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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4292 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 201 of 217 11 July 2015 at 4:59am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I met a lot at University. At one point when I used to go with the international society I used to meet about 5 new Hispanophones minimum, each week. They were usually from Spain, some from Latin America, but mostly the Hispanophones in the UK are from Spain (which makes sense with the close distance and Schengen free movement). The Latin Americans I usually met at chess tournaments from the past. I met a lot of Argentinians especially because they travel all over the place, as well as basically all sorts of other Latin Americans, like Mexicans, Colombians, Chileans, Brazilians, etc. It does require a bit of travelling to meet so many people, which I unfortunaly cannot do right now. It helped with language practise a lot though. It also helps where one lives. I almost always have lived in big metropoli, with many immigrants, and are very multicultural. Manchester and San Francisco are almost the definition of multicultural big cities. I think that someone who lived on some farm in Cornwall or in the middle of rural Idaho or Saskatchewan and cannot trouble probably has serious problems trying to meet many people of different nationalities. Add to that that the neighbourhoods where I have lived are so extremely multicultural that often for example, in Manchester the population of my neighbourhood had more immigrants than White British. But the Schengen free movement agreement means that just walking down the street you can probably meet people from over 20 different countries.
I can relate in a somewhat similar way, because in addition to Francophone friends, I have Scandinavian and Dutch friends. I just do not write or speak to them in English. In some cases, when I was younger, I used Engilsh with them, but those with whom I converse nowadays, I stopped speaking English and speak their language. They more or less just go along with it. As I said before, I started communicating in Norwegian with a friend with whom I spoke English regularly. Maybe she thought it was weird that I switched language suddenly, but she went along with Norwegian anyway, so that is the language that we use. And Norwegians are much more proficient in English than Francophones, and the switching is much faster in a conversation between an Anglophone and a Norwegian than between an Anglophone and a Francophone. Avoiding switching requires a bit of "cojones". But it pays off in the end. One of the best lessons that I learnt in language learning is that no one in this entire world is obligated to speak English--including native Anglphones. :) Edited by 1e4e6 on 11 July 2015 at 5:17am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5011 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 202 of 217 11 July 2015 at 6:43pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Elenia, I'm always excited about your invasions! After all, learning Swedish makes you basically half Viking ;-)
Thanks for your kindness and encouragement! Yeah, the French really refuse to speak French, isn't it "funny"? Actually, I might have accidentally stumbled across a potential exchange source weeks ago. I'll give it a full try on Wednesday and I'll let you know what is it like. Gary, I totally agree with your opinion on the difficulty of the romance languages. That's true, they are at the same level when you take into account all the aspects. We are just not being conditioned by the society and educational system than Spanish/Italian is horribly difficult and impossible to learn. It's very true you can use facebook to keep in contact with people from across the world quite easily. 1e4e6, I should probably get more involved with the foreigner groups at my uni!
