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Splog at University | ||
Tags: Czech | College/University | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5346 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 33 of 72 27 November 2010 at 10:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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Sorry you didn't win the top finalist chocie bar at the end, but I'm very inspired by your progress of reaching the finals all the same, especially as you were chosen to interpret for the winner. ;) Edited by Teango on 27 November 2010 at 11:00pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Andy E Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6893 days ago 1651 posts - 1939 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 34 of 72 28 November 2010 at 12:31am | IP Logged | ||
Utterly bizarre but well done for getting to the finals. I suppose it would have been considered bad form to accidentally "translate" a question from the winner "Would you find telling me how the hell I managed to win?" 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5459 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 35 of 72 10 December 2010 at 8:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have now been a full-time language student for three months. Here is a summary:
The first month was perfect: there were just three in the class, with two professors, and we just talked all day in Czech, on a wide variety of interesting topics. During the second month, the group grew to five, and the professors started teaching us more obscure aspects of grammar, which was rather annoying at times, but was well balanced with the speaking. By the third month, the focus had mutated to be almost full-time grammar drilling, plus constant testing of minor grammar points. This wouldn't matter so much if those aspects of grammar were useful. However, we were told we were "sweeping up the last parts of the grammar" which meant spending days studying archaic forms of words, with out-dated declensions and conjugations. Being told "75% of native speakers don't even know this stuff" just made me snap. I complained that this was not the reason I joined the university. I confronted the professors, and said I wished to drop out of the university and return to self-study, since my main interest is in speaking on a variety of topics, not on trying to outsmart native speakers. To my surprise, the head of department has accepted my complaint, and therefore I am no longer required to do any of the things that I find time wasting. So, no more grammar tests, much less of the drill-related homework, and much more actual speaking, writing, listening, and reading. In addition, the university has confirmed that my class will continue next semester. At the moment there are only two of us who have passed the entrance exam for the next semester (contrasted with an average group size of 15 in the 28 other groups). They anticipate that at least one of the people in the group below us will be able to pass the entrance exam and move up to join us, but our group should still remain small. Overall, I have been impressed with the willingness of the university to accommodate my own preferences, and their willingness to continue a class with so few students. The result is that I am now a quarter of the way through my year as a student, and find it to be a positive experience. This surprises me, somewhat, since I was always a believer in "home study" being massively superior. I can see that combing both university and home study has been very advantageous. Edited by Splog on 10 December 2010 at 8:17pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5459 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 36 of 72 20 December 2010 at 6:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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The professors reckon we have now learned all there is to know about standard Czech,
and therefore we are moving on to various dialects of the language. Written (formal) Czech is very different from Spoken (Prague) Czech. The written variant was suppressed for several hundred years , and German was the enforced written language. This meant that Czech was relegated to a spoken village language. Note that this is not the same as slang. There is plenty of that too in Czech - but, rather, an evolved spoken language separate from the written formal language. When the written language was revived in the 19th Century, the spoken language had evolved for several hundred years. Hence, even today, people write with a language that is several hundreds of year out-of-step with the language they speak. When children go to school for the first time, they are forced to write and speak this formal variant of the language - often for the first time in their lives. It must be quite a shock for them. Understandably, the spoken language evolved differently in different regions. Sometime the differences are small, other times quite large. I was quite aware of some of the regional dialects, but many of them are unknown to me. Therefore, this week at university has been quite eye-opening, as we have been diving into various local dialects - and then attempting to use them. One delightful aspect of this is that the professor teaching this stuff is a linguist specialising in the history of dialects, and therefore can explain very well how and why the various diverse evolutions occurred. I have certainly found this most enjoyable, and it is something I shall continue pursuing. It is like a whole new world of discovery opening up before me. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Adrean TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member France adrean83.wordpress.c Joined 5958 days ago 348 posts - 411 votes Speaks: FrenchC1 | Message 38 of 72 20 December 2010 at 10:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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It seems that having an interesting teacher to teach you those kinds of topic is very
