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TAC 2013 - Team Viking -TEAM THREAD | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Julie Heptaglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6712 days ago 1251 posts - 1733 votes  5 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French | Message 41 of 553 14 December 2012 at 8:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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Time for my short introduction:
I'm 26, M.A. in Polish and German Studies, Conference Interpreting graduate, and a PhD student now. I work as a freelance conference interpreter and translator, among other things. I'm fluent in English and German and reasonably fluent in French. I used to speak Spanish quite well (B2/C1) but had a pretty long break. I'm actually going to refresh Spanish this year, so I'll hopefully be back to my normal level soon. Like many language lovers here on the forum, I studied or dabbled in quite many languages: Russian, Czech, Dutch, Italian, Swiss German, MSA, Latin, Irish Gaelic, Slovak, Polish sign language, Estonian... (more or less in this order, when it comes to the time and effort). Some of these languages are on my "to-learn" list, together with others I have yet to try :). My Scandinavian experience is very limited, though. I originally wanted to study Norwegian but finally decided for Swedish, mostly for professional reasons (and because Norwegian has not been available at my university this year). I dabbled a little bit in Swedish in July, and started an intensive course in October. I chose Swedish for the last 6WC. My level: I am obviously very much a beginner but I've been quite glad with my progress so far. It's really surprising how much vocabulary and grammar one can learn in 2,5 months (although it's obviously just the tip of an iceberg). My weak points... well, I'm a total beginner, I have weak points only :)... but I think I struggle most with listening comprehension. Materials used: classroom materials (including "Svenska Utifran"), Assimil (lesson 8 at the moment, French-based), Polish-based courses from the Edgard publishing house ("Kurs podstawowy" and "Szwedzki nie gryzie!), a couple of grammar books (most of them Polish-based), Swedish music, "Metro" newspaper. Plus lots of Anki repetitions (I think I'm overdoing this a bit). I also have Teach Yourself Swedish but haven't used it so far. Any reccomendations will be appreciated, by the way. Learning goals: For now, I think I'd be happy with a B1, maybe B2 level. I'm also planning to learn some Norwegian and Danish... and the more I'm reading this thread with almost all of you learning Norwegian and Cristina as our Godmother, the more I have to stop myself from opening a Norwegian book, which wouldn't probably be the most reasonable thing to do at the moment :). Apart from Swedish, I'm focusing on French and German at the moment. I'm keeping my old log and renaming it. I invite all of you to follow my struggles with Swedish (and other languages). Oh, and my real name is not Julie but it also starts with a "J". :) Edited by Julie on 14 December 2012 at 9:51pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4330 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 42 of 553 14 December 2012 at 9:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi there!
As I registered here only this year, this will be my first TAC (and my first blog), so an introduction is probably in order for me too. I'm 24, BA in Scandinavian Studies and I'm currently studying Computational Linguistics. My professional education is that of a software engineer, so for quite some time the only "languages" I cared about were programming languages :) The languages I tried/had to learn at some time are (in chronological order): English, French, Norwegian, Latin, Icelandic, Old Icelandic, Old Norwegian (dialects), Proto-Norse, Gothic, Japanese, Korean, Finnish and Danish. The only foreign languages I can use in meaningful conversations are English and Norwegian, but reading Danish, Swedish and Old Icelandic is no problem either (modern Icelandic is more problematic because of all the new words). I studied in Norway for 2 semesters, but I haven't used much Norwegian for more than 2 years now, so it's a bit rusty. One of my goals for this challenge is to make it rust-free again. I've already started with that, by the way. My main resources will be films, audio-books and books. And a glance into my grammar book from time to time. Danish is a bit of a troubling child for me. The first piece I read was Wessel's 'Kierlighed uden Strømper' ('kærlighed uden strømper' in modern Danish) followed by some of Holberg's comedies. This was still during my first year of learning Norwegian, so this was not the best start with Danish as you can imagine. I really enjoy Danish comedy movies, but I need Danish subtitles, otherwise I only get the gist (but they are still entertaining even without subtitles). Fully understanding Danish movies without subtitles is my biggest motivation for learning Danish. Still, I'd like to be able to talk and write Danish too (but this is low priority). My resources will be Anki, a textbook, a Danish course at university, Assimil, movies, series, audio-books, and maybe I will also use HC Andersen's fairy tales for reading. I also have a pronunciation textbook lying around, but I'm not sure if I want to use that...seems rather boring. My highest priority is Finnish at the moment, but that might change after the end of this semester. I'm also thinking about starting with Swedish in April, but this will depend mostly on external factors. Edited by daegga on 14 December 2012 at 9:45pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5143 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 43 of 553 14 December 2012 at 9:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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@daegga: I am looking forward to Skype sessions where we can de-rust that Norwegian! Learning Danish as
