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Expug’s All at On(c)e Log - TAC14 | ||
Tags: Papiamento | Estonian | Georgian | Native Materials | Norwegian | Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC) | Mandarin | Russian | German | French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4960 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes  Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 81 of 415 29 January 2014 at 9:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Wow Chung! My birthday isn't close yet! And this isn't even about Estonian or any of the
languages in our team. Be sure I'm going to make good use of it. Thanks a lot. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4960 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 82 of 415 29 January 2014 at 10:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The day started a bit uncomfortable. Due to the heat I got a headache and couldn't eat
proper. I have an issue with esophagitis sometimes and I think eating an apple with an empty stomach wasn't the best idea. I just learned at yday's Travel in Chinese lessons that apples are 'warm' while grapes, for instance, are 'cold'. So, I kept with the headache, which by itself is rare for me, while at the gym, and realized I wouldn't be able to do any running on the treadmill as I wouldn't breath properly. It was symptomatic that I went home and couldn't even take a 'brunch' before going to work, while I'm usually dead hungry when I come back from the gym. So, how did I deal with this? I still had to walk to work, 20 minutes uphill under the sun. I decided I would go slowly, started watching the English series while browsing other stuff, preparing to study. Then I opened the Basic Georgian book and I got the coolest lesson ever. It was about moods, states of spirit. I was happy that I was going to refine some vocabulary I wasn't unfamiliar with. I was also happy to realize that the version exercises are becoming easier and easier. I really like the way Basic Georgian presents at least the future and the aorist (imperfect when aorist is missing) alongside with each verb, and it follows a path based on effective usage and need, not on grammatical categories. So, I "learned" (rather reviewed and reinforced) vocabulary according to its necessity. I didn't have to learn everything from the I conjugation before moving on to important verbs such as 'like, love, to be hungry, to fear' from the III and IV conjugations. This is insightful. It's a brand new book from a publishing house (Lincom) that supposedly aims for the linguists, and yet they managed to publish a self-teaching manual that follows a natural order and puts grammar at service of communication needs in an efficient way. Thanks to today's lesson, I assessed the importance distinction between სუფრასთან (at the table) and სუფრაზე (on the table). I realized that listening is indeed tiresome. More so when done in the background, but whichever way, in general, there seems to be a daily threshold I can't surpass without bringing me some temporary headache, especially at hot summer afternoons. Yesterday I was busy and could only finish my ultimate tasks (watching films in French, Chinese cartoon and Chinese fables reader, Duolingo, Memrise) around 8 pm. That was 4 hours later and at a time at which I am supposed to be on a different mood, staying on bed doing short readings, enjoying the silence. My body/mind responded right after. Well, at least last night I dreamed in Chinese. I was with a friend who already lived in China and seemed to be Brazilian too. That friend was telling me everything I had to know about life in China, but somehow refused to allow me to practice my Chinese. I tried to ask something like 你在大学经常说汉语吗？,I rephrased it two or three times, but that person was somehow impatient given that we had our native language in common, and wouldn't encourage me to continue. Cut. We were on a room with other foreigners who lived in China, and we were discussing how some latino-americans from Spanish-speaking countries were using illicit money for buying out commerce in China and giving a tough agenda to low-income customers and small businesses. It's rather the other way round in the other side of the world. Go figure a dream. The good thing is that dreaming in a language has historically been a good A2+ towards B1 level marker for the languages I've studied. That might mean Chinese people's collective unconscious is finally accepting me as a genuine tentative speaker of their language, to paraphrase a friend from another community. Today and partially the day before I've started a new routine of taking notes of important issues and impressions as I experience them along my 5-6 hour learning routine. This is good to keep track, but I'm afraid it will result in even longer posts. Anyway, I noticed I've missed a few Tuttle Flashcards. I usually do them after Anki, but the fact I started Memrise might have confused my brain as to think i've replaced the hanzi practice from Tuttle's with Memrise. It's not always easy to keep track of 20 language learning activities on a day. I noticed that maybe reading notes on the go might work better with Le nouvel allemand. There are still pauses at the clips and I use them for the notes. I think the overall time diminished a bit. The fatigue did, and that's also important by now. I was glad that the explanation on short adjectives at TY Russian was short, straight to the point. I'm getting to that stage in Russian that I went through a few months ago in Georgian: I'm rereading important grammar explanations and finally internalizing them. The way I read them before, there was too much info and it was badly hierarchized, so I'm glad this sort of second or maybe 3rd, 4th grammar wave is working out. French reading is supposed to be easier, but it is boring. Norwegian reading+audio is exciting. I feel attached to the story about junior high school boys who play football/soccer, and detached to Middle Age nobility and its values. If I am ever to do any challenges in French, I need a better selection on stories that deal with contemporary life. No wonder films are much better, and they are also more effective, as my French