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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 |  | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6391 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes  4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 233 of 415 05 June 2014 at 12:00am | IP Logged |
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Hm, "not so parallel" can make a huge difference, in my experience :/ Even in Swedish I find it much easier to read when the text is aligned well with the translation.
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| 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 234 of 415 05 June 2014 at 9:26pm | IP Logged |
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I'm used to that. The fact is, I prefer to read paragraph by paragraph, it allows for a better understanding. Sometimes, even when you do sentence by sentence, I think you lose track too easily by doing this shift. I can deal with short texts such as Assimil in a paralel layout, but with longer books, the more I read from source language at once, the better I follow the story.
I'd like to share the theme to the TV series I watch. I'm glad I once again managed to find the lyrics for a Chinese song. It seems interesting, though I'm far from being able to understand it. I'm starting to appreciate the Chinese raps! 食为天 食为天 作词：高进 作曲：高进 演唱：小沈阳 中华自古以来就是民以食为天 老祖宗留下的规矩我们不会变 师傅说看似简单的其实才最难 剁辣椒要自己剁猪油要自己煎 电影里的那些功夫我想练一练 闻火起舞地瓜土豆辣椒切片飞满天 大勺是我行走美食江湖的宝剑 基本功我日夜苦练从来不偷懒 袅袅的炊烟 飘过了几千年 盛名金不换 代代永相传 生活就像吃一顿晚餐 要尝尽人生所有酸甜苦辣咸 只要开开心心的每一天 也不枉费来人间走一圈 五千年美食文化的沉淀 传递着幸福快乐生活的源泉 只要快快乐乐的每一天 幸福其实就那么简单 RAP 中国人讲究养生之道医食同源 美食文化精髓就在于色香味俱全 孔子说食不厌精脍不厌细的经验 博大精深烹饪技法一辈辈相传 一盘好菜用料讲究上等和齐全 三分热炒小火慢炖需要千锤和百炼 五谷杂粮葱姜蒜和正宗土鸡蛋 七分刀工练到出神入化也难得一见 袅袅的炊烟 飘过了几千年 盛名金不换 代代永相传 生活就像吃一顿晚餐 要尝尽人生所有酸甜苦辣咸 只要开开心心的每一天 也不枉费来人间走一圈 五千年美食文化的沉淀 传递着幸福快乐生活的源泉 只要快快乐乐的每一天 幸福其实就那么简单 生活就像吃一顿晚餐 要尝尽人生所有酸甜苦辣咸 只要开开心心的每一天 也不枉费来人间走一圈 五千年美食文化的沉淀 传递着幸福快乐生活的源泉 只要快快乐乐的每一天 幸福其实就那么简单 幸福其实就那么简单 中文歌词库 I had issues with watching Happy Journey Across China yesterday: couldn't find the due episode on YT. Therefore I watched the next one available and today I watched yesterday's one. I'll have to keep watching them at work unless I'm sure they can be found on YT. It's such an invaluable resource I can't miss. I really enjoy the landscapes presented. Today it took me 1 hour and 10 minutes to read 8 pages from 'The world is flat' in Chinese. I figured out I had read 10 pages yesterday. All the better. I do hope it will become easier eventually. It's also becoming slightly easier with Georgian, though I'd like to keep working on Paulo Coelho's books, as it's been interesting so far. I can buy several ones in Georgian and get the original ones easily, too. Anyway, I wouldn't regret reading more in French, so I can expect some Jules Verne in Georgian, Russian or Chinese alongside with the French original and counting for each language in the SC separately. Forgot to say: I'm managing to insert the Russian reading of an Agatha Cristie book on my schedule. As my reading in Chinese gets more efficient (I've chosen a calmer time of the day to do it), I notice I'm finishing my tasks earlier. When I'm done with Chinese reading and the previous activities, I have 2 hours and a half for activities which are mostly video, but also the Russian reading. Alternation in reading is essential to avoid burn-out, I've notice, so I decided to watch videos during the hours must subject to interruption and to pick the Russian book as a final resource when my mind has recovered. As much as I want to end my 'textbook stage' for German with Marktplatz and restart a romance language from an intermediate level, I feel my active German still lacks practice. I need to find a textbook that allows me to do loads of written practice with long periods so that I can get used to the German grammar. Edited by Expugnator on 05 June 2014 at 10:42pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Ezy Ryder Diglot Senior Member Poland youtube.com/user/Kat Joined 4143 days ago 284 posts - 387 votes Speaks: Polish*, English Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 235 of 415 05 June 2014 at 10:13pm | IP Logged |
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I think 主題曲 means "main theme" (it does in Japanese). 作词：高进 and 作曲：高进 probably
could be translated as "lyrics by 高进 (Gao Jin?)" and "song by 高进" respectively. So if you want to find more songs from that author, look for 高进, and not for 主題曲. PS.: Since I'm already writing a post here, I might just add, that I also read at about 11min/page at the beginning (in Japanese though). But after about ~200 pages I cut the time in half. So, stick with it, and it'll get easier. 加油. 2 persons have 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 236 of 415 05 June 2014 at 10:43pm | IP Logged |
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Ah thanks! I should have spotted the 主 character. I've corrected it.
