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TAC 2013 Asian Team 鶴 (crane) TEAM THREAD | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| yuhakko Tetraglot Senior Member FranceRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4640 days ago 414 posts - 582 votes  Speaks: French*, EnglishB2, EnglishC2, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Korean, Norwegian, Mandarin | Message 9 of 457 10 December 2012 at 4:22pm | IP Logged |
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Well since it seems I'm the only one in this team doing all three languages : Japanese,
Korean and Mandarin, I guess it might give me an excuse for writing a quite long introduction..! Anyway, here it goes : Let's start off with Japanese. I've been studying japanese for about 4-5years. I started when I finished high school with 2 classes per week of evening classes. Unfortunately, it was really slow (125 kanjis in 2 years..), so as a result I decided to take the 1st year students' test to get directly in 2nd year. So I had to learn about 300kanjis in a few months and catch up with the grammar. I succeeded and went in second year. I did one year like that but it was my last year of university for my other subject and I went on to another town so I started studying alone. This year, I got to spend a semester in exchange in Tokyo where I got more classes and saw my level increase dramatically. Oh btw, I took the JLPT N2 last december and failed by 5points and tried again in japan but this time without any preparation at all and passed (60/60 for listening! :p). I am planning of take the JLPT N1 next december but I know my level is still far under so I will need to work on that. As for my Korean, I started when I finished high school but just learnt the alphabet and then stopped. I started again one year later during the summer and got directly in the intermediate evening classes of the Korean Culture Center. I understood pretty much nothing at the start but caught up quickly by studying a lot on my own (hurray for TTMIK!) and thanks to the fact that the grammar is awesomely similar to the Japanese one for a good part. I then went to Korea for 2months and a half. Arrived being able to have slow, easy conversations and left much more at ease, talking most of my time in Korean (not specific topics and using easy vocabulary to say pretty much anything). I went out with a Korean girl for a small year also, which helped me getting to a comfortable Korean level. Unfortunately, because of that, I kinda stopped studying seriously Korean and pretty much just kept my level the same (obviously my listenning and reading has gotten better, but vocab is my worst enemy when it comes to Korean). As a result, I plan to work on my lack of vocabulary and hope to finally get out of that slump I feel I got myself into. And finally, Chinese! This is my newest asian language! I've just started in August with Assimil and worked around it too. Thanks to my knowledge of Japanese Kanjis, I am now more or less able to read (by that I mean understand the meaning) quite a few things but usually have no idea how to pronounce it. I haven't had too much practice speaking so I believe my speaking skills are not really good although my listenning is alright. However, as said earlier, next semester I will be back in school regularly and will have a lot of opportunities to talk to the (many : about a hundred or two) Chinese exchange students. I also started a reader and it's quite a good experience (my first with a reader). Anyway, if you want more info on that, check out my Mandarin Log! It's been a while that I haven't updated it, because i've had trouble with a few things that made me study on the go all day long but never enough time to write all my thoughts. I'm probably gonna take care of that this week though. I've actually planned to start Indonesian and Thai some time along this year. Don't know yet how involved I'll get in those but it definitely be less than the three above!! Anyway, that's pretty much it!! As I warned, it's pretty long.. sorry 'bout that! I've actually also seen the people in the Team う putting down some links they've found useful. Should we do that too? That's a good idea I think. Edit : Sorry for the link, it seems I don't understand how to put just a name..so you can find it on your own if you want ... >.< Btw, I personnaly like the idea of the challenges, it's just that we could put challenges for different levels : like (for beginner) write about yourself or your family in 50-100words/Characters, write about an experience that had a big impact on you in like twice more (intermediate), write about a social/economic/etc. in like twice more words/characters again (Advanced). This is of course just an example and I'm sure there are better ideas out there. Edited by yuhakko on 10 December 2012 at 4:33pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| LanguageSponge Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5774 days ago 1197 posts - 1487 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Welsh, Russian, Japanese, Slovenian, Greek, Italian | Message 10 of 457 12 December 2012 at 5:08pm | IP Logged |
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Looks like I'm the next one to write an introduction. It will be different from the
