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TAC 2010: Team C - KO, plus Jp, Eo, El | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| onesteptwostep Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5777 days ago 49 posts - 50 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Japanese, Korean | Message 1 of 8 01 January 2010 at 6:28pm | IP Logged |
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A few things first:
1. Why yes, I do sometimes fear for my sanity; 2. I am abandoning my previous log for this one, simply because this will be more organised and the previous one was super-new anyway; 3. Yes, this log is being posted at UniLang too. I'm not copying someone else. :P So, my first TAC. I don't know what to expect... except a lot of cursing. I'm going to study four languages for a minimum of twelve hours a week. I have just turned 16 and have important exams to prepare for, but I'm sure I can fit all this in as well. Anyways, the rundown: Korean Details: My strongest language of the four, but I need to increase my vocabulary and up my grammar skills and listening skills. At the moment I can comprehend things like some pop songs, basic conversations and get the very basic gist of podcasts and radio shows, but it is my grammar I am the most worried about. I sometimes make major mistakes, and those need to be ironed out asap. Goals: To hit high-intermediate level by December 2010, which I believe is entirely possible. Materials: - Basic Korean: A Grammar And Workbook (completed aaaages ago, but I still refer to it now and then) - Intermediate Korean: A Grammar And Workbook - Colloquial Korean (2009), with CDs - KoreanClass101.com - Korean friends on MSN - Two LiveJournal communities that are Korean-only; another one for all aspects of Korean - Livemocha - Podcasts from podics.com - A ton of kids' comics and books for toddlers Japanese Details: I studied Japanese before a few years ago, albeit only briefly - I was quickly put off by the sheer amount of kanji. But I am taking a Japanese course in college next year, and I need to be prepared for it. Don't get me wrong, I like the writing system... it's just difficult. I know the hiragana syllabary and smatterings of katakana, and about 20 kanji, but that's it. I've forgotten pretty much everything I knew. Goals: Basic conversational ability by September 2010. I don't want to be fluent yet, but I need halfway-decent skills in all four areas. Materials: - Japanese For College Students: Basic (vol. 1) (I'm not a college student but who says I can't use it anyway? ) - Teach Yourself Beginner's Japanese Script - JapanesePod101.com - Japanese For Young People (volumes 1, 2, 3) - My First 1000 Japanese Words (thanks, mum!) - One Livejournal community that is Japanese-only; another one for all aspects of Japanese I'm short on materials for this one, but I asked for some more for Christmas, so we shall see. Esperanto Details: I came across Esperanto a few weeks ago and was immediately intrigued. I'd heard of it, but I did my research and ooh, it looked simple! |D I have intermediate skills in French, and I'm hoping that learning Esperanto will help my French... and that my French will help my Esperanto. That and I think it looks nice, sounds decent and I want to learn a conlang of sorts. Since starting it last week I can put together very simple sentences, but my grammar and vocabulary is lacking. Goals: Basic conversational ability by December 2010. Easily possible. Materials: - lernu.com - One Livejournal community that is Esperanto-only; another one for all aspects of Esperanto Need... more... materials.... So... depriiiiived. Jjdklasjfkasdjfslasjdk Greek Details: Yeah, weird choice, I know. But I've always been interested in Greek mythology, even when I was really young (seriously, at the age of 6 I was talking about Hades and how people were tortured in Tartarus) - and my name is Greek too, so I feel a bit of a connection with the country, however pathetic that might sound. I have never studied it before, so I'm an absolute beginner as far as this one is concerned. Goals: Basic-intermediate by December 2010. Materials: - Colloquial Greek (the reeeeally old one) - Teach Yourself Greek (ditto) I am not too concerned with the speaking/listening area of Greek right now, but if anybody has any suggestions for learning podcasts and the like, please do let me know! ----- I will be focusing on Korean by far the most, because it is the language I have the most materials for, and the language I love the most. I'm going to update hopefully every other day or every few days - we will see. Any input into this log will be appreciated, and please, feel very free to talk to me in any of the languages above. I really don't mind and it'll be good practice for both of us! Edited by onesteptwostep on 01 January 2010 at 7:16pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Jiwon Triglot Moderator Korea, South Joined 6440 days ago 1417 posts - 1500 votes  Speaks: EnglishC2, Korean*, GermanC1 Studies: Hindi, Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 8 01 January 2010 at 7:48pm | IP Logged |
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Ah, TAC is no big deal, just keep logging the same way.
