Tristano’s log 2014 (Language Learning Log) Language Learning Forum

Tristano’s log 2014
Tags: Dutch \| Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC) \| Spanish
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145 messages over 19 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 5 ... 18 19 Next >>

tristano
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Netherlands
Joined 3842 days ago
905 posts - 1262 votes

Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English
Studies: Dutch

Message 33 of 145

20 January 2014 at 11:22pm | IP Logged

Vanavond maakte ik historie! Ik gestreken een overhemd voor de eerste tijd :D
Inmiddels zak ik de titel van mijn Nederlandse logboek is "Reverse engineering Nederlandse" te denken en ik volgen
deze strategie niet meer. Ik heb woorden nodig... Misschien kunt Assimil Dutch with ease gebruik een goed idee
zijn... Ik weet het niet. En gebruik Shadowing en Scriptorium ook. Een vervolgen met de radio luisteren en sommige
film ook. Als beginner talen leerling mijn groter probleem is organisatie. Zonder elke twijfel!

(De techniek van de zorgeloze lezer kan ook goed zijn)

Edited by tristano on 20 January 2014 at 11:34pm
1 person has voted this message useful

tristano
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Netherlands
Joined 3842 days ago
905 posts - 1262 votes

Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English
Studies: Dutch

Message 34 of 145

25 January 2014 at 12:48am | IP Logged

Nederlandse is een taal dat moet ik elke dag studeren, want ik heb een echt praktisch objectief.
Ik voel dat gaat het beter, maar ik ben nog steeds niet zelfverzekerd om te Nederlandse spreken. Anders dan
Franse, ik kan niet zomaar raden wat is een woord voor or hoe een woord zeggen want het is als een taal weet ik al.
Zo gebruik ik Google Translate wanneer schrijf ik en moet ik een woord vinden, maar ik kan niet het gebruiken
wanneer praat ik.

Edited by tristano on 25 January 2014 at 12:49am
1 person has voted this message useful

Hekje
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4498 days ago
842 posts - 1330 votes

Speaks: English*, Dutch
Studies: French, Indonesian

Message 35 of 145

25 January 2014 at 2:09am | IP Logged

Het ga je goed, Tristano. Wat betreft je zorgen over het Nederlands - Nederlands
verschilt niet zoveel van het Engels, en die ken je al heel goed, toch?

In het begin vond ik het ook moeilijk, maar zodra je de kleine woorden leert, kom je
erachter dat de grote woorden alleen maar combinaties van die kleine woorden zijn. :-)

Btw, when you refer to the language, it's "het Nederlands" or "Nederlands". "Nederlandse"
does not mean the language, it is only the inflected version of the adjective.
1 person has voted this message useful

tristano
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Netherlands
Joined 3842 days ago
905 posts - 1262 votes

Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English
Studies: Dutch

Message 36 of 145

22 February 2014 at 6:25pm | IP Logged

I temporarily dropped Dutch.
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tristano
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Netherlands
Joined 3842 days ago
905 posts - 1262 votes

Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English
Studies: Dutch

Message 37 of 145

22 February 2014 at 6:29pm | IP Logged

From French log:

Hi all!
Since studying 4 languages weren't enough, I decided to add the last one, a language
that was the first foreign
language I ever studied 18 years ago: French! I therefore subscribed myself to French
classes, 3 entire hours once a
week, with French teachers and lessons entirely in French. I did a placement test and
I'm been classified an advanced
A2. My goal is to be B1 in three months, if possible even an advanced B1 (there are two
courses for each level in this
school). I did today the first lesson, I really appreciated it a lot. Some grammar,
some listening, some reading too, a
lot of discussion between us, all entirely in French. Awesome!
I plan to study, in this three months, other than the week lesson plus exercises,
everyday with Assimil and the FSI
French Phonology and Basic course, plus listening podcasts and radios plus watching
movies and reading books.
I plan as well to continue study English, Dutch, Persian and Mandarin without dropping
them. It requires
organisation. I'm using Anki extensively specially for Persian and Mandarin, but also
for Dutch and French, using as
more native resources I can for English, French and Dutch. Wish me good luck :D

-

Voila, je suis ici! Je ne sais pas ce moment pourquoi j'ai écrit en anglais dans mon
premier message, mais a partir de
ce comment je n'utiliserai plus l'anglais.
Je croix que le Français soit une langue vraiment merveilleuse. Je ne voix pas l'heure
de être bon assez de utilisé le
Français pour travailler. Je suis très fortuné parce que j'ai beaucoup de collègues qui
sont Français et comme ceci j'ai
beaucoup opportunités de avoir conversations en ça langue si belle!

aodhanc wrote:

tristano wrote:

Voila, je suis ici! Je ne sais pas ce moment pourquoi
j'ai écrit en
anglais dans mon premier message, mais a partir de
ce comment je n'utiliserai plus l'anglais.
Je croix que le Français soit une langue vraiment merveilleuse. Je ne voix pas l'heure
de être bon assez de utilisé le
Français pour travailler. Je suis très fortuné parce que j'ai beaucoup de collègues qui
sont Français et comme ceci j'ai
beaucoup opportunités de avoir conversations en ça langue si belle!

