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Geoffw in TAC2015: RU, HE and Friends

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Fasulye
Heptaglot
Winner TAC 2012
Moderator
Germany
fasulyespolyglotblog
Joined 5606 days ago

5460 posts - 6006 votes 
1 sounds
Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto
Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 113 of 251
22 August 2013 at 9:54am | IP Logged 
geoffw wrote:
BTW, I was lucky enough to have a Skype chat with Fasulye a few days ago, and in addition to speaking German, we had what I'm calling my first real Dutch conversation. As expected, I could understand every word she said, but my complete lack of speaking experience was very evident. I guess you have to start somewhere!


Inderdaad, toen hadden we de kans om ook een half uurtje Nederlands te praten. Voor een allereerste gesprek in deze taal ging dat aardig goed. Mensen zeggen over mij dat ik zeer duidelijk Nederlands spreek. Maar dat is normaal dat je wat woorden moet zoeken, als je niet gewend bent om deze taal regelmatig te spreken. Je hebt een hele goede uitspraak, dat is me in dit gesprek opgevallen. Als de andere Skypies er niet bij zijn, dan zal ik je graag weer de kans geven om met mij Nederlands te spreken.

Fasulye
1 person has voted this message useful



geoffw
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4447 days ago

1134 posts - 1865 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish
Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian

 
 Message 114 of 251
22 August 2013 at 8:30pm | IP Logged 
Hekje: inderdaad, dat kon. Natuurlijk zou ik graag daar willen reizen--minstens omdat ze daar het Nederlands
spreken!

Fasulye: bedankt voor die bemoedigende opmerkingen. Hopelijk zullen we spoedig nogmaals kunnen
spreken.

BTW, I composed this post on my phone so that I could use the Dutch spell check and autocomplete

So I think I'm now a bit of a poster child for high input methods and the "silent period," whether I believe in
them or not. With the exception of a few hours working through a basic Dutch instructional book, my "study"
has been almost exclusively input based, and I've delayed making any significant output for a good while.
YMMV, but I'm quite satisfied with what I've done so far, while recognizing what I have yet to accomplish.

More on my French progress coming soon...
2 persons have voted this message useful



geoffw
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4447 days ago

1134 posts - 1865 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish
Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian

 
 Message 115 of 251
25 August 2013 at 9:16pm | IP Logged 
En date d'aujourd'hui, j'ai lu plus de trois cent (300+) pages de "Le trône de fer 01," qui compte trois cent quatre-
vingt huit (389) en tout. J'espère le finir bientôt, au moins dans une semaine plus. Après cela, je ne sais exactement
pas que je vais lire. J'ai déjà lu quelques cents de pages dans "Les deux tours," et dans "De reisgenoten" (qui est le
version néerlandais de "La communauté de l'anneau"). J'ai récemment découvert que la bibliothèque locale a des
livres électroniques de Harry Potter en Français disponibles pour téléchargement gratuit. J'ai déjà lu cinq chapitres
de "le Prisonnier d'Azkaban," et je trouve que cela est pour moi quelque chose très passionnant et engageant. Je
suis aussi envisager l'achat d'un livre en néerlandais sur l'histoire de la guerre des Boers. Ou alors, un au sujet
d'Abraham Lincoln.

(Comme toujours, la correction de mes nombreuses fautes d'écriture sont bienvenues.)
1 person has voted this message useful



geoffw
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4447 days ago

1134 posts - 1865 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish
Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian

 
 Message 116 of 251
27 August 2013 at 6:33am | IP Logged 
Just saw that Pottermore finally released more ebook translation languages--including Dutch. Hooray! That will
make finishing the series much cheaper.
1 person has voted this message useful



geoffw
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4447 days ago

1134 posts - 1865 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish
Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian

 
 Message 117 of 251
01 September 2013 at 3:36pm | IP Logged 
SUPER CHALLENGE UPDATE - Added French book entries 19-22

It took me exactly 10 months to finish the first book in the French edition of A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of
Thrones). That's not because I'm such a slow reader, but because I kept putting it off. After a good start, I decided
that this was not +1 difficulty relative to my present level, but more like +2 or +3. Perhaps at the time when I
started, EVERYTHING was at least +2, so I didn't notice the difference. But after a while, I found that things
like certain BDs, and of course Harry Potter, were much closer to the ideal +1 level, and I decided that it wasn't as
efficient or enjoyable to keep slogging through a book I didn't understand half of the time.

