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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 |  | |
| fezmond Groupie Korea, South Joined 4713 days ago 72 posts - 78 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Korean, French | Message 41 of 251 14 January 2013 at 6:37am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm impressed - reading Harry Potter in four langauages while I've yet to do it in my native language.
Which language was the hardest to read in? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Malek Groupie Christmas Island Joined 4130 days ago 60 posts - 76 votes | Message 42 of 251 14 January 2013 at 7:27am | IP Logged | ||
Ik heb hetzelfde probleem. Als ik goed slaap is het echt bijzonder! haha 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 43 of 251 14 January 2013 at 12:28pm | IP Logged | ||
French, because I started it around the same time as I started learning French with Assimil. English was no issue, and German I already knew pretty well at the time. Dutch was a bit easier than French for various reasons. Note that I didn't necessarily understand every single word in every language, but at least by the end of the first book I was understanding the overwhelming majority of what I read in each language. 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 44 of 251 20 January 2013 at 12:38am | IP Logged | ||
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It was a tough week--not enough sleep, inter alia--but I continue to plod along. I'm feeling a good bit more
confident in French these days. I've gotten good enough that when I'm reading and a don't know a word or recognize a verb tense, it bothers me more than it used to when I didn't really know any of the tenses that well and my passive vocabulary was smaller. I still have yet to have a real conversation in French, but between self-talk and translation exercises and the like, I've convinced myself that I'm "ready" to survive one. Finished NFWE active lesson 82 today. Earlier this week I passed a significant milestone for me--lesson 78. This was the lesson that almost killed my attempt at completing Assimil. I dropped out of Assimil for a month after being so frustrated with this lesson and had to restart the course from the beginning. So why was it so hard? I guess the answer is mostly just standard complaints about how "French is hard," with a tiny amount of "Assimil is unevenly paced." To elaborate, lesson 78 was a little long and fast, but also included yelling. I find that when someone is yelling in any language, it can make it much harder to follow, and also simply is stressful to hear. Also, this lesson included more dropping of sounds n a colloquial fashion than the previous lessons, but also ADDING sounds. When the sound "uh" can translate as any of about 22 different French words (go on, count them, I dare you), an extra "uh" here and there not noted in the transcript can be further confusing. But possibly the biggest obstacle for me was the heavy use of "en" and strings of short words (Je la lui ai…) in this lesson. These have consistently been the hardest parts of French for me to pick up. The whole "Qu'est-ce que c'est" and "il y a" vocabulary took me hours of constant repetition to assimilate, and at the time there wasn't much else going on in the lessons. As for Assimil Italian--I guess it's working and I'm moving forward well, but holy guano Batman, this course needs to be revised and updated. Not only is it absolutely RIDDLED with errors, but the content is SOOOO old. Topics of discussion include sending a telegram, finding an official office for placing phone calls (and how many Lire it costs), and staying up dancing the waltz, cha-cha and twist to the record player. And 40 lessons in there have been NONE of the famous Assimil jokes. On other fronts, I've been working on German, Dutch and Yiddish with renewed vigor. I downloaded an electronic copy of the most recent Der Spiegel and have been putting any unknown vocabulary into Anki (yes, I finally succumbed to Anki). Finished the introductions (yes, plural) and first chapter of LoTR1 in Dutch. And had a nice long text chat in Yiddish (thanks @Malek, I'm looking forward to the next time). Today I spent a lot of time browsing my Weinreich dictionary to expose myself to some more vocabulary and reading the Yiddish introduction. And finally, I caught a mild case of the Esperanto bug and spent a few hours learning the basics. I've already made my first forum post in Esperanto! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| 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 45 of 251 20 January 2013 at 1:32am | IP Logged | ||
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The biggest disadvantage of Esperanto for me is that there are no football matches (or even online discussions) and not enough fantasy literature in it:) Even Dutch, albeit no match (pun intended) for Italian or Spanish, is still awesome in this regard.
Interestingly, those tiny words are a problem for me in Danish. Edited by Serpent on 20 January 2013 at 1:34am 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 46 of 251 20 January 2013 at 2:11am | IP Logged | ||
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A very important point, Serpent! There is at least the entire Hobbit and LoTR, I think? Alice in Wonderland may be
first up, because it's free from Gutenberg. I can, however, put my facebook interface in Esperanto, which is more than I can say for Yiddish. Along those same lines, it's been frustrating to discover that while Eredivisie is broadcast live on the web, the legal and supposedly reliable streams in Dutch are all banned from being streamed into the US. No luck yet finding a source for reliable Bundesliga video in German, either... 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 47 of 251 20 January 2013 at 2:25am | IP Logged | ||
Yes, that is interesting. I actually was thinking about Danish at one point during my never-ending quest to understand the French "en." Doesn't "er" sometimes perform a similar function? I don't recall ever having trouble with the little Danish words when reading, but I never got my listening comprehension good enough for me to have difficulty with specific structures. EDIT: I see you also study Norwegian. Did your Finnish friends talk you out of Swedish? Edited by geoffw on 20 January 2013 at 2:36am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| 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 48 of 251 20 January 2013 at 9:48am | IP Logged | ||
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Hehe no, I'm definitely going to learn Swedish as well! (I want to live in Finland) I'm not THAT serious about Norwegian, really - just doing the Assimil challenge in it. Couldn't find Assimil Swedish or I would be doing it instead.
hmm yeah Tolkien's been translated, but I honestly can't be bothered to order online. his books weren't sold at any Esperanto-related events I've been to and besides I can't help thinking of his disappointment with Esperanto... why hasn't anyone taken his words as guide to action??? ("Esperanto is dead because there are no Esperanto legends") I used to watch the EPL in Dutch but now there are rarely any streams. Eredivisie should be easier though, if you don't mind going illegal;) bundesliga is horrible in this regard indeed... i honestly tried to follow it but just gave up :( do you mean legal&free, btw? i'm afraid you'd have to look for legal&paid (or illegal&free). 1 person has voted this message useful |
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