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Luna’s Log: TAC 2012: Team 德

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29 messages over 4 pages: 1 2 3
Luna Moonsilver
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Germany
lunaslanglog.wordpreRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4868 days ago

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

 
 Message 25 of 29
14 May 2012 at 12:14am | IP Logged 
Silver - those books look awesome, thanks! :D I'm using books from the IDCL at the moment
(they're online and free), but there are a couple of the Chinese Breeze books in the UK
amazon store, so I'll probably buy those after.

The speaking exam was kind of okay... My teacher said I didn't speak very fluently, but
that my vocabulary seemed quite extensive. So... that's good. I think.


1 person has voted this message useful



Luna Moonsilver
Diglot
Groupie
Germany
lunaslanglog.wordpreRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4868 days ago

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

 
 Message 26 of 29
14 May 2012 at 12:25am | IP Logged 
6WC update

Yay, I'm actually updating. Ahem. Anyway, day 13 of the 6WC and I've done about four
hours of Portuguese study, which considering how busy the last two weeks have been,
isn't so bad. I have one final (German) exam this coming Wednesday, but then I'm done
for this academic year and can focus on whatever I like.

Anyway. I started out working with a Michel Thomas course and TY Instant. I've given up
on the TY course altogether - I start them and I always end up doing this, so I think
I'm going to have to accept that they're not the books for me. MT is causing me
problems because it's all audio, which means I am incredibly easily distracted -
I need visual stimulus to focus on something too. Still, I'm going to try it again in a
few days; I'm at least going to complete the first CD!

In the last couple of days, I've switched my attention to a 2002 Colloquial course,
which seems pretty good. I finished the first lesson a couple of hours ago and got a
good overview of greetings and introductions, as well as ordering food and drink.
(That's another problems I find with the MT courses; the nature of them is such that it
focuses on strange things to begin with and I'm not quite used to them yet.)

I've also got a film, Tangled (Entrelaçados), which I'll watch at some
stage, though I think I'll wait 'til I get halfway through the Colloquial book. Aside
from that, I've been using Memrise a lot.

There's an issue in that I can only find a few books in Iberian Portuguese, as opposed
to Brazilian Portuguese. At some point, I obviously want to learn Brazilian Portuguese
as well - because it just seems useful - but right now I feel like it's going to get in
the way and confuse me. Still, the hunt goes on.

---

Other languages:

German: I've nearly finished Harry Potter und der Stein der Weisen, FINALLY -
I've got exactly one chapter left, which I plan on reading tonight. I'm going to start
watching films for the super challenge after my exam is over, to prepare for my move in
September :D

Mandarin: I'm working my way through my very first book in Mandarin - a children's book
from the IDCL. There are nine books on there in simplified characters so I'm going to
work my way slowly through (so slowly) those. Apart from that, I'm watching a TV
series on viki.com and am going to work through my textbook over the rest of the
summer.

Phew. I think that was longer than I intended, but it's everything that's happened in
the last twelve days or so. I'm going to go and finish that book now...
1 person has voted this message useful



Luna Moonsilver
Diglot
Groupie
Germany
lunaslanglog.wordpreRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4868 days ago

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

 
 Message 27 of 29
17 May 2012 at 10:41pm | IP Logged 
I did my final exam yesterday, which means University is over for this academic year and
I am - officially - halfway through my degree. It's exciting and terrifying at the same
time!

But that all means that now, I'm on my summer break and I've got to get ready for going
to Germany in September :D. So, language studies ahoy (I hope!)
1 person has voted this message useful



Luna Moonsilver
Diglot
Groupie
Germany
lunaslanglog.wordpreRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4868 days ago

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

 
 Message 28 of 29
23 May 2012 at 10:02pm | IP Logged 
6WC Update

Day 23 of the challenge and I'm taking off a little bit :]. The 2002 Colloquial Course
is far better than the others I was using; it's a lot more in depth, though I have just
reached unit 4, which deals with directions and am finding they don't list all the
vocab as clearly as they could. But, that's really my only problem with it - so it's
definitely working well. Apart from that, I've been carrying on with memrise (I do love
that site!) and today I started reading a book on the Internet Digital Children's
Library - Não desista, Josefina!. It's about a little penguin called Josephine
and it's adorable :3. I've only read two pages (I've been noting down all the vocab I
don't know/can't work out, so it's taking a while), but I still read Portuguese faster
than Mandarin! Sigh... I am slightly concerned the book is in Brazilian Portuguese
(because I can't really tell), but since it's written for children hopefully it won't
matter too much.

---

Other languages:

German: Finished Harry Potter und der Stein der Weisen, so now I've moved onto
the next one, Harry Potter und die Kammer des Schreckens. I'm also trying to
work on my grammar (because it sucks)and am just ploughing on with the Super Challenge.

Mandarin: I'm still reading the same book... it's taking me about 20 minutes to read a
page (this is a kid's book, not a normal one), but I am copying out everything I don't
know, so that'll be why. Again, I'm going on with the Super Challenge... as slowly as I
am ;].

---

100 hours challenge:

I decided to give myself another challenge, in preparation for my move to Germany this
September. It's very simple: by September 1st, I want to have done at least 100
hours' study in each of my three languages. I'm hoping this will push all of my
languages up a level or so (I mainly want to get my German up to a B2) and will
maintain them well, since I'm not in class or anything over the summer.

Fortunately, the timing has worked out well: it's 100 days until August 31st, so I'm
going to aim for a minimum of an hour a day, though of course I'll do more where I can.
I've already hit my targets for today, yay!



Hmm, that's more or less everything. More 6WC updates next week; hopefully I'll have
finished that book!
2 persons have voted this message useful



Luna Moonsilver
Diglot
Groupie
Germany
lunaslanglog.wordpreRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4868 days ago

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

 
 Message 29 of 29
12 June 2012 at 10:44pm | IP Logged 
6WC update
So, the 6WC is over... and I managed nearly 17 and a half hours of my target language!
It doesn't seem like much (I ended up 40th, haha!), but I think it's the most I've ever
done on one of these challenges, so it is progress! More tangibly, I've finished
the first five lessons of Colloquial Portuguese, though I know I need to go through
them again for vocab and whatnot. I'm going to keep studying - the main thing I need to
work on is my pronunciation, so if anyone has any tips (for European Portuguese), feel
free to let me know!

Overall, I clocked nearly 64 and a half hours, which isn't (I don't think) the best
I've ever done, but it's a pretty respectable 10-11 hours per week. Not all of it was
just watching TV either - there was a lot of reading in there, thanks to the
Super Challenge! :D

Super Challenge Update
Most of the news is on my blog, but I'm still plodding through Harry Potter und die
Kammer des Schreckens
. I'm hoping to get a lot more done when Tadoku starts again
(sometime soon, presumably), but I'm also going to watch more films at some point...

100 hours challenge
Yeah, I've made little to no progress on this - it's been a busy couple of weeks (I've
finished uni, but now I'm just in work all the time instead X_X), but I'm managing to
pull out some kind of routine so I'm hoping to catch up. If I don't reach the 100
hours, it's not that much of a big deal for Mandarin or Portuguese, but my
German really needs to improve by September...

Other news (since it's all challenges so far...)
I finally got an invite to duolingo, so I've been playing on that (for German). It's
pretty cool, though the automated voice has to be annoying - especially for beginners.
I'm actually learning the genders of words! :D I've got three invites to send out (you
can learn German, Spanish, English (if you speak Spanish) or French (but that's in
beta)) - so if anyone wants one, let me know!

Edited by Luna Moonsilver on 12 June 2012 at 10:46pm



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