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TAC 2013 Team Schnitzel mit pommes und 饭 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6083 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes  1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 281 of 292 09 October 2013 at 9:57am | IP Logged |
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I'm falling way behind again. October is proving to be a mess.
I've got tax problems with the US -- I failed to fill out the new FBAR forms for the past two years and I'm having to hire a US CPA here in Germany to help me get caught up with the IRS. The IRS is really cracking down on us poor expats! At least I don't owe any money.... but it's the fact that I'm forced to report everything that drives me bananas. Pretty soon they're going to want to know what kind of cereal I eat for breakfast. Then we're having problems with this old house again. The basement is starting to flood every time it rains. We've called it in but we don't know what action our landlord will take, he'll probably just gripe at us and claim that we're the cause of it. Moving everything out of the basement has been the priority here so far. I don'T think October will be very productive in terms of study...The best thing I can do is listen to podcasts. It's actually been very relaxing the past few days. When I concentrate I can forget all my other little problems. Luckily it's all temporary and November should get better. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6083 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 282 of 292 12 October 2013 at 7:11pm | IP Logged |
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I'm supposed to be reading ....
but I decided to do a "quick" skills assessment because I'm already mapping out my goals for the next year. GERMAN By the time November arrives I will have been in Germany for 14 years. Gradually I plan on increasing my work hours during the next few years. So what's my goal? Actually it hasn't changed, that is, to get as close to native as it gets or at least make it appear that way. It's not easy. After speaking for a few minutes, my accent gives me away. So there’s no way to hide that, but I’d can work on other areas such as, LISTENING: I can understand almost everything. The only thing preventing me from understanding everything is “The Nuschler” -- someone who mumbles or who speaks too fast. I have a few of these at work. I don’t mind using the foreigner excuse. It’s okay if people are reminded that I’m a foreigner, but if it happens too often then I risk looking incompetent. I have one trick that I use and that is, “Ich habe Sie akustisch nicht verstanden”. This has a great advantage, because I let them know that it’s not because I’m too slow to understand, but that I just didn’t hear the words correctly because they were so inaudible. Even if I’m not quite sure of the content afterwards, I can still avoid looking like I didn’t understand by asking questions and rephrasing what they said. I’d like to practice more of these kinds of skills this next year. WRITING: My biggest weakness is writing because that’s the area that gets the least attention. I usually have to write Bewertungen and reports for work. If I write something that has to be absolutely spot-on then I have a colleague check it and they will help me restate something so that it sounds more native. The problem is, I’m tired of always wondering “is this the right way to phrase this?” I’m tired of always checking. I’d like to be more confident when I write. This will be a long process. I decided on the book: „Wer reden kann, macht Eindruck - wer schreiben kann, macht Karriere: Das Schreibfitnessprogramm für mehr Erfolg im Job“. Nice long title! SPEAKING: This gets better as soon as I practice saying what I want to say beforehand. Sometimes if it’s a current topic I’ll practice a few phrases with various people to hear different responses. Listening to movies and mimicking might be a way to improve, I don't know, and I'm wondering if I have time in 2014 to see more movies. I usually avoid them because of my studies. Maybe after January. Speaking is actually never a problem. I don’t have to deal with new people on a daily basis, I don’t deal in customer-service, I stay within my circles, so there’s no real pressure to improve this area. FRENCH As if German weren't enough, I really want to push myself to reach B2. Unlike German, which is a long-term goal, French is rather short-term. The date for the exam is in January. I've been listening to podcasts and the next step will be to continue writing these monologues. I've written a few more but I'd like to reach the goal of 10 writings (journal entries at lang-8) per month. I hope I make it. I'm on leçon 102 of Assimil. I need to increase that as well. If I can practice more writing and listening, that will increase my chances of achieving my goal. I'm not worried about speaking so much. I've been memorizing these monologues. If I memorize 30 of them (10x3months) that might be enough. I can already do most of Shekhtman's communication tools. I need to brush up on grammar. So what we're looking at is, 1. 10 writings per month until Dec. 2. Stay with Assimil 3. Grammar revision 4. polish communication tools (Boris Shekhtman) Edited by Sunja on 12 October 2013 at 7:12pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6083 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 283 of 292 16 October 2013 at 10:24am | IP Logged |
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The new dates for the DELF 2014 have been set, February, April and June. I can sign up for the B1 or the B2, so I have plenty of options! As for the date, I'd like to choose either February or April. June is too far away. The reason is, I'd like to start another language in 2014 and it's my current goal to have a solid benchmark (the DELF) before I start anything new.
