1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4295 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan
| Message 17 of 111 10 August 2014 at 12:00am | IP Logged |
To become at least as proficient in Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish as they all are
in English when they leave university. I obviously am at a disadvantage without having an
equivalent of their extensive English education, but that is what makes it a goal. An
additional goal would be to return to all of those countries and have no one switch to
English with me for each stay.
C2 Spanish is nonnegotiable as a goal. I did not dedicate (and continue to dedicate)
studying Spanish since 2003 (although not continuously) to end up at a level below C2.
Edited by 1e4e6 on 10 August 2014 at 12:03am
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Radioclare Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom timeofftakeoff.com Joined 4588 days ago 689 posts - 1119 votes Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian
| Message 18 of 111 10 August 2014 at 12:23am | IP Logged |
I would like to be able to speak Croatian well enough to survive if I went to live in
Croatia. Though living in Croatia is probably more of a dream than a goal!
I have a novel in Czech that has been sitting on my bookshelf for about five years now,
so another big goal is to improve my Czech to a level where I can actually read it.
My hairiest goal of all is to learn Russian to some sort of functional level and travel
on the Trans-Siberian railway. That's perhaps a long-term goal for the next 10 years.
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Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5014 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian
| Message 19 of 111 10 August 2014 at 1:55am | IP Logged |
Just as Tarvos said, quite all my goals are hairy ;-)
And I have redefined them based on my recent month long experience in Spain (notes are half prepared to be presented in my log).
So, it looks like this:
French: Finally do the DALF C1. I know I could prepare myself for it in a few months. I know the comprehension parts are very likely to be easy for me. I know I need to work on my writing, on constructing the proper genres etc. And on my speaking to not be surprised by any common kind of task. The main trouble here is not my French, even though it needs some work. It is my fear, my feeling of not being good enough all the time, lack of free time (why the hell must the language exams come at the usual exam times? Really, I want November, April or July terms, so that I don't have to focus on university instead and postpone the DALF again and again)
Spanish: I have progressed greatly, my comprehension is somewhere between B2-C1 usually (except for some of the southerners. I believe some of them speak half Spanish half telepathic). My speaking is perhaps B1? I can speak about a wide range of topics (really large! it surprised me) but with tons of mistakes I need to catch. I can somehow write normal things. So, my hairy goal is to get Spanish to the same level as my French!
German: The unlucky one who always gets pushed aside by other things. I want it to be as good as my French. And that is a hairy goal, since it is so different.
Swedish: Even unluckier than German. This love of mine is always left waiting in the line. But I want to get it to high level enough for people not to switch to English at the time I finally get to visit the country. After all I've heard about the Swedes and their English, that is a hairy goal.
I have just as high expectations of myself for several more languages I found out I could find more than useful: Italian, Polish, Russian are no longer on the "if" part of my hitlist. They are in the "when" section. :-) If only I had more time. :-(
And one more: I want to learn one hard language. For the challenge of it, for the CV, for the hidden treasures natives don't want to share in order to keep advantage in any area, for whatever use. After all, I found so many uses for my French only after I had already learnt it to B1 like level, so why shouldn't I find just as many awesome uses for one of these options? The choice will be between Japanese, Mandaring and Arabic (or less likely Korean or Turkish as well). But this is quite far in the future ;-)
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cathrynm Senior Member United States junglevision.co Joined 6130 days ago 910 posts - 1232 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Finnish
| Message 20 of 111 10 August 2014 at 3:21am | IP Logged |
Want to pass the JLPT N2. Failed the last three attempts. 4th time, maybe I'll do better though -- it's this December.
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soclydeza85 Senior Member United States Joined 3912 days ago 357 posts - 502 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, French
| Message 21 of 111 10 August 2014 at 4:13am | IP Logged |
OVERALL: It's been a personal goal of mine to become proficient in at least 2 foreign languages by the time I'm 35 (about 5.5 years).
GERMAN
Shorter-term: Take and pass the Goethe B2 exam next summer
Long-term: Be able to understand the language to a high level (though my speaking may not be automatic due to lack of interaction, I'll be able to understand what I hear and read with no problem) I do plan, however, to one day have enough interaction for my speaking to be automatic-ish. This also involves a higher certification.
SWISS German
General: This still goes under German, but to have a general understanding of speaking in the Swiss German dialects.
ITALIAN
Semi-Long Term: Bring my Italian to a proficient level (I guess B2ish) and become certified.
EXTRA:
NORWEGIAN
Reach B1-B2ish level. I'm in no rush for this, but this language as intrigued me for a while; I would like to have some grounding in it.
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I would also like to venture more into French, Mandarin and Spanish but I am in no rush for these at the moment. I'm sure the list will get longer as time goes on.
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sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4641 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin
| Message 22 of 111 10 August 2014 at 4:25am | IP Logged |
French:
-Be able to better understand French rap
-Increase my comprehension when there's loud music/a lot of noise in the background
-Be able to better guess words that were inaudible to fill in the gaps in sentences
Spanish:
-Same as French minus the rap part
Italian:
-Listen to the news with ease
-Learn a bit of dialect
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darkwhispersdal Senior Member Wales Joined 6045 days ago 294 posts - 363 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Ancient Greek, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese, Latin
| Message 23 of 111 10 August 2014 at 4:56pm | IP Logged |
I think my Big Hairy Goal is to read the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings in all of my languages. I don't think there is a classical Greek edition of either but I own a Latin edition of the Hobbit so there's hope. I also have a copy of Pride and Prejudice in Mandarin which I would like to read one day.
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Darklight1216 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5105 days ago 411 posts - 639 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German
| Message 24 of 111 10 August 2014 at 7:04pm | IP Logged |
sillygoose1 wrote:
French:
-Be able to better understand French rap
-Increase my comprehension when there's loud music/a lot of noise in the background
-Be able to better guess words that were inaudible to fill in the gaps in sentences
Spanish:
-Same as French minus the rap part
Italian:
-Listen to the news with ease
-Learn a bit of dialect |
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Thankfully for you, those are not very hairy goals.
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