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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6383 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 49 of 140 24 September 2012 at 12:51am | IP Logged | ||
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And I fell in love with Dutch when I went by Thalys from Köln to Paris. The announcements sounded so beautiful! Especially compared to French (which I don't like at all :P)
Any specific recs for Belgian Dutch btw? (We also went to Brussels on that trip, but I didn't hear any Dutch...the strongest impression was that suddenly people spoke English!) Edited by Serpent on 24 September 2012 at 12:53am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Julie Heptaglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6689 days ago 1251 posts - 1733 votes 5 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French | Message 50 of 140 01 November 2012 at 1:53am | IP Logged | ||
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Coming back after a looong break... My schedule and life generally are crazy at the
moment but I'm back here, to participate in 6WC and, hopefully, take part in discussions again on this beloved forum :). I missed you so much! September... October... (a brief note about what I was doing language-wise in the last couple of weeks) Right now, I'm focusing on German, French and Swedish, with Swedish being my main language for this 6WC. I started an intensive course in Swedish at the university (5x1,5h a week) and while being a great experience, it takes quite a lot of time and, most importantly, leaves me with an impression I could use this time better, either learning Swedish all by myself or focusing on other languages (with Dutch being the biggest victim here). I add most words and sentences from class to my Anki deck, which makes the whole thing pretty exhausting but I don't see any other solution right now, as my usual learning style is obviously not 100% compatible with the teaching style applied in the course :). Furthermore, as a self-learner I'm usually able to take some things slowly and don't feel like I need to remember all new words straight away, whereas in the course I suffer from the perfectionist streak I've got, and I get all frustrated if I don't remember some words and phrases, so I end up cramming all vocabulary with Anki. I hope I've made myself clear :), I haven't really had any time to reflect on my Swedish learning process yet, so I come up with some ideas and reflections as I write. Well, other than realizing self-learning is so much more fun than an organized course :), Swedish IS a lot of fun, and I enjoy it quite a lot. The nice thing about the course is that I can practice e.g. short dialogues in the class from the very beginning, and our teachers use more and more Swedish in the class (very rewarding if I understand it, not-all-that-rewarding if I don't ;)). Well, I'm gonna see if this works out, and hopefully I'll find some time to 'discover' some Swedish by myself during 6WC. French: my priority now is to improve my French listening comprehension (including expanding my passive vocabulary) and than to practice consecutive and simultaneous interpreting from French into Polish in order to take an exam sometime in the spring. Right now, I mostly listen to RFI, read some French press, and watch Swiss TV news from time to time. I think I'll continue pretty much the same thing, but preferably I'll find more time for that. German: here my priority is to improve my use of language and speaking generally (which is a tricky thing), and to use this improvement in my interpreting into German (and this task is even trickier). Again, the goal would be to pass an interpreting exam. I feel like I honestly don't know how to improve my German quickly and efficiently :). I tried to listen and read German-language authentic materials (mostly: newspaper articles and dradio.de) while trying to consciously focus on the use of language, the choice of vocabulary etc. and writing down some nice words and expressions (especially those that I know passively but I wouldn't probably use by myself). No idea if it's gonna work... I guess I've pretty much forgotten how to 'learn' German, not just 'use' it. On the positive side, I've been twice to Germany recently (10 days or so in total) so I had quite a lot of speaking (and interpreting) practice. Other languages were pretty much neglected in the last few weeks. English is not that much of a target language at the moment. Obviously, I did read in/listen to English quite a lot, for work, fun and other non-learning related reasons. This semester I teach two classes in English as well (one of them being more of a lecture) so I also get at least some speaking practice... not much, though. And I've run an intercultural weekend workshop for foreign students this month (again, some speaking practice). I regularly listen to Dutch music but I didn't have any time for actual learning :(. Nor did I have any time for my other languages... the last 6WC motivated me to make some more time, also for the languages that are less important at the moment, and hopefully it won't be different now. A Spanish and a Russian TV channel are gone from my cable TV, though - this won't make it easier :(. On the bright side, I've finally bought an Android phone, which is the most time- consuming device I've ever seen (usually, when I buy a new device, I turn into one of those technical freaks who have to figure everything out and test all options and features... and with Android, there is a LOT to be figured out) but at the same time, it seems like a great thing for any language learner. Using Anki on the phone is just wonderful (I already regret my other flashcard programs don't have an Android version), and having all possible dictionaries in my pocket makes my life so much easier! Plus, I finally have enough free storage space for audiobooks, music, language courses etc. (I didn't have a decent mp3 player before nor did I have time and motivation to buy one). So that's my update after a looong break (and yes, I know it was supposed to be brief... :)). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Julie Heptaglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6689 days ago 1251 posts - 1733 votes 5 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French | Message 51 of 140 19 November 2012 at 12:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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01.11.2012 (beginning of 6WC) - 18.11.2012