Quelques corrections:

A parir de ce COMMENTAIRE.....

Je CROIS que.....le francais EST une langue.....

Je ne VEUX pas.....

opportunités D'AVOIR.....

1e4e6 wrote:

L'indicatif lui suit à la construction «croire que» en français, mais
que je crois que
l'erreur previent de l'italien, «Credo que questo ristorante sia molto buono». Mais en
français le seul cas dans lequel se utilise le subjonctif avec «croire que», c'est avec
la forme négative, «Je ne crois pas que ce restaurant soit bon». Mais oui, en
l'italien,
se utilise le subjonctif avec les deux formes, affirmative et négative.

Edit: faute d'orthographie

emk wrote:

Pour toutes tes questions sur le subjonctif, vois :

The
Subjunctivator
The Subjunctivator:
Croire que

D'habitude, la plupart des verbes qui expriment les convictions utilisent l'indicatif
(l'exception la plus commune est « souhaiter »). Mais dans une phrase négative (ou une
phrase interrogative de la forme VERBE-PRONOM), il faut utiliser le subjonctif.

garyb wrote:

Bien que le français et l'italien soient des langues similaires, il y a
beaucoup de petites différences et une traduction mot-à-mot ne marche pas toujours !
L'emploi du subjonctif dont on a déjà discuté n'est qu'un exemple. Les tournures "je ne
vois pas l'heure" et "je suis fortuné" ne sont pas courantes en français ( les
équivalents seraient "j'ai hâte"/"j'attends avec impatience" et "j'ai de la chance" )
et les constructions "beaucoup opportunités" et "ça langue" ne sont pas valables en
français même si elles le sont en italien - attention aux différences grammaticales !

Bonne chance ; les italiens en général apprennent très vite le français !

Merci à tous pour vos conseils! Maintenant, c'est tout plus clair!
Aujourd'hui, je dois faire mes devoirs pour cette semaine, parler d'un film!
Mon choix est mon film préféré, Blade Runner!
Ce film m'a choqué pour l'atmosphère qui à été créé, il semble incroyable pour moi de
penser qu'il a été réalisé en
1982!
Ce film nous montre un futur cyberpunk où l'homme a créé des androïdes, appelés
réplicants, doté d'une force
exceptionnelle et utilisé pour faire des travaux que l'être humain ne veut pas faire,
souvent dehors de la planète Terre. À un certain moment des réplicants décidé de
s'échapper et ont leur propre vie,
et le personnage principal qui est un investigateur, doit les trouver...
J'ai aimé ce film depuis le premier minute. Tout pour moi à été realise à la
perfection: les scenes, les dialogues, les
musique (j'adore les musiques!).
Maintenant j'ai le désir de le revoir une autre fois :)
1 person has voted this message useful

tristano
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Netherlands
Joined 3842 days ago
905 posts - 1262 votes

Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English
Studies: Dutch

Message 38 of 145

22 February 2014 at 6:33pm | IP Logged

From Persian log:

Hi all!
I'm starting Persian from scratch after being
amazed by how charming it sounds! Right now I'm
organising my study,
looking for resources and preparing a roadmap in
order to achieve my goal for January 2015, or at
least arriving
next to: being able to read and write the script,
understand the general meanings of non highly
specialised texts and
being able to have basic conversations with
natives.
As a first lesson I listened the episode 1 of Chai
and Conversation podcast. I will try to listen one
episode per day, if
needed twice a day or two days in a row before
continue and in the next days starting from today I
will start playing
with the beautiful script.
My main concern is to prepare a study plan that is
sustainable, considering that I work as software
engineer at least
8 hours a day and I have two language to maintain
(English and French) and three to study actively
(Dutch, Persian
and Mandarin). Progress not too fast is acceptable
to me, but my challenge is to commit myself for
success.
The reward is so high that it would be a pity not
to get it (I mean, access to Persian language and
culture, other than
the objectives with the other languages).

druckfehler wrote:

I had the consonant problem for ages... Actually, I still mix up
the less common ones sometimes. But over time and with a little bit of reading that
problem disappears. What I thought was very important was to understand which
consonants are linked and which aren't - it makes them easier to keep apart. I found
that a bit confusing on easypersian, but if you still have questions after completing
his alphabet lessons there are enough other good resources, I think :)

druckfehler wrote:

Wow, watch out so your head doesn't explode! The routine you've
described sounds really exhausting... Maybe you could alternate days for Persian and
Mandarin or something of the sort? Really accomplished polyglots like ellasevia (Philip
from our team :)) and Sprachprofi used a rotation method and seem to have gotten some
great results.

