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What Expug is doing in 2015 (TAC n more) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4948 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes  Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 113 of 364 20 March 2015 at 9:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you for the encouragement, Cavesa, it really makes a difference.
Not much to report today. I had to leave for about one hour so my activities got delayed. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4948 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 114 of 364 23 March 2015 at 11:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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Funny how I feel the need to write more in the beginning of the week and when Thursday of Friday comes I usually don't have much new to say, even though I'm still performing all my tasks.
I watched an unknown dubbed film during the weekend. Enough to keep the rhythm for the Super Challenge. I'm at amost 100 hours in French, which means 2/3 of the challenge. Now I am going to have 9 months out of 20 to do 1/3 of the work. Not bad, considering I was seriously lagging behind. Once I'm done or almost so, I will start watching another language more often, probably German. I'm enjoying the book "L'appel de l'ange". I'm being exposed to different vocabulary and colloquial language. It's still annoying that all of Guillaume Musso's books take place in the US, as I'd rather read about the daily life in various regions of France, as it was the case with some books I read by Lorraine Fouchet. At least I can assure the plot is quite contemporary and you are exposed to the most diverse situations of daily life, but in French. Reading has become faster indeed. I was busy before lunch but then in less than 40 minutes I read the remaining 11 pages in French, 10 in Norwegian and 3 in Chinese with Pera-pera followed by the corresponding 3 in Portuguese. I decided to postpone watching the third film in the trilogy Elling - Elsk meg i morgen. I want to try downloading the audiobooks first because there are still two books no film was made for. SO I started watching Helt Perfekt ... no subs! I'm expecting to see some improvement after the first episodes, even though the audio is so low. I already understand a bit, but I have to pay attention, so I still can catch up when I miss some conversations. Still, I have the impression I understand more when I'm not looking, just listening, like French =D . Sometimes I think I should watch Brazilian series a bit, to check how much of my lack of comprehension in foreign languages is due to lack of proficience and how much is due to lack of focus, bad sound quality or low volume. The texts at Erste Chinesische Lesestück start to get longer, turning into fables, like the one of the monkeys that tried to fish up the moon from the lake. It's interesting how they sound so natural, so logical and imagetic in Chinese. I sometimes understand the Chinese better than the German. The trip is coming, Italy and Germany. When I come back, I'm going to arrive in Lisbon at 10 am and take the flight back here at 3 pm. I wonder if it is worth leaving the airport and doing some sightseeing? I could finally watch the German film with more focus. The German subtitles are above average, but the Portuguese ones are more abridged than usual. So, I don't get 100% all the time, but I'm learning more and with more attention than I was before. Same with the Singaporean series. I also had a productive time with reading Russian (yes, reading can also be productive) after those days when I had been busy and approaching burnout. Duolingo Turkish released in beta. Maybe I could work a bit on it during the trip, slowly. Or maybe I should wait till I have better passive skills so I can use it more as a review and activation, the way I did with Italian. German for Portuguese speakers comes on summer, and I will be glad to let my colleagues know about that. I've already studied the English-based course myself, but a lot of people at work really got hooked up to Duolingo and aren't comfortable with learning from an English base. Like Serpent, I have a dream Learning Suite. This includes Assimil + Perfectionnement, Méthode 90, Dunwood's Newspaper Reader, Duolingo and a TV series aimed at learners. After Serpent's mention, I'd like to read Hundreåringen som klatret ut gjennom vin, that is, the Norwegian edition, which I will have to buy later. I found Swedish, French, Spansih, German but I'd like to read Scandinavian in Norwegian, since I'm not studying Swedish anyway. Today my comprehension of Héro Corp was much better. Reason? I paid more attention and I was less tired overall throughout the day. I believe I need full focus to understand spontaneous utterances and I may pick up prepared utterances even without paying much attention. Until today I didn't know pastèque was the French word for watermelon. In French, melon is just melon. In portuguese we have melão and melancia. In Italia it is a cocomero, while a cucumber is cetriolo. They say melone in Italian, so it lines up with French by not forming the name of watermelon from melon. Completed Assimil Turc 3. Suffixes are a walk in the park, thanks to Georgian. Vowel harmony isn't that scary. I'm starting to get a feeling of how the language works. For Mars Utfordringen bestemte jeg meg for å lese en artikkel fra Aftenposten. Denne artikkel handler om barna av innvandrere til Vest-Europa og deres (barnas) situasjon i hjemlandet. Det sies i artikkelen at noen ganger er barnas situasjonen i hjemlandet ikke så forferdelig og det gjør godt å bli forlot igjen hjemme av foreldrene sine hvis det forårsaker at barna lærer å bli mer selvstending. Jeg har blandende følelser om det. Jeg tror det kan gjør godt for en tenåring å lære å ta vare på et hus, men samtidig synes jeg at det finnes nesten alltid konsekvenser at ett barn ikke får bo og vokse med foreldrene sine når det er mulig. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4948 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 115 of 364 25 March 2015 at 9:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yesterday I was busy and also didn't feel like logging anything, as there was nothing special to report regarding my routine. I got really tired, worked overtime but didn't do anything in terms of output. I did select a Russian song to listen to for the March Challenge. It's an easy one, quite pop and cheesy, but just enough for my level.
