Woodsei Bilingual Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Woodsei Joined 4803 days ago 614 posts - 782 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Egyptian)* Studies: Russian, Japanese, Hungarian
| Message 65 of 292 19 April 2012 at 7:36am | IP Logged |
Will be looking out for your blog, Sunja! It'll be interesting to hear of your take on
Turkish. And I was thinking along the same lines of transcribing and translating, so it's
been very interesting seeing your above example. Keep it up!
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Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6091 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin
| Message 66 of 292 19 April 2012 at 10:29am | IP Logged |
Thanks Woodsei! I was hoping to be a little more consistent with the transcription but I've lost the motivation to work in that direction. The last podcast wasn't very easy for me to follow and besides, I've got three books I'm working on; one with crossword puzzles for vocabulary and another detective story (for B2-level) and a third "Tout est sous controle" (the Hugh Laurie book)
I need to stick with one thing but sometimes I just grab whatever I have available. My schedule is very busy. I just picked up another client --an American who doesn't speak any German. I've never taught German as a foreign language before so that will be fun! My daughter also had some minor surgery this week and we are having to do follow-up checks.
As for my new blog, I have Turkish waiting in the wings, so to speak. That won't be so hard compared to my frustrating attempts to push myself through French intermediate. I'm not actually reading Turkish (not even close!) I have a bunch of children's books available. They only count for half a book in the Super Challenge but if I read each three times they should count as one book. I'll start with that.
My plan is to keep working -intensely- on French for the next 6 weeks. (I've entered the 6-Week-Challenge for May.)
I spoke to someone in Frankfurt about getting a seat for the DELF B2 exam. She says because B2 is needed for French universities those seats will fill up fast -- that means I need to make a decision soon!
Goal for the next two weeks (or whatever is left of April):
1. finish crossword puzzle book, finish B2 detective book
2. keep adding flashcards (I'm using Anki + paper)
May 1 will be a good time to test my reading, listening and writing skills. I'll continue practicing oral production.
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Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6091 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin
| Message 67 of 292 22 April 2012 at 4:43pm | IP Logged |
So I've been testing myself these past few hours. Timing is a real problem. "production" is also a problem but today I concentrated on comprehension. I wanted to see how many points I could gather on the comprehension part, since you only need 50/100 pts. to pass the DELF. Sounds easy enough!
First I went to RFI and did 1 of their practice tests for listening and I only got 5/10 correct. Only one hearing is allowed.
I then went here for my next practice test and that was also a bit disheartening. I was supposed to make it under 30 minutes but I ended up taking twice as long
compréhension de l'écrit 15/18
l'expression française écrite 28/42
(36-60 = -B2) but these scores aren't really accurate. Right now, I think it's too risky for me to try to take it. I'll let fate decide! If I can improve within the next six weeks and there's still a seat available, I'll sign up. If not, I'll sit back and relax, keep studying, and I'll get there eventually..
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Takato Tetraglot Senior Member HungaryRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5054 days ago 249 posts - 276 votes Speaks: Hungarian*, EnglishB2, GermanB2, Japanese
| Message 68 of 292 25 April 2012 at 5:03pm | IP Logged |
I think chatting in French would be beneficial for making one able to think in French fast, and one who thinks in French fast must have better chances of producing speech confidently. Have you tried chatting in French yet? Also, how many full exam-like tests have you done?
Edited by Takato on 25 April 2012 at 5:04pm
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Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6091 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin
| Message 69 of 292 25 April 2012 at 5:42pm | IP Logged |
Takato wrote:
I think chatting in French would be beneficial for making one able to think in French fast, and one who thinks in French fast must have better chances of producing speech confidently. Have you tried chatting in French yet? Also, how many full exam-like tests have you done? |
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your right, takato! chatting would definitely improve my chances of success. Unfortunately I'm not very comfortable with chatting and no, I haven't tried it yet. I tend to clam up. I could try it some time on SharedTalk but not yet. I haven't taken a full exam. Because of my busy schedule, I'm only able to test myself one section at a time. So far I've only really tested comprehension and that takes 1 hour.
I tried listening again this morning. RFI is so excellent. And I can't believe I got all of them right today! What's up with that? So there's hope for my listening after all!
My writing stinks. That was my weakest area back when I took the TestDaf for German, too. I'll be going to Lang-8 again soon, but first I want to finish my "podcast-marathon".
Europe1, France24, La Rétro France Info, La Revue de Presse, Revue de Presse International, Le Mouv, Info Médias and of course my beloved écoute and RFI. I've been glued to my earbuds! I've also found a cute couple who does a podcast, "TheFrenchPodcast" and I'm really enjoying their podcast conversations right now. Their format reminds me of "Ben and Maria" from "Notes in Spanish".
