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Cavesa
Triglot
Senior Member
Czech Republic
Joined 5007 days ago
3277 posts - 6779 votes 
Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1
Studies: Spanish, German, Italian
| Message 49 of 161 13 April 2014 at 10:23am | IP Logged |
FIRST ASCR COUNT OF THE YEAR:
French movies: 140,5 out of 200, 36 seen this year.
Not bad. I think I should focus only on original tv series from now on. Movies may be mixed but I prefer originaly.
French books: 70/200, 0,8 read this year
It looks horrible but there are around 500 pages I have read but couldn't count in because the books are not finished.
English books: still only 86,2 out of 200, nothing this year
Again, there are 600 or so pages waiting for me to finish the damn books so that I can count them in!
1 person has voted this message useful
| 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 50 of 161 13 April 2014 at 10:50am | IP Logged |
Reading through your log puts a big smile on my face :-)
1 person has voted this message useful
| patrickwilken
Senior Member
Germany
radiant-flux.net
Joined 4531 days ago
1546 posts - 3200 votes
Studies: German
| Message 51 of 161 13 April 2014 at 11:35am | IP Logged |
Cavesa wrote:
| Thanks, friends. My "sentimental event" is still going on and looks really promising. (He obviously isn't easy to scare :-D). |
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This is all very well and good, but what language are you speaking. :p
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| Gemuse
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4080 days ago
818 posts - 1189 votes
Speaks: English
Studies: German
| Message 52 of 161 13 April 2014 at 12:31pm | IP Logged |
Maybe they are not yet at the speaking words phase....
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 53 of 161 13 April 2014 at 1:28pm | IP Logged |
Thanks, Cristina!
Of course we speak! In Czech but he is open to the possibility of trying to live abroad in future, which is very important to me. Some things need to be discussed right at the beginning of a relationship :-D
p.s. yes Gemuse, we are speaking the language of love a lot as well of course ;-)
You know what's funny? One of the main troubles with my ex was the question of where would we spend our future. He never wanted to go abroad for a few years. Therefore he wasn't learning any languages ("I'm not as gifted as you are, honey. I need to focus on my studies, I don't need to learn languages on top of that." etc., you get the idea). Now, half a year after the break up, he began with several changes I had wanted from him before. He started losing weight just like me, he got back to dancing and now he considers learning French!!! I had heard a thousand jokes on French from him but now he found out it's good for impressing girls.
Really. Interest in languages and reading is contagious. I totally infected my ex. Now I need to spread the bookworm and languagefly eggs again! And my new Loved One seems to be quite resistant.
Edited by Cavesa on 13 April 2014 at 1:28pm
1 person has voted this message useful
| Gemuse
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4080 days ago
818 posts - 1189 votes
Speaks: English
Studies: German
| Message 54 of 161 13 April 2014 at 3:29pm | IP Logged |
Cavesa wrote:
but now he found out it's good for impressing girls.
.....
And my new Loved One seems to be quite resistant. |
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Tell the new guy the first fact.
1 person has voted this message useful
| Emme
Triglot
Senior Member
Italy
Joined 5345 days ago
980 posts - 1594 votes
Speaks: Italian*, English, German
Studies: Russian, Swedish, French
| Message 55 of 161 14 April 2014 at 1:06am | IP Logged |
Cavesa wrote:
[...] I need to continue as soon as I finish this post, exam is tomorrow in the evening.
And as soon as I've got the exam, I can focus on Spanish! I have two months left until I'm going to the internship in Spain.
[...]
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Good luck for your exam!
And when you've finished with your exams, come back to the forum with all your energy: I need your contagious enthusiasm to get back into studying Spanish. I'm sure you're super-excited about your internship. Unfortunately I've no trip to Spain in sight at the moment to keep me going :-( but I'm sure that following your log will inspire me.
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 56 of 161 22 April 2014 at 10:35am | IP Logged |
Here are posts from my polydog exile. Spoiler: the forum went down just when my language learner got faster and more intensive again:
Cavesa wrote:
Welcome to the Exile. The drunk snail's journey got a new obstacle-htlal is down. I really hope everything is gonna be there when we are back online (YKYAALN is a treasure I'd miss enormously!)
Why I'm continuing here asap: I have news and I'm afraid I'd forget them in the meantime. Really, can't the forums go down when I am too busy to continue with my languages? No, of course not!
