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sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4634 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin
| Message 1 of 58 18 December 2014 at 7:50pm | IP Logged |
Hey everyone.
After falling into the abyss last year due to a variety of issues, I'm looking to come back for motivated than ever with a few new language goals that I'd like to be able to say I will have achieved.
To start, I'll give a little rundown of my languages and goals.
French:
My best foreign language. Many thousands of pages read, years dedicated to, films watched, and conversations had. I've done everything I possibly could short of going to a francophone region.
I'd rate myself as a C1/C1+ due to my ability to understand a good amount of the language in less than desirable occasions, the fact that I'm able to read some rather demanding texts with relative ease, and how I can talk with my interlocutor with few mistakes all the while not being a burden.
My goal is to reach a C2 level by the end of this year.
I'm basically going to keep reading and watching movies.
Spanish:
Probably my second best language with a few gaps here and there. I can understand and read easily, but my output is somewhat lacking and not as quick to come to mind than French but this can be worked on.
I'd rate myself as a low C1 all around. I can do many things with this language such as enjoy tv and movies from various countries, read long novels, fool some South Americans into thinking I'm a Spaniard or Argentine, and take part in group conversations.
My goals for this year are to get to a solid C1 and fill in a few gaps. I'd also like to be able to understand Caribbean, Central American, and Peruvian accents better.
I'll just be reading and watching movies.
Italian:
I'm learning this language for family and cultural reasons. In the beginning I found myself a bit reluctant, but it started to grow on me more and more. Many great novels are translated into Italian which make it easy to keep myself busy with it constantly. They also have a decent movie industry with comedies constantly being released. No, they aren't great, but they really help me advance and get better.
I'd rate myself as B2 in passive skills and B1 in active. I'm hoping to be able to get to a C1 passive and B2 active. After that, I'll be satisfied.
I'm going to focus on heavy reading for the first few months, then work on my listening skills, then do a mix of both. I'd also like to learn a dialect (Tuscan, Roman, or Milano) I'd also like to do a bit of Corsican.
German:
This language has given me hell for years now, but I'm determined to get through it. Originally, this was supposed to be one of my main languages when I first got interested in learning languages with French, but it kind of drifted aside when it came to a difficulty that I wasn't ready for.
I'd rate myself as A2 all around. My goal is to get to a B2 level in passive skills.
After having gone through Assimil with ease & 2 "Perfection" books, all that's left for me to do is push through this plateau stage. I'm going to do some work with Harry Potter then later on we'll see.
Portuguese:
I'm not too excited about this language nor too motivated, but it's such a big one that not learning it with my knowledge of Romance languages would be a bit silly. I can read it pretty well but I couldn't reproduce anything.
I don't have a level to rate myself, but I'd like to get this language to B2 in all aspects by the end of the year.
I'm going to skim through Assimil to get an idea of the pronunciation and grammar then I'm diving right into Harry Potter. I'm going to alternate the last 4 books I haven't read yet with German.
Here's to a great year for all.
Edited by sillygoose1 on 07 January 2015 at 4:32pm
4 persons have voted this message useful
| LeadZeppelin Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5019 days ago 59 posts - 85 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish
| Message 2 of 58 18 December 2014 at 9:10pm | IP Logged |
Wow, you are so ambitious! Very inspiring. Good luck in 2015!
1 person has voted this message useful
| tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4663 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian
| Message 3 of 58 18 December 2014 at 9:29pm | IP Logged |
Tu ressembles à moi sauf que tu parles plus de langues et tes niveaus sont plus impressionnants. Je suis jaloux.
Bonne chance alors ! :-D
2 persons have voted this message useful
| chokofingrz Pentaglot Senior Member England Joined 5187 days ago 241 posts - 430 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Japanese, Catalan, Luxembourgish
| Message 4 of 58 18 December 2014 at 10:00pm | IP Logged |
This sounds very much like me on all fronts. Scarily so.
One of the things which helped me level up my German grammar was going through all the B1 exercises at http://www.schubert-verlag.de/aufgaben/uebungen_b1/b1_uebung en_index.htm
Good luck!
1 person has voted this message useful
| Xenops Senior Member United States thexenops.deviantart Joined 3823 days ago 112 posts - 158 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese
| Message 5 of 58 18 December 2014 at 10:02pm | IP Logged |
I think you have a very impressive list here (don't most people focus on one language for TAC?), and I applaud your starting of Japanese. I used Genki in college, and for self-study I am reviewing the material there and supplementing it with "Japanese for Everyone".
My point of concern is here:
sillygoose1 wrote:
Portuguese:
I'm not too excited about this language nor too motivated, but it's such a big one that not learning it with my knowledge of Romance languages would be a bit silly. I can read it pretty well but I couldn't reproduce anything.
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Just my two cents, but I think you would have a more worth-while experience if you skip the language that doesn't interest you and focus on the ones that day. Just my thoughts.
1 person has voted this message useful
| liam.pike1 Groupie Australia Joined 3752 days ago 84 posts - 122 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto, French
| Message 6 of 58 18 December 2014 at 10:30pm | IP Logged |
Umm, just a thought... I assume that you have a full-time job, perhaps a wife and kids, I dunno... but how on earth
do you plan to study so many languages, especially simultaneously? Unless you simply get paid to learn
languages for 10 hours a day, I don't see your goals as even remotely possible to achieve. I mean, even just going
from A2 to B2 in German is pretty good, or Russian from zero to A2 (or both).
Sorry for being a little negative-sounding but I'm just curious; how are you going to do it?
Good luck with the TAC 2015! (it's my first one, by the way!)
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 7 of 58 18 December 2014 at 11:26pm | IP Logged |
Hello, teammate! I wish you good luck with your goals for the TAC15. You're surely an
ambitious participant and you've obviously got a good starting point. Have a great year,
I'm looking forward to reading about your progress. :-)
1 person has voted this message useful
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4634 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin
| Message 8 of 58 18 December 2014 at 11:58pm | IP Logged |
Thanks everyone for the kind words. I wish you all the same.
In regards to Portuguese, I do like it but just not as much as the other languages. I don't mind spending a bit of time on it to get it to my "speaks" column though.
liam.pike1 wrote:
Umm, just a thought... I assume that you have a full-time job, perhaps a wife and kids, I dunno... but how on earth
do you plan to study so many languages, especially simultaneously? Unless you simply get paid to learn
languages for 10 hours a day, I don't see your goals as even remotely possible to achieve. I mean, even just going
from A2 to B2 in German is pretty good, or Russian from zero to A2 (or both).
Sorry for being a little negative-sounding but I'm just curious; how are you going to do it?
Good luck with the TAC 2015! (it's my first one, by the way!) |
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I'm young with no real responsibilities and on medical leave from university. Time is all I have this year.
Edited by sillygoose1 on 18 December 2014 at 11:59pm
2 persons have voted this message useful
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