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| linguaphile Triglot Newbie India Joined 6300 days ago 14 posts - 16 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Hindi, FrenchC1, German, Italian, Modern Hebrew | Message 1 of 5 14 March 2011 at 7:01am | IP Logged |
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Hi all!
Well, I joined this forum quite a while ago, minimal active participation so far... but after what was probably my most productive language-study day of 2011 yesterday, I thought of starting my own log here... if I keep up with it, it'll be interesting for me to see how things progress, to compare a year or two from now, also might help me organize some thoughts, etc. Anyway, brief introduction: American guy, 29 years old... first started studying Spanish in December 2003, in anticipation of a trip to Central America the following summer... got hooked on languages, started and stopped studying various others over the years, until June 2008. That was when I moved out of my place in California and started travelling for a couple of years, which helped me improve a few of my languages but also caused others to suffer (for example, I obviously wasn't working on my Italian or Hebrew when I was wandering around places like China or Turkey!) Now living in Bombay for 5 months, but I'll move out of my flat at the end of the month and will leave India sometime in April... and still not sure where I'll be going (maybe Italy? :) Currently I speak English, Portuguese, and Spanish, all quite well... and I get by in various other languages at various levels... some details: 1) English: native speaker, but still occasionally learn something new... :) 2) Spanish: The first language I started trying to learn. Have made multiple visits to Latin America and Spain since 2004, and also lived in some places in the US with large Hispanic populations. My Spanish probably reached its best level in May 2009 when I wrapped up 6.5 months in South America, but has been steadily rusting since then, as I never use it and don't actively do anything to "maintain" it. Still, I think I could probably pass a C2 exam after a couple of weeks of re-immersion and preparation. But a tiny bit rusty at the moment. 3) Portuguese: For some reason, Portuguese seems to come more naturally to me then Spanish. I guess I always got a lot of input, due to my general fascination with Brazil. I was already able to converse reasonably well before I ever visited any "lusophone" country. During a few months spent in Brazil during the first half of 2010, I somehow felt more "fluent" in Portuguese than I did in Spanish, despite the fact that my vocabulary is probably just a little bit smaller. Anyway, again, I basically haven't used it since almost a year ago, so perhaps just slightly rusty now, but probably C2 after a couple of weeks of re-immersion. 4) French: Recently passed the DELF B2 here in Bombay, with a score of 73,5. Production écrite 22/25; compréhension des écrits 21,5/25; production orale 17/25; compréhension de l'oral 13/25. I've spent a total of just a couple of weeks in francophone countries in my life, never more than 8 days in a row; I really think I will improve very quickly when I spend more time immersed in this language. 5) Hindi: I've spent a lot of time in India (about 15 months total, in nine separate trips since 2006), but not necessarily immersed in Hindi (for example, I used to live on-and-off in Gujarat). I found it very easy to get the basics of Hindi, but I am finding it very hard to get to an advanced level, mostly due to lack of opportunities to practice. Even here in Bombay, all of my friends are Indian yet I only speak English with them; they're all fluent in English, some of them are even native English speakers, most are native speakers of other Indian languages, and in many cases they don't even speak Hindi perfectly themselves and use English amongst themselves anyway... for the most part, the only active conversation practice I get is the words exchanged with people on the street, fruit vendors, rickshawalas, etc. Still, my level is good enough that I was able to complete an acting course taught about 75% in Hindi; I was able to do all of my monologues/dialogues very effectively in Hindi, but I had serious problems with the improvisation tasks. I have no problems with understanding clearly spoken neutral (e.g., "Bollywood-style") Hindi... but I very often have problems understanding when the speaker doesn't enunciate clearly, or uses lots of slang or an unfamiliar dialect. I can have a one-on-one face-to-face conversation with no problems, and I make very few grammatical errors of my own... but I can't keep up with fast group conversation, and I think that I am also lacking a lot in my ability to produce idiomatic native-sounding sentences on a consistent basis. In general, very good for a white guy, but lots of room to improve. A few weeks of immersion (someday) would help a LOT. 6) Hebrew: I had gotten up to a pretty solid intermediate level many years back, but haven't done anything with Hebrew in years; can't even remember the last time I had a real conversation in the language. Probably still have a very good passive knowledge, but I'd probably have serious problems actively forming correct sentences if I needed to do so today. Will reactivate it when I need (or want). 7) Italian: As of a few years ago, I had a solid understanding of the grammar and a vocabulary of maybe 2000-2500 words. Hadn't done anything with Italian in years (until 3 days ago); had obviously lost a lot of it. Have spent only about 9 or 10 days in Italy in my life so far. But now I *think* that it's quite likely that I will head to Italy in late April, and perhaps stay there at least through the end of June. So 3 days ago I started trying to re-acquire my knowledge of Italian and obviously learn a lot more as well, in case I do end up actually going to Italy soon. Looking forward to hopefully reaching a solid intermediate level in the coming months. 