Saim's log 2017-2019

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Re: Saim's log 2017-2018

Postby Saim » 2018-11-06, 20:54

Merci !

Com c'est catalan. :lol: J'espère que les autres "qui/que" soient bien, c'est une chose qui m'a été très difficile de maîtriser.

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Re: Saim's log 2017-2018

Postby dEhiN » 2018-11-06, 21:55

Saim wrote:Merci !

De rien!

Saim wrote:Com c'est catalan.

C'est aussi português!

Saim wrote:J'espère que les autres "qui/que" soient bien, c'est une chose qui m'a été très difficile de maîtriser.

Je dirais « J'espère que les autres "qui/que" (que j'utilisaient) soient corrects, c'est une chose qui me donnait beaucoup de difficulté de maîtriser. »
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Re: Saim's log 2017-2018

Postby vijayjohn » 2018-11-12, 7:22

Saim wrote:富二代 nouveau riche
一代 generation
富户 rich family
户外 outside
代价 cost

Jesus Christ, I have never seen most of these expressions before. :shock:
I got TV installed and got the cheapest package without really looking very closely at what channels are available. I thought I would get Deutsch Welle, but actually it's some "DW" which is in English (why would I watch Deutsch Welle in English, what's the point?)

Wait, are you sure? From what I remember seeing of Deutsche Welle on TV (I think it was in India that I witnessed this, probably at my late grandma's house), they have programming in different languages at different times of the day. :hmm:
at least I have 112 Україна, which is in a mix of Ukrainian and Russian, which actually makes it more interesting to watch.

That reminds me of r/ukraina.

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Re: Saim's log 2017-2018

Postby Saim » 2018-11-12, 9:03

vijayjohn wrote:Wait, are you sure? From what I remember seeing of Deutsche Welle on TV (I think it was in India that I witnessed this, probably at my late grandma's house), they have programming in different languages at different times of the day. :hmm:


Yes. I have this channel:

http://www.cyfrowypolsat.pl/redir/progr ... .cp?chN=dw

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Re: Saim's log 2017-2018

Postby OldBoring » 2018-11-15, 13:19

富二代 is not nouveau riche, but literally "2nd generation rich", as in someone born already rich because their parents made a fortune. Like Trump.
Nouveau riche is 暴发户.

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Re: Saim's log 2017-2018

Postby Car » 2018-11-15, 13:52

Saim wrote:
vijayjohn wrote:Wait, are you sure? From what I remember seeing of Deutsche Welle on TV (I think it was in India that I witnessed this, probably at my late grandma's house), they have programming in different languages at different times of the day. :hmm:


Yes. I have this channel:

http://www.cyfrowypolsat.pl/redir/progr ... .cp?chN=dw

There are different DW versions, but the one you should have is in English indeed.
Please correct my mistakes!

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Re: Saim's log 2017-2018

Postby Saim » 2018-11-18, 8:21

Urdu

I've been watching live news streams on YouTube -- I can't exaggerate how much easier this makes to listen to the news than having to go and load a video somewhere else on my internet browser (like if I want to listen to RTS Dnevnik or TVP Wiadomości). It's something I can do every day, and I've realised that even though I miss some key words here and there I can generally understand enough to enjoy it. I'm not bothering to look up any of the new words, unless something is really bothering me or was said several times over a programme. I think I'll keep doing this to make sure I'm still in contact with the language, and then do some reading where I do focus on new vocabulary once a week or once every two weeks to make sure I'm still explicitly learning new words.

I think the fact that I've spread myself out along someone languages has made me neglect extensive listening, so I think that's something I'll do for some of my stronger-but-not-exactly-fluent languages (namely Urdu, French, Hungarian; maybe I'll throw some Portuguese in there as well). I'll also try and spend a bit more time listening to Serbian on YouTube (thankfully Al Jazeera has a live stream in Serbian!).

dEhiN wrote:C'est aussi português!