German Recently, I've been reading "Die Zeit" passionately. I've loved this newspaper for a long time but I used to buy "Der Spiegel" or "Focus" more often as I hate the broadsheet format (yes, I do know broadsheet equals quality :) but we don't have newspapers that are that big here in Poland and I literally never know how to hold this thing). I've tried the PDF format, too but it wasn't that convenient either (lots of scrolling, zooming in and out etc.). Now I read the paper as an .epub/.mobi file on my ebook reader and I just keep discovering fascinating articles. :) English Just the usual stuff... the Internet, watching movies and looking up some vocabulary items & adding them to Anki. Not my priority at the moment, as mentioned above. French I'm having some motivation problems and feel like I'm hitting plateau (more about it: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp? TID=34291&PN=1). On the positive side, I've managed to study French every day since the beginning of 6WC (and actually longer but I didn't keep any logs before). I mostly watch TV/listen to podcats/read a bit. Right now, I'm giving Cavesa's method a shot (watching TV series in huge amounts). Swedish I'm pretty glad with what I can say/understand after 1,5 months of learning. I mostly just go to my course, try to get as much as possible from the time spent in the class (including e.g. revising some vocab in any 'empty minutes'), and revise most stuff regularly (including extensive use of Anki). I'm not adding lots of activities on my own but I tried guess-reading ;) the Stockholm edition of "Metro" and I had lots of fun. Obviously, it's still more of guessing than actual reading, but I was glad to see how much I can already understand and to actually read some short articles/parts of articles. By the way, free daily newspapers such as "Metro" (or e.g. "20 minutes" for French) are a great source of reading material for a beginner/intermediate learner. There are lots of short and simple articles about many current issues, and everything is available legally for free, also as a PDF to download (although it is nicer to hold an actual paper in the hand, obviously). Some links: http://www.metro.se/pdf/ http://www.20minutes.fr/pdf http://www.20min.ch/ro/epaper/ and many others Back to my Swedish learning: the funny thing is I still can't get used to the post- added "en" article. It looks just the same as the plural ending for many German substantives, and when I see something like "tidningen" I sometimes have to consciously decide "no, it's not a plural form like in Zeitungen, it is a definite form". The fact that some ett-words have use the -(e)n ending to mark the plural form does not make my life easier :). Oh, and I have to report that unfortunately I am pretty prone to interferences. Having learned basics of Dutch, I keep saying "ik" instead of "jag" from time to time :). I'm pretty sure there'll be lots of Swedish words in my Dutch, too. Right now, I'm having a break from Dutch (the only unfortunate aspect of my Swedish course :( ): apart from short Anki revisions and listening to Dutch music I don't do anything more. I have to figure out what the best moment to get back to Dutch will be, so that I don't suffer from too much interfence in either of languages and can make a decend progress in both. Any advice will be appreciated. Edited by Julie on 19 November 2012 at 12:16pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4493 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 52 of 140 19 November 2012 at 12:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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Speak better Swedish and your interference will be less. Interference isn't problematic,
it's useful to substitute words from a related language if you're unsure, so just use what you can and discard what you can't. It's just part of the process of speaking better. Edited by tarvos on 19 November 2012 at 12:40pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Julie Heptaglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6689 days ago 1251 posts - 1733 votes 5 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French | Message 53 of 140 19 November 2012 at 12:56pm | IP Logged | ||
That's definitely true, and it is my communication strategy in general at the beginning level at least. What I find problematic though is when I unconsciously substitute target language words with words from another language, even though I do know TL equivalents. It's usually about some little words: pronouns, conjunctions etc. Like saying "und" instead of "and" in English (at least I'm past that :)), saying "mais" instead of "pero" in Spanish (or the other way around, still in progress), or saying "ik" instead of "jag". Do you experience something like that? It's really annoying as it doesn't result from any vocabulary/grammar deficits, just lack of practice and automatic reactions, I guess. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4493 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 54 of 140 19 November 2012 at 1:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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I do mentally sometimes forget whether I am speaking German or Swedish, that's occurred
to me a few times. But I can keep the utterances apart pretty much and it doesn't mess up in speech or writing usually. It's just automatic reactions, really. It just means you haven't internalised how to say it - and you can only internalise things by doing them more often. That's ok to realise though - it means you're getting somewhere. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6383 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 55 of 140 19 November 2012 at 3:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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Agreed. This simply means you've not seen the forms as many times.
Like for example I once said nostro in Portuguese, can't imagine saying it now because of the nossa, nossa song :D (oops you're not learning Portuguese... nossa is short for nossa senhora) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Dagane Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4297 days ago 259 posts - 324 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishB2, Galician Studies: German Studies: Czech | Message 56 of 140 19 November 2012 at 9:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi, Julie. This is the first time I read your log. It seems quite interesting and I'll go over it thoroughly later on. You keep my motivation up for improving my English and learning German. It's probable that I decide to learn Dutch sooner than later as well so, as I said, I hope your recorded study could serves me as much as you :).
1 person has voted this message useful |
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