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Liammcg-TAC’13 Team Romulans & Clan Lugus | ||
Tags: Gaelic (Scottish) | Welsh | Gaelic (Irish) | Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC) | German | French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| liammcg Senior Member Ireland Joined 4391 days ago 269 posts - 397 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 89 24 October 2012 at 7:07pm | IP Logged |
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*Update 10/12/12
TAC 2013-Teams ROMULANS and CLAN LUGUS I've decided to take part in the TAC for the first time! I'll be taking part on the Romance (Romulans)and Celtic (Clan Lugus) teams with French and Scots Gaelic, but also some minor study of Irish where I will aim to increase my specialised vocabulary through reading. This will be a minor part of my plans however. My main focus will be French, with Scots Gaelic as a nice bonus. I've established already that it doesn't take too much input with gaelic because I "know" the majority of grammar already from my Irish, its a case of learning the differences and focusing on separating both in my head. I hope all my team members enjoy the log, and don't be afraid to offer advise/criticism(!) wherever you see fit! Happy TACing! TID=34652&PN=1">Romulans' Team Page TID=34542&PN=1&TPN=1">Clan Lugus Page French My French journey began seven years ago in secondary school where all students were required to study it, as well as Irish. I'm not going bore you with details about my learning experience. The bottom line is that I did well in my final exams, but left the school system not being able to speak French!(I know, pretty unique story huh?) Hopefully this log will help keep me motivated to push ahead with my studies! I took a break from French for two years, but became interested in it once again at the beginning of the year. I've been "revising" what I know, but haven't made any significant progress in advancing my level. I'm currently at the intermediate stage. Resources I plan on using: Teach Yourself: Perfect Your French RFI The news in easy French LingQ TV programmes/Youtube Scots Gaelic As part of my Irish degree at University we have the opportunity to study Scots Gaelic (a sister language of Irish). Last week I began using the book Scottish Gaelic in Twelve Weeks. So far this has proven an excellent, well structured resource. I am on lesson three and progressing quickly. There is very little that isn't familiar because of my knowledge of Irish. Over the next few months I plan on continuing using the following: Scottish Gaelic in Twelve Weeks Teach Yourself Gaelic (1993) Learngaelic.net My overall aim is to get to a solid intermediate level in Gaelic over the next 4-5 months, while all the time taking care not to mix it up with my Irish. I'll try to report back here every few days or so with updates on my progress. Wish me luck! Edited by liammcg on 20 December 2012 at 8:55pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4631 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 2 of 89 24 October 2012 at 7:26pm | IP Logged |
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Fàilte!
I'm glad there are other enthusiasts of Scots Gaelic around. I've been studying this beautiful language on and off for about two years, but I haven't really got far until now. I will read your log with interest. Gur math a thèid leat! Tìoraidh! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| liammcg Senior Member Ireland Joined 4391 days ago 269 posts - 397 votes Speaks: English* | Message 3 of 89 25 October 2012 at 4:50pm | IP Logged |
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Thursday, 25 October 2012
French I got quite a bit of study done in the last 24 hours. Firstly I listened to RFI The news in easy French which I found both simple and difficult. I find it much easier to follow the presenters' speech as opposed to the reporters (nothing to do with the transcript, I swear!). I listened to it once through without reading the script, then read it and listened again. I took note of some simple, common verbs that I had forgotten and wrote them out a number of times, and constructed sentences using the verbs in my head. I also watched this segment of a documentary on Bonaparte: http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=WQyqpiTp72o I must say that I was surprised to find I was able to follow the vast majority without much difficulty. To finish, I also read three pages of the short story "Les Bottes de Sept Lieues" using a parallel text. I read the English translation first, and then the French original. I found my passive knowledge of the language to be quite good but I can't imagine myself producing such language. I plan to continue on with this short story until I can come across some novels (maybe Harry Potter, does anyone have any experience with the French version?). Gaelic As I am only starting this language I try to keep study down to about 35mins a day. The reason for this is to indent the pronunciation in my head. I must admit that I find the structure of the language quite simple so far because its SO similar to Irish. I must remember to make a conscious effort to separate the two in my head. Sure, I have a huge advantage but this could also turn into a bad thing if I pronounce the words the same as their Irish counterparts etc. I studied the present tense in detail last night using Scottish Gaelic in 12 weeks. This was fairly simple and so I began drilling it using the exercises in said book as well as constructing simple sentences in my head based on my environment. Today I worked with this news report over at learngaelic.net about a Gaelic festival that was held in Lothian. http://learngaelic.net/advanced/lganla/ Firstly I read the transcript, reading being my best skill at the moment. I understood the general gist of the piece, though there were some words I hadn't heard of before. I then followed the video using the words, and this really helped me retain the new vocab. I also spent some time learning how to pronounce individual words which are not clear based on their spelling. Edited by liammcg on 25 October 2012 at 4:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| liammcg Senior Member Ireland Joined 4391 days ago 269 posts - 397 votes Speaks: English* | Message 4 of 89 26 October 2012 at 4:43pm | IP Logged |
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I'm heading away for a few days so it'll be next Monday or Tuesday before there's another
update. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| liammcg Senior Member Ireland Joined 4391 days ago 269 posts - 397 votes Speaks: English* | Message 5 of 89 31 October 2012 at 9:11pm | IP Logged |
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I didn't get too much study done over the past few days as I was away. Anyway...
