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Tarvos - TAC 2015 Pushkin/Scan | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4707 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes  Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 937 of 1511 04 November 2013 at 3:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
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It really depends on when I have time. This weekend I did 10 lessons in three days or so,
sometimes it's one lesson a day. Usually it's about 7. But I maintain super-fast tempos in any language. I hate going slow - if I have to revise or look something up later then I will. I tend to be ahead of the curve in everything I do - I had a class today and we discussed very basic things like to be and greetings and their formation. This is fine because it reinforces something I know from before. Whatever I see will come up again somewhere and if it doesn't I clearly don't need it. To add to my previous experiences: Hebrew and Romanian were both excellent. I was particularly impressed at how fluently I could speak Romanian given how little practice I have in it. It's okay to be proud of yourself once in a while, right (even my Hebrew wasn't too bad - I got about 80% of his speech.) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4707 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 938 of 1511 04 November 2013 at 5:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Conclusions of the Marathon
- Switching from a strong to a weak language is enormously annoying and takes shittonnes of energy, especially if you are doing it first thing in the morning. I started with French at 9 am and had to switch impromptu to Korean at 10 am. Bad idea - should have paused and got some food. Not that I didn't produce anything - I always produce something and often even something correct - such is life, you get far more right than you initially think you would - but the question is in the precision of your answers. (The other problem is that my Korean isn't really at a level anyone could consider conversational, although I can already do quite a bit more than people give me credit for.) - Bookend with strong languages. Don't let them slide down in scale. I started with French (my strongest foreign language) and ended with Russian (my most practiced foreign language of the past two years). A very good idea, because if you mess up in a language you already speak well, the difference isn't that huge. You'll feel annoyed because the teacher points out a mistake you obviously should not be making, but it's better to do that in Russian where you can paraphrase than in Hebrew where you have to go "ma ze" because you don't know what is going on. - If the language is easier than the one before (by that I mean if you have a higher live), conversely, it becomes easier. Russian after Romanian isn't a problem and Romanian after Hebrew wasn't either. I could have reduced the timeslots for these pauses because I can switch to Russian much better (something I speak often) than to Korean (no experience). - Doing a lesson at 9 am sucks ass because you've just woken up. It is hard. I therefore always do my lessons early in the morning because it means you have to train your automaticity. Why? Because knowing a language and its constituent parts means you can do it when you wake up, when you're asleep, when you hate yourself to death, when you're tired, when your girlfriend has just broken up with you, and so on. That's why I do not always choose hours that are convenient physically, to train my resistance against interferences and situations that don't always work out as you plan. This is okay. You have to deal with this in real life. I will never forget the time I woke up in a bed in Brussels, alone, I didn't speak sufficient French, and the proprietor did his annual check of the lighting and gas... and started babbling French because I wasn't allowed to sleep over. This is the test whether you can do it or not. Immersion situations often require that you're in this type of situation where you don't have all your tools at hand, like the Internet, you are sick, your energy levels are low. Yes, it will affect your performance, but you can manage it. - It's good to challenge yourself. I learned a lot just by throwing phrases out quickly and having the teacher say "no, that is not how it works". At my level in some languages, it also means you can recognise idioms fairly quickly - I had several of these in Russian. Don't be afraid to speak up - someone will correct you fast anyways. Teachers are there to do this, and mostly in general, you can rely on humans to tell you. - Take breaks. It's good to remain focused, this improves your performance while speaking. I am glad I took a lot of them in between, although the initial scheduling could have been cleverer. Individual performances: - I was very unhappy with my French performance, there were many crappy errors I didn't need to make "ressembler comme" (ressembler à), pronouncing ré where it's re, etc. It was totally unnecessary and it has to do with your focus. I don't count mistakes because of "idiomatic usage" in this - if you don't know an idiom, you don't, and then you have to speak to get to know the correct format. - I was also unhappy with my Korean performance. I realised I don't know any