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Vermillon’s TAC’13 鶴 & Lugus | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| vermillon Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4676 days ago 602 posts - 1042 votes  Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, German | Message 1 of 73 31 December 2012 at 12:03am | IP Logged |
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Hi all,
this log will document my efforts for 2013's Total Annihilation Challenge as part of the teams 鶴 and Lugus, plus what may come in the middle. At the beginning of the year, my intentions for the year are to study Mandarin, Minnan, Classical Chinese, Korean, Japanese (鶴), Breton (Lugus), and in an extra list, Norwegian, German, along with having a look at Middle English, Old English and Old Norse. I'll try to keep this first post brief, only listing where I am at the moment and where I want to be one year from now. First, general goals: Global Goals for TAC 2013: My first goal is of course to be there in a year and to be able to look proudly on the progress achieved. I've given myself the full month of December to try to mature my plan for 2013 and I'm not fully confident about what I want to do and this post may change with time. It has been particularly difficult to choose which languages I would study, and I'm not particularly satisfied with the fact that I haven't managed to persuade myself to reduce the list enough. This will therefore be a challenge of time management, and I still hope that I can benefit from the relatedness of the languages chosen. Another challenge for me will be to fight against that tendency I have to only learn vocabulary and not focus at all on the other areas of the language. Arguably, I'm firstly interested in reading and that's where I need a lot of vocabulary and little of anything else, but for this year, I'd like to get back to a better approach, and give myself the opportunity to communicate with other people, and I hope that I'll get the chance to chat (text+voice) with you team mates, and hopefully also native speakers! Ok, now for a list of goals by language. DISCLAIMER: this may be boring to read. I want a reference to look at one year from now, so even trying to be brief, this may be too long for you and you may want to skip. Mandarin / 普通話: This is the language in which I'm most proficient, and I'm using it daily (hence having it in my "speak" list) and I can do about anything I want in the language. However, I tend to use quite simple language in general, as this English post can attest. Now I would like to get out of my comfort zone and be able to get my Mandarin to the level of my English, i.e. to have no difficulty at all with any of the four skills: -reading: this is obviously my strongest skill, mainly because this is what I enjoy the most. Until now I have read 11 novels, and I want to commit myself to read 10 pages per day every day of the year, which should have me read about 1 novel of average size per month. I hope to get to read faster, as for now 10 pages take me 50mn (when reading for pleasure). I hope that this increased exposure will allow me to stop using Anki at all, or at least to make a more clever use of it. Generally speaking, I now do only extensive reading and hardly ever open a dictionary. I'm still to decide what to read this year, and I'll start a topic about that later. -listening: this one is usually fine and I understand news broadcast pretty well "I believe", but I'd like to get more exposure, particularly to non-"standard" accents, because I'm still having a hard time understanding movies (while having no problem understanding my Chinese friends and colleagues, even when they're not talking to me). I think I'll use the radio RFA, because I quite like its content, and you really get about any accent there. I may also use RTI for intensive listening (transcription task) because they have transcripts that I can refer to. -speaking: I've been told that my tones had improved a lot last year, and I hope to polish that this year. I don't have any particular problems being understood in Mandarin, so I guess improving in that area will mostly be a matter of practice, noticing patterns and increasing my vocabulary. -writing: I don't have particular plans to write in a formal fashion nor to write essays, so it's likely that I won't spend any time on this. I'd mainly want to improve my handwriting, and also to learn to write the traditional script, which I've found I could read without problem but couldn't produce yet, having learnt Mandarin on the mainland. In short: My goal for the end of the year is to reach the point where I will consider my Mandarin doesn't need to be improved any more. Oh, and finally I want to take Taiwan's TOCFL's highest level in early 2014. Minnanhua / Hokkien / Taiwanese(?) / 閩南話: This is a language I know nothing of but a few sentences and words. From what I've gathered, Minnan is a language family spoken mainly in Fujian and Taiwan, this poses the question of which dialect of this family to learn. My main motivation for spending time