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Lorinth’s log - 劳伦的博客 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4272 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 25 of 408 02 April 2013 at 11:06am | IP Logged |
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30/3-2/4
As expected, this long week-end was good for family life, but bad for language learning. I could barely catch up with my spaced-repetition vocabulary queue in Chinese. I had no time to review my HSK4 vocabulary with Skritter, though. Three or four months ago, I read 余华's 活着 (To Live) in Chinese. Then I bought the French version hoping I could, from time to time, read some pages more thoroughly, by comparing the original and the translation. Yesterday, I had half an hour of leisure time, so I did that with 2 pages. On Sunday, we went to visit one of Erasmus' residence, which is now an interesting museum. At the small bookshop, I bought a novel in Latin called Makita (Iohannes Capart), sive De historia cuiusdam muris tempore Pharaonum, in Latinum vertit F. Deraedt. Now it lies at the bottom of my reading queue. Not for too long, hopefully. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4272 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 26 of 408 03 April 2013 at 9:10am | IP Logged |
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ZH
Finished reading 王小波的黄金时代 chap. 6. and started reading chap. 7. A recurring problem with this book is that, in some passages, I know all characters and all words, but the style of the author is so... so what? allusive? terse? spoken? that I don't get who's saying what and doing what to whom. Example: "我问她，碰上了人家怎么说，她说，她没被 上过。 但是听说人家会把门一摔，在外面说：真他妈 的讨厌！" What's the subject of the first 说? Does 碰 have another meaning than that I know? What the subject of the 说 in 在外面说? Having read 余华 before, I know what 他妈的 means, thanks :-) Add to that all the vocabulary related to sex (part of which is explicit and part of it seems to be allusive - but I'm sure I do not recognise all allusions) and to life as it was during the Cultural Revolution, and that makes a pretty difficult book for me. Yet, the main characters are captivating, and the novel as a whole continues to be endearing. Shadowed Chinese Learn Online lesson 213-214. Listened to lesson 215. Had a 1-hour Skype lesson with, guess what, yet another different teacher, who wanted to continue with New Practical Chinese Reader. This is becoming slightly ridiculous. Usual vocabulary drills, i.e. HSK5 (review + 6 new words), frequent characters (review + 2 new characters), random words collected while reading (there were fewer than usual, because I haven't read anything for 3 days) and HSK4 review with Skritter (there were much more, because I haven't reviewed that queue for 3 days). FI Studied some vocabulary in Learning With Text. LA Listened to Caesar I.13-14, and then read chap. I.13-16. Chapter I.14 is quite complicated, because of all the indirect discourse, and because Caesar's thought is rather convoluted, if you ask me. But then, that's politics jotted down as it happened. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4272 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 27 of 408 04 April 2013 at 9:21am | IP Logged |
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ZH
Usual vocabulary drills, i.e. HSK5 (review + 6 new words), frequent characters (review + 2 new characters), random words collected while reading and HSK4 review with Skritter. Read part of a long, interesting article about 联合国's 武器贸易条约. Learnt some interesting vocabulary concerning weapons (坦克、装甲车、火炮、战斗机、直升机、军 、火箭、导弹发射 器、小武器、轻武器等) and some typical sentence structures 决议中指出，联大呼吁所有国家...). Hey, one year ago, I think I'd never have understood a subtitle like "伊叙朝三国反对". Continued reading 王小波的黄金时代 chap. 7. 我也看了一篇关于朝鲜的文章。因为半岛是中 国近邻，所以中方要维护半岛和平稳定，实现 半岛无核化。 In addition, I read an article about North Korea, according to which China wants to preserve peace and stability while pursuing denuclearisation in this neighbouring peninsula. FI Reviewed vocabulary with the SRS feature of Learning With Texts. LA Reviewed vocabulary with the SRS feature of Learning With Texts. Read Titi Livi ab vrbe condita liber I-45 and I-46. Also read Caesar I.16-18. WA Tcheryi pus lon dins Vera. Dj' a léjhou ersè al nute on clapant tchaptrea avou ene sinne d' egzôrçulaedje d' ene kimére ki ratind famile. I read some more of the novel Vera and came across an interesting scene depicting the exorcism of a pregnant woman. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4272 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 28 of 408 05 April 2013 at 10:08am | IP Logged |
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ZH
