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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Nieng Zhonghan Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Antarctica Joined 3465 days ago 108 posts - 315 votes  Speaks: Portuguese*, Japanese*, Spanish, Galician Studies: Finnish, Icelandic, Armenian, Mongolian Studies: Old English, Russian, English, German, Korean, Mandarin | Message 25 of 47 31 December 2014 at 3:19am | IP Logged | ||
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TAC 2015 (Rätsel|東亜)
3. Chinese 3.1On reading I am looking for children’s books and any other easy and short texts first. As soon as I get used to, I will try longer texts. 3.2 On listening Chinesepod.com, Chineseclass101.com, Chinese dramas, TV shows for Children with subtitles (in case I find any of them). 3.3 On writing/grammar +I will try to chat with my Chinese friends in Chinese without relying too much on other languages. +I am planning to write something on lang-8, though I think I can get corrections from Chinese people. +I have some grammar books and I will take a look throughout the year. 3.4 On speaking Shadowing practice. 4.Korean 4.1.On reading I am far away from reading something in Korean. 4.2. On listening + Koreanpod.com: this series will be one of the resources I will practice with. + Korean dramas 4.3.On writing/grammar +TTMIK 4.4 On speaking Shadowing. I will try to contact native speakers. 5 German + I will start with few bottles of German beer. + I will restart watching the Bundesliga. Of course, Bayern München!!! Now, let me get more serious. My first attempt to learn German was in 2007 when I studied it for one week during my holiday. Unfortunately I didn’t have a chance to continue due to other priority activities. At that time I studied about 4 chapters of Themen Aktuell and I listened to 10 lessons of Pimsleur audios. That’s perhaps all as far as I remember. 5.1 On reading I am not at a level to read something. By the end of the year I would like to read A1 graded books, though A2 would be desirable. 5.2 On listening Main resources: Assimil and Germanpod.com. DW courses are welcome, but I need to decide which course I should take a look first: Mission Berlin, Radio D Teil and apparently there other resources for A1 learner. I will take a look next year. 5.3 On writing/grammar It will take time to write more consistently. Let’s see if people can correct my texts in lang-8. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Woodsei Bilingual Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Woodsei Joined 4591 days ago 614 posts - 782 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Egyptian)* Studies: Russian, Japanese, Hungarian | Message 26 of 47 31 December 2014 at 8:59am | IP Logged | ||
Yep! Dual :) Shogi! I'd be really interested in hearing about your experiences sometime. I also second Cavesa's recommendation about reading a lot. Especially popular media such as novels rather than news, although that in itself is very beneficial. Everyone reads books, old and young, and the technical terms are not as abaundant as in newspapers, so you're bound to find a lot of common structures and words all the time. And reading thousands upon thousands of sentences in books gives you lots of exposure and repetition while actually being in the context of an interesting story. Edited by Woodsei on 31 December 2014 at 9:04am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| agta Diglot Groupie Poland Joined 5318 days ago 43 posts - 53 votes Speaks: Polish*, English Studies: German, Italian | Message 27 of 47 31 December 2014 at 11:50am | IP Logged | ||
:D Good luck teammate! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4459 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 28 of 47 31 December 2014 at 12:12pm | IP Logged | ||
Sounds similar. As for fluency: you can speak, which, believe me, is a huge advantage. On top of that you can understand when things are said to you. It's probably just that pesky reading you need to crack :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Nieng Zhonghan Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Antarctica Joined 3465 days ago 108 posts - 315 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Japanese*, Spanish, Galician Studies: Finnish, Icelandic, Armenian, Mongolian Studies: Old English, Russian, English, German, Korean, Mandarin | Message 29 of 47 03 January 2015 at 1:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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ハッピーニューイヤー! w
あけおめ！w ことよろ！w Happy New Year! This is my first TAC official post. I started my TAC on January 1st. I did already post some small and realistic goals for some languages. My plans might change according to my working schedule and I also might find better methods and techniques that apply for my learning style. I don’t want to get distracted by wanderlust (i.e. Russian) if I can help it, but concentrate on the following TAC languages: Chinese(3), Korean(4) and German(5). To simplify everything I wrote last time, my main goal for all my TAC languages is to reach A2 level by the Christmas day, no matter what resources and techniques I use. 3. Chinese + I learned and reviewed the pinyin. 4. Korean No procrastination, but I will restart my studies on January 5th. 5. German I still haven’t decided if I will adopt a different textbook besides Assimil course. I am expecting to burst a lot during the first few days. I can borrow many textbooks such as Lagune, Begegnungen, Hugo in 3 months, Busuu and so on. Let me give a try using Assimil method for a while. 5.1 I will start the Assimil method on January 5th. 5.2 “Why are you learning German?”, I was asked during the New Year’s Eve. Then, another acquaintance said: “but German sounds ugly”. I personally think German is a beautiful language among Indo-European ones. A language is a tool of communication that is used on everyday basis. So, things that we use every day lose its aesthetic value sometimes. Let’s say that you live in a very famous city where you can find a tower. Yes, a tower, considered to be romantic or whatever. If you have lived there (nearby) for 50 years, would you still think that the tower is as beautiful as the first you time you have seen it? Perhaps you would not. Well, at long term it doesn’t matter for me how a language sounds. Then, I gave them another example. It’s nice to have a very beautiful girlfriend, but I rather prefer being with someone I can live for an entire life, even though she might not be the most beautiful one. Anyway, it is difficult to get divorced from a language just because the sounds you find are very ugly. After all, if you don’t like the sounds, you can still learn or maintain it for reading purposes as I do with my Galician and Spanish books. It doesn’t harm me at all. There is a famous saying: “your ears, your perception. My ears, my own perception”. Perhaps another version is more famous: “My way or the highway”. 5.3 It seems that German has 48 different phonemes. I studied how to pronounce the vowels and the consonants. It is not that I am memorizing these rules, but I took some notes based on a Japanese material: + After a, o, u, au, the combination of ch has the more guttural sound. After äu, e, ei, eu, i, ie, ö the ch has the less guttural sound. + ß There is a rule: after long vowels and diphthongs are ß, after short vowels the ss. +There are long and short vowels. 