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LanguageSponge’s TAC 2013 Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| LanguageSponge Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5767 days ago 1197 posts - 1487 votes  Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Welsh, Russian, Japanese, Slovenian, Greek, Italian | Message 65 of 92 16 January 2013 at 4:26am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for your responses, guys. I'm glad the differences are that clear-cut, it won't take me long to internalise those.
В последние дни я едва не занялся своими языками, у меня просто не хватило времени. В следующие дни я намерываюсь дописать немецкий эссей о сумерской культуре до конца. После этого, я хочу читать поэмы Пушкина. In the last few days I haven't really done much with my languages, I just haven't had the time. In the coming days I intend to finish my German essay on Sumerian culture. After that I want to read Pushkin's poetry. Also from February onwards I am going to be concentrating on Chinese characters instead of German. I will still be writing this partly in German to keep it up but I want to use the time I have in China to get as much of the written Chinese language down as possible. Jack 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| LanguageSponge Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5767 days ago 1197 posts - 1487 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Welsh, Russian, Japanese, Slovenian, Greek, Italian | Message 66 of 92 28 January 2013 at 4:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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На конец мне удалось взяться за решение семейных проблем, и поэтому я могу вернуться к изучением иностранных языков. В январе просто всегда проблемы у нас.
Я намедни думал о том, как я выучил немецкий и французский языки, свои первые иностранные языки. Я недавно снова начал говорить с бывшей девушкой, которая возника из Германии и семья которой учила меня немецкому. Мы уже лет шесть не говорили и хорошо снова говорить. Наши подростковые годы полны отчётливых воспоминаний о летних каникулей в Германии в Австрии, и сегодня мы провёли четыре с половиной часов разговаривать о детстве, навёрствывающие улущенное время. Наш привычный язык ещё немецкий. Я не помню, что я много и усердно работал, я просто занимался только тем, что мне понравилось. Я перестал говорить на английском, играл в компьютерные игры на немецком, много читал и смотрел каждое постороннее слово, которое встречал. Это не стало результатом зубрежки или вливания огромных средвст в какие-либо прескучные программы или курсы. Во многих случаях я ясно вспоминаю, точно где я был, что я делал, и даже что я носил, когда я встретил новое слово. Эти особные воспонимания, которые мне больше означают, чем простая ностальгия, помогают мне сохранить слова. Легче запоминать новые слова, связанны с воспоминаниями, хорошими или плохими. В следующие месяцы я хочу сосредоточиваться на своём отрывочном словарном запасе. Сейчас я получаю удовольствие от чтения. Я ко дню рождения получил книгу стихов Пушкина, и я нашёл некоторые стихи, которые мне особенно нравятся, включая один стих именно «Цыганы», который я читал в университете. С февраля я буду сосредоточиваться на двух языках вместе, кроме четырёх. Я дошёл до сути, где я должен укреплять изучение китайского. В феврале я буду сосредоточиваться на русском и китайском языках. Я думал о том, чтобы изучить китайский на февральское 6 week Challenge. Об этом я всё ещё не уверен. Hi all, The family problems have come to a head for another year, so I can now return to my language studying. We always have problems in January. I’ve recently been thinking about how I learnt French and German, my first foreign languages. I recently started talking to an ex-girlfriend of mine, who is from Germany and whose family helped me learn German. We hadn’t spoken in about six years and it’s nice to talk again. Our teenage years are full of vivid memories of summer holidays spent in Germany and Austria, and today we spent four and a half hours talking about before, making up for lost time. Our go-to language is still German. I don’t remember studying very hard, I just did whatever I fancied. I stopped speaking English, played computer games in German, read a lot and looked up every unknown word I came across. It wasn’t the result of cramming or exposure to any deathly boring courses. In many cases I can remember really clearly exactly where I was, what I was doing and even what I was wearing when I met a new word. These special memories, which mean more to me than just nostalgia, help to me retain the words. It is easier to retain words which are linked to memories, whether good or bad. In the coming months I want to concentrate on my patchy Russian vocabulary. Right now I’m getting a lot of pleasure out of reading. For my birthday my uncle bought me a