TAC 2016 - Levi (DE, EN, ES, HU, RO)

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Re: TAC 2015 - Levi (DE, EN, ES, HU, RO)

Postby Levike » 2015-05-10, 21:06

That's the best case scenario. I don't know the people who are going to teach me and how patient they'll be.

But at my German interview they said I'm going to be fine, so I'm hanging on to that.

And I'm going to watch a couple of Programming tutorials in German just to be sure.

Thanks for the support. :)

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Re: TAC 2014 - Levi (DE, EN, ES, HU, RO)

Postby vijayjohn » 2015-05-10, 21:32

Levike wrote:A lady from the company where I got my internship called me this week and asked me if I wanted free German courses. Of course I didn't refuse.

This Wednesday I'm going to have a chat with the teacher so she can find out where exactly my level is.

That sounds great, Levike. Good luck!

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Re: TAC 2014 - Levi (DE, EN, ES, HU, RO)

Postby Levike » 2015-05-11, 4:22

vijayjohn wrote:That sounds great, Levike. Good luck!

Thank you. :)

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Re: TAC 2015 - Levi (DE, EN, ES, HU, RO)

Postby Levike » 2015-05-27, 20:50

[flag=]de[/flag]

Today this week I had my 2nd German class and it made me remember the joys of learning languages at school.
Language courses are the only places where you get to have the most non-sense, but funny, conversations.

The teacher had a set of questions that she had to ask each of us and since she was asking everyone we didn't have much time to think about our responses. The outcomes were hilarious.

Teacher: You're going to go away from home and your friend is moving in, what do you advise him to do?
Me: Feed the cat.
Teacher: But Levi, I'm expecting a whole sentence.
Me: My dear friend, would you be so kind to feed my cat?!
Teacher: That's more like it. And why should he feed your cat?
Me: Pffff, 'cause I don't want a dead cat.
Teacher: Is your friend a zuverlassige person?
Me: What's zuverlassig?
Teacher: Responsable.
Me: He's going to burn the house down.

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Re: TAC 2015 - Levi (DE, EN, ES, HU, RO)

Postby dEhiN » 2015-05-28, 18:38

Hey Levike, hope you don't mind if I correct 2 minor things; not trying to be a perfectionist or anything but I figure since this is UL and the point is to improve our languages....

Levike wrote:[flag=]de[/flag]

Today this week I had my 2nd German class and it made me remember the joys of learning languages at school.
Language courses are the only places where you get to have the most non-sense (nonsensical is the adjectival form and sounds better here), but funny, conversations.

The teacher had a set of questions that she had to ask each of us and since she was asking everyone we didn't have much time to think about our responses. The outcomes were hilarious.

Teacher: You're going to go away from home and your friend is moving in, what do you advise him to do?
Me: Feed the cat.
Teacher: But Levi, I'm expecting a whole sentence.
Me: My dear friend, would you be so kind to feed my cat?!
Teacher: That's more like it. And why should he feed your cat?
Me: Pffff, 'cause I don't want a dead cat.
Teacher: Is your friend a zuverlassige person?
Me: What's zuverlassig?
Teacher: Responsable. (Responsible. Responsable est la forme française!)
Me: He's going to burn the house down.
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Re: TAC 2015 - Levi (DE, EN, ES, HU, RO)

Postby Levike » 2015-05-28, 18:55

dEhiN wrote:Hey Levike, hope you don't mind if I correct 2 minor things;

Thanks, I appreciate any correction. :)

Teacher: Responsable. (Responsible. Responsable est la forme française!)
Me: He's going to burn the house down.

That was a Romanian interference. I first wrote "responsabil", but then corrected it to "responsable".

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Re: TAC 2015 - Levi (DE, EN, ES, HU, RO)

Postby dEhiN » 2015-05-28, 19:06

Speaking of Romanian, for the past 3 months I've been listening to a lot of Romanian radio. I listen to a station called Radio Hit Romania, which plays a mix of Romanian and English pop music with sometimes French or Spanish songs thrown in. I have forced myself to not learn any words in Romanian, so it's funny being able to sing some of the lyrics without knowing what they mean! :D
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Re: TAC 2015 - Levi (DE, EN, ES, HU, RO)

Postby Levike » 2015-07-06, 10:54

Things have been going well lately. :)

[flag=]de[/flag]

My German has been advancing, still a B1/B2, but I feel that I can understand better now.

I've been watching a couple of German youtubers and even though there were always some weird words I always understood what they were talking about.

And right now for a couple of days I've been talking to my German ableitungsleiter (however you call that) on mail and until now every discussion has been in German, so I'm very happy even though the English temptation is very strong with me.

My greatest fear is that once I get into the country I'm gonna go full "English bitte!" on everyone.

[flag=]en[/flag]

The university's requested me to take an English exam in order to find out where my current level is, it took some hours, but I've got my results back and they are:

Key Communication Phases - C1
Vocabulary - C2
Grammar - C1
Listening Comprehension - C1
Reading Comprehension - B2

So overall it's a C1, which is good I guess...

