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NickJS - Team 德 - TAC 2012

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Luna Moonsilver
Diglot
Groupie
Germany
lunaslanglog.wordpreRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4881 days ago

77 posts - 99 votes 
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Russian, Mandarin, Korean

 
 Message 9 of 26
31 December 2011 at 10:29pm | IP Logged 
silverpolyglot wrote:

According to my professor (who greatly dislikes the NPCR series) the entire NPCR series
(that's all 6 books) will
only bring you to about the B1-B2 level, equivalent to the Boya intermediate series
book 1 or 2 and HSK level 2.
So I suppose it's all about what your goals are. I like the NPCR because it builds a
bit on previous knowledge and
it gradually weens us off of pinyin and right into characters (in later books), but I
have no personal experience
with Boya so I can't say anything about it!


That about NPCR is kind of disappointing to me... we're only just on NPCR book 2 and
I'm in my second year of University, but we're only moving onto book 4 in the final
year. If I end up leaving Uni at a B2, I don't see it as having been a significant use
of my time, overall :/

I'm suddenly really glad I've joined up to TAC this year, though! I'll have to start
pushing myself harder than my lecturers do! :]
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silverpolyglot
Diglot
Groupie
Canada
silverchallanges.wor
Joined 4717 days ago

42 posts - 72 votes 
Speaks: English*, Somali
Studies: French, Swedish, Mandarin

 
 Message 10 of 26
01 January 2012 at 3:50am | IP Logged 
My university is the same way except in the final year of "advanced" Chinese, we would
only reach NPCR book 3! I'm sure by doing the TAC challenge you could become so advanced
in your studies you might be able to skip a year of Chinese studies at your school and go
right to the advanced level! You can do it Luna, good luck!!
1 person has voted this message useful



NickJS
Senior Member
United Kingdom
flickr.com/photos/sg
Joined 4762 days ago

264 posts - 334 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Russian, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese

 
 Message 11 of 26
02 January 2012 at 11:20pm | IP Logged 
TAC Update, 02/01/2012.

Been quite since lazy yesterday - Damn these holidays and people buying me alcohol!

Oh well, I started doing some Russian as I was eager to do some and started working my
way through the script book I have, as I do need to learn the alphabet of it (along
with the pronunciations for them - always the 'r' sound that gets me though, like with
Mandarin), although all of the listening and some of the spoken words I know already
help a little.

I used: Russian Articulation
for the sounds, but I found the format of the website confused me a little, nonetheless
it was helpful - I know it will take me a while to learn these pronunciations, as I'm not the fastest of
learners when it comes to absorbing information, but I'll get there soon hopefully - now that they are written
down on a whiteboard on my wall too.

I've done about 3 hours listening for Russian yesterday and today, and about 1 for
Mandarin. However I think I shall do some Anki flashcards for Mandarin after before bed
and also learn some more of the Russian alphabet. I'm definitely tired today though, so
I'm not sure how productive I'll be - still, always best to do something :).

Edited by NickJS on 02 January 2012 at 11:23pm

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NickJS
Senior Member
United Kingdom
flickr.com/photos/sg
Joined 4762 days ago

264 posts - 334 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Russian, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese

 
 Message 12 of 26
08 January 2012 at 2:58am | IP Logged 
I'm back, its been a few days - things have been quite busy the past week, lots of visiting people who
I have not seen in years, on the upside I have got plenty of listening done - helpful or not, I still
do it for over an hour everyday. Furthermore, I have a really nice Mandarin dictionary (with
pronunciation) on my new phone which is great for when I'm out. I think its called "HanPing" on the
Android.

Further more, I have been doing a little of all the languages that I mentioned, including the 3 which I
mentioned in my first post, for which I stated "Note: The 3 languages above are without goals at this
moment in time and are to be studied lightly at the beginning of this TAC, which will allow me to
decide out of the 3 which I will stick with and add permanently to further study and which I will also
discard for another time as I do not want to overload myself with lots of different languages" and I
have come to the conclusion that I will be continuing with Russian over Norwegian/Cantonese. For
the simple reasons, I definitely felt I was getting stuff mixed up with Mandarin (I wish my brain had
folders which I could personally organise!) and the reason for choosing Russian over Norwegian is
because I do really fancy a trip to either Russia or China this year if all goes well. So, if TAC'12
goes well for me, Norwegian/Cantonese will be on my hit list for TAC'13.

