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TAC 2013 Tandem Winnipeg-Berlin | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6264 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes  Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 81 of 137 29 March 2013 at 12:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
That's for sure! You wrote 7 texts in 12 days... I'm not a little ashamed, considering I only wrote 9 texts total this year, definitely have to step up my game. Using draftin.com, I can correct your texts comfortably and in very little time, so keep them coming! :-) I just came back from China. As expected, I only got part-way through my Italian book, despite it being very interesting, because our schedule was just that full! On the bright side, I practised A LOT of Chinese speaking because I was the only one in our group of 14 European youths who spoke any Chinese, and there are still very few people who speak decent English in China even in touristy cities. So I often helped the others communicate with the hotel staff, the taxi drivers, the salespeople, the IT company employees, youth workers and other random people we encountered. The first two full days were spent at a symposium working intensively with our Chinese counterparts from youth organizations and new media. For this part we had two simultaneous translators. For the rest of the days, which were spent traveling around China visiting social media companies and doing a bit of sight-seeing, we had an official guide, Mr Tang Hao, the Program Officer of the International Department of All-China Youth Federation, who has my utmost respect. Not only did he show an angel's patience in herding cats, he also interpreted for hours on end, because most companies' representatives didn't speak English or didn't want to present in English. My low-ball estimate is that, despite being in a guided group most of the time, I spent close to 16 hours speaking Chinese during these days in China, not counting the intense exposure I had almost continually (also whenever we had consecutive interpretation I listened intently trying to pick up the meaning before the translation, which made the more boring ones of the speeches more bearable). The best day Chinese-wise was the 21st: I first spoke a lot of Chinese with other symposium attendees in the breaks and then we were invited to a banquet with some high-ranking representatives of the All- China Youth Federation. I found my placecard next to Mr Jia Bo, the Deputy Secretary- General, and it was purposefully placed so because Mr Jia Bo doesn't speak English, only Chinese and some Russian, so during the entire banquet he was either practising Russian with the Serbian girl he had seated on his left or speaking Chinese with me on his right, usually the latter. We talked about many different things, including Esperanto, language-learning and his visits to Germany. All in all, I must have spent at least 5 hours speaking Chinese on that single day, and by the end I had the very curious sensation of finding Chinese easier than English, Esperanto or Italian: whenever I wanted to say something, it wanted to come out in Chinese and I had to remind myself to switch language for the European attendees. This is the first time this happened to me with Chinese. It happened on one other day as well, but most of the time Chinese was back to normally-difficult. During this trip I also got to practise Greek a little bit (one Greek participant) and Italian a lot (4 Italian participants, who spoke Italian almost all the time). I also spoke Esperanto with Francesco, my fellow TEJO representative. This sparked a bunch of conversations about Esperanto, and several of the European participants surprised us by understanding some of what we were saying. Unfortunately we could only meet one fellow Esperanto speaker during this trip, because time was so scarce. Francesco is staying on for a few more days though, during which he will meet the Esperanto team of China Radio International, the Beijing Esperanto club and several other local Esperanto speakers. I wish I could have stayed longer as well, but even so it was a very successful trip, during which I gained many new insights. I also now have 10 new hand-picked books to read in Chinese. Edited by Sprachprofi on 29 March 2013 at 12:45pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5175 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 82 of 137 29 March 2013 at 4:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
Other members might be interested in hearing some additional information about Draftin. One of the advantages of this online, streamlined word processor is that it allows the user to save multiple versions of the same text. The feature I like most is the ability to share a text with another user, which allows them to make changes as they please, resulting in a 3-column version showing the original on the left, the corrected version on the right and the actual changes in the middle. If you have a partner willing to work with you on this, the advantage over Lang-8 is that, apart from it being more private, it creates a very simple work interface and the partner can correct as they please without any concern for structure or organisation, while your original version remains untouched and the changes are clearly marked. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5641 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 83 of 137 29 March 2013 at 4:41pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Koran dankon, Sprachprofi, pri via raporto pri viaj spertoj en Cxinio, al mi tio sxajnas esti ege interesa kaj kiel lingvopraktiko tre utila. Bonega maniero ferii en eksterlando!
