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WingSuet’s log (TAC 2015 - Team Rätsel) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| WingSuet Triglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 5147 days ago 169 posts - 211 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English, German Studies: Cantonese | Message 25 of 116 20 January 2012 at 7:37am | IP Logged | ||
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Ari: So far I'm having a great time in Hong Kong! I've seen the peak twice now, but
still need to back there again to see the sunset and light show :) Unfortunately for my language studies there's too much to do here in HK, I seldom have time to actually study. Good thing I'm taking three language classes here (Cantonese, Mandarin and Spanish) so I at least learn something during the lessons. It's really cool to be able to study languages as your homework and not instead of your homework :D Being here I've noticed my biggest weakness in Cantonese. I have a hard time understanding what they are saying! It's slowly getting better, but I really need to work on my listening comprehension. As for the Spanish it's the opposite situation. I can understand everything the teacher says, but I'm unable to produce any sentences when trying to speak. I've also started the Mandarin lessons, but I'm still a complete beginner (but still better than many of my classmates thanks to my advantage from Cantonese, especially concerning the tones). Right now I'm having big trouble with the pronunciation, especially with the q, j, z, x, zh, ch and sh. I really can't tell the difference! So here are new goals to focus on: Cantonese: Listening comprehension. I need to listen to more dialogues and watch more movies. Spanish: Practise vocabulary so I can remember them when speaking, not just when hearing them. I'm also going to use Pimsleur, although it's gonna be too easy at the beginning, because that will force me to speak more. Mandarin: I need to focus on the pronunciation. I'll look for some good websites that show the pronunciation of all the sounds and I'll also use Pimsleur. That helped me so much when trying to learn the tones and pronunciation in Cantonese! 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6378 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 26 of 116 20 January 2012 at 9:25am | IP Logged | ||
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A couple of links for you, WingSuet:
This article series is without doubt the best explanation of Mandarin pronunciation I've come across. Hopefully it can help you get those tricky initials down pat. This rap song is a cooperation between a Swedish and a Hong Kong rapper. Half is in Swedish and half in Canto. Besides the awesomeness factor in itself, you can look in the video's info to get a character-by-character transcription of MastaMic's part of the rap, which is subtitled in Swedish in the video. Sound, transcription and translation in one, hey! 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| NickJS Senior Member United Kingdom flickr.com/photos/sg Joined 4755 days ago 264 posts - 334 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 27 of 116 21 January 2012 at 3:04am | IP Logged | ||
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For pronunciations I just used a pinyin chart, I found just listening to them over and over and comparing them to one another in their different tones too(the similar sounding ones) did the trick for me.
Link Here Also 清醒 (qing1xing3) always helps me to remember the sounds of those two lol. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Takato Tetraglot Senior Member HungaryRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4844 days ago 249 posts - 276 votes Speaks: Hungarian*, EnglishB2, GermanB2, Japanese | Message 28 of 116 29 January 2012 at 4:04pm | IP Logged | ||
It helped me to construct texts at Lang-8. In Spanish there are similar words to their English counterparts, but I couldn't use them because I had never met them, so I needed to use a dictionary to get to know their existence in Spanish. The non-related words sticked this way as well. You should try it, I think. If you hate Lang-8, you can still chat with a Spanish speaker. If you chat with them in Spanish, you have to look up the words you don't know in Spanish. I like to write more exact words in Spanish, so I think this intention helps to make me search for a Spanish word in the dictionary, too. I hope it helps to you in some way. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| WingSuet Triglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 5147 days ago 169 posts - 211 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, German Studies: Cantonese | Message 29 of 116 08 February 2012 at 3:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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So I haven't updated my log for quite some time now. I guess I've been both busy and
lazy lately. First week after my last post I wasn't able to study anything since I was in the Philippines during Chinese New Years. But much thanks to my language classes I've been able to study much more since then! I'm now taking part in the 6 week challenge with Mandarin as my target language. I would have preferred to choose Cantonese, but I'm probably at a too high level by now and since I am a beginner in Mandarin that seemed like a better choice. Now an update for my languages! Last week I studied about 12 hours in a total, about 4 hours for each language. Most of this was during classes, I seldom had time to study during my time off as we were always doing things here in Hong Kong during the nights. Cantonese 3.95 hours I haven't studied much Cantonese and the classes are way too simple to me so far (had to take a beginner's class), so not much learned here. However, I have successfully been able to buy books in a bookstore and order food in the restaurant using only Cantonese, although I'm getting much help from gestures and pointing :P Mandarin 4 hours I have been working some on the pronunciation by using the suggestions from Ari and NickJS (see previous posts) and I think I've