TAC 2017-2018 dEhiN

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Re: TAC 2017 dEhiN

Postby dEhiN » 2017-07-24, 20:06

Update time:

It's been quite a while (maybe 2 or 3 weeks?) since I posted the vocab I've added to Anki, and in that time I've added a fair amount of vocab overall. I'm thinking I might stop posting the vocab on here, even though I did like the feedback I would get in terms of corrections and such. Or perhaps if I get some free time, I'll see if Anki will let me export any new cards from a certain date onward, which would make it easier to post it here.

I still haven't started on my French presentation + essay; next week (Jul 31 - Aug 5) there is no class, so my plan is to use that week to do my research and write everything! I'm also going to make it easier on myself and do research in a mix of English and French.

Meera and I have been going through Duolingo Swedish, although we decided to scale our rate down to one skill per week. Today we also decided to go through the French tree on Duolingo. She had already finished the tree some time ago, but I am only about a quarter of the way through. The review will be good for both of us; I don't anticipate encountering too many new words or grammar concepts for the skills I haven't yet done, but every little bit helps.

I'm finding the French class quite helpful especially for my oral comprehension. I am now able to follow the instructor when he is giving instructions in French or chatting with another student in French. I could before, but at the start of the course I was only able to understand by picking out a few keywords and guessing/filling in the rest based on context. The last class I was able to follow a good 70-80% of what he was saying. I estimate my reading level in French to be B2, my writing level to be B1/B2, and my speaking and listening levels to be B1. I think I want to get all 4 areas to B2 before I actively try to get to a C1 level.
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Re: TAC 2017 dEhiN

Postby dEhiN » 2017-07-28, 23:00

(fr) Une mise à jour :
J'ai eu l'opportunité à pratiquer le français et l'espagnol avec Antea de ce forum sur Skype. On parle la plupart de temps en français, un peu en espagnol et un peu en anglais. Selon lui mon écriture de français améliore pendant un an et aussi ma capacité de parler est bon. Je suis heureux. Alors elle pense que mon niveau en français peut être B2. Avant je me sentais que ma capacité orale était B1 seulement parce que je n'ai pas la confiance quand je parle.

(en) Update:
I had the opportunity to chat with Antea from this forum on Skype. We spoke mostly in French, with a little bit of Spanish and some English thrown in. According to her my French writing skills have improved over the past year, and she also said that I speak fairly well. I'm very happy with this. She estimates my level to be B2. I'm mentioning this as an update because previously I thought my speaking ability to be B1 solely because I'm not confident in how I speak. I always assumed that I was making a lot of phrasing and sentence construction errors. In fact I do (assume that), although Antea's encouragement is making me try and have a more realistic view of my current abilities and acknowledge recent improvements.
Last edited by dEhiN on 2017-08-19, 17:28, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: TAC 2017 dEhiN

Postby Antea » 2017-07-29, 9:05

dEhiN wrote:[flag=]fr[/flag] Une mise à jour :
J'ai eu l'opportunité à de pratiquer le français et l'espagnol avec Antea de ce forum, sur Skype. On a parlé (nous avons parlé) la plupart du temps en français, un peu en espagnol et un peu en anglais. Selon lui elle mon niveau de écriture de français à l'écrit s'est amélioré pendant cette[color=#0000FF] année [/color]un an et aussi ma capacité de communication à l'oral de parler est bonne. Je suis heureux. Alors elle pense que mon niveau en français peut être B2. Avant je me sentais que (mon niveau d'expression orale) ma capacité orale était B1 seulement parce que je n'ai pas la de confiance quand je parle.


Bon travail, continue!
Keep on the good work!

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Re: TAC 2017 dEhiN

Postby dEhiN » 2017-08-04, 23:13

I should probably update this. Now that I'm not listing out the new vocabulary I'm adding to Anki, I forget that I have a TAC!

Things are going pretty good with my language studies. I still have to start my French project, but I have 8 days. :D Apart from my French course, I've been mostly focusing on Swedish through Duolingo and chats with Johanna. I also was able to have a couple of chats with Antea in French, which was nice. My current and active Anki decks consist of 3 for French (my French course, Duolingo French, and self-study), 2 for Swedish (Duolingo Swedish and self-study), 2 for Tamil (those private lessons I took 2 months ago, and self-study), and 1 each for Portuguese, Romanian, and Spanish (all self-study).

I'm not really doing Romanian; I think I mentioned previously that the singer in the band I'm in is half-Romanian so that gave me a good excuse to relearn the handful of words I had in Anki. I did add a few new words as well, but in total I have about 30 cards. For Portuguese, Spanish and Tamil, I'm mostly just maintaining what I know, and adding in the odd new word that I learn. I'm also trying to read things in Portuguese and Spanish whenever I can, but only things that people write on FB or here; I'm not going out of my way to find reading materials.

Recently I started questioning whether it made sense to focus on Swedish, which I would say is at an A1 level, or whether I should change my focus to Portuguese or Spanish and get at least one of them into the B1 level? One nice thing is that, because Antea if fluent in Spanish and French, I can practice both my Spanish a little bit with her.

