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Geoffw in TAC2015: RU, HE and Friends | ||
Tags: Football/Soccer | Yiddish | Hebrew | Dutch | Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC) | Russian | German | French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6384 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 73 of 251 23 January 2013 at 1:32am | IP Logged |
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Well, Dutch is a smaller language so that Dutchmen are more likely than Germans to learn other languages? Like especially German :D, French and maybe these days also Spanish, plus the Nordic languages (though they also seem popular in Germany).
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| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4475 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 74 of 251 27 January 2013 at 3:56pm | IP Logged |
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SUPER CHALLENGE UPDATE - Added Italian audio entries 22-24, French audio entries 31-41, and Dutch Audio entries 27-31
Lots more listening to report. I've been reading, too, but nothing finished yet. Great progress, e.g., in LotR in French, where my general comprehension skills are still improving. I spent a little time working on grammar (i.e., verb conjugations, but a little bit on gender/number agreement issues) and now I'm reading more closely and understanding 90% of the tenses/moods (the rest are usually literary tenses, including some of the less common ones, but I'm slowly learning them, too). Back to the listening report. A couple more Serie A matches, and I have to say, Juventus got robbed. They shouldn't have been in a position where they needed to get lucky at the last second, but I just don't see how you call a corner instead of a penalty there. In fact, I thought the RAI announcers initially reported that that was the call. I was distracted at the time, and when they announced a yellow card on the play, I didn't even realize it was against Juventus until I rewound (there's a word with "archaic" origins for you) and watched the play again. Moving on. I finished this epically long audiobook of Jules Verne for the second time. I can tell that my comprehension skills are continuing to magically improve for no apparent reason, so I think my strategy is ok for now, even if audiobooks still seem to be over my head. It's been especially helpful though to hear the literary tenses spoken aloud. This story in particular helps with practicing the passe simple 1st person plural forms, but doesn't seem to use so much of the more archaic tenses as LotR does. In other news, I went to a meetup last week which ended up being me and 4 native Germans (who all have been in the US for many years). It was a bit intimidating, and clearly I'm nowhere near that level, but I think I survived pretty well. It seemed like there was less self-filtering, slowing down and simplification on their parts than I usually see at meetups when there are more non-natives there. Afterwards, I was inspired to spend some more time learning fine points of grammar. There is still a lot to perfect, but I can at least report that, after 25 years I finally feel like I have the system of case endings down cold. Now I just need to remember all the genders and I'll be set. BOOKS (Italian): 0. ... FILMS, ETC. (Italian): 22. Serie A: Sampdoria - Milan 23. Serie A: Juventus - Udinese 24. Serie A: Juventus - Genoa BOOKS (French): 16. ... FILMS, ETC. (French): 31-41. 20.000 lieues sous les mers (audiobook) BOOKS (Dutch): 28. ... FILMS, ETC. (Dutch): 27-30. Radio 1 31. BNR Nieuwsradio I am not entered in any Super Challenge for German, but I also am still reporting for my log: BOOKS (German): 12. ... FILMS, ETC. (German): 43. ... Edited by geoffw on 27 January 2013 at 3:58pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4475 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 75 of 251 28 January 2013 at 2:10am | IP Logged |
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Yay! I just got a correction on Lang-8 for my last German entry! More to the point, I learned several things from the correction. Some of them were points of German grammar. Another thing is how difficult it can be to take corrections sometimes, when it means admitting that you didn't know something, or that you messed something up. Lang-8 is useful precisely because of the mistakes you make, and yet it feels so disappointing to see your mistakes pointed out sometimes.
