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Vermillon’s TAC’13 鶴 & Lugus | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| iawia Bilingual Pentaglot Newbie Taiwan Joined 4382 days ago 35 posts - 55 votes  Speaks: EnglishC2, Mandarin*, Taiwanese*, Cantonese, Spanish Studies: Thai, Japanese | Message 9 of 73 01 January 2013 at 4:20am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Actually, the Taiwanese drama(or known as 鄉土劇here) is not considered mainstream
here. Most people would rather watch Korean, Japanese or Western drama. However, if you're not concerned about the quality, the absurd plot the endless episodes, or the de ja vu sensation (Hey! I've seen this before.)I think it is quite nice as a language learning material, because over 95% of the dialogues are in Taiwanese, with Chinese Mandarin subtitles. Most of these鄉土劇are supplied by two companies, 民視FTV & 三立SETTV. These TV channels also provide TV programs that use Mandarin & Taiwanese, covering topics ranging from travel, gastronomy, local culture and so on. However, Mandarin is the main language used, with only some Taiwanese in interviews with the locals or some phrases here and there. Most of these can be accessed through the internet, whether through Youtube or some internet TV software. Here are some, I haven't seen any of these, but maybe it's just a matter of preference. 戲說台灣: a collection of Taiwanese folk tales, available on Youtube 風水世家: ever heard of feng-shui? 夜市人生: an epic tale that started in a night market You can also check out Taiwanese cinema, most are in Mandarin but contain a sizable proportion in Taiwanese. On second thought, I think you should know more about the status of Taiwanese here. It does not enjoy the status of Cantonese in Hong Kong, because the Nationalist government from Mainland China suppressed the use of Taiwanese in schools, public institutions and so on. It was not until recent years that Taiwanese enjoyed a revival. However, due to some complicated reasons, most of the younger generation(<25 years old) hardly speak Taiwanese in their everyday lives. Mandarin is preferred in classrooms, business and work. Therefore, most of Taiwanese use is restricted to rural areas, the South of Taiwan, and within families. I think only about half of our generation can speak fluent Taiwanese, but most have good passive abilities in understanding the language. It is not uncommon for a child to talk with his or her grandparents in Mandarin, while their grandparents respond in Taiwanese. Also parents and grandparents communicate with each other in Taiwanese, but talk to the children in Mandarin. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5325 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 10 of 73 03 January 2013 at 6:44pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
For vocabulary, I'm OK with looking up words in a dictionary. Right now, my Egyptian is "frozen". I'm still reviewing 8 to 12 Anki cards per day, but not actually studying any new lessons. So far, this has been an unqualified success—I could probably pick up Assimil tomorrow and start where I left off. Right now, I'm reviewing cards from lesson 20-something and my next round of reviews will be in 5 months. One of my big goals was to be able to stop and restart this language at will without forgetting. Some of the vocabulary is a little wobbly—especially the words or signs that only appeared once or twice in Assimil—but everything else seems pretty solid. So I'd say that sticking an entire Assimil course in Anki is a very useful trick, at least if you can get somebody else to type in weird scripts. :-) With luck, I'll be able to do the remaining 70-odd Assimil lessons whenever the spirit moves me, and hold on to the resulting knowledge for a long time. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| LittleBoy Diglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5103 days ago 84 posts - 100 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto | Message 11 of 73 12 January 2013 at 1:13am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Hello fellow Team 鶴 member!
Very impressive, and fascinating, list of languages. Are there not even Chinese language materials for the necessary dialect? Best of luck for 2013! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| vermillon Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4471 days ago 602 posts - 1042 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, German | Message 12 of 73 14 January 2013 at 11:57am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Hey! Sorry for the super late answer. I'll avoid repeating myself by pointing you to the relevant post. Not entirely sure this is what you expected, but basically I've learnt Mandarin by spending all my time on it... no trick...