Nowadays, I'd maybe rate Game of Thrones in French as +1.5. Certain parts, such as some of the dialogue, I can
follow just fine. Other parts, such as some of the description, use a barrage of words I've never seen or don't know.
Overall, since I know the story already, I can read this book and get something out of it, but it's exhausting and I
keep losing the thread at times.

In other news, I finally cracked my Assimil Dutch book yesterday and went through the first 8 lessons. Obviously,
this is generally speaking very basic material for me now, but the idea was to work on grammatical fine points and
speaking proficiency. I was doing basically a combination of passive and active waves from the start. I get the
feeling that I could make some significant progress if I kept doing this for a while, and I wouldn't need to put in
nearly the same amount of time as doing a full Assimil course from scratch.

BOOKS (Italian): 3. ...

FILMS, ETC. (Italian): 31. ...

BOOKS (French): 19-22. Le trône de fer T.01

FILMS, ETC. (French): 50. COMPLETE

BOOKS (Dutch): 40. ...

FILMS, ETC. (Dutch): 50. COMPLETE

I am not entered in any Super Challenge for German, but I also am still reporting for my log:

BOOKS (German): 25. ...

FILMS, ETC. (German): 75. ...

Edited by geoffw on 01 September 2013 at 3:37pm

1 person has voted this message useful



geoffw
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4447 days ago

1134 posts - 1865 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish
Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian

 
 Message 118 of 251
11 September 2013 at 4:11am | IP Logged 
SUPER CHALLENGE UPDATE - Added Dutch book entries 41-42

Harry Potter book 2 in Dutch is all done. Now I just have the longest one left: If I can finish The Order of the
Phoenix in Dutch, I finish the series in Dutch. I also would finish the half Super Challenge, because I have a couple
hundred pages of LoTR in Dutch that I haven't logged since I haven't finished, but if my total reaches 5000 pages
I'll log it.

Congratulations to the Netherlands on qualifying for the World Cup!

BOOKS (Italian): 3. ...

FILMS, ETC. (Italian): 31. ...

BOOKS (French): 22. ...

FILMS, ETC. (French): 50. COMPLETE

BOOKS (Dutch): 41-42. Harry Potter en de Geheime Kamer

FILMS, ETC. (Dutch): 50. COMPLETE

I am not entered in any Super Challenge for German, but I also am still reporting for my log:

BOOKS (German): 25. ...

FILMS, ETC. (German): 75. ...
1 person has voted this message useful



geoffw
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4447 days ago

1134 posts - 1865 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish
Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian

 
 Message 119 of 251
13 September 2013 at 11:24pm | IP Logged 
In response to a little HP-themed MBTI meme going around the inter tubes today, I took a quick 72-question MBTI
test, and got the result INTP. I read the description at the link below, and was blown away by how accurate it
seemed to be on many counts.

Link

One of the things that the MBTI predicted turns out to be interest in, and facility with (in certain facets) language:

"Precise about their descriptions, INTPs will often correct others (or be sorely tempted to) if the shade of meaning
is a bit off. While annoying to the less concise, this fine discrimination ability gives INTPs so inclined a natural
advantage as, for example, grammarians and linguists.

...

Mathematics is a system where many INTPs love to play, similarly languages, computer systems--potentially any
complex system."

Which of course led me to wonder how the distribution of personality types at HTLAL compares to the world
population at large, and whether certain types, such as INTPs, are overrepresented. (I bet a good search of the
archives would find a discussion of this topic.)
3 persons have voted this message useful



geoffw
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4447 days ago

1134 posts - 1865 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish
Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian

 
 Message 120 of 251
02 October 2013 at 7:43pm | IP Logged 
I have tons to write about, but not much time, so I'll start off with a quick attempt at my first (ever, I think?) post in Italian, to be followed eventually by, inter alia, some Super Challenge updates.

Sono tornata da Italia solo qualche giorni fa, ma ancora non ho riuscito a tornare alla vita come al solito. Beh, che cosa posso fare? La vacanza era magnifico, ma (come al solito) troppo breve. La mia moglie e io siamo andati via a Roma. Non per niente si chiama la città enterna! Abbiamo visto tutti i attrazioni turistiche: il Foro Romano, la Vaticana, il Colosseo, la Fontana di Trevi, e molte oltre cose. Siamo anche andati per un giorno di viaggo ad Orvieto, dove abbiamo visto la antica e bella Duoma di Orvieto. Abbiamo anche mangiato e bevuto, che è tutta un'altra storia stessa. Ho anche comprato per me qualche libri in lingua Italiana che voglio leggere, perché era molto più economico a vi comprarle.

More about the trip, with a focus on language issues, in a future post. As always, all corrections are welcome.


1 person has voted this message useful



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