5.4. SRS I borrowed a deck from an acquaintance. She has made a deck with the most 200 common words based on frequency they appear. I answered correctly to 100 cards in 14 minutes. Next time I would like to finish the deck. The other day I tried a different deck which is better than the first one. It provides audio with pictures. It contains about 1400 or 1500 words. I answered correctly to 148 cards during 20 minutes. I am going to build my own deck based on Assimil method after finishing that method and other resources I find interesting throughout the year, though I usually don’t take more than 15 to 20 minutes a day reviewing my flashcards. 5.5 Via Diva has already posted the January’s challenge. I will need 20 days to try to write something in a very simple German. I will do a lot of effort to accomplish the first challenge, even though German is my fifth language in terms of priority this year. Hopefully I will be able to write something in German at the end of this month. 5.6 Not as related directly, but I have been training at the gym for many years to stay fit and compete at high level (i.e football etc). I usually do workout 5 to 6 days a week. While I am doing the exercises I will listen to some German music. 5.7 I am looking for German-English dictionaries. I am wondering how long it is going to take for me to be able to take a look at German-German dictionary and understand more than 80%. Non-TAC languages: English (1) and Japanese (2) I am going to spend a lot of time on maintaining Japanese and improving English throughout the year. They are my priority for 2015. 1. English 1.1 I watched Orange is the New Black S1. 13 episodes. About 13 hours. Have learned some expressions: + Dang it! Same as saying “Damn it!”. The word seems to have originated in the 70’s and probably been brought back more recently, but apparently has faded away according to some folks. + Bury the hatchet. It means to forgive and move on. I could understand from the context it was said, but still I wanted to double check its meaning. 1.2 Started reading fiction and non-fiction books. I am not going to list a huge list of fiction or non-fiction books because some of them are more difficult than others. I don’t want to hurry myself just to tell myself that I could read 75 up to 100 books (over 200 pages each unit) at the end of the year. Let’s say that I am willing to read Musashi written by Yoshikawa Eiji in English. My original book probably has about 2000 pages. Even though I have read its original, I would theoretically need more time than reading Murakami’s books in English, for example. Quality over quantity is more important to me. By the way, I will just mention one book that caught my attention this week: Guiness Book 2015. The language is easy because of its short format and style, but it is quite handy and interesting to get a topic out of blue during my resting time. I simply open one page and take a glance when I want or need to rest for 5 minutes. I know that there are huge amount of useless things in the Guiness book, but I don’t care at all. It is quite fun to read about some facts I will probably never see again. For example: + Did you know that the person who has greatest vocal range is a Brazilian? Georgia Brown has a vocal range that spans an incredible eight octaves (from G2 to G10) as verified at a studio in São Paulo on 2004! Yes, I won’t gain anything knowing about that, but still it is fun for me. + Guiness book states that we have more than the primary 5 senses (sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell). Of course, “to sense” is a matter of definition, but they have included: kinesthetics, interoception, time, balance, pain and the temperature. Kinesthestics: the brain’s pariental cortex enables us to tell where every part of our body is in relation to its other parts. Interoception: our internal senses alert us when we are felling hungry. Time: we sense the time passing. Balance: body movement, direction, acceleration. Pain: sense of damage. Temperature: we sense the hot and cold. +Olympus Mons on Mars is the highest mountain in the Solar System, with an elevation (peak height) of 25000 meters, nearly three times of Everest. However, Everest isn’t the Earth’s highest mountain when Mauna Kea on Hawaii is measured from base (it is submersed) to peak. 1.3 Next sitcom: Season 2 of “The Orange is the New Black”. It has 13 episodes. I think I can watch one per day. 2. Japanese 皆さん、新年明けましておめでとうございま す。 本年も宜しくお願いします。 お互いに頑張りましょう。 2.1 Started reading about Kyoto, a city where there are over 400 Shinto shrines, 1600 Buddhist temples, and at least 17 Unesco World Heritage sites. Kyoto is probably the most Japanese culturally rich city and one of world’s most aesthetically refined cities for a couple of reasons. First, it has historically been Japan’s imperial court for over 1000 years. Second, it is a home of most Japan’s major Buddhist sects. Third and perhaps more important, it was home to most prestigious families of Japan. It is natural, then, that the most talented visual (painting, ikebana, ukiyoe, traditional calligraphy, sculpture) and performing (theater such as bunraku, kyougen, kabuki, no) artists tried to migrated to Kyoto and its neighboring districts. Even today, Kyoto is well known in Japan for its traditional arts and crafts in general. I am not an architecture specialist, but probably architects migrated to the region. If I find the book in my parents’ shelves, I will borrow it and scan. The book teaches you about the main and specific differences between many temples throughout Japan. It has many different meanings as well, as they were constructed in different areas for slightly different reasons. When I go back to Japan, I will take some pictures and start paying more attention to the details. Kyoto, like the rest of Japan, follows the Gregorian calendar. Many traditional events, however, are based on the old lunar calendar. This is one typical reason some foreigners don’t understand about the dates. As for January: January 1th: New Year People usually visit shrines praying for a positive year. More specifically, many people pray for prosperity and health. In some shrines, some old traditions are still being followed such as no (theater) is being performed during the morning and in the afternoon they (women working in the shrines) play karuta. Many Japanese visitors buy okera (lengths of rope) which they light at fires on the shrines (on the grounds) and take home to light the kitchen fire. January 8th-12th Hatsu ebisu People pray for prosperity. Nowadays the prosperity is more business focused. January 15th: Coming age day (not sure if the translation makes sense, but that’s it). This is a festival for those who turned 20 years old in the previous year. In Kyoto, there are still few people following old traditions. Young women participate in an archery contest. Okay, I will continue reading another day when I feel like reading about Kyoto. There are many other important books to read. Edited by Nieng Zhonghan on 03 January 2015 at 1:04pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Nieng Zhonghan Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Antarctica Joined 3465 days ago 108 posts - 315 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Japanese*, Spanish, Galician Studies: Finnish, Icelandic, Armenian, Mongolian Studies: Old English, Russian, English, German, Korean, Mandarin | Message 30 of 47 12 January 2015 at 12:32am | IP Logged | ||
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TAC languages: Chinese (3), Korean (4) and German (5).