introduction I've already posted in Team MIR's thread, so I venture to say it's worth reading this one: So I'm in China right now and am teaching English. I originally came here with the intention of learning just enough to get by and leaving it at that, as I didn't think I'd like the language very much. I was going to use this year to gain teaching experience, which looks good on the CV no matter what you end up going into, and to travel China a little bit. However when I got here I actually started to like the language, and so I started studying it a bit more seriously. My Chinese co-workers are very understanding and the kids like to hear me try to speak. I can't say very much right now but I can help those of my students with pretty basic English by providing them with translation every now and again. For example, today I asked one of my students to talk about a book she likes non-stop for two minutes, and she chose to talk about Harry Potter. She got stuck and I was able to give her the words she needed, amazingly - 山洞 and 龙 - which I assume all of you know mean "cave" and "dragon". My Mandarin is crap however and I was absolutely blown away that I was able to give her those words and she understood me without having to ask another three times. My Mandarin is very basic at the moment and I can only do very short sentences. I know dozens of pretty random words that are at the moment useless because I don't have other words I need in order to use them properly. I am able to ask for things I need and want and to state other very basic things. I am probably on par with the four year old kids I teach English to in terms of production - but I doubt my passive skills are as good as theirs are. Doesn't matter though, I need to start somewhere. As for resources, I don't have a course so I need to look into them. I have a lot of reading material because the books are really, really cheap here along with everything else. I am using Skritter to learn characters and for listening material I have my colleagues and I have a rather snazzy TV. My first challenge this year will be to get over my fear of opening my mouth. I feel I need to apologise to everyone I speak to in Chinese before I open my mouth, which is not what I'm like in any other language at all. I am in the process of creating a Little Challenges document for Team MIR and I am going to have a go at creating one for us, too. Most of it will be recyclable but I'm sure I'll think of some unique challenges. If anyone wants to chip in, feel free. In terms of my future plans, I do not intend on leaving China until my Chinese is decent. I am also intent on learning as much of the written language as possible as the real prize from this year is the amount of Japanese Kanji I am presumably getting free without even realising it. Obviously when I make the transition to Japanese in a couple of years, I bet I won't be able to pronounce a single Kanji right, but I'll know the written form. That's my lot for now, Jack 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Kami Groupie United States Joined 4527 days ago 55 posts - 62 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Korean | Message 11 of 457 12 December 2012 at 11:27pm | IP Logged |
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Hey I don't really know how this works but could I join this team for learning Korean?
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Luna Moonsilver Diglot Groupie Germany lunaslanglog.wordpreRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5086 days ago 77 posts - 99 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Mandarin, Korean | Message 12 of 457 13 December 2012 at 12:56am | IP Logged |
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Ooh, is it introduction time? Hi, everyone! So my real name is Charlotte, though I tend
to use Luna online, just because I've used it forever. Anyway. I joined the Asian languages team because I'm studying two languages from that side of the world: Mandarin and Korean. I'll also be studying German and Russian next year, but they're less important for this team :). I've been studying Mandarin properly for two years (since October 2010 - though I had some exposure to it before) and it's going to, when I finish in 2014, make up half of my degree. So that's already one reason to work extra hard in the upcoming year - but there's something else too. I'm in my third year of university and in the UK with a languages degree, that usually means you do a year abroad -- so I'm going to be in Beijing from the end of February to mid-July. Exciting! :) I can't wait to go (and I hope I do better at improving than I'm doing here in Germany right now), but I need to put in a lot of work before I go because I feel very rocky about my level as I am. After having gone to a class in Germany that uses an A1-A2 book, I'd say I'm maybe at a high A2 level, but I'm looking to push that as far as I can by February. I've got a bunch of resources, I just need to work out how to use them! Korean was a kind of whim. When I came to Germany, I had to pick some classes to make up the credits to send back to my home university. I was told I could only take up to 8 credits of other foreign languages (so I could practice the other language I'm taking but also to focus more on my