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Jae’s Log - TAC 2012 - Team 德

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jae
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5677 days ago

206 posts - 239 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Latin
Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, French

 
 Message 1 of 38
27 December 2011 at 5:54pm | IP Logged 
Hello everyone. I'm joining TAC for the first time this coming year and am doing so as part of Team 德. This year I'll be focusing on Mandarin Chinese and Portuguese.

Starting Point:
Mandarin - I am a "high novice" in Mandarin (according to the oral proficiency test I took earlier this year). This is probably comparable to an A2 level.
Portuguese - I have studied Portuguese before, but have forgotten a lot in the intervening time. My passive understanding is much greater than my active use ability.

Goals:
Mandarin - I hope to be at a solid intermediate level of Chinese by the end of the year. By that I mean I hope to be able to participate in small conversations with relative ease. (Around a B1/B2 level). I also hope to increase the number of characters I can recognize (I hope to learn vocab and corresponding characters together.)
Portuguese - For Portuguese, my goals are slightly greater (since I don't have characters to learn for Portuguese). By the end of the year I hope to be able to participate in most everyday situations and conversations with ease. (B2/C1). I know it's a lot to expect, but since I have already studied the language a bit and understand the foundations of grammar, I hope to be able to get that far.

Materials:
Mandarin - I have two books and matching workbooks that I'll be using as my primary resources for Mandarin. They're called "Let's Learn Chinese" and are from China. I have already made it through one book earlier this year and am reviewing it during the holidays.
Portuguese - I found a textbook called Português Básico Para Estrangeiros, which I am planning to use. I do not yet know much about the textbook, but it seems to cover a lot of content. However, if I do not like it, I may switch later in the year. I am also planning to use Pimsleur Portuguese to get me started on more conversational Portuguese, rather than just learning from a textbook.
That's all! Can't wait to begin!

Edited by jae on 29 December 2011 at 10:55pm

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Luna Moonsilver
Diglot
Groupie
Germany
lunaslanglog.wordpreRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5091 days ago

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

 
 Message 2 of 38
27 December 2011 at 11:51pm | IP Logged 
祝你好运! Next year's going to be a good one - I'm excited to be on this team with everyone
:].

I think you and I have similar goals in Mandarin, in terms of the levels we're reaching
for and the fact that I'm focussing on learning characters/vocab as well. I want to be
able to read! ;]
1 person has voted this message useful



jae
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5677 days ago

206 posts - 239 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Latin
Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, French

 
 Message 3 of 38
30 December 2011 at 2:16pm | IP Logged 
Hi Luna -- I know, I want to be able to read too! It's just so hard... :D Good luck, teammate! 祝你好运! (Also, I enjoyed reading your log!)

Okay, now for an update on my studies...
I've been starting to study both languages somewhat intensely over the winter holidays (I've had a long break with not much else to do). So far, here's what I've accomplished:

Mandarin -- Reviewed all of the characters and vocab for units 1-4 (there are about 5 lessons per unit). I'm now working on unit 5. Afterward, I hope to go back and review all the dialogues without the use of pinyin (dialogues are given in characters with pinyin underneath). I don't think reviewing the dialogues will take so long, just getting all the characters down pat takes a while.

Portuguese -- I've decided to kick off my studies by first attaining a basic vocabulary and then moving on to my textbook. I already know a lot of the basic greetings, etc. but there are many more things to learn. For this I've just been using a Portuguese Vocabulary Sparkchart. It's pretty basic, but it gets the job done. So far, I've finished these topics (there are anywhere from around 20-90 words in each topic): Weather (o Tempo), Encounters (os Encontros), Time (a Hora), Directions (as Direções), Colors (as Cores), The Body (o Corpo), Calendar (o Calendário), Numbers and Digits (os Números e os Dígitos), and Relationships (as Relações). Phew...sorry for the long list, hopefully I update more often so I don´t list everything out every two weeks ;)

Well, onward and upward. Good luck to all the other TAC-ers out there! 祝你们好运!Boa sorte!



Edited by jae on 30 December 2011 at 2:16pm

1 person has voted this message useful



ReQuest
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Netherlands
Joined 5045 days ago

200 posts - 228 votes 
Speaks: Dutch*, English, German, French
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 4 of 38
30 December 2011 at 5:54pm | IP Logged 
I'm going to follow you and good luck !;)
1 person has voted this message useful



jae
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5677 days ago

206 posts - 239 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Latin
Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, French

 
 Message 5 of 38
31 December 2011 at 5:01am | IP Logged 
Thanks ReQuest! (I'm going to follow your log too!) Good luck :)
1 person has voted this message useful



silverpolyglot
Diglot
Groupie
Canada
silverchallanges.wor
Joined 4927 days ago

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

 
 Message 6 of 38
31 December 2011 at 6:41am | IP Logged 
Good luck on the challenge Jae! As a fellow first time TAC-ler I hope that we can all
stay motivated and dedicated on our studies!

-Silver

Edited by silverpolyglot on 31 December 2011 at 6:41am

1 person has voted this message useful



NickJS
Senior Member
United Kingdom
flickr.com/photos/sg
Joined 4972 days ago

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

 
 Message 7 of 38
01 January 2012 at 7:22pm | IP Logged 
Just dropping by to give you the list of team logs so that you can find it easily:


Team Logs Here

1 person has voted this message useful



jae
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5677 days ago

206 posts - 239 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Latin
Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, French

 
 Message 8 of 38
04 January 2012 at 3:34am | IP Logged 
Thanks for the list of logs, NickJS.

Update on my progress:
Well, I had a remarkably unproductive weekend since I was out of town for New Year's. My only real update is that I have now covered Unit 5 vocab from my Chinese book, which leaves me only 1 unit left (yay!). Once I go over that though, I'm hoping to do a quick comprehensive review to make sure just once more that I have it all down pat before moving on (Those characters are so tricky! The day after I think I've finally mastered a really complicated one, I totally blank! But I think -- at least, I hope -- I'm getting a tad bit better at it). That's basically it for now. Hoping to do a little more Mandarin tonight and perhaps cover some more Portuguese in the morning (I tend to alternate between the languages in chunks rather than doing them together in a day - a habit I am trying to break since it makes it easier to forget newly covered material).


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