I was sure that I was going to get a B2 or B1, because literally every part of the test was filled with idioms, expressions and such, but seemingly my not-so-educated guesses got good results. I'm happy for the vocabulary.

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Re: TAC 2015 - Levi (DE, EN, ES, HU, RO)

Postby dEhiN » 2015-07-06, 14:44

Levike wrote:[flag=]en[/flag]

The university's requested me to take an English exam in order to find out wherewhat my current level is,; it took somea few hours, but I've got my results back and they are:

Key Communication Phases - C1
Vocabulary - C2
Grammar - C1
Listening Comprehension - C1
Reading Comprehension - B2

So overall it's a C1, which is good I guess...

I was sure that I was going to get a B2 or B1, because literally every part of the test was filled with idioms, expressions and such, but seemingly my not-so-educated guesses got good results. I'm happy for the vocabulary.

Congratulations! What did they test you on for the Key Communication Phrases?

Since this happened in the past, you don't need to use has requested, just simply requested. And if you want to use where, you need the preposition at - ...in order to find out where my current level is at. Also, the phrase it took some hours sounds a bit unnatural. I would probably say it took a few hours or simply it took a while. You could also say it took a bit (of time). Oh and did you mean to say the test took a few hours, or it took a few hours/some time to get the results back? Because based on what you wrote, I thought you meant the results came back in a few hours.
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Re: TAC 2015 - Levi (DE, EN, ES, HU, RO)

Postby IpseDixit » 2015-07-06, 14:53

dEhiN wrote:Me: My dear friend, would you be so kind to feed my cat?!


Shouldn't it be "so kind as to feed my cat"?

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Re: TAC 2015 - Levi (DE, EN, ES, HU, RO)

Postby dEhiN » 2015-07-06, 14:57

IpseDixit wrote:
dEhiN wrote:Me: My dear friend, would you be so kind to feed my cat?!


Shouldn't it be "so kind as to feed my cat"?

Yes it should! I totally missed that. Although I could see a native speaker being lazy and dropping as. I've been noticing that a bit more and more - native speakers dropping prepositions when the meaning of the sentence would still be understood, even if it's grammatically incorrect.
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Re: TAC 2015 - Levi (DE, EN, ES, HU, RO)

Postby Levike » 2015-07-06, 15:26

dEhiN wrote:Congratulations!

Thanks. :D

What did they test you on for the Key Communication Phrases?

I think this was the part with a lot of expressions and idioms.

I don't really remember, 'cause it was on a computer and every part had almost the same structure, like sentences with blank spaces to fill in, or guessing which sentences are correct grammatically, multiple choices, etc. Plus the listening/reading parts had like 8-10 recordings/texts attached to them.

I was happy that the recordings were in British English and that the subjects were recent.
(ex: kicking Greece out of the Eurozone :twisted: )

When studying in Poland the recordings were always diverse (not just BBC-like English), I always disliked when we were listening to Scottish women being interviewed, those rrrrrr's drive me crazy.

Oh and did you mean to say the test took a few hours, or it took a few hours/some time to get the results back? Because based on what you wrote, I thought you meant the results came back in a few hours.

Both actually.

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Re: TAC 2015 - Levi (DE, EN, ES, HU, RO)

Postby dEhiN » 2015-07-07, 3:16

Levike wrote:
dEhiN wrote:Oh and did you mean to say the test took a few hours, or it took a few hours/some time to get the results back? Because based on what you wrote, I thought you meant the results came back in a few hours.

Both actually.

Then I think I would say it this way: The university wanted me to take an English exam in order to find out what my current level is; it took a few hours and after a bit I got my results back, and they are:

The reason I would use 'and' and two time expressions is to show that the former relates to how long the test took, while the latter to how long it took to get the results. To me, any combination of one or two time expressions but using the conjunction 'but' implies that the time relates only to the results. For example, if I heard "...it took a few hours, but after some time I got my results back..." that would still say to me you're only talking about the time for the results.
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Re: TAC 2015 - Levi (DE, EN, ES, HU, RO)

Postby Levike » 2015-07-16, 19:40

[flag=]de[/flag] Yeah, I'm in Germany. :partyhat:

It is really cool to speak the language, until now nobody tried to switch with me to English which is a good sign.
Obviously they all realise at my first word that I'm foreign, but I think they enjoy it.

I have two roommates, they are both German, so maybe that will give me a boost.
They are both very nice and friendly.

They are both more talkative than me though, which I wouldn't have expected. 'Cause you know, German stereotypes.

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Re: TAC 2015 - Levi (DE, EN, ES, HU, RO)

Postby dEhiN » 2015-07-17, 2:20

Levike wrote:[flag=]de[/flag] Yeah, I'm in Germany. :partyhat:

Have fun!