on Minnan is that it's the mother tongue of my girlfriend (we normally communicate in Mandarin and English) and as I'm going to visit her family during the summer, I think it would be really great to be able to hold a conversation in the language. The problem as I said is the question of which dialect to learn: all the learning material is for the Taiwanese variant (completely mutually intelligible with hers), and that's still not a lot (anyone reading this and willing to help me get my hands on Maryknoll textbooks is invited to give me a PM), and there's basically nothing for the Quanzhou variant that she speaks. Fortunately, the language is still quite similar to Mandarin, and quite a few times I could produce the Minnan for a word based on what I know of Mandarin, Korean and Japanese (Cantonese would help better, but I know nothing of it), so it shouldn't be too hard in terms of vocabulary acquisition -tones are not that frightening- and grammar should be relatively ok. Considering I haven't yet managed to get hold of any decent material and that time is pressing, I've decided I would take care of my own learning: I have a native speaker, my goal is to find how to get the most out of her in as little time as possible (as in "before the summer" and "without stealing hours and hours of her time"). Any reading or advice about this would be welcome. For now, I think I will explore two tracks: -speaking: I will work on a task-based method. The tasks will typically be conversation topics that I want to be able to master: introduce myself, enquire about people's mood/appetite/etc, talk about food (that one should be pretty important), and once past these basic things, acquire structures to articulate something more elaborate. I have around 26 weeks, that's plenty of time if I make proper use of it. Everything depends on me, there's no comfort from following a textbook and that's a bit intimidating, but I'm sure I'll manage. -listening: There are plenty of songs in Minnan, and I expect them to be another important source of Minnan for me. The first one will probably be 陳雷《欢喜就好. -reading: There's about nothing else than religious and linguistic material written in Minnanhua as far as I know, but there is a Wikipedia edition, which I may look at for fun. -writing: Nothing. In short: I hope to develop conversational skills by the summer, relying on myself to learn the language. Classical Chinese / 文言: I'm quite happy with what I've learnt since late 2011, getting to the point where I could read without much problem the biography of Huo Guang using the glosses for the vocabulary. I'd like to keep on this track and read more. My initial goal for 2013 is to read the 说苑. I haven't started it yet, but all the beginner textbooks include stories taken from it whose content is funny and/or interesting, so I thought it would be a good read. If it turns out not to be, I may turn to other works. I haven't decided on the amount of time I want to spend on Classical Chinese yet, but it's likely to be quite limited, given my general workload. An hour weekly is very little, but my hope here is that a small but regular effort should bring some improvement. If ever I find that I have more time to allocate to it, I definitely will... this may have to wait for the second half of the year, when I'm already happy with my Mandarin and that my study of Minnanhua is not so pressing. In short: I love reading Classical Chinese, and I hope to find enough time to do so during the year. My goal is to read regularly. Korean / 한국어 / 韓國語: Though I didn't spend the entirety of 2012 on it (i.e. TAC FAIL!), I'm happy with my progress this year, as I went from very little knowledge to passing the TOPIK beginner with good grades. The problem is mainly that I've burnt out and that I've forgotten a lot (almost everything?) since then. I've restarted my Anki deck, and it's pretty encouraging that words come back quite easily and I can often remember the mnemonics I had found by then. My goal for this year is to quickly get back to where I was when I left Korean 8-9 months ago, and then improve regularly from there. A soft goal will be to take the TOPIK intermediate in early 2014, which seems a very achievable goal without spending all my time on Korean, and above all without forcing me to spend all my time on learning vocabulary. -reading: As usual, reading is my main interest, and perhaps it's a bit optimistic, but I'd like to be able to read a short novel by the end of the year. I'll try to read a few Korean novels in French, to get an idea of what I'd be interested in spending my time on, and also to gauge the level of difficulty. It may very well be 황석영(黃晳暎)《한씨연대기》or something like this, in terms of length/topic. I also want to dedicate some time to Hanja. Some may consider it a waste of time, but I really like them, and I have access to SOAS's gigantic library, which contains thousands of Korean books written in mixed script. -listening: My listening skills are very poor, and I want to improve that. I don't know yet how to do (L-R?), but I will try to get more exposure listening