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A method for dealing with wanderlust? | ||
Tags: Wanderlust | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5239 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 17 of 25 01 August 2014 at 5:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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Just to play Devil's Advocate here for a moment. What is wrong with Wanderlust? You might find you actually prefer Spanish and have an epiphany moment where you say; "Thank goodness I put a stop to that Mandarin rubbish! My heart is in Spain!"
Maybe you're in a bad relationship with Mandarin and just need to get out of it. Of course only you can decide, but why not take a shot at Spanish? 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4447 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 18 of 25 01 August 2014 at 7:13pm | IP Logged | ||
Be careful the language you use because there may be many polyglots watching. No matter how much you dislike a language, you shouldn't say 1 language is rubbish in the open even if you think this is the case. The reason that people get into languages is to learn about other culture and traditions. Just because 1 language is difficult to learn doesn't make it "rubbish". You are not comparing apple to apple. ====== Last year I spent 8 months brushing up my Mandarin. I've gone to Taiwan for a summer exchange many years ago and ended up being assigned to an advanced level language class. There was a lot of reading of old Chinese stories and dictation the following day. Starting with a background in Cantonese, I don't find reading Chinese characters a big issue. The main issue is listening and be able to pick up what is said in a conversation. There are a lot of Mandarin programs already uploaded online from YouTube, Tudou Wang 土豆网 the video sharing site. Whenever time permitting I would be watching anything from TV dramas in 20 episodes from Singapore, movies and reality shows from Taiwan & Mainland China. Some of the time I'd be listening to the news and try to pick up as much as I can even when I may not be able to understand everything. The way I pick up most of my characters is to watch shows with captions in Chinese and run through various sections with unfamiliar Chinese characters a few times. Most TV shows from the Mainland & Taiwan have captions. The ones from Singapore usually have have English subtitles as well. The next 6 months I'll be focusing on French. I took basic French in high school but didn't get anywhere. I found a few learning videos with captions. What I'm doing with French is similar to what I was doing in a language class with Mandarin in Taiwan. I'd run a video a few times. Then I'd listen to the audio and do a dictation to see how much of the dialog I can pick up without looking at the subtitles. Places I have trouble hearing I'd run through several times. Don't forget, French like Spanish, Italian & Portuguese is a Romance language but English is not. Despite the use of the same alphabet, there are all sorts of subject-verb conjugations that isn't found in English. The first week I had to deal with conjugating the verb Être which I haven't done since my high school days. And then there are issues with word usage in the proper context. For example: in English we would say: "It is noon" and "It is a pen". In French, there are certain instances you'd use "Il est" for "It is" and in other instances you'd use "C'est or Ce sont" such as "Il est midi" and "C'est un stylo" instead of "Il est un stylo". At the meantime, what am I doing with Mandarin when I am focused on my French? I would listen to news broadcast at least once a day if possible. At the end of the week I would be watching an hour-long TV show whether it is a reality show, singing contest, etc. At the same time I would be making a list of all the new French words & phrases I come across in a computer file. Beside each would be definitions and word usage in Chinese so that I can keep up both. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6600 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 19 of 25 02 August 2014 at 12:46am | IP Logged | ||
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I read "that Mandarin rubbish" as "my frustrating Mandarin studies". Also, there's little tolerance for ranting at languages that you're not learning and have no obligation to learn, but those getting out of a toxic relationship will always find consolation here. Honestly, if somebody is so put off by such comments about a language, they probably shouldn't learn it anyway.
Also... "The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself." -Oscar Wilde 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5239 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 20 of 25 02 August 2014 at 12:57am | IP Logged | ||
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@shk00design - I was attempting to be humorous not maligning Mandarin. I'm planning to start studying Mandarin next month. :)
@serpent - That was what I intended. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4447 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 21 of 25 02 August 2014 at 2:10am | IP Logged | ||
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As much as you like or dislike a language, if you already spent 6 months or longer at it, it would be a
waste of time to let it go completely. You can focus on other languages first but every once in a while brush up on your vocabulary so that you won't be starting from square one when you go back to it. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6600 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 22 of 25 02 August 2014 at 4:04am | IP Logged | ||
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That assumes you do go back to it. Sometimes it's better to just let go. Gemuse posted a great link here.
(OP, I'm not saying that this applies to your situation! But if you feel that it might, it probably does) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| JamesS Diglot Newbie Australia Joined 4218 days ago 20 posts - 30 votes Speaks: English*, Indonesian Studies: Javanese, German, Mandarin | Message 23 of 25 02 August 2014 at 8:01am | IP Logged | ||
That six months is actually a 'sunk cost', to use an economics term. In other words, you have already invested your six months and you can't get it back. If the language is really is worthless to you then the six months can be said to have been a waste of time (except, of course, for the skills you may have developed that can be applied to learning other languages) but a bigger waste of time would be going on with the language just because you have spent a significant amount of time on it in the past. Later on it might become important to you, at which point you can easily start it up again. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4447 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 24 of 25 02 August 2014 at 3:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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There are people who learned to be fluent in languages that are so distinct from each other you can't
really use 1 to build vocabulary for another. Someone like Tim Doner from the US who speaks 20 languages spent his school days learning 1 language after another. He appeared on TV speaking Arabic. In what way is Urdu related to Arabic or Mandarin? They use different writing systems with different sets of grammar rules and vocabulary. The people who are successful learning 1 language is more likely to be successful in another because they have developed a learning system / approach that works. If you give up on 1 language, there is a chance you would do the same with another because you haven't found the right approach to learning that works for you. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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