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2010 a Language Odyssey (Team H) - CLOSED

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Sprachprofi
Nonaglot
Senior Member
Germany
learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 6229 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 1 of 85
01 December 2009 at 7:32pm | IP Logged 
Here I shall keep track of what I want to achieve and what I have achieved over the
year of 2010.

Mandarin:
Current level: I will have finished my cramming of Chinese characters by the
beginning of 2010. I have also already read one easy reader and started on another. My
speaking was adequate so far because of my stay in Beijing, but now it is falling
rather far behind my reading ability, my listening comprehension needs work and my
grammar in longer sentences sucks, especially the word order and the use of
prepositions.
Goal: My goals for the year 2010 shall be to become able to read "A Dictionary
of MaQiao" in the original Chinese, to hold a 45-minute spoken conversation in Chinese
without switching to another language and to have worked through at least 5000 Chinese
sentences in the 10,000 sentences menthod. I expect the usefulness of the method to
decrease after that amount but I shall study more sentences if that proves beneficial.
Materials:
* this easy reader (to be read without the help of a dictionary)
* 小王子 - The Little Prince, in a French-Chinese parallel text with matching audio
* Some parallel English-Chinese traditional stories
* Wenlin for materials with more unknown words, such as Harry Potter, Romance of the
Three Kingdoms and news articles
* Videos of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms TV series with Chinese and English
subtitles
* 20,000 Chinese sentences grouped by HSK level and entered into Anki, which I will use
to improve my vocabulary, reading speed and feel for the language
* All volumes of the NPCR, if I need more formal grammar study
* the book "Learn Chinese from Modern Writers", to be used after I'm done with the easy
reader
* "A dictionary of MaQiao" as an English book and a Chinese one.

French
Current level: I can speak it fluently (without searching for words more often
than I might in German) but it doesn't come to me nearly as effortlessly as English and
I'm always aware of the fact I'm speaking French. Writing skills are lagging behind a
bit.
Goals: Reaching a similar effortless level of speaking as in English, which I
will need during my oral exam. Read at least one classics of French literature each
month for the purpose of being able to talk about them at my exam. Write about each
book I read and hopefully also other things to have my French corrected on Lang8.
Materials: French books, more French books, a "Littérature progressive du
Francais" to help with background knowledge and a "DALF C1/C2" that might or might not
help me with speaking abilities. Need to find a tandem partner from Quebec for accent
improvement and speaking practise.

Italian
Current level: Somewhat better than last year, I managed to re-awaken my Italian
but not as much as I wanted to. I still sometimes find myself search for the future
tense form of some basic verbs for example and I can't maintain a conversation for
long.
Goals: Achieve a decent reading speed so that I can enjoy Italian novels more;
re-acquire the ability to have a 45-minute conversation in Italian without switching to
another language or asking for the easiest vocabulary items.
Materials: Lots of Italian books thanks to Volte; I plan to write about each of
them on Lang8 when I've finished it; urgently need to find a tandem partner for
speaking Italian though.

Greek
Current level: B1, and I've read 4 easy readers of increasing difficulty in
succession.
Goals: As I am no longer motivated to do much about Greek, I'll be happy with B2
and the ability to read the book "Τα ταξίδια του Σώκρατη" by the end of the year.
Materials: Buying the next level of easy reader whenever I've finished one. I
also work with the Little Prince as a parallel text and I have a Modern Greek Reader
with excerpts of literature that I haven't touched. Need a source for audio input
though, maybe I shall listen to Greek radio. I have access to an awesome tutor for
conversation & grammar.

Arabic
Current level: Wavering. I have studied the grammar basics several times over,
but I still forget easy words after a few weeks of doing nothing. It doesn't help that
I switched from MSA to Egyptian and back.
Goal: B1 and being able to make sense of my non-vowellized Arabic/English
parallel books.
Materials: Lots. I will probably use Langenscheidt's Praktischer Sprachlehrgang,
Anki and a grammar exercise book. If that isn't enough to start working with any of the
parallel books, I will hang around Ultimate Arabic and Assimil.

