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LittleBoy’s Log (中文, Fr, Es, Eo, De) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| LittleBoy Diglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5311 days ago 84 posts - 100 votes  Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto | Message 1 of 22 20 May 2010 at 10:23pm | IP Logged |
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In 2012 I'm doing an individual TAC. My languages will be Mandarin, French, Spanish, Esperanto, Toki Pona (maybe) and my own Conlang. The first post is on page 3 of this log.
The original post is left here for record. ------------ Plan of aTac (Team Ŭ): French: I'll finish school this year, and it remains to be seen which uni I'm heading to, and thus how much French I'll be doing (apologies, my main subject is Maths, and you get no major/minor system in England). Continuing to read Harry Potter in French (I know the books in English, which is useful, and it's not too challenging a read regardless), will be supplemented by regular use of Lingq. Hopefully completing the brilliant grammar book I have before I need to give it back at school, as well as working through a load of vocabulary will help me work from the B1/B2 border to be pushing C1. Spanish: Four years of school lessons left me with borderline A2/B1 Spanish. By the end of the year, I want to be a solid B1, well on the way to B2. This is going to require a huge amount of groundwork as regards grammar, with a steady drip of vocabulary through Lingq and Anki (aim for a deck of 1000 words). Mandarin: By the end of the year, I should have completed 100 Hanzi from Heisig (which has only taken me 6 months...). By the end of 2011 I want to have completed Book 1 in the hopes of the appearance of the sequel. As for the spoken language, I've done very little. So, next year, my plan is to use FSI, GLOSS and some of the innumerable podcast courses to see how much of the language I can learn for free. If anyone has any suggestions for other materials I can use in this quest, they would be much appreciated. Esperanto: Using lernu and a PDF download of "A Complete Grammar of Esperanto" by Ivy Kellerman, I hope to have a solid A2 by the end of the year. Toki Pona: Starting with next to nothing, except a couple of bookmarked internet tutorials, I hope to have got the basic 120 words down, along with normal syntax, and be working my way through some of the common compounds by next year. Then there's at least one wanderlust experiment that I really, really want to try and yet I really, really don't have the time for! And I've undoubtedly forgotten something that should be in this post! Edited 15/04/11 for change of team. Edited 25/05/11 for change of team. Edited 01/01/12 for new year. Renamed 11/12/12 Edited by LittleBoy on 12 December 2012 at 12:36am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| LittleBoy Diglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5311 days ago 84 posts - 100 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto | Message 2 of 22 22 December 2010 at 1:56pm | IP Logged |
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I decided to edit my old, dead log for this year's TAC, as it only comprised 2 posts, both by me, a month apart. This is just a shameless bump to the active topics, whilst my language learning takes a sideline to computer programming (which I've just gotten the bug for again).
What, you actually want something? Okay, here's a bit of Spanish translation, of a text from Lingq (http://www.lingq.com/learn/es/workdesk/item/1533074/reader/ ). El color rosa se obtiene mezclando rojo y blanco. Este color tiene muchos matices diferentes. El nombre proviene de la flor del mismo nombre: la rosa. El rosa simboliza la alegría y el placer, como en la expresión "ver las cosas de color rosa" o "la vida en rosa". El color rosado en la actualidad es considerado como el color de la "feminidad", así como el azul es asociado con la masculinidad, especialmente en bebés y niños. En España se llama 'rosa' o 'del corazón' a los medios informativos (prensa, televisión, etc.) que se centran en eventos sociales y la vida privada de los famosos. Las novelas románticas son también llamadas novelas rosas. The colour pink is obtained by mixing red and white. This colour has many different shades. The name comes from the flower of the same name: the rose. The rose symbolises joy and pleasure, like in the expression "to see pink things" or "the life in pink". The 'pinkish' colour is currently considered to be the colour of femininity, in the same way that blue is associated with masculinity, especially as concerns babies and young children. In Spain, the name "pink" or "of the heart" is given to media (press, TV, etc.) that deals with social events and the private lives of famous people. Romantic novels are also called pink novels. P.S. I tried to do this without a dictionary, so there may be some vocabulary problems. Also, in future, I'll try to do more tranlation into the L2, but I didn't have much time today. Edit: I've decided to do it into French as well: La couleur rose est obtenu en mélangent rouge et blanc. Cette couleur a beaucoup de tons. Le nom vient du fleur du même nom - la rose. La rose simbolise la joie et la plaisir, comme dans l'expression "voir les choses de la couleur rose" ou "la vie en rose". La rose est considéré, actuellement, d'être la couleur de la "feminité", comme le bleu est associé avec la masculinité, surtout en bébés et enfants. En Espagne, on appelle "rose" ou "de la coeur" aux médias (la presse, la télévision, etc.) qui s'agit des événements sociales et les vies privées des vedettes. Les romans d'amour sont également appellés les romans roses. Edited by LittleBoy on 22 December 2010 at 4:06pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lianne Senior Member Canada thetoweringpile.blog Joined 5116 days ago 284 posts - 410 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto, Toki Pona, German, French | Message 3 of 22 24 December 2010 at 6:15am | IP Logged |
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Did you ever end up starting Toki Pona in 2010, like you planned to in your May post, or are you starting it fresh for 2011?
