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Sunja’s Newspaper/TV Challenge --TAC 09 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5851 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes  1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 57 of 232 17 January 2009 at 2:12pm | IP Logged | ||
Hi Sunja, I regularly have a look into your log. It mainly deals with your study activities of Japanese, you seem to be very involved with this language, this is a good sign of progress. I am concentrating on European languages plus Turkish to reach 10 languages in total. Therefore I also have to stay quite focused on learning. In my case I have been developping a strong interest in natural sciences within the last 5 years, so I am also in the learning process of that field, not only of languages. I know very well that it's tempting to surf around in the forum and to read many posts. I also try to limit myself, because otherwise I would lose too much time. Keep up your language studies and good luck! Fasulye-Babylonia 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6089 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 58 of 232 17 January 2009 at 2:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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Wow Fasulye, 10 languages, I can only imagine how rewarding traveling must be for you. It sounds like we're both busy! I'm constantly looking for more efficient means of learning. I try my best to tailor my study to fit my lifestyle. Sometimes it goes well... and well, as evidence of my last few log entries has shown...sometimes it doesn't. I've been pretty distracted lately. Optimistically speaking these little set-backs are sometimes what we need to launch ourselves forward. One step backward, two steps forward. (Hopefully not the other way around.) Tomorrow is Sunday -- a good day to catch up. Good luck with your languages and further study as well!
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| Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5851 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 59 of 232 18 January 2009 at 4:00am | IP Logged | ||
My language calculation is: German + my weak Latin + 8 languages = 10 As I already speak 6 foreign languages I will have to add Turkish + Danisch (not yet started) = 10. Prof. Arguelles says that you have to travel or live in foreign countries to activate a language, but I can neither travel anywhere nor live in foreign countries. So my language project goes without this advantage. You have a family with children needing your attention. That's very different from my situation, I can plan my time for learning as it suits me without having to adapt it to family members. My disavantage is that I don't have much money and that my fulltime job is very time-consuming, I would prefer working parttime. Fasulye-Babylonia Edited by Fasulye on 21 January 2009 at 1:02pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6089 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 60 of 232 18 January 2009 at 4:18am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm in the process of doing a bit of partial dictation of the current topics on FNN.
I have to listen a few times in order to catch what I thought I heard. Sometimes I watch the English version first. A few examples of what I could catch: 実現することが Now this is a great example of why dication is a useful self-teaching tool. I recognized the verb already (I still had to look it up to be sure) and I checked on the nominalizing element of "koto", which I think is their version of a gerund. It would be "implementing" and then I think the next word was "matomeru" and then a bunch of stuff I couldn't catch. So I didn't get the sentence but I reviewed a very common piece of grammar. The other example of "koto" was the story of the doctor that was kidknapped and then returned. この日を迎えること。。。 and then I think she used a humble form of the verb "dekiru" but I can't be sure. I understood the whole thing to mean, "to be able to return today..." then よろこびをかかりました "gratification, happiness" (I think) The other element that I caught was 毎日毎日家族のこと今回。。さいかい大はな しています。。which I understood as "every day (thinking about) family and now to be reunited." I translated that rather roughly. I can't be exact. There were a few words that I kiiiiinda remember from IKnow! but have already forgotten. I had to look them up, of course 関係 経済団体 牽強する It took me a while before I could find this out because I'm not so much into politics at all -- I finally went to the Japan Wiki for 麻生太郎, Asou Tarou, and then figured out that when they say asousouridaijinwa -- it means they're about to get into a story about (his) government. souridaijin means "prime minister" I haven't listened to all of this week's stories yet. There was one about influenza hitting a hospital, which I was able to follow somewhat, not because I knew the verbs, but because I'm familiar with all the kanji roots that mean something negative. Well, the doctor speaking to the press wearing a particle mask was also a big clue... Not happy stuff for a Sunday morning but it's interesting. I was able to gather that three people had died and that 15% of the hospital was affected (I think). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6089 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 61 of 232 19 January 2009 at 7:25am | IP Logged | ||
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I spent a lot of time going over grammar last night. I went over the "o" form of verbs again and some conditionals as well.
Today I've written 47 sentences from levels 9,10. (7,8 are finished.) I'm hoping to go faster with these two levels. I need to do more words per day, that way I don't have to cram right before the deadline. We'll see how it goes. If all goes well I'd like to be finished in 3 weeks. Then I can begin the Core 6000. I suppose I could begin it now - but I don't want to bite off more than I can chew... I haven't done any shadowing yet. It looks bad for shadowing today. In about half an hour I have an appointment, then I have to take one of my kids to a friend's house, pick the other one up, and by the time I get done with all that it will be 5:00. Then the whole family is here and it will be very difficult to concentrate. Maybe tonight. I also wanted to do dication.... and right at this very moment I'm thinking I may have to go do that now....while I have the chance... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6089 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 62 of 232 20 January 2009 at 1:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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The dictation didn't go very well yesterday, although the stories were really good on FNN. They make updates in their news stories rather frequently. I'm new to FNN. The stories are mostly too advanced for me to follow. I wish I had a transcript. I can recognize kanji but it's still too fast. Dictation takes such an effort but I learned a lot the last time I did it. I'll see what I feel like doing tonight (It's 8:00).
