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LanguageSponge’s TAC 2013 Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| LanguageSponge Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5547 days ago 1197 posts - 1487 votes  Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Welsh, Russian, Japanese, Slovenian, Greek, Italian | Message 1 of 92 16 December 2012 at 6:06am | IP Logged |
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Hello everyone!
This coming year I will be concentrating on three languages in which I have very widely varying degrees of proficiency. This year I will be indulging the desires of my heart instead of coldly calculating what I deem I should be concentrating on instead. I think this will help, before the TAC even officially begins, to raise my chances of success. Therefore, my three focus languages for this year are, in order of importance, Russian, Modern Greek and German. My previous two TACs have been marred by illness due to a long-standing medical problem, but hopefully they are all sorted now. Unfortunately there is no sure-fire way of knowing. Russian I started learning Russian on Christmas Day of 2006. My parents and uncle had bought me some Russian books because they knew I had an interest in all things Russian culture, but had not yet started on the language. Knowing that was only a matter of time, they decided to enable my curiosity. I loved Russian from the very beginning, it took me a week to learn the alphabet and my uncle, who had learnt it at school for a few years about forty years previously, was eager to help me progress. He was staying with us for the week between Christmas and New Year, so he took up the challenge and helped me learn the alphabet. During that week we spent basically all our free time on Cyrillic script, and by the end I was comfortable with it and was able to read sentences in a reasonably fluid way. My passion for Russian culture began, funnily enough, with history. I read something in a history book about Stalin and looked up who he was. As you'll see in the German section, my passion for German culture began in much the same way. So many parts of Russian culture draw me in - their part in military history and weapon development, their part in the Space Race, the Soviet Nuclear Programme, the Russian Revolution, the gulags and basically anything to do with the Soviet era at all. I studied Russian at university but as many of you will know, and I found out the hard way myself, languages at university are nothing more than a glorified language course and you get out of them no more or less than what you put in. I did enough studying in Russian and the other languages I studied there to get the top grade, but I maintain that my Russian is substandard at best. At uni, as long as you had a fairly good idea of how to manipulate language for your own purposes and knew the grammar reasonably well, you were always going to get a high mark. Even if your vocabulary was crap and it sounded as disjointed and robotic as I've been told my Russian does. My listening comprehension has always been rubbish. So my goals for Russian are as follows, and they are loose: 1. My principal goal is to become comfortable using it. I was never comfortable at uni. 2. Secondly I intend to improve my listening comprehension. It is embarrassing that I have a degree in Russian and can't listen to a news report without getting confused. 3. I want to read more. Russian has a plethora of fantastic reading material - from Pushkin's A Queen of Spades or Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time to the relatively recent Cancer Ward by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who actually only died in 2008. And that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface. I will not set any more specific long-term goals than that. If I've learnt anything from the two previous two TACs, it's that the more specific and ambitious I make my goals, the more likely I am to fall short, or even fall apart. Along my Russian journey I will have the support of all the fantastic people over at any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=34425&PN=1&TPN=1" >">Team MIR so I am sure to succeed in my goal! Modern Greek My passion for Modern Greek can only be described as a well-kept secret. I have visited a fair few of the Greek Islands over the course of my near on 23 years, namely Cephalonia, Cyprus, Crete, Hydra, Santorini, Mykonos and Ithaca, although I have only been to the mainland on one occasion. The beauty of the country and all the islands I've been to made me fall in love with Greek culture, and what originated in its infancy as an interest in the Greek gods, goddesses and all the mythology surrounding them, blossomed into a love for anything Greek. I can read it okay already but I will be going over the alphabet again to refresh my memory. It should not take more than a few hours to get me reading sentences well again. When I visited Ithaca I went to a bookshop and bought a children's book teaching the Greek alphabet. I could already read Greek at the time but I love children's reading material in any language. I also had a Greek friend in Primary School and I was always fascinated by her accent. I don't remember her speaking Greek to her parents but I know she must have. I have kept my passion for Greek in check for over ten years now in favour of other languages, but no more. My aims this year with Greek are loose, and threefold: 1. To become comfortable using it on a basic level to talk about things that are important to me. I want to be able to use it on future trips to Greece. 2. To get my listening comprehension to a decent level. This will be difficult because I view Greek as a culture that is already part of me and has been for a long time, like a long-lost sibling, so I will expect a lot from myself. I must keep this in check. 