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Stifa’s log (Spaß @ TAC2014) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| stifa Triglot Senior Member Norway lang-8.com/448715 Joined 4872 days ago 629 posts - 813 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, EnglishC2, German Studies: Japanese, Spanish | Message 145 of 198 28 September 2013 at 12:41am | IP Logged |
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I'm back in Bath and ready for a new year at uni. I'll also try to sign up for a German
course here too (My uni offers free 3-credit classes in several languages here -- I just have to find one that fits both my level and my time table). I've also read quite a lot of books in German this month: - Zerrissen (Natalie Schauer) - Mass Effect - Der Aufstieg (Drew Karpyshyn [original]) - Das Mordhaus (Moe Teratos) - Mehr Bier - Kayankayas zwiter Fall (Jakob Arjouni) - Ein Mann, ein Mord - Kayankayas dritter Fall (J.A.) - Süden und der Luftgitarrist (Friedrich Ani) [Not done zet, but I've only got about 40 pages left of it...] Apart from that, I haven't really done anything worth mentioning. Edited by stifa on 30 September 2013 at 8:40am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| stifa Triglot Senior Member Norway lang-8.com/448715 Joined 4872 days ago 629 posts - 813 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, EnglishC2, German Studies: Japanese, Spanish | Message 146 of 198 12 October 2013 at 2:23am | IP Logged |
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I went to mz first German class here at mz uni this week, and since it was level 5
(B2), it was very similar to how the classes were at GLS; mostly discussion about various topics and a little grammar lecturing. I'm also reading Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland in German, and I must say that I enjoy it much more in German. Every time I start a new book, I need a while (usually a few chapters) to get into the story and actually focus 100%. When I read the Japanese version, reaching this point took much longer, which means that I missed out on quite a few details in the first few chapters. Another thing worth mentioning is that my priorities have changed a lot since last year. Right now, I'm much more motivated to focus on German, and there may be days between each time I do something in Japanese. There might be other reasons though, like my "fresher's flu" and my long days at uni (made longer by Wessex Bus and their bloody delays)...I miss living on campus :/ Also, I feel that my English is holding me back... I hate my accent (people usually assume I'm Dutch or German) and I often put out some really messed up sentences. Also, I get really nervous when people start showing signs of impatience when I'm speaking to them, making me "stumble" a lot more. I guess I have to keep speaking it, and hope that it'll improve sometime in the future... /incoherent ranting at 1 am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| stifa Triglot Senior Member Norway lang-8.com/448715 Joined 4872 days ago 629 posts - 813 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, EnglishC2, German Studies: Japanese, Spanish | Message 147 of 198 21 November 2013 at 11:41pm | IP Logged |
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Jeez it's been a while...
Maybe it's because I haven't really done anything particularly interesting, and Ive been busy with coursewrok. I finally finished the German version of Murakamis Hard-Boild Wonderland and the End of the World. Halfway through it I realised that the Japanese OCR I downloaded only contained the first half of the book, so that might be why the ending made no sense whatsoever. :p Apart form that I finished two other books in German and I finished reading the second Harry Potter book in Japanese. I think I'll start focusing on Japanese listening comprehension rather than reading though, because although I can read it all right, my listening comprehension is still awful. As for my goals for this year, I think I've sort of reached what I aimed for with German. I can understand pretty much anything without too many dictionary lookups. My German classes are really slow, but they provide excellent opportunities to practice speaking, although the teacher doesn't give enough feedback and she uses way too much unnecessary English. I'm currently most interested in German, although Japanese was the reason I even decided to pick up German again. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| stifa Triglot Senior Member Norway lang-8.com/448715 Joined 4872 days ago 629 posts - 813 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, EnglishC2, German Studies: Japanese, Spanish | Message 148 of 198 28 December 2013 at 5:42pm | IP Logged |
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Merry Christmas, HTLALers!
