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MrW TAC’13 Schnitzel/Mir/Sakura(de/ru/ja) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Emme Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 5147 days ago 980 posts - 1594 votes  Speaks: Italian*, English, German Studies: Russian, Swedish, French | Message 25 of 53 05 January 2013 at 11:16pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Hi, mrwarper!
I too am finding the beginning of TAC quite overwhelming as far as keeping up with everybody’s logs goes and it’s taking me some days to say hallo to all fellow team members. Today it’s your turn: so good luck with your TAC this year. Have a great 2013 and not just for language learning! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Rhadryn Triglot Groupie United States Joined 5183 days ago 53 posts - 60 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, French Studies: Spanish, Russian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, Latin, German | Message 26 of 53 06 January 2013 at 4:37am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Hello Mr. Warper!
We share focus languages, though the order is reversed. I'll be interested to see what methods you decide on for Russian and Japanese. And your English is impressive! Have a lovely and productive year! がんばって！ 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5026 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 27 of 53 06 January 2013 at 2:34pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
@Emme: Thank you, and the same to you! Actually I've just achieved what you could call my fist TAC goal: I've read through *each and every* of my teammates and godchildren logs. Now, it's taken so long and there are so many of them that except for those long-term acquaintances of the forum (basically people who have posted on the same threads and you've had remarkable discussions with -- I mean, more than 'yeah just that once, two years ago') I'm not sure who is who and I'll be afraid to post for a while since I don't want to mix you up in public (an alternative would be to have a second read at everything but I just don't feel like that right now ;)
Thanks for the suggestion but I already do that. Plus, I had an additional filter that kills recent notifications if there's still another one with the same exact subject line (thread/log title) marked as pending so I go through every thread once, no matter how many 'new' posts it has. It was still ~50 threads ;( Then new posts popped in the logs right after you thought you had just finished reading. Then some people changed their log titles...
Oh well, welcome to my mom's world then. The other day she asked me how to do something with mp3s on her phone (we usually buy gadgets in batches for the whole family) and *not* to tell her to RTFM, because it wasn't there. Damn, she was right! So I guess it's another sign of the late involution of humankind: why bother to document stuff, if only a few weirdos would bother to read it? Shouldn't it be the other way around, write increasingly better manuals so eventually more people realize the answers they want were there all along? But I can dream, can't I? :)
Unfortunately my native language renders the least punchy version of that joke so far, but nice try -- unless you referred to your post being --apparently-- written in the middle of the night, which would then make it brilliant :D
Thank you, sometimes it's very reassuring to see I'm not a voice crying out in the desert (at least, not all of the time :)
Oh, please tell me when you do, it'll sure be nice to comment it if it's something I have read or will read too...
I don't think it's a matter of bravery any more, just a mere question of how much longer I can cling to an utterly unproductive (economically - but mostly very quiet and comfortable) lifestyle ;)
Thank you, the same to you too! About my English, well it's not so great if you hear it because I never speak to anyone, but don't spread the word -- I still want to work as a TEFLer again ;) As for what methods I'll use for Russian and Japanese, you shouldn't have many surprises if you carefully read my first two posts and what I said in February, 2012. This year I have heaps of more materials just ready, waiting for me to actually use them, and I'll be less dependent on meeting people -- I'll go for a more 'old school' approach which may result in sounding a bit 'stilted' sometimes (especially in the beginning) but has the advantage of letting you study exactly when / as you want to. Whew! I hope to get some time to rest and start studying for this year TAC now! -- People don't update!! :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| BAnna Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4422 days ago 409 posts - 616 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Turkish | Message 28 of 53 06 January 2013 at 6:25pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Your logs are quite entertaining. I have been wondering how to regularly update and not create a million posts: your model of updating a main post is great and one I will follow. As imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, you can consider yourself flattered (for whatever that's worth).
