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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 5875 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes  1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 289 of 292 22 November 2013 at 7:39pm | IP Logged |
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Hi Luso! Thank you, and I'm glad you stopped by. It's starting to get a little quiet here in my log. Yes, I'm really enjoying that "fresh language feeling" with Mandarin.
I feel like I'm off to a good start. I never really learned French like I should have, meaning I never completely learned the beginning lessons from Assimil and I think I'm paying the price now by having to go back and review. I'm trying to avoid that mistake now with Mandarin Actually Mandarin isn't too "foreign". I was learning Japanese when I joined HTLAL -- I found my way here by googling "shadowing" because I had bought Shadowing, Let's Speak Japanese. That's when I discovered Professor Arguelles. It's too bad I didn't succeed in learning Japanese. That's definitely not because of shadowing or Prof. Arguelles' teachings. I just didn't learn it well enough. I estimate I never got past basic N4. I'll be interested to see how far I get with my new language. The tonal aspect of speaking is really quite tricky so I don't think there's any other way to learn Mandarin other than shadowing. I'm glad I've started doing it again. Edited by Sunja on 22 November 2013 at 7:43pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| BAnna Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4412 days ago 409 posts - 616 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Turkish | Message 290 of 292 01 December 2013 at 8:58pm | IP Logged |
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Cool that you are learning Mandarin, along with your other languages. I keep flirting with the idea of learning another language, but it takes such a long time to be able to enjoy native materials, I end up talking myself out of it. Only so many hours in the day and all that...
Happy December! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5875 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 291 of 292 02 December 2013 at 9:58am | IP Logged |
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"only so many hours in the day" is right. That's our biggest problem here at HTLAL!
Yes, I'll definitely have to wait for native materials. I assume it will be at least two years before I'm able to look at anything native in Mandarin. I think I'll have to reach level HSK 4 which is B1 according to some. After Assimil I plan to go through the "Chinese Breeze" series. That should get me to HSK 3 (600 characters). Assimil gives me just the right dose for the beginning stage and I'm happy with it. What I really like is that it tackles homophones (快 and 块 both pronounced "kuai") in the same lesson/dialog so I can learn to make the distinction through context right away. I feel it's the right program for me and I'm really enjoying it. I'll probably make one more post this month before summarizing my progress and drawing the line for next year. I don't know if a new TAC will be started for 2014 nor not... If not, I'll still continue with this log, although probably less frequently. It's not so much fun to log in the beginning stages of doing Assimil. Regular log entries might get boring. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5875 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 292 of 292 14 December 2013 at 7:25pm | IP Logged |
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YEAR-END SUMMARY:
French: I’m continuing to watch my old Star Trek DVDs in French and I’m reviewing old Assimil lessons that never got activated. I really wanted to take the DELF B2 in Feb. I made such intricate plans! The fact is I’m just not ready. Listening is still very hard and my writing skills are very much B1. Reading is okay and I think I can hold my own speaking, but I’ve never been tested. Making the transition from B1 to B2 won’t be too hard but I need time. I only have so many hours per week to do language and right now, Mandarin is taking up most of them. Once those hours are used up it becomes very difficult to advance. German: My main goal this year was my SGD certificate. I still have 4 months to complete it. After that I plan on looking for more work. I’m itching for new challenges. Once I’m finished with the course, I can focus more on the language itself. I feel like my skills have regressed in some areas. I deal with the same routine day in, day out so I feel somewhat stagnated. I need to write more in German and I need to challenge myself. I’m slowly doing advanced grammar exercises. That gives me some structure when I write. I’m using the Heuber book for advanced learners which I’ve always worked out of. The good news is there are fewer grammar mistakes than there were two years ago. How that came to be, I don’t know. I haven’t studied grammar. My new hobby is German shorthand (Steno), and all I need to do is practice so that I can use it everywhere. Mandarin: I started Mandarin at the end of October. As far as TAC goes, this will be my main focus for 2014. Adieu old log. Edited by Sunja on 04 January 2014 at 2:45pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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