Now those are great words to live by! Thanks! Back to books again :-( I hate medicine. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4292 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 203 of 217 11 July 2015 at 8:53pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Absolutely, when I was an undergradute I remember there were so many international
societies. The biggest one was obviously the "main" one, the International Society, but there were so many others. Including the Spanish society, the Latin American society, the "Mediterranean "society which was run by a Turk and an Italian, and also a Scandinavian society. They are mostly native speakers from their respective countries, but I often just attended although I was a native Anglophone, get some good food and language practise, go to nightclubs, and on one of the French nights, film + cheese. They did not mind :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Elenia Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom lilyonlife.blog Joined 3858 days ago 239 posts - 327 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Swedish, Esperanto | Message 204 of 217 12 July 2015 at 12:18am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Cavesa - Your words make me so happy, I cannot begin to describe. I'll sit in my Viking corner, rooting for you to pass this awful period of exams and waiting for you to join the dark side ;) I also hope your exchange goes well! I'm excited to hear more about it, so now you're obligated to go ahead with it and have a wonderfully French experience :)
1e4e6 (and Cavesa, too!) - I only joined the Scandinavian society, in my final year. I never received a single invitation from them :( That being said! Cavesa, you should definitely join all of the multilingual societies! I am also glad it worked out well for you, 1e4e6. On the subject of my francophones... I have been present while the one I am closest to spoke in English to someone she has known all her life, while the other person spoke in French. She is bilingual, and she has a particular dislike for French in general, although she will sometimes use a particular word or phrase. The lesson I learn from this is: avoid bilingual Frenchies! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4292 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 205 of 217 12 July 2015 at 8:47am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Usually what happens is that they announce a meeting date in the society, and already
those who are members can come. Those who are new usually can just join and get membership there or sometimes online (if the society has it organised into the Student Union). I am not sure how things work in the Czech universities, but there are sure to be a lot of foreign students, including full-time and Erasmus, being in the centre of Europe. Now that I dwell on it, I never joined Anglophone societies. I always was the minority in that I was one of the few native Anglophones in these societies, always known as "that guy" who came to whatever society and meeting without being a "foreign" student so to speak. But I think that just being in those societies made my interest in languages go really high. I highly doubt that I would even have considered Norwegian or Dutch, for example, had I not met them in person. It seems like the top half of the UK, especially the east coast like Newcastle (The Second Norway), Aberdeen (Little Stavanger), and such are especially receptive to Scandinavian expatriates. I miss those good times... Edited by 1e4e6 on 12 July 2015 at 8:53am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5209 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 206 of 217 13 July 2015 at 11:20am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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This discussion makes me wish I had been interested in languages while I was a student. My old uni has societies for French, Italian, Scandinavian, and probably lots more; they do film nights and social events, and from what I hear it's a mix of native speakers and people studying the languages. It's probably one way of meeting French speakers, since most of them here at least are students. The Erasmus party scene also seems like a goldmine for language practice, and generally more fun and interesting than the typical Anglophone binge-drinking marathons. I ended up at a couple of these parties when I was dating an exchange student and I have good memories. Hell, if I went back to study now I'd do Erasmus myself.
There's also a language exchange event at the Uni that's open to non-students, and I've had some luck with that although as always with these events it can be very hit-or-miss. All this is just my uni, which has a big international component, I can't say whether others are the same. Spanish speakers are a bit of a special case really. I struggle to leave my front door without meeting them. For most other languages it's a lot trickier. I've only ever met a small handful of Lusophones, not that I've ever seeked them out. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4292 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 207 of 217 13 July 2015 at 12:01pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I remember quite well that when I joined all of those socities, I never joined an
Anglophone society, ever. I did not consciously try to do so, but it looks like I was not missing anything anyway. It was just the way that things turned out. Fate? I always went with the foreign full-time and Erasmus students, although some thought that I was a foreign student based on looks alone. I remember being frequently the only native Anglophone in society meetings. It was well worth it though. I still communicate with some of them and we still say, "You remember at the Halloween party 6 years ago when..." --"Yeah..". All in the target language of course. Edited by 1e4e6 on 13 July 2015 at 12:06pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5011 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 208 of 217 14 July 2015 at 3:27pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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So, the exam time has just been prolonged to September! Well, bad news but I still won't have time to learn the bloody subject and to sleep and have some fun: After all, I hadn't planned a summer job anyway.
