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Saga’s TAC 2013 - Team Sparta

 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
13 messages over 2 pages: 1 2  Next >>
Saga
Diglot
Newbie
Germany
Joined 4124 days ago

20 posts - 22 votes
Speaks: German*, English
Studies: French, Japanese, Greek

 
 Message 1 of 13
01 January 2013 at 4:23pm | IP Logged 
Hello and welcome to my TAC log for 2013!

This will be my first TAC and hopefully I'll keep up till the end. As I want to focus
on Modern Greek this year I've joined the rather small, but enthusiastic Team Sparta.
Being in an enthusiastic (which is ενθουσιαστικός [enthousiastikós] in Greek, by the
way) team is probably my best chance at staying motivated enough throughout the year.
Greek won't be the only language I want to tackle in 2013, though. Japanese and French
will get some of my attention, too.

This is where I'm standing with these three languages now:

Modern Greek
Level: Beginner
Materials:
- Assimil Griechisch ohne Mühe
- Langenscheidt's Praktisches Lehrbuch Griechisch
- Ελληνική γλώσσα
- Γραμματική και Συντακτικό Ε' Δημοτικού (a grammar book for 5th grade children)
- Greek Easy Readers
- a lot of Greek music
- some newspapers, magazines and novels
- online radio

Japanese
Level: Beginner, somewhere around JLPT N3/N4 grammarwise
Materials:
- several novels
- Podcasts
- blogs and other websites
Note: I don't have any physical textbook, which is why I'm going to use online material
for the most part. Luckily, there are plenty of websites for Japanese learners.

French
Level: I used to be at B1, but I haven't done anything with French for several years
and can't really put a sentence together now
Materials:
- novels again, plus audiobooks
- online radio and podcasts
Note: I was thinking about doing some grammar and vocabulary revision first and
starting to read those novels later. But now that I've read about Tadoku being active
again, I think, it might be a good idea to do both parallel. The first round just
started and I already signed up with the goal of reading at least 300 pages.


My overall goal for 2013 is to spend more time on learning these languages and doing so
regularly. To make it a bit easier for me to stay focused throughout the year, I'll set
monthly goals instead of one big goal for the entire year. This will allow me to adapt
my language learning to possible changes in my life in an easier way.


1 person has voted this message useful



Saga
Diglot
Newbie
Germany
Joined 4124 days ago

20 posts - 22 votes
Speaks: German*, English
Studies: French, Japanese, Greek

 
 Message 2 of 13
01 January 2013 at 4:26pm | IP Logged 
In this post I'll collect links to websites I find useful for learning Greek, Japanese
and French.
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Solfrid Cristin
Heptaglot
Winner TAC 2011 & 2012
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5094 days ago

4143 posts - 8864 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 3 of 13
01 January 2013 at 4:34pm | IP Logged 
Welcome to your first TAC! I think you have chosen wisely when it comes to team Sparta, what we lack in numbers we compensate with in enthusiasm. And as true Spartans we are of course not worried about being outnumbered! Please let me know what you think of your grammars - I am very much in the market for a good Greek grammar.

Are you a true beginner or a false beginner (really hoping for more true beginners here to keep me company :-)
1 person has voted this message useful



Saga
Diglot
Newbie
Germany
Joined 4124 days ago

20 posts - 22 votes
Speaks: German*, English
Studies: French, Japanese, Greek

 
 Message 4 of 13
05 January 2013 at 6:14pm | IP Logged 
First of all, sorry for posting so little. Somehow the forum software doesn't really like me, it seems. It takes a
long time for pages to open, if they open at all and there isn't a timeout... On some days I just lose my patience
and go off doing something else instead.

@Cristina: I'm not really a true beginner :) I already know some Greek, but not very much. I'd consider myself an
intermediate beginner, somewhere beyond the very basics, but still far away from the intermediate stage.
Unfortunately, I can't really recommend you any grammar books. What I'm using are mostly textbooks (Assimil,
Langenscheidt and Ελληνική γλώσσα). That grammar book for 5th grade children I got in Greece for practising
purposes. It explains Greek grammar to Greek children and has a lot of examples and exercises with solutions. I
still have a long way to go until I can use it, though, and therefore I probably won't use it until later this
year.

When I read LanguageSponge's post about setting monthly goals, I just had to smile very broadly because this is
the exact thing I'm planning to do, too. I'm terrible at following long term goals, so setting short term goals is
the logic consequence for me.

Anyway, these are my goals for January:

Greek/Ελληνικά
- Assimil repetition: μαθίματα 1 - 53
- Langenscheidt repetition: μαθίματα 1 - 5
- Easy reader: Ποιος είναι ο Α.Μ.;

Japanese/日本語
- Kanji: thorough repetition of 1st and 2nd grade kanji (240 kanji)
- 4 intermediate podcasts from Japanesepod101
- read 4 blog entries

French/Français
(my Tadoku language in January)
- read at least 300 pages (currently: Harry Potter à l'école des sorciers)
- repeat basic French grammar and vocabulary

Most January goals are repetition because I've forgotten quite a lot in all three languages.