Basically I am planning to spend just about 30 minutes a day in two of the languages above. The third one I will spend about 1 hour a day. Every week I will choose one language that will be my priority among them. I will probably not dedicate more than that for my TAC languages. If I have a chance to study more, then, I should add 15 up to 30 minutes, though it depends on my working schedule at a specific day of the week. 3. Chinese Achievement list 3. 1. HSK Level 14 14 units/14 units I have bought this book and it surprisingly arrived in less than 10 days. Studying Chinese through Japanese. I finished the HSK 1 book that contains 14 units. I studied about 174 Chinese characters and 150 words and expressions. According to my book, HSK 1 is “designed for learners who can understand and use some simple Chinese characters and sentences to communicate, and prepares them for continuing their Chinese studies. In HSK 1 all characters are provided along with Pinyin”. 3.2.ChinesePod.com (Basic) 10 lessons/ 100 lessons Top down approach Techniques: L-R, shadowing etc. Steps: 3.2.1 Listening Listening/imitation (trying to say everything I understood) 3.2.2 Listening/reading (pinyin) 3.2.3 Listening/shadowing 3.2.4 Listening/reading (漢字) 3.2.5 Listening/shadowing 3.2.6 Listening/shadowing while walking and/or stretching. I repeat (shadowing) as many times as necessary until I feel like I am saying things more smoothly and less robotic. Perhaps I will start recording myself to see how I sound and compare to the original ones. 3.3 HSK 2 I bought this book and it arrived in less than a week. I learned about 150 new words and expressions. I studied 173 new hanzi. At the moment I can read and understand (listen to) anything from the book. I did shadowing in all phrases available in the CD. Biggest hurdles so far +Differences between 离 and 從. I guess Japanese people will need some time to get used to the differences of their usage for some specific sentences I studied this week. +When I first see 會, 能 and 可以 I got confused. I would understand their usage either in writing or listening, but I guess it would make me think for a couple of seconds if I am about to write a more concise text. + I got confused while listening for the first time the following sentence: 他要去學校. In Japanese the sentence above might have at least three different meanings for the A1 and A2 level: 1. 彼は学校へ行きたいです。 2.彼は学校へ行かなければなりません。 3.彼は学校に行くはずです。 Then, the negation of the sentences above are also different as following: 1.1他不想去學校. 日本語訳：彼は学校へ行きたくありません。 2.1他 不用去學校. 日本語訳：彼は学校に行くには及びません。 3.1他不會去學校. 日本語訳：彼は学校へ行くはずありません。 +了 I got the meaning and usage of了presented in the book. It appeared in the last few chapters and this was the only case I felt confused: 1. 我看了書了. 2. 我看書了. 3. 我看了書,… It seems that 2 is the shortened and more natural than 1. However, in 3, the sentence cannot end or exist just as我看了書, since you should add some more information to the clause as in: 我看了七本書. + I had trouble with pronouncing 2 or more 4 tones in row. It is somehow weird to me at the moment and I should work on that for a long time. Biggest triumphs so far +Finished HSK 1 and HSK2 book (Chinese through Japanese). +Learned 300 words with all its tones, meaning and its usage in a context. More specifically today I did a review in terms of words and I only did 2 mistakes. So, 298 words were correct (both meaning and tone) out of 300. Not good, but not too bad. +Learned about 347 hanzi. Yes, the calculations I made don’t contain any inaccuracy. I learned 300 words with a total of 347 Chinese characters. Next time +I’d like to do 2 units of HSK 3 book and start reading something. I am looking for good children’s books. +I will do 5 more lessons of Chinesepod Basic level. +I am interested in Glossika’s Chinese method. I will purchase it on Wednesday. Korean Achievement list +TTMIK 2: 3/30 Lessons 1, 2 and 3 from TTMIK 2. Biggest hurdles so far + No excuses, but I killed 247 spiders (0,3 cm up to 5 cm) this week. It really distracted me. I think I got attacked by one of them, even though I thought I made sure I protected my body. I also killed 38 cockroaches without using any insecticide. I have never seen a cockroach at 8,3 cm in my life! Took a photo and sent it on my whatsapp group. Hahaha. + I have been killing many mosquitoes as well with my special electric racket. This is the best thing I bought in 2015! My hobby has been killing mosquitoes lately. Well, what to do when you face more than 34 Celsius degrees?! Biggest triumphs so far + I killed almost all spiders. There is still one alive and I must kill it this week. It has about 5 cm. + I killed 38 cockroaches in a week. That is my personal record. Next time + Next week I’d like to focus more on Korean since I got distracted for the reasons I stated above. + I’d like to do 7 lessons of TTMIK 2. +Start studying Korean through Japanese. My book will arrive on Wednesday or perhaps Thursday. 5. German I fell in love with German after I visited some cities in Germany a year ago. My favorite city is Berlin. Since then I wanted to study to go back there one day. I am also trying to learn a couple of languages that both my parents have reached the basic fluency in the past and German is one of them. Achievement list 5. 1. Assimi: 25/100 Started the Assimil course on January 5th. Assimil German is a very good method, but I found the grammar explanations lacking a bit sometimes. I know that they ask you to not think too much in terms of grammar patterns and that things will make sense later on, but sometimes I wish I had some answers to the questions such as: Sechzehnte Lektion (16) Er bringt mich nach Hause. Why not “Haus” as in “Er bringt mich nach Haus”? I have heard that Assimil's vocabulary build up pretty randomly too. The easiest and most useful words obviously come first, but later on it seems that it is pretty random. I have noticed, however, that most lessons are focused on a specific grammar topic such as verb tense; and then, at the end of 7 units you can review them. I mean, all verb tenses are introduced in the past units. If the course continues like this, I would definitely recommend it for beginners as an introductory course. Ich habe andere Frage. Können Sie mir helfen bitte? Neunzehnte Lektion (19) Was bedeutet “eben”? (Dann isst du deine Würstchen eben ohne Kartoffelsalat). Ich habe leider nicht verstehen. I will buy the Pimsleur method on Thursday. I am also considering the Glossika massive sentences, but I will give it a try first with Chinese version since it is one of the strongest Glossika’s L2. However, I am not sure whether it influences or not since he hired native speakers to record his audios. 