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TAC 2013 Team Sparta’s Greek Team Thread | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| LanguageSponge Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5563 days ago 1197 posts - 1487 votes  Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Welsh, Russian, Japanese, Slovenian, Greek, Italian | Message 9 of 231 14 December 2012 at 4:29pm | IP Logged |
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Cristina there is a certain beauty to beginning the challenge with that little Greek: By
the end of TAC 2013, you will be able to communicate something meaningful in Greek and it'll be very easy for you measure just how much progress you've made. I suggest for example that we all write something in Greek here as soon as possible, writing perhaps the most complex thing we're capable of writing without using the dictionary. Either that or write a summary of what we know so we can see clearly at the end of the challenge just how far we've come. Jack 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4436 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 10 of 231 14 December 2012 at 5:19pm | IP Logged |
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Thank you Jack and Cristina for the nice words.
Cristina I don't know much more than you, so don't worry, we'll both be smiling and nodding in Greek to start with. Jack, as regards Romansh, you are right that I don't use it today (as a matter of fact, I've spoken only once with a native). It is kind of hard when there are less than 20 000 people in the world who speaks the Sursilvan dialect,which is the one I learned. With Slovenian at least you have a few more speakers around. Actually, I took Romansh because my Italian professor at the uni, a great man by the way, suggested it, and he created a special course just for me (yes, I was the one and only student). He was really enthusiastic about it, and transmitted that enthusiasm. I can tell you more about it another time, if you are intersted. Back to what we are here for: I don't have much experience with Skype, but sure I am willing to give it a try - my 11 year old daughter uses it all the time, so can't be that bad :) Besides, will be nice to see you "live" and hear your voices. Let's consider Assimil, although I have seen mixed reviews of the current French version (does it exist in English?) Personally I will also use Langenscheidt's Griechisch mit System. I did the first two lessons earlier this year, and I like their approach. You do need a certain level in German to get the most out of it. OK, I am off this weekend so will probably not check the forum before Monday. However, unless it's against the rules, I might try to revise the two lessons I just mentioned just to get into the mood. Edit: Corrected the title of the Langenscheidt course. Edited by Ogrim on 15 December 2012 at 10:07am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| embici Triglot Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4407 days ago 263 posts - 370 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Greek | Message 11 of 231 14 December 2012 at 5:51pm | IP Logged |
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Hello team!
My introduction and goals for this challenge: I am a Canadian from a mixed francophone-anglophone family in which English dominated. I studied in English-language schools but had (mostly passive) exposure to French while growing up, plus what I studied in school. I dabbled in a few languages while in university 20 years ago (always in a classroom environment, never on my own) and have lived a couple of years in Latin America. For the past ten years or so, I’ve rarely spoken anything but English but I’ve recently become interested in restarting language studies. This time I am studying on my own. This forum has made me realize that this is something that is indeed possible, so... I thank you all for your inspiration. Like others here on this team, I developed an attachment to Greece while on a trip there. It was over 20 years ago but the little bit of Greek I learned (the alphabet and maybe about 50 words) really stuck with me. Fast-forward a number of years and my partner--who happens to be Canadian-born to Greek parents--and I are thinking of taking a trip to Greece within the next couple of years. Just the motivation I needed to start studying the language! I am not nearly as ambitious as the OP makes me out to be. :) My current goals for 2013 are to learn some Modern Greek and to dust off my Spanish and French. I’m also considering dabbling in another Romance language or maybe Swahili. I’ve been working on Greek since May 2012 with a number of different materials. I haven’t spent as much time on it as I would like. So far, I have completed Michel Thomas’ Foundation Course, Lesson 50 of Assimil (passive wave only), Lesson 6 of Teach Yourself, plus I have been listening to a host of audio-only materials (e.g. Language Transfer, Earworms, Book2, HAU Podcasts, and GreekPod101) and reading Greek children’s books. For now I plan to continue with these resources, unless anyone can recommend something else to me. Using Le nouvel grec sans peine has encouraged me to revisit my French. My child also happens to be in a French-language daycare so there is another motivation. My methodology for studying French and Spanish is simply to do some of the things I normally do in English, in those languages instead: i.e. read tweets, on-line news, etc. In fact, I do read French and Spanish already I will just make a conscious effort to do more. This is my first TAC and I look forward to sharing this experience with my team mates. Good luck everyone! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5131 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 12 of 231 14 December 2012 at 6:01pm | IP Logged |
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@Jack: That is assuming you can write anything at all - which I presently can't. I have forgotten the
alphabet completely. Can I get back to you on that in a few days, so I can learn to write at least one little sentence first? @ Ogrim: Do you realise that we are almost the same age, we are the same nationality and have almost the exact same languages! If you hadn't been male I would have thought you were me:-) @ emfibi: Welcome to the team. I am super impressed of how much you have done already. You are going to be a major asset on the team, and I see that we also share some of the same languages. Have you guys noted that we have another new member, by the way! This little group is really coming together! Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 14 December 2012 at 6:06pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Saga Diglot Newbie Germany Joined 4161 days ago 20 posts - 22 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Japanese, Greek | Message 13 of 231 14 December 2012 at 7:36pm | IP Logged |
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Γεια σας fellow members of Team Sparta and everybody else who's reading this log.
