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South, North and East...TAC15 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| agantik Triglot Senior Member France Joined 4423 days ago 217 posts - 335 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Italian Studies: German, Norwegian | Message 1 of 49 28 April 2013 at 2:52pm | IP Logged |
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EDIT : TAC 2015 starts hereon page 5
I've been a groupie of that forum for over a year now, it's about time I took the leap of faith and started a log too! So time to take action. My target languages are (for now) Italian and Norwegian. I also have to take into account a recent wanderlust with Japanese. Here is a general overview : 1 / Italian I have been studying Italian on and off in the past 15 years (more off than on to tell the truth) but more actively for one year. I spent two weeks in Toscana last summer and this prompted me to cram as many set sentences and vocabulary as I could before the trip. I was surprised to discover I could get by in most situations (I mean "tourist" situations), I managed to make myself understood, I even got to do a little chit-chat now and then, and I understood about 75% of what I heard. It boosted my ego and so I decided on my return to devote more time to serious Italian study. So far I have read 3 books, and found that my previous Latin studies in high school paid off : a lot of unknown words are Latin cognates, and I can understand all the written conjugations (without myself being able to produce a verb in the subjonctive or in the perfect tense!) I assess my current level at reading B1 / B2 understanding B1/B2 speaking / writing A2 (the active skills are the harder to activate!!) Goals I'd like to achieve C1 at some point in every skill. I don't want to set a deadline because I don't have much time. The most important is the travel process not the destination in itself. I want to enjoy myself studying Italian. Tools I've got about a zillion books, textbooks, methods to learn Italian. In addition to being a language nerd, I must confess I'm also a book nerd ;) ! I'll be using mostly the immersion method (reading, listening to podcasts). I'll see what I can do to activate the production skills. I also have in mind to force myself to do all the mini (excellent!!)challenges designed by Languagesponge for Team MIR. 2/ NORWEGIAN This one is rather on the backburner for the moment, and has been for some time. I took part in the Assimil challenge but dropped out at the 28th lesson. I'd like to revise these lessons and diversify my ressources. Goals to be able to read the few second hand detective stories which gather dust on my shelves. Tools -Assimil, Teach Yourself, Hugo, websites (found thanks to HTLAL members) write mini-challenges too. 3/ JAPANESE I have been collecting Japanese methods for about ten years. I have already learnt (and forgotten!!) the hiragana twice. This time, they seem to stick thanks to the Irrashai videos recommended by a member in another thread (whoever you are thanks a lot!). I am at video 20 of Japanese I, and it's great fun so far. Not too quick, and it boosted my motivation so I managed to learn about 50 kanjis in addition to the hiragana. No clearly defined goals here. Just have fun discovering an exotic language. 4/ OTHERS Of course I'll maintain English. I use it everyday to teach it. I used to be C2 in every skill when I graduated, but now due to lack of speaking practice (at a challenging level I mean, because I get a lot of exposure at crappy level, namely with my A2/ B1 students) I'm probably C1 for speaking, and still C2 for the others because I read a lot and listen to websites in English too. One day, I know I may feel the need to tackle (not in the right order) Spanish, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Hebrew, Danish, Ancient Greek, Finnish, Chinese, Dutch, Hungarian....that's why I already have the corresponding methods (book nerd, I told you...) just in case I might get up in the middle of the night with a craving for say Hungarian, well I have it!!! °_o!! I also studied German and Latin up to university level (about B2 / C1 for German), but I lost a lot due to lack of practise. So another goal would be to be able to read a book in German. Edited by agantik on 23 December 2014 at 8:07am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| agantik Triglot Senior Member France Joined 4423 days ago 217 posts - 335 votes Speaks: French*, English, Italian Studies: German, Norwegian | Message 2 of 49 28 April 2013 at 3:07pm | IP Logged |
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April 28th