5.2 Easy German episodes: 1. Easy German Episode 1 - Hallo! (2006) It is always nice to see the language spoken in a real scene. I didn’t get everything, but at least I got to hear different people answering to “Wie geht’s Ihnen?”. I learned these phrases: +Ja, dann wünsche ich doch weiter noch einen schönen Tag. +Dann wünsche ich doch weiter viel Spaß +Ja, gut so weit +Hervorragend There is one expression which I didn’t get the meaning, however: Saufender Pöbel. I guess this expression is something like 「酔っ払っている奴」in Japanese, based on the context of the video, but I am not sure about it. It could be perhaps “bad manners”, generally speaking. I laughed when I checked the meaning and got most of this dialogue: Man: Wie geht es Ihnen? Woman: Gut, danke. Man: schon viel Zeit heute in der Stadt verbracht? Woman: Ein bisschen, so eine Stunde. Man: Ei bisschen? Woman: Ja… Man: Für eine Frau nicht so viel. Woman: Nee, aber sehr lange halte ich es auch nicht aus, zu voll. Easy German 2 - Der Weg zur Beringstraße (2006) I also found funny when I understood the end of the episode 2: The man asks an old man: Können Si emir den Weg zur Beringstrasse sagen? Old man: Zur Beringstrasse? Ja, aber wenn ich Atlas bei mir hab. Easy German Episode 3 – Denken (2007) This Easy German series have surprised me for providing an English translation (subtitles). It is pretty handy for newbies such as me. So, I decided to watch one single time to get used to the natural speed and way German people speak their language. Then, the second time I try to follow the video with the English translation. Then, I watch it for the third time trying to shadow some few sentences as I feel that the natural speed is already pretty fast for me to follow. Some phrases: +“Was denken Sie Grad?” +“Ich denke, dass ich denke – also denke ich dass ich denke.” Poor woman at the end (3:38) of the video. She had to conjugate German verbs. I think it would be hilarious to ask grammar topics on the street in the place I live in. LOL. Easy German 4 - Was machst du hier? Easy German I think Easy German episodes can complement some other materials by providing “German in streets” context. Some answers are boring and some people don’t even answer to the questions which I clearly understand the reason. Some others are really funny, though; there also those who answer to the questions too seriously. I think the videos are pretty short and I can watch some of them little by little, though I don’t intend to understand everything at the moment. I guess I understood 87,89 % of the videos so far. I will watch them somewhere in the future when I have time and after improving my German skills. 5.3.Classical music 10000 singing Beethoven - Ode an die Freude _ Ode to Joy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBlQZyTF_LY#t=10 This is fantastic! This is a really wonderful way to promote classical music though so many orchestras have been closed in past few years. I am afraid in the future I will tell young Japanese people that we used to listen to more classical music pieces. We must find a way to tell people why classical music is important and how cool it actually is. Music is interesting because when one professional musician is singing in an orchestra, he or she can apparently dissolve the borders of L1 influence and sing close to a L1 speaker (or less distant from L2 speaker). However, when the same person is speaking his or her target L2, I can clearly notice the accent, especially when it comes to Japanese people. I can usually tell if someone is Japanese by his foreign accent in certain languages which are easily predictable. It is not that I am worried about accents at all or criticizing my own people. By the way, Beethoven's Simphony No.9 was and still it is the most popular Beethoven’s symphony in Japan. Anyway, it doesn’t matter where you are from, what language you speak, what is your religion, ethnic group, sex orientation, political view etc; you can always see many foreigners all over the world playing classical music altogether. I like it because it means that there are no boundaries between mankind. 5.4. Germanpod101.com Absolute Beginner 1: 25/25 I really like the cultural insight explanation provided in this method. I think it is one of the pros of this course that made me like it. Since I approved both Chinesepod.com and Germanpod.com, I will pay for Koreanclass101.com. I guess it belongs to the same company. If I am not wrong, the course is/was designed by Sprachprofi (she is well known member on HTLAL), very experienced polyglot, linguist etc. I have watched her videos before on Youtube before and she is probably the same woman who has recorded part of the audios. I could recognize her voice. 5.5 Just as a matter of curiosity Warum, wieso, weshalb,weswegen I found out that while the usage of “warum” in German books was 7 times more used than the others in 19th, its usage declined over the century. However, after a significant declension, the statistics showed me that “warum” has got popular again after the World War I and is still used more than others nowadays. “Deshalb” comes in the second place having raised twice its number compared to the beginning of 19th century. Lastly, weswegen and wieso almost hasn’t suffered a significant change over two centuries remaining as the third and fourth options when asking “why” questions in written German books. Darum,deshalb,deswegen While “darum” was the most used word (among the ones above) in 19th, in 21th century deshalb became the most used words for answering “why?” type question in written German. The usage of “deswegen” suffered a declension in the end of 19th century, but it has been the same since then. Note: I haven’t checked German books published in Germany only. Biggest hurdles so far +I have studied very little so far, so, I cannot say anything at the moment. I guess more difficult grammar topics will appear soon. Cannot wait to challenge them. :D Biggest triumphs so far: +Found Assimil and Germanpod as two great resources. I will stick with them. + I will purchase the Pimsleur method for German. + Hugo in 3 months is coming. Perhaps it will takes a couple of weeks before arrive my house. Next time + I expect to do 5 Assimil Lessons and 2 Absolute beginner lessons. Non-TAC languages: English (1) and Japanese (2). Here I write about anything related to English or Japanese. It is free of choice. English Achievement list 1.1 I watched a video of a Ukrainian “polyglot”. Does anyone have ever heard of Stanislav Krikun? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6X19Sl6OlE&list=UUgYDBFPTYJ uBca5hYbgwQgw The last update was made one year ago. I doubt he can really speak 20 languages. This is the link (https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=D0Rzt0V3MQ4&list=UUgYDBFPTYJuBca5hYbgwQgw&index=14) of a video of Stanislav’s Portuguese. Go to the 5:46 and watch until 6:14. The Ukrainian guy asks the Brazilian guy where Portuguese is spoken. I wasn’t expecting such answer from a native speaker of Brazilian Portuguese, giving also the fact that he is already an adult... The Brazilian simply answered that Portuguese is spoken in Brazil and “if I am not wrong in South Africa”. I don’t know what is more pitiful: the Ukrainian guy who pretends to speak Portuguese fluently or his partner who hasn’t remembered that Portuguese is spoken in Portugal. I cannot pardon a Brazilian who doesn’t know that Portuguese has an official status in other places such as Angola and Guinea-Bissau. Yes, I think at least both countries should be mentioned aside from Portugal, though I would have cited Cape Verde, East Timor, Equatorial Guinea (it is not the main official language, but still considered as one of their official languages by their current constitution…), Mozambique, Macau, São Tomé and Príncipe. I have doubts that Portuguese is spoken in Macau despite being considered an official language. I haven’t noticed anyone who actually knew how to speak Portuguese when I was there few years ago. The same is in East Timor where Portuguese has an official status, but local people other languages as well. Anyway, I would understand if the Brazilian man mentions Portugal only, but not South Africa, please! Come on!!?!! So, based in the videos recorded about a year ago. I think the Ukrainian guy needs to reach a solid A1 and A2 level in a couple of languages before claiming that he can speak them. As I have studied some of the languages he tries to speak in the video, I can say that in some of them he commits some mistakes from A1 or A2 level. I have had some colleagues who were Portuguese proficiency test examiners and I asked them about Stanislav’s Portuguese level. They have said that he would be somewhere between “A0” and A1 because he lacks in vocabulary and grammar structure (syntax) for describing A1 and A2 level framework. My Russian friend said that his Russian is very poor, considering that he it is supposedly a native speaker of Russian (living or used to live in Eastern Ukraine). I think if he accepts positive criticism, he might be able to become a real polyglot of different language families as he seems to be talented. 1.2 I also watched a video recorded by Hugues Baudrillart. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RsPu7v7iZ4 I like his description provided in the video below: “Hi! In this video, I am practicing most of the languages I've studied so far. I am not very good at speaking many of them and actually I am not a 'hyperpolyglot' as one could expect in reading the title of the video. I am just a monolingual fond of learning various foreign languages.” He is much more humble than the Ukrainian boy and actually one can consider him as a polyglot, despite the fact that perhaps he is not hyperpolyglot yet. Of course, it depends on one’s definition of polyglot, but I suppose he can manage to communicate in Romance languages with a basic fluency, at least. This kind of video is very motivating for starters aspiring to become a real polyglot. I read a very low level comments written by Mr. Abreu regarding the video recorded by Mr. Hughes : “i am sorry but i don't like your Portuguese, of course you are betting on Brazilian Portugueses because is easier, but if you learn Portuguese from Portugal you will capture much more the beauty of the language, and you would understand much better the essence of FADO” “ i said if someone want to understand cultural stuff about the essence of the portuguese mother culture, you only will understand it if you speak Portuguese from Portugal” First, this kind of discussion won’t lead us anywhere. Since when is the Brazilian Portuguese easier than European Portuguese (or vice-versa)? Language difficulty depends on many factors such as one’s mother tongue, motivation, amount of free time available, good method and techniques being used, previous experience in language learning and maintain, and so on. According to Mr. Abreu’s ridiculous statement, you can capture the beauty of Portuguese only if you learn the “original” version (ie. European Portuguese). I also have doubts that one can understand better the essence of Fado if he or she learns the Portuguese from Portugal only. There are many Brazilians etc visiting Portugal and the well educated people can certainly get the meaning of Fado with their Brazilian Portuguese knowledge. Taking a look at those written comments, it is perhaps the same as assuming that the one should learn Russian from Russia, French from France or Spanish from Spain only. Everyone’s goal is different, so I feel pitiful that he is discussing things out of blue assuming what Mr. Hughes hasn’t stated, at least in the video I watched. Or perhaps it would be similar to say that Swedish people can only get the real meaning of Norwegian people if they learn these people’s languages and vice-verse. 