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Hidden’s TAC 2013 Log Team Asian 鶴 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Hidden Linguist Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4157 days ago 64 posts - 87 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Mandarin, Sign Language, French | Message 17 of 68 05 January 2013 at 7:46pm | IP Logged | ||
I’m glad you have such a positive experience of italki. I’m still “umming and ahhing” about it at the moment, but as you say, the prices are reasonable, so I guess there’s no harm in trying out a couple of the tutors to find one that I get along with. Part-time college courses (in my experience) aren’t really set up to deal with individuals asking questions outside of what was taught in class. Fortunately my tutor is excellent and (at least so far) has been willing to accommodate me and my pestering, although in my defence I do try to limit myself to only asking a few questions a week, and only at the end of the lesson, so that I don’t interfere with them teaching the rest of the class. But I’m sure that I must irritate my tutor sometimes, which is one of the reasons that I’m considering italki for lessons as well (I feel guilty about holding my tutor up after classes, even if it’s only for a couple of minutes). If I do decide to have a lesson on italki, I’ll post about my experiences here. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4666 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 18 of 68 05 January 2013 at 7:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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Rest assured, it wasn't. I asked anyway ;)
I had the same problem with language courses in the past. With English I did things right intuitively by taking matters into my own hands, but I had several failed attempts at learning Portuguese through language courses. I didn't realise that I needed to learn words more thoroughly than to the point where I could barely recognise them, so it's no wonder I never got very far. I also like Mandarin mostly for its sound. The only thing I can do is understand a few phrases, because I've heard them so often or they are similar in Korean - but unfortunately I can never remember the intonations, my brain doesn't quite seem to recognize tone as a meaning-giving attribute yet. I recommend lots of exposure to the language. Maybe watch TV series if you can bear them... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Hidden Linguist Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4157 days ago 64 posts - 87 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Mandarin, Sign Language, French | Message 19 of 68 08 January 2013 at 12:15am | IP Logged | ||
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I've managed to complete my teams first challenge by posting a (short) introduction in the team thread. I know it's not much, but I can't wait to compare it to what I'm capable of at the end of the year. :)
I've spent some more time listening to TV shows in Mandarin today, and it's starting to sound less like random noise. I was actually able to pick out some of the simple words/phrases that they used, which I'm very happy about. :) Edited by Hidden Linguist on 08 January 2013 at 12:16am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Hidden Linguist Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4157 days ago 64 posts - 87 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Mandarin, Sign Language, French | Message 20 of 68 09 January 2013 at 12:07am | IP Logged | ||
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My pet peeve for the day is inconsistent tone markings in pinyin. How the heck am I supposed to learn the proper pronunciation for a word if every source says that it's something different. Ok, not literally every source, but more than enough to be darned annoying. x(
Other than that, it's been a pretty good day for me. I've managed to get in about an hour and a half of Mandarin today, including a little bit of grammar. I doubt that I'll be able to do much language wise over the next couple of days, because I have an exam to prepare for (yuck), but I intend to do as much as I can. I'm going to be carrying my flashcards around with me so that I can make good use of all of the little 5-10 minutes of free time here and there. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Hidden Linguist Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4157 days ago 64 posts - 87 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Mandarin, Sign Language, French | Message 21 of 68 10 January 2013 at 8:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm back to the dreaded 'normal' schedule which involves all those pesky little things that get in the way of language learning. Speaking of which; my first exam of 2013 is officially done and dusted. I'm not sure how I did on it (part of me is sure that I've failed), but it is the first exam that I have taken where I haven't frozen at all...not even once! I came close to it a couple of times (and there was a lot of panicking before I went in) but I managed to take a deep breath and get on with it. I'm so happy about this that I almost don't care how I've done. :)
I've worked out my schedule so that I can get in at least an hour of language study a day, so hopefully I can stick to that. I'm also going to keep making use of those little bits of time throughout the day. Five minutes here and there can really mount up after a while. I'm still trying not to get funny looks from people while I'm listening to my Mandarin recordings on the train, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time before I slip up and say something loud enough to attract attention. o.O Oh...and I 'may' have 'accidentally' visited my local library and raided their language section, so I have a few new materials to amuse myself with for a while...as long as the cassettes and CD's work. I tried borrowing the Michel Thomas German course (cassettes) out of the library a while back, they had 2 copies and neither one worked. :( Edited by Hidden Linguist on 10 January 2013 at 8:10pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| billyshears66 Groupie United States Joined 4312 days ago 69 posts - 78 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 22 of 68 21 January 2013 at 1:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi Hidden Linguist. We have a lot in common, I felt like I was reading about myself. I took French in High School (24ish) years ago. I took
it for 3 years, and felt I know maybe a handful of things. It was mostly useless when I was in France. I tried a couple of times on and off over the years at different languages... And now, summer of 2012, I started Mandarin. I'm addicted. I'm 100% positive I'll get to where I want to be, just not sure on the timing (which is OK, as I'm truly enjoying the trip). A couple of things I picked up along the way that might help you: italki is GREAT. I first went there to find tutors (very cheap might I add, though still not in my budget right now). I messaged a lot of the tutors to get a feel for what/how they teach. About 95% of them messaged back. Most even offered free lesson or two to see if we were a fit. But, side-note, my social anxiety popped up and I can't seem to follow through actually talking to them. I did manage to talk to one person, she had offered to help me for free... but her time is extremely limited. So I did have 2 lessons with her (very informal) for about 2 hours each. I learned one thing, my pronunciation was no where near as close as I had thought! Another great thing about italki I found is there was many people who offered to just chat in Mandarin. Most are learning English, and want practice too. I still haven't tried this, but the offers are many. And the last really useful thing I found is that you can post questions in the question part of italki, and native speakers will respond. I asked a few questions to clear things up (tones, difference between similar meanings of characters, etc...) and they have been great in answering. This might help you with the pinyin marking issues you mentioned earlier. My library was great too. I'm not sure if yours offers this, but mine will search other libraries for material. They also let me search online for them, and if the they can get them... they will. I was able to get all 3 Pimsleurs there. One was at my local library, the other two were from others that mine had delivered to them so I could pick them up. Great system! My reasons for learning Mandarin are very similar to yours also. I'll add another; it isn't easy. As I've gotten older, I found mine mind being used less... and I needed to challenge it. I know, some people say all languages are equally hard, but for some reason, Mandarin is SO foreign that it appears harder. Plus it's cool :) I look forward to working on the team with you. Good luck on all your goals! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| billyshears66 Groupie United States Joined 4312 days ago 69 posts - 78 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 23 of 68 21 January 2013 at 1:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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Sorry, forgot... couple of things I like to watch for listening practace:
This is geared more towards teens, but not bad: Growing Up with Chinese This one I like, kind of funny. They like 116 episodes. Happy Chinese Hope this helps 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Hidden Linguist Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4157 days ago 64 posts - 87 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Mandarin, Sign Language, French | Message 24 of 68 24 January 2013 at 2:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi Billyshears.
I know what you mean about anxiety. I still haven't managed to get up the courage to talk to anyone on italki yet. At some point I'll have to stop making excuses and just go for it. My local library seems to have gone downhill a lot over the last few years. A lot of the audio materials either seem to be damaged (lots of skipping/distorted sound tracks) or missing parts completely. They will order things in from other libraries, but the choice just doesn't seem to be there. :( Thanks for the links, I'll check them out. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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