TAC 2014 - vijayjohn

[OldBoring]

I should also not rely so much on UniLang for the purpose of actually learning those other languages in my list

That's obvious. You learnt a lot of languages before joining UniLang!

[vijayjohn]

I should also not rely so much on UniLang for the purpose of actually learning those other languages in my list

That's obvious. You learnt a lot of languages before joining UniLang!

Well, I certainly studied a lot of languages before joining UniLang. That's why I said (sarcastically):

I should also not rely so much on UniLang for the purpose of actually learning those other languages in my list (I know, this is such an astounding discovery, right? )

[vijayjohn]

Updating my language list again. I wonder what the next language on my list would be. Maybe BCS? Probably. Oh wait, no, Portuguese! Haha.

[hide]English
Malayalam
French
German
Latin
Portuguese
Spanish
BCS
Russian
Turkish
Hindi/Urdu
Swahili
Dinka
ASL
Mandarin Chinese
Thai
Tagalog
Indonesian/Malay
Oirata
Teiwa
Krio
Australian Kriol
Light Warlpiri
Quechua
Mapudungun
Lnuismk
Michif[/hide]

[dEhiN]

You do ASL? Also, what Mandarin search engine are you referring to?

[vijayjohn]

You do ASL?

Yep. It's one of the languages I started learning most recently, along with Light Warlpiri and Dinka.

Also, what Mandarin search engine are you referring to?

Baidu

[dEhiN]

What are you using to learn ASL? And do you practice it with anybody?

[vijayjohn]

What are you using to learn ASL?

So far, I've used WIkipedia to learn the alphabet and this website to learn my first few words.

And do you practice it with anybody?

Nope, not yet.

[vijayjohn]

So now I've started working on BCS, which means I can cross off a couple more languages from my list now:

[hide]English
Malayalam
French
German
Latin
Portuguese
Spanish
BCS
Russian
Turkish
Hindi/Urdu
Swahili
Dinka
ASL
Mandarin Chinese
Thai
Tagalog
Indonesian/Malay
Oirata
Teiwa
Krio
Australian Kriol
Light Warlpiri
Quechua
Mapudungun
Lnuismk
Michif[/hide]

I'm still trying to figure out what I want to do in order to make progress on each of my languages. Of course, there's always the complication that I also have to take into account the fact that I'm a human being, so my life involves more than just learning languages, believe it or not. I still haven't posted anything on that Malayalam forum in quite a while. Tbh, I don't even intend to until I've at least figured out what I'm going to do for French, Spanish, German, and Mandarin Chinese. Did I mention that I could probably do Duolingo for at least the first three of those, though?

I've started making threads in various languages documenting the mistakes I've made in each language. I think I should also find vocabulary words I'm less familiar with (even if I've already succeeded in using them before) and use those threads to help myself review them. I think I should even open new threads in some languages for that purpose; for example, in Malayalam, I could open a thread with a list of new vocabulary (which I've already listed in the "the last word in your mother tongue that you learnt" (or whatever it's called) thread) and use spoiler tags to hide their English translations.

I've also started trying to seriously read the news, although at this point in time, it's unnerving because everybody (in like every language, AFAICT) is talking about fucking Ebola in this country (Warning: Potentially controversial (and potentially ridiculous ) political views surrounded by spoiler tags here continue up to the end of this parenthetical note. As if this country was the one where it was the greatest tragedy! As if a continent where thousands of people have already died from it were less important than one country where there are at most a few cases! As if newspapers in e.g. the Arab World didn't have more serious problems to deal with in their own countries!). Oh well, maybe I can find out about what's been going on in Guinea as far as that disease is concerned. That could be an interesting linguistic exercise. (Not that Liberia or Sierra Leone is any less interesting, really).

[Yasna]

Tbh, I don't even intend to until I've at least figured out what I'm going to do for French, Spanish, German, and Mandarin Chinese. Did I mention that I could probably do Duolingo for at least the first three of those, though?

Going by your profile, you seem to be quite advanced in those languages. Why not just use native content (books, movies, news, etc) and a dictionary to improve?

[vijayjohn]

Tbh, I don't even intend to until I've at least figured out what I'm going to do for French, Spanish, German, and Mandarin Chinese. Did I mention that I could probably do Duolingo for at least the first three of those, though?