to RFA. I expect to watch movies regularly, but apart from that I'm welcoming your advice. -speaking & writing: I don't feel very confident speaking with so little vocabulary and grammar in my head, but perhaps I should try to target some conversation routines and practice them. I don't have a real contact with any native speaker, so I should work on that. This is part of the things I haven't figured out yet. In short: I want to get back to my highest point (wasn't very high) and improve by one TOPIK level (i.e. high beginner => high intermediate). I want Korean to be more part of my life and start reading. Japanese / 日本語: I've studied a very little bit of it around 2007 and I remember it.. not much, that is. I cannot resist any more working on Japanese, and with my advance in Korean, I already find that Japanese is not so daunting. There may be interference, but I hope I'll be able to call that synergy instead. Here again my main motivation is reading, but I'll try to work out a not-too-unhealthy balance and my goal for this TAC is to take the JLPT N3 by the end of the year. This seems doable in terms of vocabulary intake, and I suppose grammar should be less of a burden. If I'm not mistaken, this is a very achievable goal. In short: This was short enough! Starting from scratch, aiming at JLPT N3. Breton / Brezhoneg: I know nothing of Breton. My family comes from Britanny, but they were not taught the language and by my grandparents' generation knowledge of the language was lost already. I have never met a native speaker, and my only contact with Breton is through some albums from Denez Prigent (which seems famous enough to do a duo with Lisa Gerrard on Black Hawk's Dawn's ost) and radio France Bleu Breizh-Izel. I'd like to thank the people who created the Lugus team for giving me the perfect opportunity to start with Breton (as well as my mother for offering me the Assimil, quite unexpectedly!). I don't know exactly what my goals are. I guess I want to be able to understand those songs I've listened to so many times, and get more out of the radio than just "evel-just". As I'll have team mates to share with, and that they seem to have learned quite a lot already, I hope to get the chance to practice what I learn with them. Assimil also recommends some crime novel requiring a mere thousand words, so that seems like something I could do. In short: I just want a gentle start and enjoy it with my team mates. Germanic Wanderlust: Middle & Old English (& Middle & Old French?), Old Norse, Norwegian and German As the Germanic team turned out to be a German-only team, I can finally resist temptation and reduce my language list. I keep these 4-5 as languages I want to touch with during the year, but that'll mostly be in the form of reading only. My first project is to read Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" in Middle English. I've started already and the language gives a pleasant feel of a mix between English, French and German. As it's quite big, I hope to finish it by May or June. After that I'm considering trying to read "Piers Plowman", "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" and perhaps some Robin Hood tales. I may also have a go at medieval (or early Renaissance?) texts in Old & Middle French. If I find enough time, most likely during the second half of the year, I'll try to read novels in German, news in Norwegian, and work my way through some texts in Old English and Old Norse. In short: Just enough not to lose contact, and prepare for TAC 2014? ;) Structure of this log: I'll try to update weekly or thrice monthly. For languages in which I expect quick progress (Minnan, because I'm forced to), there will definitely be an update as I guess it may be interesting for some of you to see how well or bad I can fare without learning material, but for some other languages (Classical Chinese?) I may make the update a bit less frequent. Monthly Reports Edited by vermillon on 26 October 2013 at 11:28pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 2 of 73 31 December 2012 at 12:43am | IP Logged |
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I have read both Piers the Plowman and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. They're a little
tough to get through. I think those were modernised versions though and it's 9 years since I have read them, so who knows. And I don't think I was C2 English at that time (but my English was already excellent back then anyway). It should be doable. Degemer mat! Laouen on ha deskiñ brezhoneg ganit! Edited by tarvos on 31 December 2012 at 12:45am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| yuhakko Tetraglot Senior Member FranceRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4630 days ago 414 posts - 582 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishB2, EnglishC2, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Korean, Norwegian, Mandarin | Message 3 of 73 31 December 2012 at 1:35am | IP Logged |
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As expected from you, Impressive first post! This is going to be a tough year!!
