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Bakunin TAC 2013 Asian 鶴 / Żubr | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| billyshears66 Groupie United States Joined 4512 days ago 69 posts - 78 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 33 of 94 22 January 2013 at 6:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the input! I appreciate you taking the time. I'm always impressed about how
many different roads there are to get to the same place. Thanks! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| iawia Bilingual Pentaglot Newbie Taiwan Joined 4587 days ago 35 posts - 55 votes Speaks: EnglishC2, Mandarin*, Taiwanese*, Cantonese, Spanish Studies: Thai, Japanese | Message 34 of 94 28 January 2013 at 7:08am | IP Logged | ||
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Wow, you listened for 22 months before doing anything else!
I think that's a bit similar to the approach taken by the AUA language school in Bangkok. I'm glad to see that it worked out for you, but it must have required much patience and dedication! But as for me, there are so many languages and countries that I'm interested in, and a lifelong learning plan for me may be going through the process of learning, retaining forgetting many times. For me, Thai is a very interesting language, and due to Thailand's proximity with Taiwan I would love to learn it to maybe a B2 level and retain my abilities. (Along with Japanese & Cantonese) Perhaps I might even decide to move to Thailand after retiring! ขอให้โชกดี 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bakunin Diglot Senior Member Switzerland outerkhmer.blogspot. Joined 5128 days ago 531 posts - 1126 votes Speaks: German*, Thai Studies: Khmer | Message 35 of 94 10 February 2013 at 4:41pm | IP Logged | ||
Yes, I tried to adapt ideas from AUA Bangkok to self-study. Patience and dedication? I don't know. It was actually good fun, I really enjoyed the silent period. There was so much to discover. The best thing, however, was that my comprehension steadily improved without any study or conscious effort. I'd never experienced that before in second language learning. Contrary to you, I'm not aiming for B2. I'd been doing the 'many languages at B1/B2' thing for a good number of years and somehow was never able to maintain those skills. So now I'd rather speak a few languages very well, and have them an integral part of my (limited) life, than to have B2 knowledge in many. But that's just me, and here on HTLAL the vast majority enjoys studying many languages. (I'm not critical of that, not at all, I think it's great to have conversational abilities in many languages, it really enriches travel and daily life; it's just not working for me personally.) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bakunin Diglot Senior Member Switzerland outerkhmer.blogspot. Joined 5128 days ago 531 posts - 1126 votes Speaks: German*, Thai Studies: Khmer | Message 36 of 94 10 February 2013 at 5:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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I was two weeks on holiday in Thailand, but now I'm back in Switzerland. I spent almost all time with Thai friends, mostly traveling, and had little time for anything else. While I got heaps of speaking practice, I won't count that towards my 1000 hour goal. I read two books, however, and listened to a few podcasts, and that time I will count. I'll lump everything together once I reach the next 20 hour mark (will be 180).
My Thai skills have markedly improved since July 2012, in particular reading and listening comprehension, but also speaking. Speaking is funny... it seems to me that speaking doesn't help me much improving my speaking abilities. What helps is listening and reading. Once I've heard a certain word or expression often enough, it comes automatically when I speak, and when it does so, then my speech is usually fluent and correct. Sentences that don't come automatically, sentences that I need to construct, are often not fluent at all and incorrect... I've checked out a number of bookshops viedums recommended a few pages earlier. I really liked ศึกษาภัณฑ์พาณิชย์ราช ดำเนินกลาง, the bookstore of the teachers' association. I've looked around for books on history as well, and I found a few that looked interesting, but I've decided to go through the primary school history books first. That should give me some background knowledge, familiarity with key figures in Thai history, and the necessary technical terms. The same for Buddhism. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bakunin Diglot Senior Member Switzerland outerkhmer.blogspot. Joined 5128 days ago 531 posts - 1126 votes Speaks: German*, Thai Studies: Khmer | Message 37 of 94 14 February 2013 at 7:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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The following update is distorted because of my two-week holiday in Thailand. I only counted the two books I read, and a few podcasts I listened to. In reality, however, I did a lot of speaking (I was with Thai friends almost all of the time) as well as random reading and lots of watching movies and TV; none of that is counted here. The update includes a few days before my holidays and this week, which have been quite normal in terms of language activities.
Listening: 70 (+22) Reading: 74 (+28) Speaking: 14 (+4) Writing: 5 (+1) Other: 17 (+5) Total: 180 Listening: Radio, and the usual daily VoA and NHK news podcasts. Reading: I read two books for young readers; one ("Why the whales came") was a really cool story, written by a UK author and translated into Thai. I also did some reading on the internet. Speaking: Phone calls and an hour of conversation tutoring on italki. Unfortunately, my Thai tutor has left Sweden for Thailand, so I will see whether I can continue to work with her. Writing: Chatting on whatsapp. Other: Typing is the next big thing for me. I'm going to work my way through primary school. It's immensely useful, I would have never expected that. I'm still working on the book about arts; the last few chapters were about water color painting, sounds, rhythm, and now I'm working on a chapter which covers songs in daily life and the national anthem. In addition to heaps of useful words, I feel going through these books really furthers my understanding of Thai culture. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Bakunin Diglot Senior Member Switzerland outerkhmer.blogspot. Joined 5128 days ago 531 posts - 1126 votes Speaks: German*, Thai Studies: Khmer | Message 38 of 94 17 February 2013 at 9:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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Time for another update.