listening keeps improving. As for my Norwegian listening, it's not improving as much as the reading, though. I think I still have to reach a higher, maybe B2 level in reading before I can have a B1 in listening. Himmelblå is almost over, but then there's Hjem with Swedish subtitles which I won't translate and will use just as an occasional crutch. There is Svarte Penger, Hvite Løgner which I just happened to find subtitles for! Ok, life can go on now. As I was busy and there was much forum activity, I watched XiYangYang in the background. I promise I'll do my best not to let this happen again. It's cruelty enough to do this with the Georgian series from which I could already be benefiting much more at this stage, as more and more understandable sentences seem to get detached from the blur. I've discovered the series 后厨. Looks interesting. Subtitled, as usual. No, I don't need to add yet another resource. Well, then, maybe alternating it with XiYangYang. I do recommend it to fellow Magpie members. I slowed down watching Le dîner de cons, as my wife wants to watch it, too, and I found subtitles in BrPT. What we won't do for love. Now I feel I could watch more of a series to make up for that, but I'm a bit too discouraged to start from scratch a series I don't know whether I'll be able to watch often enough. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4960 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 83 of 415 29 January 2014 at 11:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
So yuhakko, I tried the extension, but since the video itself isn't playing properly, the extension won't download either. The trick of pointing to a time after the break to avoid it does seem to work, though not always. Now it's rather an issue of organizing, as I can't watch it earlier and it is annoying to retake the series study later in the afternoon. I think it's no harm to stick to the plan of scrutinizing the dialogue with pinyin and translation, then listening to it at part 1, which I got at Youtube, then reading the notes. Other series might be available integrally at Youtube, like Happy Chinese (both seasons). Well, I'll do this and on quieter days I'll listen to the rest at home, as it's mostly English explanations. EDIT: I finished watching today's lesson and have to admit it's much richer to follow explanations by DaShan. So I tried one for Chrome and it worked. I have to manually select each third of the video, but it does seem to work. Thank you yuhakko! I think maybe your level is already way beyond this series, though? Edited by Expugnator on 29 January 2014 at 11:41pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6950 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 84 of 415 30 January 2014 at 4:17am | IP Logged | |||||
Nema na čemu. Nadam se da ti se sviđaju videa. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4641 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 85 of 415 30 January 2014 at 5:01am | IP Logged | |||||
Sorry to bring back an old post, but this stood out for me. I've been trying to do the day 0 approach with Portuguese. I thought it necessary, because the DLI text uses the old orthography, old slang, etc., but like you, I feel like it does slow me down. I wonder if it is best to just stick with the textbook until A2 or B1, then delve into native materials. I suppose the only way to see is to try. (In comparison, I'm finding that the more vocabulary I'm learning in Japanese, the more enjoyable native materials become.) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4960 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 86 of 415 30 January 2014 at 9:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I've answered at your log, kuji. I think it's better to find a compromise. Actually I make the transition A2-B1 with the help of native materials. I just
avoid them as A1 because there's still so much I have to learn from textbooks and so little time. But that's me, who learn six languages at once, anyway. ================== Today I gave a trial class at italki. It was really nice to help people. The student already spoke intermediate Portuguese, lived in São Paulo for 4 months. He would slip on a verb conjugation here and there, to which I'd correct, but all very minimally and in a way that didn't disturb the flow.I was glad to teach the usage of "aí" effectively. As a matter of fact, I was wondering if aqui x cá and ali x lá used to be a distinction of state x movement, as there exists in Russian and German for the interrogative pronouns. Maybe Luso knows the answer. Nowadays the difference between ali and lá and between aqui and cá is rather idiomatic, though I can normally associate 'ali' with places within one's field of range or to which the speaker wants to give the optimistic impression that are near (cf. É logo ali.). I've never taken an online class myself. I do believe I'd benefit from one of them for my upper languages. As a matter of fact, I don't see how "speak from day one" would work for me, without a background. I learn so much after my A1-A2 textbook stage and I have enough to talk about. I still think it's more effective to do it that way. It is said that we should learn like kids, but kids take years of immersion, and I am an adult. Therefore, I need to take advantage of my systematic learning abilities which work for me better than the tentative way kids do. I learned important cultural info at today's Chinese podcast. I'm glad the words start to stick and I'm also having important insights at the culture which make me more willing to go to the country. Now I'm no longer neutral and utilitarian towards my Chinese studies; i've definitely added China to the list of countries I want to visit as priority. That's the effect that language learning makes on us. It is what makes me know much more about Norway than about Denmark, for example. While browsing today's Basic Georgian, I realized I can now skim a Georgian text, looking for previous samples of the new words introduced when I have to write my own sentences. This is a confident boost. That means there are enough well-known words and I'm totally familiar with their shapes, following that principle that we read words as whole once we're