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Fabrizio’s 2012 Language Learning Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Fabrizio Pentaglot Senior Member BelgiumRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5185 days ago 103 posts - 157 votes  Speaks: Italian*, EnglishC2, French, SpanishB2, Portuguese | Message 1 of 18 30 December 2011 at 8:23pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Hello everyone,
Mindful of my reproachable performance of 2011, I've decided to approach this new year with a new spirit and a much more systematic plan. No more long-term goals, no more getting things rushed, no more pain... I'm done. This log is going to last only 5 months and it will exclusively focus on the following languages: 1. French; 2. Spanish; 3. Brazilian Portuguese. For two of the aforementioned languages (French & Spanish), I have got specific goals to achieve, these being: 1. Delf B2 (March 22th) 2. DELE C1 (May 25th) As far as Portuguese goes, I'm not interested in getting any certification for the moment. I will simply work my way through the TY's "Instant Portuguese" course and, if everything goes according to plan, by the end of February, I will have completed the course and acquired the basics of the language. That's it for the moment. Further details about my study plan and knowledge background: 1. French: I've been living in Brussels, Belgium, for 3 months now and French is the language I use the most in my everyday life. When I arrived here in September my knowledge of the language was really poor – I had basically never studied the language before! – but I'm improving quickly now. A few weeks ago my French was (over)estimated by one of my professors to be somewhere around a B2/C1 level, but I don't agree at all with such evaluation. In fact, my abilities vary a lot (from an high- intermediate/advanced level when it comes to read to an embarrassing high-beginner/low- intermediate level when I speak the language) and well, despite all the possible assessments, I still don't feel comfortable anyway. 2. Spanish: frankly speaking, I reckon my Spanish to be already fairly good and, to be honest, I feel confident I can pass the C1 certification without putting too much effort on it. I perfectly know what my weak points are (speaking and writing) and during the next months I will mainly focus on them. Luckily for me, I have tons of Spanish speaking friends here in Brussels and I won't hesitate to ask them for some help if necessary :) 3. Brazilian Portuguese: my knowledge of the language is equal to zero at the moment, I start from scratch. I firmly believe that improving my French won't be so hard as I'm constantly surrounded by it and it represents the language I use either for my studies and among my friends & acquaintances here. Moreover, I'll probably get the chance to enroll in an advanced language course offered by my university, but I'm also planning to use a Delf B2 preparation guidebook. As for Spanish, I'll simply keep practicing it with my friends in order to improve my fluency and build a more decent vocabulary. I'm not going to use any flashcards to this end, and I'll simply try to have fun LIVING the language. I might want to start writing an online diary/blog in Spanish though. The only resource I'm taking into account to learn some Brazilian Portuguese is the TY course I've already mentioned. All this being said, let the dance begin! 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4718 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 2 of 18 30 December 2011 at 10:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
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In bocca al lupo, Fabrizio! =)
Se avrai bisogno di aiuto con il portoghese, chiedimi subito! Un abbraccio! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Fabrizio Pentaglot Senior Member BelgiumRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5185 days ago 103 posts - 157 votes Speaks: Italian*, EnglishC2, French, SpanishB2, Portuguese | Message 3 of 18 31 December 2011 at 9:37am | IP Logged | |||||
Grazie mille fabriciocarraro, sei gentilissimo! No worries, I'll certainly need some help, I won't hesitate to ask you in future :) By the way, you've got a really cool name... eheheh ;) Edited by Fabrizio on 31 December 2011 at 9:38am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Fabrizio Pentaglot Senior Member BelgiumRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5185 days ago 103 posts - 157 votes Speaks: Italian*, EnglishC2, French, SpanishB2, Portuguese | Message 4 of 18 02 January 2012 at 10:01am | IP Logged | |||||
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Alright, here we go! I just completed the “Day 1” of "Instant Portuguese" and I've got
few considerations to make on its regard! The first thing is that the course doesn't focus on Brazilian Portuguese as I thought, but rather refers to the European one. It's not a big deal, I'm not familiar with any of the two varieties and I will have to relate myself with both of them at the end. I'll figure out which of the two I prefer, hopefully the answer will come alone, naturally. The second thought is about spelling and pronunciation: being Italian my native language and having a decent command of Spanish also, I can already make some sort of comparison between the three languages. As far as pronunciation goes, Portuguese is clearly closer to Spanish than Italian, but when it comes to how the language is written, I actually can see lot of my own language on it (well, at least more than I thought!)! ---> (e.g., “é” instead of “es”) I might mistake myself, but I've read somewhere once that Portuguese seems to tend more to Italian than Spanish when it comes to very specific aspects of the language as, for example, “false friends.” Anyway, it's actually way too early for considerations of this kind... My French schedule says that today I'll have to read a lot in the language as the exam session is approaching and I'm preparing for it. In fact, most of the books I study on are completely written in French and, no matter how poor my skills are, I've to go through all of them anyway. Lucky me... As for Spanish, I'll make sure to read some pages from the Steve Job's biography I recently got and watch some random videos on Youtube or something else on RTV. Edited by Fabrizio on 02 January 2012 at 10:04am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4718 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 5 of 18 02 January 2012 at 2:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
Great to see that you've started, Fabrizio (yeah, you have a goddamn cool name! =P).
