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TAC Romulan - Portuguese - Norwegian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| WoofCreature Diglot Groupie Canada Joined 4326 days ago 80 posts - 118 votes  Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: German, Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 9 of 26 27 April 2013 at 7:46am | IP Logged |
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French
French has been interesting. My French teacher, the one who's taught me three classes before this one, suddenly is not teaching us. We had substitute teachers for about a month and have fallen terribly behind the curriculum, but we finally have a permanent replacement, unless he unexpectedly is able to return. She's also Quebecois, though her accent is much more pronounced than his was; his was quite neutral. Before we got our new teacher the other French teacher taught us a few blitz grammar lessons to try and keep us from falling behind too much. We finally learned more specifics of when and how to accord the participe passé. I already knew that it agreed with the subject when the verb être was used, but I don't know why we were never taught the very simple rules about when it's alone and when it is with avoir. It's nice to finally learn some useful grammar again, rather than learning about how to identify the complément circonstanciel de temps and whatnot. We watched "Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain" this week, with subtitles. It was interesting to say the least. I've also been continuing to watch "On n'est pas que des cobayes" once a week. I recently found out that in the last year of school we have to opportunity to take the DELF exam. What is extremely disappointing though is that it is recommended that we take the B2 exam, and if someone in my grade were to take it, to take the B1 exam. This is by teachers who have been trained to administer the test(though they aren't actually allowed to test us because they've taught us). This is extremely disappointing. Most of us have been learning and using French almost everyday for almost thirteen years by the time we get to the last year of high school. I was expecting something more like C1. I've looked at the samples available on the website and I found the C2 reading and listening comprehension samples were quite easy, though I know my speaking and writing skills aren't that good. Also the listening comprehension was definitely not the most difficult thing I've listened to, they spoke very clearly; I wonder how accurate a representation of the test it actually is. On the bright side, I've noticed speaking has suddenly gotten a bit easier, more automatic. It's suddenly turned from one of my friends speaking to me in French during class while I respond in English, to the opposite. I'm fine with that though, as her accent, though far from horrible, just annoys me. Portuguese Yesterday I finished my first book in Portuguese: "Veronika decide morrer" by Paulo Coelho. It took me three months, but I usually only read when traveling or at school. I also received the same book in French, which I am going to give to a friend for her birthday. I've been resuming the plot for her as I've read through the book so she wanted to read it for herself. It also gives her something to read while she's in Quebec this summer (I might be going as well). I'm now going to start the other book I bought, "A cidade do sol" by Khaled Hosseini. I've been watching Os barbixas, an improv group, a Brazilian documentary about teen pregnancy and the second season of the Big Bang Theory on DVD, which has a Portuguese dub and unmatched subtitles. I haven't checked my other seasons' DVDs to see if they have Portuguese dubs or not. I'm guessing they probably don't because I watched the show with subtitles a couple times while I was in Brazil and there was no option to switch to a Portuguese dub. I finally gave in and bought a Portuguese grammar. I've been debating getting a specific one for awhile, but it was fifty dollars, so I finally bought a smaller one for the outrageous price of $0.01 plus shipping. I also bought this collection of Brazilian stories. Neither of them have arrived yet though. Norwegian My Norwegian studies have been going well. I'm still as enthusiastic as ever about the language. My progress has been impeded by my insistence on saying all the new words I learn; that is, I am sure to learn the correct pronunciation at the same time. I didn't pay enough attention to pronunciation with Portuguese and now I'm paying the price by being embarrassed to speak and having to spend more time relearning words that I have been mispronouncing. The only problem is I usually only like to practice speaking when there is no one else around, so that basically gives me nights, when everyone else has gone to bed. Nevertheless, I am now able to pick out many words while watching children's shows and can often understand the gist of comments on Youtube. A few weeks ago I bought this Norwegian-English dictionary as well as five Danish children's books from a used bookstore. I'm not sure when to start using the Danish books. I have a friend who is going to Denmark this summer and who is going to bring me back a few books, so I want to be able to read Danish. I have heard people