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Expug’s All at On(c)e Log - TAC14 | ||
Tags: Papiamento | Estonian | Georgian | Native Materials | Norwegian | Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC) | Mandarin | Russian | German | French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5332 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 313 of 415 08 September 2014 at 6:51am | IP Logged | ||
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Wow, I wish I could work as consistently as you do. Great work! And do not fret over being at a plateau. That
means that you have learned a lot in the first place :-) Beginners don't do plateaus. 2 persons have 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 314 of 415 08 September 2014 at 11:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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You're right, thank you for reminding me about that. At least now I know mostly what has been wrong. My goal is to reach a conversational level in Russian so we all can talk =D
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 315 of 415 09 September 2014 at 11:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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Today I started working with Modern German Grammar Workbook. I like it! I didn't do any exercises by pencil, just read and then looked at the answer key. The sentences are very useful, I learn new vocabulary from them. It's not like other grammar exercises where the sentences tend to be repetitive or evolve through boring subjects. I actually learned daily life sentences. It is good that is so with German, but, of course, I'd rather use the exercise to reinforce the vocabulary I already know if I was studying for a less familiar language instead.
Other than that, not much new. Georgian reading is coming up slowly, and listening is my weakest skill for all languages. I'm watching 'La verité si je mens' and I'm having trouble following the sttories without subtitles. So, no wonder I'm still far from understanding spoken Norwegian. The series "Don't Stop Believing" is over, and I already miss it. I started watching "I'm in Charge". Doesn't seem so good, but there's a lot with double subtitles from Singapore anyway. 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 316 of 415 10 September 2014 at 11:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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I will try to describe the joy of using a good textbook...I'm speaking of Estonian Textbook by Tuldava. It makes everything you were struggling with seem simpler and more logical. The lessons have a very appropriate format. I'm doing the active version exercises - and I'm usually reluctant to do exercises. Funny how I think of Chinese as the word for he/she is Ta in Estonian! So I have to pay attention not to mentally pronounce the Estonian "ta" aspirated and at the first tone!
I had a calmer day today and I watched the Georgian series more focusedly. I even understood one of the jokes and laughed! The series seems really funny, it does deserve its popularity. I couldn't do extra reading for Georgian, though. I'm more and more convinced that I am already doing too much. I want to wait till I cut down on some activities in order to do other ones. For example, until november I may be done with both Russianpod and Chinesepod, and I may not do any more Chinese textbooks after the ones I have scheduled. I'm already having a good command of assisted Chinese reading with Pera Pera - I'm reading Pride and Prejudice. Also, my Russian got better and studying from textbooks isn't that much painful. When I finish LL Advanced and start Assimil I will earn important minutes back, not to mention I will be less tired as Assimil lessons are shorter. The best thing to happen now would be to get better at reading both Russian and Georgian and thus make these sessions less of a struggle, as is the case with Norwegian. I decided I will keep a permanent 'slot' for doing good textbooks I found for my upper-intermediate languages, such as French, Norwegian, German. After Modern German Grammar Workbook, I will work on an Advanced French Grammar, then a Norwegian textbook with intense texts then according to my needs. My focus will be on active skills and fine-tuning grammar. 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 317 of 415 16 September 2014 at 10:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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Time for some writing. Days have been busy, I can barely complete all of my tasks. There were moments of bigger rant and now I feel better, still unsure about my progress. though.