3. To find new aspects of Greek culture which will serve to tie me to the country even more than I feel tied already. I feel sure that I will accomplish these goals and perhaps more, especially with the help of the small band of Greek enthusiasts over at language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=34563&PN=1&TPN=1">Tea m Sparta! I am delighted to be part of Team Sparta, not only because we're all passionate about Greek, but also because Team Sparta almost didn't exist for this TAC at all. I see this TAC as a big step in its history, as I believe we haven't had a team specialising in Greek before. What's more, we certainly have never had a Celtic Team before, and I don't think anyone expected a Celtic team to get as fantastic a response as they have done! German My passion for German is well-known in my family and anyone who knows me on here knows that German is my best foreign language by a long way. I almost feel like I needn't do a German introduction. I started learning German at eight years old and fell in love with it, I haven't ever stopped learning. I can do anything I need to in German, I've even translated specialised articles or texts in archaeology and not had very much trouble with that. I have never had my German tested against anything like the CEFR scale but looking at it briefly I'd say I'm definitely in the C range for German. As I'm very critical of myself I would say I'm probably somewhere between C1 and C2 - I sometime stumble very briefly when speaking, so I don't speak with the ease of native. My goals with German are simple: 1. To improve in any way, shape or form. 2. To use various types of native materials I'd not consider using in English - such as poetry. I know nothing about German poetry simply because I hate poetry in English. 3. More specifically, to improve my speaking ability so I can use it easily. I will be setting myself more goals every month - they will be small so as to be completely achievable. Also, from this point onwards I will be writing this log in Russian and German, chipping in with a small amount of Greek when I feel comfortable enough. I will summarise everything in English at the end so I don't alienate anyone. I'm looking forward to the start of this year's TAC! Bring on TAC 2013! LanguageSponge / Jack PS - If anyone has any idea how fix the above links to my team logs I'd be very appreciative of the help. Edited by LanguageSponge on 16 December 2012 at 6:10am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5115 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 2 of 92 16 December 2012 at 9:43am | IP Logged |
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What a great first entry! We are on two teams together (Mir and Sparta) and we share three focus languages
(Russian, Greek and German) and we both speak French, so I really look forward to working with you. I am happy also that you are a lot more advanced than I am in all our three common languages, which means I can go to you for help! I look forward to following your log, and to see how much we can improve over the year! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6401 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 3 of 92 16 December 2012 at 12:39pm | IP Logged |
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Team MIR
Team Sparta Here are your links. The problem was that there were some extra spaces. Did you copy the addresses directly from the browser and paste them in using the insert URL button at the top of the reply/post box? (It's the one with the little planet and a chain link on it.) Normally that should work fine. If you paste an address directly into the post, the forum software inserts spaces. You had the URL functions (codes?) at both ends, so I don't know what happened unless you used a do-it-yourself method and made some kind of mistake. Anyway, all I did was take out the spaces and the links worked perfectly. Very thorough introduction :) Edited by Brun Ugle on 16 December 2012 at 12:39pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4625 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 4 of 92 16 December 2012 at 1:36pm | IP Logged |
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Great introduction, LanguageSponge!
I'm looking forward to being on Team Mir with you. My Russian is not near your level, as I only started this May, but if you need any help with your German, let me know. Best of wishes for your TAC 2013! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| LanguageSponge Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5547 days ago 1197 posts - 1487 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Welsh, Russian, Japanese, Slovenian, Greek, Italian | Message 5 of 92 16 December 2012 at 6:27pm | IP Logged |
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@ Solfrid Cristin
Thanks :) I'm really looking forward to working with you this year and I am sure that working on two teams and having three functional foreign languages in common will make us very good teammates. We also have other languages in common which are somewhat less obvious because I don't use mine as often (Spanish and Italian). If you need any help with Russian, German or Greek, don't have any second thoughts about asking me for help. If I decide at any point that I want to revive one of my others then I'm sure to ask you for help. @ Josquin - thank you! As you may have seen, I have already taken you up on that offer :) Best luck to you with your languages too. -- Я полностью сознаю, что соревнование ещё не начиналось, но я трачу своё время на чтение своих записей греческого языка, чтобы снова привыкнуть к буквам, которые, возможно, я забыл. Вдобавок, я буду учить основы греческой грамматики, так как я уже два года как не упражнялся в греческом. Я не был очень силен в греческом, но греческий язык так красив, что через несколько недель, я вспомню всё, что я раньше знал. Греческая грамматика мне даётся немного