recommend that people learn a dialect and then stay consistent. I think I am going to learn the Bergen dialect because it is the dialect that I hear the most, thanks to Ylvis. It also has the advantages and disadvantages of having the French r and only having two genders. On one hand I can't do the Spanish r, though I am trying to learn it, but on the other hand, I prefer Norwegian spoken with the Spanish r. Also, only having to worry about two genders is nice, but I worry it might bite me later if I decide to learn a different dialect, like if I were to go on an exchange year to another part of Norway. American Sign Language I've effectively taken a break from ASL, though I plan to pick it back up soon. I recently bought a sign language dictionary from a used bookstore, though I'm not sure how helpful it will be. Thanks for the encouragement and suggestions Brun Ugle and kujichagulia, I appreciate it. Edited by WoofCreature on 27 April 2013 at 7:48am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| WoofCreature Diglot Groupie Canada Joined 4326 days ago 80 posts - 118 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: German, Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 10 of 26 01 June 2013 at 8:03am | IP Logged |
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French
French has been continuing as usual. Recently in class we watched half of Astérix aux Jeux Olympiques and the Québecois film Aurore, about Aurore Gagnon, who was a victim of child abuse and was killed in 1920. It was really horrifying and sad. I loved the little girl who played the young Aurore though, so cute. We went through a bunch of homonyms in class. They were really easy and the teacher spent way too much time going through them. It did give me a lot of Portuguese reading time though. Also, is it not a bit odd when a French native speaker and teacher asks her students what the word for guilt is in French? (And not in a "testing our knowledge" kind of way, but in a "I can't remember that word" way. I wonder how long she's been living away from Quebec.) Portuguese Now that I've started the 6 Week Challenge, Portuguese has taken a bit of a back seat, but I haven't completely ignored it. I've found a telenovela that isn't too horrible so far and there's tons of episodes on youtube, though knowing my luck they'll get taken down soon. I've also been watching clips from Os Barbixas from time to time. I started to read A cidade do sol by Khaled Hosseini. I got to about page 60 when the book Crônicas Brasileiras finally came, two months after I ordered it, so I've now been going through that. I've also been listening to the Cafe Brasil podcast during my commute to school. I haven't written anything in awhile, but I've found it easier to think in Portuguese lately, so there's some production there at least. Norwegian Because of the 6 Week Challenge, Norwegian has been my focus for the past month. I'm loving it more and more. I was watching the children's show Friminutt(Recess) because there were a ton of episodes on youtube and it's one of the few children's shows that isn't unbearably over-exaggerated. Unfortunately they were all taken down recently and I hadn't gotten around to downloading them yet. I've tried to find somewhere to buy them but my limited understanding of Norwegian has left me out of luck. I think I might try contacting the user who had posted them and see if they can point me in the right direction. Aside from that I've been watching clips of Disney songs with subtitles and translations and clips from the comedians Ylvis and Raske Menn. I bought three books in Norwegian already, but I haven't tried reading them yet. But thanks to the Firefox addon Quick Translator I have been able to read Norwegian, mostly news and wikipedia, while looking up every other word without it becoming too tedious. I have also been going through a few Memrise courses and listening to the podcast Klar Tale during my commute. I'd now estimate my passive vocabulary to be around 500 words. I haven't done any production yet, other than repeating the words as I learn them on Memrise. I'm quite glad I signed up for the 6 Week Challenge, it has really made me aware of how much time I really spend on languages and has encouraged me to use every spare minute. I definitely have done much more than I would have otherwise. Hopefully these habits will continue after the challenge. Edited by WoofCreature on 11 August 2013 at 5:43am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| WoofCreature Diglot Groupie Canada Joined 4326 days ago 80 posts - 118 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: German, Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 11 of 26 11 August 2013 at 5:42am | IP Logged |
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It's been awhile since I last updated this, but I've been pretty busy. Unfortunately I haven't done as much as I would like with languages since the last 6 Week Challenge ended in June, first because I needed a bit of a break and had exams and then because I had a full time job. That's ending this week, so then I'll have a couple of weeks before I go back to school. I decided not to participate in the current 6 Week Challenge because I need to concentrate on work and school, but I'll keep learning languages of course.