Usual vocabulary drills, i.e. HSK5 (review + 6 new words), frequent characters (review + 2 new characters), random words collected while reading, and HSK4 review with Skritter. Within a few weeks I should finish this first-round study session of HSK5 vocabulary. This is just the first pass. Although there were quite a lot of words I was familiar with even before I started studying formally the HSK5 vocabulary list, I realize that my knowledge is still broadly passive. I have now trained myself to recognize the written form of those words (ZH > L1). However, in many cases, I wouldn't be able to produce them in a conversation, let alone in writing. Heck, in many cases, I wouldn't understand them if I heard them spoken at a normal pace. Such is the sluggish way in which I assimilate Chinese vocabulary: even when every card of the list is "old" (in SRS parlance, i.e. "known"), I still have but a very partial knowledge of that vocabulary. Continued reading 王小波的黄金时代 chap. 7. Shadowed Chinese Learn Online lesson 215. FI In Learning With Texts, reviewed vocabulary and read a text about the new UN asekauppasopimus and then about monikultturiset avioliitot. LA Reviewed vocabulary and started reading Titi Livi Ab Vrbe Condita librum I-47. However, it is obvious that this book is above my level for extensive reading: I'm back at the high school Latin circus, i.e. I'm not reading but painfully analysing each sentence, decoding the declensions and the tenses to try and piece together some meaning. Not that I consider such exercises as useless, but I'll have to supplement it with some more enjoyable reading. Oerberg's version is also quite hard. However, I also have Lhomond's De Viris Illustribus available, which is, basically, the same story told with the same vocabulary, but simplified and synthesised to a point that I can use it for extensive reading. That's quite a perfect match: I have the same story in its original form for intensive reading (Livy), Oerberg as a slightly simplified option, and Lhomond for extensive reading. And if all else fails, I also have translations. What else could I wish? Listened to Caesar I.14-16. -- On this very forum, I read some interesting articles about the goldlist method for learning vocabulary. I also watched two or three videos on Youtube about this subject. I'm now tempted to try that method. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4272 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 29 of 408 05 April 2013 at 11:28pm | IP Logged |
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ZH
1-hour Skype lesson. The connexion was perfect, which is rare enough that it should not go unmentioned. In addition, my interlocutor was my "official teacher", so we had the opportunity to continue reading the story of 皇帝. The text includes an interesting bit about a device built by one of 皇帝's official: it's a cart on which there's a sort of wooden scarecrow with an arm that always points South, the 指南车, which helps 皇帝's army to escape a thick fog amassed by the arch-enemy 蚩尤. I thought that was a myth, but it seems such a device really existed. If it exists, there's a Wikipedia (or Baidu) article about it. If there's a Wikipedia (or Baidu) article about it, I will read it. Vocabulary chores: HSK5 (review + 6 new words), frequent characters (review + 2 new characters), random words collected while reading, and HSK4 review with Skritter. Finished chap. 7 of 王小波的黄金时代. Read an article about a visit to Austria by Mr. 巴罗佐, 欧盟委员会主席, and the ensuing 新闻 发布会 (press conference). The article itself was short, and light on traumatic details, but it was a milestone for me as it was the first time, I believe, that I was able to read a press article without using my dictionary once. 谢谢您巴罗佐主席! I'll have a beer on you tonight. About shadowing: as I should be practising different types of shadowing with different texts simultaneously (see my post dated March 15, 2013), I must confess that I'm lost. Therefore I've prepared a table containing nine different shadowing-related activities on the X axis, and the list of Chinese Learn Online lessons on the Y axis. Hopefully, this should help me keep track. In an ideal world, the grid should be full eventually. It won't. An approximation will suffice. Shadowed Chinese Learn Online lessons 207 (x-4) and 208 (x-3). I also started a Gold List book for learning vocabulary. I highly doubt that I can find the time to stick faithfully to the method, in addition to my other vocabulary- related tasks. But at least I can try and, if it works, consider replacing another method with that one. LA-FI Reviewed vocab in Learning With Text, but did not add any new text, as I will be away for 10 days, probably without Internet connectivity and definitely without leisure time, I won't be able to review my SRS queues in the