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2010 a Language Odyssey (Team H) - CLOSED | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| annette Senior Member United States Joined 5304 days ago 164 posts - 192 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 41 of 85 21 March 2010 at 8:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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I know what you mean. I don't have any tried-and-true suggestions for remembering the
tone of the word - that's always hard for me as well, especially if I don't have the opportunity to hear it a bunch of times in context. Anyway... grouping words. I have a method that I go through for all the short excerpts that I want to read intensively. I don't know if this will work for other people, but I've typed out my general method anyway and maybe you can pick and choose to see if any of it looks useful to you. The first time I read through, I skim as quickly as I can without spending too much time thinking about any one word. The goal is to read (in your mind) much faster than you are able to read out loud. The difference between what I'm describing and traditional speed-reading is that with speed-reading you usually try to comprehend the point of the text, whereas here your main goal is just to comprehend scattered words and everything else is bonus points. Anyway, I find that this helps me start to recognize entire sections of text instead of individual characters, so instead of reading 幼 and then 儿 and then 园, I get to a stage where I automatically see 幼儿园 as an entire unit. I've done this for a while so that it actually takes me longer to read the characters individually - 幼儿园 takes me a fraction of a second, but if you wanted me to read 园儿幼 I'd probably falter. I think most people do this at a subconscious level when they study Chinese, but my point here is that by skimming, I'm consciously forcing myself to practice this skill. Anyway, that should take only a minute or two as the point is to 'read' as quickly as possible and to understand isolated phrases/words at a glance, not to understand how to pronounce things or what the whole sentence/excerpt means. The second time I read through, I am a little bit more thorough and look up any unknown words, and this is when I like to do my blocking. I just draw boxes around all the words and phrases and anything I think should go together grammatically. So your first sentence might look something like: 我[第一次][说谎][可能]是在[幼儿园]的[时候]. Then I draw larger boxes or insert slashes to represent the parts of the sentence that I think could be said in one breath: 我[第一次][说谎] [可能]是在 [幼儿园]的[时候]. (Obviously I'm not actually going to pause for a huge breath at the end of every chunk - this is just where I might pause or slow down naturally in the sentence. So I'm not going to REALLY separate 在 from 幼儿园, but I might slow down a little. I prefer to reference audio/native speakers for this part because the goal is to learn what rhythm native speakers use in these sentences, but if I don't have appropriate resources then I just trust my intuition and try to sound kind of normal.) The third time through, I just read it out loud, trying to pay close attention to natural intonation. Usually by then I am ready to move on. The whole process doesn't take me that much time. The most useful step is obviously the blocking. Because you tell yourself that you're not "really" reading the text (after all, that can wait for step 3), you go fairly quickly, but at the same time in order to draw those boxes you have to be conscious of the grammar and vocabulary. Then when you get to step 3, you find that you've already done all the hard work and you can just work on pronunciation and intonation. That ended up being WAY longer than I thought it would be, but maybe some of it will be useful for someone anyway. And if it's not, at least I have it typed up now for my own reference, haha. :) 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5179 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 42 of 85 25 March 2010 at 5:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'd like to offer some advice, but I'm not a native speaker, and I haven't studied Mandarin in a while, so feel free to discard what you disagree with. Still, here is what I think you could work on. This is based on my (limited) knowledge of Beijing standard accent.