I think I'll just continue what I'm doing for now: the French course at college, Duolingo Swedish, and the upkeep of Tamil, Portuguese, and Spanish. (I decided to stop Duolingo French because I couldn't find the time to keep at it). Once my French course is done then I'll figure out what else to do.
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Re: TAC 2017 dEhiN

Postby dEhiN » 2017-08-08, 9:54

Quick check-in time:

I finally started the research for my French project. Thanks to Estrella's link, I'm doing the research in French by basically reading the History page on the Quebec City's website. Because I'm doing reading it all in French, I'm also writing down notes directly in French, which is really cool: ever since I started learning French I've waited for the day when I could do a major task mainly in French without being slowed down too much by my lack of knowledge and ability.

It's a little slow going because there are some words I'm having to look up. However, I'm keeping track of them so that I can add them as new words to Anki. So far, just based on my notes alone, which are more or less full sentences in point form, I have written about 380 words. That history page breaks up Quebec City's history into 5 different stages with a separate linked-to page for each stage. So far I've read the main page, the first stage, and about a quarter of the second stage. So by my estimation, I've read about 925 words and have written out 88 words in new vocabulary.

I'm super psyched by this, because ever since I started studying French (back in 2011), even though I have studied other languages, and at times either not focused on French at all or only focused on it a little bit, one of my dreams has been to be fluent one day in French. The A1 and A2 stages weren't so bad to go through because I could see progress, but probably for the past 2 years or so I'd gotten discouraged because I couldn't see much progress. I had honestly kind of resigned myself to forever being at a B1 stage, like I'd gotten stuck in some kind of vortex from which there was no escape.

Alright, time to get back to it.
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Re: TAC 2017 dEhiN

Postby voron » 2017-08-08, 10:14

dEhiN wrote:I'm super psyched by this, because ever since I started studying French (back in 2011), even though I have studied other languages, and at times either not focused on French at all or only focused on it a little bit, one of my dreams has been to be fluent one day in French. The A1 and A2 stages weren't so bad to go through because I could see progress, but probably for the past 2 years or so I'd gotten discouraged because I couldn't see much progress. I had honestly kind of resigned myself to forever being at a B1 stage, like I'd gotten stuck in some kind of vortex from which there was no escape.

Getting from level to level takes subsequently longer periods of time so the progress becomes slower and we tend to not notice how we improve. But we do improve, provided if we study regularly.

I had this experience when I was in Turkey. I went there already with an intermediate level of Turkish, and nearly every day I had those moments of thinking "Is there a gap in my head or something? Why are there so many things I don't understand? Why do I speak so pathetically bad?" However looking retrospectively I can definitely see a grand improvement over these 2 years that I spent in Turkey. For example my old writings on lang-8 were awkward and full of mistakes, and my last entry, while rather long and involved, had no mistakes at all!

So it probably makes sense to look back once in a while and do the same task that once was hard for us, just to notice the progress we have achieved and regain confidence and motivation.

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Re: TAC 2017 dEhiN

Postby dEhiN » 2017-08-08, 12:00

voron wrote:Getting from level to level takes subsequently longer periods of time so the progress becomes slower and we tend to not notice how we improve. But we do improve, provided if we study regularly.
...
So it probably makes sense to look back once in a while and do the same task that once was hard for us, just to notice the progress we have achieved and regain confidence and motivation.

Thanks voron! You're right, it does take longer, and I have seen slow progress over time, whenever I've looked back.
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Re: TAC 2017 dEhiN

Postby Antea » 2017-08-08, 12:12

Well, at least you can hold a conversation. Maybe I am giving to much importance to oral skills, but for me this is not small progress. Usually it requires some amount of time to do that.

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Re: TAC 2017 dEhiN

Postby dEhiN » 2017-08-08, 12:18

Antea wrote:Well, at least you can hold a conversation. Maybe I am giving to much importance to oral skills, but for me this is not small progress. Usually it requires some amount of time to do that.

I don't know about that; when you and I chat, I still have to ask you to repeat things, to slow down, and I also have to sometimes switch back to English! :silly:
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Re: TAC 2017 dEhiN

Postby Antea » 2017-08-08, 12:23

dEhiN wrote:
Antea wrote:Well, at least you can hold a conversation. Maybe I am giving to much importance to oral skills, but for me this is not small progress. Usually it requires some amount of time to do that.

I don't know about that; when you and I chat, I still have to ask you to repeat things, to slow down, and I also have to sometimes switch back to English! :silly:


Well, maybe you need some more practice. But that's just a matter of time.

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Re: TAC 2017 dEhiN

Postby dEhiN » 2017-08-09, 21:36

(fr) J'ai terminé finalement mon exposé ! Je vais la coller ici et peut-être quelqu'un peut la corriger s'il a le temps ? J'ai écrit un peu plus de 800 mots ! Je n'utilisait pas le passé simple bien que le temps de cette histoire est le passé. C'est parce que dans mon cours, on n'a pas appris le passé simple.