trained enough. At German, I finally learned that I can pronounce erinnern as éa:-innea:n . I mean, I noticed it myself today as this word was part of the lesson. It was indeed a strange sounding word with that uvular r. IMO, when one can pay attention at such details, that means the main part of the content is being learned satisfactorily. And I finally understood the issue with double infinitives, I'm "convinced" now, that is, I understand there is a reason for that. At the same Assimil book I found the word 'soulier' which I had hardly ever seen before. After some search, I read that for France French it's better to stick with 'chaussure' and that 'soulier' is old-fashioned. "sysovere" is someone who sleeps a lot. Found it at the book Beatles. Does it mean that person goes to sleep as early as seven? (syv) Travel in Chinese had a great lesson on bars. I kinda know where to go while in Beijing =D . I've noticed I meet no more than a dozen of new words per each lesson, and since they are few I can learn them better. I could almost call this learning at an intermediate level. The technical issue with Travel in Chinese is solved, thanks to yuhakko. I might use the same strategy if I have to work on more stuff on a blocked computer. Culture Talk, anyone? Reminds me that with that suggestion from Chung I'll have to postpone the beginning of Estonian a bit more, since I got more quality resources for Georgian. Speaking of Georgian, I got the impressive, Comprehensive Georgian Dictionary, thanks to a good friend. Google Translate is not bad lately, but I can resort to it so that I find actual word usages and some verbal forms. It is somewhat searchable, though 1650 pages do take too much time for when I'm just looking up some words for a daily lesson. It will pave the way towards advanced reading in the future, for sure. I finally finished schedule earlier. My final resource was an episode of Medium, dubbed in French. It is really not a big issue to understand it. I do think there's some fluency within. My next film will probably be 'Mon meilleur ami', with Dany Boon, the same from Rien à déclarer and Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis, so I expect to enjoy it a lot. Recommended to French learners. Now it's time for prognosis on the subject of basic fluency, specifically for Norwegian, Georgian and Chinese. I'm much better at Norwegian, but I feel I'm progressing slower now on it. I'm reading quite a dense novel, but in the case of Georgian and Chinese I'm learning a larger number of useful words, and I'm not sure if that's because I've already mastered them for Norwegian. Even in the case of the Norwegian series, it tends to repeat itself. I know there is a shortage of vocabulary in Norwegian, but I don't know where to attack and which types of resources I'd use anyways. If only Norwegian weren't such a peaceful country and had some Gloss lessons! :D I was think of maybe a podcast, could be one aimed for natives, one I could listen to while doing repetitive tasks at work with no bad feelings. Any suggestions, team mates? As for Chinese and Georgian, I'm kind of selecting what I learn first from the corpus that is presented to me at textbooks and videos, and I'm happy with the ongoing progress so far. I don't really think Russian will surpass Georgian anymore, but this I've already mentioned here. I expect to be close to a B2 by the end of the year in at least one of the three (if we agree that my French is already B2, because that's where I'm aiming at). That is, if life doesn't get on the way. Today I was offered the opportunity of working full-time, with a considerable extra wage. How does it affect my language learning? Well, in quantitative terms it doesn't. It may even mean extra time during some periods. I'm just thinking about my quality of life, about some extra activities (not language-related) and how to keep mental insanity and not get too stressed. Moving closer to the job might also be good, because the terrain here isn't urban-mobility-friendly and I'm realizing that part of my fatigue is also physical. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| yuhakko Tetraglot Senior Member FranceRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4426 days ago 414 posts - 582 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishB2, EnglishC2, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Korean, Norwegian, Mandarin | Message 87 of 415 31 January 2014 at 2:20am | IP Logged | |||||
Good thing it worked! If I may ask, what's the extension you're using with chrome? I don't like having to go on firefox just to download the videos :p Hahaha, I wish it was! The thing is that my reading is "alright" thanks to my knowledge of Japanese but grammar and vocabulary wise... that's a different story. I think you're actually much more advanced than I am! Hopefully in 6 months that'll be the other way around ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4433 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 88 of 415 31 January 2014 at 9:54am | IP Logged | |||||
It is "syvsovere". Your question about where the word comes from triggerd my curiosity, so I looked it up, and it actually comes from a legend about a group of Chritian youth who had to hide inside a cave and apparently slept for 180 years. This is the beginning of the Wikipedia article about this: "The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus was a group of Christian youths who hid inside a cave outside the city of Ephesus around 250 AD, to escape a persecution of Christians being conducted during the reign of the Roman emperor Decius. Another version is that Decius ordered them imprisoned in a closed cave to die there as punishment for being Christians. Having fallen asleep inside the cave, they purportedly awoke approximately 180 years later during the reign of Theodosius II, following which they were reportedly seen by the people of the now-Christian city before dying." A great thing about this forum, you learn a lot of new stuff by the comment and questions of others. And by the way, you have a very interesting log, I really enjoy reading it. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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