TAC 2017 - vijayjohn

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Re: TAC 2017 - vijayjohn

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-04-01, 6:54

I retook a bunch of the language tests I had used earlier to determine my proficiency in various languages, and I've found that I seem to have improved in all of them to some extent. This does not seem to reflect a significant change in most cases, but both my Portuguese and my Italian seem to have been bumped up to a 3-star level. It's funny that I've become comfortable enough in Italian over the years to achieve such a high score for it on a proficiency test because I've never actively studied it since my first semester of college. It may have something to do with hearing Italian spoken around me a lot at work.

Incidentally, I also got every single question for the French test right! I still think my French has a long way to go before being native-like or anything, though. :P My listening comprehension sucks sometimes, and I keep having to look things up and make grammar mistakes. I also got almost every question for German right, but that's not really news. It always strikes me as weird how difficult it can be for me to take tests for Spanish, though, because I intuitively feel a lot more comfortable with Spanish than with most of my other languages. I wonder whether maybe this particular test for Spanish had some Spain/Castillian-specific usages that were throwing me off.

If these results are accurate, then this already means that I have almost as many 3-star languages as 2-star ones in my TAC.

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Re: TAC 2017 - vijayjohn

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-05-30, 4:56

I just recently came to realize that my Mandarin Chinese listening comprehension currently sucks and that there's generally just a lot of vocabulary I have both to review and to learn. My grammar isn't all that great, either, IMO. I'm watching bits of Raise the Red Lantern (大红灯笼高高挂) to learn new words and help improve my listening comprehension at the same time. I think it's also helping me to learn some new syntactic constructions, like 想明白 xiǎng míngbái 'to think something over' at the very beginning of the movie (the first quote in the movie is 娘,你不要再说了! 你已经给我说了三天, 我也想明白了。 'Mom, stop talking! You've already been talking to me for three days, and I've thought it over, too’).

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Re: TAC 2017 - vijayjohn

Postby OldBoring » 2017-05-30, 6:42

I wouldn't say "talk" but "talk about it", as in "stop talking about it (whatever topic they are talking about), since you've already been talking about it for three days".
And I didn't know the construction "think over it".

Personally, I don't think it's helpful to learn Chinese by translating every new expression you learn. I like to think about it like math. 想明白 is made of two verbs, think and understand, and when you put them together, they basically mean:

think ------> understand

To think about something till you understand it.

P.S. Isn't it 跟我说了 and not 给我说了?

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Re: TAC 2017 - vijayjohn

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-05-30, 8:08

OldBoring wrote:I wouldn't say "talk" but "talk about it", as in "stop talking about it (whatever topic they are talking about), since you've already been talking about it for three days".

That's true; she didn't say 说话, just 说.
And I didn't know the construction "think over it".

Think it over ;) Yeah, it's basically another more formal and precise but somewhat less common way of saying "think about it" when you don't just mean "think about it for a second" but rather "ponder it/pause and take some time to think through the issue we're talking about."
Personally, I don't think it's helpful to learn Chinese by translating every new expression you learn. I like to think about it like math. 想明白 is made of two verbs, think and understand, and when you put them together, they basically mean:

think ------> understand

To think about something till you understand it.

Well, sure, the meaning makes sense that way, but I'm afraid the problem with just thinking of that as two verbs is that 想 can also be used to mean 'to want'. If I didn't know that 想明白 was a fixed expression at least, I'd think it meant 'to want to understand'.

Also, I'm not sure this always works. For expression, the next expression used in this movie that I'm unfamiliar with is 由得了. How do you make sense of that? :hmm:
P.S. Isn't it 跟我说了 and not 给我说了?

That might be what she actually says; it does sound to me like she might have said nǐ yǐjīng gēn wǒ shuō le sān tiān (le?). You can see for yourself (at the very beginning of the whole movie lol):

https://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNTU5NjQ4Mjg0.html?spm=a2h1n.8261147.0.0

The subs (in the version of this video I've been watching) are in Traditional Chinese and English and are throwing me off because they actually say 妳都給我說了三天了 and "You've been talking for three days."