It is really cool to speak the language, until now nobody tried to switch with me to English which is a good sign.

That's good.

I have two roommates, they are both German, so maybe that will give me a boost.
They are both very nice and friendly.

They are both more talkative than me though, which I wouldn't have expected. 'Cause you know, German stereotypes.

Haha :rotfl:
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Re: TAC 2015 - Levi (DE, EN, ES, HU, RO)

Postby Levike » 2015-08-11, 18:49

[flag=]de[/flag] 1. Today I had to make my first presentation. :mrgreen:

At 12 o'clock I was told that I have to make a review of my activity at the company and a presentation of the applications that I was working on. My first reaction was "Oh n-n-n-nein, auf keinen Fall", more because I was petrified that I have to make a 30 minutes long presentation in German.

But it went well, luckily they understood everything I said, they even put questions at the end. I still talked more slowly than my other colleagues (they're German, duh), 'cause I had to overthink my sentences, but I'm glad I got my message through.

When we were going back to the office my supervisor and the other intern said bravo, which felt very good. :oops:

2. A week ago I had to move (the contract was until the end of July), there I was living with 2 German guys, roughly my age, a bit older, but they were very fun and now I'm living with a French woman who's French accent is even more audible than my Hungarian one. :ohwell:

It's all fun and games until we have to talk about serious business.
Today I was attempting to use the washing machine for the first time and she offered to help me. It took 15 minutes until she explained everything, 'cause every third sentence coming from either one of us was either "Was?" or "Quoi?".

It's fun living with her though, for this exact same reason.

Koko

Re: TAC 2015 - Levi (DE, EN, ES, HU, RO)

Postby Koko » 2015-08-11, 19:22

Just a small correction to sound more natural:
I was sure that I was going to get a B2 or B1, because literally every part of the test was filled with idioms, expressions and such, but it seems my not-so-educated guesses got (me) good results. I'm happy for the vocabulary.


If you want to use "seemingly" (which isn't often heard in a case such as this IME), you'd have to put it somewhere right beside the verb. Where it had been was totally awkward for me to annunciate, and even so, it's still a little weird to use it instead of "it seems" or even "my not-so-educated guesses seem to have gotten (me) good results." Also, for me, to say "got me good results" is more natural too.

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Re: TAC 2015 - Levi (DE, EN, ES, HU, RO)

Postby Levike » 2015-08-11, 19:35

Koko wrote:Just a small correction to sound more natural.

Grazie. :wink:

Koko

Re: TAC 2015 - Levi (DE, EN, ES, HU, RO)

Postby Koko » 2015-08-11, 19:41

Cu plăcere/Szívesen!

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Re: TAC 2015 - Levi (DE, EN, ES, HU, RO)

Postby dEhiN » 2015-08-11, 19:43

Good corrections Koko; totally missed those when I was reading that post. Levike, a couple more:

Levike wrote:At 12 o'clock I was told that I havehad to make a review of my activity at the company and a presentation of the applications that I was working on. My first reaction was "Oh n-n-n-nein, auf keinen Fall", more because I was petrified that I havehad to make a 30 minutes long presentation in German.

But it went well,; luckily they understood everything I said, they even putasked questions at the end. I was still talkedtalking more slowly than my other colleagues (they're German, duh), 'cause I had to overthink my sentences, but I'm glad I got my message through.

When we were going back to the office my supervisor and the other intern (both) said bravo, which felt very good. :oops:

2. A week ago I had to move (the contract was until the end of July),; there I was living with 2 German guys, roughly my age, a bit older, but they were very fun and now I'm living with a French woman who's French accent is even more audible than my Hungarian one. :ohwell:

It's all fun and games until we have to talk about serious businessthings.
Today I was attempting to use the washing machine for the first time and she offered to help me. It took 15 minutes until she explainedfor her to explain (or simply: to explain) everything, 'cause every third sentence coming from either one of us was either "Was?" or "Quoi?".

It's fun living with her though, for this exact same reason.

The first 2 corrections were grammatical ones; you needed to use the past tense since your whole explanation is about a past event. The rest of the corrections are ways to write more naturally in English. One thing: you use commas in places where English would use semicolons. The general rule in English is a semicolon is used when you are making a new point. Essentially in places where you could use a period and start a new sentence, if you instead want to continue the same sentence, use a semicolon. Use a comma when just adding information to the existing point, or to give a breath to the reader.

Also where I added "both": it's not necessary and technically redundant when adding it, but I do a lot of times and I've heard others do it as well. I think it's one of those redundancy things in any language that we do just to be more explicit. And with "business": I know what you meant, but in general business is used more for workplace or professional situations, and general life situations that are serious would take a word like "things" (or "stuff" in an informal, spoken context). Oh and I forgot, I changed "still talked" to "still was talking" because the context is a span of time - the whole presentation. You could use the simple past and it would work fine conceptually/grammatically, but the past progressive is, I think, more natural.
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