a lot of fun with Cantonese at the moment and I find that I’m spending far too much time on it to justify keeping it as a ‘wanderlust language’ so, as of today, I’m officially upgrading it to ‘main language’ status. :) I have also managed to find a pronunciation guide which (from my limited experience) seems to be ok. Thai I’m definitely still in the ‘wanderlust zone’ with Thai, but I think that’s mainly because I haven’t found any courses or materials that I’ve ‘clicked’ with yet. There is a lot of information on the site that Bakunin linked to so I’m sure I’ll find something eventually. For now I’m just spending a little time here and there on this one. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Hidden Linguist Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4357 days ago 64 posts - 87 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Mandarin, Sign Language, French | Message 46 of 68 30 April 2013 at 12:33am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I've signed up for the next 6WC with Cantonese.
Hopefully this will motivate me to put more time into my languages and stop slacking. One day I’m really enthusiastic and there’s not enough time in the day to spend on languages…..then I’ll go for days barely doing anything (or doing nothing at all). :( Perhaps it’s the fact that I lack concrete goals to aim for…or maybe I just burn myself out? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4866 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 47 of 68 30 April 2013 at 10:01am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Good luck with the 6WC! In my experience, language down-times are perfectly normal and don't matter much in the long run. Sometimes they even seem beneficial for letting the new stuff sink in.
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| Hidden Linguist Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4357 days ago 64 posts - 87 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Mandarin, Sign Language, French | Message 48 of 68 01 May 2013 at 10:17pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Thanks druckfehler. I guess the brain just needs ‘timeout’ sometimes. 6WC I actually surprised myself and got in 6 and a half hours of Cantonese study today...and I might squeeze in another hour before bed tonight. :) I think that’s mostly down to it being the first day of the 6WC. As enthusiastic as I am about it at the moment, I certainly don’t expect to be able to maintain that amount of study every day of the challenge, but it’s a nice start. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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