In this context, she's talking about her mother (or rather stepmother) telling her that she needs to get married (her full line is supposed to be "娘,你不要再说了! 你都给我说了三天了, 我也想明白了。 嫁人就嫁人吧!"). Maybe 给 makes it sound like her stepmother is doing her a favor by talking about that? Or it could have something to do with the fact that the movie is set in the 1920s. Idk.

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Re: TAC 2017 - vijayjohn

Postby ich » 2017-06-16, 7:25

vijayjohn wrote:I retook a bunch of the language tests I had used earlier to determine my proficiency in various languages,

That sounds like fun! Would you mind me asking which language tests you took? Are they tests that anyone is able to take?

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Re: TAC 2017 - vijayjohn

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-06-16, 7:44

ich wrote:
vijayjohn wrote:I retook a bunch of the language tests I had used earlier to determine my proficiency in various languages,

That sounds like fun! Would you mind me asking which language tests you took? Are they tests that anyone is able to take?

Oh, sure. They're these. Cesare M. introduced me to them years ago, so I started using them because I didn't know how else I could possibly quantify how much I knew.

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Re: TAC 2017 - vijayjohn

Postby ich » 2017-06-17, 1:54

Thanks for the link! I have already taken two today. These are great! I will write my results in my TAC thread.

księżycowy

Re: TAC 2017 - vijayjohn

Postby księżycowy » 2017-06-17, 1:58

I have no idea about any of the other tests, though I imagine they are of similar quality, but the Japanese test is a joke. But I suppose it's good for a rough guestimate.

I managed to score an "intermediate" score on the Japanese, even though my skill level is pretty much "beginner." (However they are defining those terms.)

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Re: TAC 2017 - vijayjohn

Postby eskandar » 2017-08-30, 7:52

Vijay bhai, thought you would dig this article.
Please correct my mistakes in any language.

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Re: TAC 2017 - vijayjohn

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-08-30, 8:00

Wow, I think I'll send that to my dad and brother! (At least. Maybe some other relatives, too).

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Re: TAC 2017 - vijayjohn

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-09-14, 6:20

Time for another TAC round! Yay!

So, my intention is to do these in this order:
► Show Spoiler

But I'm kind of toying with the idea of trying another sign language, too! :o Earlier, I had said FSL...but what if I made it interesting and tried something completely unrelated to ASL, like Nicaraguan Sign Language (Idioma de Señas de Nicaragua, ISN)?? Obviously, learning ISN wouldn't be practical for finding people to sign with, but it could be really interesting in terms of learning about how diverse sign languages can be, and at least I already sort of know how to sign "Fidel Castro" and "the Statue of Liberty" in it. :P Another downside, though, would be that there's probably no sign language with more resources than ASL...but then again, does it matter? :twisted:

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Re: TAC 2017 - vijayjohn

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-09-14, 20:00

And of course the first thing I do in the South Asian languages forum once I decide to do something involving Malayalam is post eight songs in Sinhalese. :ohwell:

Maybe I'll post a new lesson tonight, though. Hopefully! (But only after posting songs in Tamil first! And I probably move on to Mandarin Chinese without posting songs in Kannada, Tulu, and Telugu...and maybe Marathi and Bengali. And maybe even Oriya and Assamese. :para: Oh, and of course, all the Bengali songs have to be from Tripura).

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Re: TAC 2017 - vijayjohn

Postby dEhiN » 2017-09-14, 20:29

vijayjohn wrote:And of course the first thing I do in the South Asian languages forum once I decide to do something involving Malayalam is post eight songs in Sinhalese. :ohwell:

Maybe I'll post a new lesson tonight, though. Hopefully! (But only after posting songs in Tamil first! And I probably move on to Mandarin Chinese without posting songs in Kannada, Tulu, and Telugu...and maybe Marathi and Bengali. And maybe even Oriya and Assamese. :para: Oh, and of course, all the Bengali songs have to be from Tripura).

