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WoofCreature Åsgard & Exploradores TAC14 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| WoofCreature Diglot Groupie Canada Joined 4524 days ago 80 posts - 118 votes  Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: German, Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 1 of 16 02 January 2014 at 4:00am | IP Logged |
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For last year's log see: TAC Romulan - Portuguese - Norwegian
A new year, a new log. I would have kept my last log, but my inability to change the tags was annoying to say the least. Last year went well for me, but here's hoping this year is even better. Starting this summer I'll be going on an exchange to another country for a year. I don't know which country I'll be going to, but I'm hoping for Norway. I think Germany will probably be my second choice, and Finland or Hungary my third. I would like to go to Brazil or Japan, but the big Europe trip at the end of the exchange for students in Europe makes me want to go there. I would love to go to the Czech Republic, but it's unfortunately not on the country list. No matter where I go though, I can't wait. French A little background, I've done nearly all of my schooling in French, starting when I was five. Just a month ago, I took the DELF B2 exam and passed with an 88/100. I'll be finishing my last French class in a few weeks, but I'll be taking some science courses in French starting in February. The challenge will be to maintain my active skills once I finish school. During my exchange I hope to read a book a month and find some French speakers to chat with. I'll be taking a math class online, in French, during my exchange as well, but I doubt that will help much. Also, I've been experimenting with adding English subtitles to some videos by my favorite Québecois comedian, so I'll keep doing that and perhaps upload some to Youtube. I'll need to find a native French speaker to revise and help me with some tricky sections first though. I simply hope to maintain my level this year; I'll try to improve to a C1 once I start some university courses in French after my exchange. Portuguese I started Portuguese nearly two years ago because of a month-long trip to Brazil I took that summer. I didn't learn more than fifty words though until the month before I went, and even those fifty words I pronounced completely wrong. I didn't speak any Portuguese while I was there, other than "Eu não fala português" (yes, I know that's wrong), but I kept learning nonetheless. At the beginning of last year I started reading my first novel and read a total of three and two half books during the year. I had my first conversation this September; it didn't go very well. My goal for this year is to activate my passive skills so that I can take advantage of any opportunities to speak during my exchange year. Based on various exchange students' blogs, there seems to be a lot of Brazilian exchange students, so I'd kick myself if I wasn't able to take advantage of the opportunity. I plan to do this by writing a lot more on lang8, chatting on sharedtalk, continuing to go through FSI and by trying extensive shadowing once again. Norwegian Ah, my love. I'm still not sure why I love this language so much, but oh well. I finally gave in and started learning it on March 15th of last year, despite my brain telling me to learn German or Swedish instead. I took a break this summer, but have otherwise been learning quite intensively using almost exclusively native materials. I'm just about to buy the Hunger Games ebook and audio book to try L-R with and from there I will move on to novels. Hopefully I will be in Norway in a few months, but if not I'll continue with native sources. I adore the Bergen dialect and want to move my speech closer to it now that I'm done the memrise course that used the Oslo dialect, but there's not much chance of me going to Bergen if I do go to Norway, so I can't get too attached. I don't really have any specific goals at the moment, because what I aim for is quite dependent on whether or not I go to Norway, and the difficulty of the new language if I don't go to Norway. If my Norwegian at the end of this year is at the same level as my Portuguese now, I'll be happy. Good luck to all my teammates on teams Exploradores and Åsgard and thank you to anyone who follows my log throughout the year. May the year begin. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5845 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 16 02 January 2014 at 9:20am | IP Logged |
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Hi WoofCreature,
If you need different tags, you can always ask a moderator to help you. As a senior member (with 100 posts and more) you will be able to delete or add tags yourself. You are a fellow Norwegian learner, so good luck with your language studies of all three languages for 2014! Fasulye 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Kez Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4355 days ago 181 posts - 212 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English Studies: Swedish | Message 3 of 16 02 January 2014 at 11:09am | IP Logged |
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Hey,
Good luck in TAC2014! I'll be following your Norwegian studies (I might start with Norwegian as well this year). If you like the Bergen accent you should try watching Ikvled med Ylvis. There are some episodes on youtube with English subtitles. Lycka till! 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 4 of 16 09 January 2014 at 11:50am | IP Logged |
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I wish you the best of luck for 2014, especially for your exchange starting this summer. I’m sure it will be a fantastic experience that you’ll treasure for the rest of your life!
