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The drunk snail’s journey (TAC14) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5007 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes  Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 137 of 161 15 December 2014 at 9:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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ASCR:
French movies: Asterix et Obélix au service de sa Majesté +1 Héro Corp, 8 episodes +2 French books: Jacques Chessex:Le Vampire de Ropraz +0,8 A very short novel showing the rural Swiss at the beginning of the 20th century. Well, I've read more exciting novels (including short ones, such as Carnages by Chattame earlier this year), but it was still interesting and very different from what I usually read. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5007 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 138 of 161 15 December 2014 at 11:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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So, I spent some time on German during the evening. I did some Anki and Assimil. And
one grammar page of Spanish, just to let myself realizeI am coming back to it. I promised two things in August, which I kept postponing. Here comes one of them: Cavesa's recommendation on preparing yourself for a longer study or similar voyage in the country when you are still far from the B levels. How to build a base you can expand on later: 1.Work on your pronunciation. You don't need a perfect accent, you need to be understood. Don't regret time spent on this, repeat after your course audio, do the FSI pronunciation exercises, whatever you like. But make sure you've got the basics covered and won't make sense-changing pronunciation mistakes. Your "r" in the language won't be much of an interest to anyone while differences between vowels are important. 2.Prioritise the grammar and vocab you're learning. Get the real basics covered. Natives will forgive you many mistakes (even butchering the verb endings) but you need to make yourself understood. Things like the present tense, common prepositions, imperativ, question formation, basic ways to express the past and future, basic modal verbs, all that you are sure to need. On the other hand, you can make yourself understood without most uses of subjunctive (even though having some notion of it at least passively is great), with only one future tense (and happily ignore the others) and learn more on the go or later, you are not in that urgent need of plusquamperfects or literary tenses. 3.Vocabulary. Don't waste your time reading discussions like "300 words are enough" and believing that. Yes, a usual native may not use more than a few hundred words a day but they are picked out of a large pool and, unless your divination skills are much better than mine, you cannot tell which 300 words will be those you are gonna need. This is time to use your experience from past and learn relevant vocabulary: common "grammar words" (the stuff like pronouns, prepositions), the lists from your basic course lessons, including the boring stuff like food, living conditions, telling time, adjectives and their opposites, and so on. Learn the vocabulary relevant to your field if you are going to study or work in the country. You can use specific profession targeted courses, wikipedia or whatever else. A few hours spent browsing the internet can make your learning curve in the country significantly less steep. Yes, you can always ask a native for the word or look it up and you will be doing that a lot no matter how well you'll be prepared. But there is a limit inside each native's head and if you ask just once more, they'll switch to English and goodbye language practice. For some natives, the limit is set high, some tolerate one question only. And using your dictionary all the time is annoying and a lengthy process after a few days. 4.The most important thing:listening!!! Listen a lot, get a few tv series, work hard. While you can make yourself understood with limited vocabulary, natives will not. They will speak fast, they will have various accents. I was able to catch up with the natives very early and understand quite all that was happening around me after a week, even though my speaking was laughable at that point. Thanks to two or three seasons of a tv series! Sure, I couldn't understand that well the students from southern Spain but neither could the northerners at times :-D. I wish I could find some tv series taking place in Malaga, Sevilla or Cádiz, using their dialects. 5.Prepare some specific social skills, (well, some of you are surely awesome at this already, but it is not automatic for all of us). Make sure you won't look confused when you are not (or they will switch to English unnecessarily), learn to understand from the context as much as possible in order to minimize questions (or they'll switch to be polite and make things easier for you), use the appropriate non verbal tools to make sure you understand even when your answer is far from perfection (smile, nod, hmm, all at the appropriate place). So, I hope there is something of use on my list ;-) 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| sctroyenne Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5389 days ago 739 posts - 1312 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Irish | Message 139 of 161 16 December 2014 at 12:17am | IP Logged | ||
Awesome - good luck! I need to set a date and stop procrastinating. Any interest in joining the Advanced Study Group? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5007 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 140 of 161 16 December 2014 at 12:24am | IP Logged | ||
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Yes, if it is being founded, I am more than interested!!! I'm having a look on th wikia
sign up page in a minute. Thanks for the support. Would you like to join me for the exam in February? ;-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sctroyenne Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5389 days ago 739 posts - 1312 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Irish | Message 141 of 161 16 December 2014 at 12:33am | IP Logged | ||
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We have five people so far so looks like we have enough to form a group :)
Our region only seems to have the exams in June and December though the 2015 schedule isn't posted yet. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5007 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 142 of 161 16 December 2014 at 1:12am | IP Logged | ||
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You know, I hate the schedule as the French exams are only twice a year (I wish we had
yours, February and June suck as they precisely colide with the academical year at universities. Really, my university exams +dalf, that is a reason to postpone the exam ad nauseam). DELE is several times a year (like six or seven times), even though some of the levels are not tested every time. The same applies to the Goethe exams. But the French just need to be special again. I'm looking forward to the advanced team. With the member list beginning like that (I was so excited to read it), it will be awesome! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5205 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 143 of 161 16 December 2014 at 11:03am | IP Logged | ||
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Great list, and I agree with it. Pronunciation is important, and the benefits of good listening comprehension can't be overstated: even if you struggle to express yourself, being able to understand what's going on around you is great. Hopefully one day I'll have the opportunity to take advantage of the advice. Not doing Erasmus when I had the opportunity has become a big regret of mine!
For the specific social skills, I find it's important to be observant. No amount of preparation at home can get you ready for every situation that you will encounter when you arrive, but you can learn a lot just from watching how other people interact, for example in shops and in bars. Watch what expressions and gestures they use, and you get a better idea of the "scripts" to follow in various situations. I'm looking forward to the Advanced team too! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5007 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 144 of 161 19 December 2014 at 12:03am | IP Logged | ||
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Yes, you are totally right. Observation is very important and that is where I fail
when I am really really tired. And an important nonverbal issue for me is changing my "standby face" to a nicer and less dumb one ;-) So, some news. Firstly, I am close to final decision about my TAC15 log and I am already excited about the teams. All four seem to have great members from the past alongside new faces, so I have high hopes. Garyb, why is there no Italian team? There is quite alot of Italian learners in the TAC. Or perhaps all of you are multi-romance learners, so the team would be quite the same as the all-romance one? My German: Assimil (the Spanish one): Did lessons 50 and 51 passively and first 4 lessons actively. I see no point in spending too much time with the early hypereasy lessons, I'll slow down the active part when it's appropriate. However, the passive one is getting harder, there is more new vocabulary (or at least it feels like it) and all those grammar pieces are dancing there all at once. I need to catch up with my grammar studies obviously. I am as well battling my anki deck (with over 1000 overdue cards). THe key to continuing without any pressure is easy. No need to remove cards or play with intervals, I just need not to give a damn ;-) My Spanish is nearly dormant, except for the exposure in Assimil El Alemán. My French: I had a lesson today with my tutor, after two weeks of illness. I think my speaking is pretty much the same. I always do 3-5 mistakes in the hour, usually to temporary lack of concentration. And I stumble on something I am unsure how to express once or twice but I get around it usually. My writing is getting better, I have huge writing practice plans for Christmas. I'm seriously considering trying dalf C2 instead of the originally planned C1 in February. ASCR updates: Héro Corp. It is hard to count as the episodes are really short now. season 2 and half (bonus season) consisted of 34 minutes, spread across 9 episodes of various length. Season 3: each episodes is 5 minutes long. The story is still very good but chopping it all into such dust is doing it no service, in my opinion.I watched episodes 0 to 3, which means 20 more minutes. All of that together is 0,5 movie. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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