h -- you seem to have understood that this isn't German or English h, but you are not consistent. sh, ch, zh should be more retroflex. e (as in ge) is not quite spot on. Maybe more throat tension is needed? Sorry, I can't think of a better way to explain the distinction. on certain voiceless plosives, more plosiveness is needed (!) -- like pengyou er should be more retroflex li- sounds too soft to me. In words like liu, the li- part should be more "flicked", for lack of a better word. Perhaps it's just that the initial position of l implies a slight retroflexion (ok, please check with native for this one!) Hopefully, you can get something out of this post. EDIT: replaced reflexive with retroflex (duh) Edited by Arekkusu on 25 March 2010 at 7:14pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6268 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 43 of 85 26 March 2010 at 4:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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Week 12
Thank you for the tips! Chinese: 5 1/2 hours this week. A feeling of success when I picked up a free Chinese newspaper at the Asian supermarket and had to read two paragraphs to find a character I didn't recognize. However, I still didn't understand much of the context. I mostly practised listening comprehension using Assimil Chinese, I practised reading aloud and I did a translation of another textbook text to French (on lang-8). I did not have much time left for Anki, so I only reviewed 325 characters and I have a lot still waiting for me. Also, I studied only 131 new HSK words and no new sentences, just barely staying on top of reviews with those. French: Barely more than 2 hours... I really need to get my act together, also to finish that book. However, working with the translations and lang-8 is improving my written French bit by bit. I studied 2 Assimil Greek lessons this week, up to lesson 45. The Greek Conjunctive is not yet clear to me... In Swahili, I also did two lessons, up to lesson 38, and there the Subjunctive is a lot clearer, relating easily to the French apparently. Not my best week in terms of language study unfortunately, but for me the most important thing is to keep at it. Edited by Sprachprofi on 26 March 2010 at 4:52pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 5940 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 44 of 85 27 March 2010 at 5:35am | IP Logged | ||
Well, it's actually fairly easy to use, but more difficult to learn to form. You use it in instances where you would normally use the infinitive in Germanic or Romance languages (since this doesn't exist in Greek), and with the expressions of volition, but generally whenever you use the particle να. For example (English, French, and Greek): I want to speak Greek with you. Je veux parler grec avec toi. Θέλω να μιλήσω ελληνικά με σένα. (μιλώ) Do you like to dance? Est-ce que tu aimes danser? Σου αρέσει να χορεύεις; (χορεύω) We have to eat now. Il faut que nous mangions maintenant. Πρέπει να φάμε τώρα. (τρώγω) I would like for you to sit here. Je voudrais que tu t'asseyes ici. Θα ήθελα να καθίσεις εδώ. (κάθομαι) Note, however, that you would not use it in the same way that Romance languages would in expressing doubt. I don't know if he'll come. Je ne sais pas s'il vienne. Δεν ξέρω άν θα έρθει. (έρχομαι; uses future instead) Like the past and future, there are two forms of it: the continuous and the simple. The continuous subjunctive is used when you are speaking of something in general, like in the second example above, with dancing. However, the simple is used when you are speaking of a specific time and action, like in the other three examples. Do remember, though, that there are some verbs that will only use the continuous form (έχω, είμαι, κλπ.). The formation of the continuous is very simple--you just use the appropriate present tense form, not forgetting the particle να. For the simple, it's a bit more difficult and is where it is useful just to have exposure to Greek. Generally you take the stem from the simple past (aorist) and drop the ending, then add on the normal present tense endings. For example: εγώ γράφω = I write (present) εγώ έγραψα = I wrote (aorist) έγραψα --> γραψ + ω = γράψω (simple subjunctive) --> Θέλω να γράψω ένα βιβλίο. = I want to write a book. So, there you have it. Greek is an interesting language, because at first it seems to be fairly simple, but then you realize that it's not actually when you find that there is no such thing as a regular verb (I can't think of any off the top of my head at least)... I hope this helps! --Philip Edited by ellasevia on 27 March 2010 at 5:35am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6268 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 45 of 85 27 March 2010 at 11:48am | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you, Philip, for this explanation. Now this part makes more sense to me.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6268 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 46 of 85 01 April 2010 at 10:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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Week 13
Probably the worst week in terms of studying so far, because my brother came to visit me in Berlin and I spent more time with him than with languages. Chinese: 112 new words, no new sentences, 3 days behind on character reviews French: 1 1/2 hours Greek: 2 new lessons Swahili: did not progress further in the Assimil lessons, as the pace is too brisk at the moment. However, I did spend about 1 1/2 hours trying to learn how to produce those implosives. Starting today, my focus will be on Greek and French. I did three months of Chinese focus and now it's time to change, according to my calendar. I would like to spend an hour a day on each focus language (like that's going to happen, esp. with French) and 2 hours a week on each non-focus language, so that I don't lose my progress. I can foresee spending more time on Chinese though because motivation is high and because I still have vouchers for Chinese lessons with an online teacher. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6268 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 47 of 85 02 April 2010 at 12:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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FIRST QUARTER
87 hours of Chinese 38 hours of French 19 hours of Swahili 16 hours of Modern Greek 2 hours of Italian (Not counting hours of phonetics practise towards any language) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dragonfly Triglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 6277 days ago 204 posts - 233 votes Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: German, Italian, Mandarin | Message 48 of 85 02 April 2010 at 1:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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Wow! 112 new words a week is a huge amount! Do you learn the new words only by the means of Anki? Are they well retained that way? Edited by dragonfly on 02 April 2010 at 1:45pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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