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Josquin’s TAC 2014 - Катюша, Celts, 旅立ち

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227 messages over 29 pages: 1 2 3 4 57 ... 6 ... 28 29 Next >>
Josquin
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4625 days ago

2266 posts - 3992 votes 
Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish
Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian

 
 Message 41 of 227
07 February 2014 at 6:03pm | IP Logged 
FRIDAY, 07 FEBRUARY 2014

This week has been dominated by some emotional turmoil and upheaval, so I didn't really study consistently. Nevertheless, I have come to an important insight: The whole textbook approach in language learning might be important in the beginning, but as soon as you know the basics of grammar and vocabulary, you need to deal with native materials. Plus, authentic language is much more fun than the whole "My name is Henry Miller and this is my wife Helen. Pleased to meet you!" kind of talk you find in textbooks. So, this led me to the following measures:

Русский

Apart from the books I mentioned in my last entry, I found the documentation Романовы on YouTube. It deals with the dynasty of the Romanovs who ruled Russia as tsars between 1613 and 1917. While I may not understand everything, this is much more interesting than reading the stilted dialogues in Colloquial Russian 2. Now, all I need is enough time to watch all episodes and to read my books.

Gaeilge

I have finally decided what do to with my Irish. I'm abandoning Learning Irish and ordering Gaeilge gan Stró instead. I went for the beginner's edition after all, because my Irish is far from perfect, so some repetition won't hurt. If I feel the need for supplementation, I can still order Living Language later.

日本語

My Japanese is still in vocabulary repetition mode. I have thought about supplementing Genki with a podcast though. What do you guys think about JapanesePod101? I know they spam you with e-mails a lot, but is it worth the trouble? I remember listening to an episode a while ago and I was a bit underwhelmed, because there was a lot of English chit-chat going on.

Other than that, I'm reading 源氏物語 (The Tale of Genji) now. No, not in the original, not even in a modernized Japanese version! I researched the Internet for important works of classical Japanese and Chinese literature and found this gem. Fortunately, I could borrow a German translation from my university library, and I'm really fascinated by it.

I'm not really a fan of manga and anime, but I find traditional Japanese culture very interesting. I think this book might be an excellent first introduction to the foreign way of thinking and feeling. I definitely like it!

皆さん、 良い週末を!
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Hasi
Diglot
Senior Member
Austria
Joined 5897 days ago

120 posts - 133 votes 
Speaks: German*, English
Studies: Japanese

 
 Message 42 of 227
07 February 2014 at 6:27pm | IP Logged 
I personally really like Japanesepod101. If you sign up for their free trial you should be able to download their dialog only tracks as well, which can be very useful. Also, the higher your level gets the less English chitchat there will be. They also have a guide on their website that tells you waht to listen to based on your level.

Genji is really great, I hope you like it. I was reading it when I was Japan and I thought it was interesting even though I got confused by all the names. xD
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Josquin
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4625 days ago

2266 posts - 3992 votes 
Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish
Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian

 
 Message 43 of 227
07 February 2014 at 6:45pm | IP Logged 
Thanks, Hasi (nice nickname, by the way^^)! I think I'll give it a try.

Well, there is something else I wanted to write, but I forgot it in my last entry, so here you go:

Français

Bonsoir mes amis,

je voudrais écrire un texte court en français parce que je n’ai pas écrit dans cette langue depuis longtemps. Oui, c’est vrai. J’ai appris le français à l’école et puis je ne l’ai utilisé plus. Mais c’est dommage, n’est-ce pas !? J’aime beaucoup la langue française et je voudrais absolument aller à Paris un jour.

Alors, qu’est-ce qu’il me faut écrire ? J’ai lu quelques livres en français et j’ai vu quelques films, mais c’est tout. Je n’ai pas d’amis français et je n’ai personne à qui je pourrais parler en français.

Bien sûr, il y a Skype, mais je suis en peu timide et je n’aime pas parler à des étrangers. Je ne sais jamais quoi leur dire. En plus, je n’ai pas assez de temps pour pratiquer toutes mes langues et je voudrais plutôt améliorer mon russe, mon japonais et mon irlandais.

Voilà, je crois c’est tout. Il me semblait qu’il me fallait pratiquer mon français un peu et j’avais envie d’écrire quelque chose de bref, n’importe quoi.

A la prochaine !

PS: Corrigez mes fautes, s’il vous plaît. Merci !