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| WoofCreature Diglot Groupie Canada Joined 4524 days ago 80 posts - 118 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: German, Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 5 of 16 27 January 2014 at 2:43am | IP Logged |
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Fasulye: Okay, it's good to know that I'll be able to change them myself eventually. I did think about contacting a moderator, but starting a new log seemed like a good idea anyway. Good luck with your studies as well. :)
Kez: It's funny you mention Ylvis, because they are largely what got me interested in the language in the first place and eventually pushed me to start learning it. Their success with the Fox has certainly helped me with all of the English subtitles now available. Good luck to you too! Emme: It will certainly be an unforgettable experience. Thanks, and good luck to you too! :) Woo! I have some exciting news. I'm going to Norway! I just found out yesterday at our first district meeting. I was told that I was given Norway precisely because I "spoke" Norwegian. It was kind of annoying how often Rosetta Stone was recommended to other outbound exchange students, but what can you do. I won't find out where exactly in Norway I'll be going for a while, but it doesn't really matter. I can kind of relax a bit now that I know I don't have to try to cram a new language into my head by August, though I do fear wanderlust. But it's one less language to maintain while away, and I can just keep doing my thing and concentrate on graduating with good marks. I'm soooooo excited! French I just finished my last French class ever, probably. Now I just have to wait to see what I got on my final written exam and reading comprehension exam. Too bad they don't test listening or speaking, as according to my DELF results those are my strongest areas. I need to start figuring out a plan for maintenance while I'm in Norway. After being given some advice about our exchange year, it sounds like they strongly discourage skyping too often; they recommend less than once a week. So hopefully I end up in Oslo or Bergen, or at least somewhere with some French speakers to practice with. And I need to buy some ebooks. Portuguese I've been experimenting with Anki and subs2srs a lot lately. The only thing I find is helping right now are my verb tables. I finally decided to fix my horrible conjugations skills, since it's something that's easy to fix and was holding me back a lot. I have an image of one verb in one tense with one word blocked out with either blue if it's a regular conjugation and orange if it's irregular. I make a card for eu, ele, nós and eles each and to pass a card I have to type for example "nós estamos". Here's an example: 
I've only made cards for seven verbs with five tenses each and have only been going through them for less than a week, but I'm finding it's already helping a ton. I've chatted on Sharedtalk a couple times since I started the cards and now I rarely have to look up conjugations, whereas before I spent a lot of time looking them up and frequently used the wrong ones. Besides text chatting I've been watching some youtube gaming channels, including one from Portugal. The accent has stopped bothering me so much after just a few videos, though I still find it a bit difficult to understand. I haven't made much progress in A cidade do sol. I really want to finish the book before I leave for Norway, as I only want to bring my ereader, but it's still quite difficult to get through. I need to set a certain number of pages to read everyday maybe, because I find the story really interesting if I just stick through it. I've also tried shadowing again. I've come to the conclusion that I'm one of those people who can't shadow unless I know the material really well and have practiced. I guess I'll have to stick to shadowing short, 1-5 second clips. Norwegian I finally bought the Hunger Games ebook and audiobook. I've been listening to the audio book during my commute and then listening to it at home while reading the book in English. I ended up reading some of the ebook on its own last night, but that was only because I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't sleep and I can read in the dark with it. I don't have a dictionary on my ereader yet through. I haven't been going through it as quickly as I should, but I'll try to spend more time on it since I need to return the physical copy of the English book to a friend before I leave. I also need to start reading articles online again; I haven't done much of that this month. My listening is actually quite good, but it's at the point that I need to develop a larger vocabulary before I can hope to understand more of the spoken language. I would like to start chatting on Sharedtalk, but I've yet to see a Norwegian there, so lang8 will have to suffice for now. I'm so excited. I don't think it has quite sunken in yet that in half a year I'll be living my life entirely in the language. But I can't wait. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5863 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 6 of 16 12 February 2014 at 8:49pm | IP Logged |
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Any news on where exactly you'll be going?
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| Cristianoo Triglot Senior Member Brazil https://projetopoligRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4119 days ago 175 posts - 289 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, FrenchB2, English Studies: Russian | Message 7 of 16 14 February 2014 at 5:06am | IP Logged |
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Se precisar de ajuda com o português é só falar.
We could exchange a little bit of English/portuguese/french talk when you feel ready. I know is very hard to write texts without someone to correct then, so if you wish, I can help you with portuguese (brazilian version, of course). 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| WoofCreature Diglot Groupie Canada Joined 4524 days ago 80 posts - 118 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: German, Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 8 of 16 02 March 2014 at 3:23am | IP Logged |
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So. I'm no longer going to Norway. I found out a week and a half ago and was initially told I would have to go to Denmark. They suddenly found out that the Rotary district/club in Norway that I was supposed to go to hasn't responded to emails for months and the student who was supposed to go to Denmark dropped out of the program. I was really upset for a few days. It was bad enough having Norway ripped out of my hands, but to then have Norwegian ripped out too, only to be replaced by Danish... I don't think I would have been able to maintain my Norwegian while learning Danish, not at this level. I feel I might be able to handle learning Spanish now, two years into Portuguese. But I certainly would not have been ready a year ago. Losing Norwegian is a painful possibility to think about.
But I found out today that I will be able to go to Germany. My district was sympathetic to my strong preference for Norway, so they worked to get me into a country I would like; for that I'm very grateful. German will be a good language to know, especially for a career in engineering or science. And as long as I continue to improve my Portuguese and Norwegian during my exchange, a year from now I should be able to say that I speak five languages. Right now I can only honestly say I speak two. I'm still a bit heartbroken about not going to Norway, but I know that the heartbreak I'll feel for Germany when I have to leave at the end of my exchange will totally eclipse anything previously. I don't have much to say for my individual languages. I've done disgustingly little this past month. I need a non-language break from time to time, which unfortunately usually ends up in English out of frustration with the lack of information in other languages. I'll come back though. Crush: I don't yet know where in the country I will be going. I should find out fairly soon though, I hope... Cristianoo Obrigada, se eu precisar de ajuda, eu vou pedir. :) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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