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WoofCreature Åsgard & Exploradores TAC14 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes  4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 9 of 16 02 March 2014 at 9:42am | IP Logged | ||
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Aww, pity about Norway! but maybe you can visit it at least briefly? Southern Norway is not all that far, at least for my friend from there visiting Germany is no big deal.
Good luck with German! and of course Norwegian and Portuguese too :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4522 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 10 of 16 02 March 2014 at 8:21pm | IP Logged | ||
At least from Munich and Berlin, going to Oslo is no big deal either, thanks to http://www.norwegian.no (very cheap tickets) Edited by daegga on 02 March 2014 at 8:22pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 11 of 16 03 March 2014 at 2:06am | IP Logged | ||
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Well, Oslo is only accessible by air. Some places also by ferry.
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| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4640 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 12 of 16 03 March 2014 at 12:02pm | IP Logged | ||
You can also go by ferry to Oslo from Kiel in Northern Germany. Check out this link. And depending on where you are in Germany, you may also get cheap flights to Oslo or a few other Norwegian cities with airlines like Air Berlin or Ryanair. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| WoofCreature Diglot Groupie Canada Joined 4527 days ago 80 posts - 118 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: German, Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 13 of 16 09 March 2014 at 8:09am | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you everyone for all the comments. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that I'll be able to visit Norway during my exchange. I've yet to have this confirmed, but my suspicion is that I won't be allowed to leave the country on my own during my exchange, nor go to Norway either before going to Germany or before coming home, simply because they're responsible for me from the time I leave Canada to the time I get back. A bit annoying, considering I'll be 18 when I'm there and I'll be so close to Norway. I'm hopeful, but not counting on being able to visit. On the bright side, I should be able to go on a several-week trip through Europe with other exchange students near the end of my exchange. I've never been to Europe, so that will be pretty cool to see so much at once.
I have still been sorely neglecting all of my languages. But the routine cycle of yet another new language has kept me putting in some time in German every day. Here's some general thoughts and observations and musings so far. German It's weird starting the memrise and Disney lyric/translation video cycle over again. I've been using Deutsche Welle from time to time to shake things up though. I'm surprised by how much Norwegian both helps and hurts. There are more cognates than I was expecting, but it has been taking me a while to stop trying to pronounce similar words as if they're Norwegian. The word "englisch" has given me a lot of trouble for example, as I always want to say "engelsk". Pronunciation is annoying. That's one thing I have always loved about Norwegian: easy pronunciation. By this, I'm referring to the individual phonemes, not the prosody. There are of course problematic sounds in Norwegian, but for some reason they never seemed like that big of a deal or that difficult to overcome. The ease in pronunciation was a relief after the train wreck that was and unfortunately still is my Portuguese. I always attributed it to starting memrise from the beginning and actually learning the sound of a word at the same time as its spelling, which I stupidly neglected in Portuguese. But I'm starting to think it might have had more to do with the sheer amount of listening I did in Norwegian than anything. I try to listen to a bit of German every day, but I don't have any favorite German media yet to keep me watching large amounts, and any time spent on extensive activities feels kind of wasted because that time could be better spent on a similar activity in Norwegian or Portuguese. I have too many keyboard layouts now. The only two I could really eliminate are French and English, but those are the two I'm the most comfortable with. All the rest have symbols necessary for that language which aren't on other layouts. I could delete some I don't use very often *cough*Portuguese*cough*, but that would give me too good of an excuse to back out if I suddenly feel the urge to type in the language. I kind of feel like five is too many languages, which probably sounds ridiculous to many people here. And at the same time, I honestly can't really see myself not learning at least another language or two in my lifetime. But when I started Norwegian, things just kind of felt complete. It was immensely amusing to go through random words in my head and try to say them in all four languages. Now with German it's a general 'meh' feeling. It's weird to be learning yet another language that I didn't really choose. There was something incredibly liberating about choosing to learn a "useless" language like Norwegian. I didn't have any real choice in English or French, Portuguese was because of an opportunity to stay there for a month, and now German because I'll be living there for a year. I did end up falling in love with Brazil, at least for awhile. I have no doubt the same will happen with Germany. It's just a weird feeling. And just to make myself clear, I don't mean to complain about going to Germany. I'm incredibly grateful for this exchange opportunity. I'm just in a weird period in my life right now, with many things going great and other important things disappointingly ending or changing. But that's life. Edited by WoofCreature on 09 March 2014 at 8:12am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 14 of 16 09 March 2014 at 11:44am | IP Logged | ||
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You can use something like abcTajpu or make a custom layout :)
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| WoofCreature Diglot Groupie Canada Joined 4527 days ago 80 posts - 118 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: German, Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 15 of 16 16 April 2014 at 4:48am | IP Logged | ||
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Serpent: Hmm, I'll have to look into that. Though I've gotten used to most of my layouts now, there are things I would like to change about all of them, and being able to combine them would be nice.
