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TAC 2015-Advanced Study Group Team Thread

 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
33 messages over 5 pages: 13 4 5  Next >>
Elenia
Diglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
lilyonlife.blog
Joined 3875 days ago

239 posts - 327 votes 
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: German, Swedish, Esperanto

 
 Message 9 of 33
05 January 2015 at 5:11pm | IP Logged 
Hello. I'm Lily/Elenia from England, and this is my first time taking part in the TAC.
I'm a student of French in my final year, and I'm taking part partially to boost my
studies and partially so I don't give up on French as soon as I graduate. A (much more
lengthy) explanation of my goals and methods can be found in post 48 of my log.
1 person has voted this message useful



garyb
Triglot
Senior Member
ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5226 days ago

1468 posts - 2413 votes 
Speaks: English*, Italian, French
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 10 of 33
05 January 2015 at 5:46pm | IP Logged 
Expugnator wrote:
As we're discussing ways for activating your languages, I noticed that it helps a lot to try and write dialogues in TL and making them as authentic/colloquial as possible


I think this is a brilliant idea! One problem I often find in social conversations is that I don't always have the "right" word/expression to use when someone expresses a certain idea, or I overuse the same ones. Just simple stuff like "ah bon?", "en effet", "d'accord", to pick a few obvious French examples. Writing dialogues might help with that.
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sctroyenne
Diglot
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5410 days ago

739 posts - 1312 votes 
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Spanish, Irish

 
 Message 11 of 33
06 January 2015 at 7:27am | IP Logged 
Hello all! So in the attempt to set up a smart TV at my mother's this weekend, we somehow knocked out the internet so I'm just now returning to civilization. I just poured myself some port and am all set to get caught up with the goings-on at HTLAL and the TACs!

First to introduce myself: I am also studying French as an advanced language. It was my first and my dearest, having spent nearly two years living there. One of the high points of 2014 was my return visit back to see friends in the Paris region and Toulouse. I'm still pursuing the goal of getting my French to be all around as close to native-like as possible, despite this being an "impossible dream".

I am still toying with the desire to immigrate. France is a longshot - I would need to develop professionally to the point a company would want to transfer me there, or finally find "the one" (which hasn't happened yet so I'm not relying on that one). I'm also considering Quebec which is quite a bit easier to immigrate to and I've heard wonderful things about Montreal, despite the bitter, freezing cold.

I'm interested in taking the DALF - C1 would suffice for any immigration needs, even though C2 would be a nice "trophy". I've been saying that I've been intending on taking the DALF for quite a while now. My biggest challenge is procrastination and perfectionism, especially when it comes to practicing my writing. I get pretty easily overwhelmed which I need to work on. Other than that, I'll be continuing to maintain/level up my other skills.

In addition, I'm still working on building my intermediate base in Irish and I'm in the intermediate phase of Spanish where I need tons and tons of exposure, drill, and practice to get up to advanced.

Now some replies:

It looks like quite a few of us so far are looking to work on writing skills - either in general or in preparation for exams. But if you're not, no worries! We'll try to make this group accommodating for all needs and goals (though writing is a great exercise for developing skills other than formal writing). It looks like we're all looking for some polish. And I'm sure we'd all love to have better speaking skills. We can keep these goals in mind when thinking of potential challenges - which I believe anyone should be able to propose (though we won't do them all at once of course).

Via Diva wrote:
I have already signed up to MOOC suggested here in General discussion room
I was interested by this - is it one that is focused specifically on English or could anyone adapt the course to their own language? I had tried (and failed) to keep up with a writing habit challenge (write 500 words a day) but I'll be looking to try that again. Just getting into the habit even if you don't have the intention to polish off every composition to post on Lang-8 can make a huge difference.

IBEP wrote:
Kannada: Get literate! And read some books.
I was wondering, is Kannada a heritage language for you (pretty fluent conversationally thanks to exposure in the family, never formally educated in the language)? I'm sorry we don't have a learning partner for you in this language but hopefully the learning skills/habits and support help :)

garyb wrote:
conversational ability/fluency, pronunciation and accent, consistency, confidence
I'm pretty sure this is one of the hardest parts about attaining fluency - that our levels aren't always consistent. This will probably be one of those eternal struggles even as we manage to be "on" more often than not. Our levels aren't really that consistent in our native languages either (writer's block, getting tongue tied) but there's always the fear that other people will be gauging our abilities in our foreign languages by our weakest moments.

