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TAC 2013 - Vietnamese - Team: trâu | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| mordrax Newbie Australia Joined 4039 days ago 6 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English Studies: Mandarin* | Message 1 of 7 15 April 2013 at 7:31am | IP Logged | ||
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Hi everyone,
I signed up to this forum today to look ask/look for resources and found plenty to start with. Then I chanced on this section of the forum and found this challenge interesting. Sadly, there doesn't seem to be an active vietnamese team. The only other guy interested in vietnamese (http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp? TID=34788&PN=1) hasn't posted since 1st January... failed new years resolution? I've had many of those. Anyway, more info to come, I'm just going to head over to the TAC 2013 main page to register myself as a individual/single/solo/lone team. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mordrax Newbie Australia Joined 4039 days ago 6 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English Studies: Mandarin* | Message 2 of 7 16 April 2013 at 7:44am | IP Logged | ||
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Ok, so I'm back after registering for the competition.
A bit about my motivations, my wife is Vietnamese and for the last 12 years of knowing her and going over to her place weekly, I have picked up a handful of simple words like hello, thank you, bye. I'd like to learn vietnamese so I can be more involved whenever I go over, weekly. They are more comfortable with their native language and so English isn't really spoken. Another reason is that they are quite a close family and each year, they'd get together as a family and thank their parents for all they've done. And the parents would in turn help give encouragements and words of advice to the children for the next year. My one concrete goal, if there is to be one, is to be able to participate in this very special event in vietnamese and express to my in-laws my appreciation and gratitude for giving me a feeling of what a family is suppose to be like. trâu - The team name, I think means buffalo. My name is joe and as a play on sounds joke, my brother-in-law always teases me, calling me trâu because the words sound similar and also because of the quantity of food that I eat when I'm over there. However, I'd also like it to be a reminder that I'll have to work very hard, like a water buffalo on a farm, to learn a new language from absolute beginner levels. So there you have it, starting at absolute beginner, I'd like to get to a level where I can converse in a family environment and listen to some radio. CEFR B1 for this year would be pretty awesome for me! :) Getting started: At the moment, I'm looking into methods, resources and talking with my wife and listening to a bit of pimsleur. Sadly Assimil doesn't have English to vietnamese, would have been a good resource. I'm reading Benny Lewis' blog, this forum and have picked up various other resources like the FSI course that people have mentioned. I'm planning to devote 10-15mins each day with pimsleur. Too hard for me to focus for 30mins and try to apply that at night with my wife over dinner. Just from 2-3 casual conversations, I have learned simple sentences and I could use the first part of the first lesson in pimsleur which is "Do you speak English?" to ask her, "Does my son like to drink milk?" which I felt was a great accomplishment! (Low expectations...) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| js6426 Diglot Senior Member Cambodia Joined 4318 days ago 277 posts - 349 votes  Speaks: English*, Khmer Studies: Mandarin | Message 3 of 7 16 April 2013 at 5:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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Good luck in taking on Vietnamese! Great motivation to speak so that you can converse with your in-laws. I don't
mean to pry, and perhaps I misunderstood, but it seems like you said you and your wife have been married 12 years and yet you see her at her place on a weekly basis? Do you not live together? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mordrax Newbie Australia Joined 4039 days ago 6 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English Studies: Mandarin* | Message 4 of 7 17 April 2013 at 2:39am | IP Logged | ||
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Ah yes, a misunderstanding, probably because I tend to oversimplify my sentences. When I
said I go over to their place, I probably should have said we go over to her parents' place weekly. And we've only been married 4 years actually, I met her in high school and our relationship grew through uni and work years until I gathered enough courage to ask her father for his permission :D 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| mordrax Newbie Australia Joined 4039 days ago 6 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English Studies: Mandarin* | Message 5 of 7 19 April 2013 at 6:47am | IP Logged | ||
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Ok, so I've been using pimsleur for a couple of days. I'm also using audacity to edit out all the hints about rising,
falling tones, explainations, overly verbose literal English translations etc etc. After two lessons, listening and silently repeating at work, I realise that I can't do this at 50% concentration. I can listen and repeat, but when the voice asks me to say something, I can barely remember the correct words in to 2-3 seconds. And at this time, I've only been introduced to about 20 words and it seems, the more words I'm introduced to, the more I mix it up and put the wrong word in. Like the words 'yes', 'going/coming', 'understand' which sound quite different, but when I try to say understand, I always end up saying 'yes' or some other word. I'm going to have to find a solid 30mins to focus on the audio... maybe while driving? that sounds like a bad idea. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Takato Tetraglot Senior Member HungaryRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4846 days ago 249 posts - 276 votes Speaks: Hungarian*, EnglishB2, GermanB2, Japanese | Message 6 of 7 09 May 2013 at 9:37am | IP Logged | ||
So are you doing FSI or just Pimsleur? Edited by Takato on 09 May 2013 at 9:38am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mordrax Newbie Australia Joined 4039 days ago 6 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English Studies: Mandarin* | Message 7 of 7 11 May 2013 at 1:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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I haven't looked at the FSI material just yet but plan to. In fact, to be honest, I have
only done the first session of Pimsleur. What I have been doing is talking to my wife and her family. And the local bread shop owner who is vietnamese. I have known them for over 20 years and just recently I went in and said hi in vietnamese, addressing him correctly as older uncle :) He was very happy I spoke in vietnamese and then I asked to buy a croissant, con te mot croissant! He wanted to teach me more and said that we'd talk in vietnamese everytime I came, and if I didn't say it in vietnamese, he wouldn't sell me what I wanted. I hadn't been back... O_O 1 person has voted this message useful |
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