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Tarvos - TAC 2015 Pushkin/Scan | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4696 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes  Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 1481 of 1511 14 June 2015 at 5:32pm | IP Logged |
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The problems with Learning Czech: an experiment after an hour of actual class time!
So in my current dabbling spree I have been dealing with Czech, and it's quite a lot of fun to do. Some of it is familiar (especially the grammar, although the pronunciations drastically change from Russian so even if I know the proper case I always get the ending wrong because I pronounce the ending wrong, and sometimes they use u for the locative instead of e). But I'll tell you what my biggest problems are in Czech! - False friends with Russian. If only the Russian words meant what they were supposed to mean... but they just never seem to do. And sometimes the Czechs will use a word for something that makes total sense, but is just something I wouldn't say as a Russian (like výslovnost for pronunciation - maybe it exists, but I've never heard it). Half my word guesses end up with my teacher going "to je ruský" (that's Russian). - Speaking of Russian, apparently my accent is basically horribly Russian (and not really Dutch at all). I don't know how I managed that, but I am guessing most Czechs will take me for a Russian. I hope they believe I'm Dutch. There must be a trace of that accent in there, but I seem to simply sound Russian instead. Oh well. - Speed and fluency. I'm still speaking in baby sentences, but the grammar is already improving. The advantage of Czech is that it is Slavic, and thus the grammar is so close to what I know that I can do what I do in Russian grammar-wise and it'll be more or less right (with a few exceptions, but I just learn them by ear). Basically I think that at this rate, I could learn to speak fairly decent Czech within a few months. That would purely be based on my Russian, though. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4696 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 1482 of 1511 16 June 2015 at 5:35pm | IP Logged |
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Ok, something that not many of you may know is that I used to write a lot of poetry in
my youth. Of course a lot of it was angst-filled bullshit, but some of it I like even looking back on the darker days. This is because even then I always tried to inject some sense of actual poetry into it, instead of just writing my angst away. Аnyway, today I was inspired. One of the hallmarks of my style, however, is that there is always an element of absurdism and irony in my poetry. I love poetry that has a small story inside - not enough for it to be a short story or a novel, because that is too complex to write for me. That would require fleshing out characters, something I hate doing. In English, a lot of my poetry is full of that absurdism and fairytale-esque stuff where the protagonists are hoisted by their own petard. The following poem is my attempt at doing so in Russian. Be aware that it's a little bit... weird and grotesque. It fits my style (which is full of weird grotesque absurdist images). There may be a few strange errors or things that sound stylistically off. It's part of writing in a foreign language. Танец Муравьев Кто-то продает свежие огурцы и думает, Что он от этих овощей станет богаче. Отец наш небесное, так или иначе ему дает золото, да и в нем плавает! Пускают боги там пыль в глаза его Муравьи поднимаются по спине наверх Свежие огурцы, купите их, слава богу Только с насекомыми, вам приятного! Чувак, скажите, почему у вас такой грех? От запаха ваших продуктов я побледнел Да и вижу пятна, нужен мне ли скальпель? Да от вашей грязи немедленно тошнит всех! Ни одной копейки вам за дерьмо не отдаю! Может быть, покрестились ваши огурцы Но воспаление во мне дойдет до пальца Которым я вас насвегда прокляну! Огурцы растут и растут до того размера Когда глотают продавца одним глотком Да и муравьи бегут по трупу кругом Перекусывают зубами голову жертвы! Дети, не забывайте этот рассказ проклятый Когда неприлично стараетесь к нам относиться Мы способны ваши дурные жизни разрушить Запомните только одно — будьте честным. Edited by tarvos on 16 June 2015 at 6:09pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4696 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 1483 of 1511 18 June 2015 at 9:06am | IP Logged |
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Currently working on more Greek (which has definitely reached the intermediate stage
