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Intermediate Thai | ||
Tags: Thai | Intermediate | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Bakunin Diglot Senior Member Switzerland outerkhmer.blogspot. Joined 5122 days ago 531 posts - 1126 votes  Speaks: German*, Thai Studies: Khmer | Message 1 of 12 16 June 2012 at 3:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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I want to take my Thai to the next level, and maybe this log will help me to stay on track and get some
feedback or suggestions. The focus will be on speaking, and, to some extent, on writing. (I'm quite happy with my listening and reading abilities and I have no doubt that I will continue to refine these skills anyway through extensive listening and reading.) I've been learning Thai for 3 years and consider myself to be intermediate. A week ago, I started taking notes of what I'm actually doing. As in quantum mechanics, the act of observing affects what is being observed, and I'm doing more, and more varied, stuff than before. Which is a good thing, but let's see how long I will keep it up. Doing a lot is helped by having a lot of free time at the moment, which, however, will change very soon. For a few weeks already, I've also been playing around with new techniques, like shadowing, scriptorum and memorization of dialogues. I'm curious to see how these techniques work out over a longer period of time. I plan to update this log weekly as long as I feel it is useful in some way. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bakunin Diglot Senior Member Switzerland outerkhmer.blogspot. Joined 5122 days ago 531 posts - 1126 votes Speaks: German*, Thai Studies: Khmer | Message 2 of 12 16 June 2012 at 3:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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Week 24 (–16.06.2012)
Listening: 9 hours. Mainly podcasts from VoA and NHK, and native speaker recordings on specific topics (which I commission in Thailand). I love the daily VoA podcast. It’s 30 min long, which is a good length for me, and covers a wide variety of topics: global news, health, science, culture, entertainment, technology etc. Reading: 5 hours. Mostly the novel “The Neverending Story”, a book for young readers translated from German. I read this book when I was young and liked it very much. It contains quite some royal vocabulary, which is still a very weak point of mine. I tend to gloss over it, because I usually don’t want to interrupt the flow by looking up the pronunciation (I almost never look up translations, all meanings become clear sooner or later through extensive reading or listening). Speaking: 1.5 hours. Skyping with friends. Writing: 2 hours. Mostly chatting with friends, and half an hour on lang-8. Other: 6 hours. Scriptorum, memorization, some typing. I’m new to the idea of memorizing dialogues (or other text), but I want to give it a try for a few months. I’ve started with very basic dialogues. So far I quite like it, for two reasons: I like that I can sound the dialogues out loud, and I like the fact that I can recite them whenever I want, in the bathroom, while waiting for the subway etc. Even though the dialogues are basic, there are always one or two interesting phrases, and I also think the fluency practice is useful. I memorized the last two dialogues from the end (instead from the beginning), a technique that I read about on the internet. On average, I spent only 12 min per day on speaking last week. I should try to increase this a bit. For this, I signed up to a few language exchange and tutor marketplaces. It is, however, a challenge to find language exchange partners for the language pair German-Thai, and there aren’t many Thai tutors out there either. I hope to be able to arrange a Skype call for next week. I’m leaning towards a tutor, because I don’t want to waste time speaking German, but I have to see what’s out there. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Globe-trotter Triglot Newbie Netherlands Joined 4589 days ago 29 posts - 44 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, German Studies: Thai | Message 3 of 12 16 June 2012 at 11:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'll be following your log! Unfortunately, I'm only a beginner, so I can't give any
helpful advice yet. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Bakunin Diglot Senior Member Switzerland outerkhmer.blogspot. Joined 5122 days ago 531 posts - 1126 votes Speaks: German*, Thai Studies: Khmer | Message 4 of 12 17 June 2012 at 5:30am | IP Logged | ||
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Not yet, but maybe soon :) Enjoy the Thai language!
2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Bakunin Diglot Senior Member Switzerland outerkhmer.blogspot. Joined 5122 days ago 531 posts - 1126 votes Speaks: German*, Thai Studies: Khmer | Message 5 of 12 18 June 2012 at 1:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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I thought about goal setting a little bit. I can't see how I can reasonably set a goal related to my abilities, because
firstly, I have nothing to "work through" and no test to pass, and secondly, it is not really in my control whether I achieve a certain level of language competency or not in a given time period. What is in my control, however, is how much time I spend and on what. So here's what I've come up with: Listening: 7 hours / week Reading: 4 hours / week Speaking: 2 hours / week Writing: 2 hours / week Scriptorum: 20 min / day Memorization: 1 dialogue / day That amounts to about 19 hours per week. Currently, I'm well above target. But I've got a lot of free time at the moment. This will change when I start working again in a few weeks. So is my target realistic? I hope it is... for the following reasons: I will listen mainly during my commute to work, reducing the time I need to sit down and listen substantially; I will sneak in a few pages of reading most nights, reducing the time I need to sit down and read; some of my speaking and most of my writing (chatting) will be with friends, so I won't perceive it as part of my language endeavor; I will do Scriptorum right after getting up; and memorization is fun, and as soon as I tire of it, I'll scrap that target. Is that a good and balanced target? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bakunin Diglot Senior Member Switzerland outerkhmer.blogspot. Joined 5122 days ago 531 posts - 1126 votes Speaks: German*, Thai Studies: Khmer | Message 6 of 12 18 June 2012 at 1:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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Dear Moderator... what is this MICROTAG thing... why don't I see it in other journals? Can I get rid of it? Can you get
rid of it for me (and delete this message)? Thanks! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4860 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 7 of 12 18 June 2012 at 1:54pm | IP Logged | ||
I have no idea how to get rid of it, but this is only visible to the owner of each log... 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Bakunin Diglot Senior Member Switzerland outerkhmer.blogspot. Joined 5122 days ago 531 posts - 1126 votes Speaks: German*, Thai Studies: Khmer | Message 8 of 12 23 June 2012 at 1:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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Week 25 (–23.06.2012)
Listening: 8 hours. Mainly podcasts from VoA and NHK, and native speaker recordings on specific topics (which I commission in Thailand). Even though I listen almost daily to the NHK podcast, I don't really like it that much. The language is very formal, half the news are specific to Japan and not that interesting, and there's nothing about Thailand. But I love the clearly spoken Thai, it really sounds beautiful. Reading: 5.5 hours. Still reading "The Neverending Story" but I'm nearing the end. Speaking: 4.5 hours. Skyping with friends and two hours paid tutoring via Skype (found on the internet and on italki). We didn't do any tutoring, just chatting. Chatting is fine, I can easily have an hour-long conversation on everyday topics, but I need to work towards expressing myself more eloquently. I want to do many more of these sessions, but I may need to give them some structure in order to make the most of it. I wonder if I should specify a particular topic which I prepare beforehand. Any advice on what to do in my speaking sessions is very welcome. Writing: 2.5 hours. Mostly chatting with friends. Other: 7.5 hours. Scriptorum, memorization, some typing (preparation for memorization). I've reached all my weekly targets. Speaking is well above target, which I'm very happy about. Writing this log and specifying targets has already helped me to set up speaking sessions. What I need to think about next week is what to do in these sessions and how to structure them. Scriptorum and memorization are still fun, and they get me speaking as well. I will certainly keep doing these for the foreseeable future. Edited by Bakunin on 24 June 2012 at 9:52am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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