There are some considerable differences between the Brazilian and the European Portuguese, you might already know it. I think the "greatest" is the we Brazilians (almost) never use the 2nd person conjugation, for both singular and plural. While a person from Portugal would say: Eu sou Tu és Ele é Nós somos Vós sois Eles são A Brazilian would say: Eu sou Você é Ele é Nós somos Vocês são Eles são Do you see? We double the 3rd person's conjugation and use the 2rd person pronoun. Some Brazilian books may teach you the "tu" and the "vós" conjugations, but NO ONE uses it. You might hear one say "tu é", which is grammatically wrong, but acceptable in spoken language. There are also some differences in vocabulary like the word "bicha" ("line" in Portugal, "faggot" in Brazil), or "bus" ("autocarro" in Portugal, "ônibus" in Brazil), "train" ("comboio" in Portugal, "trem" in Brazil), and so on.
Yes, Portuguese is closer to Spanish. My wife is Russian, and she's never studied Spanish in her life, but she speaks Portuguese fluently. When we went to Madrid last summer, she would go shopping alone, and she told me she could understand almost everything people said, and she would speak in Portuguese and everyone understood her =) Other than that, Italian is my beloved language, and some constructions are indeed closer to Potuguese. Forza, Fabrizio! Un abbraccio! 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Fabrizio Pentaglot Senior Member BelgiumRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5185 days ago 103 posts - 157 votes Speaks: Italian*, EnglishC2, French, SpanishB2, Portuguese | Message 6 of 18 02 January 2012 at 4:09pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Thank you for your kind post Fabricio!
You're right, there are lots of differences in terms of vocabulary between the two varieties, but I think I will eventually assimilate those naturally as it happens for all the other languages I study. At this stage of my learning process, the only thing I really care about is knowing what variety a particular word belongs to. Then, once I have a decent grasp of the basics, I will orient myself towards either Brazil or Portugal making sure to stick to one and only variety. That's what I call "being consisten" :) I seize the opportunity to wish you luck with your log again, keep us posted! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Fabrizio Pentaglot Senior Member BelgiumRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5185 days ago 103 posts - 157 votes Speaks: Italian*, EnglishC2, French, SpanishB2, Portuguese | Message 7 of 18 03 January 2012 at 10:21am | IP Logged | |||||
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Olá a todos!
I just completed the "Day 2" of my dear beloved Portuguese course and I've got nothing to say but... How cool is Portuguese?! Oh my God, I'm loving it! Yesterday I literally had to calm myself down and it took me a while to concentrate on my other languages lol... Anyway, today's lesson was basically a review of the dialogue and vocabulary sections I went through on "Day 1", nothing more thant that. I could recall everything without any particular problems and pronunciation too wasn't that bad today. This morning, before going through my Portuguese lesson, I could enjoy 30 minutes of Spanish watching the TV news on RTVE while drinking my (Italian) coffee. Today's mission is to learn how the new DELE C1 test works. As for my French, I'll simply keep working on my books and listening to some audio. To be honest, I can't wait to go back to Brussels eheheh Edited by Fabrizio on 03 January 2012 at 11:21am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Fabrizio Pentaglot Senior Member BelgiumRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5185 days ago 103 posts - 157 votes Speaks: Italian*, EnglishC2, French, SpanishB2, Portuguese | Message 8 of 18 06 January 2012 at 3:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm just done with "Day 5" of "Instant Portuguese" and everything goes on smoothly.
Tomorrow I'm going to test myself on what I did over the whole week, let's see how much I can retain after the first 6 days of study. This morning I could read several pages from Steve's bio while commuting to university; hopefully I'll have time to squeeze some more Spanish during the rest of the day. As far as my French goes, now that I'm back in Brussels everything is easier and, as a matter of fact, I'm practicing the language right now too (hello flatmates) ;) I wish I had more time to go through a whole Delf B2 mock test, but I'm honestly kinda in a rush now...!!! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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