Well, the student societies are something a bit less formal around here. They tend to be divided by faculties, not by nationalities. After all, we are having a really heterogenous mix of people here. I'll see where I can get ;-) Summer plans for my languages: 1.read some books. My SCs need some thousands of pages, my head needs some fun. But I need to use those books mostly as reward for studying that hated subject. 2.watch some movies. The same reasoning as above. 3.Some slow course work. Or fast and scary, depends on the language. 4.Faster grammar progress. I'm in the middle of too many books, truth be told. Especially Spanish needs to move forward fast. German needs to progress steadily. I am more and more convinced I need German in order to join the Dark Side. Books with Swedish books situated in Germany, good quality memrise decks based on English AND German, not learning two Germanic languages at once... And Russian is my new toy. No need to hurry. 5.Memrise. For now, it has clear priority over anki. Notes on Memrise, having returned approximately after ten months: +improved mobile app. that is a huge +. For some uses (such as Russian), it is better than the browser version. However, it makes testing a bit too easy as you get only the needed letters plus a few more to confuse you for the typing exercise. Well, I am confused anyways, so I don't mind much for now. :-) +improved course creation process, especially adding words in a bulk -still the same bad communication of changes -removed dashboard, removed pinning courses. You need to spend lots of time clicking on filters per language, you have a chaos in courses, if you learn more than just a few -you can add daily goals, which is nice, but you still cannot pin the damn courses, so that you could see them -actually, the whole thing keeps changing a lot obviously -groups. a new function, obviously helpful to teachers at schools, not so much to other people. it is supposedly meant to work instead of the good old easy to use dashboard and course pinning +new courses created by the members. Some are pretty good but you need to choose carefully -still horrible way to view the course list. it is quite impossible to search it. You scroll and scroll through tons of courses with the same name (and often quite the same content) and occassionally find something worthwhile or even awesome. //perhaps we, htlal memrisers, should share somewhere tips on good quality courses -most memrisers, as it appears from reactions to my questions concerning course creation, seem to prefer shorter "more motivating" thematic courses instead of a huge pile in one pack. Well, that sounds nice in theory, but in a world with no way to sort the courses while searching, that is a disaster +finally, there is again a way to treat course overlaps by auto-ignore function. How good it is, that is something I haven't found out yet. I hope it works even for the same word with slightly different translation in each course (I don't wanna grow old manually ignoring all the "Hallo" and "Hola" copies -still no way to treat overlaps with your previous studies, no entry test or anything +auto-grow for course creators -auto-grow not available for anyone else than the course creators -despite all that "community aspect" (a funny thing to mention, now that the real leaderboard is gone and you need to manually follow people in order to compete against them), there is still no way to send a pm or something. Actually the most common way for memrisers to bond is sharing tips on overcoming new changes the staff made on forums -still no course rating +really, good development of the course creation. bulk adding, auto-grow, at least you can finally change the level size and move words between levels -the damn levels still exist -still no easy and official way to import stuff from anki ---- (a million minuses) you still cannot override as a learner the settings made by course creators. So, the creator chooses the size of a level. If your settings say you learn fewer words at once, it's ok. If your settings are saying you want to cram faster, you're out of luck. The creator chooses whether you have a course with typing exercises or multiple choice only. Creator who wishes to share both variants needs to duplicate the course and save each with different settings. And there is no override of "wrong". If you just hit a 2 instead of 3 or typoed an easy word, that is gonna bother you for ages. Or if you know the correct answer but the question was badly asked and therefore could lead to several alternatives So, I am using Memrise, it is addictive, there is a lot of new content that makes it worthwhile (I'll share links). But I'll back up everything, so that I can revert back to anki at any point I get upset by a new wave of changes. Yeah, I might be complaining a lot but the fact that I am by far not the only one, that makes me think it might a fault on both sides. Staff that makes that complainable tool (Quite a lot of people I remember left Memrise. I've left three times or so) and us who keep using it. If only Anki let me write that easily and I don't know. Guys, thanks for the encouragement to look more into the student societies and groups. Actually, there are many Lusophones in Prague, if anyone wanted to study among the Portuguese. One of the medical faculties could almost teach foreigners in Portuguese instead of English. Today's program: Spanish grammar, Kaamelot, Lord of the Rings in English (book 1), Pathology, at least seven hours of sleep. P.S. The silver lining of not having a boyfriend now is the free time. Noone is gonna complain about my failed exam (except for my mother, ok), noone will make my language studies hard by requiring Czech subtitles (or dubbing. I was so much in love I watched a dubbed movie!). I should use the time wisely. And date a language enthusiast next time perhaps. Edited by Cavesa on 14 July 2015 at 3:28pm 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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