I suppose most people here are htlalers (by the way, it's totally a great word root. htlaler-member of htlal; to htlal-participate on the forum, read, write, procrastinate; htlaly-that could be an adjective: "that's a totally htlaly opinion") so no long introduction is needed.
ASCR: Thanks god I'm keeping a separate word document with my list of movies and books completed! I should back it up somewhere! Had I lost that with my logs, I'd be desperate.
ASCR news:
French movies: 4 episodes of Engrenages, that's +2 movies
French and English books: I wanted to finish a few. Instead, I started another. So, right now, I am somewhere in the middle of 7!!! books
I'll sign up for the new SC, which starts the 1st May. I'll go for regular 100+100 for Spanish and German.
French
So many news!
I passed my medical French exam with the best possible grade! Well, you could say it wasn't that hard but still! List of useful links for students, doctors and other medical professionals in need of French:
wikinu.fr , especially the resources from Grenoble are awesome. Ppts with audio, I use them not only for the language value, they are awesome introductions to the topics. The anatomy isn't bad, the physiology is really good, biochemistry is quite good... and everything comes with nice schemes. And there's audio, you can study while ironing or something like that. Free
youtube: there are some episodes of il était une fois...la vie available! not all of them. But they are awesome. The perfect introduction to the vocabulary concerning the human body. Free
http://www-sante.ujf-grenoble.fr/SAN TE/alpesmed/corpus.htm is awesome!!! and free!
Francouzština pro lékaře: useful for czechs only but quite a good tool. Not expensive
Le français des médecins by PUG, really good for the communication situations you may encounter during your internship or when doing your job. Videos included. Quite expensive
Santé-médecine.com by CLE. like the previous one but shorter and with les material. Not expensive
And there are several tv series located in hospitals including original French ones but I didn't have time for those.
Cavesa, Friday at 6:19 PM
Spanish
It's my new priority. I'm going to Spain for a month long internship during the summer and I've promised fluent Spanish in the motivation letter. Hahahahaha!
My comprehension is really good, my active skills suck. I've begun my intensive preparation. What do I intend to do before leaving for Spain and what I'm already doing:
Finally finish Fiesta 1 (a czech course). The lesson 15 has been waiting for years. Yeah, I'll need to review briefly all that comes before. And I expect to do Fiesta 2 as well, at least a large part. I've started reviewing the old chapters yesterday, it shouldn't take me long.
Get down the important grammar. My weak knowledge is a large obstacle between my passive understanding and its transforation into active skills. That's how:
I've read the "about verbs" chapter of La conjugación verbal: El use de los verbos en el español de España y de América Latina.
personal +: I have quite no trouble understanding the explanations. I don't know all the verbs by far (as vocabulary), otherwise I wouldn't need to use it.
personal - : Compared to my use of similar guide for French (which I described in my regular log), it is quite visible how much weaker is my Spanish experience. I don't say comprehension for a reason. Both guides are meant for natives or advanced learners and expect you to have heard it all many times before. In French, I've heard quite everything in the movies, tv series or from the natives. It's much easier to just precise my rule and ortograph knowledge. In Spanish, I don't have the "feeling" for the language which comes from experience yet.
book + : both Spain and LA variants included, extensive list of verbs with the note concerning how they are conjuged.
book - : Amount of examples, user friendliness, quality of explanations, that all sucks, especially in comparison with the similar French book!
book + : There is a list of verbes with prepositions (just like in the French book, perhaps more extensive)
book - : There is no chapter or list about "semi-auxiliaires" which are mentioned in the French book. But even there isn't an extensive list. I'd really love an extensive list of all those Acabar de, tener que (venir de, arriver à) to fill my gaps.
Now, I'm gonna learn the model tables of important verbs and irregularities so that I can conjugate freely and not make stupid mistakes. For those hating "learning tables": Of course I'll have tons of input as well. But following my experience, learning the proper conjugations the painful way saves lots of troubles.
A side note: the chapter about verbes made me feel the grammar was really complicated and impossible to use! But no worries, I've already solved the situation. It's all about finding good quality explanation and lots of examples. I've decided to skip a few forms for now (such as Préterito anterior) ;-). Really, Spanish is not an easy language. Getting the basics down is much easier than in English or French I'd say. But while En and Fr later become just a puzzle of the basic pieces, Spanish seems to have whole new layers behind the beginner friendly facade.