I'm looking forward to reading your log this year! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| LittleBoy Diglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5311 days ago 84 posts - 100 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto | Message 4 of 22 24 December 2010 at 2:14pm | IP Logged |
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I did a couple of lessons, but real life, and other languages got in the way, so I'm effectively going to be starting afresh. However, to divert from my not even published plan, I'm probably going to be starting over the coming hols.
NB: the following refers to this course: from http://bknight0.myweb.uga.edu/toki/lesson/lesson0.html As Lesson 1 is an Introduction, and the pronunciation of Lesson 2 is relatively quick to work through, I've managed to complete all the first three Lessons whilst typing this post... Lesson Three starts to introduce basic grammar and vocab. The idea of no verb to be is alright for me, especially as the first example (mi pona - i am good), would be the same in Mandarin. The vagueness of the language is not phasing me too much, but the amount of promises in the text that you will learn something later is starting to be a bit worrying. Anyway, I think it's time for some more concrete goals for this year: French 1. Learn at least 10 new words a day (average). 2. Work through grammar examples from the book. (I'll find the name, and edit this later). 3. Write at least 20 Lang-8 passages for correction. I'll also try and use Lingq to get listening practise, and I've got an idea for down the line to find speaking practise, once I'm no longer at school. Mandarin 1. Finish Heisig's Remembering the Simplified Hanzi Book 1. 2. Complete at least 50 podcast Chinese beginner lessons. 3. Learn at least 500 words. (I've said 500, not 1000, as I'm more interested in seeing what I think of the set podcast course structure, rather than going off on my own). Esperanto 1. Work through Esperanto grammar/Lernu as takes my fancy. 2. Learn at least 1000 words. 3. Practise reading and writing via regular use of the Lernu forum. Spanish 1. Learn at least 1000 words. This will be measured by the size of my Anki deck, and it's likely that many of the words will be trying to revive my rusty school Spanish. 2. Complete a review of grammar (ie. Learn what you should have learnt at school!), using Anki to practise verb conjugations. I'll also try and push into some new grammar, depending on how long the review takes. 3. Work through at least 50 Lingq texts for listening practise. Toki Pona 1. Work through the course at http://bknight0.myweb.uga.edu/toki/lesson/lesson0.html (I'll probably do this before 2011 to catch up with Lianne, the other member of Team Ŭ. 2. Try and interact with other Toki Pona speakers (exact mechanism for this to be decided). 3. A secret goal ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| LittleBoy Diglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5311 days ago 84 posts - 100 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto | Message 5 of 22 28 December 2010 at 5:29pm | IP Logged |
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To try and get some variety into these entries, and stop it being a simple list of hours and resources, I'm going to review a movie I've just watched.