Thanks for your informative message, and I'm going to have a look at those videos as soon as I get the chance. I haven't had yet as I was busy preparing a presentation of myself in 闽南话.. which should come shortly. As for native speakers in Taiwan, until now almost all the Taiwanese people I've met told me they spoke the language, but I can't judge their proficiency. Anyway, my main goal will be to communicate with my gf's family.
I'm really impressed. I hope you'll get back to it soon and will give us some news about it. I want to see what you can achieve once you have mastered the book (lecture people in museums?).
Hey hey! Someone said "dialect"? ;-) There is in fact some material for 闽南话 in Mandarin, but I am yet to find quality one... All I've found until now are phrase books that don't treat the grammar, the words that are specific to the language, etc. Not to mention the ones I have seemed to teach something different from the way my gf speaks, so I've just left them on the bookshelf. Edited by vermillon on 14 January 2013 at 1:15pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4959 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 13 of 73 14 January 2013 at 1:11pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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So, how long did it take you for learning Mandarin up to this level?
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| vermillon Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4471 days ago 602 posts - 1042 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, German | Message 14 of 73 14 January 2013 at 1:14pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Woops, I forgot to paste the link :)
So I've started in 2008, but didn't do much for the past two years... My current level clearly shows it, and I used to be much better... which is why my main goal for 2013 in Mandarin is getting back to where I used to be. Edited by vermillon on 14 January 2013 at 1:16pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| billyshears66 Groupie United States Joined 4307 days ago 69 posts - 78 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 15 of 73 23 January 2013 at 7:02pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Hello teammate. I'm in awe of your goals, very impressive! I wish you all the luck in
your challenge. I'm looking forward to watching your progress. Good luck! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| vermillon Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4471 days ago 602 posts - 1042 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, German | Message 16 of 73 31 January 2013 at 5:40pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Hi all,
I haven't really updated my log for the whole month, and perhaps it's better this way. I'll try to report biweekly and have monthly goals. January 2013 Report I hope this is not going to be my best month this year, because it was pretty poor. I started late (around the 9th), I've had several week-ends not doing anything, and I've worked on other things, which means I haven't done an awful lot of work on languages this month... but overall, I'm pretty happy with the results. A bit more details below. Mandarin / 普通話: Well, I really haven't done much in Mandarin. My average daily reading amounts to 6.6p/day, which is 33% under the goal. I have no problem completing the reading amount, it's merely a matter of starting: when I read, I can read 15 pages without problem, but too many days I haven't taken the time to sit and read. On the bright side, I've updated a bit the code I was using to help me pre-learn vocabulary before reading, and it's now working again. I'm working on a fresh deck, so most words are unknown and that's a bit tough, but soon it'll be better. Success/Failure & Goals: Average. Considering I'm only aiming at maintaining and improving "a bit" my Mandarin for next year, this is all right: I won't call it either a failure not a success for this month. As long as I get back to reading enough, I shall be fine, and I hope to get to do that more in February. If my schedule gets lighter (ahah), I'll try to spend some time improving my listening as well. Minnanhua / Hokkien / Taiwanese(?) / 閩南話: It's extremely difficult for me to learn something without a routine, which is why I've done so little this month: I've decided to force myself out of routines, and somehow I don't know what to do, which leads me to extreme procrastination. For Minnanhua the case is worse, as I don't have any textbook (thanks Maryknoll for not selling to the public...) to help me structure my studies. The challenge has been the only sort of structure I could use this month, and I'm happy I've done it: I tried to approach it from a "learning" perspective, rather than just introducing myself, and it's been useful. I've learnt some sentence structures, some functional words, and that's entirely re-usable. My presentation was not quite optimal, but I was told that it was intelligible, which is probably my first concern. Success/Failure & Goals: Success. I'm a bit generous there, but I don't feel like calling it a failure: I've done something, and it got me in motion, which was the most difficult part. My goal for February is to learn what I'll call "survival" vocabulary: I've taken HSK 1's vocabulary (the new HSK being ridiculously easy, its first level is really survival) and organised it into thematic lists, and will get my girlfriend to read the words aloud, or explain how the concept is used when it differs from Mandarin. This seems like a very manageable task, and from a "goal-oriented" point of view, it should equip me with enough skills to talk about basic activities and exchange pleasantries, and give me the basis to build on during March. 