Swahili
Current level: Lesson 20 of Assimil
Goal: Complete Assimil and the University of Georgia's course. It has been very
hard to find time to work on this every day or even every other day, so that shall be
my goal.


Other languages
If the language bug bites me, you might find me getting a reading knowledge of Russian,
or activating my Dutch, developping my written Spanish, delving into Toki Pona or Maori
for fun, maybe some spoken Japanese... These are not my goals though.

Edited by Sprachprofi on 15 April 2010 at 9:56pm

2 persons have voted this message useful



FVerschoor
Bilingual Diglot
Groupie
United States
Joined 6108 days ago

44 posts - 44 votes
Speaks: English*, Dutch*
Studies: Spanish, Russian

 
 Message 2 of 85
01 December 2009 at 10:30pm | IP Logged 
Man, I am jealous of all that you manage to fit into your schedule. Maybe I'll be able to study like that by the end of the year. ;)

Best of luck, I'll be sure to check back often.
1 person has voted this message useful



jondesousa
Tetraglot
Senior Member
United States
goo.gl/Zgg3nRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 6023 days ago

227 posts - 297 votes 
Speaks: English*, Portuguese, Japanese, Esperanto
Studies: Latin, Mandarin, Spanish

 
 Message 3 of 85
02 December 2009 at 1:38pm | IP Logged 
Thats all? HAHAHA

I wish I had so much discipline. I struggle to get 3-4 hours of study each day consistently!
1 person has voted this message useful



Sprachprofi
Nonaglot
Senior Member
Germany
learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 6229 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 4 of 85
02 December 2009 at 2:42pm | IP Logged 
It's not discipline, it's wanderlust! ;-)

I am totally not sure I can do it all. However, if I decide now that I only want to work on 3 languages or so, I would feel bad about working on the other goals, which are at least as important to me.
1 person has voted this message useful



Anya
Pentaglot
Senior Member
France
Joined 5552 days ago

636 posts - 708 votes 
Speaks: Russian*, FrenchC1, English, Italian, Spanish
Studies: German, Japanese, Hungarian, Sanskrit, Portuguese, Turkish, Mandarin
Studies: Ancient Greek, Hindi

 
 Message 5 of 85
02 December 2009 at 4:51pm | IP Logged 
Wanderlust is my problem too, I want to work on several languages and the time I spent for each of them is not enough to feel progressing...
1 person has voted this message useful



jondesousa
Tetraglot
Senior Member
United States
goo.gl/Zgg3nRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 6023 days ago

227 posts - 297 votes 
Speaks: English*, Portuguese, Japanese, Esperanto
Studies: Latin, Mandarin, Spanish

 
 Message 6 of 85
02 December 2009 at 7:26pm | IP Logged 
I'm in the same club. I started with Japanese and then Italian and then Portuguese and now Latin; although they are all at the intermediate level, I would like to get them to a sincerely advanced level. I want to play with German so bad, but I need to keep focused on what I have in the sandbox already :(
2 persons have voted this message useful



-Kupo-
Groupie
United Kingdom
Joined 5826 days ago

84 posts - 84 votes 
1 sounds
Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Russian

 
 Message 7 of 85
03 December 2009 at 2:18am | IP Logged 
You seem to have a pretty well set-out schedule for learning and I will be reading your blog. Just to let you know! I also have the wanderlust bug, it just seems to stick and stay forever.
1 person has voted this message useful





jeff_lindqvist
Diglot
Moderator
SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 6668 days ago

4250 posts - 5710 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*, English
Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 8 of 85
09 December 2009 at 6:36pm | IP Logged 
Sprachprofi wrote:
* 20,000 Chinese sentences grouped by HSK level and entered into Anki, which I will use to improve my vocabulary, reading speed and feel for the language


Have you got the sentences from this site? (If so, how have you converted the .xml file into something that Anki can handle?)


1 person has voted this message useful



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