лёгкая, но мне трудно правильно просрягать глаголы. Мне кажется, что в греческом правильных глаголов нет. Сегодня вечером я начал добавлять слова в новую коладу Анки. Я не использую словарь. Я хочу посмотреть, сколько слов я вспомню. Пока что у меня в коладе около триста слов. Что за русский язык, завтра я напишу простой текст о себе. Я хочу писать как можно сложнее без словаря. Heute Abend hatte ich vor, mindestens einen Dichter zu finden, dessen Gedichte mir gefallen, und ich habe es geschafft. Ich habe das Gedicht „der Römische Brunnen“ gefunden, das mir sehr gefällt. Es gibt mehrere Fassungen und ich habe nur die erste gelesen. Die anderen lese ich später, wenn ich einige Zeit habe, um sie zu genießen. Summary and other non-language stuff. I’m well aware that the challenge hasn’t started yet but I am spending my free time going over my Greek notes as well as doing various bits and pieces for the two teams I'm on. I want to get used to reading forgotten letters before the challenge starts. I have forgotten many, many words but I have begun a new Anki deck for Greek and started filling it with words I remember, without the dictionary. I am up to about three hundred now, with a lot more words left to go. As for Russian, tomorrow I’m going to write a text about myself. I’m going to make it as complicated as I can without a dictionary. It will likely be much simpler than I could write at the end of my degree. For German, today I found a poem I liked called “The Roman Fountain”. There are seven or so other parts to it so I will read those at a later time. I am going to Suzhou tomorrow, which is a city about 60 miles west of Shanghai, and then am covering an ill colleague's teaching hours in the evening. Edited by LanguageSponge on 16 December 2012 at 7:02pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| LanguageSponge Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5547 days ago 1197 posts - 1487 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Welsh, Russian, Japanese, Slovenian, Greek, Italian | Message 6 of 92 26 December 2012 at 12:51pm | IP Logged |
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In den vergangenen Tagen habe ich mich mit meinen Sprachen kaum befasst. Ich habe die
vergangenen Tage damit verbracht, meine Ressourcen für die kommende Herausforderung anzusammeln. Zu Weihnachten habe ich einen Ipod-Mini bekommen, auf den ich einige Apps zum Sprachenerlernen runtergeladen habe. Mir gefallen besonders die Apps, die ich zum Lesen der Nachrichten in anderen Ländern anwenden kann. Das wird mir viel dabei helfen, meine Sprachen im kommenden Jahr zu verbessern. Unter den Geschenken, die ich gestern ausgewickelt habe, habe ich Assimil Griechisch Ohne Mühe aufgedeckt. Ich habe heute Morgen angefangen, das Audio anzuhören. Ich verbringe die kommenden Tage damit, weitere Ressourcen zu finden und über meine kurzfristigen Ziele für den kommenden Januar nachzudenken. Dieses Jahr habe ich mich entschieden, kurzfristige Ziele zu setzen, statt nach den Sternen zu greifen und wild unerreichbare Ziele zu setzen. Dieses Tagebuch schreibe ich abwechselnd auf Deutsch und Russisch. Nach und nach werde ich anfangen, ein bisschen Griechisch zu schreiben, doch das ist jetzt weit weg. I've not spent very much time recently studying my languages. I've more been preparing myself for the upcoming challenge in terms of resources. I got an Ipad Mini for Christmas I've been having fun hunting down Apps for that. Also among my presents was Assimil Griechisch Ohne Mühe, the audio of which I began listening to this morning. People say that Greek is phonetically very similar to Spanish, which I find odd because I love the sound of Greek, and yet the sound of the European Spanish accents I’ve heard make me cringe. Perhaps Greek is the gateway I’ve been looking for to cure me of my assertion to Spanish accents. A bit convoluted but maybe. Just as a last little note, I will be writing this log alternately In German and Russian, throwing in a bit of Greek as I get more confident with it. Thanks for reading, Jack 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5646 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 7 of 92 26 December 2012 at 4:11pm | IP Logged |
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I was reading a few threads online about Spanish folk living in Greece/studying Greek and almost all mentioned how easy Greek sounds were. I also find myself often thinking that it sounds quite Spanish-y, and even basic things like the conjugation of verbs (first person singular ends in -o, second person in an -s, third person without a consonant, third person plural with an -n, etc.) and even the stress change in the past tense (albeit, it feels backwards to my Spanish brain) give it a Spanish flavor for me. On another note, there seem to be quite a few false friends in the basic vocabulary. It seems in most (all?) languages i've studied, "no" starts with an "n" sound (no, nein, ne..pas/non, нет). In Greek that's yes! Also, the word for "or" sounds like Spanish "y", "and" sounds like Spanish "que", "there" sounds like "aquí", etc.!
I never really listened to much Greek before, but now i just love the sounds and the different (but not really that difficult) consonant combinations. Like you, i'm excited to really dive into Greek, unlike you, however, i don't know that it will be my main focus this year. ¡Estoy emocionadx de todos modos! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 4837 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 8 of 92 26 December 2012 at 5:12pm | IP Logged |
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LanguageSponge, what does "a degree in Russian" mean? Are you a Russian philologist?
What is "the gulags" and why is it used with the definite article? Edited by Марк on 26 December 2012 at 5:15pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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