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HŘÍBEČEK TAC13- CZECHOSLOVAK & jäŋe/ledús | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| pesahson Diglot Senior Member Poland Joined 5729 days ago 448 posts - 840 votes  Speaks: Polish*, English Studies: French, Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 89 of 96 16 November 2013 at 4:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
Oh wow. That sounds exciting. Do you ever want to go back to Britain or did you decide to live all your life abroad? Edited by pesahson on 16 November 2013 at 4:11pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| hribecek Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5350 days ago 1243 posts - 1458 votes Speaks: English*, Czech, Spanish Studies: Italian, Polish, Slovak, Hungarian, Toki Pona, Russian | Message 90 of 96 18 November 2013 at 2:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
I don't feel alive in England because I know it so well, feel like I know the mindset of all the people and there are few new experiences or things to learn there, if you know what I mean. It's nothing really against England, it's probably the same for many people with their native country. The new move looks like it would most likely happen in Summer 2015, possibly 2014. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6143 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 91 of 96 24 November 2013 at 11:13pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Catching up on the forum after many months away... So many new things!
Anyways, congratulations on your C1 Czech Exam! That must have been so exciting, particularly since your results were so much higher than expected. Čestitke! As for your potential upcoming move, I would both be thrilled and endlessly jealous if you picked Croatia. Where in particular were you thinking of going? I was also surprised to see that Hungary wasn't on your list, given your affinity for the language and country. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| hribecek Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5350 days ago 1243 posts - 1458 votes Speaks: English*, Czech, Spanish Studies: Italian, Polish, Slovak, Hungarian, Toki Pona, Russian | Message 92 of 96 25 November 2013 at 9:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
Great to see you back on the forum! Are you planning to be more active here again? I hope so. I'd love to read about your final months in Croatia and the final state of your Croatian and current language situation. Thanks for the congratulations on the exam, it was a very nice surprise to pass so well. Croatia is a big possibility, it would depend on where the work is, but my wife would like to be on the coast somewhere. Definitely not any big city or big tourist destination. A nice town of under 50,000 people would be perfect. Personally I would love to move to Hungary, but my wife doesn't want to move there. The selection I mentioned is based on a compromise. Croatia would actually be perfect in its proximity to Hungary. My wife's number one choice is Italy. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6143 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 93 of 96 29 November 2013 at 9:10pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'd love to be more active, it's just a matter of how much time I can devote to it nowadays. I've been horribly unproductive in terms of language study since I've been away from the forum, though, so I really do think that returning could do me a world of good.
Istria sounds like it would be a good compromise for the two of you, since it's on the coast and has so much Italian influence due to its proximity to Italy (and it in fact used to be part of Italy). The problem with being on the coast is that practically everywhere that's not a tiny village is a tourist destination, at least in the spring and summer. Opatija, where I was living last year, was very quiet all winter and then in the spring it was suddenly overrun by hordes of Austrian and German tourists. I practically heard more German being spoken on the streets than Croatian, and it would get even worse in the summer. That's not really an issue if you go inland, though, and stay away from Zagreb and Plitvice. I'd suggest Varaždin, which is about an hour north of Zagreb and very close to the Hungarian border. It's a beautiful, quiet little Baroque town, nicknamed "Mali Beč" ('Little Vienna'), that's not a big tourist spot. Edited by ellasevia on 29 November 2013 at 9:11pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| hribecek Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5350 days ago 1243 posts - 1458 votes Speaks: English*, Czech, Spanish Studies: Italian, Polish, Slovak, Hungarian, Toki Pona, Russian | Message 94 of 96 13 December 2013 at 8:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
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@Ellasevia - Sorry I didn't reply before, but thanks for the recommendations of places to go. At the moment it seems like Italy is the number one choice, as my wife would prefer not to go to another Slavic country, although Croatia might be an exception.