important. It must be great to sit in a class each day with just two other students discussing these topics. You must be activating lots of vocabulary each day. I like others are awaiting your next video. You're more than a week late! Gonna definitely start applying and trying your methods for the new year as part of the TAC challenge. Edited by Adrean on 20 December 2010 at 10:52pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5459 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 39 of 72 12 February 2011 at 2:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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The first semester at University ended several weeks ago, then I went off to India to
travel around and see the sights, returning back to University last Wednesday. Unfortunately, none of the students from my class in the previous semester have returned. Thankfully, a number of students from the class below passed the entrance exam to the C1 class. So, I found myself in a class full of (mostly) Russian women. It is quite an experience to hear the ease with which they have picked up Czech, yet also the difficulty many are having with "false friends" between the languages. Plus, Russian is almost sung - it flows smoothly like melted chocolate - whereas Czech is more like machine-gun fire, and I see that adjusting to this is causing some people some problems. All in all, though, I am mighty jealous - since it took me years of struggle to "break though" the mental barriers of becoming comfortable with verbal aspect, and a complex case system. Plus, having close to zero cognates has made picking up vocabulary very hard work. I would say that at the moment I am probably the strongest in the class - but I expect the Russians to overtake me very soon, which will be rather humbling, but also very motivating. Edited by Splog on 12 February 2011 at 2:27pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5459 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 40 of 72 25 February 2011 at 8:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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Two new people have joined my class at University, and yet again, both are women and
both are Russian. It has become clear that most of them have a smaller vocabulary than I have, and a reduced detailed knowledge of Czech grammar, yet they have a deep sense of what "feels right" and so their guesses are often good ones. Of course, they make plenty of mistakes, but this strong feel for guessing well is pretty impressive. It is very interesting that during break times they tend to talk among each other in Russian - even though foreign languages are "forbidden" in the department. Last semester, none of us in the class had a shared first language, so we spoke only Czech all day everyday - and I feel this beneficial tendency has been lost by having so many students from the same background. It makes me wonder whether a foreign language class back in the UK, or any other country, where the majority of students have a shared background and mother tongue, makes it too easy to fall back on that mother tongue. Consequently, it would make sense to try to form classes from as wide a variety of mother tongues as possible. Unfortunately, I have noticed that in the lower-level classes, Charles University (the one I attend in Prague) tends to group together students from the same country. Another interesting point was raised by one of the professors: she warned that I am likely to pick up a Russian accent from the other students, and that it will be hard for me to protect against this. In the previous semester, our small class had students from very different countries, and the only dominant accent was that of the Czech professors. Again, perhaps, then, mixed classes prevent the spread of a dominant foreign accent. Now, you would think that the fact I am "in country" would mean I am exposed to enough native Czech to guard against this. The truth is, I am at University for a huge number of hours, and talking and listening the whole time - and this is probably greater than my exposure to the language outside the university. So, the "in country" effect is probably lower than you would expect. Finally, I am now half-way through the year-long course, and it has surpassed all my initial expectations. I had hoped that by the end of the year I would feel completely comfortable speaking the language on all but the most specialised topics, and would be able to understand what was being said to me without having to think too hard. It is delightful to find that I now feel I have reached these goals already. So, the whole immersion environment has certainly paid off. More important than that, though, is that the topics we discuss are always challenging, and this stretched my abilities almost to the limit. Although this was exhausting at first, the effect has been that "real life" conversations are now much, much, easier - so much so that I now often am not aware of which language I am speaking (at least for non-demanding daily tasks, such as pleasantries with friends, dealing with officials, and just being out and about). So, my biggest lesson is that it is indeed true that you can reach a certain level of fluency by natural immersion in the real world, but that putting yourself into a more demanding environment, that stretches you beyond your ordinary comfort zone, can take you to a whole new level. Edited by Splog on 25 February 2011 at 8:58pm 8 persons have voted this message useful |
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