Anyway, as I've told you before, don't hesitate if you need help in Japanese (and Korean, but for that others from the team might be of more help.. at least at the start) ! Good luck ! And don't fail this year ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| iawia Bilingual Pentaglot Newbie Taiwan Joined 4587 days ago 35 posts - 55 votes Speaks: EnglishC2, Mandarin*, Taiwanese*, Cantonese, Spanish Studies: Thai, Japanese | Message 4 of 73 31 December 2012 at 9:04am | IP Logged |
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Hello Vermillon!
You have quite some ambitious goals for 2013! I've been lurking around this forum for some time, but this is the first time I see a learner of Taiwanese and classical Chinese. I am from Taiwan, and I had some experience reading Chinese classics, so if you have any questions, I can do what I can to help. Based on my experience of learning Cantonese, knowledge of one Chinese dialect(or language) greatly helps the learning of another. I used a natural approach for learning Cantonese, watching dramas and listening to songs, and before long, I could communicate with my friends in HK and Macau. Therefore, if you have a strong foundation in Mandarin, it might be a good idea to search for some Taiwanese drama. There are also some Taiwanese radio programs available on Radio Taiwan International: http://www.rti.org.tw/radio/Minnan/Minnan_Default.aspx 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 5 of 73 31 December 2012 at 11:16am | IP Logged |
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Hey vermillon, very ambitious goals indeed, just as expected :)
TOPIK level 4 is no joke, so you'll have to study hard to get there. I couldn't have done gotten there in a year if I had studied several other languages at the same time, but maybe you can. After all, I don't think I could even survive a week studying 6 different Assimils at once... The other Asian languages you know and study will surely be of some help as well. Good luck! I'm very curious to read about your mammoth language project for this year! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5530 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 73 31 December 2012 at 4:08pm | IP Logged |
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I see you're putting the "Total Annihilation" in TAC this year. :-) I followed your Assimil x 6 experiment with great interest, and it was a pleasure discussing Egyptian with you. Good luck with your plans for 2013, and I look forward to following your log.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| vermillon Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4676 days ago 602 posts - 1042 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, German | Message 7 of 73 31 December 2012 at 5:45pm | IP Logged |
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@tarvos: Have you read the Canterbury Tales as well, just to compare? I've read somewhere that Chaucer had a much more "French" language, so perhaps that's why I find it easy and perhaps indeed the two others will be more difficult to read. Well, I'll see, I can read 1 page a day if it's difficult, I don't mind.
@yuhakko: Thanks, I think I'll definitely bother you with Japanese! And ok, since you ask so kindly, I'll try not to fail this time! @iawia: ah, that is fantastic! Thanks for your message, I'm definitely going to accept your offer, I hope I'll get a chance to chat with you, if you have time (and I've read that you were studying French before, if you're thinking of getting back to it, now is probably the time). I don't know how I could have missed that RTI had a Taiwanese edition, as I already listened to their Mandarin edition quite a few times, thanks a lot for the link. And finally, do you have any TV series to recommend? I've watched a few movies from Taiwan with scenes in Taiwanese, but that was probably too short to get anything out of it. Hopefully I'll make it! @druckfehler: don't mention it! I wish I had found enough strength to restrict myself to half that many languages, but somehow I haven't... It's probably not very auspicious with regards to the longevity of my project, but I'll try anyway... As for TOPIK 4, what did you find to be challenging? (especially compared to TOPIK 2, which I've found pretty easy to reach). Anyway, if anything must be dropped this year, it won't be Korean! (hey, do you have plans to read any "normal" novels this year?) @emk: Thanks, I'm glad to see you here! I'm just back from the shop where I've bought the last bd from Tardi, following your recommendation elsewhere (if you don't know him more than this, a lot of his BDs are in this style), and I'll definitely follow your log, hopefully you'll suggest more things to read. As for Egyptian, do you have any plan to continue it this year, or is it for later? I've found it interesting to study, but I'm still wondering how to best approach dead languages' vocabulary without getting bored.. Edited by vermillon on 31 December 2012 at 5:46pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5164 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 8 of 73 31 December 2012 at 8:04pm | IP Logged |
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Só, vermillon , the Assimil experiment is over! I'd be Gladston to folclore this log then! I know I'll make you
repeat yourself, but how did you get to this leves in Mandarin? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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