I came home today and immediately went over the last two pages of the IKnow! level 10 sentences. Again, I click once to hear it and then try to talk almost directly along with it the second time. This is not the professor's idea of shadowing. (I re-read some of his posts on shadowing -- he is quite specific. I was following his instruction to the letter last summer. I hope to be going outside again soon, weather permitting. A drizzly, cold, damp environment is not conducive to the ideal shadowing conditions that I've been reading about! It seems to be all that's offered at the moment. Anyway. After I read those sentences I felt pretty good about my pronunciation and reading ability (at the lower-intermediate level). I no longer sound like a six-year-old, reading from his first-reader. I'm getting progressively better. After that I listened to the news. I had to leave at 11:00 and I didn't get back to doing Japanese until 3:00. I got my new book in the mail and started going over it. A word about that. I bought Japanese For Busy People III because after doing I,II, it's been exceedingly difficult finding anything else that picks up where the other two books left off. I tried it with Japanese in Mangaland III, and while I enjoyed this book, I didn't feel like it was sufficient. So for about 10 dollars I found a new copy of the last book of this series, Japanese For Busy People, much chastised by almost all who study Japanese. It is so ill-favored here in the forum, that I'm almost embarrassed to write about it. The way I see it, grammar is grammar and I'll have to supplement the missing kanji by inputing sentences into the computer. I've already written over 50 example sentences from Lesson 1, which deals with suppositions and impressions "deshou(ka)", "darou", "you"/"mitai". I can always use the practice. I was about to go over that now. I was thinking about making flashcards, but I'm already falling behind. The book has 15 lessons and I want to cover one lesson per day; yet I have to make sure I can still manage the amount of words I'm covering at IKnow! I haven't been in there today yet. Oh, and then I have to make sure I get in enough listening practice every day. It may take a few days before I've integrated this new text into my learning schedule. Edited by Sunja on 20 January 2009 at 1:56pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6089 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 63 of 232 21 January 2009 at 12:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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The first thing I did when I got back this morning was go to IKnow! and I finished about 40 words. I spent a lot of time with the words, copying down sentences and looking at the stroke order of kanji. The option for viewing the stroke order must be new. I was only able to view some of the kanji; the more complicated ones weren't available. It took me about an hour to get through just 40 words! The beginning of a word list is always slow. The words themselves aren't difficult at all. I tend to go over the sentences many times. When I was doing my review of levels 7,8, it was taking me 2,50 minutes per 10 words. I spent an average of 1.5 minutes per word this morning.
After that I looked at some of the "missing" kanji from my new book. For example, the book will have 友だち instead of 友達. I like to look at the whole thing, so I type them into my computer and the language option automatically supplies me with the rest. I finished looking at all the sentences but I still want to work on the first lesson. There's some speaking practice drills, (impressions and suppositions) that I want to try out with the CD. It's all a matter of time to see what works, what doesn't. What kind of time I can afford for this and that.. Something I really want to do is some more dictation practice. That will also be a priority for this evening. I hope to post some good results either tonight (if I feel ambitious) or tomorrow morning. Edited by Sunja on 21 January 2009 at 1:14pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6089 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 64 of 232 21 January 2009 at 4:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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Here I am again. I decided to reveal my latest bit of detective work. I did a partial dictation of some of the older (weeks old) stories from FNN. I did a little digging in English for what I heard as "ESTAR" and I later corrected it to ESTA. This is the new online registration bank for travelers. I dictate in my sloppy, half-romanji and I then have to try to make words out of what I hear. For example I wrote "juninichikara" and it's actually じゅうににちから (and the full kanji) 十二日から -- "starting from the 12th of this month". I certainly don't do this for every word. Sometimes I write whole sentences and it's just jibberish. Sometimes I get lucky. In connection to this story, I've discovered the word for "traveler" is "ryokousha" 旅行者. I think this is correct. I recognize the roots of this kanji and it looks right to me. "toujyou" is boarding. I looked up "registration" and "authorization" but neither of these words were in my notes. I do have a strange word, "kono attarashii tetsutsuki wa, ESTA...." I looked up teta-, tetsu-, tezu, but I couldn't find a match.
The next story was about the young doctor that was kidnapped and then returned. "kyounenkyugatsu (Ethiopia) de...yukai sareta." I think the last part is "was kidnapped". "yukai" is kidnap or abduction. "...Keikosan ga ...kaiho saremashita." I hear "keiho sareta" in the news a lot and I think it means "good news". I never did find out about the group. My notes are too scratchy and incomplete to put here. The last story is a real mystery for me. The first part I had to skip so there's a lot missed. Basically ...."keisho desu. otoko wa ...gojisaikuraide chikakuni dasaiban...shogai no genkohan de taiho saremashita." There's something about a 5-year-old boy and an arrest of somebody who wasn't very intelligible. Then it goes on to mention a lawyer with the boy, "..bengoshi ha oktoko to ..... hito hanashiteimasu." "...otoko wa: daredemo yokatta.... kekimushou ni hairitainadoto....keisatsu wa kuwashii douki... A lot of new words in this mystery. I learned "prison" and the verb with it is "hairu" which is to contain. Then "douki" is motive. The boy was quoted as saying "daredemo yokatta" which is "everything's okay". That's my "low-intermediate" impression anyway. I look forward to having another listen at a later date. Edited by Sunja on 21 January 2009 at 4:24pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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