Agta TAC 2015: EN, DE (Rätsel) (Language Learning Log) Language Learning Forum

Agta TAC 2015: EN, DE (Rätsel)
Tags: Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC) \| English \| German
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agta
Diglot
Groupie
Poland
Joined 5305 days ago
43 posts - 53 votes

Speaks: Polish*, English
Studies: German, Italian

Message 1 of 8

26 December 2014 at 5:27pm | IP Logged

Summary
English -> I'm somewhere at the beginning of a long way from C1 to C2 and I want to
make as much progress as possible this year
German -> my goal for 2015 is reaching upper intermediate level

English
English is my priority and I'd spend a lot of time on improving it in 2015. I'm
somewhere around C1 but want to improve it as much as possible.

My plan is quite simple. I want to provide myself a lot of input by reading novels,
listening to BBC podcasts and watching some YouTube videos and improve grammar with
some textbooks.
English is a language I use quite a lot at my workplace so I'll also have opportunity
to use it actively.

German
My German is about B1 right now with strong passive skills for that level but weaker
grammar. Long distant goal is to be confident enough to use it without problems for
professional life which I would say means C1+ CEFR level.
I'd love to be near C1 by December 2015 but I guess this may be hard for me so I would
give myself a more realistic goal: B2.

I'll probably try to fill in some B2 model test by end of the year but really those
CEFR levels are not the most important. I use them only because they are useful to
measure progress.

I'd be happy if I was able to read novels or watch some movies with pleasure in
German. The most important to do that is to learn passively more vocabulary. I'll do
that by providing myself with a lot of input.

The other thing is that I'd like to produce texts with more ease. This requires
gaining more active vocabulary and improving my grammar. The more passive vocab I
know, the more of it becomes active but I believe this is not enough. That's why I'd
like to write some short texts regularly. And for grammar I'd like to review some
grammar textbooks.

Resources I'm going to use:
* Textbooks
I'm probably not going to follow any of the textbooks from front to back cover but I
think I'll do some readings, vocabulary and grammar from the books I have (em
Bruckenkurs, em Hauptkurs) or can borrow from friends (Ziel B2, Aspekte B2).
* Grammar books
Klipp und Klar
B-Grammatik
* TV-Series, for example:
Die Bergretter
SOKO Koln, SOKO Leipzig etc.
Unsere erste gemeinsame Wohnung
* YouTube videos (some beauty, lifestyle stuff)
* Novels:
I will start with The Chronicles of Narnia - I've already read the first book.
Then I will probably choose something else from library.

Other languages
Apart from that I may work a bit on my Italian (about A2 right now) and Swedish (0, I
know only a few basic phrases). I'd like to reach at least C1 in both of them but I
don't expect that happening before 2017.

Edited by agta on 26 December 2014 at 5:30pm
1 person has voted this message useful

agta
Diglot
Groupie
Poland
Joined 5305 days ago
43 posts - 53 votes

Speaks: Polish*, English
Studies: German, Italian

Message 2 of 8

01 January 2015 at 1:39pm | IP Logged

Welcome in 2015!

I've decided to gather in this post some less or more useful online resources that's
I'm going to use this year. I'll be editing the list during the course of the year to
add new things.

English:
Science daily: http://www.sciencedaily.com/
BBC Travel: http://www.bbc.com/travel
National Geographic: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/

German:
Hin&weg: http://www.dw.de/programm/hin-weg/s-9815-9801
Euromax: http://www.dw.de/programm/euromaxx/s-7553-9801
Terra X: http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/#/kanaluebersicht/330/sendung /Terra-X
Die Bergretter: http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/#/kanaluebersicht/885972/send ung/Die-
Bergretter
SOKO Stuttgart: http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/#/kanaluebersicht/862832/send ung/SOKO-
Stuttgart
SOKO Koeln: http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/#/kanaluebersicht/218/sendung /SOKO-
K%C3%B6ln
SOKO Leipzig: http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/#/kanaluebersicht/534/sendung /SOKO-
Leipzig
Langsam gesprochene Nachrichten: http://www.dw.de/deutsch-lernen/nachrichten/s-8030
Top Thema: http://www.dw.de/deutsch-lernen/top-thema/s-8031
2 persons have voted this message useful

Tiy
Newbie
United Kingdom
Joined 3461 days ago
16 posts - 21 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: French, German

Message 3 of 8

01 January 2015 at 4:28pm | IP Logged

Good luck with your language learning this year! For your English language studies, I
would add the major national newspaper websites:

Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/uk (Great "Opinion" articles; no article limit)
Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ (I think you get 20 free articles a month?)
The Independent: http://www.independent.co.uk/

And the New York Times for American news: http://www.nytimes.com/

I think these will be particularly useful as they are very up-to-date in terms of
politics and culture in Anglophone societies.

I'm starting German this year. Since you have studied German for some time, I was
wondering if you could give me any tips. What do you recommend for learning grammar?
Are there any "mistakes" you feel you may have made with learning German last year
which you would like to remedy this year?

1 person has voted this message useful

agta
Diglot
Groupie
Poland
Joined 5305 days ago
43 posts - 53 votes

Speaks: Polish*, English
Studies: German, Italian

Message 4 of 8

07 January 2015 at 11:47pm | IP Logged

Tiy, thannks for your advice!