finally been able to figure out how to pronounce sh, x, q, c, j, ch, zh and z correctly! I probably still need to practise distinguishing them though in speach. Maybe someone knows a good exercise where you can listen to a word and then try to transcribe it? The tones are giving me more trouble than I thought they would. I don't have any trouble switching between different tones in Cantonese, but sometimes I have trouble changing from the falling tone in Mandarin to the level tone and the neutral tone. Need to practise on that too. Spanish 4.17 hours I'm feeling a little more comfortable speaking in Spanish now than before and my vocabulary is starting to come back too. For some weird reason I feel more motivated to study Spanish now that I am in China than at home in Sweden, almost more than Chinese. From now on I will try to update more frequently, at least once a week. Edited by WingSuet on 12 February 2012 at 3:13pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| WingSuet Triglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 5147 days ago 169 posts - 211 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, German Studies: Cantonese | Message 30 of 116 12 February 2012 at 2:54pm | IP Logged | ||
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Here's the weekly update. My plan is to update every Sunday about the week that has
been. Total study time: 16.72 hours Cantonese 4.3 hours Since I haven't studied much Cantonese lately I decided to start going through the cards that have been building up on Mnemosyne. I had about 700 cards to go through and I needed to relearn about 300 of them. I have now 200 left. When I have no more cards to go through I plan to start on the deck for Chinese characters where I have 480 cards waiting for me. I suspect I will need to relearn most of them :S I've seen many characters here in Hong Kong that I used to know but forgot the meaning of. Mandarin 7.65 hours The first week of Mandarin classes I didn't really study that hard so this week I decided to learn all the vocabulary we have gone through so far. The process was slow, as I kept mixing up what final the words consist of. Was it xue or xie? Jiao or jie? I do have some help from Cantonese though. Learning jia1 you2 (go/do your best!) in Mandarin is much easier when you already know ga1 yau2 in Cantonese :) I also practised the pronunciation and I think I'm finally starting to get a hang of it now. Although practising words like qi3 chuang2 over and over again makes me really tired in my mouth and gives me a headache! Spanish 4.77 hours Not much to say about my Spanish studies. Right now I'm just focusing on vocabulary. During the lesson I take notes of all words I don't know and then I put them in my Spanish deck on Mnemosyne. For some reason, learning Spanish is more fun than ever! Maybe because we have a good teacher, I feel my previous knowledge of the language is coming back to me, or because it's so different from Cantonese and Mandarin and therefor a welcoming break :) Goals for next week: Increase the hours of Cantonese study and start practising Chinese characters again. Edited by WingSuet on 12 February 2012 at 3:14pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| WingSuet Triglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 5147 days ago 169 posts - 211 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, German Studies: Cantonese | Message 31 of 116 19 February 2012 at 5:41am | IP Logged | ||
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One week has passed. Unfortunately I haven't studied as much as I had hoped for. I also
didn't start on the Chinese characters yet, which was my goal for the week. Total study time: 13.32 hours. From now on I'm aiming at 15 hours a week at least, 5 hours in each language. I may not reach it this week though as I'm going to Bangkok on Wednesday and come back on Sunday. Cantonese 5.62 hours I studied more Cantonese this week, which was my goal. Now I've gone through all the cards in Mnemosyne that had been building up. What I need to do now is start to listen to more Cantonese by watching movies and going through dialogues in TY. I also did a test in my Cantonese class and it went well though it was more difficult than I expected it to be. Mandarin 4.65 hours I also did a test in Mandarin and it was really easy! Though it was mostly due to formation of the test. Spanish 3.05 hours I'm not happy with the amount of Spanish I studied this week. I'm planning to go through some lyrics of some songs to learn more vocabulary this week. I've also noticed that I don't know how to use the different kinds of pronouns in Spanish, so I should go through that. Goals for next week: Start going through the cards for Chinese characters (same as last week), learning the pronouns in Spanish. Edited by WingSuet on 19 February 2012 at 5:46am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Takato Tetraglot Senior Member HungaryRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4844 days ago 249 posts - 276 votes Speaks: Hungarian*, EnglishB2, GermanB2, Japanese | Message 32 of 116 04 March 2012 at 12:39am | IP Logged | ||
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What are your experiences regarding the bilingualism in Hong Kong? Do you often hear people talking in English on the street? Can you easily watch English dubbed channels in the TV if you feel like watching some? Are the classes conducted in English? What do you think of the English language used there? Do you consider it as a well learned English, or would you rather recognize it as a dialect of English, like Indian English?
And how could you start taking classes there? Did you have to reserve the plane ticket and the place where you stay during your sleep at, or did the teaching school take care of it for you? How do your classes look like? Where does the emphasis seem to be among the major language skills? I only wrote questions, but that's because I'm envious of your stay in Hong Kong. Enjoy your time there to its fullest! Edited by Takato on 04 March 2012 at 12:46am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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