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Köln to Kiev TAC ’14 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Fuenf_Katzen Diglot Senior Member United States notjustajd.wordpress Joined 4373 days ago 337 posts - 476 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Polish, Ukrainian, Afrikaans | Message 49 of 55 18 July 2014 at 2:49am | IP Logged |
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So we had our final today, our oral exam tomorrow, and then finally our presentation. I would consider this to be an extremely successful summer. Incredibly difficult, but very rewarding.
To put it this way about the difficulty: I would put this right below studying for the Bar Exam in terms of how challenging it was to keep up with the pace. In terms of which level I managed to reach in this time: my teacher happens to be a certified OPI evaluator (though for Russian, not Ukrainian), and she was pretty confident in saying we tended to fall between level 1 and level 1+ on the ILR scale. It may not sound like a lot, but wow, I had to work HARD to get to this point. It definitely increases my respect for that level. At the same time, I think this is the last time for awhile that I'm going to do such an intensive program. On the one hand, I learned a lot in this time, but on the other hand, the whole beginner stage is a lot of work and I think I just need a break from it. I'm happy that I've been able to find a connection to the language outside of just my class, and so I do hope to improve. I would definitely recommend this program to anyone wanting to learn a Slavic language. I'm not sure how many people followed my log during this time, but I hope these last 6 weeks provided some inside knowledge into an intensive program. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Via Diva Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation last.fm/user/viadivaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4238 days ago 1109 posts - 1427 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German, Italian, French, Swedish, Esperanto, Czech, Greek | Message 50 of 55 18 July 2014 at 3:26am | IP Logged |
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It's not like that I ever tried to get rest after an exhausting program, but don't get too far away from Ukrainian during your break, listen to some music, perhaps. And congratulations, it's great just to feel sure about something going on good, nevermind levels :)
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| Fuenf_Katzen Diglot Senior Member United States notjustajd.wordpress Joined 4373 days ago 337 posts - 476 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Polish, Ukrainian, Afrikaans | Message 51 of 55 18 July 2014 at 3:35am | IP Logged |
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That's the hard part, between relaxing a bit and still having the exposure to the language. I do have some Ukrainian contacts now, and really do seem able to have some type of conversation, which I think will really boost my motivation to keep up with it.
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| Fuenf_Katzen Diglot Senior Member United States notjustajd.wordpress Joined 4373 days ago 337 posts - 476 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Polish, Ukrainian, Afrikaans | Message 52 of 55 19 July 2014 at 5:18pm | IP Logged |
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Further "End of Class" thoughts:
There were too things that I really appreciated my teacher doing: insisting that we stick to actively using our limited vocabulary and grammar, instead of stumbling around over a direct equivalent or trying to create our own words. For example, at one point I was talking about how the one thing I don't like about my house is that we only have one bathroom--however, we're remodeling it. Now, obviously I don't know the word for "remodel," so I said that we were "making it better." Everyone understood what that meant. Yes, it's incredibly basic, but in order to develop confidence in speaking, it's important to use what is already there. She also told us to not be surprised if our skills develop unevenly. This was completely true for me. I would say reading and speaking developed the quickest, while listening and writing are more challenging (I should say, writing for now isn't terrible because I'm fairly limited in what I'm able to write, but down the line it will probably remain one of my weaker areas). Throughout the time we were there, she continued to remind us that no real learning takes place except outside of your comfort zone. I understand now why she said this, and why it's true: I do NOT like to make mistakes in my speaking, nor do I like speaking slowly. But that is a point every learner has to overcome in order to progress. It seemed to work. In this last week, I talked about which voice type I am and what that means, discussed some of the legal work I do, and even gave my opinion on the best way to learn a language. That is not something I would have been able to do had we not been pushed to "freely speak" Ukrainian everyday. She completely understood that you can't only learn from drills; eventually you have to put together full sentences and paragraphs. I really didn't think my active skills would be where they are now. Speaking of my final oral exam...I have two topics I did NOT want to discuss: food and family members. This was mostly because I can't think of anything interesting to say about food, and family is more biographical, and I just generally want to get beyond that point because I swear in every language class I've been in I have to talk about my family, and I'm always one of the only ones who came from a working class background who has a law degree. The reactions are interesting...but because of this, I just really don't like to get into it. Preferences and self consciousness aside though, I don't know that my personality is fully able to come through on these topics. I did the best I could though (for example saying that I don't like to cook, so I spend a lot of time at restaurants, and saying that I'm the only one in my family with a degree). I tried to expand my answers, but I walked away from it thinking that I didn't show my "real" ability in the language. On second thought, maybe I did. Because in some ways, your ability isn't determined by the subjects you know well, it's determined by the unexpected or less comfortable subjects. So in that sense, I'm glad I was able to provide some kind of answers to two subjects which I really didn't feel like I was able to discuss very well. Finally it was time for our class performance: we sang and danced to Pidmanula Pidvela, which everybody seemed to enjoy. It was a great way to bond as a class, and I would say we had the best performance (of course I would say that!) The Bulgarian class read a poem called On Parting, which was really quite touching and incredibly appropriate for the occasion. I will miss my classmates and my teacher. I don't know that we really came together as a class until the very end, but they were all great people, and I enjoyed the time I spent here. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Via Diva Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation last.fm/user/viadivaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4238 days ago 1109 posts - 1427 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German, Italian, French, Swedish, Esperanto, Czech, Greek | Message 53 of 55 19 July 2014 at 6:20pm | IP Logged |
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Speaking on topics you don't like is awful. First semester in our university was about common English (not the chemical, as it was before), and one third of our topics was about Mendeleev (I don't know his bio that well and didn't intend to study it for an English exam) - fortunately, these were put away, but the other third was about traveling: what ways are there to travel, how to get on the plane, what to do in the airports and blah-blah-blah. I have traveled twice in my life before that, both these occasions happened long ago and weren't connected to planes in any way. Eventually I had to lie using vocabulary I knew for sure. Meh, that was horrible (I am bad when it comes to lying), but good enough to pass speaking part without problems :)
And yeah, I would agree that speaking about something you don't like actually shows your abilities better than having a long speech about something you know well. I recently wrote an insanely long passage about history, but I would be glad if I could write something even tenth of this passage's size about chemical matters, which I am not at all comfortable with. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Fuenf_Katzen Diglot Senior Member United States notjustajd.wordpress Joined 4373 days ago 337 posts - 476 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Polish, Ukrainian, Afrikaans | Message 54 of 55 22 July 2014 at 9:16pm | IP Logged |
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So today was my first time since the beginning of June that I've really listened to anything in Polish. I deliberately tried to avoid Polish so that I wouldn't get confused. I'm happy that it really didn't seem to go down. My comprehension obviously hasn't improved, but considering I don't think it's any worse, I'd say that's a success! Now, what will be interesting for me is to see how my active abilities are. For some reason adjectival endings are one of my weakest links. I guess I don't use many adjectives so I never really "have" to know how to use them correctly! This will be a focus of mine the more I get back into Polish (and as I continue with Ukrainian). I think that if I can get this solidified to the point where I don't need to think about endings, my active use will improve a lot.
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| Fuenf_Katzen Diglot Senior Member United States notjustajd.wordpress Joined 4373 days ago 337 posts - 476 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Polish, Ukrainian, Afrikaans | Message 55 of 55 15 November 2014 at 10:40pm | IP Logged |
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Wow, long time since I've posted here. I started a new job at the beginning of August and as a result, language learning fell almost immediately. Now that I'm better able to manage my schedule, I'm getting back into it. Here's what happens when you take a few months off:
German- I went to a meetup on Wednesday where we talked about the differences between "happiness" and "satisfaction" (among other things). I was very pleased with myself that I could follow what is a pretty esoteric subject, especially among a group of native speakers. Speaking was okay, and improved once I had time to "warm up." I read an article on Die Zeit about a situation involving an organization that is actually located in my city (yes, a place in Pittsburgh made it into Die Zeit!) Polish- I started listening to my RealPolish podcasts again. Yesterday I learned about the educational system in Poland, which was really interesting for me. I would say my comprehension is about 80-90 percent on these podcasts depending on the topic. Obviously this is due to the speaker using simplified language and speaking slowly, not to mention the help of a transcript, but I believe if I can be consistent with listening, my skills will improve. Ukrainian- Reading ability is actually more or less where it was. I started listening again to Culture Talk lectures and reading the transcripts. I think in the very beginning, the use of transcripts is incredibly helpful. I listened a couple of times and by the end, my comprehension was better. Afrikaans- A lot of listening, not with a transcript though. I'm okay with that because I actually do understand it quite a bit. There is something I really do love about this language, moreso than the others. On the whole, I'm surprised that my skills have really stayed similar to where they were. I didn't notice a huge regression. I hope that I will post more frequently between now and the end of the year. However, I should also say that my respect for those who learn languages to high levels while working fulltime jobs has increased TREMENDOUSLY. I thought it would be much easier to keep up with at least reading or listening, but when I'm done working at the end of the day, the last thing I want to do is work more on a language. Along those same lines, this confirms my belief even more that in order to keep up with language learning, motivation is incredibly important. Ukrainian- 1 person has voted this message useful |
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