Make sure you don't burn yourself out, and do ask me any questions if you have any regarding Korean. :) Good luck! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Nocturne Diglot Groupie Italy Joined 6152 days ago 67 posts - 70 votes Speaks: Italian*, EnglishB2 Studies: Korean, Swedish | Message 3 of 8 07 January 2010 at 12:35am | IP Logged |
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Fellow Team C member here, just stopping by to say hi! I wish you a pleasant and productive 2010, and let's hope Korean treats us both well!
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Thuan Triglot Senior Member GermanyRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6934 days ago 133 posts - 156 votes Speaks: Vietnamese, German*, English Studies: French, Japanese, Romanian, Swedish, Mandarin | Message 4 of 8 10 January 2010 at 10:59am | IP Logged |
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Fellow member from Team C just joined the party with some delay (blood poisoning, christmas).
Your strongest language (Korean) is my weakest language. Japanese on the other hand is my strongest language. You're like the perfect team member (French is my third language). Let's do our best, have fun and celebrate life at its fullest in 2010. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6474 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 5 of 8 10 January 2010 at 12:03pm | IP Logged |
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For Modern Greek, you may also like the podcasts published by Kypros.org. http://www.kypros.org/LearnGreek/ and the amazing multimedia course put online by Filoglossia.
For Esperanto, I have a comprehensive resource guide on my blog, "For those interested in Esperanto" at http://www.learnlangs.com/blog/category/languages/esperanto- la-lingvo-internacia/ Good luck in your studies!! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| onesteptwostep Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5777 days ago 49 posts - 50 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Japanese, Korean | Message 6 of 8 10 February 2010 at 6:09pm | IP Logged |
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My huge apologies go out to the rest of Team C.
Had I been expecting this at the beginning of the year, or even before, I'd never have signed up for this in the first place! The fact is that I've been almost inexplicably busy with mammoth amounts of coursework (that must be done, else I fail and have to retake), exams, a few days of illness, and much drama within the household. However, just because I haven't been posting here doesn't mean to say that I haven't been trying to keep up with my languages - because I have. Because I have a day off today :D, I've written a rundown and update on each: ------- Korean Korean is still by far my strongest of the four. Right now I'm finding it difficult to find time to sit down and do some proper studying, so I'm taking the passive approach; no matter what I'm doing, I always try to have some Korean music, a Korean podcast or a Korean radio show going on in the background. This is best when walking to and from school/town, when doing coursework, writing essays, etc. As a result, I think I can say that my listening comprehension has improved somewhat since the start of January. I'm subconsciously picking bits out, and every now and again I stop what I'm doing and think 'hey! I just understood that!' Granted, they are only short sentences at the moment: 'short' being sentences like, say, '너만을 외해 시간' and '너무 나만이 사랑한 돼 [...]'. I can understand much longer and more complex sentences on paper, but my listening comprehension is still lagging far behind and needs a lot of time devoted to it - which I can't provide. But I am doing my best, and I am sat here hoping that passive listening will help me somewhat. Also, when I can find the lyrics, I follow them as I listen to certain songs. I can keep up with the singers and read fast enough; my problem now is comprehending it without sitting for a couple of seconds and thinking 'erm, what?' or something equally vague. Dramas are another thing altogether - as much as I love 미남이시네요 for being hilarious and the only drama I've ever liked, Korean or otherwise, it's difficult to follow because of the sheer speed at which the actors speak. The most I caught at once was '갑시다!' - '네'... which is really, really poor, even for me. XD Though I got a slight thrill when I heard and understood '이 내 부스야' (spoken by a lovesick, ticked off Jeremy/홍기) on the first viewing. It's nothing to be proud of I know, but I'm getting there. As far as reading goes, I am still fumbling with 아기하마의 아빠. I've spent ten minutes here and ten minutes there with Anki, trying to drill the words, and I have had some - but limited - success with this. I'm not going to pick up 아기하마의 아빠 again until I'm sure I have all the vocabulary drilled. Also, I printed off some slightly more advanced kids' stories and old Korean folk tales (I forget the name of the site because I was stupid enough not to bookmark it, but I'm sure someone here has it