Serpent wrote:
Since it's an advanced nitpicky group...
In the event that we do have native speakers of a language another person is learning (English in this case), it would be beneficial to offer corrections (as long as they're welcome, of course). In order to keep the flow of the conversation, we can stick them at the bottom of our posts.

Welcome on board @Elenia! I'll add you to our top post soon.

@Expugnator and @garyb regarding dialogues: I remember seeing that challenge but I didn't follow it closely. I'd be interested in any write ups you or other participants did about the effect it had! I'm also thinking that typing out transcripts of TV/movie/video clips would also help. Since you're working with material that comes directly from a native source, you would be forcing yourself to formulate conversational language the way a native would. But it can be torture... Also, some precision on colloquial language: "standard" colloquial as you'd hear in most film/TV or more hanging out at the pub with your friends colloquial (which can delve into downright raunchy)?
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Via Diva
Diglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
last.fm/user/viadivaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4253 days ago

1109 posts - 1427 votes 
Speaks: Russian*, English
Studies: German, Italian, French, Swedish, Esperanto, Czech, Greek

 
 Message 12 of 33
06 January 2015 at 9:34am | IP Logged 
sctroyenne, it's called A Beginner's Guide to Writing in English for University Study Turns out I really need it, although I had hoped I don't usually write just nonsense.
Maybe there are some courses is other languages, but I'm not interested in them so far.
1 person has voted this message useful



Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6616 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 13 of 33
06 January 2015 at 3:33pm | IP Logged 
sctroyenne wrote:
Serpent wrote:
Since it's an advanced nitpicky group...
In the event that we do have native speakers of a language another person is learning (English in this case), it would be beneficial to offer corrections (as long as they're welcome, of course). In order to keep the flow of the conversation, we can stick them at the bottom of our posts.


I'm not going to do that regularly, no worries :P And that's the kind of thing that English native speakers also get wrong a lot, and generally learn in a prescriptive manner anyway, so that a knowledge of Latin is more relevant here imo.
1 person has voted this message useful



Expugnator
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Brazil
Joined 5185 days ago

3335 posts - 4349 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento
Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian

 
 Message 14 of 33
06 January 2015 at 8:30pm | IP Logged 
I welcome corrections all the time here. In French, in German, in English, in Papiamento, anything. This is the place to get advanced.

As for the dialogues, I have to resume that somehow. The little I practiced was considerably helpful, as I kept using words that are really necessariy for daily-life conversation and might still be missing from my active vocabulary in my weaker languages. I am aiming at TV-colloquial language, that is what I take as a register I could apply on natives I'd meet...Talking at the pub would be too informal at this stage, though in French we can see all those borders so clearly that I think I'd be able to tell them apart.
1 person has voted this message useful



mrwarper
Diglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
Spain
forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5245 days ago

1493 posts - 2500 votes 
Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2
Studies: German, Russian, Japanese

 
 Message 15 of 33
09 January 2015 at 8:52pm | IP Logged 
As I said on the Advanced ESL Team Thread I just went through the whole TAC 2015 thread, but I'd rather ask here before making even more noise there. May I join this team? My new log is also linked as my 'home page' on the left.

I welcome corrections to any mistakes I make, in any language including my own, and the advanced languages I plan to 'study' are English and Spanish.

For those who find this surprising, I'll say my reason to join the advanced teams (if I'm allowed) is that I'm not sure what further 'study' I can do at C2 and beyond. I mean, I routinely do stuff which I'll describe later, which is the same for both languages (and will be for my less advanced ones when I get somewhere with them) but I'd call that other names.
1 person has voted this message useful



anamsc2
Tetraglot
Groupie
United States
Joined 4578 days ago

85 posts - 186 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Catalan, German
Studies: French

 
 Message 16 of 33
11 January 2015 at 7:27pm | IP Logged 
Hi everyone! I realized I haven't introduced myself in this thread yet. I'm anamsc2 and the advanced language I want to study is Spanish (and probably some Catalan).

Here is my log: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=39723


1 person has voted this message useful



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