Listening: 75 (+4.7) Reading: 84 (+9.8) Speaking: 15 (+1.4) Writing: 6 (+0.7) Other: 20 (+3.5) Total: 200 Listening: VoA and a few SBS clips, as well as a few new recordings for my website. I also watched a few videos on youtube, in particular VRZO, a very funny program posing each episode one relationship related question to 100 men or women. I've also tried to find another song for the monthly challenge, but to no avail. I may have to stick to the one I mentioned on the team thread, even though I can't really sing it. I've started asking friends for recommendations, but none of the songs suggested so far have made me want to learn them by heart (if you know what I mean). Reading: I've realized that I have quite a good iPhone app for Thai news (Thai News Free), presenting news from a lot of newspapers in a format friendly to the eye. Until a few days ago, I'd mostly been reading the New York Times and sometimes a Swiss newspaper, but since a few days ago I've been getting my daily news fix in Thai. Most of the foreign news is translated from news agencies or other newspapers anyway (wouldn't be a good idea to rely solely on Thai reporting for world news), I even found two articles from the New York Times. Another great feature of that app is that I can email the articles to myself for further study (which in my case is that I want to put some articles into the corpus I'm building up); the email is just text and pictures, nicely formatted. Speaking: Phone and Skype calls. Writing: Chatting on whatsapp. Other: Typing. Still doing the arts book, currently learning about Thai traditional dance. There are lots of different forms of Thai dance, and the book (primary school grade 1) introduces a few common movements, gestures and positions. I didn't know that many of these gestures have a meaning and can be used to tell stories or at least emphasize them. I've encountered (can't really say learned, that will need much more exposure in meaningful contexts) many technical terms, but I figure that if a primary school grade 1 student has to know them I do, too. A bit confused, though, and somewhat looking forward to the next subject, history, once I'm finished with arts in two or three days. I hope that the Thai dance section in second grade will reinforce the stuff I see (and don't really understand) now. Edited by Bakunin on 17 February 2013 at 9:20pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bakunin Diglot Senior Member Switzerland outerkhmer.blogspot. Joined 5128 days ago 531 posts - 1126 votes Speaks: German*, Thai Studies: Khmer | Message 39 of 94 22 February 2013 at 8:58am | IP Logged | ||
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Time for another update.
Listening: 79 (+4.2) Reading: 92 (+7.5) Speaking: 20 (+5.1) Writing: 7 (+0.7) Other: 23 (+2.6) Total: 220 Listening: Mostly VoA, plus some youtube videos. Reading: I switched to reading the news in Thai instead of in English; should have done this much earlier. Continued with my book, but progress is slow (due to lack of time). Speaking: Lots of phone calls these days, lots of problems of all kinds. Writing: Chatting on whatsapp. Other: Typing: finished the book on arts; the last few units on Thai traditional dance were quite difficult because I lack familiarity with the topic. Started a new subject, history. The first unit is on time and dates, introducing the Western calendar as well as a traditional system to count days and months based on the movements of the moon. Next up are a unit on family members and on life in past and modern times. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bakunin Diglot Senior Member Switzerland outerkhmer.blogspot. Joined 5128 days ago 531 posts - 1126 votes Speaks: German*, Thai Studies: Khmer | Message 40 of 94 26 February 2013 at 9:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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Time for another update.
Listening: 85 (+6.4) Reading: 100 (+8.5) Speaking: 21 (+1.0) Writing: 7 (+0.7) Other: 26 (+3.5) Total: 240 Listening: Mainly VoA, NHK and SBS podcasts, but also some radio (every time I have time to listen these days I seem to catch a program with investment advice… it would never occur to me to listen to such programs in my stronger languages, but in Thai I can still put up with it). I've also watched a few episodes of VRZO on youtube, a hilarious show for teenagers and young adults. It's cut extremely fast, but great for picking up slang and attitudes. Reading: I've finished my last book and started with ห้าสหายผจญภัย สูตรลับเกาะเคอร์ริน. Reading these books has gotten easier and easier, and I'm now down to maybe two or three new words per page, the vast majority of which is more or less clear from context. I'm sure I'm adding lots of words to my passive vocabulary without even noticing it, and I have the impression that my reading speed has improved as well. I still need about three minutes per page, which is a factor three or so slower than text in German or English, but it's definitely improving. I've also noticed that I recognize more and more words, or groups of words, in chunks without having to go from left to right. I've also read a lot of news on my phone, pretty convenient for those ten minutes waiting here, fifteen minutes waiting there. Speaking: Phone. Writing: Chatting on whatsapp. Other: I've finished history and started science. There's wasn't a lot of history in the history book, it was rather a slow introduction to the concept that there's something like the past. There was the inevitable chapter on Thai national symbols (seems to sneak into every second subject), and the complete lack of references to the broader South-East Asian culture Thai culture is embedded in got me worked up; for instance, when talking about the origins of the Thai script, instead of mentioning that it comes from the old Khmer script which itself is of Indic origin, they just bring the legend that it was created by one of their kings. Or those endless admonitions to pay respect to the national flag (Thai kids have to pay respect to the flag every morning at school)… I just can't stand it. Maybe I expect too much from primary 1. The science book is great so far. It starts out with the concept of living vs. non-living things. Next up is a long chapter on plants with many different sections, for instance on roots, fruits, flowers, leaves etc., and then a similar one on animals. Should be quite interesting, and I expect to learn some new words for various plant and animal parts. Edited by Bakunin on 26 February 2013 at 9:50pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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