somewhere!) - which have proven to be rather difficult. With these more advanced texts, I can only pick out the odd word and sentence here and there that makes total sense, and have to rely on a dictionary and my common sense to infer the meanings. I've decided to put these texts aside for a while, since all they're serving to do is put me off from learning any more. All in all, things are going okay. Not good, just okay. Japanese Good news here! In January, after I pestered them enough, my school entered me in to take a Japanese three-skills (reading, writing, listening) GCSE exam in May/June. This is a good thing because it's extra motivation, and a bad thing because it's more work. Oh well. Some suffer for their beauty - we suffer for our languages, am I right? |D I got the specification and kanji/vocabulary lists off the lady who organises all the exam entries, and have been slowly - and, I admit, sporadically - working my way through the required grammar list. It isn't too hard because of the many similarities it has with Korean - it's just a matter of memorising the vocabulary and the kanji that go with it. I also got my hands on some past writing papers, which I found to be laughably easy, even with my rubbish Japanese skills. One of the tasks was along the lines of "you are writing your Christmas list in Japanese. Write down a gift for each of your eight friends"; and one of the examples was ペン (pen)! The next three tasks get progressively harder as they go along, but they do not get more difficult than writing a brief postcard in two tenses, the past and present - and it's always a postcard. I've checked. ;) I don't have any past reading or listening papers, which is a pain, but if they turn out to be as easy as the writing paper then I should be just fine. At the moment I am drilling the required vocabulary in Anki and am working my way through the required kanji list. There are only 100 kanji, the slight majority of which I am familiar with already, so they aren't posing as much of a problem as I at first feared they would. All in all, things are going well here! Esperanto I've decided to give Esperanto a back seat until I feel ready to tackle it again. I know, I know, it doesn't make much sense, delaying the easiest language - but it's not where my passion lies. It is low on my list of language priorities, so I'll have another go at the nitty-gritty when I feel ready. For now, I will work slowly through Livemocha's Esperanto course, which is nothing too major, but something is better than nothing. Greek Oh, Greek. I won't lie: I dropped Greek in mid-January. The alphabet was proving to be too much of a problem for me. I like how it sounds and I like how it looks... but the alphabet. I just could not get my head around it. I gave up after two weeks of trying to follow recorded conversations (to no avail) and trying to read for myself (to no avail); my patience was wearing very thin. You might argue that two weeks isn't long enough. But then I can say that I learned Hangul in four days and hirakana in six, and I'd be telling the absolute truth. I might try again sometime in the far-flung future, but not now. I have enough to deal with as it is. ------- So, yes. Team C - I may drop out and do the TAC on my own. I don't know yet. 전 너무 너무 미안하는데 이젠 많이 시간이 없습니다. 미래에 TAC를 할 거하지만 전 바빠서 지금은 아주 나쁜 시간입니다. 그러서 여로분에 미안하고 감사합니다. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sprachjunge Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 7169 days ago 368 posts - 548 votes Speaks: English*, GermanC2 Studies: Spanish, Russian | Message 7 of 8 10 February 2010 at 6:48pm | IP Logged |
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Hey onesteptwostep,
Don't give up on Team C! First, I'm only writing this because you said that you were going to keep studying your languages. If you had said you were stopping language learning altogether, then I would have wished you luck with your other activities. But you said you would continue to study on your own. So, stay in the TAC! Just post once a week, the way many others do. And it doesn't have to be long--just take fifteen minutes to write five sentences for your teammates. If you have a reliable internet connection, I'm sure you can find 15 minutes once a week to keep the guys posted. :) Do it and don't give up the fight! PS You might feel better if you don't feel like you have to post a two page summary each time. Just a few sentences is fine. Really. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6474 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 8 of 8 11 February 2010 at 10:10am | IP Logged |
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To learn the Greek alphabet, try the lessons I developed for
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Modern_Greek . Just the first 6, somebody else meshed them into an unrelated language course. You will probably be able to read Greek tonight! I hope you may re-find your enjoyment of the Greek language - I love it! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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