Did you ever finish "Sie Belieben Wohl Zu Scherzen, Mr. Feynman"? If so, do you recommend it? If not, was there a reason you didn't finish: not interesting, wrong level, etc. Using native materials can be great, but some I have had to put aside if the level is not right or the topic is not interesting enough. Is it a threshold of 95% comprehension needed to really understand something, or it may even be higher? I cannot imagine the amount of time it would take to follow people's logs on multiple teams as well as actually study multiple languages simultaneously. Not something I am ready currently to imitate ... but I do admire the effort. Off to update my log (sorry). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5026 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 29 of 53 07 January 2013 at 11:14am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
Thank you! No that's cool, but don't imitate how I just made a fool of myself (and you just exposed me): I wrote two posts ('about myself' and 'about my languages') and I forgot to leave another placeholder to document my progress during TAC or lack thereof. >>>>> D'Oh! <<<<< OK then -- the post for that will have to be in page #n, so I'll link to it from post #2. Ugly, but not such a big deal... The one thing about this method is that most of your progress is invisible for everyone else unless you write new posts as well. That is what I intended from the beginning because I feel there's not much to talk about (and no need for the distraction) if all I have to say is 'going as planned, did one more lesson of Themen Aktuell #2' or the like. YMMV so I thought I'd warn you. You can always publish 'fun stuff' too if you want to.
About "Sie Belieben Wohl Zu Scherzen, Mr. Feynman" (Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman): this is not native German material, but it is something I carefully chose, so I'll outline its profile. First, it is a book I know by heart (so it'd be hard to get me lost while going through it), then it is a book I like immensely and I want to re-read periodically (so I'm bound to do it and I'll be saving time by doing something I enjoy and something in my TL at the same time). Finally, it's written in a very colloquial style both in the original and the Spanish translation so I figured it'd be OK to address the problem of written German usually being more removed from colloquial speech than English or Spanish. I have it in Spanish, English, and German -- so I prepared it as parallel texts. That particular subject has been discussed ad nauseam somewhere else in the forum, however, so I'll skip it here unless somebody has questions. Edited by mrwarper on 07 January 2013 at 11:16am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| BAnna Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4422 days ago 409 posts - 616 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Turkish | Message 30 of 53 14 January 2013 at 1:01am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Sorry, I'm not actively trying to expose anyone! Did you end up creating a space for your progress? I don't think I found it, but I may not be looking in the right spot. I have put mine in the first one, and then wrote an insanely long commentary as a separate post. This will definitely be a work in progress for a while. I can see how being in this forum could eat up crazy amounts of time that aren't in our target languages, unless I actually do all my posting in German, then it'd be one per month or less. Thanks for the comments about Surely you're joking Mr. Feynman. I read that in English years ago, but it's been awhile. Something to add to my list.
Have a good week. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Dagane Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4311 days ago 259 posts - 324 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishB2, Galician Studies: German Studies: Czech | Message 31 of 53 14 January 2013 at 3:44pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
¡Disculpa la tardanza en contestar!
No matter whom, I think we all should learn something good from other people, especially in a forum which is aimed to boost learning, shouldn't we?
Well, I think that's a bit bias. I mean, when I left the mandatory education I left English as well. When I finished my degree and aimed to learn it seriously, I thought it would be hard. It was, it always is a bit hard, but I was amazed of how many things I could recall easily just by reviewing them. I can't even imagine how much easier it would be to enhance your skills once you're constantly using English in a good level, though I acknowledge that the more you learn a language, the more difficult is to reach the next level.
Agree. As you say, that's a skill. However, many people can get a particular skill with practise, which amount varies depending on the person. All in all, it's achievable many a time as long as you have method and enthusiasm. By the way, your comments on learning vocabulary are appreciated :).