화이팅! Classical Chinese / 文言: I've read 2 pages, which is about the same as saying I've read nothing. Success/Failure & Goals: Failure. I need to get better organised. Korean / 한국어 / 韓國語: I had given myself 3 months to get back to the level I had reached last year, considering it had taken me 4 months of intensive daily study (>3h/day). After one month, I've reviewed the entirety of the vocabulary and I know solidly most of it. I didn't expect I could go that fast, but reviewing 60 new words every day did the trick, and in the meantime I've also reviewed all my grammar notes, organised them into an index (that is to be reworked) in order to have something handy when I want to write and express some specific idea. I've also started looking at a children/teenager's book of the "재미있다!우리 고전" series, and got the idea that I would read the preface first. It's two pages only, but I'm still on it: every sentence is long and complex, chaining grammatical structures in a way I'm not used to, and involving vocabulary I've never seen before. It's difficult but I enjoy the exercise and I feel extremely satisfied by the decipherment process. The story itself (Portrait of Park Munsu) may be even more difficult, as I see they indicate a lot of hanja to help understanding some words. I've also restarted learning Hanja, learning their Korean definition as well, and it's going well. During a work "innovation day" (day we're let free to do whatever we want) I started working on a Korean Hangul > Mixed Script program, and it's working somewhat (70% precision, which is not great). If I get more time to work on that and making it more precise, I'll see if I can publish it. Success/Failure & Goals: Big Success. This month gave me the opportunity to retrieve my memory, and I'm now ready to go for more. I've also had the chance to familiarize myself better with my grammar and dictionary, as well as the various books I have for Korean. From now on, I plan to learn vocabulary at a limited rhythm (10-15 words per day?), learn grammar as I encounter it, and just enjoy. I want to push myself to get a look at the Iyagi series, but I haven't got around to it yet. Japanese / 日本語: I'm relatively happy with what I've done in Japanese this month. I've completed the first volume of Assimil: it claims to lead to B1, "haha". It introduces grammar at a very fast pace, but never explains it, you're supposed to infer yourself what the pattern means... while in the meantime it explains that such city is the airport close to Tokyo: this is exactly the kind of information I was expecting to get when I bought the book! Anyway, as almost no grammar is taught compared to what you are exposed to, I borrowed a copy of Routledge's "Basic Japanese Grammar" and read it from cover to cover, which shed a lot of light on what I had seen. It also helped tremendously in that I was able to equate most of the grammar patterns between Japanese and Korean. In that perspective, Japanese grammar is not so daunting, as I tend to see it as a rephrasing of Korean grammar (don't scream yet). Success/Failure & Goals: Success. It'll take me some time to assimilate properly all this, and I've also learnt some amount of vocabulary. I haven't made my presentation (yet?), but I hope to spend February digesting what I've seen until now, and start using it in some simple texts. Breton / Brezhoneg: I wanted a gentle start, and indeed gentle it was. As I was unexpectedly offered Assimil Breton for Christmas, that's the ressource I've been using until now. I'm at around lesson 35, and I enjoy the progress. I've also spent a few hours watching Breton TV (the show Bali Breizh), which makes me realise there is actually a cultural life in Breton, and that it's even modern: a great motivation boost. Success/Failure & Goals: Success. I've had a little introduction to the language, and I plan to pursue at this relatively leisurely pace. Breton hasn't been spoken in my family for two generations, so this is a bit of a stretch to consider it a "heritage" language, but I still find it brings me closer to my family. May it continue like this. Summary I think this was a decent month, even though I could have done more. I consider my effort to be a success in about 4 of my 6 languages, but a complete failure in the 2 others (somehow I expected it to be that way). Trying to be optimistic, I'll say that at least I'm not going to burn out! :) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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