French I've been listening away to RFI, as well as watching short videos on YouTube in French. My listening is still the same, I find it hard to decipher really fast speech, but slow speech is generally manageable. I've also been working on my pronunciation, paying particular attention to my R's (STILL a difficulty!) and also the intonation of the language. Gaelic I spent an hour this morning in class working through a whole chapter as part of a class. We worked on pronunciation drills as well a constructing sentences based on material covered. I will spend the next few days working intensively with the news report mentioned above on LearnGaelic.net in order to pick up the flow of the languages as well as news words. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5343 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 6 of 89 01 November 2012 at 12:30am | IP Logged |
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What a wonderful combination, French and Scottish Gaelic almost sounds like fusion cuisine to my ears or an elegant cocktail! Good luck with your studies and I hope you make lots of progress. :) Edited by Teango on 01 November 2012 at 12:31am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| liammcg Senior Member Ireland Joined 4391 days ago 269 posts - 397 votes Speaks: English* | Message 7 of 89 05 November 2012 at 11:26pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks Teango, every bit of encouragement helps! I'll also be following your ten
language challenge with interest, go n-éirí leat leis an nGaeilge! French I've noticed an improvement in my listening comprehension over the past few days using RFI as well as some material at LingQ. Some material just seems to SPEED by, but I'm beginning to learn to not fret about individual words but to try and understand the overall meaning of the piece. I can usually pick up unknown words from context, and I then read the text with an online dictionary before listening to the piece again. Reading wise, I had planned on purchasing Harry Potter et l'école des sorciers last Saturday but the shop didn't stock it despite advertising it on their website. Being the poor scholar that I am, I will see can I pick up any bargains on the internet. Until then, I'm using material on the net as well as TY: Perfect Your French. It's an OK book, nothing to write home about. I have begun using it again after a long absence, but I don't have the audio (the poor scholar card again) so its not as pleasing or effective as it could be. I do like reading in languages, but my real passion lies in listening/speaking. Something about the sounds and the rhythm of a language really attracts me. Gaelic I've not done too much with Gaelic in the past week because I haven't wanted to push ahead of the rest of the class. I have now realized that this is complete nonsense, and I am going to make a real push with it this week. I just bought the audio for Scottish Gaelic in Twelve Weeks. Once I'm able to cut the audio up into tracks of just the target language I'll be intensively listening to get pronunciation down.All in all, my Gaelic is coming along piece by piece. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| liammcg Senior Member Ireland Joined 4391 days ago 269 posts - 397 votes Speaks: English* | Message 8 of 89 09 November 2012 at 1:50pm | IP Logged |
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French
I've been working mainly on listening comprehension over the past few days with some noticeable results. I've found the French "Euronews" channel on YouTube, and I LOVE it. I find the edition of video helps keep my concentration, as well as the shorter clips focusing on one topic as opposed to a ten minute news summary like you get with RFI. Yesterday night I also tried the "Scriptorium" method. I was really impressed with it. I found it helped with paying attention to the nuances of a languages. It also has the very important effect of helping improve my spelling. Lets put it on the record here, my French spelling is AWFUL, definitely my worst skill. As I've been focusing on listening over the past few weeks, I wonder is it time to begin working on my writing skills? Can anyone recommend "Lang-8". Gaelic My listening skills have improved greatly since I got the cds. I don't find the pronunciation hard except for one or two vowels which are new to me. I can produce them fairly well, but just need a bit of practice. On the cds I also noticed that one speaker pronounces her slender "r"s in a manner which is like a lisp (especially at the end of words). Can anyone elaborate on this? Is this standard or maybe a dialectic feature? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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