On another note, I may have recovered for now from my Esperanto infection, but it may have been displaced by a (temporary, I assume?) infatuation with Finnish. I blame Serpent. ;-) I spent a couple hours just listening to Finnish audio last week, and tonight I spent an hour learning the first dialogue in the FSI course, which is presented side-by-side Assimil-style. One thing that became clear was just how much harder it is to learn a dialogue when you don't have any cognates or previously known words. In doing Assimil French and Italian, it's always been fairly easy for me to map out what in the English matches what in the TL. No such luck here, at least for dialogue one. But on the other hand, with enough repetition and close study, these Finnish sentences can start to feel just as clear as French. I'm not suggesting that Finnish would be as easy to learn as French--quite the opposite. What I'm suggesting is that, having learned "how to learn French," it's no longer as big a step to knowing "how to learn ANY language." The tasks are the same, even if it takes more time to do them. My confidence is running WAY too high right now... 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4475 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 76 of 251 28 January 2013 at 10:08pm | IP Logged |
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For those who haven't heard yet, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands announced today that she is stepping down from the throne. NRC has responded by linking to a number of documentaries about her:
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| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4475 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 77 of 251 28 January 2013 at 11:28pm | IP Logged |
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At HTLAL we often talk about the value of our language learning in terms of the insight it gives us into other cultures. After watching/listening to some of the documentaries on Queen Beatrix (see link in previous post), I feel like I experienced a good bit of that today. Coming from a culture of nationalism founded on anti-monarchical principles (but with a stream of tabloid-style interest in royalty, both real and imagined), it's been eye-opening to get a glimpse of a different world, where liberal democracy and monarchy somehow coexist. My way of thinking in trying to understand the governmental structures of foreign countries is always to identify: where do what powers reside? Who gets a vote on what? Who holds a veto over what? The idea of a dynastic head of state who is distinct from the elected head of government is not intuitive for me as an American, and these documentaries give at least some meaningful window into this world, this system, and the people who are part of it.
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| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4475 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 78 of 251 31 January 2013 at 10:32pm | IP Logged |
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To 6WC, or not to 6WC, that is the question.
Whether 'tis nobler to enroll a language Without the basics but outrageous chutzpah, Or to take on a goal of C- or B2, A long ongoing venture; to read, books cheap Yet more, as if our studies never end The Heartache of the thousand Anki blocks That language dares you? Tis a consternation Devoutly to review. To focus deep Too deep to wander free, aye, there's the rub While in the deep of French, might Russian come Or even Finnish to the one who dares to toil [dependent clause]. ... OK, so I can't decide if I want to sign up for 6WC or if I'd rather just not log my time. And if I do sign up, I can't decide what language. I could go for French or Italian (I'll be studying them either way), or Dutch, but Italian is the only one where I'm really kindof at the beginner stage still and I'm just not feeling it. Then there's the part of me that wants an excuse to let loose on something different for a bit, like Esperanto (if I'm looking for some quick success) or Russian or even Finnish (if I'm looking to get some exposure to something really new for a while). I'd also consider targeting Hebrew, Hungarian, the other Nordics, who knows. Maybe it's safer just to stick to my current routine, since it's not like I'll have any extra time. What's everyone else planning to do for the 6WC? OK, brain dump is over. See you in February! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4475 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 79 of 251 01 February 2013 at 3:21am | IP Logged |
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...and right on cue, I arrive home to a shrinkwrapped package of Assimil Russian With Ease that came in the mail from Schoenhof's today (I ordered back in December). I think we have a winner.
I'm basically at ground zero with Russian, but I spent somewhere from 50-100 hours at least trying to study it a decade ago, with what I thought was limited success. Knowing what I know now, I probably was doing quite well for how long I'd spent and the techniques I was using. At this point I remember the Cyrillic alphabet and a few basic grammar ideas and a very small number of basic vocabulary words. It's hard to say what all might pop out of my brain's long-term storage, though. I have all the materials I think I need for a 6WC in Assimil, but I have some others to fall back on if need be, including: Teach Yourself Russian (I liked this pretty well, but only got half-way through), "Learn Russian," by Ian Press (a neat little unorthodox book allegedly for beginners that immediately starts throwing poetry and literature at you), "Intermediate Russian: The Twelve Chairs, and an Overview of Russian Conjugation," by Alexander Nakhimovsky, "Russian as We Speak It," a parallel reader of classic short stories, the Hobbit, and this thing called the internet. I don't plan to get through anywhere close to all of that in six weeks (well, I might finish reading the internet, but none of the other stuff). I'll arbitrarily say that my goal for this 6WC will be to get to a point where I can totally fail to understand The Hobbit. ;-) As mentioned before, I'm still going to be doing both French and Italian, but if I get squeezed I may cut back on Dutch especially...we'll see. I tend to do what I feel like at the time. I'm continuing to make progress in all of my TLs, so I don't think it's a huge deal which TLs I focus on. As long as I'm staying in the habit of doing languages, they tend to balance out in the long run without any deep thought on my part. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Adrean TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member France adrean83.wordpress.c Joined 5955 days ago 348 posts - 411 votes Speaks: FrenchC1 | Message 80 of 251 01 February 2013 at 5:40pm | IP Logged |
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I guess the fact that Assimil arrived in fresh packaging made the choice easy for you. I
know there are some of us who would love to join you in the 6WC but for our prudence. Bonne chance pour vos etudes au mois de fevrier! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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