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Chci mluvit česky-I want to speak Czech | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Majka Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic kofoholici.wordpress Joined 4658 days ago 307 posts - 755 votes  Speaks: Czech*, German, English Studies: French Studies: Russian | Message 33 of 60 21 January 2013 at 4:49pm | IP Logged |
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tajosto,
I'm happy to hear you are working on your Czech. One idea for you: Could you ask your roommate to run commentary in Czech when in kitchen? I mean to describe what is happening, name all the pots, ingredients etc.? I have found this very helpful, the same as to tag along when natives go shopping, to the bank, go pay local taxes or waste disposal... It is not possible all the time - but here and there, such "lesson" is priceless. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tajosto Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4658 days ago 54 posts - 64 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Czech | Message 34 of 60 18 February 2013 at 5:57pm | IP Logged |
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Wow, it's been terribly long since I last posted! But that doesn't mean I haven't been working on my Czech, just that
I'm terrible about remembering to post. ;-) What have I been up to on the Czech front? One of my roommates went with me to the local library and helped me get a library card. I was happy to discover that they had a few different graphic novels (Alenka říši Divů, Malý Princ, etc) and an English/Czech parallel texts fairy tale book, and was able to borrow them all for a month. So I'm very happy to have that resource available to me, and plan to explore it more in the future. I also purchased a CD and book of hundreds (perhaps even thousands?) of sentences in Czech and English: http://www.njs.cz/e-shop/anglictina-i2-cviceni I found this book on splog's FluentCzech YouTube channel, one of the resources he recommends. It really is fantastically comprehensive, with variations on almost any sentence imaginable. One of the best parts is that, since it's created by Czechs to teach English, I don't have to worry about the Czech sentences being correct, which is the case for so many Czech language materials aimed at English speakers. Speaking of incorrect sentences, I've stopped using Pronunciator partially for the reason of strange and/or incorrect sentences. My roommates listened to some of the lessons and told me the language there is often quite strange. Added to the fact that they don't have a very useful way of reviewing and maintaining old material, and a few other things, I decided to go back to using Colloquial Czech and book2. Another development that's been really helpful is that two of my roommates are spending an hour helping me with Czech a few times a week. We've mostly worked on pronunciation and reading dialogues so far, and I'm looking at various Language Helper learning activities listed on http://www.everydaylanguagelearner.com/ for additional ideas. Those two roommates have also been trying to consciously increase the amount of Czech we speak in everyday conversation, helping me understand what they are saying and helping me figure out what I want to say. We've been keeping a notepad and pen on the kitchen table to write down many of the sentences and phrases I don't know (which is MOST of them, it seems like!) so that I can add them to Anki later on. I've also rediscovered the dictionary on seznam.cz: http://slovnik.seznam.cz/cz-en/ I've used it before, but somehow failed to notice until recently that when you look up a word, it also has "Pokročilá gramatika" and "Základní fráze" which often have quite a few different phrases and sentences using the word you've looked up. This has been really useful to me recently, because when I learn a new word, I like to see it used in a few different sentences or phrases. Also, I've started using the Memrise website again and was happy to discover that some of the Czech lessons have audio pronunciation now. I continue to have some days where I despair of ever learning Czech and think longingly of some language more closely related to English... but then I have days where I recognize and understand a new word, or have a simple exchange with one of my roommates in Czech, and feel that whole thing may be possible. :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tajosto Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4658 days ago 54 posts - 64 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Czech | Message 35 of 60 23 May 2013 at 12:45pm | IP Logged |
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I recently signed up for the 6 Week Challege that started May 1. Although I don't expect to be anywhere near the
top of the list in the 6WC, the accountability is great. It's been REALLY helpful in encouraging me to maintain a regular record of my Czech learning activities, and to give me the extra push to do a little bit every day. My activities are here: https://twitter.com/tamarindj I know that this language log is supposed to have the same kind of accountability, but I always feel like I have to write something worth reading here, while the 6WC setup allows me to send short, quick tweets directly from my phone. I love the HTLAL forum, but do wish that the technology was a little newer, and had better integration with social media. Oh, well. I've primarily been using Memrise to cram vocabulary lately, working on a course of 1,000 Most Common Czech Words. I decided recently that one of my biggest problems with Czech right now is lack of vocab, so that's what I'm focusing on for the time being. Before, I was trying to only learn vocabulary words within sentences and phrases AND always with audio (which I still think is a great idea if the material is readily accessible). But this required so much work for me to find and manipulate that content myself, that I just wasn't doing it. So I'm learning single word vocabulary now, but also continuing to listen to audio books, etc, and add sentences to my Anki decks. Yay, for the 6 Week Challenge, Memrise, and Anki! :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| hribecek Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5350 days ago 1243 posts - 1458 votes Speaks: English*, Czech, Spanish Studies: Italian, Polish, Slovak, Hungarian, Toki Pona, Russian | Message 36 of 60 23 May 2013 at 1:39pm | IP Logged |
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Hi Tajosto
Glad to see that you're still active in your Czech studies and here on the forum. I also found the 6 week challenges to be a great extra motivation to study. I know what you mean about writing updates here, it's not just that I feel that they have to be interesting but just doing the writing of it feels like a boring chore. Anyway, keep it up! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7157 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 37 of 60 23 May 2013 at 5:23pm | IP Logged |
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My biggest problem with putting down an entry is that it takes more time to do than it seems rather than an inability to get what I feel is interesting material. I can easily spend a couple of hours at a time looking for suitable comic strips (i.e. not too vulgar / racy, the punchline is decent if not uproariously funny, the language used or cultural references don't unduly tax my existing abilities or knowledge) and/or verifying the accuracy of any technical explanations (e.g. the comparison of Croatian and Serbian dialogues is fun but time-consuming).