Going by your profile, you seem to be quite advanced in those languages. Why not just use native content (books, movies, news, etc) and a dictionary to improve?

No particular reason. I think that's part of what I'm thinking of doing.

[Lauren]

Vijay, you should learn Basque!

[vijayjohn]

Yeah, Vijay, she's right. In fact, you should learn everything!

[vijayjohn]

OK, so I have textbooks that I can use for reviewing vocabulary in French, Spanish, German, and Mandarin Chinese, and...well, for Malayalam, I have that forum and...the words I listed on the "last word you learned in your mother tongue" thread here, and also I still have a bunch of post-it notes that my dad wrote me (and that I mentioned earlier) and that often have obscure words in them (sometimes misspelled ). And then I can watch YouTube videos in all of these languages (I haven't seen a whole movie in months probably, so I suggest we start small here...). And I guess there's news although ebola ugh. I'm reading my fifth novel in Malayalam already. I have 改革历程, so that will help with Mandarin. I have something else for German, too. But French and Spanish, hmm...for those two languages, I may just have to look for novels online. (Oh, you know what? I bet there are novels in both languages on Kindle! ). Perhaps I could even reread literature in all of these languages (I think the only languages I've ever read entire novels in other than English are Malayalam and French).

[Koko]

Do you have any languages on your list that you actually don't like? In some way?

[vijayjohn]

I can't think of any languages I don't like, period.

[dEhiN]

You could try FluentU. Meera recommended it to me, and they have French, Spanish, German, and Mandarin (well they list it as Chinese but I'm pretty sure it's Mandarin ).

You can specify your level and then you watch videos, found on Youtube afaik, in that language that have been broken down word-for-word and translated into English. I'm not sure how the videos for advanced speakers are, but for French I put my level as intermediate and it seems pretty accurate. The video I'm going through now is teaching me some new stuff but there's also a fair amount I can understand.

As for news, you could also probably use something like Google News (or another news aggregator) and specify the country you want to focus on. That way you can read the "local" news of a country where that language is native.

[vijayjohn]

You could try FluentU. Meera recommended it to me, and they have French, Spanish, German, and Mandarin (well they list it as Chinese but I'm pretty sure it's Mandarin ).

You can specify your level and then you watch videos, found on Youtube afaik, in that language that have been broken down word-for-word and translated into English. I'm not sure how the videos for advanced speakers are, but for French I put my level as intermediate and it seems pretty accurate. The video I'm going through now is teaching me some new stuff but there's also a fair amount I can understand.

Oh OK. Maybe I'll take a look at that then.

As for news, you could also probably use something like Google News (or another news aggregator) and specify the country you want to focus on. That way you can read the "local" news of a country where that language is native.

Haha yeah, Google News is what I'm using.

[Meera]

You could try FluentU. Meera recommended it to me, and they have French, Spanish, German, and Mandarin (well they list it as Chinese but I'm pretty sure it's Mandarin ).

You can specify your level and then you watch videos, found on Youtube afaik, in that language that have been broken down word-for-word and translated into English. I'm not sure how the videos for advanced speakers are, but for French I put my level as intermediate and it seems pretty accurate. The video I'm going through now is teaching me some new stuff but there's also a fair amount I can understand.

As for news, you could also probably use something like Google News (or another news aggregator) and specify the country you want to focus on. That way you can read the "local" news of a country where that language is native.

Yeah my French teacher told me about FluentU it's really good so far. They are planning on adding Japanese soon I think

[vijayjohn]

So I finally started Duolingo for French just now (because I didn't feel like starting on Russian yet here on UniLang. Haven't looked at FluentU yet, but give me time! ). I took the placement test (actually, I took it twice. The first time, I didn't log in, so the second time, I logged in and did it again in a different browser ); after that, they said I was at Level 11 and gave me 11 lingots. So far, it looks like it has a lot of the usual stuff in language-learning programs, like translation and transcription exercises. Not that I mind any of that because I love playing around with those programs anyway. It can be pretty educational, so I guess we'll see where this leads! I think I'll try placing out of the "Medical" lessons next.

[vijayjohn]

OK, so after I took that placement test, no offense to any fans of Duolingo, but it quickly killed my hopes. I mean, I guess I don't mind doing that kind of stuff, but it's really not the best way to learn a language in my opinion. It's just lots and lots of drills, and it takes forever to get to the next level.