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Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5335 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian
| Message 49 of 553 15 December 2012 at 1:11am | IP Logged |
@Chung: It sounds much like the way they teach languages In Spain actually, by teaching reading and
translating and grammar, and with zero focus on talking. One of my Spanish sisters in Granada was top of
her class, had straight A's in English for the entire 8 years she studied it, yet could hardly say two sentences
in sequence. Give her a book to translate though, and she could translate Shakespeare. However what you
do get, is a fantastic base for learning to use the language as soon as you decide to focus on that side of it.
The beauty of being on this forum is of course that you can chose your own focus. And I will do my best to
help all those who might need to strengthen the spoken language. I may not be able to explain every
grammar rule, because as a native speaker we do not learn them, but I am very good at getting people to
talk:-)
2 persons have voted this message useful
| Veel Tetraglot Newbie Norway Joined 4694 days ago 23 posts - 41 votes Speaks: Lithuanian*, Latvian, English, NorwegianC1 Studies: Greek, Estonian
| Message 50 of 553 15 December 2012 at 4:37am | IP Logged |
Hei,
I've just lured myself into signing up for the completely unexpected double, or should I say triple, challenge for the next year. I'd love to join your Viking Team with Swedish-Norwegian and yet another rival *jäŋe / *ledús team with Estonian. This is my first go.
To begin with, I had studied a semester of Estonian and two semesters of Swedish at university and ended up spending a year in Norway before temporarily moving to the States. I dare say I'm somewhat of limey75-type learner, as all the language studies I have done so far were heavily book and translation-based, so I barely speak any, including English.
Swedish: started with "Rivstart A1+A2" textbook that covered the most basic grammar points, so I rushed through it on my own and started to read native materials right away, as passively knowing some B1-ish German and B2-ish English helped me immensely to sort things out. Moreover, I tried and listened to some radio programs and songs, but only occasionally. Later I went to spend a summer in Sweden where I could hardly understand anything but very random bits here and there in full speed native conversations. This half-immersion (spoke English most of the time) enabled me to follow most of the conversations easily and chime in, when needed, with my very broken Swenglish. Coming back home I immediately set out on "Nils Holgerssons underbara resa genom Sverige", without having read it any other language before and without consulting dictionary, and enjoyed it a lot.
Norwegian: Before leaving for Norway I rushed through some learning material as Pĺ vei, Norsk pĺ 1, 2, 3, Ny i Norge, ect., but did this in a very passive mode as always, so when I landed I barely understood anything. After attending a semester of the introductory Norwegian at local university things got slightly clearer and I happily set out for reading Jostein Gaarder, Erlend Loe and Murakami in Norwegian instead of trying to practice my A1-ish oral skills with locals.
Goals: to improve my Swedish/Norwegian to comprehensible level until I'm back to Scandinavia some nine months later by moving out of my comfort zone and engaging into more active learning strategies. I'd add my more detailed plan later. My log is to be set up soon, too.
Alright, what's my short hectic introduction. By the way, I'm 20-ish something female with an incomplete degree in Asian studies. Please forgive my holey English.
Vi hörs!
1 person has voted this message useful
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6621 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish
| Message 51 of 553 15 December 2012 at 9:47am | IP Logged |
I am posting this on the main sign-up thread and on all team logs.
This is a special announcement for all teams, certain ones more than others:
-The purpose of TAC teams is to support, help and encourage each other. “All for one and one for all.” That means reading each other’s logs, and commenting them where appropriate. It also means no more bickering.
- It the future all teams will be closed upon reaching 15 members, and new teams will be formed for those languages. Should a new team only attract a few members (about 5-7 depending on the team members prior TAC experience) by the sign-up deadline (31. January 2013), they will be merged with the original team. If in the course of the year, the teams lose half their members, they may also choose to merge. Any team that already has more than 15 members will not be divided, but they will not be allowed to add new members.
- Each team is to choose a team leader by Tuesday, 18 December. Inform me of your choice by then. The leader must have prior TAC experience unless there is no such person on the team. The leader is to keep me up-to-date regarding their team.