French I haven't done a whole lot with French, though I've worked on an online course a little bit and I've watched some videos by the comedian Louis-José Houde and read his book. I also watched a few films from Quebec, including one he was in. I'm liking Quebec French more and more. I'm quite surprised by how much my pronunciation differs from Quebec French though, considering the vast majority of the teachers I've had have come from Quebec. My pronunciation is sort of mid-Atlantic. I also bought quite a few novels from used bookstores. Right now I'm reserving my reading time for Portuguese and once I run out of books I'll probably be able to move on to Norwegian, but I now have a stock for when I stop my daily schooling in French and need to consciously keep it alive. Portuguese Portuguese has probably gotten the most attention since the 6 Week Challenge. I really neglected it during the challenge so I spent some time after it ended to revive it. I also found out a few weeks ago that there will hopefully be another Brazilian exchange student staying with my dad this coming school year, so I've been hoping that I'll finally be able to converse with someone in Portuguese, even if only once in awhile. I started reading A cidade do sol again and got about another 50 pages in when I stopped because I found out that I could take out books from the library in the city I'm staying in temporarily. They have a number of novels in Portuguese, but I've been trying to finish the smallest that I found before I leave. It's Cão de cabelo by Mauro Sta. Cecília. It's about a lyricist who lives in a favela in Rio de Janeiro. It's told in the first person and is quite colloquial and has been quite interesting so far. I just wish I could find somewhere to buy it so that I wouldn't have to rush through it. I've also watched a few movies from the library, one that was particularly good was Lula, about the former Brazilian president. Thinking in Portuguese has become quite easy and natural now, though I know that I make mistakes and lack vocabulary. I need to work on my active skills, especially now that I will have he opportunity to speak. Norwegian Unfortunately, since the 6 Week Challenge ended in June I haven't done a whole lot with Norwegian. I took a break for a few weeks when it ended to focus on Portuguese and on exams. For a few weeks in July I listened to the Klar Tale podcast for about an hour a day on my commute, but have since replaced it with a book in Portuguese. Even so, I don't feel like I've lost much, I even feel like I've magically learned stuff at times. I've watched a few movies in Norwegian that I got from the library, but I don't feel like I get much out of them at my level. I hope to start learning more once my job finishes. I've been considering buying this grammar but the price has kept me from ordering it. Other Despite my better judgment I've considered starting another language, though I really need to wait until my Norwegian gets up to a more usable level. In a used bookstore I found a Cree exercise book and a teacher's grammar, written by a Cree speaker. I would need audio resources too, but I've also found a number of resources on this blog. Cree is becoming more and more tempting, though the new(?) Inuktitut wikipedia, though extremely small, makes it slightly tempting too. I also bought a book in Finnish at a used bookstore just because I imagine I would have a tough time finding books if I ever decided to learn it. I then found a 1956 edition of Teach Yourself Finnish so I had to buy that too. Finnish will have to wait for awhile though. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Tsopivo Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4271 days ago 258 posts - 411 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Esperanto | Message 12 of 26 12 August 2013 at 3:00am | IP Logged |
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For Quebec French, I can recommend the movie "La grande séduction". I quite enjoyed it.
"Les têtes-à-claques" is good for Quebec accent too because they make their videos available for free on internet with subtitles. I don't really know their TV show but some of their short clips are quite funny, the most famous being the "willi waller". There are tons of very funny comedians in Quebec and the French speaking world but I am not sure if they have a lot of videos online. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Emily96 Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4228 days ago 270 posts - 342 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Finnish, Latin | Message 13 of 26 12 August 2013 at 4:01am | IP Logged |
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I'm glad the other romulans are still studying!
Amélie and Aurore are two movies that i have been meaning to watch for a long time. I should really get on that. When i went to quebec at the beginning of the summer i saw part of the set that was used in aurore! Since you're in canada you can also watch movies and shows off of tou.tv. i've been watching a lot of 30 vies, a drama set in a quebecois high school. I'm glad you like quebecois french, it's definitely grown on me over the past two years (especially since my exchange) and now i try to make everyone learn it! and my quebecois french teacher is the funniest woman ever. if you don't mind me asking, what grade are you going into? probably about the same as me (grade 12), because my teacher also mentioned that we were about a B1 level. i was surprised at first because i too had estimated it to be much higher, but then when i thought about some of my classmates... i understood. the majority of them wouldn't be comfortable speaking to a real live french person. they would never watch movies/read books/listen to music in french unless it was a school project, and NEVER look up new vocab or grammar just out of curiosity. point of the story: you may be higher than the rest of your classmates, so don't be disappointed that you're "only a B1" just because thats what the curriculum says. language learning varies from person to person! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4966 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 14 of 26 12 August 2013 at 11:19pm | IP Logged |
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What a nice log to follow, about Portuguese and Norwegian! Feel free to ask for help with
Portuguese and well as to check my Norwegian log. I see you're making good progress and starting to feel some connection with the language, and thst's interesting to see, Woof. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4515 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 15 of 26 12 August 2013 at 11:50pm | IP Logged |
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Which was the Brazilian telenovela?
YOu should follow the channel "Porta dos Fundos" on Youtube. It's the most famous comedy channel in Brazil right now I guess, they have 2 new videos and all of them have English subtitles (and they're great!). 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| WoofCreature Diglot Groupie Canada Joined 4326 days ago 80 posts - 118 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: German, Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 16 of 26 16 August 2013 at 9:49pm | IP Logged |
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Wow, thanks for all the comments everyone. I don't have much to update with right now, so I'll just respond to your comments.
Tsopivo: Thanks for the movie suggestion, I'll have to see if I can find that. Yeah, Les têtes-à-claques are interesting, teachers have shown them to use occasionally, I should look at their videos more often. I've found videos from a few comedians on youtube but they can be hard to find sometimes. Emily96: Thanks for the website suggestion, I'll have to check that out. Yeah, I'm going into the same grade as you. I know what you mean about the level of French spoken by classmates, it's painful to listen to sometimes. Expugnator: Thanks, I'll definitely ask if I have any questions. Fabriciocarraro: The telenovela is Balacobaco, I've gotten to the 10th episode I think. Thanks for the suggestion, I like watching comedy videos so I'll have to check that out. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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