I'm impressed with the amount of repetition at E Nagu Eesti. It's not simply reviewing. The same old topics are revised in a broader context. For example, I just did another exercise that involved describing one's routine. This time I could understand almost everyhting, but if it weren't for the previous exercises it's all be left down the drain of memory. In opaque languages it's really important to keep reviewing the essential vocabulary till it is mastered, because that alone can allow beginners to start conversing. This textbook also does things a vocabulary-killer way, but with the reviewing at least you ensure you are keeping the essential. Assimil Turc is making me fall in love with the language. The grammar doesn't seem so complicated after Georgian, what confuses me are the verbal suffixes that make all tenses look the same. It takes time to get used to the fact the tense information is inserted in the middle, right after the root, awhich makes the same personal form look similar within the tenses. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4948 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 116 of 364 26 March 2015 at 10:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm still quite busy late in the afternoons and so with little or time for output activities, or even when I do have time I feel total burnout. Well, at least yesterday I wrote to the B&B entirely in Iitalin without looking any words up, and apart from frenchifying 'mercredì' I didn't make any other outrageous mistake.
Yesterday I went again to the Stammtisch, our German language meeting. I forgot it was a day of important football matches, which means I was the only guy there for nearly all the time. There were two German girls and the other girls had all lived in Germany for at least a year already. They started talking women talk that I wouldn't have understood in Portuguese anyway, but at least I could say some words about my upcoming trip and they all got impressed at how I managed to bought a bus ticket for a long 7-hour trip for only 1.50 euros. Anyway, I really became aware of my shortcomings and of how I need to work on some islands. I had Norwegian interference when I was trying to say "You can name you child anything you want in Brazil" people still get surprised by my name) and I realized my German is far more limited compared to my Norwegian. I could have said much more and with much less trouble in Norwegian. Also in Italian. Leave alone French. The monolingual textbook E nagu Eesti is definitely the most time-consuming resource I have nowadays. Today I confess it was the first day I didn't look up every single word I know, but it was mostly non-essential vocabulary. I'm focusing on telling apart words that look similar. When in context, in a sentence, I already know enough grammar to figure out what is a noun, an adjective, a verb, a participle. This can be seen from the exercises at Goethe-verlag, which became much easier now. German still seems hard to read, but at least Russian is getting easier. I wonder if the difference doesn't lie in the type of materials I'm readinng - complicated non-fiction in German and light contemporary fiction in Russian. On the other hand, I'm still amazed at how much I can understand from Héro Corp now. The series is already part of my life. When I pay attention I understand almost everything (though what people say doesn't make sense all the time). Now I'm wanderlusting for Modern Greek again. I'm so happy about Turkish that I feel like learning everything in the Mediterranean. All this can wait, though. Holidays are coming and I will rather take a break. I think I will just keep reading my stronger languages when travelling from one city to another. Today I chatted a lot in Italian. The tow Italians I know were in the chat and there was also a newcomer who was asking about my learning methods, and I replied everything in Italian. It was a good practice! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5044 days ago 2237 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 117 of 364 27 March 2015 at 12:41pm | IP Logged | ||
A five hour layover in Lisbon isn't much time, but it's possible. The metro has a convenient airport stop. I would do it! You could have a couple of hours, at most, probably, to go into the city center, have lunch and look around. Myself, I'd do it just to get a good plate of Bacalhau à Brás and a Sagres to drink, :). If you're brave and plan it out in advance, it can be done, but you'd have to hustle. Edited by iguanamon on 27 March 2015 at 12:49pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4948 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 118 of 364 27 March 2015 at 10:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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@iguanamon: thank you again for showing up at this long, always an honor! Actually I arrive at 8h15 and should be back at 13h00 to go through customs on time, but I think it's more than enough to go downtown (35 minutes by metrô, probably quicker by bus or tax with no traffic jams) and then have lunch and come back. I'm really dreaming about Parque Eduardo VII, then maybe Torre de Belém and then rush back.