Books read in Italian so far : -la Torre della Papessa , Antonella Sacco (a book intended for children over 9) -Storie d'amore, Roberto Piumini (a book intended for children over 11) -L'impronta, Tom Neil ( a crappy detective story but good for revising the passato remoto) Assimil l'italien (2012) : lesson 40 Goals for May -reach lesson 50 in Assimil -grammar : conjugations (I've got several textbooks to choose from, my favourite is BLED, in French) -B1 skills : reach Unit 6 in Affresco Italiano corso di lingua Italiana per stranieri, I'm currently at Unit 4. I love that course -read Esco a fare due passi, by Fabio Volo. The language used doesn't seem very difficult. No goals for the other languages. We'll see how it turns out. Edited by agantik on 05 May 2013 at 11:37am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| agantik Triglot Senior Member France Joined 4423 days ago 217 posts - 335 votes Speaks: French*, English, Italian Studies: German, Norwegian | Message 3 of 49 05 May 2013 at 11:36am | IP Logged |
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Sunday, May 5th
I'll try to update my log on a weekly basis. Italian I've reached lesson 47 of Assimil so I think I can change my goal to one lesson a day for the whole month of May. (so I should have completed lesson 72 by the end of May). I've read 60 pages (out of 165) of my current book. It sounds rather autobiographical,the language used is quite easy to understand. Somewhat too many details about the narrator's girlfriends (from a sexual point of view I mean! I didn't think I would enlarge my vocabulary in this lexical field so soon in my Italian studies °_O) I've listened to a twenty or so podcasts from the website www.audiolingua.eu. It is a website aimed at high school students. The podcasts (usually quite short) are available in several languages and range from A2 to B2, though I find them inequal to understand : I understood one of them labelled B2 better than another one labelled A2, but that's because I knew the vocabulary used (it was graded B2 because a lot of different tenses including the congiutivo were used, whereas for the A2 level, only the present, the passato prossimo or the imperfetto are used.) Ho anche rivisto la conjugazione del presento indicativo, del'imperfetto e del futuro che avevo già imparata, e ho imparato il congiuntivo presente. Ero capace di capirlo ma non ero sicura de tutte le forme. Allora sono in grado di esprimere la mia opinione. Non mi sembra un modo difficile, è più difficile in francese! Voglio provare a scrivere qualche phrasi sul temo di l'ambiente (è il vocabolario proposto nel mio libro grammaticole) : -credo che dobbiamo lottare contro l'inquinamento perche mi sembra che inquiniamo troppo l'ambiente. -temo che anch'io rovini il pianeta. -temo che non proteggiamo la nature sofficiamente. -suppongo che le falde freatiche siano inquinate dagli pesticidi. -invece penso che la gente provi a rispiarmare le risorce naturale più che avanti. English I managed to listen to the news in English every day this week (one of my New Year's Resolutions made reality at last!!), my favourite news channel is Sky News, I looove their British accent. I've read Wedding Night, the latest book by Sophie Kinsella. I'm a huge fan, though not for her literary qualities but the plots are always entertaining (the more far-fetched, the better), and since it's in English, I've got a good excuse for indulging it. I made a list of my favourite words used in English to express surprise (non exhaustive, just based on the funny sound associations present in these words, at least to my French ears) : -poleaxed -nonplussed -bewildered -flummoxed -befuddled -dumbfounded - bewuthered (Tolkien neologism?) Japanese I merely reviewed the hiragana and kanji I had already learnt. That's all folks! Edited by agantik on 31 January 2014 at 3:49pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| roberto7 Newbie Joined 4011 days ago 25 posts - 27 votes Studies: English | Message 4 of 49 06 May 2013 at 1:59pm | IP Logged |
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Hi:)
I just want to say good luck with your studies! I adore Italian language - I study it in the past mostly assimil, michel thomas and the textbook that called Nuovo Progetto Italiano - but you seem to be doing very well job at it, Good luck:) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| agantik Triglot Senior Member France Joined 4423 days ago 217 posts - 335 votes Speaks: French*, English, Italian Studies: German, Norwegian | Message 5 of 49 06 May 2013 at 2:16pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks , good luck to you too!
