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TAC 2011 - Team Ω - Alpha | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Alpha Diglot Newbie Germany Joined 5609 days ago 22 posts - 27 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Japanese, Polish, Greek | Message 1 of 6 06 January 2011 at 2:52pm | IP Logged |
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It's already some days into 2011, which means it's high time for me to start my TAC log. I may start this log a little late, but at least I've already done some studying during the last days – studying and getting all the materials together. So far I've never participated in a Total Annihilation Challenge. But from what I've observed (in a completely different field, however) a little challenge can only be positive for my motivation and thus, for reaching my goals.
In this first post (which is probably the longest I've ever written or that I'll ever write ...) I'd like to present my plans concerning Japanese, (Modern) Greek and Polish, in all of which I hope to make considerable progress this year. These plans are not final. If I notice that something isn't working out the way I was hoping for, I'll definitely change it. No use bothering with an ineffective method or material. 日本語 Initially I started to learn Japanese so I could understand some songs and read those strange cryptic characters, none of which seemed to look alike. With time my interest changed to anime and manga and finally to the whole country and its culture. Now, I still listen to Japanese music and watch some dorama from time to time, but I'm basically interested in understanding, well, everything. Japanese will be something like my main language this year and the one that I hope to make most progress in. Current level: probably somewhere around high beginner or low intermediate. I've been studying Japanese for several years on and off, but never continuous and always without definite goals. Goal: firm intermediate with a tendency towards advanced Materials: smart.fm's core6000 Last year I finished core2000 as well as the first part of core6000. Currently I'm working on the second and third part. Heisig's Remembering the Kanji 1 (and Reviewing the Kanji at kanji.koohii.com) After long consideration I decided to give it a try – my kanji learning over all those years has been messy to say the least. I started last year and did about 400 kanji which I'm currently reviewing. Afterwards I'll try to do 30 kanji per day. ハリー・ポッターと賢者の石(Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone) I have the text and the audiobook and with the help of the English translation and rikai-chan I'll work my way slowly through the text. So far I understand it quite well and there are no bigger problems than lack of vocabulary. ケルン日本文化会館開館４０周年記念誌 (Festschrift zum 40. Jubiläum des Japanischen Kulturinstituts) I got this publication from a friend who knows I'm learning Japanese. It's in German and Japanese and as far as I have seen it is a direct translation. Perfect for reading something else besides a novel and the occasional blog entry. 100 hours of listening to podcasts This will be the only activity that I will log the time spent. I plan to listen to a total of 100 hours of Japanese podcasts, which means podcasts aimed first and foremost at native speakers. So far I've chosen 3 different kinds, two of which are mostly free talk. 100 hours means that I'll have to listen to approximately 16 – 17 min every day. ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ I love Greece and the Greek language. It's as simple as that. I've been to Greece several times (mostly to Crete, actually) and hope to go there plenty more times. Now, my parents are building a house there, which will hopefully be finished this year. In order to communicate with the locals it's basically essential to speak Greek, even though some of them speak some English or a little German. Also, I love Greek music and I'd very much like to understand what I'm listening to every day. Current level: still very much a beginner, somewhere around A1 and A2 Goal: at least B1 Materials: Assimil's Griechisch ohne Mühe I'm at lesson 46 now and I just reviewed all lessons up to this one. Around November last year I started to enter all the vocabulary into Anki because I couldn't keep up with the amount of new words. There are only a few lessons left until the active wave starts and I don't want to start using a dictionary in order to translate the sentences. I want to concentrate on the grammar mostly. Langenscheidt's Praktisches Lehrbuch Griechisch My secondary course. It has more detailed grammar explanations than Assimil, exercises and some tests. Easy Readers in different levels Ο Χάρι Πότερ και ο Αιχμάλωτος του Αζκαμπάν (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Askaban) Unfortunately, I don't have any audiobooks for Greek. So reading will have to do for now (apart from listening to the radio and music). I plan to first read all the Easy Readers and then arm myself with a dictionary and read Harry Potter. POLSKI I had the opportunity to take a few lessons in 2009 and now I don't want it to be a waste. Also, Poland is a direct neighbour of Germany, there are many Poles here, and I've always wanted to learn a Slavic language. Current level: very beginner Goal: I'd be happy to reach B1 Materials: Assimil's Polnisch ohne Mühe I'm at lesson 24 now. Since all the lessons of this course are much shorter than those from the Greek Assimil course, I'm quite sure that I'll finish this book before the Greek one. First-Year Polish by the University of Pittsburgh This is a course that is available on the Internet for free. It looks quite comprehensive, so I think I'll use it as my secondary course for Polish. It has 12 lessons and I plan to do one per month. "Cień Wiatru" by Carlos Ruiz Zafón The only Polish book I have and not an easy one like Harry Potter. But that doesn't matter as long as I like the story – and I love this one. I'll first finish Assimil to build some kind of foundation and then I think, I'll give this a try; of course, once again armed with the audiobook, a dictionary and a translation. Some general information: I have an account at lang-8. So far I made little use of it, but this year I want to try and make more or less regular entries for both Japanese and Greek. Innovative Language Learning started GreekPod101 and PolishPod101. Some way or another I'll probably include them into my learning. At least it will provide a little bit more listening. For learning vocabulary I'll mostly use Anki. As I don't want to spend hours reviewing vocab cards only, I'll set myself the limit of one hour per day, which amounts to 20 minutes per language. During the last few weeks I already managed to learn a great deal of the Greek Assimil vocabulary and it never took me more than that (except for once when I hadn't reviewed for several days ...). Last but not least, English is not my native language and I'm sure I still make a lot of mistakes. That's why I'd be very grateful if you point out any grave mistakes or tell me of ways to formulate sentences better (if they sound like something a native speaker would never say, for instance). If you read this whole post up to this point, I'd like to thank you for your patience and interest. From the next post on I'll write about my actual progress. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Sir Lunch-a-lot Groupie Canada Joined 5337 days ago 58 posts - 64 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Ancient Greek | Message 2 of 6 10 January 2011 at 6:45am | IP Logged |
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Huh. You could have fooled me into thinking that English was your native language. I
saw nothing in your post that was obviously bad or unconventional in its order/construction. Something to consider looking at, if you don't mind listening to the Bible, is seeing if you can find a free recording of the bible in modern Greek. I remember finding a Koine Greek audio bible read with a modern Greek pronunciation, but that probably wouldn't be helpful. However, I would imagine that there must be a translation into modern Greek that someone has recorded for free (although, since the Greek speaking world these days is fairly small, it is also possible that nobody has created a free audio recording of the modern Greek bible, since there would be less interest in that than Koine Greek recordings). Another place to check for audio books in general is the Project Gutenberg website (gutenberg.org, I believe). I don't know what they have in Greek, but often for English books there are human read audio files available for download (and machine read... but I would avoid those unless you are really desperate). Anyway, best of luck in your ambitious plan for the 2011 TAC! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 5953 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 3 of 6 10 January 2011 at 7:18am | IP Logged |
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頑張って！ Καλή τύχη! Powodzenia!
We share three target languages this year, so I'll be following your log eagerly and am looking forward to reading your updates. I'd be happy to help you with anything you need for Greek, since I already speak it quite well and it's something of a secondary native language for me. Είμαι πολύ ευτυχισμένος να δω ότι υπάρχει κόσμος εδώ που μελετάει Ελληνικά σοβαρά! Η οικογένεια της μάνας μου προέρχεται από την Κρήτη, από Χανιά και ένα χωριό που το λένε Σφακοπηγάδι. Πού στην Ελλάδα και στην Κρήτη έχεις πάει εσύ; Θα μάθεις και την κρητική διάλεκτος; Oh, and your English is excellent by the way. I didn't find any errors, or even anything that sounded unnatural in that whole introduction -- I actually forgot that English isn't your native language until you reminded me at the end! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Alpha Diglot Newbie Germany Joined 5609 days ago 22 posts - 27 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Japanese, Polish, Greek | Message 4 of 6 12 January 2011 at 1:35pm | IP Logged |
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It is very encouraging to see that two native speakers practically didn't notice that my writing isn't native English. The reason I asked to be corrected if necessary is simply because I haven't used English much for months – actively, that is. And even before, I knew that I make mistakes occasionally; sometimes I only overlook one when reading and correcting my own writing and at other times it happens because I just didn't know any better.
