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Do you use Lang-8 regularly?

  Tags: Corrections | Writing
 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies Post Reply
30 messages over 4 pages: 13 4  Next >>
cathrynm
Senior Member
United States
junglevision.co
Joined 5907 days ago

910 posts - 1232 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese, Finnish

 
 Message 9 of 30
08 December 2012 at 6:48pm | IP Logged 
Now that the JLPT is past, I'd like to get back on lang-8. I have done quite a bit of lang-8 in Finnish and Japanese. In Finnish really struggling with each sentence using a dictionary. Sometimes I was understood, but often it was just incomprehensible.   For Japanese the site is amazing and they correct within minutes -- the Finnish got corrected mostly, eventually, but it sometimes took a few days.

One thing about Finnish is that when I tried writing I found all these things I wanted to say, but really I had zero clue how to, that I couldn't always puzzle this out from dictionaries and textbooks. Sometimes really simple stuff like 'I put on my pants' type things.

I don't think I ever developed natural sounding writing in either language. I had a stiffness that I never quite was able to get rid of. It was exhausting and eventually I started repeating myself and ran out of things to say. Maybe now that I've been away for a bit, my brain is filled with more random things to ramble about.
2 persons have voted this message useful



Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6379 days ago

9753 posts - 15779 votes 
4 sounds
Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
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 Message 10 of 30
08 December 2012 at 10:51pm | IP Logged 
Well, I used to get corrections from a Finnish friend and it was very useful. But then she had no time for that, and I improved a lot by simply reading. Even one single book - LOTR - was immensely useful, and then I just kept reading and improving:)

I have an account but I can't be bothered to post much. Most small things can simply be googled, most "big things" (syntax, idiomatics) require reading...
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Sterogyl
Diglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4149 days ago

152 posts - 263 votes 
Studies: German*, French, EnglishC2
Studies: Japanese, Norwegian

 
 Message 11 of 30
11 December 2012 at 8:39am | IP Logged 
I think that Lang-8 itself is a wonderful idea and can be tremendously helpful. But I don't use it anymore (I hardly did... I have 5 entries or so). The problem is that a) I usually have not the faintest idea what to write, and b) when I wrote something, I would translate newspaper articles or small passages from books, with the result that about the half of my entries remained uncorrected. I'm not good at writing about myself or at keeping my own diary or something like that.
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Sprachprofi
Nonaglot
Senior Member
Germany
learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 6252 days ago

2608 posts - 4866 votes 
Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian
Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese

 
 Message 12 of 30
11 December 2012 at 10:25am | IP Logged 
If you don't know what to write about, pick a random topic from this huge list:
http://temp.learnlangs.com/resources/topics

Topic for today: what is your favourite object?
9 persons have voted this message useful



Sterogyl
Diglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4149 days ago

152 posts - 263 votes 
Studies: German*, French, EnglishC2
Studies: Japanese, Norwegian

 
 Message 13 of 30
11 December 2012 at 10:58am | IP Logged 
Wow, that's quite a list! :-)
1 person has voted this message useful



Expugnator
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Brazil
Joined 4948 days ago

3335 posts - 4349 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento
Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian

 
 Message 14 of 30
11 December 2012 at 8:11pm | IP Logged 
I've used in in the previous months for French and Norwegian. It works pretty well for French, I even friended people who will help me whenever is necessary. OTOH, people started correcting my style and register, which is not a bad thing but can be annoying at times when you just want to get subjunctive right.

As for Norwegian, my last post is awaiting for correction for over a month. So, I basically plan to limit lang-8 to very common, overlearned languages.
1 person has voted this message useful



hrhenry
Octoglot
Senior Member
United States
languagehopper.blogs
Joined 4912 days ago

1871 posts - 3642 votes 
Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese
Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe

 
 Message 15 of 30
11 December 2012 at 8:18pm | IP Logged 
Expugnator wrote:

As for Norwegian, my last post is awaiting for correction for over a month. So, I
basically plan to limit lang-8 to very common, overlearned languages.

That's unfortunate. Back when I was using lang-8 for Norwegian, I'd get corrections
usually within an hour of posting my text. The corrections almost always came from the
same two Norwegians and the were always very helpful.

A shame if they've moved on. They made my lang-8 experience really enjoyable.

R.
==
1 person has voted this message useful



Rout
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5494 days ago

326 posts - 417 votes 
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Spanish
Studies: Hindi

 
 Message 16 of 30
13 December 2012 at 6:40am | IP Logged 
Sprachprofi wrote:
If you don't know what to write about, pick a random topic from this huge list:
http://temp.learnlangs.com/resources/topics

Topic for today: what is your favourite object?


Wow, thanks Judith. Believe it or not, if you write on one subject a day, you'll finish this list in about 10 months.


1 person has voted this message useful



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