book of poems by Pushkin, and I found a few I really like, including one, called “The Gypies”, which I read at uni. From next month I’ve decided to concentrate on two languages at once instead of four. I’ve got to the point where I need to start consolidating my Mandarin knowledge (and speeding up with it). I’ve been thinking about doing Mandarin for the 6 Week Challenge. I'm still not quite sure about that. Thanks for reading! Jack Edited by LanguageSponge on 29 January 2013 at 2:22am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| embici Triglot Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4611 days ago 263 posts - 370 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Greek | Message 67 of 92 28 January 2013 at 5:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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Welcome back, Jack. Your experience of learning German is interesting. It's a good
reminder that while learning a language can involve a lot of sweat, often it's just about being with people and doing things we like (in the target language of course). Edited by embici on 28 January 2013 at 5:10pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4640 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 68 of 92 28 January 2013 at 5:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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Jack, if your Russian vocabulary is patchy, I don't know what to call mine. I am also working hard on improving it, but I think I am still a long way from reading Pushkin's poems. By the way, what do you find most difficult when it comes to reading classical Russian literature? If I understand correctly, Russian has not changed that much since the times of Pushkin & co., but I can imagine vocabulary is somewhat different?
I see you say you will focus on two languages in February. Does that mean you will put Greek aside for the time being? I am not questioning your decision of course :-), just noting that Team Sparta is not very active at the moment. To be honest, I have not really advanced much with Greek myself the last few weeks. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| LanguageSponge Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5767 days ago 1197 posts - 1487 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Welsh, Russian, Japanese, Slovenian, Greek, Italian | Message 69 of 92 29 January 2013 at 7:06am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks embici. Now that I've thought about it at more length, it's clear to me now that
I've been a lot slower learning in the last few years because I've been doing what I think I should do instead of what I wanted to do. As I think about this more, it becomes even more obvious. I did so well in German at school because I had someone to talk to in German every day who I actually wanted to talk to besides the need for a conversation partner. My life was full of so much German that I was actually interested in that it would have been miracle if I hadn't picked it up. While I've been teaching here in China my mentors all emphasise how important it is for the lessons to be relevant to the students' lives, and it makes sense: Besides the superficial things like enjoying particular sounds in words, liking the written form of a particular character in a weird script, you want the content of what you're actually absorbing to be interesting. Our brains don't easily remember things that bore us. There's a reason why people mention hilarious Assimil dialogues on here, and that is because they entertain them, and that helps them to remember. They're probably designed to be that way too. Along the same lines, we claim on here that most people can learn any language. I agree with that, but only under the right circumstances. I tried to learn some Chinese before I got here. I failed miserably, nothing would stick. But the second I got here my brain obviously realised I needed to remember Mandarin to live here, so I am learning new words without even realising it consciously. It's relevant to me, so it sticks. It's almost like a pre-programmed survival instinct has kicked in, and I imagine it's exactly the same thing with babies - they need to learn verbal communication to survive, so their brains are programmed to pick up as much as possible during their first years of life. Even older people will become like this under the right circumstances. My uncle couldn't pick up any Welsh until he started working in a job that needed it. Now only a few short years later, he's competent enough to use it in a professional setting. Maths bored me to tears in school and I had to review the same rubbish every weekend because it just wouldn't stick in my brain. I understood it by the end but I forgot it every time because it just wasn't important to me. Going through courses which are usually drier than the Sahara desert just doesn't do it