nuriayasmin70 Diglot Senior Member Germany languagesandbeyoRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4526 days ago 132 posts - 162 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: SpanishB1, Portuguese, Czech, Hungarian
| Message 41 of 59 27 February 2013 at 8:58pm | IP Logged |
I love italki :-). I'm sure it's possible to find a language exchange partner there.
However, I've come to the conclusion that language exchanges don't work very well for me.
It's never a 50/50 exchange as I'm not exactly an outgoing person and the other ones
always talk much more than me. Italki is perfect for me, I earn credits by teaching
German (which I enjoy) and can spend them on my own language lessons then. Czech is a bit
of a problem, though. I have lessons with a Slovenian teacher who speaks Czech fluently,
though and teaches it at the university and I have lessons with two Czech women who
aren't on italki, though.
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hribecek Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5354 days ago 1243 posts - 1458 votes Speaks: English*, Czech, Spanish Studies: Italian, Polish, Slovak, Hungarian, Toki Pona, Russian
| Message 42 of 59 27 February 2013 at 9:14pm | IP Logged |
It sounds like a much better way, when it's not 50/50 and it's on your terms.
How do you feel you're progressing in Czech these days. How would you rate your improvement since Christmas and your overall level now?
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nuriayasmin70 Diglot Senior Member Germany languagesandbeyoRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4526 days ago 132 posts - 162 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: SpanishB1, Portuguese, Czech, Hungarian
| Message 43 of 59 27 February 2013 at 10:45pm | IP Logged |
Speaking Czech is still quite a problem because of declension endings, aspect and lack
of vocabulary. I've memorized the most common declension endings for all cases now but
they don't come naturally yet and that certainly slows me down when I try to speak or
write. As far as aspect is concerned I'm still in the process of learning the most
common verbs in pairs but even if I know both verbs, I have to think which one I should
use and that slows me down even more :-(. And as for lack of words, well, I think one
of my problems is that I have a tendency for complicated and long sentences and when I
do it in a foreign language I get stuck. I've become aware of it since I started
teaching German and am trying to get rid of that habit but it's not easy.
Some days ago I started to watch the series "Vyprávěj" on the česká televize website.
So far I've only watched two episodes but will try to watch 3 or 4 episodes a week. I
watch them with Czech subtitles and am quite pleased that I understand quite a bit -
not the actual speaking, that's still too fast but when I read the subtitles at the
same time, it's not that bad. Funnily, there's also some Slovak spoken which I see as a
bonus.
I also started to read a Karel Gott biography called "Umělecký a soukromý život" and as
the content is mostly familiar, I understand a lot of it. I don't look up any words.
This is just for fun, just like watching "Vyprávěj". As I normally have at least three
Czech lessons a week, preparing for them and reviewing them already keeps me busy
enough and I'm also very disciplined with ANKI.
Summarized I'd say that my reading skills are A2 now but the rest is still A1. However,
there was a huge difference between my Spanish reading skills and all the rest for a
long time. I read books in Spanish but found it extremely difficult to understand
spoken Spanish or speak Spanish. Well, and now my Spanish teachers thinks I should
leave out the B2 exam in summer and go for C1 instead :-). So hopefully something like
that will happen with Czech, too.
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nuriayasmin70 Diglot Senior Member Germany languagesandbeyoRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4526 days ago 132 posts - 162 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: SpanishB1, Portuguese, Czech, Hungarian
| Message 44 of 59 19 March 2013 at 10:57am | IP Logged |
Just a very quick update. The 6WC is over now and I managed to log about 80 hours of Czech. That's 20 hours less than I had aimed for but I'm nevertheless satisfied. I will try to post more often again from now on but right now I don't have the time. However, I'm still alive and busy studying Czech and other languages.
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hribecek Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5354 days ago 1243 posts - 1458 votes Speaks: English*, Czech, Spanish Studies: Italian, Polish, Slovak, Hungarian, Toki Pona, Russian
| Message 45 of 59 20 March 2013 at 5:45pm | IP Logged |
So do you feel any improvement after 80 hours of Czech study? It's a very good achievement.
In Hungarian I usually managed 50 or so and felt like it really did make a difference.
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nuriayasmin70 Diglot Senior Member Germany languagesandbeyoRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4526 days ago 132 posts - 162 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: SpanishB1, Portuguese, Czech, Hungarian
| Message 46 of 59 03 May 2013 at 2:31am | IP Logged |
Ok, I guess I'm just not very good at writing a log. It's partly because of a lack of time and partly because I often don't really know what to write. I registered for the 6WC with Czech again but this time I won't dedicate as much time on studying Czech as last time. However, the tweets are short, so I usually manage to log everything.
Do I feel any improvement? To be honest, not really. I feel that I have quite a bit of theoretical knowledge but just don't manage to say more than a few very simple sentences. I'm afraid I'm a bit frustrated at the moment.
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Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5014 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian
| Message 47 of 59 03 May 2013 at 2:51am | IP Logged |
It's good to hear from you! I'm sure you are better than you think. After all, reading a
book in Czech (no matter how familiar the content is), that is a nice achievement. And
Vyprávěj is surely a good choice. However, the last series or so (those that cover time
that I remember) don't seem too "accurate" to me. Well, I guess older people may have the
same trouble with the previous ones :-)
I am getting back to more intensive studying (including German) and need to revive my
Skype account. Perhaps we could try an exchange together. 50/50 may be hard to achieve
but perhaps we could strive for 1 call in Czech and 1 in German and see how it goes.
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nuriayasmin70 Diglot Senior Member Germany languagesandbeyoRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4526 days ago 132 posts - 162 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: SpanishB1, Portuguese, Czech, Hungarian
| Message 48 of 59 04 May 2013 at 6:20am | IP Logged |
An exchange sounds good. I tried it with three other Czechs but they all spoke German very well and as a result we ended up speaking almost exclusively in German. As your German isn't that advanced yet, it might work out better. Well, I'm going to spend a couple of days in Turnov next week, perhaps I get the chance to speak some Czech. Well, just tell me when you've revived your Skype account.
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