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Evita’s Mix of Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Evita Tetraglot Senior Member Latvia learnlatvian.info Joined 6554 days ago 734 posts - 1036 votes  Speaks: Latvian*, English, German, Russian Studies: Korean, Finnish | Message 113 of 236 09 May 2014 at 1:38pm | IP Logged |
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The German lessons won't be in the mornings, after all. Great. They should start sometime in May, twice per week. I hope they are not too basic. What I need is a lot of reading and speaking, not (basic) grammar drills.
I went to the Korean class today again. We spent most of the lesson analyzing this video (but got only halfway through it). The teacher had prepared a transcript with some words missing so we had to fill them in and answer some questions. It was kind of fun, it was the perfect difficulty level for me - I missed a lot watching it for the first time but understood a lot more with the help of the transcript. But the other students haven't studied the reported speech yet so naturally they wouldn't understand that. I would hate being in a position like that because it would make me feel stupid. Anyway, I won't attend the next lesson so I'll have to work through the second part on my own. And another thing. They just finished the first "Easy Korean for foreigners" book so I borrowed it from someone to look through it. I promised to give it back next Friday so I have to do it quickly. I also need to learn how to hand-write in Korean. When I had to fill in the missing words, I knew how to spell most of them but just couldn't write them. I never learned it so now's the time to do it. I'll print out some writing practice sheets from the internet and try drawing some letters. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Evita Tetraglot Senior Member Latvia learnlatvian.info Joined 6554 days ago 734 posts - 1036 votes Speaks: Latvian*, English, German, Russian Studies: Korean, Finnish | Message 114 of 236 19 May 2014 at 10:49am | IP Logged |
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It's been a while since my last post. I've spent this time mostly on Korean and mostly working on my Anki vocabulary deck - not just reviewing words or adding new words but reordering them. I exported them all into a spreadsheet and got to work. I also went through the vocabulary lists in the book I borrowed to make sure I had everything. I also looked up some lists on the internet and yesterday I finally finished the first thousand words. I'm thinking I'll probably leave the reordering of the others to some later time because I don't know Korean well enough yet to judge for myself how often those not-exactly-beginner words are used.
As a result of all this work, I also added lots of new words to my deck. Well, some words were not exactly new to me (like 이쪽 or 검은색) but I added them anyway because I want my deck to be complete. So now my vocabulary deck has 3411 notes in total and 107 of those are new. It's going to be a while until I get through all those. I do also want to study grammar but somehow I always come back to vocabulary. Since I already have the basic grammar down, I think vocabulary is more important for me to understand dramas. And speaking of grammar, I want to mention '불구하고'. I had never, never noticed it before but since learning it from TTMIK a couple months ago I've already caught it more than 5 times in Yoo Inna's podcasts and yesterday I even caught it while watching Secret Garden. I'm pretty surprised about this. Since it's a long word that doesn't change its form I would have expected to notice it earlier with all the listening I've been doing. Oh well. The next step would be to try to catch what comes before it and after it in the sentence, I'm not that far yet. Speaking of TTMIK, they finally updated the Curriculum page with levels 8 and 9. Nice! I should go through level 9 sometime soon. I also started and finished my Korean handwriting project. It was ridiculous. I had the assignment from the teacher to answer 7 questions about the video that I mentioned in my previous post. Coming up with the answers wasn't that difficult (since I had a transcript) but handwriting them was. First I wrote the answers on my computer and then I tried to copy it down onto the sheet. I was somewhat successful (it was readable) but it looked pretty ugly. I would like to learn to write more beautifully but I have no idea how to do that. By the way, my vocabulary deck recently passed the 5000 downloads mark. Clearly many people find it useful, that's why I'm working hard to improve it. But it also recently received a one star ranking and I'm less happy about that. My sentence deck also received a one star rating recently but at least I know why that was - the guy or girl couldn't load the deck into Anki. That sucks. If the deck is working for everyone else then probably the problem is with their Anki installation, not with my deck, right? But no, they had to give it one star. So stupid. The sentence deck now has 18 five star ratings and 3 one star ratings. Nothing in-between. Anyway, enough about that. My trip to London and Paris is coming closer so I'll have to spend some time preparing for that. Also, the German classes start this week so I don't anticipate making lots of progress regarding Korean in the near future. It's summer, I should enjoy the nice weather. I have stopped adding new hanja cards for now but hopefully I'll come back to it later. I'll keep up with the vocabulary deck, though. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4870 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 115 of 236 19 May 2014 at 2:44pm | IP Logged |
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I hope you're going to continue and eventually share your Hanja deck! I want to start learning Hanja sometime soon, too, and your cards look like a great tool for that :)
Do you know the correct stroke order for Hangeul? At the beginning it doesn't matter much for your own handwriting and I suppose everyone's handwriting looks ugly at first... Mine still isn't pretty. But knowing the stroke order is very useful when you're trying to figure out other people's handwriting. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Evita Tetraglot Senior Member Latvia learnlatvian.info Joined 6554 days ago 734 posts - 1036 votes Speaks: Latvian*, English, German, Russian Studies: Korean, Finnish | Message 116 of 236 19 May 2014 at 3:09pm | IP Logged |
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Yes, I kind of know the stroke order, at least I know it's important and I was paying attention to it. I also usually pause when there's a handwritten note in dramas to try to decipher it. I've picked up on some tricks but many are still beyond me. I'm not stressing about that, though, I don't know anyone who would write a note to me in Korean, and if it did happen I'm sure the person would write it more or less clearly.
