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Mi Cuaderno: Español, Mandarín (TAC ’14) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| nj24 Diglot Groupie United States Joined 4444 days ago 56 posts - 106 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Italian, French | Message 1 of 16 02 January 2014 at 5:36am | IP Logged | |||||
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This is my first time keeping a log here and also my first time participating in TAC. :) I hope my log will be helpful
to others! Language Background & Goals for 2014 I've been studying Spanish for over two years and have just begun dabbling with Mandarin over the past two months. My weakest Spanish skill is speaking so I will be focusing on strengthening my conversational abilities and immersing myself in native materials. I hope to reach a B2/C1 level by the end of the year. I would like to reach an A2 level in Mandarin. 2013 really saw the biggest jump in my Spanish level. I started the year struggling through a translated copy of the Hunger Games. I finished the year with two Gabo novels under my belt: Crónica de una muerte anunciada and Doce cuentos peregrinos. I started the year feeling utterly lost watching Spanish movies and TV shows without subtitles. I finished the year having enjoyed and understood (without subtitles) nearly every conversation of the Spanish TV show Gran Hotel. I started the year wondering how on earth I was ever going to remember every single verb conjugation. I ended the year with comments from native speakers on my Lang-8 entries complimenting my Spanish grammar. I can now understand many Spanish songs without having to first look up the lyrics. The best part yet, though, was finding a Spanish speaking partner in October and discovering that I could actually talk in Spanish for over an hour without needing to revert to English. But I still have a long way to go to reach conversational fluency. I don't want to be stopped at a plateau now so I know I need to continue devoting as much time as possible to my language studies if I want to continue progressing. Since I have nearly finished all of my textbooks, I will mostly be focusing on immersing myself in native materials this year and taking part in as many conversations as I can. I love learning languages and have been feeling a bit eager to start a new one after devoting myself to studying only Spanish for the past two years or so. And that's why I've decided to add Mandarin to my language studies (also because I thought it would be cool to study a language that doesn't use the Latin alphabet). In the past, I've studied Latin, Italian, French, and Japanese (no characters, just speaking). I have no background in Mandarin so I will be starting absolutely from scratch. I've already begun working through the Mandarin pronunciation modules in FSI but that's it. It's going to be a fun adventure. My 2014 goals for Spanish: 1. Read 25 novels (I read 20 in 2013 so I think upping this by five should be doable). 2. Write 50 entries on Lang-8 including "islands" for speaking practice 3. 100 hours of speaking practice (This is going to be the most difficult! My language partner is often busy so I usually can't talk with her more than once a week. I might consider trying out a website like Verbling, but I think I will also include talking out loud with myself here. If I talk out loud to myself for 30 minutes or an hour straight I will count that toward my goal. Anything less won't count.) 4. 100 Films/TV Show Episodes (TV episodes will have to be an hour long to count as one film). 5. Translation Practice (I'm not setting a quantitative number for this, but I think doing a bit of translation from English to Spanish will help me start thinking in Spanish). Spanish: Resources Completed & In Progress 1. Pimsleur Spanish 1 & 2 (I think I may have also worked a little way through volume 3. I was listening to Pimsleur at the same time as I was working through FSI and quickly outgrew the program). 2. FSI Spanish Volumes 1-4 (I have about three lessons left so should finish it within the next week or so. This is an amazing program both for beginners and intermediate students). 3. Practice Makes Perfect Spanish Verb Tenses (This was a great book for reinforcing what I learned with FSI and practicing writing. I've been working through it at the same time as I have been doing FSI. I have two lessons left, and then I am planning to work through Spanish Pronouns and Prepositions for review). 4. Video Courses: Destinos & Extr@ Español (I watched Destinos during the first months that I began learning Spanish. I didn't try to learn verb conjugations with it. I watched it with subtitles and just tried to pick up vocabulary and correct pronunciation. I watched Extr@ during my second year as an effort to slowly ease myself off of subtitles). 5. Conjuguemos.com (an awesome website for practicing making verb conjugations automatic). 6. Podcasts: Notes in Spanish, SpanishPodcast.org (I've been listening to podcasts since I started learning. I liked Spanish Podcast at first because it came with free transcripts, and the author explains all of the grammar and vocabulary in Spanish at the end of the dialogues. Now it is a bit too slow for me. I've been listening to Notes in Spanish Gold and am nearly done with the second season. I like podcasts because I can listen while doing other activities). My 2014 goals for Mandarin: I will be working through the FSI course (I have already started working through the pronunciation module) and the DeFrancis Beginner Textbook in pinyin. I will also have the DeFrancis Mandarin readers though they are supposed to be used after the textbook is completed. I am sure once I start working through the textbooks I will have a better idea of how quickly I can expect to complete the lessons. I hope to at least make it halfway through the courses. I also would like to finish volume 1 of the Pimsleur Mandarin course. In addition, I have started watching the Growing up with Chinese videos from CNTV. My goal for Mandarin this year is to be able to visit my local Chinese restaurant and have a short conversation in Mandarin with the server. I'd also like to have a conversation with my Mandarin speaking neighbor if I see her. Ultimately, I'd like to reach an A2 level in speaking. Mandarin: Resources To Be Completed & In Progress 1. Pimsleur Mandarin Chinese 2. FSI Standard Chinese 3. Beginning Chinese by John DeFrancis 4. Beginning Chinese Reader Volumes 1 & 2 (Not sure I will get to these this year) 5. Growing up with Chinese TV Show I have great expectations for this year and am looking forward to seeing where my language adventures take me. Edited by nj24 on 02 January 2014 at 6:45am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 3925 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 2 of 16 02 January 2014 at 2:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I used italki for my conversation partners - both the free ones (language exchange) and the paid ones (tutors).