8) German: As of a few years ago, I had accumulated a vocabulary of about 2000-2500 words and had no problems with basic grammar and syntax, though I never really worked on mastering German declensions, genders, etc. Over the last few years, I've had a few sporadic opportunities to converse in German, so my level has probably remained somewhat steady; I probably lost some vocabulary, but got more comfortable with speaking the language in general. I think that my passive knowledge of German is way poorer than my passive knowledge of the other languages I've studied, so I was pleasantly surprised by how comfortable I was producing my own sentences; at the moment I can actively produce simple conversational German about as well as I can produce simple conversational Italian, yet I'd probably understand much more of an Italian film than a German one. It'll be interesting to see how I progress if I ever dedicate myself to reaching a high level in German. also: Catalan: visited Catalunya for the first time last June/July, about 2 weeks total... already had knowledge of Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Italian, so decided to do a little experiment with Catalan. spent about 10-12 *intense* hours studying early in my visit, filled many pages of a notebook, and was able to have some good simple conversations in Catalan. Also, after my 4th day in Barcelona, I started staying in the home of a real proud Catalan, who indulged me by speaking mostly in Catalan with me (although I usually replied in Spanish); I would often need to ask her to repeat what she said in Spanish, but very often I didn't :) ... I've written just a couple of short emails in Catalan since I left the region, and impressed some people with that, but I did refer to my notebook a bit, and I've done nothing else with the language since July. I can navigate Catalan-language websites with minimal trouble, due to the passive knowledge from the other Romance languages combined with my own hours of Catalan study. I'd enjoy seriously studying it someday, if the course of my life leads to me spending much time in Catalunya in the future. ...and, like so many of us, I have flirted with various other languages in the past... but I probably never got more than about 150 words/phrases in any of them, and currently I probably don't actually remember more than a few dozen words/phrases in any of them. At this time, I have no plans to seriously study any languages other than those listed above; possibly some flirting with some other Indic languages, but nothing serious. I'm obviously not a full-time language-studier, so I'd rather devote my time to improving my skills in the languages I have already studied. But who knows what life will bring... :) At the moment, priority #1 is Italian, and priority #2 is Hindi. Anyway, let's see how things go! :) -linguaphile 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| linguaphile Triglot Newbie India Joined 6300 days ago 14 posts - 16 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Hindi, FrenchC1, German, Italian, Modern Hebrew | Message 2 of 5 14 March 2011 at 4:34pm | IP Logged |
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OK, so it's now 4 days since I decided to start working on my Italian again, for the
first time in years. I'd picked up a cheap copy of Colloquial Italian here in Bombay; the book has 17 chapters and a grammar summary at the end, and I've already burned through 15 chapters in these 4 days... much of those 15 chapters were review, but I did get at least 100 words and phrases to add to my Italian Anki deck. Now, in the later chapters, I'm starting to encounter more material that I'll be learning for the first time. I obviously won't master it from this book, but I want to arm myself with the general grammatical knowledge for when I watch Italian films and read and stuff like that; of course, that's when I'll *really* learn it. I've spent a lot of time on Italian these few days, and I definitely feel like I've gained a lot. Other activities these days: -read through a short (46 pages) bande dessinée book in French (Gaston). -also, a few days ago, I started reading the Hindi translation of Ruskin Bond's book The Blue Umbrella, but I was sick that day and didn't get far; it's very short (just over 80 pages), so I'll probably find time to read it in the coming days, even at my very slow Devanagari-reading pace... maybe even tomorrow, let's see. -also, been doing my usual Anki reviews, about 10-15 minutes per day... 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| linguaphile Triglot Newbie India Joined 6300 days ago 14 posts - 16 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Hindi, FrenchC1, German, Italian, Modern Hebrew | Message 3 of 5 16 March 2011 at 7:26am | IP Logged |
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Didn't really do any language-improving activities yesterday, as I was busy much of the
day with reformatting my hard drive and reinstalling programs... but I did: -set my computer's default language to French for the first time... :) -change my facebook language setting to Hindi... :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| linguaphile Triglot Newbie India Joined 6300 days ago 14 posts - 16 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Hindi, FrenchC1, German, Italian, Modern Hebrew | Message 4 of 5 16 March 2011 at 8:25pm | IP Logged |
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today:
Italian Went through the last two chapters of Colloquial Italian, as well as the 18-page grammar review at the end... will move on to reading and watching films when I have a chance; unfortunately I don't expect to find much Italian reading material here in Bombay :p (and I can't bear to read novels etc. on my laptop), so I'll probably watch some Italian films with Italian subtitles and then review the subtitle files afterwards (I've found this very effective in the past)... French Started reading a bande dessinée book that had been recommeded to me, but I got bored by it and quit around page 20... oh well... 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| linguaphile Triglot Newbie India Joined 6300 days ago 14 posts - 16 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Hindi, FrenchC1, German, Italian, Modern Hebrew | Message 5 of 5 22 March 2011 at 6:49am | IP Logged |
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hehe, well, no significant amount of time spent on language-related activities in the
last few days (beyond Anki reviews)... I've had a lot going on, but it's not like I didn't have the free time... so I guess having an online log probably has had no particular effect on my "motivation" or whatever... :p 1 person has voted this message useful |
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