Regarding your German questions, for beginner grammar I used designed for Polish students so that may not be very helpful for you. I also like B-Grammatik by Schubert-Verlag. There is also a book at A1-A2 level (titled A Grammatik) so it may be good for you: http://www.schubert-verlag.de/a-grammatik.php?PHPSESSID=f7b9 92072a2cde9004a484e6e269bdbc
And my biggest mistake relates to grammar but it may not be a problem for you. It depends on your approach, whether you want to have only passive skills or active as well, and how perfect you want to speak. At the beginning I neglected learning gender of the nouns and it is necessary to produce grammatically correct sentences.

---------------------------------------
Week 1 (01-04 Jan) Summary
---------------------------------------
English
I've read a few articles and saw a few short videos but nothing well structured.
I've also started reading 'Runaway' by Alice Munro.

German
Watched:
1. Obendrueber, da schneit es: http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/#/beitrag/video/2305772/Obend r%C3%BCber,-da-schneit-es
2. SOKO Wien, Ein ungelebtes Leben: http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/#/beitrag/video/2307162/%22Ei n-ungelebtes-Leben%22

Edited by agta on 08 January 2015 at 12:14am
1 person has voted this message useful

Ccaesar
Triglot
Groupie
Denmark
Joined 3576 days ago
84 posts - 94 votes

Speaks: Danish*, English, German
Studies: Italian

Message 5 of 8

17 January 2015 at 5:17pm | IP Logged

Hallo Agta!

Bist du auch im italienischen Team "Caesar"?
Mir ist es deutlich
geworden,dass du dich schon vorbereitet hast und ich wünsche dir viel Glück beim Lernen.
Fälls du dich bereit fühlst würde ich dir "Die Zeit oder Deutsche Welle" empfehlen (Die Letzte hat auch einen "Deutschlernen" Teil

Mfg,
Ccaesar

Edited by Ccaesar on 17 January 2015 at 5:18pm
1 person has voted this message useful

agta
Diglot
Groupie
Poland
Joined 5305 days ago
43 posts - 53 votes

Speaks: Polish*, English
Studies: German, Italian

Message 6 of 8

17 January 2015 at 10:29pm | IP Logged

Hallo Ccaesar,
1. Nein, dieses Jahr habe ich mich nicht zum italienischen Team angemeldet. Ich lerne Italienisch nur von Zeit zu Zeit. Ich kann nicht mehr als 2 Fremdsprachen regelmäßig lernen. Und ich habe entscheidet, dass ich Deutsch erst lernen muss als es ganz nützlich für mich ist. Also, Italienisches Team vielleicht nächstes Jahr.
2. Vielen dank für Wünsche und Empfehlungen. Ich wünsche dir auch viel Glück und viel Spaß beim Lernen! :)

2 persons have voted this message useful

agta
Diglot
Groupie
Poland
Joined 5305 days ago
43 posts - 53 votes

Speaks: Polish*, English
Studies: German, Italian

Message 7 of 8

01 February 2015 at 6:34pm | IP Logged

---------------------------------
Weeks 2-5 (05 Jan - 01 Feb)
---------------------------------
English
Stories: Alice Munro 'Runaway' (335 pages)

German
Watched
3. Lebensmuede: link
4. Verschollen:link
5. Mit letzter Kraft: link
6. Gefangen im Eis:
link
7. Wettersturz: link
8. Ein Sommer im Burgenland:
link
1 person has voted this message useful

agta
Diglot
Groupie
Poland
Joined 5305 days ago
43 posts - 53 votes

Speaks: Polish*, English
Studies: German, Italian

Message 8 of 8

21 February 2015 at 3:00pm | IP Logged

For the last three weeks I hasn't noted the resources I used but there were a few things I did, both in German and English.

I've read today a thread at this forum - Moving from B2 to C2 and I found a few points very interesting. Below are the quotes from this thread.

Cavesa wrote:

However, I would agree the grammar is a prerequisite. From my bitter experience: it is a mistake to stop studying and reviewing grammar, at least small bits here and there, for months or years.

Cavesa wrote:

One more point that noone mentioned but it is relevant. An educated native speaker
(which is the one the C level exams try to immitate), as the word suggests, has been
educated. And the education consisted not only of the language,no. During the years
spent at school, people learn physics, geography, maths, biology, literature, arts...
all using the language. And a C level speaker should be able to speak about such
topics as well.

So, I highly recommend acquiring the related vocabulary, phrases and style. Wikipedia
helps, or there are many websites dedicated to scince, history and so on. Popular
science books are great, and lots of other media meant for natives. Textbooks for
highschoolers are awesome, even though rarely found outside the coutry. Such
vocabulary is expected from anyone speaking the language but unlikely to be found in
frequency dictionaries.

Those are topics that are more than superficially covered in language courses, except
for selected topics, you might easily not find them in your fiction reading either.
But you are likely to often find yourself in a situation when you need to prove you
are not a total ignorant. You might get a science topic in an exam, you might get into
a discussion on economics with your friends in a pub etc.

Ari wrote:

The theoretical optimal input strategy would need to balance the need for repetition of structures and vocabulary with the need for a broad exposure to different registers, styles and expressions.

hobom wrote:

To refute the ancient adage that after page 4 no new idea will be posted in an internet thread, I have a suggestion for the original poster to improve speaking and writing:

When you stumble upon a construction or pattern in your reading that you are able to understand effortlessly but that is not part of your active vocabulary, note it down and try to use it later while writing something. A lot of C1 and C2 involves finding fancier ways to express something.

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