I have to remember that my actual priority is my SGD course. That normally ends in March, but I could extend it if I wanted to. I don't really want to push my certificate any farther than March. If I have to be modest and take the B1, then so be it. My German SGD certificate was my main goal for this year's TAC and not French. So it looks like if I choose February, I'll have to settle for taking the DELF B1. If I go for April there's a small chance that I could pass B2, but that means I'll have to put in more hours, starting now. That's going to be hard. There are always obligations to work, family, etc that keep my study time short. Some days I feel so confident that I can do B2, other days (like today) I feel I shouldn't push it. In any case, I'll keep my options open and I'll decide when TAC ends! Edited by Sunja on 16 October 2013 at 10:27am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6083 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 284 of 292 21 October 2013 at 8:29pm | IP Logged |
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French: moving along extremely slowly. I'm listening to podcasts while gardening and driving, and I'm shadowing a tiny bit here and there. I haven't written anything new in a while.
German: falling behind in my course because I got everything right on the last homework assignment and ich suhle mich jetzt in meinen 100 Punkte. I'm wallowing in my 100 points. ^^ I really have to get back on the ball and finish a book before I'm more than just one month behind. Mandarin (!) I started Mandarin a couple of days ago. The cries to learn Mandarin started a year ago and they just got too darn loud. I have colleagues in the auto industry and I’m tired of hearing their adventures of learning Mandarin. So move it on over colleagues, I’m jumping on the bandwagon! I figure my journey will be long so I might as well get started. There's such a giddy feeling when you start a new language, it's like getting a Christmas present! I'm learning with www.mahou.org/Kanji/ so I can give myself a foothold with the characters. It's one of the few websites I've found that list the radicals. Denshi jisho isn't really working at the moment. I paid full price with Assimil (ouch) and I'm not sure what the consequences are going to be since I haven't paid my accountant yet for amending my US taxes (hallo), but I'm sure I can tighten my belt for November and things will be fine -- and I'll be busy!^^ Edited by Sunja on 21 October 2013 at 8:30pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6083 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 285 of 292 24 October 2013 at 7:58pm | IP Logged |
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Mandarin:
I've started the first two lessons of ASsmil. Man, it's really fun. I've already dissected each character and examined the radicals. One thing I've noticed, I can recognize them easier in their traditional form. 食 and 嗎 are simplified to 饣 and 马. I need the traditional characters for my stories. It's an extra step to create the stories but I think it will be worth it. I did a lot of work with Heisig in the past and I think it will come to be useful. I'm working with a small handful of vocabulary: I, you, Reis, hungry, want, soup, tired, go. I'll stay on this a week. I'm testing the waters very carefully. I don't want to rush ahead with unbridled enthusiasam. I went too fast with ASsimil French with Ease and the result was that it took longer for me to learn active French because by the time I'd gotten to the end, I'd forgotten everything that I'd learned in the beginning. The problem is, without any kind of "feel" for the language, it's hard to know how fast or how slow to take it. How long to spend on a character? French: I'm reading out loud and basically doing as much as I can in the mornings when I'm not working. The mornings are unusually quiet because we're still on fall break and everyone sleeps in. This is a perfect time for me to do plenty of speaking drills. I just sit down with the 10 monologues I've written and I go through each one. Goes great with coffee. I estimate I spend about one hour doing drills. Edited by Sunja on 25 October 2013 at 9:31am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6083 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 286 of 292 02 November 2013 at 12:44pm | IP Logged |
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I had to stop everything shortly after I wrote that last post. Things were way too hectic because of school and our Halloween party. Now I think I can move back on track.