1 person has voted this message useful



Solfrid Cristin
Heptaglot
Winner TAC 2011 & 2012
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5094 days ago

4143 posts - 8864 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 5 of 13
05 January 2013 at 8:46pm | IP Logged 
Trust me. It is not you. It is the forum. Lately there are days when it has taken me half an hour to post
something, it takes forever just to change threads, and I get a ton of error messages. It us not usually like
this, but someone said there is a lot more traffic right now, and the system is struggling to handle it.

Well, it always comes in handy to have more experienced learners in the group, so I'll just listen to your
discussions, and trust that I'll learn Greek by osmosis :-)
1 person has voted this message useful



embici
Triglot
Senior Member
CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4370 days ago

263 posts - 370 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, French
Studies: Greek

 
 Message 6 of 13
12 January 2013 at 5:30pm | IP Logged 
Hello Saga. I'm looking forward to following your log. I'll understand roughly 2/3 of it as I know no Japanese. ;)

I admire you for picking three very different languages.
1 person has voted this message useful



Saga
Diglot
Newbie
Germany
Joined 4124 days ago

20 posts - 22 votes
Speaks: German*, English
Studies: French, Japanese, Greek

 
 Message 7 of 13
13 January 2013 at 6:20pm | IP Logged 
@Cristina: Thanks for telling me that it is the forum and not me :) It's reassuring to know that others have the same troubles and that I don't need to go and search for the problem on my computer and browser.

@embici: Thanks for stopping by. I'm pretty sure you'll understand more than 2/3 ^^ simply because I'm not going to write much Japanese here. As far as I've seen there are basically no native speakers around to correct my horrible Japanese, which is why I'll do the writing practise at lang-8 ... probably.

* * * * *


I haven't studied as much as I'd wanted to, but I still managed to do something.

Greek/Ελληνικά

Assimil repetition: 7/53 μαθίματα
Langenscheidt repetition: 0/5 μαθίματα
Easy Reader: 22/46 pages (not counting the exercise and vocab part at the end of the book)

And I wrote something like an introduction:

Γεια σας. Με λένε Εύα και είμαι από τη Γερμανία. Φέτος μαθαίνω τα ελληνικά, τα γαλλικά και τα ιαπωνεζικά. Θέλω να μαθαίνω και τις άλλες γλώσσες, αλλά τρεις γλώσσες είναι αρκετά για τώρα. Τα ελληνικά είναι η πιο σημαντική γλώσσα για μένα φέτος γιατί θα πάω στην Κρήτη το Μάιο και θέλω να μιλήσω πιο πολύ με τους ντόπιους. Οι γονείς μου έχουν ένα μικρό σπίτι στην Κρήτη και γι'αυτό θα πηγαίνω εκεί πιο συχνα. Αυτό είναι κι ο λόγος γιατί πρέπει να μιλάω και καταλαβαίνω τα ελληνικά.


Japanese/日本語

Kanji: 0/240
Podcasts: 0/4
Blog entries: 1/4

I have done practically nothing in Japanese apart from reading one blog entry at nihongodaybyday.


French/Français

For Tadoku I began to read the first Harry Potter book. I was anxious that I would just stare at the pages and understand close to nothing, but that wasn't the case. I'm reading the book while listening to the audiobook because I don't trust myself enough to pronounce the words the right way, even if it is only in my head. It also keeps me from stopping every single time an unknown word pops up.
I don't understand every single word – far from that, actually. But by knowing the story and recognizing cognates of French and English, I manage to understand most of what is going on. For example, I wouldn't know what a "chaudron" is just by looking at the word. But it was used in "Chaudron Baveur", which is the name of a pub – knowing the story, I know this is the "Leaky Cauldron", which makes it easy to guess the meaning.
Funny note: I even understood the word "choixpeau" :)

Je suis en train de lire "Harry Potter à l'école des sorciers". C'ést le premier livre en français que je lis depuis "Le Petit Prince" dont j'ai lu à l'école il y a quelques années. Et ce sont les premiers mots j'écris en français depuis longtemps. J'ai oublié beaucoup, mais je suis très surprise combien de la langue retourne après quelques chapitres de Harry Potter. Je ne comprends pas tout le text, mais comme je connais l'histoire c'est plus facile à suivre ce que se passe.
Maintenant je ne peux pas écrire beaucoup, parce que j'ai oublié pas seulement le vocabulaire français mais aussi le grammaire. Par exemple, je ne sais plus comment former tous les temps ... En tout cas je vais continuer à écrire quelques mots en français dans ce blog ici.

Tadoku: 159,5/300 pages
Grammaire: nothing

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renaissancemedi
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
Greece
Joined 4118 days ago

941 posts - 1309 votes 
Speaks: Greek*, Ancient Greek*, EnglishC2
Studies: French, Russian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew

 
 Message 8 of 13
13 January 2013 at 6:26pm | IP Logged 
Αυτός είναι κι ο λόγος για τον οποίο πρέπει να μιλάω και να καταλαβαίνω τα ελληνικά.

Γιαπωνέζικα or Ιαπωνικά

θα ήθελα να μάθω και άλλες γλώσσες


Καλή τύχη, good luck and have fun in Crete. Well done.


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