for me. I didn't use a course for French to resurrect it from the dead after I finished school and I remember it being incredibly quick. I just read and talked whenever I felt like I could add something to a conversation. If they built a course around Astérix et Obélix then I'd remember everything really quickly. And one last thing on my little rant, I have gone back to writing everything I learn down on a piece of paper, with a pen or pencil like I used to. Something about the process of writing things down on paper with your own hand instead of hammering on computer keys makes learning easier. I spoke to a Chinese colleague about this a few days ago, she says writing on a computer all day actually makes her forget Chinese characters sometimes. Ogrim, I will be focusing on two languages at once, but that does not mean I am abandoning Greek or Team Sparta, no way. I will need to spend some time on Greek or I'll lose what I've acquired, plus I am the team leader so I'm not abandoning ship. I will still do Greek during the "off months" but my focus will only be on two for any given month. Have no fear, Spartan! Jack Edited by LanguageSponge on 01 February 2013 at 5:52am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| LanguageSponge Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5767 days ago 1197 posts - 1487 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Welsh, Russian, Japanese, Slovenian, Greek, Italian | Message 70 of 92 01 February 2013 at 9:09am | IP Logged | ||
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Dieser wird ein ziemlich langer Beitrag sein, da wir schon das Monatsende erreicht
haben. Das heißt, ich sollte meine Ziele für den kommenden Monat stellen und an die für den vergangenen Monat zurückdenken. This one will be a pretty long post as we've come to the end of January, which means I should look back at my goals for the previous month and set out my goals for the coming one. Meine Ziele für Januar waren folgendes: My goals for January were as follows: Russian: 1.To improve my Russian cursive handwriting and generally write more in cursive I think I've reached this one. My cursive looks a bit better now than it did a few weeks ago. I will continue developing this in the coming months as having good handwriting is very important to me. 2.To get more of a grip on Russian aspect. I don’t feel like I’ve got it, especially with infinitives. So employing the philosophy I outlined in the above post, I decided to stop using the textbooks and reference grammars and read more real Russian, as well as actually use it, and I think this has paid off. I don't think I'm messing up aspect as much as I used to, so this goal has also been reached. 3.To improve my listening comprehension. My listening comprehension at the beginning of this month was awful and it's not a whole lot better now, although I've definitely made some progress. Greek: 1.To start getting used to the language and begin to develop very basic reading and listening skills. I've been listening to Greek at every available opportunity in the last month, and now I'm pretty confident with a lot of vocabulary introduced on the first three CDs of the Assimil course. I have not actually been through and done any of the exercises yet. 2.To get used to using dead time to listen to Greek. This is my biggest success of the month without a doubt. I've got completely used to listening to Greek passively over the last month, I'm almost always listening to something in Greek. This one's a resounding success. 3.To practise Greek cursive again. Much like with Cyrillic, I never got my Greek cursive to look as I wanted it to. I have made some progress with this although I'm finding it difficult. I want to get a book on it. Let's say "to be continued" for this one. German 1.To read 5 poems in German over the month and perhaps write a short non-academic commentary on them. I succeeded in reading five poems in German this month, although I didn't write the commentaries, but they were only extra. Success. 2.To listen to at least 3 full German news programmes. I managed three times as much of this goal as I expected to. It's great to listen to German again and be pushed in some areas. 