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tajosto Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4658 days ago 54 posts - 64 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Czech | Message 38 of 60 20 November 2013 at 1:15pm | IP Logged |
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Here I am again, making one of my extremely infrequent updates!
I have been continuing to learn Czech consistently, though I haven't been consistent in what I've been doing, apart from continuing to add vocabulary on Memrise and audio sentences in Anki. I also try to listen to something every day, usually a children's audio book or fairy tales, or a podcast for children. Other than that, my learning varies quite a bit. This fall, I signed up and attended about half of a 10-week class in Brno. Around the midpoint of the class, the director for the language school asked for feedback on the class, and I suddenly realized just how miserable I was in the class. The class was more of small group tutoring, rather than a standard class. There was only me, and one other student, and our teacher. I previously took 2 classes at this language school with the same small number of students, and really enjoyed the classes. However, this time, the dynamics between the 3 of us didn't work well. The teacher spoke very quickly in Czech, and I was very often unable to understand or guess what she was saying. Although my previous teachers spoke only in Czech, I was somehow able to intuit or guess what they were saying most of the time, even what I didn't understand the actual Czech words. But with this teacher, that just didn't work! Then, to really make things difficult, the other student has a naturally talkative personality, so she tended to dominate the conversation, despite my teacher's efforts to encourage my speaking. So I spent most of the class confused from my teacher and silent next to my classmate. Not a good combination for learning! As I said to the language director, even if we had been speaking English, I wouldn't have had much to say with such a chatty person next to me. Just bad personality dynamics, I guess. Anyway, the director of the school gave me some other options instead of continuing with that class, so I'm doing a few private lessons with the director (my first Czech teacher, actually), rather than continuing with the class. In other Czech learning news, I am able to communicate more and more with my housemate who doesn't speak English. So that's definitely encouraging! :-) It's also very clear to me that my biggest problem in Czech is not having enough daily practice, since I live and work at home, and most of my housemates speak English to me. I've been sending messages to people on various language exchange sites (italki, gettandem, themixxer) to try to set up a Czech-English language exchange, but having been coming up empty. People will respond one time, but never seem very interested. I truly can't figure out if I'm sending weird messages, or have a terrible profile, or what! ;-) But I'll keep trying and hope I find some language partners soon. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| hribecek Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5350 days ago 1243 posts - 1458 votes Speaks: English*, Czech, Spanish Studies: Italian, Polish, Slovak, Hungarian, Toki Pona, Russian | Message 39 of 60 23 November 2013 at 6:44pm | IP Logged |
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Nice to see that you're still an active Czech learner.
Do you watch any Czech TV programs? Finding regular Czech language programs helped me a lot with understanding, especially if it's interesting. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tajosto Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4658 days ago 54 posts - 64 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Czech | Message 40 of 60 24 November 2013 at 4:17pm | IP Logged |
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@hribecek
I don't watch Czech TV programs yet, though I do watch Czech and Czech-dubbed cartoons online (I love Krtek, but unfortunately he doesn't speak, so that's out for language learning). So far, my listening comprehension is still pretty low, so I have the best comprehension success watching American movies I've already seen in English dubbed in Czech. Because I already know the plot line and characters (and cultural context) it's a lot easier. But I do look forward to the time when I can watch current Czech television. I've seen a couple of episodes of Vyprávěj and have it on my list for when my language skills improve. :-) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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