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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 4709 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 761 of 1511 10 July 2013 at 9:30am | IP Logged |
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Completing just a textbook would take me to intermediate at best. In fact, in my
opinion there should be a level between intermediate and basic fluency here at HTLAL - in my opinion Romanian is a language I would say I speak, but am not fluent in - same for Russian. If I am intermediate then I haven't mastered all of the basic grammatical rules - I've seen most of them though, and I can apply the simpler ones very well. In fact usually the achievements are related to something such as "I have read an actual novel with ease", or "I've done a presentation in that language". It means I should be able to consume native materials with ease, although at Basic Fluency I will still have gaps in understanding, and at times those gaps may even be significant, but not too often. In Romanian for example, I can present a topic of my choice in 10 minutes and not do it awkwardly given some preparation. That's a typical B-level skill. If I can hold such presentations then I feel I speak the language because it requires a definite sort of ability to hold a structured monologue in a language. My approach with Chinese would not be too dissimilar from how I attacked any of the others. I would focus on the same things; speaking and listening would get more initial priority. The only thing that complicates life somewhat is reading (not writing because I would just use the pinyin input; handwriting Chinese... not really useful since I don't send letters off all that much). So the focus would be on making sure I can recognise a whole lot of Hanzi and not mix them up. That would take a special approach. Furthermore I would spend some additional time mastering the tones. I have listened to them to get an idea of how it works, but it means I will spend extra time at the beginning mastering the tonal aspect of Chinese, apart from improving those phonemes I know and learning the unknown phonemes of Chinese (there are a few). 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4709 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 762 of 1511 13 July 2013 at 9:22am | IP Logged |
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A short update concerning my language activities the past couple days:
Not much has been going on. I have spoken tidbits of Russian, and I have completed unit 7 of the Routledge course textbook - I have been more busy with other pressing errands. Actually what I have been doing consists of preparing my Russian trip. I leave next week Sunday (the 21st of July that is), and for this journey of (dare I say it) pretty epic proportions I needed two visas, one of which I now have, and one of which I am in the process of obtaining. For all you who wonder: My journey is as follows: The Hague - Hannover - Moscow - Tomsk - Novosibirsk - Irkutsk (&Lake Baikal) - Vladivostok - Seoul - Amsterdam, where the last two legs are by plane and Seoul is a stop on my flight with a layover of about 20 hours. Hannover is also a train change of about 3 hours and a bit. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4709 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 763 of 1511 14 July 2013 at 5:11pm | IP Logged |
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Today a note about flies.
It has come to my attention that the expression "wouldn't hurt a fly" is actually a misnomer. My (German) friend was complaining about the flies in her garden on this fine day, and I asked if she had killed any of them. She said no, flies don't do anything, to which I answered "but what if it was a mosquito?" - which prompted a search and it turns out that in English the use of the word "fly" can be extended to include the bloodsucking monstrosities (although it is not the general sense). The reason for this is that the order Diptera (two-winged animals) is also termed "flies" in English, whereas in German (and in Dutch) Fliege and vliegen are only used for sub-categories of the Diptera (in Dutch they are termed "tweevleugeligen". My assumption is that in German this is similar.) In Dutch, flies and mosquitoes (vliegen en muggen) definitely belong to separate sub- orders of the diptera order, whereas in English the name for flies and diptera are synonymous (the Wiki leads its article concerning diptera with "flies" and not "diptera", whereas the Dutch one refers to the the "diptera" and flies constitute a separate subarticle). However, this gives a new meaning to the expression "I wouldn't hurt a fly", because by the English interpretation, it would exclude those people who are generally peaceful but make exceptions for the bloodsucking cousins, and someone who would not hurt a fly would be very peaceful, even more than any regular person making the claim, so as to let the mosquitos that drain our blood live. In Dutch the expression runs "ik zou nog geen vlieg kwaad doen" (lit. I would even (to- )no fly evil do), which is thus more accurate as it definitely allows for mosquito- killing. The same for the German expression "Ich würde keiner Fliege was zuleide tun". Subtle differences between English and German (and Dutch)... Edited by tarvos on 14 July 2013 at 5:13pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5168 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 764 of 1511 16 July 2013 at 5:11pm | IP Logged |
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In Portuguese we say "Ele é incapaz de fazer mal a uma mosca". That definitely excludes mosquitos/pernilongos from the idiom, as in Dutch.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4709 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 765 of 1511 16 July 2013 at 10:37pm | IP Logged |
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Today I have finally managed to get some language study in - it's been on and off over
the past days and will be over the coming months as my life is thrown into turmoil and the rules of the game will certainly change, develop and hopefully end up better than they are now. I have managed to cover up until lesson 86 of the Routledge course and am halfway lesson 87. My goal is to complete the book before I leave for Russia. I will take l'Hébreu with me and work on that during some long train journeys. Then once I return, I can start finishing the active wave of le Roumain and L'Hébreu. And hopefully by that time I will speak more or less conversational Hebrew as well (in as far as I do not right now). 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| liammcg Senior Member Ireland Joined 4606 days ago 269 posts - 397 votes Speaks: English* | Message 766 of 1511 16 July 2013 at 11:01pm | IP Logged |
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I've got very little done in the past week, too much partying being the culprit. I hope
everything improves for you for the better..I wouldn't feel bad about missing a few days here and there if I were you, considering the amount of GREAT progress you've made over the past year, keep it up mate! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4709 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 767 of 1511 17 July 2013 at 1:00pm | IP Logged |
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I'm not worried about dialling my languages back a bit... I've had to drop my Icelandic
studies for a while now. Once I am back and have completed my Hebrew then Icelandic can return to the fold. I have a sustained interest in keeping Romanian as an important language - it's easy, I like it, and I plan to fiddle around with Romanian cuisine. By the way, once I am back, I will probably return to finish the Assimils for Romanian and Hebrew - and start a new project (I consider Icelandic a side-project; I don't expect to become fluent in it soon, I will mark it as an intermediate language unless I get the chance to tourist Iceland again in the future or live there). I would be satisfied with B1's in Breton and Icelandic. So when I return, I can already announce the next language on my list after Romanian and Hebrew, and the next language (so I will study Icelandic concomitantly with another language - two is definitely the max for new languages) will be... Portuguese! The European variant. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5168 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 768 of 1511 17 July 2013 at 3:45pm | IP Logged |
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Pity :P Can't help you on that
1 person has voted this message useful |
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