I think that is all I'm going to write for tonight as I always write my posts at silly hours at night
haha!
1 person has voted this message useful



NickJS
Senior Member
United Kingdom
flickr.com/photos/sg
Joined 4762 days ago

264 posts - 334 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Russian, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese

 
 Message 13 of 26
09 January 2012 at 3:38am | IP Logged 
Just been doing some Russian again today, trying to learn the alphabet still - so far I
know about 3/4 of the letters and I know the pronunciation for about 1/6 haha! I am
working through a TY beginners script book at the moment though, so I'll fully know it by
the end of that.

Other than that, I'm just getting my head around the stresses when а and о are used in a
two syllable word and when о is used in a single syllable word. As far as I know, о if
unstressed is pronounced as а if the other а is stressed. But when its just о on its own,
its pronounced normally (not like а).

I'm so slow when it comes to learning pronunciations!
1 person has voted this message useful



Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6400 days ago

9753 posts - 15779 votes 
4 sounds
Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish

 
 Message 14 of 26
09 January 2012 at 4:17am | IP Logged 
NickJS wrote:
Other than that, I'm just getting my head around the stresses when а and о are used in a
two syllable word and when о is used in a single syllable word. As far as I know, о if
unstressed is pronounced as а if the other а is stressed. But when its just о on its own,
its pronounced normally (not like а).
There's also the preposition o 'about'. This one sort of blends in with the following word and i'd say it's especially a-like if in the word the stress is on the first syllable (о футболе vs о музыке). same with other prepositions like от, до (though not in the expression от и до, from a to z:)) However, in a one-syllable independent word it's indeed just o: он, что, дом etc.
Also, if the o is unstressed, it doesn't matter if the other stressed letter is a or another o or whatever other vowel. For example, in the word молоко the stress is on the last o and the other o's are pretty much a's (and somewhat like schwas, really).
I don't think you're learning slowly at all:)

Edited by Serpent on 09 January 2012 at 4:19am

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NickJS
Senior Member
United Kingdom
flickr.com/photos/sg
Joined 4762 days ago

264 posts - 334 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Russian, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese

 
 Message 15 of 26
10 January 2012 at 3:37am | IP Logged 
Serpent wrote:
NickJS wrote:
Other than that, I'm just getting my head around the stresses when а and
о are used in a
two syllable word and when о is used in a single syllable word. As far as I know, о if
unstressed is pronounced as а if the other а is stressed. But when its just о on its own,
its pronounced normally (not like а).
There's also the preposition o 'about'. This one sort of
blends in with the following word and i'd say it's especially a-like if in the word the stress is on the
first syllable (о футболе vs о музыке). same with other prepositions like от, до (though not in the
expression от и до, from a to z:)) However, in a one-syllable independent word it's indeed just o: он,
что, дом etc.
Also, if the o is unstressed, it doesn't matter if the other stressed letter is a or another o or
whatever other vowel. For example, in the word молоко the stress is on the last o and the other o's are
pretty much a's (and somewhat like schwas, really).
I don't think you're learning slowly at all:)


Thank you for explaining that for me Serpent :)!
1 person has voted this message useful



NickJS
Senior Member
United Kingdom
flickr.com/photos/sg
Joined 4762 days ago

264 posts - 334 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Russian, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese

 
 Message 16 of 26
24 January 2012 at 1:53am | IP Logged 
Not much to report since my last post, my life is quite busy at the moment - atleast it is for the next couple of weeks as I will be spending a lot of time doing repairs on my car.

Still I've got bits of studying done here and there, as always though I make sure I do plenty of listening.

With Mandarin I tend to practice what I know when I'm on my way somewhere and I just think to myself in the phrases things that I know. I'm hoping to get started on my textbooks when life calms down a little. As I tend to learn off Youtube and online dictionaries or other random sources on the internet, which is often annoying to keep track of.

With Russian, I'm still working on the alphabet (so slow haha) but I have clocked tonnes of listening for this as I have found some bands that I really like and I have noticed that I'm saying words that I have picked up from listening. I also keep trying to practice 'р' as I'm not used to it at all yet :P.


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