Personally, I think it's the best idea to get used to spoken language first, whenever
studying a new language. Otherwise it's easy to develop pronunciation mistakes based on
reading words incorrectly. So in my opinion you're doing just fine.

I also did the lesson on jobs yesterday :) I really like the Chai and Conversation
teaching style - not too little but also not too much input every lesson.

Élan wrote:

Don't work too hard, Tristano! We want you to keep enjoying Persian and
stay on the team! I am sure if you stick
with the alphabet, it will get much easier (and less boring) very soon. I think the
main problem is when people start
using "finglish/pinglish" right away and skip the alphabet. As long you're keeping your
eyes on the alphabet, it will
start to stick.

I like the style of Chai and Conversation too, but I love the voice on Pimsleur
Persian. That's the voice I associate
with Persian. It's also why I really dislike the Living Language Farsi offering--the
main woman's voice freaks me out!

pesahson wrote:

If you're interested in Iran as a country and not only the language I
recommend a book by a journalist Ryszard Kapuściński The Shah of Shahs. I've finished
it yesterday and I think it's really good. It's non fiction, it's only about 160 pages
long and it tells the story of the overthrow of the last shah of Iran which begun the
Iranian Revolution of 1979. Great stuff.

druckfehler wrote:

tristano wrote:

it's alien to me, without inhuman complexities
that justify putting a lot of efforts

I understand this problem quite well. I couldn't make progress in Portuguese, but when
I met a language with "inhuman complexities" in Korean, I was far more motivated to
study. I simply knew I had to study to have any chance of getting better at this
language. So sometimes difficulty can motivate you to study more successfully, I guess.

Regarding Persian, if you're struggling to stay motivated it might be nice to change
your materials for a while. If you know enough French, it seems like a good option to
become familiar with Persian grammar. I imagine it might be frustrating to just learn
with Chai and Conversation while you don't actually know any grammar rules yet. Assimil
also teaches the letters (although other resources are probably better for that).
Actually, you might like the opportunity to work on Persian and French at once :) In
any case, I don't think you necessarily have to decide to stick with one resource and
ignore all others. Just experiment with different ones, see what motivates you and
change your approach every time you start to get demotivated ;)

I'm struggling more to find the right organisation. Every time a language demand more
to me the others suffer.
I can try with Assimil anyway, I like the way it's structured. And the fact it's in
French it's a plus! My goal is to reach
the understanding that I have now in French and continuing with grammar and native
resources for the rest. With
French I'm doing exactly that (but was too easy of course, because I'm Italian). That
is the funny part. I really enjoy
when I'm able to self understand the meaning of a new word or particular construction.
That motivates me a lot :)
1 person has voted this message useful

tristano
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Netherlands
Joined 3842 days ago
905 posts - 1262 votes

Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English
Studies: Dutch

Message 39 of 145

22 February 2014 at 6:37pm | IP Logged

From Mandarin log:

Hi all, I open also a log for Mandarin ;)
I won't participate to Total Annihilation Challenge with this language. The reason is
simple: Mandarin is a very
different beast. It's a really bad idea to face this language being in a hurry and
demanding immediate results. I don't
want to put any pressure on me but only taking the most fun possible out of this
language learning process.

So this is my strategy:
- finish the Heisig book "Learning simplified Hanzi", both volumes, by learning how to
write and the meaning of
3000 characters. I face this study in this way: first, I read the lesson about a
certain number of characters (lesson 1
were 15, lesson 2 were 17), with the explanations - there is not any notes about the
pronunciation - but it's good.
Then I write on my workbook the characters with a small note with the meanings. The day
after, In the following
page, I fill for each characters a line with its character in order to transfer the
knowledge from my head to my body
(like playing piano after having took a look at the scores). Than loop, I do something
else and later I learn the new
characters and so on.
- facing the whole FSI mandarin, one lesson per day (if needed, by repeating more times
the same lesson).