Edited by Josquin on 07 February 2014 at 6:48pm

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Марк
Senior Member
Russian Federation
Joined 4837 days ago

2096 posts - 2972 votes 
Speaks: Russian*

 
 Message 44 of 227
07 February 2014 at 6:53pm | IP Logged 
liammcg wrote:


@Josquin, keep the tapped R like you have it, it's what native speakers use in Connemara
and in every Gaeltacht except (I think) Kerry where the English influence has taken over.
As for the slender R, that's a whole different story! In my dialect it sounds something
similar to the fricative sounding Czech R (though tapped for the most part).

Many native Irish speakers pronounce the broad R an alveolar approximant, and the slender
R can be pronounced in many ways, it depends on the speaker and the position of the
phoneme, not the dialect.
1 person has voted this message useful



agantik
Triglot
Senior Member
France
Joined 4416 days ago

217 posts - 335 votes 
Speaks: French*, English, Italian
Studies: German, Norwegian

 
 Message 45 of 227
07 February 2014 at 6:57pm | IP Logged 
Félicitations ! Ton français est très bon, il n' y a que deux fautes minimes :
- puis je ne l'ai plus utilisé (word order)
- mais je suis un peu timide (a typo on your part I think )

Ich wunsche, dass ich denselben auf Deutsch tun konnte, aber ich habe fast alles vergessen.

Don't hesitate to PM me if you want me to correct other texts of yours when wanderlust entices you away
from Russian, Irish and Japanese :) Tschuss! (Couldn't find the umlaut on my smart phone keyboard)

Edited by agantik on 07 February 2014 at 7:00pm

2 persons have voted this message useful



g-bod
Diglot
Senior Member
United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5763 days ago

1485 posts - 2002 votes 
Speaks: English*, Japanese
Studies: French, German

 
 Message 46 of 227
07 February 2014 at 7:18pm | IP Logged 
Another vote here for JPOD101. It's worth trying out a few different levels and a few
different seasons to find something that fits as it's a huge resource and different hosts
have different styles. As far as the chit chat goes, the more advanced you are the more
Japanese they use. At my level I find the Japanese chit chat more helpful than the dialogues
as it's natural speech.

Edited by g-bod on 07 February 2014 at 7:19pm

1 person has voted this message useful



Josquin
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4625 days ago

2266 posts - 3992 votes 
Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish
Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian

 
 Message 47 of 227
08 February 2014 at 12:03am | IP Logged 
Okay, so I tried some lessons from JapanesePod101 and they're really great! I only have a basic membership at the moment, but I think that's enough for now. However, I couldn't use the free trial offer, because I already did that some time ago (when I didn't like the absolute beginner's lessons). Now, I started with level 4, which seems to be okay.

@agantik: Merci beaucoup ! Ton allemand n'est pas mauvais non plus (une petite faute: dasselbe). Word order isn't my strong suit in any language, but the second mistake really was a typo. Thanks for pointing it out!

Edited by Josquin on 08 February 2014 at 12:08am

1 person has voted this message useful



Josquin
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4625 days ago

2266 posts - 3992 votes 
Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish
Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian

 
 Message 48 of 227
09 February 2014 at 5:37pm | IP Logged 
SUNDAY, 09 FEBRUARY 2014

Wow, JapanesePod101 is such a great resource! I'm really thrilled by all the opportunities it offers. It's fun, it's interesting, and it's educating. I should have taken a more in-depth look at it when I tried it for the first time.

They offer a free premium membership for a month when you sign up and I didn't take advantage of that! Well, having a free premium membership would be perfect, but now I only have a basic membership. I don't know yet whether I'll upgrade it later though.

Be that as it may, I'm so enthusiastic about the whole concept that I also subscribed to RussianPod101 and I must say it's equally great! Here, I took advantage of the free premium membership, but I haven't had time yet to take a look at all the advantages it offers. I guess this will be my main resource for the near future.

So, I'm taking the beginner's course in Japanese while I signed up for the upper intermediate course in Russian. This is really much more fun than any textbook! I will keep working with Genki, of course, because I think it's better for learning grammar and kanji and I'll also keep reading in Russian on the side.

I wished there was something comparable for Irish, but the best thing I could find is the online version of Gaeilge gan Stró. Well, I didn't convince me and, also, I have already ordered the book, so I'll keep to traditional textbook studies in Irish for the time being.

But all in all, this is great news! I was in a motivational crisis before because textbooks can get kind of boring, but now the fun in studying is finally back! I hope I'll be able to log a lot of JapanesePod and RussianPod for the 6WC.


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