As for the Hanja deck, I'll definitely pick it up again, maybe I'll even add a word or two when I get home tonight. The problem is that I'm not managing to study it consistently. When I started it, it was easier since I had already studied some of them last year. But now I've got to 89 and the characters are getting more difficult to remember even though they only have 5 or 6 strokes. And also, I consider my vocabulary deck to be of a higher priority. Nevertheless, I'm pretty sure I'll keep working on hanja even if I take some breaks now and then. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Evita Tetraglot Senior Member Latvia learnlatvian.info Joined 6554 days ago 734 posts - 1036 votes Speaks: Latvian*, English, German, Russian Studies: Korean, Finnish | Message 117 of 236 23 May 2014 at 11:24am | IP Logged |
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This entry will be about my German classes and I'll try writing it in German.
Diese Woche habe ich die ersten zwei Deutschunterrichte gehabt. Ich finde, sie haben ziemlich gut gelaufen. Wir sind 7 Menschen in der Gruppe, und ich kenne sie alle, weil wir in demselben Projekt arbeiten. Wir sind zwei Damen und fünf Herren. Ein Kollege arbeitet diese Woche in Deutschland, deshalb hat er nicht an diesen Unterrichten teilgenommen. Im ersten Unterricht haben wir etwas über sich erzählt und haben einige kurze Texte über den Unterschied zwischen die Deutschen und die Letten gelesen und über sie diskutiert. Als Hausaufgabe hat uns die Lehrerin gebeten, einen Brief an einem Studenten zu schreiben, der bald nach Lettland kommt, damit er etwas mehr über Lettland weiß. Ich habe in meinem Brief auch einen Satz im Konjunktiv eingeschoben, weil ich der Lehrerin zeigen wollte, dass ich diese Konstruktionen schon weiß, und sie war ordnungsgemäß beeindruckt. Das Problem ist aber, dass ich die Regel für das Konjunktiv (und auch viele andere Dinge) vergessen habe, ich kann nur das schreiben, was in meinem Kopf richtig klingt, aber oft ist es nur ein Gefühl, keine Regel. Wir werden kein Buch in den Unterrichten verfolgen. Die Lehrerin hat gesagt, dass sie verschiedene Mittel benutzen möchte, und sie wird uns einfach Kopien ausgeben. Ich mag diesen Zugang, denn ich mag es, nicht zu wissen, worüber wir in der nächsten Stunde lernen werden. Dann bin ich gespannt. Ach ja, ich habe es fast vergessen zu sagen, dass die Lehrerin fast die ganze Zeit nur auf Deutsch spricht. Ein Paar meiner Kollegen können nicht immer alles verstehen, aber ich habe damit kein Problem. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Evita Tetraglot Senior Member Latvia learnlatvian.info Joined 6554 days ago 734 posts - 1036 votes Speaks: Latvian*, English, German, Russian Studies: Korean, Finnish | Message 118 of 236 26 May 2014 at 12:25pm | IP Logged |
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Lately I've felt more like watching Korean dramas instead of actually studying. I caught up on A New Leaf but it was a bit of a disappointment. Even though it seems like a good show, the hero somehow seems too detached for me so I don't care much. Golden Cross is more extreme in every way, which can often be a bad thing, but it speaks to my emotions more so I care about it more.