I'm not only new to the team but also to the HTLAL forum, although I've known about it for quite some time and been lurking ever since. This year has been pretty messed up for me and thus I've had little time to study languages. The TAC gives me an opportunity to start again. As my main focus will be on Modern Greek, this team is probably the best incentive I can wish for. I was considering the Japanese team, but right now, Greek is more useful to me. About me, I'm a 28-year-old German living in Germany, with German as native language. I learned English in school just like most Germans and at the beginning I neither liked it nor was I good at it. A first trip to Scotland changed that. I realised I wasn't half as bad as I thought and I started to appreciate the language more and more. Reading novels and surfing the Internet in English did wonders and nowadays I've got no more problems with the language in general. I also learned French in school for many years. But even though my grades were better than in English, in retrospective I didn't learn much. Apparently I used to have a B1 level, at least that's what it says on one of my certificates. But nowadays I have a lot trouble understanding or saying even basic things. That's why next year I want to set aside some time to restudy some French and possibly get to a higher level. Japanese and Greek are both languages I teach myself as a hobby from time to time. I never had any formal education in either, nor many opportunities to use them. Well, at least Greek I could use about once a year, as my parents built a little house in Greece and are visiting there twice a year. This year I accompanied them in spring and autumn, but didn't really get to practise my Greek. In 2013 I plan on coming along again und this time I want to actually talk to the locals instead of just listening and trying to figure out what the heck they are trying to tell me. That's the reason why Greek will be my focus next year, with Japanese pushed into second row. As for textbooks, I've used the Assimil Griechisch ohne Mühe up until lesson 54, Langenscheidt's Praktisches Lehrbuch Griechisch up until lesson 5 and also a bit of Ελληνική γλώσσα, a very comprehensive textbook, in Greek only. I still need to make some more concrete plans on what I want to achieve and which level I'd like to reach and how. Although, knowing myself, I shouldn't plan too far ahead, because I'm terrible at keeping to such plans. Well, so much for the introductory post. If you've got any question, feel free to ask. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5131 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 14 of 231 15 December 2012 at 9:09am | IP Logged |
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Welcome, Saga! We are most pleased to have you among us! You seem to be at about the same level as
embici, so that should work out nicely. Although the only person I have met with the name of Saga was a girl, I assume from what you wrote that you are a guy, am I right? As you probably know, Saga is the name of the old Norse stories, but you have perhaps taken it from somewhere else? I really envy you both your level and your parents with a house in Greece :-). Also, I note with pleasure, that with German as your mother tongue and wanting to pick up your French you fit in very nicely with the rest of the languages the rest of us speak or study. I am fairly fluent in spoken French - though I try not to write it, as that takes me literally forever - but I am happy to do French conversation, and Ogrim, living in France is probably oceans better than me again :-). In the Skype session we did on team Sputnik we spoke all the languages of the group, not just Russian (mostly because some of us did not speak any in the beginning :-). My suggestion if we do them, is to spend the first couple of times just to get to know eachother, and get used to the Skype session format, and then we can find out which other languages we can use among ourselves, and how we use the Assimil. In team Sputnik, we started out simply reading out beginner dialogues - partly to just get us off the ground, and partly to get the singing sound of panic out of our ears :-). Even the advanced ones joined in on the beginner's dialogues, As the year evolved we started to speak more freely. In this group, since two of you are half through the Assimil book already, I would imagine that it would make more sense if you agreed on a lesson further into the book, as you probably would be bored to tears by beginner dialogues. I still have not gotten around to writing my own introduction, but I have every intention of doing that sometime this week end. Having been away from home for a week and having a lot of catching up to do and being busy with Christmas preparations tends to slow things down a tad :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6417 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 15 of 231 15 December 2012 at 9:27am | IP Logged |
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I am posting this on the main sign-up thread and on all team logs:
This is a special announcement for all teams, certain ones more than others: -The purpose of TAC teams is to support, help and encourage each other. “All for one and one for all.” That means reading each other’s logs, and commenting them where appropriate. It also means no more bickering. - It the future all teams will be closed upon reaching 15 members, and new teams will be formed for those languages. Should a new team only attract a few members (about 5-7 depending on the team members prior TAC experience) by the sign-up deadline (31. January 2013), they will be merged with the original team. If in the course of the year, the teams lose half their members, they may also choose to merge. Any team that already has more than 15 members will not be divided, but they will not be allowed to add new members. - Each team is to choose a team leader by Tuesday, 18 December. Inform me of your choice by then. The leader must have prior TAC experience unless there is no such person on the team. The leader is to keep me up-to-date regarding their team. - I have created a French team and a Spanish team. Anyone studying those languages may choose to join them if they wish. The original Romance teams will remain in existence for those who are studying other Romance languages or who are interested in multiple languages. Note that even if you are only studying French or Spanish you may choose to be on a Romance team rather than a single language team. If there is enough interest for an Italian, Portuguese or Romanian team, I will create one. However, I would like those who may be interested in such a team to gather at least 5 team members before asking me to form the team. I am sorry to have to make these additional rules, however it is obvious that certain teams are already on the verge of falling apart and a number of more experienced TAC members have noticed this and sent me PM’s requesting that I do something. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5131 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 16 of 231 15 December 2012 at 9:33am | IP Logged |
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@LanguageSponge: Would you be prepared to be the leader of team Sparta?
1 person has voted this message useful |
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