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| 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 237 of 415 06 June 2014 at 11:46pm | IP Logged |
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Not much new apart from a long discussion on IRC about the usefulness or not of having languages at B1 or B2 skills. I have this friend who claims any level below near-native proficiency is useless, because it will force the native speaker to dumb down their speech to the learner. This same guy doesn't believe I've managed to understand spoken French after having watched *only* 25 films. Well, I've experienced so much with my current level skills that I wouldn't exchange 2 B2s and 3 B1s for 1 C1. The discussion was interesting, of course, no hard feelings. It's always important to see other points of view. I don't feel discouraged by people with such a perfectionist view anymore. Even when I did feel I wasn't making any progress, it didn't prevent me from keeping going, so that's what it is, will just keep going and enjoying the process. After level B1 it doesn't feel like studying anymore, anyway. And even when it does, I can enjoy it, like I'm doing with Estonian now.
I'm pretty much aware that once the linguistic novelty is gone with Estonian and before I reach a level I can enjoy just reading in it I might just start complaining again that i'm stuck and the process is boring, the way I felt with Georgian, Chinese and Russian. Better not think about that now, anyway. After only 1 week of Estonian, I feel I'm learning it better than I did the previous ones, and avoiding critical mistakes. I'm more conscious of which details are important to take a closer look at and what can be left for mastering through quantity. I'm managing to squeeze my Russian reading into the busy early evening, even if it's just one page, like today. Edited by Expugnator on 06 June 2014 at 11:47pm 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 238 of 415 09 June 2014 at 10:16pm | IP Logged |
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The weekend was a little more productive. Not because I read more in Russian (only 3 pages). On the other hand, I don't need to worry about reading more in Chinese at weekends, because I read just enough during the week. Anyway, the high time of the weekend were the italki classes. I took one French class and one Chinese class.
The French class saw some minor improvements, words I could remember only in English, not in French. No work on accent finetuning or whatever. I really have this basic fluency in French, but I still make mistakes by trying to imagine things out of English or Portuguese instead of relying on my dormant passive knowledge. The Chinese class was quite nice. A remarkable improvement from the previous two ones. The teacher said my tones got much better. I could talk a bit, find some words, think about grammar - such as saying the time expressions in the beginning, I saw some rather complex sentences. I believe that's the way to go. Now I need to earn more credits in the Portuguese Classes so I can afford to take more classes myself. Will try to practice my Norwegian more often, too. I've started posting at the forum of the site Learn Norwegian Naturally. People seem nice and friendly there. There's also a new italki community teacher for Norwegian, which is great news! Can't wait to have my first Skype conversation in Norwegian ever. I've figured out one more video has been added to the list of those TED Talks with Georgian subtitles. Since they are constantly being added out of any orders, I figured out the best thing to do now is take note of the current situation so I can easily spot where a new video has been added. Just did it today and saved it. When it comes to reading, I believe Georgian is still better than Russian. That stage when you still can't read properly is tiresome, and you need to keep yourself motivated and believe it will eventually 'click'. I can't compare my German to my Norwegian, it depends on the field - non-fiction is better in German, fiction is better in Norwegian. As for Chinese, today was better, less than 1 hour, maybe, and I have a better understanding now. Still in love with the Estonian language. Hope it lasts when the grammar mistery is gone and all that is left is vocabulary to memorize. 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 239 of 415 11 June 2014 at 11:47pm | IP Logged |
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I realized I didn't even update today. It's not that nothing interesting happened: it's
just that I was really busy. Lots of things need to get ready before the World Cup and this also involves my job somehow. I had a long discussion on how to manage to learn the phrasing of the natives and let go biased constructions from either your native language or a third language like English or the idea you believe the language is. I'm really concerned about my French - I don't think I'm seeing much progress now, and will elaborate on this later. Well, I came up with an example when I tried to say "I'm going to learn German before I learn Norwegian" (don't remember the actual figures. If I had to say this in Portuguese, I'd go for: - Vou aprender alemão antes de norueguês - Vou aprender alemão antes de aprender norueguês. In English it would more or less be the same. Funny how English and Brazilian Portuguese can be so similar when it comes to serial verbs, infinitives, gerunds, to the extent that Portuguese is the odd sister within the Romance languages and the same goes for English within the Germanic languages. So, when I thought of saying it in French, I went for the subjunctive. I thought: since Portuguese has the inflected infinitive and the other languages don't, we make use of the infinitive much more often; therefore, in another native language the odds are higher that the desired construction uses the subjunctive. So I went for: *Je vais apprendre l'allemand avant que j'apprenne le norvégien. A native speaker in the chat corrected to: - Je vais apprendre l'allemand avant d'apprendre le norvégien. That is, he went for the obvious infinitive choice while I skipped it