(en) I finally finished my essay! I'm going to paste it here in the hopes that some kind soul will correct it?! I ended up writing a little more than 800 words! I didn't use the passé simple, even though a French friend of mine told me it's better to use because it's like the historic past, because we haven't learned it in my course. So I don't think our prof will expect it of us.

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Last edited by dEhiN on 2017-08-19, 17:28, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: TAC 2017 dEhiN

Postby Antea » 2017-08-10, 10:31

J'ai fait une correction rapide du texte, mais sans les couleurs (je n'ai pas le temps, maintenant), mais tu peux toujours comparer les deux textes et réperer facilement les changements.

dEhiN wrote:[flag=]fr[/flag] J'ai terminé finalement mon exposé ! Je vais la coller ici et peut-être quelqu'un peut la corriger s'il a le temps ? J'ai écrit un peu plus de 800 mots ! Je n'utilisait pas le passé simple bien que le temps de cette histoire est le passé. C'est parce que dans mon cours, on n'a pas appris le passé simple.

[flag=]en[/flag] I finally finished my essay! I'm going to paste it here in the hopes that some kind soul will correct it?! I ended up writing a little more than 800 words! I didn't use the passé simple, even though a French friend of mine told me it's better to use because it's like the historic past, because we haven't learned it in my course. So I don't think our prof will expect it of us.

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Re: TAC 2017 dEhiN

Postby dEhiN » 2017-08-18, 20:56

Antea wrote:J'ai fait une correction rapide du texte, mais sans les couleurs (je n'ai pas le temps, maintenant), mais tu peux toujours comparer les deux textes et réperer facilement les changements.

Merci beaucoup Antea pour toutes tes corrections ! J'ai réçu un note de 100 % pour mon composition et 85.5 % pour mon exposé.
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Re: TAC 2017 dEhiN

Postby dEhiN » 2017-08-19, 17:27

Fuck! I slept through my alarm and missed my French exam. :shock: :cry: :cry:
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Re: TAC 2017 dEhiN

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-08-19, 17:38

Can you retake it?

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Re: TAC 2017 dEhiN

Postby dEhiN » 2017-08-19, 17:47

vijayjohn wrote:Can you retake it?

Probably not. I did email the prof just in case. But general school policies are that you have to have a doctor's note basically explaining the extenuating circumstances. Otherwise you're SOL.

So I got 0% on my final*, but I still got 79.5% on my course.

*My prof is really quick at adding in grades! The class finished at 12:30 pm, it's now 1:47 pm, and my grades were added in about 40 minutes ago on the system.
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Re: TAC 2017 dEhiN

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-08-19, 17:59

Ugh, really? That sucks. Idk that seems pretty unfair to me. :?

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Re: TAC 2017 dEhiN

Postby dEhiN » 2017-08-19, 18:28

vijayjohn wrote:Ugh, really? That sucks. Idk that seems pretty unfair to me. :?

Really? I'm used to that - the policy, I mean. Like I said, it's pretty standard here across all colleges and universities. Basically you have to have extenuating circumstances for missing an exam, and those circumstances have to be proved with some sort of documentation.

The only exception to that I can think of is this: all schools here have a department dedicated to those who have disabilities of any kind. For example, at my college, it's part of the counselling department. If you have a mental or physical disability and get your doctor to provide documentation confirming it, then you become eligible for things like extra time to complete assignments and exams. At my college what happens is that you have to register with this department at the beginning of a semester. And then when it comes time for exams, instead of taking them with the rest of the class on the assigned day, you take it separately at what's called the Test Centre. But even this isn't really an exception because if you miss the day your exam is scheduled (i.e., whatever day you're supposed to go to the Test Centre), you would still have to prove extenuating circumstances.

Anyway, my prof got back to me and said he'd already submitted the marks and handed in the papers.
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Re: TAC 2017 dEhiN

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-08-19, 18:48

dEhiN wrote:
vijayjohn wrote:Ugh, really? That sucks. Idk that seems pretty unfair to me. :?

Really?

Really. Here it's often (not always) possible to retake it. I think that's reasonable if you just accidentally slept through an alarm or something. It happens; it doesn't seem to me like something that deserves to be punished. (I guess you could argue that a teacher in cases like that would have to stay and proctor the exam all over again and they shouldn't have to do that, but honestly, as someone who's been a teaching assistant a number of times before, I'm not sure how much trouble that necessarily is for them).

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Re: TAC 2017 dEhiN

Postby dEhiN » 2017-08-19, 19:57

vijayjohn wrote:Really. Here it's often (not always) possible to retake it. I think that's reasonable if you just accidentally slept through an alarm or something. It happens; it doesn't seem to me like something that deserves to be punished. (I guess you could argue that a teacher in cases like that would have to stay and proctor the exam all over again and they shouldn't have to do that, but honestly, as someone who's been a teaching assistant a number of times before, I'm not sure how much trouble that necessarily is for them).

Huh! I had no idea; I just assumed the policies found here were common throughout North America. Man, I so wish our schools were more like yours!
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