Gramática (by Anaya) and Gramática de Uso del Español
These two series should give me enough practice and exemples. I'm in the second half of Gramática (Anaya) for A1-A2 and it's not hard. I plan to do the B1 level and the first volume or two of GdUso.
I've been recently working on some of the "perifrasís verbales", like volver a, terminar de, haber que, and use of estar+gerundio. Not hard but I need more practice to drill the perifrasís in memory and use them naturally. I think this is an important thing in French as well but most teachers or courses don't put emphasis on it despite these things being the bread and butter of everyday language.
I need to get a wide enough vocabulary base I've got a huge bonus from French. That means I understand quite well (like B1 or perhaps even B2 at times). But my active vocabulary is small and lacks the everyday things I'm definitely gonna need in Spain. So, here's the cure:
Anki everything
Fiesta 1 vocabulary is first to be in Anki. I'm working on it. Than, I'll add words from the workbook series I'm using. Vocabulario (Anaya, like the grammar above) and Viva el Vocabulario . Right now, I'm in the second half of Vocabulario A1-A2. I hope to get to the B1.
Natural sciences Spanish vocabulary! That's a must. But it is the harderst part. Does anyone know good resources? There is no single science book in Cervantes here. There is nothing in my usual bookshops. And I can't find any sources like those for medical French. What websites do the Spanish universities students use? For now, I'm stuck with wikipedia.
My language practice:
Books: Zafón and a few other authors in original, Pratchett in translation and a whole library of ebooks. That's a lot of practice. But reading is not a priority now.
Tv Series: This is more important! Tv series had miraculous effects on my French, including speaking. It's a way to get immersed and automatise the language, to get used to thinking in it, to soak in everything. I've got a few on dvds and so on. Here's a tresure:
www.rtve.es/alacarta/videos/aguila-roja/aguila-roja-t1-capit ulo-1/383800/
You can watch rtve's series for free online from abroad!!! Thanks! Finally someone reasonable. If I like it, I'll be likely to buy a dvd. I love culture producers who understand forcing people to piracy and then criminalizing them is no way to make a business in the 21st century.
Writing and Speaking.
I should revive my Italki account for writing feedback. And I'll do all I can to be ready for speaking in Spain. Exercises out loud, speaking to myself and so on. I have no time to seek a tutor and I'm unsure it would be the best in my situation.
Sorry about a long post but regular followers of the Drunk Snail are already used to this fault of mine.
Cavesa, Friday at 7:03 PM
German and Swedish
These two are everywhere. I'm thinking of them and need to continue but I don't have the time. I have exams at school in two months and I need to focus on those and Spanish. But I'm thinking of them regularily, I've been listening to a few pieces and read a few instruction pages and such things in German recently. I miss them.
Cavesa, Friday at 7:05 PM
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banna wrote:
First, congrats on your French exam results! Your log and your outstanding title has inspired me so often to keep going, especially when I have felt worse than a drunken snail.
I'm not sure exactly what sort of resources you're looking for in regards to natural sciences in Spanish, but the Real Academia Nacional de Medicina has an online dictionary of medical terms http://dtme.ranm.es/index.aspx, the US National Institute of Health has an online medical encyclopedia http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/spanish/encyclopedia.html the newspapers El País and El Mundo both have great ciencia sections , http://elpais.com/tag/ciencia/a/ and http://www.elmundo.es/ciencia.html and there are a ton of resources in the US for medical students, physicians since we have such a large Spanish-speaking population.
A few examples available through Book Depository (based in UK, ships to Europe) are
Español Medico Y Sociedad: Un Libro Para Estudiantes De Español En El Tercer Año De Estudios
Nuevo Diccionario de Terminos Cientificos
McGraw-Hill Education's Medical Spanish Visual Phrasebook: 825 Questions & Responses
tons of other books to be found searching on Medical Spanish
There are lots of pocket cards, guides, laminated sheets, etc.
Best to you! On a side note, I feel like a tiny bit like a traitor to HTLAL, but wow, it's so much easier to post here...
BAnna, Saturday at 5:27 AM
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next few polydog posts in the next htlal post
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