now). I understand everything in simple Greek and can carry on conversations, although I forget the genders of words and will screw up cases if I have to speak fast (or muck up word order). Verbs are slightly less problematic in this regard, except for the reflexive ones. (medio-passive). I can pronounce Greek fairly well and rapidly. The problem is now that my classes can be very demanding in terms of material, and some of the discussions I've been having (doping use in sports and the difference between natural and chemical substances (which I argued don't exist) and it means that I am still consistently struggling for vocabulary. The other problem is that I don't seem to be able to paraphrase everything neatly yet, which is usually where you cross into B2 (at that level the paraphrasing is at a much more advanced level when you don't know how to express something exactly). My teacher also told me to refer back to class material if I write an article about it on iTalki (which I always forget to do since I am horrible at reviewing things). My Chinese isn't really improving much anymore, but there's also not much of a need anymore to do so. I can function relatively independently and am leaving my domicile here in a little over two weeks (a week earlier than anticipated). This means that I have more time to travel in China, but I'll still spend a few days more in Beijing, I think. And probably go and see some stuff close to Beijing like Tianjin and Pingyao. In Russian, I've started trying to write small poems called пирожки/порошки which are very short and force you to use specific rhyming schemes, iambic meter and so on. They're wonderful to improve your stress usage as well (because the meter is so heavily regulated). And furthermore, I've been interviewed for a podcast by Jimmy Mello. I don't know when that will be up, but you should look out for it when it does come online somewhere in the coming weeks. The most noteworthy thing is that the interview was done entirely in Italian. Now that's an achievement because Italian is one of my top 10 languages but by far not my best one. So there's that. Then I'm continuing to dabble in Czech and of course when I leave Chengde I'll have to focus on my old nemesis Korean (and when I fly home, Esperanto). Next to all this I'm still crawling along at a snail's pace in Oblomov while feverishly working on getting my Russian prepared for the C2 exam, whenever I have the time to sit that! I also bookmarked Anna Karenina for further reading in Russian, but I won't follow up Oblomov with that. Edited by tarvos on 18 June 2015 at 10:06am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| basica Senior Member Australia Joined 3525 days ago 157 posts - 269 votes Studies: Serbian | Message 1484 of 1511 18 June 2015 at 10:27am | IP Logged |
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Shame I don't understand Italian would have been interesting to hear it - have you ever done interviews with
the other polyglot podcasts? (i.e. Chris Broholm and there are a couple others but his name is the only one coming to mind at the moment..) 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4696 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 1485 of 1511 18 June 2015 at 10:42am | IP Logged |
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Nope. If they want me on there I'll gladly do it though. I have been interviewed on
Breton radio before, if that counts... Edited by tarvos on 18 June 2015 at 10:42am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4696 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 1486 of 1511 20 June 2015 at 5:09pm | IP Logged |
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The problem with Greek (and mostly, its nouns)
Now people may read this log and think "oh that tarvos dude has it all worked out" but those people should probably read this log twice, then. I do have problems when I study languages, I do suffer from inconfidence, I do make mistakes constantly, and I have my own issues. (They may not be like everyone else's but I do have them, and they do hamper my progress). Currently I have a heavy focus on Greek, which is a language I need to improve because it's one of my next destinations where I will stay for a longer time. Now, I've gotten to a point in Greek where my actual vocabulary, syntax and so on is acceptable. My pronunciation probably isn't fantastic, but it also more than gets the job done. However at this intermediate level (which we're at now, even though it doesn't feel like that when you hear a sentence fly by and are like "what was that?" half the time), you start to hit other bottlenecks. I'm at a point where the Tarzanisms that abound in my Greek are not allowed anymore. I have to speak "proper Greek" (whatever the hell that is). So then we come to our old nemesis: grammar. And Greek... is one of those languages with a ton of morphology to learn. Now, Greek doesn't actually have that many cases. And knowing when to use them isn't the problem either - that is something I also do fairly well. The problem is that there are simply a shittonne of actual noun classes and that there are many irregular forms, and the biggest one is that the accents can switch within the paradigm. Now, if you read this, this isn't an issue because Greek (thankfully) marks those accents, but if you're producing Greek... yeah. You get my drift. This is one of those cases where you could use input to produce the cases properly, but it would take a long time and be wildly inefficient. I could read and do more listening, but it wouldn't help me when I am making systematic errors with noun classes that can simply be removed by some