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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Sizen Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4345 days ago 165 posts - 347 votes  Speaks: English*, French Studies: Catalan, Spanish, Japanese, Ukrainian, German | Message 1 of 2 09 July 2013 at 11:08pm | IP Logged |
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No, I'm not the Chinese reincarnation of the 35th president of the United States. I'm
learning Mandarin, Japanese, French and would like to learn Korean if and when I feel I've taken my other languages to a level I'm happy with (so never). I won't lie, I just included Korean here because I wanted to have a better acronym for my title... French: I was in Early French Immersion, so I've technically been studying French for about 15 years. Despite all that, I still had difficulties understanding subject matter outside of those discussed in my classes and with speaking in general after I graduated from high school. For about two years now, I've taken a laid-back approach to this language and have been simply enjoying French in its natural habitat. Podcasts, books, movies, comics, TV, games, YouTube. Anything in French. I've also been speaking with my father, born and raised in Montreal, in French only. I don't make it a point to study or practice my French, so I'm progressing very slowly. This doesn't bother me, however, because I know that progress is being made. That is, I can actually speak and understand books that I never would have been able to read before now. Japanese: Started studying this about 5-6 years ago. My brother took a class in high school, and I thought that it was cool that such an exotic language was offered in our school. I asked him to teach me Hiragana, then I found Tae Kim's grammar guide and an application for my iPod touch that helped me form a base in the language. Since then I've gone to Japan 3 times. Once for a two week class trip, then for 5 months in Osaka for an exchange and finally 3 months in Tokyo, studying Japanese at the ARC Academy. My conversation level has taken a big hit since I haven't been talking lately, but I mostly prefer reading books and watching TV in Japanese anyway. In other words, I'm not especially worried. Mandarin: I'm going to Taiwan! For a year! This year! Hopefully next month! I hope! I'm going on an exchange, so the organisation that's sponsoring me chose the country and will choose my departure date. No word on the latter yet. I've started Assimil and have done the first 20 or so lessons twice. I've found that doing my Assimil lessons without worrying too much about the tones (getting a feel for the sentence rather than zeroing in on the tone of each word) and then reviewing the tones later has been working well for me. I also have some other materials that were suggested to me in another thread on the forum, but I haven't been doing them as religiously yet. The characters haven't been a problem since I already know in the ballpark of 2500 Japanese Kanji. It's worth mentioning that I'm learning both the Traditional and Simplified characters even though I'll be going to Taiwan. I figure I should get that out of the way so it doesn't become a problem later. I had always thought that Chinese languages were some of the least pleasant sounding Asian languages, but I've grown quite fond of the sounds of Mandarin as I progress in my lessons and listen to more Mandarin music. A little ashamed of my past self! Korean?: The language I'd rather be studying instead of Mandarin. Actually, I'd be okay with Cantonese too, but a year in Taiwan studying Mandarin for free is nothing to sneeze at and I'm sure that as I learn more about Chinese/Taiwanese culture, I'll find many things to enjoy and I'll come to love the language as I do French and Japanese. It's not about the language, but how I can use it to have fun and learn more. Well, anyways, I'll get around to Korean one of these years. Goals for before I leave (okay, they're not really goals...): -Find more French authors I like. I went through most of my list of French books to read during the last month of Tadoku, so I need more! Fantasy is my favourite, but I also like memoirs and stories from the perspective of a child. (Marcel Pagnol being an example of the former, La Vie devant soi an example of the latter). -Continue attempting to get over the premature end of Tu m'aimes-tu?, the first TV show in French that I really got into. :'( (There have been others, but they weren't the same, y'know?) -Read the stack of 11 Japanese books I have left over from Tadoku. Hopefully I'll still have some left for the August/October challenges. Though, by then I should really be focusing on my Mandarin. -Find more Mandarin music that isn't just 洛天依 (Luo Tianyi)... I do like me some vocaloids though... 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sizen Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4345 days ago 165 posts - 347 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Catalan, Spanish, Japanese, Ukrainian, German | Message 2 of 2 12 July 2013 at 7:58am | IP Logged |
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French: I listened to the first episode of Patrick Beja's new podcast,
Positron while walking to and from work today. Very enjoyable as usual, but perhaps a bit less useful from the perspective of a French learner. The basis of the show is sharing media (music, TV, movies, comics, books, etc) that can be obtained as soon as you're done listening to the show. In other words, things that are on sale now and can be bought online or in a nearby store (at least in France). I kind of like this idea since a lot of shows usually talk about what's happening now and what you need to be watching at home or in the theatre, or the next release date that you have to wait for. The only complaint I would have, which isn't a real complaint, is that everything so far has been American or related to American media. The plus side is that most of it has been translated into French. Not really a show for recommendations of French stuff, though. Japanese: Started re-watching 紅 (Kurenai). I had watched this series many years ago with English subtitles. A couple years ago, I tried to watch it again without subtitles but found I was getting lost during the more important scenes, so I stopped. This is no longer the case, so I'm quite enjoying myself. The show itself is about a high school student who works on the side as a mediator (揉 め事処理屋), a surprisingly violent and physically demanding job. He's a bit of a complicated guy with a troubled past (dead parents, almost murdered as a child, etc) and decided to become a mediator in order to become "stronger". Now, he's been given the job of protecting a 7 year old girl, daughter of a rich and mysterious family, who was forceful taken from said family. It's actually a sweet story following the growth of the main character as he learns to balance his life, becoming kind of a father for the girl. It seems parenthood has been the theme of a lot of what I've been watching lately. In other news, I found a band called ハルカリ (HALCALI) and have been listening to them a lot, especially at work. They've got an interesting feel, hip-hop/rap mixed with other genres like ska. Being a huge ska fan, I've been looping the song quite a bit. Mandarin: I've finished reviewing up to lesson 25 of le chinois sans peine, and will start doing new lessons tomorrow. I've also taken out Green Eggs and Ham, otherwise know as 火腿加綠蛋 (huo tui jia lv dan), from the library where I work. It's great because not only is it in traditional characters, but it also has Zhuyin Fuhao. I now have no reason to put off learning Zhuyin! I downloaded an anki deck with all the symbols, went through it quickly and started my Sino-Seuss experiment! What fun! Two other recent discoveries: This. A popup dictionary for chrome. Nothing new, but it has the option of adding words you hover over directly to skritter! Just press 'S'! Needless to say, I've been going through all my youtube favourites and adding song titles to Skritter. But also this. Website in Chinese. Another Chrome extension, but this one can change most webpages from Traditional to Simplified characters and vice versa in a single click. It probably makes occasional mistakes with the conversion, but it's very nice to be able to practice both sets even on pages only offered in one. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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