1.3. Indigenous tribe of Brazil Some time ago, this tribe was discovered and considered as “uncontacted tribe” as you can see the aerial images in the following links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2agilNsulA or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLErPqqCC54 Officially there were no previous data about this tribe, though local Brazilian drug dealers, squatters and illegal logging groups were aware about these native people. For them, however, it doesn’t matter for each group the indigenous tribes belong to. In addition, obviously those illegal dealers would not contact FUNAI because they would lose property, lands etc because they have been committing crimes in the Amazon Forest under the Brazilian law. FUNAI, Brazilian Indigenous Affairs Department, has released footage of the meeting on Brazilian TV regarding the tribe above. Many people have recorded the video and uploaded on Youtube as you can see in the links below. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sb7alahD-BE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETVNl4_IzHY The videos above shows the contact between indigenous people wearing loincloths, carrying bows and arrows making. This is the first official contact between Brazilian (FUNAI) agents represented by Ashaninka member and the uncontacted tribe members. The Ashaninka indigenous person gave bananas to two loincloth natives who approached him, quickly grabbing the fruit and restarting the communication. I have read in the official Funai’s publications that some tribes are going to consider moving to Peru because of illegal Brazilian drug traffic dealers, logging and squatters nearby. In the same article I remember I read that one the Funai agents (Ashaninka) could more or less speak or understand what the “uncontacted tribe members” were expressing themselves. I also read that the language spoken by the “uncontacted tribe” belongs to the Panoan family languages or Pano-Tacanan family as some state some linguists. (Panoan family shares some structural features in common with Tacanam family, so perhaps they both share a common ancestor). I am really fond of Panoan family languages and I started doing more research about this amazing family. However, perhaps the language not necessarily belongs to Panoan family since Ashaninka could make contact with them using his mother tongue that belongs to Arawakan family languages of the Northern subfamily. I am not sure if agents who work for Funai collected enough data to state together with linguists that the language of “uncontacted tribe” indeed belongs to the Panoan family. The Ashaninka man said that according to the “uncontacted tribes two men”, there were still other uncontacted tribes, so he asked them how many of them are hidden in the forest. If his translation is accurate enough, there are about at least 3 uncontacted tribes with about 15 members each hidden in somewhere in the Amazon forest nearby. He also reported FUNAI that he could more or less understand the language. So, either the language spoken by the “uncontacted tribe” belongs to Awarakan or my second hypothesis is that due to their past contact they have borrowed words and expressions from Ashaninka’s people and vice-versa. I remember that about fourteen years ago, there was one Indian trying to escape from Brazilian people in Northern part of the country. No one knows exactly whether he is still alive or not. We are going to face more language extinction in the next few years if nothing is done in order to not only protect their lands, but promote their culture and their language. 1.4. 無人島で孤独に暮らす全裸の男 There are some people living in places where there isn’t much human contact. For instance, let me copy one link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gmlx3_eAubw This is a video of a man who is living in an island for over two decades. For those who have never read or heard about him, the wiry Mr. Nagasaki worked as a photographer before he eventually wanted to get far away from it all and decided to live in an inhabited island. He buys food and fresh water going to the nearest inhabited island. Although he eventually still keeps contact with a few human (when he buys his stuff), I was wondering how much has been his L1 loss. He is apparently healthy from mental point of view and has still good speaking commands for someone who is 78 years old and doesn’t use his active skills that much, I suppose... I could not feel any sense of discomfort watching his videos, though we don’t have any other videos about him available to make more precise assumptions. How much living in hermit (as the “Japanese naked man”) can affect in his or her L1 considering one has already reached 70 to 80 years old? 1.5 Feral children This is one subject I restarted reading this week. For those who are curious, perhaps some of the websites below will give you some insight: http://io9.com/hermits-and-feral-children-people-who-lived-i solated-f-1454203283 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkX47t2QaRs http://listverse.com/2008/03/07/10-modern-cases-of-feral-chi ldren/ http://planetark.org/wen/53118 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1580159/Russian-bi rd-boy-discovered-in- aviary.html http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/national_world/2008/ 08/10/1A_FERAL_-- _PART_1.ART_ART_08-10-08_A1_DHAVPL6.html http://www.tampabay.com/features/humaninterest/the-girl-in-t he-window/750838 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/romania/139 0871/Wolf-boy-is- welcomed- home-by-mother-after-years-in-the-wild.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-503736/Werewolf-boy- -snarls-bites--run- police- escaping-Moscow-clinic.html http://sputniknews.com/world/20070301/61418355.html http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/jan/23/jonathanwatts.f eatures11 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6275623.stm http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&obje ctid=3582191 There are many other cases such as the famous Genie Wiley’s. There is a “recent” video uploaded about two months ago on youtube. The girl is supposedly Oxana Malaya (Ukrainian girl) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bH3NNkG0uI0 I don’t know any Ukrainian but I am curious if one can watch the original one (there must be somewhere on Youtube) and see how good is her current Ukrainian skills. I guess that the years “lost” in her early childhood have definitely a huge impact on her language and probably cognitive development because she learned Ukrainian as L2, even though it was her first human language. Psychologically it must affect a lot as one can see Genie Wiley’s sad trajectory. It is really hard to believe in feral children cases… I have heard of cases in some countries where the child was living in under “prison” conditions. They were put inside a wardrobe and they were living in there until other people found out that the child turned into an adult and was still alive without being able to speak his or her parents’ language. 