Honestly…if I were starting over, I think I'd work mainly with tutors instead of exchange partners. I like knowing that the conversation will be only in Spanish, and I know that a tutor will be able to answer any questions that I have. I mostly use my tutors in the same way that I use language exchange partners - just for basic conversation practice. Yes, I pay people to talk to me. Haha! I teach a few French lessons on italki to pay for my Spanish lessons - that way it's "free". Anyway, tutors aren't for everyone, but I thought I'd put it out there. it might be worth it to spend 10 dollars once a week for a full hour of one-on-one conversation. Anyway, I look forward to following your log! Good luck in 2014! 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| PointsDotsLines Diglot Groupie United States Joined 3787 days ago 76 posts - 110 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, English Studies: Spanish | Message 3 of 16 02 January 2014 at 7:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I also use some of the same resources that you use (or have used) e.g.Practice Makes Perfect book, Destinos/Extr@, NIS podcasts, Lang-8, etc. So, it's great to read that these materials have helped you achieve the positive results in such a short period of time:)
Now you're "dabbling" with Chinese, can you write/type some simple characters e.g. "你好，再见，谢谢";-)? 加油! (= a general phrase of encouragement, similar to "good job; keep up the good work" ) -Charles Edited by PointsDotsLines on 02 January 2014 at 7:44pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Warp3 Senior Member United States forum_posts.asp?TID= Joined 5316 days ago 1419 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean, Japanese | Message 4 of 16 03 January 2014 at 1:20am | IP Logged | |||||
Granted my Chinese character experience is purely rooted in Korean Hanja, but the only thing my mind generates from those two characters is "add oil" (or at least that is what the two characters mean separately in Korean). 加 = 가 (ga) / 더할 (to add, increase) 油 = 유 (yu) / 기름 (oil, grease, petroleum) Edited by Warp3 on 03 January 2014 at 1:21am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| PointsDotsLines Diglot Groupie United States Joined 3787 days ago 76 posts - 110 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, English Studies: Spanish | Message 5 of 16 03 January 2014 at 2:11am | IP Logged | |||||
Yes! You're absolutely right! 加(jiā)油(yóu)=add oil:) Have you ever been to running races like 5Ks, 10Ks... or marathons? .....where spectators cheer on runners with words of encouragement like "Good job! Keep running!" In Chinese, these phrases would be "加油! 加油! Add oil! Add oil!";-) Because it's also used to express "to make an extra effort to succeed", it has been used widely online by Chinese netizens (esp. by young people). Edited by PointsDotsLines on 03 January 2014 at 2:12am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Warp3 Senior Member United States forum_posts.asp?TID= Joined 5316 days ago 1419 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean, Japanese | Message 6 of 16 03 January 2014 at 4:20am | IP Logged | |||||
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I figured it might be colloquial, but I was making sure I wasn't just misreading it altogether
somehow. Thanks for the confirmation. In fact, it really does make sense the more I think about it; sort of like the phrase "adding fuel to the fire". Now that you posted the pronunciation, though, I'm pretty sure I've heard that used on some Korean variety shows during the episodes where they visited China. They noted that the phrase they were using at the time was the equivalent of the Korean 화이팅 (which is a loan word of the English word "fighting"). That word (in Korean, anyways, not so much in English) is used much in the same way you described above as a "you can do it" or "go for it" type encouragement phrase. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| nj24 Diglot Groupie United States Joined 4444 days ago 56 posts - 106 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Italian, French | Message 7 of 16 03 January 2014 at 5:30am | IP Logged | |||||
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Stephanie, thanks for your advice and recommendation of italki! I hadn't thought of teaching on there to pay for
tutoring sessions but that sounds like a cool idea. I might try it out this summer when I have more free time. Also, I just took a quick look at your blog. I really like your tracking sheet and might end up stealing a copy for myself. :) Charles, I recognized 谢谢 and 你好. Do you use a program for converting your keyboard to type in Chinese? One that you would recommend? I'm studying Mandarin along with my brother and once or twice we've "pretended" to have a conversation in Mandarin over chat by typing what we want to say in Google translate and then copying and pasting the Mandarin characters into the chat box. Surprisingly, it has helped me to remember those two characters. Now that I have learned pinyin spelling for various words, it would be nice to have a more efficient system. And thanks for sharing 加油 and explaining the etymology. That's cool that Shane/Warp3 could understand it from his knowledge of Korean. Is there a similar phrase in Korean, Shane? I'm wondering how it might be translated into Spanish. Perhaps, "sigue así" for this context and "vamos" in the context of a marathon. Edited by nj24 on 03 January 2014 at 5:32am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Warp3 Senior Member United States forum_posts.asp?TID= Joined 5316 days ago 1419 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean, Japanese | Message 8 of 16 03 January 2014 at 6:35am | IP Logged | |||||
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The most similar phrase I can think of in Korean is the one I noted above ("hwaiting", a loan
word form of "fighting"). There are some other phrases of encouragement (that aren't English loan words), but that's really the closest fit to what PointsDotsLines was describing (and is constantly used on Korean TV for this purpose). That is a good question about Spanish, though. I'm not really sure what the best equivalent would be there since I haven't really watched all that much Spanish TV (yet, since I plan to change that this year). 1 person has voted this message useful |
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