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Buchstabe’s diary of a verbivore | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| buchstabe Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4551 days ago 52 posts - 108 votes  Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, French, Spanish Studies: Czech, Swedish, Japanese | Message 9 of 15 03 April 2012 at 12:34am | IP Logged |
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Since I currently can't put enough time into extending my Hindi knowledge, I thought I could instead dabble a bit with Swedish, which is less demanding time-wise. Having only three languages to work on makes me feel sort of naked. ;)
SE: Jag kan inte mycket svenska, men jag ska försöka mitt bästa. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| buchstabe Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4551 days ago 52 posts - 108 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, French, Spanish Studies: Czech, Swedish, Japanese | Message 10 of 15 09 April 2012 at 3:36pm | IP Logged |
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In Spanish, I feel the grammar is coming back slowly. I remember forms again that I didn't review directly. The mere fact that I'm exposing myself to Spanish more often is bringing them back to life. I still plan to continue doing grammar exercises to speed the process up.
As for increasing input, I decided that at the moment, parallel reading would be the most entertaining way to do so. This means that I get the same book in English or German and Spanish (either printed or as an e-book) and have them both open in front of me. I read a paragraph in the Spanish version, and if I understand everything, I read on. However, if I'm not quite sure of the meaning of a word or a structure, I sneak into the English version. If I like the book, I plan to see if I can also find a Spanish audiobook version, e.g. from Audible, so that I can listen to it again on the commute. This weekend I started reading Harry Potter 1 (Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal). I'm currently at 6%. In Czech, I'm working with the Assimil Czech course. I'm currently at lesson 12. I also try to translate from German to Czech, since I'm not a beginner but using it as a review tool. My Japanese studies are lacking direction, I found. I've been kind of toying with it like a cat who is bouncing a mouse around before eventually deciding to sink her teeth into it and devour it: In the last few weeks, I've been picking up a few words here and there, practiced Kana occasionally, and stuck my nose into grammar books every now and then, but I don't see that I going anywhere. To change this, I'm now looking for a textbook (I've opened a separate thread) that could serve as a framework for my studies. I checked Heisig's Kana book (my boyfriend has the German edition of it) but it didn't completely convince me so I opted for Timothy G. Stout: Japanese Hiragana & Katakana for Beginners instead, which offers visual aids and practice sheets (including some prefilled lines in which you just trace the characters before you try to write them on your own). Sometimes I used the hints presented in the book to help me remember them, for others I made up my own mnemonics. I'm quite ok again with reading the Hiragana (although I'm still slow), but not with writing. I decided to practice writing the Hiragana (with the help of Anki and a piece of paper) before continuing with relearning the Katakana. For learning Kanji, I'm flirting with working with the Heisig book in addition to a textbook. I like the idea of splitting the task up in just learning the meaning first and only then all the readings. It makes the whole task less daunting. Several years ago, when I knew absolutely nothing about Japanese, I had bought a couple of books on Kanji out of curiosity. One of them, Kanji Pict-O-Graphix, looked fun and approachable but now seems pretty useless to me for learning Japanese seriously. Other books that I bought at that time, the small Kanji de Manga series and Crazy for Kanji, seem to have been better choices. Crazy for Kanji looks like it makes for a good bedtime read. Edited by buchstabe on 09 April 2012 at 3:38pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| buchstabe Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4551 days ago 52 posts - 108 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, French, Spanish Studies: Czech, Swedish, Japanese | Message 11 of 15 10 May 2012 at 12:14am | IP Logged |
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Travelling for some weeks has thrown me off track a bit. I continue to use Anki to learn and review words in Spanish, Czech and Japanese, and I've finally made up my mind and picked a Japanese textbook to focus my efforts on - Genki. It was pricey, but I really enjoy working with it.
Edited by buchstabe on 28 May 2012 at 11:41pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4858 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 12 of 15 12 May 2012 at 7:17pm | IP Logged |
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Nice log!