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Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6091 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin
| Message 70 of 292 05 May 2012 at 3:55pm | IP Logged |
6WC French
I'm a little bit slow coming out of the starting gate. I've only counted about 6 hours since May 1, but I've been nursing a spring cold
Here's a few things I've done since about the end of April:
Reading:
"L'univers des blogs, ses habitants, ses rites, son langage"
"Dur, dur d'être mère et femme au travail"
"Nancy Huston...Lettres parisiennes"
Lang-8:
"événement dans l'histoire de votre pays.."
"Etes vous un lecteur habituel ou occasionnel?"
"Rédiger une critique de film; Wasabi (Gérard Krawczyk)"
(The film review Part 1 of "Wasabi" wasn't entirely my own I used a lot of help from the translator. So yeah, I cheated, but I got a nice correction from a person who's also a fan of Japanese culture so I think I'll write a "part 2". I think with more practice I'll be able to loose that crutch.)
Films:
2x/45min Star Trek
Wasabi
I'll do a bit more work this weekend and try to get a 6wc-tweet out on monday..
As for the Super Challenge, I want tomorrow to be "turkish day". I plan to finish my children's book "Kipper'in, Doğum Günü" and watch my first film. We're invited out for coffee tomorrow but I'm sure I can squeeze my plan in there somewhere!
Edited by Sunja on 05 May 2012 at 5:30pm
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Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6091 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin
| Message 71 of 292 15 May 2012 at 12:00pm | IP Logged |
I tell you I'm starting to lose steam
I've been pretty deligent with French but I haven't been able to keep track of my hours like I wanted. I've logged in about 17 hours so far for the 6WC but I know that's not what the bot shows. Problem is I don't know what's more accurate, my log sheet here at home or the bot. I guess I'd better get on those tweets.
I've been concentrating hard on French but I'm feeling like I want to shift emphasis again. I've been at lang-8 a lot lately.
One user is trying to find a natural way to say "I focus on the insides of myself" and I find the Japanese a lot more interesting than the correction:
(...)自分自身に集中しなければなりません。
自分自身 - myself
集中 - convergence
中 - center
edit: I'm looking at the kanji and I realise why Heisig is not good for me. All I can remember about 集 is Heisig's "turkeys up a tree". Do I remember the actual reading? No. (I'll go look it up.)
I also found a new word: 安っぽい Isn't that great? It means "cheap-looking".
I've written three things which were excercises from my B2-book and I haven't gotten any responses yet. Either my writing is really good, really bad, or I'm just impatient! :D
une contribution à un débat "Taureaux et toreros"
une contribution à une débat: Solution contre les MP3 pirates
<<Résultats d'enquête qui montre que ni des hommes ni des femmes ne gaspillent leur temps sur internet à la maison>>
So I'm at lang-8, waiting, waiting.. and I guess I'll go stick my nose in a grammar book.
First I have to go pick up my daughter...:)
Edited by Sunja on 15 May 2012 at 12:54pm
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Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6091 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin
| Message 72 of 292 18 May 2012 at 12:00pm | IP Logged |
Today is Maria Himmelfahrt and I'm trying to make the most out of my day. I only have two projects. My client wants me to write an email for him (I make use of my secretarial skills here), which I'll do now, and then later I have to do some patchwork in the basement. Today's a good day to do that type of work.
I'm slipping out of Lang-8 again. I was stuck there bantering about Japanese translations for feelings and meanings that don't exist in English. Japanese is a language with incredible subtlety and it's so easy to get trapped at lang-8 discussing all the many levels of this wonderful language. I think I've successfully escaped.
I found an Anki deck "Advanced French Vocabulary" and with aid of Tatoeba I'm transforming it into a sentence deck. A lot of the words are not "advanced" so I'm weeding those out and putting some of my own in.
I've also decided to learn tous, tout, toute etc. once and for ALL.
adjectif indéfini (whole)
tout le village (tu)
toute la ville (tut)
tous les villages (tu)
toute les villes (tut)
Adverb (totally)
Il es tout petit (tu)
Elle est toute petite (tut)
pronom indéfini:
Les garcons viennent tous (tus)
Les filles viennent toutes (tut)
J'oublie tout.
edit: if tous stands before a word it's ("tu"), if it stands alone it's "tus". That's actually from the first Assimil (basics) but I keep forgetting!
Edited by Sunja on 18 May 2012 at 11:28pm
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