3.To write a long essay (5000 words or more) on something. I was a bit ambitious with this one. I only managed 4000 words, but this is more due to my knowledge of the subject than my knowledge of German. I wrote an essay on the Sumerian language and culture. Ich habe im vorigen Beitrag gesagt, von jetzt an würde ich mich auf nur zwei Sprachen gleichzeitig konzentrieren. Es wäre eine Schade, diese Möglichkeit zu verschwenden, um die chinesischen Schriftzeichen zu erlernen. Die gesprochene Sprache muss ich natürlich täglich verwenden, selbst wenn es mir einiges schwer fällt. Ich finde aber, dass ich fast mühelos viele chinesische Schriftzeichen assimiliere, mit einiger Konzentration und einiger Anstrengung könnte ich vielleicht bis Oktober viele Schriftzeichen gelernt haben. Ich habe also vor, mindestens zehn pro Tag zu lernen. Es ist mir egal, ob ich dieses Ziel erreiche oder nicht, doch hier wäre es sinnvoll, nach den Sternen zu greifen. Wenn ich wieder zurück zur Erde zurückfalle, habe ich mindestens etwas lohnend gelernt. In the last post above I said that I would be concentrating on two languages at a time from February onwards. I think it would be a shame not to take this opportunity to learn as many Chinese characters as possible. Of course I have to use the spoken language every day, even though I'm very bad at it, but I find I'm assimilating lots of Chinese characters almost effortlessly. By October I could possibly have learnt many more with some effort and concentration. I have decided then to try and learn 10 every day. I don't care whether I reach this goal or not, it just makes sense to me to reach for the stars with this particular goal while I'm here in China. If I end up falling back to Earth then well, I'll at least learnt something worthwhile. Meine Sprachen für den kommenden Monat sind Mandarin Chinesisch und Russisch. Ich lerne immer noch einiges Deutsch und Griechisch doch ich möchte die kommenden Ferien zum Erlernen möglichst vieler chinesischen Schriftzeichen ausnutzen. Also, Ziele für Februar: Goals for this month: Russian: 1. Carry on with my quest for nice handwriting. 2. Write at least ten posts on Lang-8 on various topics. 3. Read at least five poems from my Pushkin book and write a commentary on them. This commentary writing is not optional this time. 4. Further develop my listening skills 5. Expand my Russian vocabulary in various areas. Mandarin: 1. Learn to read and write as many Chinese characters as possible. The number for this month is 280, which makes me feel very sick. 2. Develop my Chinese vocabulary so I can talk more freely. 3. Read my first two Chinese children's stories. 4. Speak only Chinese to my Chinese colleagues outside of work. They have agreed to this and are prepared for the train wreck that will inevitably follow. Die wichtigsten Ziele für mich diesen Monat sind die für meinen russischen Wortschatz und die Dichtung sowie das Ziel mit den chinesischen Schriftzeichen. Ich habe die Nase voll davon, in dieser Stadt herumzugehen, mit Leuten plaudern doch relativ nichts lesen zu können. Ich kenne aber einige ältere Leute hier, deren Lesefähigkeit noch schwächer als meine ist. Die beiden Putzfrauen hier bei der Arbeit können anscheinend fast nichts lesen. The most important goals for me this month are the Russian vocabulary and poetry goals, as well as the Chinese characters goal. I will have lots of time this month to focus on studying and I have no excuse for this not to happen. I am fed up with going around town and talking to people but not being able to read very much at all. I know some older people here whose reading abilities are even weaker than mine. Both the cleaners here at work can apparently not read anything at all. Das ist genug für jetzt. Vielleicht schreibe ich etwas später. That's enough for today, maybe I'll write something later. Thanks for reading, Jack Edited by LanguageSponge on 01 February 2013 at 9:11am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Avid Learner Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4663 days ago 100 posts - 156 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: German | Message 71 of 92 04 February 2013 at 4:29am | IP Logged | ||
I wish I could do that, but I simply can't. I just freeze and won't say anything, until I'm more confident. I admire your attitude! Perhaps it will inspire me... Oh, and I love your bilingual German/English logs! Thanks! I agree it's so much more easier to learn while having fun. That is how I made progress in English, when I became so interested in something and there was so much more information available in English. It never seemed like a big effort from that point. Unfortunately, I find it more difficult to replicate with German. I can't think of anything that I'm interested in for which German would be more useful than English, and where I live, there will never be as many resources available as there are in English. But oh well, my German is improving and I suppose that in a few months, I'll have more freedom to pick anything I'm interested in. :) Edited by Avid Learner on 04 February 2013 at 4:32am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| embici Triglot Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4611 days ago 263 posts - 370 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Greek | Message 72 of 92 08 February 2013 at 10:09pm | IP Logged | ||
Maybe that can be one of our team challenges for the Spartans! Let me know if you find something, Jack. I'm still struggling with it myself. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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