UPDATE TIME So I got through the 6 week challenge and achieved all of my goals - over 30 hours and at least something every day of Hungarian, over 100 hours in all languages combined (about 107 hours in the end) and 5 hours of Toki Pona. I also did about 3 hours of Spanish. I did nearly 70 hours of Czech, although in reality it was a lot more, but I didn't count the hundreds of short conversations I had, any passive listening or general reading of the news etc. and I was as strict as possible on myself with all timings, especially in Czech. I finished 30th out of over 100 in the target language (Hungarian) challenge and 15th in languages overall. This means absolutely nothing because I can't control what anybody else does or how they time themselves. My Hungarian feels so much fresher after those 6 weeks, right now my Hungarian is probably the best it has ever been. I've also started a new language game when walking between places. I say a sentence in Czech and then try to say the same sentence in Spanish, Hungarian and Toki Pona. It's great fun for me and I'm going to keep doing it, especially now that I don't have to time everything I do for the 6 week challenge. I'll write one more official update here to sum up my whole year before 2013 finishes. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| hribecek Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5350 days ago 1243 posts - 1458 votes Speaks: English*, Czech, Spanish Studies: Italian, Polish, Slovak, Hungarian, Toki Pona, Russian | Message 95 of 96 28 December 2013 at 1:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
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FINAL SUMMARY FOR 2013
The fact that I haven’t been lazy with languages all year means that it’s been a success. I always wonder if I’ll ever go through a period of neglecting languages altogether, I hope not. I believe that there’s been at least a slight improvement in all of my languages. In the first half of the year Spanish and Czech were my main focus languages and since the end of July Polish, Hungarian, Toki Pona and Czech as usual have all had periods of being my most important languages. CZECH Any improvement which may have occurred is not noticeable but doing so much reading, listening, studying etc. must have done something to my level. At least I have a C1 certificate to show for the year which is very nice and means that I can feel a lot more confident about stating that I’m at a C1 level. I’d say that I’ve read about 20 novels since the start of the year and watched hundreds of films and many hours of TV shows. SPANISH Between February and June I had good Spanish classes every week and felt a definite reduction in rustiness and improvement in some areas, especially my use of the past tenses. At the Polyglot Conference in Budapest I spoke Spanish a lot and my confidence was boosted by seeing that I could hold my own and not slow down the conversation with some people who are known for their high level in Spanish. HUNGARIAN My motivation for Hungarian had a big lull for most of the year, but has returned for the last 2 months of the year. Surprisingly I found that the break from constant Hungarian study had had a positive effect and that now I feel a bit more natural in the language. My main achievement was doing 30 hours during the 6 week challenge and at least 15 minutes a day during that time. I also visited Hungary once for the conference but my use of Hungarian was limited to restaurant phrases with natives and some short conversations at the conference itself. SLOVAK Added a dozen or so new words to my vocabulary, followed Chung’s comparisons of Czech and Slovak and learned something from that and heard it many times on TV and from Slovak people in person. POLISH I spent probably about 3 weeks studying Polish every day in July/August and as a result my knowledge has of course improved, although I still wouldn’t be able to construct anything more than a very basic sentence. TOKI PONA I did about 11 hours of the language in September 2010 and that took me to a level where I knew all of the basic words and grammar. In October, November and December and added another 10-12 hours of work on the language and it all came back to me very quickly and I’ve now got to a higher level than I was in 2010. TAC 2013 TEAMS Regarding TAC teams, I enjoyed the Czechoslovak team most as I felt like I had a lot more in common with teammates there than in the jane/ledus team. In the jane/ledus team there were just too many languages for me and as a result I decided to stick to teams with people studying the same languages as me in the future. Unfortunately it looks like the Czechoslovak team won’t be continuing, because many have dropped out over the year and there would only be 3 in the team. Anyway, from my two teams of last year I particularly enjoyed reading the logs of Chung, Mick33, Stelingo, Tajosto and nuriayasmin70 and the contributions to those teams of Majka, Cavesa and Pesahson (to my particular log). Also a special thanks needs to go to Maxval for correcting my Hungarian again this year. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| stelingo Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5833 days ago 722 posts - 1076 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Czech, Polish, Greek, Mandarin | Message 96 of 96 29 December 2013 at 1:48am | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks for the mention Hribicek. I also enjoyed reading your log.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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