old-fashioned grammar study. And here we come to a point where I want to refer to Iversen's log bcause he's gone and explained this all a lot better than I can, but what it comes down to is that I have hit a bottleneck. In order to get better fast, I need to study grammar right now. I could avoid doing this (stop doing classes, abandon all forms of grammar study and so on), but that's just being really obstinate when the truth is staring at you down the barrel of the gun. Some people would advise you here to be kind to yourself, but I'm not that way. I prefer ruthless efficiency to sugarcoating. So I'm continuing down this path, even when I suffer now. Learn the bloody declension tables for a bit, why don't you, make a few reference shits, and solve that noun shit once and for all. You'll thank yourself later, tarvos. Now the other problem here is that I have a teacher who is VERY INSISTENT that I learn all this properly. Not because she's the old-fashioned table-trashing teacher type (she's not, and I've had other Greek teachers who were more that way) but because she's critical of the way I work and doesn't take my word for things (even though Greek is the f**king, what, 15th language I've learned) and simply forces me to do this exercise because it will make me get better. Read that last bit again. She doesn't really respect the fact I'm an experienced language learner and forces me way out of my comfort zone, but in a good way. This is the hallmark of a good teacher, and why I'm sticking with her. Teachers that don't push me when I'm at the intermediate level serve ZERO purpose in my language learning. I'll schedule some other classes to keep my confidence levels up (making mistakes is a nerve-wracking process and it feels like your brain is melting), but life begins where your comfort zone ends (C) Khatzumoto. Most people are probably not ready to take that beating, but I've found it's the quickest way forward. All the teachers I've had that were worth their weight in gold were those that pushed me beyond what I could already do and forced me to up my game in whatever it is that I was doing at the time. This is why you don't just use a tutor - very few tutors are capable of that. My French tutor also has that golden ability to push me and it's really been worth the effort (she was expeeeensive). But the problem remains that it makes you feel like an obstinate child who won't eat his bloody vegetables. And remember - if a teacher puts effort into doing this for you, it means they see talent in you. This may not be modest of me, but over time I have realised that I do have the potential to learn quickly. And it is clearly true that I sometimes need to be forced to not rest on my laurels (something that's very tempting when you get good fast). Why run when you can walk there at your own leisure? Because learning how to run is an extra tool in the toolbox. This is what tutoring is. Training sessions for real life. When I go to Greece in August and September, whatever level I have reached, I will have to use it with real people. Here is where you make the mistakes. So that when I go to Greece, I can avoid making a whole lot of them. I hated every minute of training, but I said, “Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion." – Muhammad Ali 7 persons have voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4696 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 1487 of 1511 21 June 2015 at 5:08am | IP Logged |
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Considering this is becoming a very long log and many pages have longer ramblings on
my language learning process, I am considering bundling my language advice in some more central place where people can follow these longer ramblings in a more organized fashion. However there are many blogs doing such a thing already (and they do a much better job of explaining things than I ever could). However if someone were to read my log I am aware they would have, to, erm, trundle through a lot of posts to get to the information they want to find. So, this is a question to the readership of this log; would any of you actually read such a blog (or thread) where I could bundle the longer essays on my language learning so they are more readily available to the public. I have no idea whether there is a demand for that sort of thing. NB: This would be separate from my foreign languages blog (the aims are not the same). 8 persons have voted this message useful | |
| yuhakko Tetraglot Senior Member FranceRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4621 days ago 414 posts - 582 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishB2, EnglishC2, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Korean, Norwegian, Mandarin | Message 1488 of 1511 21 June 2015 at 2:03pm | IP Logged |
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I'd follow a blog about your "ramblings" :) Your way of writing and analyzing languages is rather different to many others and very detailled on different topics. So
you'd get an audience rather easily I think. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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