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Josquin’s TAC 2014 - Катюша, Celts, 旅立ち | ||
Tags: Gaelic (Irish) | Hungarian | Portuguese | Korean | Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC) | Italian | Japanese | Russian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5121 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 177 of 227 30 August 2014 at 4:25pm | IP Logged |
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Great! I am so happy that you are making great progress with your Russian - perhaps we should try a Skype
session soon :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| 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 178 of 227 30 August 2014 at 6:47pm | IP Logged |
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@tarvos: Yes, I have the same problem. While understanding how the pretérito perfeito and imperfeito work is very easy, memorizing the conjugation patterns is a hassle.
I'm used to that from other Romance languages, but I've got the feeling Portuguese verbs are even a bit more irregular than French or Italian ones. Plus, the passé simple and the passato remoto aren't really used in these languages, while the pretérito perfeito is the most common past tense in Portuguese. I've only been studying Portuguese for two months now and I have been concentrating on my textbook, so I can't really say anything about my active skills. As most readers of my log will know, understanding is much more important to me than being able to produce something, especially in the beginning of studying a language. First I want to have the basic grammar down, then I can think about producing sentences on my own. @Evita: Thanks so much for your valuable advice! I actually listened to some episodes of TTMIK, but I decided I was more of a classical textbook learner. I like podcasts, but only as supplement of my textbook studies. However, Korean seems to suffer from a dearth of good, accessible textbooks, so I might give TTMIK another try. Actually, for someone who has already studied Japanese, Korean grammar isn't that alien. I'm more worried about the pronunciation, which is really tricky - especially compared to Japanese. Well, I don't want to drop Korean completely, but for reasons of time limitations, I might concentrate on completing Genki before I really go into Korean. But we'll have to see about that. @Cristina: Thank you! Well, being able to read Chekhov doesn't mean I've become good at speaking Russian, but I think I can manage basic conversations now. Speaking Russian to my Kyrgyz roommate was easy when we talked one-on-one (she even said my pronunciation was good!), but when her boyfriend came to visit and they spoke Russian with each other, I understood virtually nothing. I'm convinced you're much better at speaking than me. You've done so many intensive courses while I have just been concentrating on reading and listening (and watching some Кухня). However, if the team is interested we could schedule a Skype session soon. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| 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 179 of 227 03 September 2014 at 10:00pm | IP Logged |
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WEDNESDAY, 03 SEPTEMBER 2014
A short status update on what I've been up to lately. Русский I finally found the time to watch another episode of Кухня! This series is really fun and entertaining. Unfortunately, the dialogues are at full-blown native speed, but thank God I have the transcripts that leosmith provided us with. Português I'm on unit 11 in Portugiesisch mit System now. The next tense has arrived! It's the pretérito perfeito composto, which is formed with "ter" and not with "haver" as I would have suspected. Once again, Portuguese grammar is good for a surprise. Italiano My Kyrgyz roommate has left me already as she will spend the next five months doing field research in Kyrgyzstan. She will return after that, but in the meantime an Italian engineer is living in her room, so it's high time to polish my Italian. Unfortunately, I've gotten quite weak in some grammar points, such as whether to use "avere" or "essere" with the passato prossimo, how to use the subjunctive, and, dang, what were the personal endings of the conditional mood again? So, this is the perfect opportunity to do something about my Italian and put my copy of Langenscheidt's Praktisches Lehrbuch Italienisch to use. After polishing the aforementioned grammar points, I decided to start with unit 16 where the subjunctive is introduced. This is my weakest point in Italian grammar and I've never really progressed beyond that (I just say past subjunctive and passato remoto!), so this is a good point to start. 日本語 As I had predicted, I decided to drop Korean in favour of Japanese. Although Korean would be fun, I'm much more interested in Japanese right now, so I'll leave Korean for another day. I have now worked through unit 21 in Genki, which introduced the passive voice, the ～てある construction, 間に, and ～てほしい. I'll finish Genki 2 soon, so I've been looking for intermediate resources for Japanese. If you can recommend any, please let me know and also see this thread! Well, I'll still have to do the reading sections and learn most of the kanji after doing the last two "real" units, so I haven't totally finished Genki yet. Edited by Josquin on 03 September 2014 at 10:03pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| 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 180 of 227 06 September 2014 at 6:57pm | IP Logged |
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SATURDAY, 06 SEPTEMBER 2014
For the last few days, I've been busy researching follow-up materials for Genki. This consumed all of my free-time, so I didn't get to study at all. However, I made some resolutions that I wanted to let you know. I have been dabbling pretty much over the last six months, but now I want to concentrate on my "core" TAC languages again. I want to continue watching Кухня in Russian and possibly also read something frome my readers once in a while and I also want to keep working on my Irish with Teach Yourself. The main resolution I made, however, is that I want to concentrate on Japanese in the near future. I had been pretty demotivated concerning Japanese for some time, so I studied it very randomly. Now, my motivation is back and I want to seriously work on my grammar, vocab, and kanji again. That means I'll do the last two units of Genki, work through all the reading sections and learn the kanji, repeat forgotten grammar points, and study vocabulary actively (maybe with Anki). After that, I'll continue my studies either with the Tobira textbook or with An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese. I've ordered both and will start working with the one which seems to be easier, but in the long run, I would like to complete both. Additionally, if time allowing, I want to get some graded readers, probably from the Japanese Reader Collection, and also return to JapanesePod101, which I've been neglecting for quite some time now. That means everything else like Korean, Italian, or Portuguese is downgraded to "dabbling" status. I know I sometimes have these boosts of enthusiasm which don't last very long, but nevertheless I want to concentrate on Japanese for the time being. It's always better to have ambitious goals that you don't reach than having no goals at all. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5769 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 181 of 227 06 September 2014 at 9:00pm | IP Logged |
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To each their own. Personally I really regret the money I spent on IAIJ. But at least if you
study it diligently you will be equipped to deal with any future quarrels with your Japanese host mother. Tobira sounds more promising, although I haven't used it myself. I see they have published a separate kanji book to accompany the main text, which may be worth considering. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| 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 182 of 227 06 September 2014 at 9:54pm | IP Logged |
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I ordered the whole package of Tobira: textbook + workbook + kanji book.
I understand you didn't like IAIJ, g-bod, and I really appreciate your advice, but that doesn't mean I won't like the book. People have different preferences. Plus, maybe the vocabulary you learn while studying quarrels with the host mother can be transferred to quarrels with other people?! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5769 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 183 of 227 06 September 2014 at 11:45pm | IP Logged |
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Well, it's not really the right register to help with a quarrel with your boss on the one hand or a quarrel with your partner on the other, but even so I admit there may be a range of quarreling it could still assist with.
Anyway, joking aside, IAIJ does at least contain lots of useful grammar points and the quality of the grammar point explanations is certainly better than in a lot of Japanese textbooks. If it was half the price and came with an answer key, I might not have been quite so negative about it. It's also great to see you getting excited about Japanese again! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5121 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 184 of 227 07 September 2014 at 7:13am | IP Logged |
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I like your enthusiasm. :-) What would you by the way recommend for an absolute beginner in Japanese? I
might possibly be going to Tokyo in a year or so, and would like to pick up a little tourist Japanese before that. I do not foresee any quarrels with host mothers or others, just to buy coffee and basic greetings, but I must admit that you have me intrigued with this level of politeness thing. Can one of you tell me what that's all about? As for Japanese material I have Pimsleur, Michel Thomas and Assimil, and had planned to start Japanese in that order, but if you have any better suggestions I am all ears :-) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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