Por mi baldaux komencos la NOSOBE Esperanto semajnfino en Ermelo, Nederlando. Tio estas grupo de nederlandanoj kaj mi, preskaux cxiuj bonaj esperantistoj. Mi survoje ankaux vizitos nederlandan leteramikon kun lia edzino, ili ne estas esperantistoj. Korajan salutojn el la vintra urbro Krefeld (cxi-tie ecx negxas dum la komenco de la printempo!), Fasulye Edited by Fasulye on 29 March 2013 at 4:42pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6264 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 84 of 137 04 April 2013 at 6:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Ankaŭ ĉi tie daŭre neĝas...
I'm now working on my thesis in French. Also, I finished another book - an Italian tome of almost 500 pages. Book 1: "B.A.f.H. - Das Neueste vom Bastard Assistant" by Florian Schiel Book 2: "Το ταξίδι στη χώρα που δε βλέπουν τα μάτια..." by Αντώνης Καλογήρου Book 3: "Io Alessandro" by Steven Pressfield Book 4: "L'Irak du silence" by Marie de Varney Book 5: "Ramsès - le temple des millions d'années" by Christian Jacq Book 6: "Oni ne pafas en Jamburg" by Mikaelo Bronŝtejn Book 7: "搭车去柏林" by 刘畅 Book 8: "Babel-17" by Samuel R. Delaney Book 9: "Without Reserve" by Abigail Reynolds Book 10: "Eine Billion Dollar" by Andreas Eschbach Book 11: "La ABC de tempoplanado" by Lothar J. Seiwert. Book 12: "Spanisch für Büffelmuffel" Book 13: "Le porte di fuoco" by Steven Pressfield This is a historical novel about the battle of the Thermopyles, and life of Spartans in general. A real page-turner. I had started to read that book on Aymara culture, but then I needed a book for the flight and I turned to this one. Back in Germany, I decided to finish this book before getting back to the Aymara. Edited by Sprachprofi on 04 April 2013 at 7:55pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6264 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 85 of 137 06 April 2013 at 11:53am | IP Logged | |||||
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Yesterday I spent 5 hours on French! 2 hours spent researching & writing my
university thesis and then 3 hours at a French meet-up in Berlin, where I met a bunch of interesting people (curiously enough, the majority were programmers). Also, I just hit 200 hours total language hours for this year. If I can keep this up, I shall beat my record from 2011, which was 711 hours in that year. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5175 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 86 of 137 06 April 2013 at 7:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
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My turn to update.
German Ich versuche jeden Tag oder fast jeden Tag etwas auf Deutsch zu schreiben und meine Partnerin ist nett genug, alles zu korrigieren ;) Ich weiß noch nicht, ob es möglich ist, diesen Sommer C2 zu erreichen, aber meine Texte werden schon besser und ich werde weiter schreiben. [I'm trying to write something in German every day or almost every day and my partner is kind enough to correct everything. I still don't know if it's possible to reach C2 this summer but my texts are already getting better and I will continue to write.] Romanian Încerc să studiez cu Assimil în fiecare zi, dar prefer des să fac alte lucruri, cum asculta radioul românesc sau privi emisiuni pe care am găsit și care au subtitluri românește. Acum mă citesc lecția Assimilului număr 55. [I'm trying to study with Assimil every day, but I often prefer to do other things, like listening to the radio in Romanian or watch shows that I found and which have Romanian subtitles. Now, I'm reading Assimil lesson 55.] 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6264 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 87 of 137 11 April 2013 at 8:14pm | IP Logged | |||||
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These days almost all my language-study time is spent researching & writing my thesis, i.
e. on French. I have to fix this, get some other languages back in, especially as I'm still hoping to release another 12-language video this month, to compare with the 2010 one. Meanwhile, I finished Book 14: La Cultura Aymara 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5175 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 88 of 137 15 April 2013 at 3:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Romanian
I've slowed down in my use of Assimil Roumain (active wave, lesson 66) because several other options are now proving a lot more interesting. I made a short audio recording for a friend and exchanged some emails, I watched a documentary, and I'm now reading L'étranger by Camus, which I set up as a trilingual version (Romanian, French and German). I also bought the 4th edition of Learn Romanian Magazine after quite enjoying the 3rd instalment. It's not a very long magazine at all, but I like the format and it's a mere 2 euros. German Having been extremely busy with work this week, I've had no time to write, as I'd earlier set out to do. However, I've read a bit and will continue to read thanks to the trilingual version of L'étranger. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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