coming days. I'll be happy if I can keep up with my SRS queues in Chinese... Tamen legi nuntium de sectatoribus extremae dextrae Hungariae quibus summi praemi dati sunt (ephemeris.alcuinus.net). At night, I read the first part of Lhomond's De Viris Illustribus, about the seven Roman kings, from the founding of Rome to the rape of Lucretia. ES He leído un artículo que Borges habría podido escribir, en este sentido que especula sobre la evolución posible del sentimiento religioso cuando los seres humanos viajasen a las estrellas. Miré una emisión sobre “los Andes secretos” (cervantestv.es) que subraya los vínculos históricos, culturales, económicos y aún científicos entre el antiguo imperio incaico y la actual comunidad andina. Algunas palabras, algunos acentos eran difícil de entender. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4272 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 30 of 408 06 April 2013 at 10:46pm | IP Logged |
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ZH
Vocabulary: HSK5 (review + 6 new items), Hanzi (review + 2 new items), miscellaneous vocabulary (Pleco + 3rd Gold List), HSK4 (review with Skritter) While shopping, listened (distractedly) to the audio version of one of the Chinese Breeze series novels: 出事以后. Read some more of 黄金时代, chap.8. Learn Chinese Online: Scriptorium exercise with lesson 206. Reading aloud exercise with lesson 207. Shadowing with lessons 209 and 210. ES Regresando a casa del supermercado, escuché la versión audio de un artículo sobre los piratas contemporáneos, que se especializan en el secuestro más que en la piratería. LA Revised my vocabulary queue in Learning With Text. Tried to read some more of De Viris Illustribus but - how strange - while I could read 25 pages yesterday, I found it hard to finish just 1 tonight. My brains have shut down. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4272 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 31 of 408 08 April 2013 at 10:08pm | IP Logged |
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How many Chinese words do I know?
There are two tools that I know of to help you estimate the number of Chinese words (not characters) you are supposed to know: zhtoolkit.com and chineselevel.com. I’ve taken the zhtoolkit four times in 14 months, with the following results: - 27/2/2012: 7158 words (+/- 1206 for the margin of error) - 22/6/2012: 5362 (+/- 1157). Yes. Quite a lot *less* - 8/11/2012: 6835 (+/- 1262) - 8/4/2013: 12237 (+/- 1806) I don’t know what such numbers really mean. First, this test is all about recognizing (not producing) written words (no audio) out of context (no example sentence). That's only part of what "knowing a word" means. Also, I suspect that the results are overestimated because frequent words (i.e. the top 1-125, 125-250, 251-500, 501-1000, 1001-2000th by frequency) are tested with samples of 15-13 questions while infrequent words - which are much more numerous - are tested with samples of 5-3 questions. I still don’t know why my very first test gave a result that was better than two subsequent tests (I haven’t stopped studying Chinese in the meantime). The most probable answer is that I was more lax in my self-rating. Maybe I was also too kind during the last test :-) However, I like to believe that those numbers are a good reflexion of a general upward trend. For what it’s worth, the difference between the first and the last test, i.e. 12237-7158=5079 / 13 months / 30 days = about 13 words per day. Edited by lorinth on 09 April 2013 at 10:57am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4272 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 32 of 408 09 April 2013 at 8:09pm | IP Logged |
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7-9/4
ZH Vocabulary: HSK5 (review + 6 new items), Hanzi (review + 2 new items), miscellaneous vocabulary (Pleco + 3rd Gold List), HSK4 (Skritter, except today 9/4) 1 hour Skype lesson. Finished the article about 皇帝 Read some more of 黄金时代, chap.8. LA Revised Vocab in LWT Read 2-3 pages of a story about the Argonauts in a very good old Latin reader called Via Latina, by William C. Collar (1897). It’s available on archive.org. Read Livy I-47. I surfed to Amazon and ordered Winie Ille Pooh, Pullus Nicolellus (Gosciny), Harrius Potter I, Regulus (Saint-Exupéry) and a “Petit dictionnaire du Latin d'aujourd'hui”. FI Revised vocab in LWT Listened to the news in simple Finnish (selkouutiset) and added a text to Learning With Text about a leaky mining company. The next 4 days, I’ll be visiting my family. Probably I’ll have no time to devote to languages. I *may* be able to study my SRS queues in Chinese, but that’s all. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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