1.6 Russian ex-MMA fighter: Fedor Emelianenko I am an old school. I am really fond of martial arts, MMA, and many other fighting sports or whatever you definition of Martial Arts is. I have seen Mark Coleman, Randy Couture, Belfort, Royce Grace, Matt, Hughes, Chuck Lidell, Ken Shamrock, Igor Vovchanchyn, Tananori Gomi, Minotauro, Shogun, Cro cop, Sakuraba, Dan Henderson, Wanderlei Silva, Anderson Silva, Jon Jones, Velasquez, George St Pierre, Fedor Emelianenko and many other fighters from different categories and countries fighting in their peak. Without any doubt, I consider Fedor as the most naturally gifted fighter I have ever seen. His fighting style and his tough mind set the template for all modern MMA training methods and was the first to truly be, not just well versed in all aspects, but able to mix them into one free-form, fluid style rather than switching from grappling mode to striking mode in the middle of a fight. By that I mean many top MMA fighters are excellent at Muay Thai, wrestling, submission grappling or “Brazilian Jiu-jitsu”, but a lot of them don't know how to properly mix those skills together into one true fighting style. Emelianenko was the best at doing that. I respect Jon Jones and Cain Velasquez for having a solid wrestling base if needed, but neither of them is the best wrestlers in their respective division. I would say that they certainly aren't even close to be the best strikers or submission fighters from all time. But still, they are in the top of their categories. So, what makes them so successful? It is their ability to fight fluidly and utilize the most effective techniques from each aspect of MMA, rather than focusing on a lot of the unnecessary skills required to be good when competing in each standalone art. A lot of techniques that make someone the best at JJ, Muay Thai and wrestling are very specific to those competitions and don't translate into MMA well, and Fedor was the guy who was just naturally good at mixing all those aspects together. He is the greatest fighter of all time, though many people will disagree with me. I do admire Anderson Silva’s and Wanderlei Silva’s when they were in their peak as well. 1.7. Jon Jones x Daniel Cormier I don’t know if JJ deserved the victory. DC clearly won 2 rounds and one of them I think he had an advantage. I would have given more points to Alexander Gustafsson in the last JJ’s fight as well. 1.8. English is one of the most difficult languages I have been learning so far. I really don’t like it, but what I can do? I think that English has basically approached its global maximum. The British Empire and especially the American economic gain after Second World War have heightened English into some sort of lingua franca with major cultural spread throughout the mankind history. Is there another language gaining on English as a language of international reach? The answer is easy: no. As a language of international higher education, science, technology, international finance, military cooperation, aviation, cultural spread, I doubt any other language will reach the English scope. You can easily find movies, music, a variety of TV shows (sitcoms, documentaries etc), books (fiction and non- fiction etc) these days. I don’t think Spanish or any other language has reached its status of English, despite its number of L1 and L2 speakers, number of countries where Spanish is spoken as L1 and their influence in the world’s politics and economic, for instance. I don't seeing any language coming close to replacing English in these areas. 1.9. Some words and expressions I learned this week: +Braggadocio: "a. Empty or pretentious bragging". "b. A swaggering, cocky manner". +Embonpoint: "The condition of being plump; stoutness". +Pabulum: "1. something that nourishes; food". "2. intellectual nourishment". "3. a soft, bland cereal for infants". +Buck up: “Buck up means to basically grin and bear it, kinda like sayin "get over it" only more nicely. ” +Pother: "1. commotion; uproar'. '2. a heated discussion, debate, or argument". "3. a choking or suffocating cloud, as of smoke or dust". I am pretty sure I have seen this word before, but I couldn’t understand its meaning from the context I read this week. +Valentudinarian: "1. (Medicine) a person who is or believes himself to be chronically sick; invalid 2. (Medicine) a person excessively worried about the state of his health; hypochondriac adj 3. (Medicine) relating to, marked by, or resulting from poor health 4. (Medicine) being a valetudinarian 5. (Medicine) trying to return to a healthy state" I was wondering what the plural form of the word “valentudinarian” is. I thought about valentudinarians or valentudinaries. I have just checked in my dictionary and it seems that both are possible, but which one sounds more natural or which one is more used by native speakers?! +Sissy pants: “A derogatory comment commonly invoked to suggest a guy is acting like a little bitch.” + Nostrum: “1. A medicine whose effectiveness is unproved and whose ingredients are usually secret; a quack remedy. 2. A favorite but usually ineffective remedy for problems or evils.” +Lothario: “A man who seduces or attempts to seduce women as a matter of habit.” +Epigone: “an undistinguished imitator, follower, or successor of an important writer, painter, etc.” +Bibulous: "addicted to alcohol". +Cenacle: “1. the room where the Last Supper took place. 2. a religious retreat house.” 