I believe I've summarised this year sufficiently in the previous post, so I won't make another summary. I've also reinstalled Anki after "rage-quitting" it in August, but this time I've only got single-word cards with the following formats: JAPANESE Front: [Word] Back: [Word] [Kana] - for words with kanji [Definition] - Mostly in English [Sentence] - If I found the word in an easily copy-paste-able sentence. (So far, only 13 out of 58 cards have sentences) GERMAN Front: [Word] Back: [Word] [Class] - Gender, adjective, etc. [Definition] - Norwegian, English or German [Sentence] - If I've got one ---- These sort of cards are a bit more boring to review, but it doesn't take more than two hours to prepare a daily dose of new anki cards anymore. I've also got a new tablet (Xperia Tablet Z) for christmas, so I can finally start using the Kindle app to read Japanese stuff (I could only read like 30 characters per page on my phone...). Such a shame that the only Japanese kindle books on Amazon UK are either self-published books with no reviews or pornographic picture collections. However, I was able to buy the fourth Harry Potter book from Pottermore (you can get the all there for a range of readers, regardless of region), and with its 1000 or so pages, I've got enough to keep me busy for a while. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5981 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 149 of 198 31 December 2013 at 5:33pm | IP Logged |
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I have rage-quit Anki so many times. The best was the first time I upgraded to Anki 2. I nearly threw the computer out the window... I find it a useful tool if I keep things as simple as possible, both for data entry and reviews, and periodically "refresh" the decks (that's a euphemism for rage-quit).
I'm still impressed at how you can read better than you can listen in Japanese. I am the complete opposite. But I think with exposure, your listening will catch up soon enough. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5183 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 150 of 198 01 January 2014 at 3:31am | IP Logged |
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I think it's funny that you guys rage quit anki. (I remember gbods anki 2 rage quit and that is definitely the
right word. ). I can't help wondering how well you improve your vocab if you're not using anki? It's work for sure. I've found it to be the only way to learn since I couldn't really make myself read Japanese enough. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4664 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 151 of 198 01 January 2014 at 3:52pm | IP Logged |
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I can imagine dropping Anki for a while, but I can't imagine deleting the decks that I've
personally created and "tuned". Maybe I'm too attached to ephemera :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| stifa Triglot Senior Member Norway lang-8.com/448715 Joined 4872 days ago 629 posts - 813 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, EnglishC2, German Studies: Japanese, Spanish | Message 152 of 198 01 January 2014 at 6:53pm | IP Logged |
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Oh, I remember how much of a pain in the a...nkle Anki 2 was in the beginning. Not only
was it different, but there were also several annoying formatting related bugs. I did make word lists that I quickly rote-memorised and then deleted at the end of the day, but after a while I stopped doing that as well. I still can't believe how quickly it takes to make this kind of anki cards; no more searching for example sentences and stuff like that, and combining that with the marker tool in Kindle, compiling a CSV with 15 or so flashcards is a piece of cake. :) ##################### # TAC 2014 LOG STARTS HERE # ##################### In short, my goals for 2013 are: German Current level: B2 - Focus more on active skills (my passive skills are actually solid) - Keep reading ebooks* and watching stuff - Reach C1 level proficiency (I'm considering taking TestDAF sometime during the summer.) Japanese Current level: B1 - Improve my listening skills (I'm still trying to find "digestible", yet interesting media) - Do more writing at lang-8 (I'm not prioritising speaking at the moment) - Try to achieve a passive B2 to give a decent opportunity to improve my active skills Pretty mundane stuff, but I don't really have any specific goals. I'm considering taking my Master's in Germany, but I've still got 1.5 years (or 2.5 if I manage to find an undergrad placement) in the UK, so there's no rush. --- *Paper books aren't really my thing because of my bad eysight. The Kindle apps (and most other e-reader apps, I assume) let me change font size and so forth, which makes reading books doable for me as well. Edited by stifa on 01 January 2014 at 6:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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