When I will finish doing this work, after some months of work, I think I will start
with Assimil Mandarin and with
some native resource. At that point I will have two disjointed capabilities that I will
have to merge and put active
study of grammar on it.

Snowflake wrote:

Unless you have a really good memory for characters, plan on
starting to read/skim graded readers or native material at/before hitting 700
characters. And don't stress about not knowing every single character/word.

Snowflake wrote:

The "Chinese Breeze" and "Tales and Traditions" series are examples
of graded readers. Heisig basically provides building blocks so when reading something
you'll use the keyword to understand the content. You'll encounter other
keywords/meanings for the character but don't worry about that. That's part of the
learning process as is picking up the grammar and pronunciation. For native materials,
I'm currently reading mostly childrens books and other things that cross my path
(flyers, bookstore advertisements, various websites, etc).

Given the difficulty of the language, most people seem to modify their approach several
times.

Snowflake wrote:

After reading native materials for a while, you'll realize that the
explanations usually given about characters and Chinese words are incomplete. Also the
western understanding of "word" (or at least the American understanding of it) does not
exactly match how native Chinese speakers understand it.

aerozeplyn wrote:

Well, single characters really do have meaning on their own, but
the context is really what defines the meaning. I
have a log, if you're interested, but what I think will REALLY help you a lot is to
grab an illustrated Chinese
dictionary. This type of dictionary should have very basic words on things you see
every day. As I've been going
through my illustrated dictionary, I realized that I am picking up characters very
quickly: I don't need to create
stories, or come up with some fancy gimmick to get myself to remember the characters...
instead, I end up
"learning" how all of the words are connected. It is quite awesome, I recommend you try
learning the characters for
words from an illustrated dictionary :D

aerozeplyn wrote:

Honestly, I believe characters are exactly like English words. Take
the word "believe": think of it as being created
using different radicals... the "be" radical, the "lie" radical, and the "ve" radical.

I know, it's a stretch, but hear me out:

For the words--err um "radicals"--"be", "lie", and "ve", it doesn't really make sense
why these came together. I'm
sure if I sit there and study the history of the word, I'll find out that some letters
came from misspellings of the
past, others from different languages, and others no one is certain. Either way, if
you're trying to make logical
sense of something, then you're doomed to fail... sorry, but you don't always get what
you want in the world of
learning :D But really, what are you more interested in? Are you actually interested in
making sense of why
characters are created by different radicals? or are you REALLY more interested in just
using the actual word, so
you can read or listen to understand the language? You can't have both as quickly, so
pick one.

For employee, i'm guessing you mean 员 since that is 口 + 贝 , but do its parts REALLY
need to make sense in
order for you to know that "员" might mean employee? Do they have to make logical sense
for them to have a
meaning? No. Nope. it's not necessary. Just learn how to pronounce 员, just like you
have to individually learn
that the English sounds for "bee-leave" is represented as "believe".

Stay away from the gimmicks and just trust your brain. Enjoy the process, and feel free
to be analytical and think,
"ooo employee is a mouth and a shellfish...interesting. maybe this is because employees
will typically take your
goods, kinda like the hired fisherman eating my shellfish >[". No, don't say that to
yourself, but feel free to
continue to analyze it and do what makes yourself happy, just don't forget to trust
your brain and believe in
yourself. While you will never remember 100% of material in one sitting, you'll
remember a small percentage, and
that pattern will continue and grow when you reinforce more. Just trust yourself :)

I never thanked you @aerozeplyn for this post, sorry for late! Thank you very much!!!
1 person has voted this message useful

tristano
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Netherlands
Joined 3842 days ago
905 posts - 1262 votes

Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English
Studies: Dutch

Message 40 of 145

24 February 2014 at 8:45pm | IP Logged

Let's write the first update of this unique target branch log :)
Brief summary:
- I dabbled a bit with Icelandic, dropped
- I decided to drop also Dutch, but only temporary
- I'm studying written Mandarin using Heizig's Remembering simplified Hanzi and Anki software
- I'm studying Persian using several sources: Pimsleur, Chai and Conversation, Assimil and EasyPersian, I'm doing the
6 weeks challenge with this language
- I'm studying French by taking class courses after I studied it at middle school and I'm at an advanced A2 level (I'm
going to B1)
- I'm using every day English in my workplace and I'm around a C1 level, with a good listening, an acceptable
speaking and street grammar :) In my plans for this year there is also spend some time to study English grammar
and learning British formal PR accent.
- I created an experimental branch log to make experiments with many different languages to improve my learning
abilities but without the goal of actually learn those languages.

That's it for now :) This log I fear will be a lot more boring that the other one.

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