1.10. Shakespeare Started reading his sonets. Found out this word “thou”. Thou and its cases thee, thine, thy, were in Old English used in ordinary speech. They were gradually superseded by the plural ye, you, your, yours, in addressing a superior and (later) an equal, but were long retained in addressing an inferior. Well, I think I should take some notes from my reading. I will try to read one sonnet every day. The good thing is that the two books offer explanations of each sonnet from different perspectives. It was interesting to see that: Early Modern English: Thou hast, thou beest, thou goest Modern (West) Frisian: Do hast, do bist, do giest Modern German: Du hast, du bist, du gehst Now it makes more sense…in Dutch “du” is probably an archaic form of “jij or u”. Some other notes concerning the conjugation with thou: To love: thou lovest (present tense), thou lovedest (past tense). I am not sure whether the verb “to kick” is old or not, but let’s say that it was used by that time. So, following the rule, it would be: To kick: thou kickest and though kickedest. No matter strong or weak verb, it would be: To drive: thou drivest and thou drovest. To know: thou knowest and thou knewest. So, in Modern English, “-est” or “st” were dropped for present tense and past tense. To summarize: Thou (singular informal in nominative), thee (singular informal in oblique), thy or thyne (singular informal in Genitive), thine (singular informal in possessive) in Early modern English. 1. 11. My Harry Potter books have arrived. Yay! Japanese Achievement list 2. 1. Watched 28 episodes of 聖闘士星矢 Saint Seiya (chapter of Hades) 2. 2. Read about the origin of some Japanese proverbs and compared them to Portuguese. 2. 3. Watched many Japanese comedy programs. 2.4 . Watched 3 episodes of エジソンの母。 2.5. Watched the first day of January Sumo tournament. 2.6 Books + I am reading books (昔話) through extensive reading. I read first in English, then, I read the same chapter in Japanese to make sure I didn’t miss anything. The English translation seems to be pretty good so far. + My Harry Potter books (Japanese version) arrived yesterday. Yay! + My Akutagawa’s and Soseki’s will arrive on Friday! + The漢字字典 for 小学校 will arrive on Tuesday! + I will purchase Murakami’s, Mishima’s, Kawabata’s and Tanizaki’s books soon if available. + My books of etymology of Japanese characters arrived on Friday. Time to read some interesting resources! I also cannot wait for my mythology and history books! Hopefully they will arrive in less than 2 weeks! 2.7 Q&A Started a language exchange and I decided to help my fellow pen pals. Ｌａｎｇ－８で日本語学習者に聞かれました 。 Q&A 1 “「謝る」と 「誤る」 と同じ意味でしょうか。” それは全く違う意味ですね。 同音異義語ですが、 漢字が違うので文字にすると 間違いがありません。 もっ と簡単に言えば： 謝る：「ごめんなさい」 という気持ちを伝える 誤る：間違える Q&A 2 “「十分」と「充分」 の違いは 何でしょうか。そして、「分かる」、 「判る」、 「解る」 の違いは 何でし ょうか。” 通常「十分」と 「充分」は 入れ替え可能と 考えていいでしょう。 例えば、 十分は10分とも読めますから、 「ここから駅までどれくらい歩きますか？」 と聞かれたとします。 で、 僕が「十分もあれば十分でしょう」 と話し言葉だったら、 わかりやすいですが、 それを文にしたら、 外国人にとって読みにくい場合があるかもし れません。 ですから、「充分」 のほうが読みやすいです ね。つま り、 「十分あれば充分でしょう」。 同様に 「分かる」 と書けばほとんどの場合十分です。 「判る」は結論や事実がはっきりすること、 「解 る」は 理由などが分かることを言います。 どちらも「分かる」でいいでしょう。 「判る」は「判明する」、 「解る」は「理解する」のような漢語を 使って表現します。 いずれにせよ 口頭 では「わかる」 という同じ音なので、 話す時にニュアンスの差を 出すには 別な漢語などを 使わなければい けません。 大人は 口頭で話すとき 「わかる」と言わないで、 「りかいする」と言えば「解る」 というニュ アンスが通じます。 Q&A3 “英語で書かれている文章を日本語に訳して くれませんか。 1. I scared him. 2. I am scared of him. 3. I was scared by him. 4. She scared me. 5. I got scared.” １． （私は）彼を怖がらせた。 ２．（私は）彼が怖い。 ３．（私は）彼に怖がらせられた。 ４． 彼女は私を怖がらせた。 ５. （私は）怖かった。 １、3、４は、「おどかした」 「おどかされた」 「おどかした」の方が 自然な 日本語 かもしれません。 I didn’t understand why my pen pal wanted to know the expressions above. Did she want to know causative and passive in Japanese? It seemed so, it was the fifth translation task she asked me to do. Weird. Very weird to me. But anyway, as long as her Japanese improves, that’s what really matters. Q＆A4 Discussion about Japanese New Year’s Eve. Things that many textbooks don’t teach you. 1.大晦日の 夜の 午後12時に なる 前から 、 日付が 変わって 元日の 午前 1時 ぐらい まで 寺院で 鳴らされる 鐘を何と 言いますか。 2．その鐘は、 何回 鳴らされますか。 3．この鐘は、 何の ために 鳴らされますか。 Q&A 5 ○○寺を見たことない。 見たことのない○○寺。 ００寺は見たことがない。 This penpal asked me whether there are differences in terms of nuance or not. This has been frequently asked recently. Q&A6 “What is the difference between ジムに行きました andジムに行ったんです?” This is a frequently asked question. Q&A7 “Is this sentence correct? 息子は本が欲しいです”. This is a common mistake made by beginners. Well, I am answering questions every day. I try to answer with a concise and simple explanation and few other examples if needed. It has been good to be challenged in this way. Q&A8 Discussion about Japanese food culture. 1. 鉄板焼き: I was told that this is literally a Western food. I disagreed. 2. History of chopsticks in Japan. Shame on me!!! I didn’t know about since when Japanese people started using chopsticks. 3. Side dishes. I think our food discussions will be endless as they are many topics. Q&A9 I was asked whether there is a difference between 別の場所 and 別な場所. This is an interesting question and reminds me of what I was asked at the end of last year ( 大き な and 大きの). If they ask me more questions, I will keep answering all of them. Next time +Read books, books and books. And more books. And even more books. There are always 3 to 7 books near my bed. I always read something before sleeping. +I will try to find a bilingual children’s book in both Japanese and Chinese. Edited by Nieng Zhonghan on 12 January 2015 at 12:38am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Woodsei Bilingual Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Woodsei Joined 4591 days ago 614 posts - 782 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Egyptian)* Studies: Russian, Japanese, Hungarian | Message 31 of 47 12 January 2015 at 3:59am | IP Logged | ||
I really enjoyed reading about the cultural aspect of Kyoto that you posted. I'm enamored with Kyoto in general, even more so than Tokyo. I knew about the coming of age rituals, but that part about prosperity being more business focused had me laugh out loud. It's interesting that they follow the lunar calendar for particular events. In that vein, it's not so much different in the Arab world where certain events are followed with the lunar system, irrespective of the Gregorian calendar, which they do follow. Always interesting to find the parallels. Edited by Woodsei on 12 January 2015 at 4:02am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ramblurr Newbie United States binaryelysium.com Joined 4134 days ago 30 posts - 34 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Egyptian), German | Message 32 of 47 12 January 2015 at 11:45am | IP Logged | ||
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I've seen several people mention Hugo recently, please keep us updated on what you think of
it, especially how it fits in with your use of Assimil and Germanpod101 (I'm using those two too). 1 person has voted this message useful |
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