Today's lesson at Tuldava's Estonian Textbook was about diminutives. They seem pretty straightforward, only that you have to add the ending to the genitive singular stem, like almost everything in Estonian. The ending -ke looks very Germanic to me, Dutch even. Lately I've been wondering about how people strongly advise extensive reading for reaching advanced fluency when you have over 90% of comprehension of a text. Easier said than done! I can see that in the case of Romance languages you have such a headstart that knowing 95% of the words in a text may come after just two textbooks of study. Now, when it comes to non-transparent languages, reaching 92% actually accounts for most of the work! I may not have reached this percent even in French, let alone Norwegian. Now, what to think about Georgian or Russian? Whoever strongly advises extensive reading as *the* tool for boosting your comprehension when you're *already* at over 90% totally doesn't know much about how to learn a non-IE language. The more I study Georgian or Mandarin, the more I feel I still need so much of the 'textbook-like' learning style. It's like I needed an Assimil with 1000 lessons, 1000 days, and that's more or less the case. I've been studying Georgian for 980 days and I'm far from being comfortable about reading a single text. There's so much that is delusional when it comes to language learning. I sometimes I understand the rant of a guy who says the forum overall is still too western-euro-centered. This advice for extensive reading at 95% is like telling someone who has to roll a stone uphill, after he has pushed it all over next to the top with no help, only struggle, that you've come up with an outstanding advice for him to finish the last couple of meters. Yesterday I really considered evaluating my whole learning, for the bad. Now I don't feel that bad anymore, but I'm still surprised at how inefficiently I've been studying my languages. I study most languages for about 1 hour a day, if not more; that's more than a language class, as they usually comprise 3 to 4 hours a week here. Now, if after two years and a half (Georgian) or three years (Chinese) I can only border a closer B1, then my activities aren't that many more effective than a traditional classroom. I keep wondering what I'm doing wrong. Sometimes I have the feeling that when I skim through a sentence and a translation, I pay attention to the original, indeed, nut I don't 'internalize' the translation, that is, I don't see the sentence in a proper context, I don't imagine myself using it for real. I noticed that in the past weeks I've been doing a little more concentrated reading, but I feel I'm still missing the moment of working on 'internalizing' the meaning as part of an actual content in the language, something I can use later and convey meaning. Yesterday I had the issue with neither of my Chinese video sources working. One was a Youtube clone, but the other was from the Chinese state TV. Both had been loading pretty fast lately, so I wonder why the page loads but the video is just so slow and won't start at all. I checked my internet connection and later in the evening I tried at a different time, as I usually play them in my mornings (Chinese evenings, busiest internet time there). No luck. I tried again this morning and they wouldn't load either. Only this morning I had the idea of finding different sources for the videos. It was easy with the Happy Journey Across China video, but harder with Tutu, I had to make several attempts. It wouldn't be such a loss if I couldn't watch any more from Tutu's dry 5th season, but I'd feel really sorry about Happy Journey Across China. As part of my journey to self-discovery and analysis of the role of language learning in my life, I tried to read an article from Aftenposten. It turned out much more easily than the XIX-century contemporary novel I'm reading, to my relief. Two years weren't in vain, even if I'm underperforming language schools. I've been wondering about something else regarding the Norwegian novel: I can understand whole paragraphs and only miss a few words here and there, but I just can't follow the plot as a whole, and tell what each character does. Other than the lack of interest and the speed reading, I think when I focus on understanding a sentence I kind of lose track of the characters' actions. It's as if I skipped the names in capital just because I don't have to worry about their meanings in order to understand the story, and as a bad side- effect I end up being lost. That doesn't happen so much with video, for instance, when you see each person and know who is doing what. Another point: it is in descriptions that the characters are introduced, and those are the hardest to follow, with more specific, less-intuitive, vocabulary. This artticle from Aftenposten and the Georgian series gave me new hopes. The Georgian series turned out to be the fun time of the day. They're so good actors that I laugh even when I don't understand the text, and sometimes I do understand the text and get the jokes. It's quite rewarding. I don't think what I'm doing elsewhere is affecting my comprehension of the series, as the words I recognize are still basic ones. I'm improving my comprehension through the repetition in the series itself, though it all has a limit. If I had this text written, I'd be working with my best resource, but it's nearly impossible to find Georgian subtitles. I don't think I'll find a book that has as many dialogues as an actual series either, though Agatha Christie's stories come close. If you know about any light-reading novels that consist basically of dialogues, please let me know and I will get their Georgian translation. 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 318 of 415 18 September 2014 at 9:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm giving up on Chinese stream. I mean, won't worry about it as an important part of my day. Today Tutu wouldn't load again, and Happy Journey Across China froze halfway, so I sort of gave up on it. May try later, but 'Morgen ist auch ein Tag'.
No Memrise today either. I was updating to iOs 8. The best news language-wise are three more monolingual dictionaries, including Russian. I am far from being able to make good use of a Russian monolingual dictionary, but it's nice to know they're updating. Maybe in new versions we will get bilingual dictionaries too. EDIT: Forgot to say I finished Living Language Ultimate Russian Advanced! This textbook does deserve being called a textbook. It's an effective tool for people who want to make a guided transition into a better Russian. It is a natural sequel to the beginner-intermediate book, though I'd it doesn't necessarily turn you into an advanced speaker - it rathers makes it easier for you to reach a B2. The cultural advice is also fairly extensive and there are loads of tips about business and bureaucracy, which makes it a sort of intro to business Russian too. Now I can't wait to start Assimil Perfectionnement Russe! Edited by Expugnator on 18 September 2014 at 10:47pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4713 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 319 of 415 18 September 2014 at 11:47pm | IP Logged | ||
Have you ordered it with Assimil in France? 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 320 of 415 19 September 2014 at 12:46am | IP Logged | ||
Not really. A friend shared it, if you get what I mean. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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