Nurse: Doctor this patient has got a very bad case of LIDS. It's the worst I've ever seen.
Doctor: I know Nurse; I'm afraid there's nothing we can do for him except make him comfortable and let this disease play out to its bitter end. ... Damn, fucking LIDS. Why do they always have to be so young?!
Native: (en-ca)
Active: (fr)(es)(pt-br)(ta-lk)(mi)(sq)(tl)
Inactive: (de)(ja)(yue)(oj)(id)(hu)(pl)(tr)(hi)(zh)(sv)(ko)(no)(it)(haw)(fy)(nl)(nah)(gl)(ro)(cy)(oc)(an)(sr)(en_old)(got)(sux)(grc)(la)(sgn-us)

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Re: TAC 2017 - vijayjohn

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-09-14, 21:04

dEhiN wrote:
vijayjohn wrote:And of course the first thing I do in the South Asian languages forum once I decide to do something involving Malayalam is post eight songs in Sinhalese. :ohwell:

Maybe I'll post a new lesson tonight, though. Hopefully! (But only after posting songs in Tamil first! And I probably move on to Mandarin Chinese without posting songs in Kannada, Tulu, and Telugu...and maybe Marathi and Bengali. And maybe even Oriya and Assamese. :para: Oh, and of course, all the Bengali songs have to be from Tripura).

Nurse: Doctor this patient has got a very bad case of LIDS. It's the worst I've ever seen.
Doctor: I know Nurse; I'm afraid there's nothing we can do for him except make him comfortable and let this disease play out to its bitter end. ... Damn, fucking LIDS. Why do they always have to be so young?!

Patient: You think that's bad? Did I mention Papuan languages and ISN?

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Re: TAC 2017 - vijayjohn

Postby dEhiN » 2017-09-15, 3:08

vijayjohn wrote:Patient: You think that's bad? Did I mention Papuan languages and ISN?

What's ISN?
Native: (en-ca)
Active: (fr)(es)(pt-br)(ta-lk)(mi)(sq)(tl)
Inactive: (de)(ja)(yue)(oj)(id)(hu)(pl)(tr)(hi)(zh)(sv)(ko)(no)(it)(haw)(fy)(nl)(nah)(gl)(ro)(cy)(oc)(an)(sr)(en_old)(got)(sux)(grc)(la)(sgn-us)

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Re: TAC 2017 - vijayjohn

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-09-15, 3:16

dEhiN wrote:
vijayjohn wrote:Patient: You think that's bad? Did I mention Papuan languages and ISN?

What's ISN?

Three posts earlier, I wrote:Nicaraguan Sign Language (Idioma de Señas de Nicaragua, ISN)

;)

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Re: TAC 2017 - vijayjohn

Postby dEhiN » 2017-09-15, 3:44

vijayjohn wrote:
dEhiN wrote:
vijayjohn wrote:Patient: You think that's bad? Did I mention Papuan languages and ISN?

What's ISN?

Three posts earlier, I wrote:Nicaraguan Sign Language (Idioma de Señas de Nicaragua, ISN)

;)

How was I to know you make an acronym out of a non English name?! If you had written NSL, I might've gotten it! :evil: :D
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Re: TAC 2017 - vijayjohn

Postby Osias » 2017-09-15, 3:55

We do that all the time in Brazil. We say DNA instead of ADN, AIDS instead of SIDA, even USA sometimes.
2017 est l'année du (fr) et de l'(de) pour moi. Parle avec moi en eux, s'il te plait.

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Re: TAC 2017 - vijayjohn

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-09-15, 4:15

dEhiN wrote:How was I to know you make an acronym out of a non English name?!

By looking it up because it's not just me. ;) That's just the abbreviation for Nicaraguan Sign Language that's most widely used AFAICT. Wikipedia consistently uses that in its article on ISN.

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Re: TAC 2017 - vijayjohn

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-09-16, 5:12

Well, I went through my first two languages pretty quick. There's nothing to do in Chinese now that OldBoring isn't all that active here on UniLang anymore. He was the last native speaker of Chinese who was. :( I guess I'll just move on to French then.


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