Dejaré correr el agua... Lo de la fuga de cerebros es uno de los muchos subtemas de esta crisis infernal, y como todos ellos, me incendia; estoy aprendiendo a controlar esa rabia. En cuanto a la educación técnica, da para largo... Fundamentalmente, sin embargo, y como alguien dijo por ahí, "éste ha sido siempre un país de abogados" (refiriéndose, en realidad, al siglo XX). Parece que se prima la educación en letras y ciencias sociales, muchas de cuyas materias son obligatorias en cada curso de la enseñanza obligatoria, mientras que las asignaturas de ciencias van tornándose optativas sucesivamente. Tampoco creo que muchos profesores de ciencias sean válidos. Mi interés por la física, por poner un ejemplo, era nulo y además la odiaba, porque jamás tuve un profesor que me metiera el gusanillo de aprenderla. Cuando a mitad de carrera (¡mitad!) tuve uno que sí supo, milagrosamente dejé de suspender todas las asignaturas de física para aprobarlas a la primera y, lo más importante, entenderlas y estudiarlas a gusto. En todo caso, ésa es mi experiencia... Y por supuesto, esas cosas hacen que la gente se dé cuenta de que se es un poco iletrado si no se sabe geografía o historia, y sin embargo desprecie las matemáticas con un gesto de la mano. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5026 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 32 of 53 24 January 2013 at 8:09pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
Replies first, life afterwards...
C'mon, you know I'm always being silly. I'll create it right after this post, if nobody claims that space first -- hands off!!!
(Not tooting my own horn or anything--) Of course you can learn from me, but when you do so, it means I'm posting here instead of studying, and that's BAD ;)
I don't think I'm biased wrt that. My English wasn't significantly better after I underwent my instruction than it was before -- if anything, a bit more 'oiled' because of the continuous spoken practice over a bit more than a month, but that's all. Believe me, I've learned more English from four years of HTLAL reading, for instance.
Please, when you comment here do so in English so others can follow along. I think it's somewhere in the TAC log 'rules' :) About Spain (or rather, Spaniards) I think we statistically* deserve what we have coming, which helps a bit to overcome my problems with 'jumping ship' after the worst part of the crisis :) OK, I'll try to rant only very shortly while replying and going over that... First, I think you are making up one problem out of two different ones in education. One, 'we' have the background problem that we have always been non-scientific/technical-minded in a world increasingly dependent on science and technology. That's pretty much dooming ourselves to be a tourism services country in the mid/long run. Two, the educational system has been systematically undermined and destroyed over the last thirty years, which will only accelerate the process, and that in turn has other effects. A very prominent consequence of this second problem is that some seem to think that it's the teachers' mission to somehow get the learning bug into you. It is the other way around: back in the day, only pathologically bad teachers (which were a minority) managed to kill it off the kids who kept studying. If you look closely at any kids that haven't been maligned yet you'll see how deep in them there's a burning desire to know, to learn, to understand. I've been lucky enough that my share of lousy teachers came too late and only drove me off thinking about becoming part of the system, and that bug that was inside me all along is still alive and kicking. I can recommend you a couple of books that analyze our school system and its problems in depth, if you want to. Let me warn you that they might be devastating for some sensitive souls, though ;) WRT to sciences and humanities, sure I am biased saying this, but sciences offer lazy minds (comparatively) nowhere to hide, while it's so much easier to just 'fake it' in the humanities ('we never dwelt too deeply on this', 'oh, I just forgot that') so where do you think the lazy bums will end? As an adult, I'm not ashamed anymore to point out to such 'humanitiers' out there that not knowing what 'E = mc^2' is about is roughly equivalent to not knowing that Columbus was the guy who discovered America and not that one-eyed detective (I never strove to be popular, you know...). This, however, is a world-wide spread view unrelated to our educational problems. Anyway, what have I been doing lately... I've been hectic with but finally finished several corporate projects, I've developed an efficient way to scan books meanwhile and I've taken up an offer to (possibly) TEFL again from next week on (on an hourly basis). This means, I finally have free time (so much, actually, that I've caught up with everybody's logs again in a breeze, whew!) so I should be able to actually study and report here, or at least do audio while I'm scanning books (it's a low brain-demanding activity). We'll see how it all works out from next week on. On a different note, I've been Skyping with a customer the whole week, and 30% of the conversations were made up of 'are you there?', 'can you hear me?' and such. I officially hate it now. I'm not sure I'll do any more Skype until I calm down. Edited by mrwarper on 24 January 2013 at 8:19pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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