On the last day of term, my teacher gave me a subtitled copy of "La Haine" to watch, as I'd been away when she showed it in class. It's interesting. Filmed entirely in black and white, and incoporating real footage of riots, it follows a day in the lives of a group of three mates living in the "cité". Needless to say, when you can catch the vocab, some of it is rather, erm, colourful. And it doesn't deal with the nicest themes - one of their mates is in hospital thanks to police brutality, for example. I think this is best seen in the ending, which I don't want to spoil. Very powerful, and worryingly believable, I'd recommend it to anyone with a decent level of French. And to do something linguistic, I'll try a rough translation into French: Le dernier jour du trimestre, ma prof m'a donné un vidéo sous-titrée de "La Haine" pour regarder pendant mes vacances, puisque je étais absent lorsque l'on l'a regardé à l'école. C'est intéressant. Complètement en noir et blanc, il contient des films des émeutes réelles, on suit un jour pour trois amis qui vivent dans la cité. On n'a pas besoin de dire, quand on comprend les mots, quelques uns sont assez, euh, imagés. Et il ne s'agit pas des thèmes sympa - un de leurs amis se trouve dans l'hôpital grâce aux policiers, par exemple. Je crois qu'on le comprend le mieux avec le dénouement, ce qui je ne voudrais pas gâcher. Très puissant, et anxieusement croyable, je la recommanderai a n'importe qui qui sait parler le français assez couramment. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| LittleBoy Diglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5311 days ago 84 posts - 100 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto | Message 6 of 22 29 December 2010 at 3:35pm | IP Logged |
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I've decided that trying to take on all five languages at once is just going to promote limited progress. So, I'm stealing the idea of just focussing on a couple at a time, knowing you'll come to the others later. Instead of the three month time limit though, I'm going to be basing it on the course.
So, here's my first two sub-goals for 2011: Spanish: Having gotten a free trial at SpanishPod101.com, I've downloaded a lot (a lot) of lessons. My first goal is going to be to work my way through beginner's season two. Okay, there's a newbie level below, but it was still disappointing that four years of lessons at school only got me thus far. That said, I could start at a more advanced level, probably, but want to solidify my grammar, and also learn some useful vocabulary! (No more clothing and school subjects...) I'm enjoying it so far, even if the Costa Rican pronunciation, especially the c in "ción", still sounds weird to my ears, being so used to the Iberian accent. Toki Pona: To keep up with my TAC teammate, Lianne, and to allow more time later for practise, I'm going to be setting my second sub-goal of completing the Internet course mentioned above. Ongoing: I'm going to be aiming for five new Hanzi a day, to try and make sure I can finish Book 1 of Heisig by the end of the year. I'll also try and keep on top of Anki reps (I had exactly 200 yesterday), and keep up a steady flow of new French vocabulary. Edited by LittleBoy on 29 December 2010 at 3:36pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| LittleBoy Diglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5311 days ago 84 posts - 100 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto | Message 7 of 22 01 January 2011 at 6:30pm | IP Logged |
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Wow, it's 2011 already. I can't believe it! It seems like a good time to see how things are going so far.
My Spanish is coming back to me pleasingly quickly, and I'm surprised quite how much I know, which is nice. I've listened to quite a few podcasts, but not really done anything else, which I'm going to need to change to really progress. I've done five lessons of the Toki Pona course and put everything into Anki. One problem I'm having is that I've put a seperate entry for each different meaning of a word or sentence to make sure they all stick. As such, progress is slightly slow, but should work out in the long run. As for the language itself, I quite like it, even if my pronunciation is slightly dodgy, and I don't quite agree with it all. For example, ike means both bad, evil and complicated. And I don't think that complicated is always bad. But that's a very minor gripe. Doing a couple of hundred reviews a day in Anki is slightly time-consuming and possibly not that enthralling, but I'm coping so far. I've also done 101 Hanzi so far, to beat my target of 100 by the end of 2010 whilst still satisfying my mathematical brain. On which subject I really should go and do some now. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lianne Senior Member Canada thetoweringpile.blog Joined 5116 days ago 284 posts - 410 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto, Toki Pona, German, French | Message 8 of 22 23 January 2011 at 6:56am | IP Logged |
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Hey, how's the toki pona coming? ona li pona ala pona tawa sina?
1 person has voted this message useful |
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