well - you have my respect! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| limey75 Senior Member United Kingdom germanic.eu/ Joined 4208 days ago 119 posts - 182 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Norwegian, Old English | Message 44 of 553 14 December 2012 at 11:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hei alle sammen,
I'm 37 and studying for an MSc in Library Science. Not sure if I want to keep a log, but I will be happy to critique other people's - ha! Doing that is the easy part. Someone told me about 10 years ago I could write reasonable basic Norwegian, but I've since become very rusty. My Scandinavian experience is living in Denmark for 6 months, then Sweden for a year. During these periods I picked up an enormous amount passively but I never learned to speak the languages. As I started my Nordic adventure with Dano-Norwegian (so I could read Ibsen) whenever I needed to speak Swedish, Norwegian came out. Since that time I have spent over 4 years in Germany, and I now have considerable problems with German interference when I want to express myself in Norwegian. German always comes more naturally to me. Indeed, it is my aim to improve my active German skills at the same time as my Norwegian. I did 2 years of Old Norse and 3 years of Old English during my B.A. I have an M.A. in Scandinavian Studies. 25% of the course was unseen and unaided translation from Bokmål, and another 25% was unseen/unaided translation from modern Icelandic. I also have a post-grad diploma in translating Swedish. My skills are all passive/reading/translating. My aim is to get my Norwegian better than A1 *speaking*. I've never been great at speaking languages, not even my own, but I do have a good "eye" for them. I want to somehow break through this problem with lack of *active* skills. Course materials: Aiming to start from the real basics: Pimsleur Basic Norwegian. Follow that with På Vei by Cappelen. During these two courses I will really emphasise speaking and listening. Listening materials: Aside from the listening materials on the courses above, I plan to use the following resources: *Snorre I CD (which I can combine with my printed copy of Snorres Kongesager to do L-R; this is admittedly Nynorsk but I love the sagas) *Barnas beste eventyr CD (Asbjørnsen/Moe) - I can do L-R with these by finding free versions of the texts online *The Norwegian4People audio clips *Norwegian music: I want to buy some but I don't know what to get (hard rock) Reading materials: *Naiv. Super *Sult (Hamsun) *An as yet unchosen biography of Edvard Munch (my fave artist) *An as yet unchosen autobiography/account by Roald Amundsen of his South Pole explorations I guess that's it. Feel free to browse my papers on Scandinavian linguistics on my homepage. God arbeidslyst! :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6965 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 45 of 553 15 December 2012 at 12:11am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't mean any discounting of your abilities in various Northern Germanic languages but your being that reticent about speaking any of them despite your having lived in Scandinavia for about 18 months as well as having earned a graduate degree in Scandinavian Studies is quite shocking for me.
Anyway, you have a leg up on other otherwise beginning learners of Scandinavian languages since your passive vocabulary and sense for what passes as a "native-sounding" passage already seems on par with at least a "high-intermediate" student. Lykke til! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| limey75 Senior Member United Kingdom germanic.eu/ Joined 4208 days ago 119 posts - 182 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Norwegian, Old English | Message 46 of 553 15 December 2012 at 12:32am | IP Logged | ||
Then you don't understand how my degree worked. It was about translating and other passive theoretical subjects. When I was in Scandinavia everyone spoke English to me. I never learned to speak. I just increased my passive knowledge. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6965 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 47 of 553 15 December 2012 at 12:46am | IP Logged | ||
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To me the set-up for that degree is mind-blowing. It's almost as if the designers of it treated the linguistic component as it pertains to the living North Germanic languages as ones with no living speakers. The translation component I can understand, but I still find it odd. I remember some classmates at my university who pursued undergraduate and master degrees in German Studies, Italian Studies, East Asian Studies and the like and they were compelled to take courses just for learning the languagewith part of the requirement that they can speak (as in really do it, not just utter a few touristic bits) not only so that they could participate in the "conversation" classes but also to defend their theses orally in the relevant foreign language.
As to everyone speaking in English to you in Scandinavia, I would have had this burning desire to learn to speak the local language anyway. I certainly feel this way when abroad. I've even had these odd-looking conversations (to outsiders, that is) with foreign friends where I've spoken in the local language with them and my friends reply initially in English. Eventually, my friends got the hint and replied in their native language. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6406 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 48 of 553 15 December 2012 at 12:46am | IP Logged | ||
Well, the book. Reluctant to read it without an audiobook, especially as I'm not doing a super challenge for Danish books:) Edited by Serpent on 15 December 2012 at 1:45am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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