German), so I signed up for the highest Chinese class they offered, then the only beginner's class they had available - Korean. I have to be honest and say I don't really like the classes here; it's been 10 weeks and I don't feel like I've learned a lot; but it's probably just as much my fault as it is anyone else's. I find it very difficult to concentrate for a long time in German and then when they're skipping to Korean - well! But I'm having some success with the Talk To Me in Korean website and I've got the Integrated Korean textbooks to use over the Christmas break and into the new year. I have to be honest and say that Mandarin is much more likely to be a focus language than Korean, but I'm hoping (fingers crossed!) to visit South Korea when I'm over in China. That should give me motivation to keep it going after the class is over ;). My other languages are German, which I've been studying for, wow, about nine years now. I'm in a C1 class here in Germany, which baffles me until I realise it does not take speaking into account. My speaking is appalling and I need to work on that somehow (I'm not shy when I get going, but starting a conversation is impossible; I swear there's some British awkwardness at work that only lets me say one line about the weather before the conversation is over!), but I have a month here after Christmas. Russian is a new language this year (I think I have another short introduction in the Team Mir thread?), and I've done five Assimil lessons so far. It's a language I've wanted to study for a really long time though, so I hope I can make some progress. Phew, that was longer than I expected! I look forward to working with you all :D Edited by Luna Moonsilver on 13 December 2012 at 12:57am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Haksaeng Senior Member Korea, South Joined 6206 days ago 166 posts - 250 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Korean, Arabic (Levantine) | Message 13 of 457 13 December 2012 at 4:11am | IP Logged |
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Hi everyone, I'm learning Korean as my only foreign language and I'm at an intermediate or maybe high(ish) intermediate level, except that my speaking lags.
I'm from the U.S., but I've lived in Seoul for about 9 years now and I've studied the language off-and-on. I've struggled a lot, mostly because I didn't understand how to learn a language, so I faltered badly through a protracted low-intermediate stage, quitting for long periods and then starting up again, repeatedly. I'm glad I stuck with it though, because despite feeling discouraged, humiliated, and stupid, I finally figured out how I learn, and since last Spring I've made enormous progress and I'm now thoroughly enjoying the whole language-learning process and moving ahead steadily. Currently, I'm enrolled in a class that meets for two hours, three mornings per week. We are just finishing Sogang 4B and will be starting 5A in January. The class gives me access to a native speaking teacher and gives me some structure, but mostly I learn through my own efforts at home, with lots of reading and listening, doing Anki sentences, and doing anything I find interesting and engaging in Korean. My goal is to be able to function easily in my daily life in Korea, converse comfortably, even over the phone, and to be able to read Korean for pleasure. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Haksaeng Senior Member Korea, South Joined 6206 days ago 166 posts - 250 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Korean, Arabic (Levantine) | Message 14 of 457 13 December 2012 at 4:27am | IP Logged |
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Hi Kami, and welcome.
Of course you can join! This is my first time participating in TAC, and I'm not one of the organizers, but all you need to do is leave a message on the "TAC 2013 Organization & Sign Up" thread, saying you want to join the Asian Team, and your name will be added to the team roster that appears on the first post of that thread. Then after that, each of us needs to open a personal learning log thread and also participate on this team thread. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| LanguageSponge Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5774 days ago 1197 posts - 1487 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Welsh, Russian, Japanese, Slovenian, Greek, Italian | Message 15 of 457 13 December 2012 at 4:55am | IP Logged |
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Can I gently suggest that we get thinking on a eye-catching name for our team? I really
like Team Mir's idea of referring to the culture of the language, or in our case languages, the team is concerned with. I'll think of some common elements between Japanese, Chinese and Korean culture and suggest some different names. Jack 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Vegemighty Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4496 days ago 45 posts - 67 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 16 of 457 13 December 2012 at 5:25am | IP Logged |
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We could all add each other on weibo and qq, at least those of us learning Chinese
1 person has voted this message useful |
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