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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Julie Heptaglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6901 days ago 1251 posts - 1733 votes  5 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French | Message 33 of 140 19 August 2012 at 12:15am | IP Logged | ||
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@tarvos: I did struggle a lot with Spanish interfering my French and the other way
around... that's why I'm generally very cautious. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Julie Heptaglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6901 days ago 1251 posts - 1733 votes 5 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French | Message 34 of 140 19 August 2012 at 12:20am | IP Logged | ||
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13-18/08/2012 - German all around me
I've been in Germany (to Germany?) for five days. I'm glad to see that my German is more or less back; I've been asked many times by native speakers whether I'm bilingual, of German origin or even German, which makes me proud :). I am not particularly glad about my vocabulary, though: my accent and grammar are generally good but I feel like the number of words, expressions, or even grammatical constructions I use is quite limited. I'm not really actively looking for/missing any vocabulary items but my way of speaking could definitely use some more variety. Generally, I speak and listen a lot (it's very difficult to estimate the number of hours for 6WC, though - I guess I'm underestimating a bit just to be on the safe side). When I looked at the pie chart with the learning hours broken down by languages, I was really surprised to see how much German I used: I guess it's going to take over English soon! This shows me how much I can profit from stays abroad... (which is kind of obvious ;)). I haven't learned any Dutch other than using some free time here and there to listen to Dutch music. I will go on with Michel Thomas when I'm back in Poland. I haven't done much in English either: just watching a couple of movies, reading a couple of pages and training interpreting a bit. Being immersed in German (and having spoken no English whatsoever in the meantime), I notice now that writing in English is much more difficult than usually... Well, you can judge whether my English here is worse than normally or not but I definitely don't feel comfortable writing in English right now. I have an opportunity to talk in French with a native speaker for about 15 minutes. I did talk about topics that I'm very familiar with (and there was some small talk, too) but I have to say that overall I was really pleased with my French. My Spanish is very rusty and I could feel it well while holding a short conversation in this language. Still, I am quite glad as I managed to get the message across and had no comprehension problems (I wasn't talking with a native speaker, though). I definitely have to seriously go back to Spanish! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Julie Heptaglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6901 days ago 1251 posts - 1733 votes 5 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French | Message 35 of 140 26 August 2012 at 12:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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19-26/08/2012 - Missing German already...
So here I am, back from Germany, missing German all around me already. A bit tired (I spent some time working there as an interpreter) and very much out of my usual language routine. I'm pretty much happy with my German although slightly disappointed I don't feel like it has really improved. I'll have to read much more and learn more vocabulary to make any significant progress, I guess. Back from Germany, I've already managed to do a couple of CD tracks of Dutch Michel Thomas. I'll have a lot of work in the next three weeks so probably I won't be able to spend a lot of time learning Dutch but I hope to have finished MT Foundation till the end of 6WC (or at least by the end of September, if the former wasn't possible). I'll definitely continue Dutch after 6WC - it has really grown on me. In the meantime, I spent two or three hours talking French, which was really nice. My active vocabulary is unfortunately quite limited and I'll definitely have to work on my syntax (my grammar often gets bad if I try to talk in complex sentences) but on the other hand, my listening comprehension was really good and I was told that so was my pronunciation. Yay :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Hekje Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4701 days ago 842 posts - 1330 votes Speaks: English*, Dutch Studies: French, Indonesian | Message 36 of 140 26 August 2012 at 3:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm very glad to hear that Dutch has grown on you! :-)
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 37 of 140 26 August 2012 at 3:41pm | IP Logged | ||
I have to say I have never studied Spanish, so I have no idea about those particular combinations you mentioned, but Swedish and German (which is the closest I get) don't seem to interfere. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4826 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 38 of 140 26 August 2012 at 5:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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I found that a foreknowledge of French when starting Spanish as a complete beginner was
very helpful for giving clues (and aides-memoires) about vocabulary, with no interference that I noticed. However, that might have been because I wasn't doing any active French whatsoever at that time. If one was actively following them both at once, I suppose it might be a different story. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Julie Heptaglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6901 days ago 1251 posts - 1733 votes 5 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French | Message 39 of 140 27 August 2012 at 1:43am | IP Logged | ||
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@tarvos, @montmorency - about interferences that seem to have become the topic no. 1 of
this topic :) I think I made a mistake when I didn't try to maintain my active Spanish while focusing on French... Spanish did help me a lot with French vocabulary and grammar. From what I've seen, my interference problems seem to start if I focus a lot on one language while neglecting the other one/s (especially if related). When I started learning German intensively for the first time, I found myself replacing 'and' with 'und' and 'or' with 'oder' while speaking English. And some time later, I would actually put the verbs in English at the end of sentences! This was ridiculous, as my English was at the solid B2/C1 level and I had learned it for much longer. Fortunately, now I'm much better in switching and generally don't struggle to separate these languages from each other (although I do switch easier from English into German than the other way around). @Hekje I'm still waiting for the moment when I'll be able to really read your log :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4826 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 40 of 140 27 August 2012 at 12:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm always saying "is" instead of "ist" in German, although maybe that isn't quite a
mortal sin, as I think native speakers might also do this sometimes. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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