I found out recently that I will be living in the south-west corner of Germany. Not sure which city/town yet. It seems like my district doesn't allow any travel outside of Germany, nor does it do the usual multi-week trip through Europe that most districts do. Which is very disappointing. But hopefully the rules aren't as rigid as I fear. French I no longer speak French every day now that my francophone teacher went on maternity leave and was replaced by an anglophone teacher whom I have talked to in English outside of classes for a few years now. I just can't bring myself to speak to her in French. It's unfortunate. I really don't know when I'll speak French next. Luckily I'll be near the French border, so hopefully I'll be able to find some people to speak to in French during my exchange. Portuguese Still trucking along as usual. I can't think in Portuguese very easily. Even after chatting on Sharedtalk for awhile. All that comes are Norwegian words. I haven't tried speaking Portuguese since my last conversation in September. I'm hopeful that I'll work up the courage to speak to Brazilians in Portuguese during my exchange though. Norwegian Taking a break for a few weeks helped a lot. It's weird, I feel like I know a lot less Norwegian now than I knew Portuguese a year ago, despite having learned Norwegian longer now than I had been learning Portuguese at the time. I'm finding I can think quite fluently(with fluidity, not perfectly) in Norwegian. I was a bit alarmed at first by how much German interferes with my Norwegian, but it seems to be calming down now. I have still been listening to The Hunger Games audiobook on my commute despite not taking the time to listen to it while reading the English book. Despite this, after two or three listens I feel like I know quite well what is happening in the chapter. I've also been reading my first novel. It's going. I had my first conversation in Norwegian the other day. It went a lot better than my first conversation in Portuguese. It was with someone who had gone on exchange to Norway about five years ago. We didn't talk very long but she seemed to understand what I said and I understood her without any problems. I didn't talk to her again the whole weekend, but every time she saw me she would say something in Norwegian, which I didn't always catch. But it was nice seeing the language as something real. And saying 'ha det'. Just yesterday I had a breakthrough moment in regards to listening. I caught almost everything said in this song, and it was my first time hearing it. Warning, strong language: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmZd8gN5Zws German I love German music, but it's hard to stay motivated to learn German. I've stayed in the habit of doing at least a bit on memrise every day, however. It was a bit humbling this past weekend when the two girls going to Austria already knew quite a bit of German, and are even texting people in German. They have been learning for a month longer though, and I feel like my accent's better, which is something that I find quite difficult. I feel like my concentration on the tones and pronunciation with Norwegian paid off, so I think I will continue at my slow pace. I'm not too worried though. Most people who go to European countries seem to speak their language quite well by the end of their exchange. I'm a lot more motivated than most in regards to the language, so I know I'll do okay. Edited by WoofCreature on 16 April 2014 at 4:53am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Emme Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 5348 days ago 980 posts - 1594 votes Speaks: Italian*, English, German Studies: Russian, Swedish, French | Message 16 of 16 27 December 2014 at 5:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hej!
We’re practically at the end of TAC’14. Would you like to drop by at our Team Asgard thead and tell us how this year went for you and your Norwegian studies? The year final report is also valid for our team’s December challenge! I hope to hear from you soon and in the meantime I wish you Gott nytt år! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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