Korean personal pronouns at all (except for the form of I), and realised there is a bigger history behind the grammar of some things than TTMIK presents sometimes. This is okay - what is taught is useful and I could certainly use it. In hindsight I probably am too harsh on myself with Korean, considering my level is like A1, and the good news is my pronunciation is quite good. I just need to learn that I have to tap rs, not roll them (when I roll r's in any language, they sound incredibly forceful, overdone). - My Hebrew was very pleasing and I understood far more than I expected I would. Yes, it was familiar material I discussed, but I could handle the conversation quite well. This means that I should focus on producing written Hebrew more, typing it more, chatting more, because the feedback I got indicates I have some work to do if I want to live and work in Israel, but that travel would be totally possible at my level and wouldn't really lead to problems. - My Romanian was excellent, fluent and rich and I was very pleased with my results here. Focus, speed and accurate results. - Russian could have been better, but it was the last one (and I also picked a teacher whom I know very well and knows what I am like). But it is so much easier to understand Russian nowadays that I don't need to put so much effort into focusing and listening. It is more effortless than it used to be. I still dislike some of the mistakes I make in Russian, but one advantage I have here is that I can use the informal register effectively (the formal one is terrible). Because I don't read so many books in Russian, this leads to a skewed distribution where I can use офигеть, типа того but I have to learn упускать. I am not sure whether I will do this again (or whether I will have the time to) but it was very interesting to try out. I have, of course, done the on-a-dime switching in informal situations before, but not this often and this intensely. The most important thing is to remain sharp and concentrated. Most often it is not the grammar that eludes you, or the fact you don't know something (if you don't know - ask!) but it's that you're not focusing, you are autopiloting. Autopiloting is okay if you can do so, but in foreign languages, you often can't. I can autopilot a lot of Russian, but many words still evade me, many complex words, and those I have to learn. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4707 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 939 of 1511 05 November 2013 at 7:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
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There will be a diploma and things. I will live. Defence is the 18th of November.
As they say in Russian... наконец-то... If I post a little infrequently you will now know that I have some last minute tidying up to do. Or well. Will do. Starting from tomorrow :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Evita Tetraglot Senior Member Latvia learnlatvian.info Joined 6552 days ago 734 posts - 1036 votes Speaks: Latvian*, English, German, Russian Studies: Korean, Finnish | Message 940 of 1511 06 November 2013 at 8:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
You don't really need second and third person pronouns in polite style Korean. TTMIK has a whole lesson devoted to the humble 'you' (lesson 4x05) but they end the lesson saying basically that you should never use it (because it's rude). You just call people by their name or their title. For example, your iTalki teacher would be 선생님. And if you don't know the name or the title, you can use 그 사람 as he/she.
LOL. I'm trying to imagine a nice, well-educated Dutch guy such as you saying 'офигеть' and it's so funny. I'm cracking up. I can see why Russians think you don't speak like a foreigner. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4707 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 941 of 1511 06 November 2013 at 8:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Ah, my iTalki teacher taught me those so I could form possessives with them adding 의.
I need to put the new words into my Korean google docs vocab file. I see. Well I prefer to be one of the guys/girls :P Edited by tarvos on 06 November 2013 at 8:38pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4707 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 942 of 1511 09 November 2013 at 10:18am | IP Logged | |||||
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Not much progress, except for a lot of TTMIK (I have managed up until 3x19). And I've
read some French lately. I also will be out speaking Russian tonight in person. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sepp Diglot Newbie Portugal Joined 4052 days ago 8 posts - 12 votes Speaks: English, Portuguese | Message 943 of 1511 09 November 2013 at 11:32am | IP Logged | |||||
Interesting, how do you normally speak? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4707 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 944 of 1511 09 November 2013 at 4:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Using Skype. I also do a LOT of text messaging and emails and such in Russian.
Unfortunately the person I was supposed to meet came down with a fever so that scuppered my plans for tonight. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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