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What Expug is doing in 2015 (TAC n more) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4796 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes  Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 121 of 364 02 April 2015 at 2:31am | IP Logged | ||
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Enjoy your travels, I'm looking forward to reading of your experiences.
And congratulations to your French progress, that sounds awesome! You are right, things like Hero Corp, that makes most natives sound very clear :-D 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4953 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 122 of 364 13 April 2015 at 7:54pm | IP Logged | ||
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Just a short note to say I'm back! I'm still going to need a few days to catch up with reading the forum, working on the challenges for Team Sleipnir (I ask the members a little patience), writing a little on my trip (because I won't be able to write about everything) and resume studying and logging. Today, first day at work, and I was busy even if just talking about the trip with the co-workers, so, not much study yet. I hope tomorrow things get back on track because I really miss routine.
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| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4953 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 123 of 364 15 April 2015 at 1:03am | IP Logged | ||
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Estonian lessons are long and taking most of my day. There is too much to translate, that is, I have to translate several words just to do the exercises. I'm approaching the end of E Nagu Eesti, anyway. Just this week and the next.
Overall comprehension of Norwegian improved significantly after 1 hour of exposure to Helt Perfekt. I'm becoming confident about starting to understand spoken Norwegian. (All other work in progress. Yesterday I went up to German reading; today I finished Russian reading but no time for watching Héro Corp or studying Italian and - now - Turkmen). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4953 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 124 of 364 16 April 2015 at 11:51pm | IP Logged | ||
Accomplished Language Textbook: Erste Chinesische Lesestücke
This book was a great find! There is more on the series, but in fact I have been working on this set for the previous weeks and I only realized it was a series with other languages included when I went to a bookstore in German. The Chinese texts are very interesting and it was good practice for my Chinese and my German. I do recommend this series. I finished all my tasks again, just didn't get down to continuing Assimil Italian or starting Turkmen. Still having busy days but the main reason is the long time I spend on E Nagu Eesti early in the morning. I'm also done with reading previous posts so maybe tomorrow things will get back on track. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4953 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 125 of 364 17 April 2015 at 11:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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Still busy, preparing a trip to my hometown, but I think I can log properly again. So, I will write about today and if there is time I will start writing about holidays.
Estonian is still taking a lot of time, but I really enjoy learning the language. I also like the way it sounds. I plan to visit Estonian in the future, and until then I want to know enough to get around as a tourist. That would be a B1ish active. I can definitely do this in Georgian after three years, so I think it is doable. Accomplished Language Textbooks: Russo Essencial 
I really like the format of the new Berlit courses. I find the dialogues quite appropriate, long enough to get a good idea of the language, and the explanations and exercises are also helpful. So, when I saw the new Portuguese-based Russian course I bought it immediately. The learning curve is too steep, though, so it still fits my everlasting pre-intermediate stage. Now I'm going for some assisted reading again, with Short Stories by Soviet Writers. I will try to take no more than two pages a day and to read them intensively. I admit I did not pay much attention to Helt Perfekt today, but I'm understanding more and more. Maybe it's the same that happens with French, that I understand better when I'm just listening and not watching. Started China in kleinen Geschichten. The pages here have more info, so I'm counting 3:1 to the Super Challenge. (counting both Chinese and German as they stand on different files). Now things get finally better with German reading. I don't know if the trip has had any effect (have to write on this, btw) or if it's the text that consists most of dialogues now, but I'm happy about that. I've also started watching Harmonists. Hardcoded Portuguese subtitles, so I open a notepad window with the German subtitles. If I keep finding German subtitles to my films I'm going to learn a lot. Now a bit about the trip: Holidays Rome has such a feeling of familiarity. Not only because it is hyperexposed on pictures, but also because it reminds me of Brazil and Latin America in general. I was lucky the traffic was ok on my way from the airport, early on Wednesday evening. The language was not a problem at all. I had only two nights, and the first day was better, as visited almost everything we had in mind. It sounds almost like a tourist chore, and it fairly is. Being to Rome itself is. Anyway, thanks to the recommendation from the nice B&B owner, in the evening we went to an authentic Italian canteen where we were the only foreigners. I talked a lot to some Northern Italians who even thought I was from Rome. The next day we visited the Vatican but couldn't make it to St Peter's Church because it would get closed early due to a mass or something. We were standing in line