Your Czech is really good but here are my corrections of your (mostly minor) mistakes. quote 1. Takže, tady je můj slovožravcův diář na tento víkend The correct word here would be "deník". "Diář" is the book with dates where you write your plans, meetings, things to do etc. "Deník" is a more literary form, it's a kind of log of what happened during the day, including stories, your thoughts etc. quote 2. V neděli odpoledne jsem opakovala pádové přípony datívu a lokálu. Mimo to, jsem četla článek se slovíčky ohledně potraviny a potravinových obalů na této webové stránce: http://www.radio.cz/de/rubrik/gesagt/trocken-und-kuehl-halte n Slova v tomto článku byla dost pokročilá. V neděli odpoledne jsem SI opakovala. When you review as a study again, it is reflexive. Non-reflexive opakovat is when you tell someone something again or do something again. jsem SI četla can be reflexive again but non-reflexive is not entirely wrong. Mimo to (more natural would be Kromě toho and I think mimoto should be writen together) jsem si četla is without ",". The rules concerning commas are very different in Czech and English. While in English, it is more a matter of feeling where would it go in spoken language, in Czech it is more about structure of a sentence. You can either learn the rules (some of them are complicated even for natives) or just read a lot :-) It is an advanced thing. slovíčky ohledně POTRAVIN a potravinových obalů is the correct declination. SlovÍČKA byla dost pokročilá sounds better. Slova means words, slovíčka mean vocabulary. But it is surely not incorrect. Note about párek. It sounds funny the word is the same as for a couple but it makes sense. They are usually connected in pairs. So if you ask for tři párky, you will get six pieces in three pairs. If you want three pieces, you need to ask for tři nožičky (three legs :-) ). quote 3: Koupila jsem si pred nedávnem taky frekvencní slovník ceštiny. Je slovník který obsahuje kolem 5000 slova se v ceštine používají nejcasteji. Jsem zacínala delat výukové karty se softwarem "Anki". Taky mám AnkiDroid pro svuj mobilní telefon. Je TO slovník, který obsahuje kolem 5000 SLOV, která se v češtině používají nejčastěji. "To" is needed in this structure. There is always a comma before "který". "slov" is correct declination and "která" is needed for the sentence to make sense. ZačALA jsem SI dělat výukové karty. Perfective form of the verb is needed because you started once, not many times. Again reflexive "si" is better because you make the cards for yourself. You can say "kartičky" instead of "výukové karty". You would be understood but everyone says "kartičky". "se softwarem Anki" is not wrong but more natural would be "v programu/v softwaru anki". 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| buchstabe Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4551 days ago 52 posts - 108 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, French, Spanish Studies: Czech, Swedish, Japanese | Message 13 of 15 22 May 2012 at 12:11am | IP Logged |
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Thanks a lot for the detailed feedback, very interesting and helpful (all of it)!
You made me curious to look up the Czech comma rules at http://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%8C%C3%A1rka_(interpunkce). Interestingly, they seem quite similar to the German rules that were in place before the spelling reform (=the ones I had crammed in school). Now that's handy. :) Edited by buchstabe on 24 May 2012 at 1:12am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| buchstabe Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4551 days ago 52 posts - 108 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, French, Spanish Studies: Czech, Swedish, Japanese | Message 14 of 15 28 May 2012 at 11:44pm | IP Logged |
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I spent the last couple of days thinking about my current priorities and decided to not continue the log. I enjoyed my language studies more back when I did not have the blog, and fun is still my topmost priority when it comes to language learning. I feel a bit like a passionate bird watcher who might read up on ornithology because it further increases the joy he finds in watching birds - just that I'm watching words, not birds. There is no need to pursue a biology degree, just because the prevailing opinion is that knowledge about birds is worthless if you can't put it to use. For some people, time spent on something without "results", without being fluent and able to communicate, seems to be wasted, and I have let myself get a bit infected by this attitude. But actually, while I like to learn something new in general, and occasionally I also enjoy challenges and sprints, overall, it doesn't bother me if my progress is modest and even I can't make any use of what I learn (which is unlikely anyway). My conclusion after trying the logging is: Bringing work-related concepts like accountability or productivity into the equation, by starting the log, spoiled it for me. I have challenges and pressure galore at work, so I don't have the desire to also turn my free time into a rat race. It's more important for me to draw a clear line between work and leisure. From now on, my motto is: "Dabbler and proud of it". ;-) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4858 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 15 of 15 29 May 2012 at 5:41pm | IP Logged |
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I understand and just hope all the joy will come back when you will be log-free again. If
you'd like any corrections or fun facts (like párek) concerning Czech in future, feel free to send me a message :-) 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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