Othar Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6210 days ago 185 posts - 205 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Norwegian, Turkish
| Message 9 of 46 17 November 2013 at 5:59pm | IP Logged |
Eight weeks without an update... shame on me. But I was not as lazy with my learning. I'd found the consistency thread and that really kept me going. I think I missed each one of my goals at least once but I never missed all of my goals on the same day.
I've decided to skip Assimil for Norwegian. I have listened to nearly all lessons but I can't convince myself to read it again. The German version has some annoying errors and the texts get very silly in the last lessons. It doesn't help either, that I know most of the lessons by heart.
Instead I kept working with the grammar course I mentioned last time. I've already completed every lesson but now I'm doing them again because I want to see if I've learned something. Every time I make an error, I put all sentences of the assignment into Anki. The course will keep me occupied for another week. After that I'll have to decide what to do next.
1 person has voted this message useful
|
Othar Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6210 days ago 185 posts - 205 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Norwegian, Turkish
| Message 10 of 46 11 December 2013 at 2:58pm | IP Logged |
When I started this log I decided to write only at the weekend because I feared that I'd loose to much of my precious time with writing and maybe surfing on this site. This was clearly a mistake. Because I didn't write when I was in the mood I didn't get into the habbit of writing here. I've seen with the consistency thread that it really helps me to do things regularly. And while I do a lot on weekends (including language learning), I nearly never manage to do what I planned for those two days.
My main problem with English is that I don't speak or write it. I can think in it. I sometimes dream in English. I'm reading it every day. I see at least one English movie at the weekend and I on most days I see an episode of Doctor Who (today I'll enter new territory: the Doctor in color :). Once in a while I don't understand a word. But I usually don't know if I simply couldn't make sense of the sounds or if it was a completely unknown word. But it takes me forever to write anything because I look up every second phrase. I don't do this because I don't know how to write it but because I want to confirm that I'm writing this correctly, which I usually do. Long story short, I need more practice. And I found the perfect place and time: my log and my lunch break. Let's see how that works out.
1 person has voted this message useful
|
Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5167 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian
| Message 11 of 46 11 December 2013 at 5:27pm | IP Logged |
Nice to have found this log! Good luck with your studies. Maybe you could try writing in
Norwegian, too? (Easier said than done, in my case).
1 person has voted this message useful
|
Othar Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6210 days ago 185 posts - 205 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Norwegian, Turkish
| Message 12 of 46 11 December 2013 at 7:18pm | IP Logged |
Det er en god idé. Det her er min andre forsøk å skrive på norsk. Jeg håper jeg gjør ikke for mye feil.
Jeg er ikke sikker på hvor jeg står med det norske språket.
Jeg har ikke mye problemer med å forstår podcast eller lydbøker. Jeg kjenner ikke alle ord men det er bra når jeg vet hva det dreier seg om. Av og til hører jeg en intervju med noen som er veldig vanskelig å forstå. Vanligvis får jeg vite etterpå at det har vært en svenske eller en danske.
Hvis jeg ikke tar feil har jeg bare sett en norsk film i dette året. Det var Kon-Tiki. Jeg forsto nesten alt før de gikk på bordet og nesten ingenting da de var på flåten. Kanskje ville jeg ikke heller ha forstått det hvis filmen hadde vært på tysk. Jeg har det litt vanskelig med hørselen min når det er for mye støy.
Jeg vil prøve å se mer i framtida. Men jeg har ikke funnet mye filmer som er fra Norge og har ikke teksting. For to år siden har jeg sett det norske versjonen av Olsenbanden. Det har vært gøy. Kanskje skulle jeg gjøre det igjen. Hvis jeg forstår Valborg er alt i orden.
Men ville jeg forstå mennesker på gata? Kunne jeg klare meg i Norge? Det skal jeg ikke vedde på. Jeg har bestemt meg får å gå med på TAC 2014. Jeg håper det vil hjelpe meg å forbedre kunnskapen min.
2 persons have voted this message useful
|
daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4522 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic
| Message 13 of 46 11 December 2013 at 8:33pm | IP Logged |
Har du allerede sett "Max Magnus"? Den er enkelt nok å forstå og har en god del på tysk
iblant (når nazistene snakker med hverandre). Jeg hadde samme problemet med "Kon-Tiki",
bare for mye larm i bakgrunnen.
1 person has voted this message useful
|
montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4829 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh
| Message 14 of 46 11 December 2013 at 10:58pm | IP Logged |
As far as English pronunciation goes, I think you could do worse than listen to BBC
Radio from time to time.
I'd suggest http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4
Radio4Extra is a bit more specialised, in
that it is mostly comedy and drama, a lot of it quite old. It might be your thing or it
might not.
Outside the UK, you won't (officially) be able to listen to the live version, but
anything that has been broadcast already is usually available. If you know the name of
the programme(s) you can go straight to iPlayer Radio and search, or alternatively,
just go through the schedule, and click on any programme that might be of interest, and
(usually) you will see a further link to play the programme.
There are also some podcasts but sadly (IMO)
BBC is not as generous as some other state broadcasters (the German state radio
stations for example) when it comes to podcasts; the choices are a bit limited.
There is also the BBC World Service, which you may find a bit "dry", but maybe not.
That will not directly help your pronunciation, and you need to work on that directly
as well, but it will give you a standard to aim for.
The BBC will have British accents, and if you prefer, there is probably plenty of
American radio, and of course films and TV out there. There is no reason actually, why
you could not learn both, and switch between them, as appropriate (but preferably,
don't mix them). It would be a good skill to have, and would actually test your
listening skills quite keenly.
3 persons have voted this message useful
|
Othar Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6210 days ago 185 posts - 205 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Norwegian, Turkish
| Message 15 of 46 12 December 2013 at 1:28pm | IP Logged |
Thanks for the hints with BBC and Max Manus. I haven't seen the film yet.
My main problem with English pronunciation is that I mix accents. For many years I read English but I hardly ever listened to it. So I wasn't even aware that there is a difference between British and American English. If I heard one pronunciation I thought that's the only one. So at the moment every word gets it's pronunciation from some random point of the world.
To get rid of this mess I have to concentrate on one accent and I've already chosen that this would be the British one. I think "The Archers" could be an interesting podcast. I've head about this one before. I'm not a fan of soap operas at all. In fact I don't think I've ever seen more that three shows from any series. But I think that this kind of show (?) is one of the best things to see or hear from a learners point of view. I'll try it out and report back after the weekend.
1 person has voted this message useful
|
Othar Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6210 days ago 185 posts - 205 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Norwegian, Turkish
| Message 16 of 46 13 December 2013 at 2:40pm | IP Logged |
On my way to the bus stop I've listened to the first episode of "The Archers" I could get. That was the episode from last Sunday. It was a bit confusing because I have no idea who is who and what's going on. But I didn't have any trouble understanding the story. I didn't notice any unknown words but I wouldn't have used the words they did. If I have the time I'll listen to the story again, write it down and
a) look up (?) what errors I made while writing and
b) write some of the phrases in Anki or in a note book.
I found the pronunciation tips of the BBC. That's very helpful. I'll try to add large parts of the information and the sound examles in Anki.
My English deck for Anki isn't very large. I mainly use the program for learning grammar and anything that I find difficult. Nearly all the English vocabulary I have comes from reading and listening. I hardly ever tried to memorize anything. I don't think I'll change this approach in the near future. English isn't my main priority. I just want to use the words I know in the right way.
Writing my log in the lunch break has an added advantage: I actually take my lunch break. Didn't miss it once in this week. Amazing...
Edited by Othar on 13 December 2013 at 2:40pm
1 person has voted this message useful
|