thanks to my own sophistic system/pattern that it can't be the same in French (I believe it wouldn't be possible in Spanish?). A friend gave me an option in pm: - Je vais apprendre l'allemand avant que je n'apprenne le norvégien. Now it's not a plain subjunctive, but the literary subjunctive with the expletive 'ne'. It's something I read about so often, but it's hard to use it actively, because it goes against any of my 'systems' for subjunctives. So, this example illustrates how plain hard it is to come up with natural ways. I avoided the obvious option with the belief it was forbidden, but I also avoided a construction i've read so much from and about. I feel a bit discouraged now because I don't sense it getting any better the way I'm working on now. What is the way I'm working on now? Extensive reading and extensive listening. Now I'm kinda skeptical about its efficiency as the only approach. Even at intermediate or early advanced stages. Even when you think textbooks can't help you anymore. I'm considering working on an advanced grammar of French with exercises that force me to write down alternatives to my reiterate mistakes. And I'm not happy with my Norwegian and my Georgian. I believe my German will soon surpass my Norwegian - textbooks/intensive+extensive for German, extensive only for Norwegian; same goes for Russian x Georgian. I have this feeling that 1 page worked on intensively, at this lower intermediate stage, is worth 10 pages being read extensively. At least that's how I feel. I don't seem to retain much from reading in Norwegian or Georgian. Even if it did, it's not a work that can be simply activated, not like the vocabulary learned intensively, explicitly. You may say reading extensively is faster and more relaxing, but I seriously doubt its efficiency now. Not for me. I believe I can work intensively on 1 page of Georgian a day, and even if it takes me the same amount of time it would for 10 extensive pages, I'd still learn much more from it. The way I'm doing now, I'm just flipping through words. The words are passing through me and I don't see any connection. The situation is different with Chinese: I watch videos with bilingual subtitles - even though I wouldn't call this intensive, as I don't pause to figure out how each sentence is formed and try to internalize it; I also kind of read more intensively since I use Pera Pera - at least in the first sentences I do try to decypher the sentence before heading to the English original. I don't do this with Georgian or Russian, and I feel my vocabulary learning is suffering from that. In the case of French, I may be C1 with reading, but I don't benefit much from the fewer new words I run across because I don't look them up, and when I'm uncertain about a word the chance of retaining it is low, using it is even more unlikely. One immediate alternative is to try doing at least 1 page intensively for my set of languages, then going for the rest extensively. Like I said, I feel like all this extensive work only reinforces the words I've already studied, and this is too little, given that with my current vocabulary I only understand 25% of the relatively easy texts I read extensively in Russian or Georgian and some 75% in Norwegian. I admit I'm a bit frustrated by the feeling I'm using the wrong methods. Even if that 'clicks' with time, as it did with French, I still need to work on activating it, as my spoken French hasn't followed closely that explosion of comprehension. In the case of Norwegian it's worse: I see little progress since I stopped reading with translation and watching video with Norwegian subtitles. 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 240 of 415 13 June 2014 at 11:14pm | IP Logged |
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Today was a special day but I still managed to accomplish most of the schedule. It was
important to be able to pay more attention to the audio, especially the Norwegian one. I could do the same today and I already noticed an improvement. Unfortunately I still couldn't read a Georgian page intensively because today was also a busy day. I am done with Parlons Estonien, it was good for what it was intended. I got an overview of the Estonian language and culture and won't be impressed by some odd features. Yeah, I know the partitive is a long way to go. Most of the textbooks have long lessons and this isn't my favorite learning style, so I wasn't planning on taking a 2nd textbook for the slot of Parlons Estonien. Then I found the Peace Corps Competencies manual and I think it's not bad, so I'll go for it. It lacks audio but I'm already working on Colloquial Estonian, lesson 12 next. I'm happy that the Estonian studies are going much smoother than the previous non-IE ones. It helps that there is a good translator and thus I get to translate the sentence then word-by-word. Colloquial Estonian, just like Georgian: A Learner's Grammar, both from Routledge, have this huge drawback of getting hid of translations when you still don't know the grammar of the language enough or just don't have enough vocabulary retention. I'm taking care of this by using Tilde and Google Translator, an d I'm happy with the results in terms of grammar and syntax understanding. I'm not sure if vocabulary retention is going as well, though. I added two Memrise courses but I'm not working on them daily, only on absolute empty moments. I've finished one more book from Paulo Coelho. Next one is Maktub. I don't seem to have a matching Portuguese edition so I'll go for a French translation alongside with the Georgian one. Needless to say that will represent double progress for the SC as I read the translation with full attention too. Only hope I can work more intensively on the Georgian this time. I really need to work on German syntax and article declension, but I haven't found a good grammar with exercises. I'm going to use my old TY German in Portuguese; if it helped with French, then it will with German. I'm also considering working on Grammaire Progressive du Français: niveau avancé. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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