so close to getting in when it closed. The rest of the day we really had no idea what to do and we walked a lot, took buses and trams, had lunch at a bad and expensive place at Trastevere and went early to the train station to get our train to Florence which we couldn't anticipate due to the tariff system. We were assuming we'd have a lot to do in Rome and so that called for a late arriving in Florence, but all we had were idle hours and for that we even had to pay a late checking fee at the B&B in Florence. In Florence, the B&B was not the best place, starting from that. We would have two nights as well. The first day, we visited town. The dome had such a queue (again) we didn't even dare line in. We visited some spots, crossed the old bridge and it started raining. So we couldn't make it to Piazzale Michelangelo or visit the Pitti palace from the inside (btw, we're not museum people at all, so we didn't have any on the plan). After that, we walked back and tried to find a supermarket. We got lost, walked a lot and our clothes got wet from the rain. A local friend we were supposed to dinner with couldn't come because of the rain, but we did end up leaving for dinner in a nice place close to the B&B. The second day, we visited Pisa and Lucca, both of which we liked, and came just in time for te train to Venice. Things were much easier in Venice: transportation (believe me, I enjoyed the vaporetto), accomodation and it was more fun indeed, even if there weren't that many spots we were planning on visiting. We enjoyed the atmosphere overall. By the end of the day we were tired but with the feeling of having enjoyed a lot the place. We went earlier to the station to take the nightly train to Munich. I didn't know trains were so uncomfortable. I'm used to taking 15-hour bus trips to my hometown (like today's), but the bus seat leans some degrees, enough for me to rest. Besides, there is enough space to stretch one's feet. At the train everything was so flat and we sat facing each other which made it even more uncomfortable for one's legs. I should have bought a more comfortable cabin even if the idea with the nightly train at first place was earning time and saving 1 night at a hotel. Besides, the heat was at maximum and I didn't realize I could have adjusted that until in the morning. There was no vending machine, so I remained thirsty all night long. Well, at least I saw snow right from the window for the first time, it was in the Alps, it was the night but it was nice. Another inconvenient of travelling the night: the check-in in German hotels opens only at 3pm. (And the check-out closes at 11 am. You pay for the day and only manage to stay for 20 hours, that's unfair). We arrived at 8am, dropped our luggage at the hotel and went to visit the city. I knew we wouldn't last long. We walked to Marienplatz and visited all but Frauenkirchen. Then we took the U-Bahn to the next station, Odeonplatz. I missed the entrance to the Residenz and we ended up walking directly to the English Garden. We walked through it a lot of time, it is really a nice place. I also found time to visit a library close to the university, where I ordered the books I wanted (more on this on my specific linguistic report). Then we came back to Marienplatz and had lunch at a nice place with a salad buffet per kilo (as in Brazil) and then dessert on what I later realized was one of the best breweries, Hacker-Pschorr. Then the hotel at 2 pm and resting the rest of the day. At least in the evening we went to the best brewery so far, zum Augustiner. The next day: Salzburg. simply the top spot of the trip. And I doubted about going there all the time. We could only leave at 10 thanks to the rules concerning the Bayern Ticket, but we could make the best use of our time. The most charming city we visited, we also liked the castle, had nice food. The train journey through Baviera itself was also interesting, it was the first trip I took at daylight, by the way. The third day we had to catch up with everything we couldn't see the first day, and we woke up late, and even had to pack bags and check out. I missed Theresienwiese but I could visit Allianz Arena, Olympiapark and the tower, quickly walk into BMW-Museum, then lunch at an unknown place at Münchener Freiheit then Schloss Nymphemburg. This one was another nice place I had been unsure about visiting. Pity that we couldn't make it to walk through the park across it. It is a long walk just from the tram stop alone. We had dinner at Hofbräu with some Brazilian friends who live there and which I have met in our weekly Stammtisch here in Brazil. It was much fun. Then we took the nightly bus to Frankfurt. {to be continued} 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4308 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 126 of 364 18 April 2015 at 12:29am | IP Logged | ||
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No stop at Hallstatt? You were so close... ;)
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| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4953 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 127 of 364 19 April 2015 at 1:16am | IP Logged | ||
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It was not included in the Bayern Ticket ;)
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| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4631 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 128 of 364 19 April 2015 at 1:06pm | IP Logged | ||
Sounds like you had bad luck with your train. Normally, German trains are very comfortable, much more comfortable than buses in any case. I must admit I'm a real train fan. Especially riding first class is simply heaven! :) Anyway, sounds like you had a hell of a trip! I'm looking forward to reading more about it. All the spots in Munich that you describe sound very familiar... :) Edited by Josquin on 19 April 2015 at 1:06pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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