I also started watching City Hall, which has long been on my list, but it's completely different from what I expected. I thought it would be a political show with sharp dialogues but it's a farce, a comedy. And I don't like the main heroine at all. Still, I'll give it up to episode 5 before I decide whether to drop it or not. But that's all not important, I also have updates related to studying. First - I finished Warum Nicht level 3. Now only the 4th level remains. I also finally finished my Korean grammar book. Next up is Elementary Korean. I already started it once so I'm going to continue on from lesson 6. I've also restarted the habit of listening to TTMIK lessons during my lunch break. I already listened to 5 or 6 from level 9 and repeated some others. One of those was from level 7 about -느라고 which is a bit strange. I mean, I've known this ending since last year at least, it's also in the intermediate grammar book but I have never noticed this construction in dramas so I haven't internalized it yet. Probably I should pay closer attention to catch it. Yesterday I was listening to Yoo Inna's podcast from January 21 and there was a moment when she was talking to her guests about their daily habits, when they get up, when they go to bed, when they go to work (I think), and the vocabulary felt very familiar. I can't say that I understood almost everything because they were speaking pretty fast and I couldn't process everything, especially the numbers, but I might go back and listen to it again. Still, to listen to a full minute of natural conversation and be so close to understanding it feels fantastically. I suddenly remembered about Twitter. A while ago I started following some Korean celebrities but I haven't been reading their tweets at all. Hmm. I'll try making more of an effort to read them but I won't force myself. There is no denying that I like to listen to Korean ten times more than reading it, especially if it's stuff I don't understand. So maybe it's good that I just concentrate on listening for now and leave the reading to when I feel more comfortable with it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Evita Tetraglot Senior Member Latvia learnlatvian.info Joined 6554 days ago 734 posts - 1036 votes Speaks: Latvian*, English, German, Russian Studies: Korean, Finnish | Message 119 of 236 02 June 2014 at 10:42am | IP Logged |
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I've been doing some Korean activities every day and also German on the days I have classes. Now that I have finally finished the Korean grammar book I was working on forever, I've started the next two books simultaneously. They're both beginner books so they're not difficult. I'm going through them because I don't like to start with the second book in a series, and also to get some sentences for my Anki sentence deck. One of the books is Elementary Korean in which I already finished chapter 7. The other book is the Wonkwang book in Russian. It's the first of three books so I want to start at the beginning. I can already tell that it's going to be interesting to see Korean explained via Russian without any English involved. It's a novel experience for me.
In addition to all that, I'm continuing my listening activities and a bit of TTMIK and just doing what I always do. I was activating 6 new words daily in Anki for the last couple of weeks but now I'm reducing it to 2 in anticipation of my trip later this month. I don't want to worry about Anki while traveling. I should also find some time to refresh my French so I can get by in Paris. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Evita Tetraglot Senior Member Latvia learnlatvian.info Joined 6554 days ago 734 posts - 1036 votes Speaks: Latvian*, English, German, Russian Studies: Korean, Finnish | Message 120 of 236 04 June 2014 at 3:20pm | IP Logged |
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I was looking for podcasts in German and I found Schlaflos in München. Probably everyone already knows about this podcast since it's apparently quite famous. I listened to two episodes and I liked them well enough. I should make listening to German podcasts a regular activity of mine but I don't know where I'll find the time to fit it in. Actually fitting it in probably wouldn't be a problem, it's setting it up and finding stuff to listen to that will require more effort. The Korean podcast I'm listening to is actually a radio show that has a new episode every day so I'm never going to run out of episodes. For German, it's different.
The teacher of my German class brought a book for me to read, "Unberechenbare Gäste" by Heinrich Böll. It's 7 short stories and I already started reading the first one. I'm aiming to read at least 3 pages every day and read them intensively. Since I'll be using a paper dictionary it will slow me down considerably. If I read the book extensively I could probably be done with it within a week but speed is not my goal. I'm already up to lesson 9x17 on TTMIK but it doesn't feel like much, I can't learn new grammar points from listening to the lessons once. I must recognize them and understand them in speech at least 20 times before they're internalized, and that's obviously going to take a lot of time. They don't come up that often in dramas or in podcasts. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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