I have all my materials to learn the first 800 characters of Mandarin: "Learning Chinese Characters, Volume 1: HSK level A: A Revolutionary New Way to Learn and Remember the 800 Most Basic Chinese Characters" (we'll just call it "the Tuttle book") When I open the Tuttle book, I already feel a great sigh of relief because I can tell it's going to be sooo much easier to use in comparison to Heisig. With Heisig, I always had trouble using the book as a reference. Looking up characters by the radicals has always been a painstaking chore, simply because there are so many. The Tuttle book only has 800 and it's set up more like a dictionary. I can also look up words by their meaning. I can't do that with Heisig, because his index of "key words" aren't necessarily the same as the meaning of the word. The Tuttle book also has stories for remembering the characters, but they also incorporate the sounds into the stories. There are archetypes for indicating which tone is used. When there's more than one tone, both archetypes are present. Giant 1st tone (high) Fairy 2nd tone (rising) Teddy 3rd tone (falling then rising) Dwarf 4th tone (falling) I've been modifying the stories a little to fit my preferences, but for example, I've been putting "teddy" in parenthesis on my flashcards to help me remember the 3rd tone. I'm a visual person so for me, It's better than writing "(3)" for 3rd tone. I've made paper flashcards of sentences from Assimil. There's still soooo much information that's new to me, that I need handmade flashcards so I can make drawings, indicate stroke order, write the elements of the stories, etc, etc. The cards are so packed already! I have an additional set of flashcards ""Chinese Flash Cards, Volume 1: Characters 1-349: HSK Elementary Level" and I probably don't even need them right now, but I've enjoyed the set that I got for Japanese (White Rabbit Press) so much, that I decided to invest in a set for Mandarin. The cards come with a nice keyring, and there's a CD with it. There are compounds for each character, but I'm ignoring them for now. I have to figure out how to say the characters first. I'm not sure what my learning system will be, but I'm definitely focusing on Assimil's first 3 lessons. I'll use the other two items as references. For example, instead of starting with the first character of the Tuttle book, I'm just looking up the characters from the Assimil lessons. I look them up by their radicals but I can also try searching by meaning or pinyin. It's a great book! GERMAN: I -promise- to finish WSH06 TODAY!! FRENCH: I was in such a good groove a week before Halloween but now I've lost it. I'll get it back this week. I need more monologues, so I hope I can get some writing done on Sunday. I've spent the whole week doing things for others, now I finally get a little time to myself. I can hole up with my new materials and my German Lernheft, and really get some good study time in ;) Edited by Sunja on 04 November 2013 at 9:42am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6083 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 287 of 292 22 November 2013 at 10:11am | IP Logged |
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I've been having back trouble the past month. It's gotten progressively worse, so that I have to get a Verordnung für Krankengymnastik. I've had to stop doing my yoga, jogging and pilates for the time being. All in all it's made me feel about 30 years older and I'm a bit depressed because of it.
For that reason I've decided to highlight my goals for the upcoming month in the hopes that it will shake me out of the depressed mood I'm in. MANDARIN SPOKEN The good news is that despite all my problems I've been rather consistent with Mandarin. I'm -never- consistent so this is a good thing. I've been walking (had to stop jogging) twice every morning; once after I drop my daughter off at school and then once again before noon. I've been shadowing 3 lessons a week. This time of the year is quite cold, damp, dank and dreary and there are few out and about at 8:00 am, only those really early dog-walkers. So with no one around I can shadow as loudly as I want. It's great. What's better is that it's good for my health problems -- fresh air and walking. I'm on lesson twelve. My goal is to do three lessons per week. MANDARIN WRITTEN Funny, after that big speech I made in my last post, I'm using the Heisig book after all. I've hardly opened the Tuttle book and I think purchasing it may have been a mistake. Too bad, such a nice book, but I like Heisig's stories after all. I think because way back in the deep pockets of my memory I still remember learning all that stuff for Japanese. Now the pictures and Heisig's words are starting to come to make sense to me. There are a few hard ones, like 漂亮, 喜欢, or 颜色. I know the Japanese 色 but why "lad" and "head"? Oh well. I only need Heisig to serve as a placeholder until I get some experience with these words. FRENCH The one thing I really regret is that I've let French fall by the wayside and I'm not sure WHEN I will have time to jump-start it again. I will find the time, when my mind is not so full of other things. GERMAN The German course is fine. I'm half done with it, but I'm very slow since I've started Mandarin. I'm about three books behind. I don't work so much during Christmas. The tutoring business slows to a standstill and all my other clients go on holiday. It's not like I have a -lot- of Kundschaft, so I'll have more time than usual. That will be good for my studies. Edited by Sunja on 22 November 2013 at 10:25am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Luso Hexaglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 6059 days ago 819 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, French, EnglishC2, GermanB1, Italian, Spanish Studies: Sanskrit, Arabic (classical) | Message 288 of 292 22 November 2013 at 2:16pm | IP Logged |
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I'm glad you're back. Sorry to hear about your health problems.
The way I see it you're using Mandarin to get that "fresh language" feeling again (knowingly or not). Rewarding as it may be, learning languages at an advanced level only can be quite tiresome. And I dare say (judging by your profile) Mandarin is your first proper foreign language. Am I right? :) N.B.: By "proper" I mean with a different structure, alphabet (well, not alphabet, in this case, but you get my drift), etc. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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