Yesterday was the first day when it was a bit less troublesome, and so I wrote some sentences in Georgian. I stopped again due to lack of inspiration, not language. I'm really enjoying it after all. Maybe during holidays I will come up with the whole story in mind. I will just resist writing in L1 first because that will only make things more difficult and less authentic. Now I should write something about the best linguistic soirée EVER! Yesterday we had another Rencontre Francophone and it's brutal how much my French progressed from the previous one in January. I came to conclusion that I underwent a second epiphany in terms of listening comprehension and speaking. It didn't seem like I was speaking a foreign language at all. I gave lectures to the newbies on how to optimize their learning, all in French. I only stopped for words a few times and I talked about very detailed aspects of life. The way natives expresssed themselves seemed cristal clear to me. There was a Swiss guy who talks much easier than the organizer, who is from Bretagne. Then there was a French girl who talks so clearly that I though she was Brazilian too. I'm so often exposed to the most difficult registers that the 'normal' language has become a familiar language already. The organizer stressed how much I improved. Pity that I'm going to miss La Fête de la Francophonie but I'm sure there will be other opportunities. I just don't know when I'm getting back to France or going to any other French-speaking country, because Central Europe is still top in my list of places to visit next time (not this and maybe neither next year, though). Finally I could understand more from Helt Perfekt (which I watch without subtitles). The series goes on in a loose way so even if you understand whole dialogues everything still sounds so clipped, but still I'm noticing my brain is starting to accomodate the Norwegian rhythm, mumbling etc. Duolingo Greek: Estimated Completion Date: May 1, 2016. I can't help but start Greek by then, probably earlier. Also another good day of watching German video. My ear is a bit more trained and so I'm associating subtitles faster, too. It is important that I make progress at this because reading is still so complicated. With Russian it's getting seemingly better than with German, and much of this is credited to my using of the textbook Russo Essencial which is appropriate to my current level and has authentic dialogues. So, I'm having contact to n+1 Russian early in the afternoon and that works as a warm-up for the series and for the reading. I didn't pay so much attention to Héro Corp today but I'm still happy with my comprehension. I have no doubts that I can speak French fluently now. Next I want to reach those goals with Norwegian. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4948 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 119 of 364 30 March 2015 at 10:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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Today is the first day of vacation. I haven't travelled yet but then I decided not to perform my daily routine for this day and the next. For the first time, I feel like I'm really giving my mind some rest. During holidays I'm either travelling or staying home (mine or my parents'). When I'm home, I keep my 8-hour long language study schedule which makes the day feels almost like working. I do enjoy doing all this, but I also enjoy having a calm day which I haven't had for long. I have a lot to do that I will mostly do tomorrow anyway, but I feel so relaxed for not having to go through the whole schedule today.
I read a bit in Norwegian as I thought I wouldn't be reading the current book when travelling, but then I just went to the bookstore I downloaded it from and added it to the new device. I plan to keep reading on my stronger languages and maybe with German, too, for which I'm bringing up new books with translation. I'll be taking long trips, starting with the intercontinental flights, of course, but I won't think about Super Challenge or anything this week and the other. I'll be enjoying the trip, the occasional opportunity to practice some languages but mostly the cultures and landscapes. I may update this log if I notice I have something to say, but expect proper study notes only in mid-April. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Emme Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 5129 days ago 980 posts - 1594 votes Speaks: Italian*, English, German Studies: Russian, Swedish, French | Message 120 of 364 31 March 2015 at 9:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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Travel safe and enjoy your well-deserved holidays!
1 person has voted this message useful |
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