I'm not actually studying English anymore, but I'm still learning it and trying to get better. And it's very difficult to rectify mistakes – especially minor ones – when no one points them out. @ ellasevia: Ήμουν μια φορά στην Κερκύρα και στη Δωδώνη και μερικές φορές στην Κρήτη. Το σπίτι των γονειών μου βρίσκεται στο Δήμο Βιάννου. Δεν ξέρω καλά τη δύση της Κρήτης. Το Ρέθυμνο είναι η πόλη η πιο δυτική στην όποια ήμουν μέχρι τώρα. Επιπλέον, φτάνουμε με το αεροπλάνο πάντα στο Ηράκλειο και όχι στα Χανιά. Δεν ξέρω ακόμα αν θα μαθαίνω και την κρητική διάλεκτος. Τώρα μου φτάνει να μαθαίνω τα κανονικά ελληνικά :) Ήταν η πρώτη φορά ότι έγραφα στα Ελληνικά. Είναι αρκετά δύσκολο και μου παίρνει πολύ χρόνο να διατυπώνω τις προτάσεις. @ Sir Lunch-a-lot: Thanks for your suggestions! I know Project Gutenberg and they have indeed some texts for Greek. However, it seems that none of the texts has a corresponding audio file. As for the bible, I'm a bit hesitant. Not because it's the bible, but because I know how the text sounds like in German and I don't want to end up sounding so – biblical. Anyway, I haven't found a recording yet. Da ihr beide Deutsch lernt, wünsche ich euch viel Erfolg! (Since you both are learning German, I wish you good luck! (actually: Erfolg = success)) *************** Let's see what I did (language-wise) those last days. 日本語 - smart.fm core6000 part 2 – nearly finished - read the first few pages of Harry Potter – and I'm still debating whether to enter unknown words into Anki or not - RTK 1 – reviewed until frame 369 - Podcasts: 71:45 min = 1 h 11 min 45 sec Ελληνικά - completed Assimil lesson 46 and started 47 May I count the little text above as writing exercise? I suppose so :) Polski - started Polish First year - reviewed Assimil lessons 1 – 23 Unfortunately, there is no vocabulary list in this Assimil book. That's why I have to write out all words I want to learn manually in order to enter them into Anki, just like I do with the Greek course. Looking them all up one by one takes quite a lot of time, but I hope I'll be finished until the end of this week. Anki So far I only did Greek repetitions, because I haven't entered any Japanese and Polish words yet. As for Japanese, I'm busy doing smart.fm. I doubt whether it would be wise to have another deck at the same time and learn something like 50 words or more per day, considering that I also learn vocabulary from two other languages. Side note: I just receiced my new Greek dictionary :) The dictionary I used so far only has about 28 000 entries for both Greek - German and German - Greek. That one won't take me far, I thought, so I got a better one. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Alpha Diglot Newbie Germany Joined 5609 days ago 22 posts - 27 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Japanese, Polish, Greek | Message 5 of 6 18 January 2011 at 1:13pm | IP Logged |
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Another week gone - time for an update:
日本語 - smart.fm core6000 – Part 2 takes quite a lot of time to finish, because the application only let's me review a handful of words every second day now. I mostly studied new words at part 3. - Harry Potter 1 – finished the first chapter. - RTK 1 – I finished reviewing those kanji that I had already studied and learned some new ones, so that I'm officially at 475 kanji now. - Podcasts: 110:04 min = 1 h 50 min 4 sec (total: 3 h 1 min 49 sec) Ελληνικά - completed Assimil lesson 47 - I read through the first three chapters of the Langenscheidt course and began the exercises of chapter 1. So far it is really easy. Apart from a few new words there was nothing new for me. - I also read a short children's story by Τζον 'Ερβινγκ :) I understood it quite well, considering that I read it without dictionary and the only help came from some vocabulary notes my mother had made. Now, I know what a τέρας is (even though I probably won't need that word any time soon), and I learned the word προσπαθώ from both that little story and the Assimil lesson 47. Polski - I finished writing down all Polish vocabulary that I came across in Assimil so far and started lesson 24. Anki I mostly did Greek repetitions, but I began to enter and review the Polish words from Assimil, too. I finally finished reviewing all those things that I started sometime in the past, like RTK and Assimil, and now, I hope I'll be able to start studying for real. The worst thing that happened these days was my growing inclination to read the whole Harry Potter series again. I have so many other books, that I want to read and now something like this happens... Let's see whether I can resist the temptation. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 5953 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 6 of 6 06 February 2011 at 8:59am | IP Logged |
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Πώς πάνε οι μελέτες σου; Δεν έχεις γράψει τίποτα σε πολύ καιρό. Ελπίζω ότι όλα πάει καλά με σένα
και με τις γλώσσες σου. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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