- I have created a French team and a Spanish team. Anyone studying those languages may choose to join them if they wish. The original Romance teams will remain in existence for those who are studying other Romance languages or who are interested in multiple languages. Note that even if you are only studying French or Spanish you may choose to be on a Romance team rather than a single language team. If there is enough interest for an Italian, Portuguese or Romanian team, I will create one. However, I would like those who may be interested in such a team to gather at least 5 team members before asking me to form the team
I am sorry to have to make these additional rules, however it is obvious that certain teams are already on the verge of falling apart and a number of more experienced TAC members have noticed this and sent me PM’s requesting that I do something.
3 persons have voted this message useful
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5925 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish
| Message 52 of 553 15 December 2012 at 10:29am | IP Logged |
A little bit about me:
Mick isn't really my name, but it is the nickname I use online. I live in Lakewood, Washington on the west coast of the USA. My age is mid-to-late 30's and I am planning to eventually get at least a master's degree in psychology.
My background on this forum is I joined in September 2008. I was looking for advice on how to learn Afrikaans and Spanish on my own. I was not going to even attempt to learn any other languages at first, but reading all the discussions here made me change my mind. By spring of 2009 I decided to learn Finnish and Swedish as well. I tend to be very inconsistent and undisciplined in my language learning so I have also added Polish, Italian and Hindi and to my list of languages I want to learn well. I often tell myself I should learn Spanish and Afrikaans to a very high level before I learn anything else (excepting courses for my degree) but I always seem to want to learn Swedish and/or Finnish.
I usually start with the Teach Yourself series because I like them and they're cheap. I also like to listen to, and sing along with, music sung in the target language and sometimes I translate lyrics into English. When I feel like learning to read I start looking for websites to read or listen to. For Swedish I mostly use Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet, Expressen and Sveriges Radio. Spoken Swedish no longer sounds foreign to me, but I still understand very little of what I hear and doubt I could converse with anyone in the language for very long, so I guess these are things I need to work on.
Hej dĂĄ
Edited by mick33 on 15 December 2012 at 10:37am
2 persons have voted this message useful
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5335 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian
| Message 53 of 553 15 December 2012 at 12:27pm | IP Logged |
Veel and Mick: Welcome to the team to both of you. I know that some of the team members will be particularly happy that you both do Swedish. As you know I do not do Swedish, but since you are so fortunate as to have a Swedish speaker among you, that should be fine.
Obs to all of you: Do not forget that within three days you must elect a team leader. I will support you in any way I can in may capacity as Godmother, but to have a strong leader who takes initiatives and shakes things up a little bit is very useful.
Also are you considering a team motto, song, or picture like some other teams have?
LYKKE TIL!! STĂ… PĂ… TEAM VIKING!
1 person has voted this message useful
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6621 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish
| Message 54 of 553 15 December 2012 at 1:13pm | IP Logged |
I'm rather shocked given the relative size of some of these countries, but Scandinavian languages seem amazingly popular. Fasulye just joined, making you a total of 13 members and December is only half over!
Lykke til med studiene alle sammen!
Good luck with your studies everyone.
1 person has voted this message useful
| Julie Heptaglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6904 days ago 1251 posts - 1733 votes 5 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French
| Message 55 of 553 15 December 2012 at 1:29pm | IP Logged |
Brun Ugle wrote:
I'm rather shocked given the relative size of some of these countries,
but Scandinavian languages seem amazingly popular. |
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We're a cool team, that's the reason ;)
I'm extremely uncreative when it comes to pictures/mottos/songs but I agree it would be
nice to have our Viking symbols. Anyone, any suggestions?
And what do you think about stealing the idea... ekhm, I meant getting inspired :)... and
coming up with some little team challenges on the way, like Team MIR?
1 person has voted this message useful
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Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5848 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map
| Message 56 of 553 15 December 2012 at 1:35pm | IP Logged |
Hej sammen!
I don't think I need to present myself so much, but I am very happy to join a team specialized on Scandinavian languages! It's a big team, so if some people drop out, there will be enough participants left to reach the end of TAC 2013. And I am especially happy to find some fellow learners of Danish in the team. I will continue my "Dansk övelse log" of the TAC 2012.
I ilke the name choice "Viking" for the team.
Looking forward to mutual team inspiration!
Fasulye
Edited by Fasulye on 15 December 2012 at 1:37pm
2 persons have voted this message useful
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