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| agantik Triglot Senior Member France Joined 4423 days ago 217 posts - 335 votes Speaks: French*, English, Italian Studies: German, Norwegian | Message 6 of 49 13 May 2013 at 3:42pm | IP Logged |
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Monday, May 13th
A belated update, I was supposed to update this log every Sunday. Anyway it has been a small week in terms of achievement, due to a tonsillitis and a few days away with the family. Now that I'm back to work, I hope I'll devote more time this week to my Italian studies.The funny thing is, when I focus on my family (chidren) I can't find time to study and time seems to slip like sand out of my hands, whereas when I focus on my job, I miraculously find free time crumbs here and there. Italian Assimil : Lesson 50 (4 lessons late) Reading : I've read 15 more pages which roughly brings me to the middle of my book. I underline every unknown word with a yellow marker, and intend to make a word list after completing the book. So far there are about 8 unknown words a page. Nothing as far as my other languages are concerned, except that I can feel a craving for German coming in my bones for next week, so we'll see! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| agantik Triglot Senior Member France Joined 4423 days ago 217 posts - 335 votes Speaks: French*, English, Italian Studies: German, Norwegian | Message 7 of 49 19 May 2013 at 5:11pm | IP Logged |
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Sunday, May 19th
Italian Assimil active wave: Lesson 58 passive wave : lesson 9 I managed to squeeze in one more lesson, so I'm only 3 lessons late now. Reading : I've read about 50 pages, only roughly 40 left. I can't wait because I'm getting bored with this book. I wouldn't have read it if it had been in French! As a treat, I've already chosen the next book to read : a selection of Italian short stories for leaners, meaning that the difficult vocabulary is translated on the page facing the text. There's a book I'm dying to read (I've already bought it!!) but it's too difficult for now, it's Acciaio,by Silvia Avallone. German As I predicted, I did a little bit of German this week. I fished my old German book (from high school, so supposedly B2 for today's standards, which I tend to believe because what we did in my time was more difficult) from the back of my shelves and put it at the front (good beginning!), I merely repeated vocabulary I used to know in order to revive it, and I had a try at reading (crappy literature once again but easy to read at my level!!) with Dr. Norden (it looks like the German counterpart of the Harlequin series with a smiling couple with dazzlingly white teeth on the front cover, and it is no more difficult to understand). I managed to read about 10 pages without resorting to the dictionary, but there are still a lot of unknown / forgotten words I should check later on. Norwegian Jeg er glad à kunne endelig skrive noe pà norsk. Jeg har hatt ikke tid til à laere andre Assimil leksjionen ma jeg vil prove à skrive likevel. Det var en uke med for mye regn, vi blir ikke vandt med det her i sôr for Frankrike. Je er fornôyd for jeg har begynt à lese en bok pà tysk og det er ikke sà vanskelig som jeg frykte.Og jeg er nesten ferdig med à lese boken min pà italiensk. Instedenfor à laere nye norsk leksjionen (hvis jeg har ikke tid) vil jeg prove à skrive her hver uke. Det vil vaere nyttig for à ikke glemme ôrdene jeg har laert i forveien. Corrections welcome! And also tips to make the special Norwegian letters with a French keyboard! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| agantik Triglot Senior Member France Joined 4423 days ago 217 posts - 335 votes Speaks: French*, English, Italian Studies: German, Norwegian | Message 8 of 49 14 December 2013 at 8:04am | IP Logged |
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Time to revive that log since I've just signed up for next year's TAC in Italian.
Over the past few months, I have been reading a lot in Italian so I had a lot of passive input but it's time to go back to some more structured work with grammar and vocabulary. I'd also like to brush up my German on an unofficial basis. Edited by agantik on 19 December 2013 at 3:57pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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