Bien, pas exactement. En catalan com veut dire comme, et les deux mots ont une pronunciation presque identique (representée dans l'API par la transcription /kɔm/, même s'il y a une différence notable dans la prononciation exacte du /ɔ/). En português com veut dire avec et la prononciation est plus proche au mot con en français.

dEhiN wrote:
Saim wrote:J'espère que les autres "qui/que" soient bien, c'est une chose qui m'a été très difficile de maîtriser.

Je dirais « J'espère que les autres "qui/que" (que j'utilisaient) soient corrects, c'est une chose qui me donnait beaucoup de difficulté de maîtriser. »


En revanche, je dirais que l'ajout de que j'utilisais (et non pas utilisaient; le sujet dans la phrase c'est moi, pas les qui/que) est une précision superflue, et j'ai trouvé beaucoup d'exemples de l'expression il m'a été difficile de sur Internet. Il est toutefois possible que l'usage de bien avec le sens de correct soit incorrect ici, tu as probablement raison.

OldBoring wrote:富二代 is not nouveau riche, but literally "2nd generation rich", as in someone born already rich because their parents made a fortune. Like Trump.
Nouveau riche is 暴发户.


Thanks for the note! Maybe this is just me, but I wouldn't personally make this differentiation in my idiolect. I would certainly call someone raised in a noveau riche family noveau riche, because those are the values and attitudes they grew up with. I've also heard Trump described as noveau riche before if I'm not misremembering something.

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Re: Saim's log 2017-2018

Postby Luís » 2018-11-18, 10:31

dEhiN wrote:
Saim wrote:J'espère que les autres "qui/que" soient bien, c'est une chose qui m'a été très difficile de maîtriser.

Je dirais « J'espère que les autres "qui/que" (que j'utilisaient) soient corrects, c'est une chose qui me donnait beaucoup de difficulté de maîtriser. »


This is a very common mistake (especially for people who speak Spanish or Portuguese), but in French you don't use the subjunctive after espérer
Quot linguas calles, tot homines vales

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Re: Saim's log 2017-2018

Postby Saim » 2018-11-18, 10:40

Luís wrote:
dEhiN wrote:
Saim wrote:J'espère que les autres "qui/que" soient bien, c'est une chose qui m'a été très difficile de maîtriser.

Je dirais « J'espère que les autres "qui/que" (que j'utilisaient) soient corrects, c'est une chose qui me donnait beaucoup de difficulté de maîtriser. »


This is a very common mistake (especially for people who speak Spanish or Portuguese), but in French you don't use the subjunctive after espérer


Merci !

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Re: Saim's log 2017-2018

Postby Saim » 2018-11-20, 11:39

German

I just watched these two videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LEXgu3JKaQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQNR0cgd5bg&t=425s

...and I'm honestly shocked at how much I am able to understand despite my fairly long hiatus from real German study (most of my concentrated effort was in August and September, and a bit in October). I think adding almost 300 sentence cards with audio since around late June has definitely helped me maintain the language even during the break from active study since Anki has been giving me German revision pretty much every day, and I think it helped me start to assimilate some of German's complex morphology (it seems pointless to separate it from the syntax), but I think I'll take a break from adding cards for the time being and just listen to interesting content here and there when I feel like it (I'm not in any rush to speak German well, slowly learning to understand it is good enough for the time being). Maybe if I hit another plateau I'll start adding cards again to help me push out of it.

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Re: Saim's log 2017-2018

Postby OldBoring » 2018-11-20, 14:23

Saim wrote:
OldBoring wrote:富二代 is not nouveau riche, but literally "2nd generation rich", as in someone born already rich because their parents made a fortune. Like Trump.
Nouveau riche is 暴发户.


Thanks for the note! Maybe this is just me, but I wouldn't personally make this differentiation in my idiolect. I would certainly call someone raised in a noveau riche family noveau riche, because those are the values and attitudes they grew up with. I've also heard Trump described as noveau riche before if I'm not misremembering something.

The focus is not whether they came from a nouveau riche family or not.
But whether if that person has earned all the money by themself or if he was already born rich because their parents are rich.
This is an important distinction in a society that highly values meritocracy such as the Chinese one.

So Trump is a 富二代. His father was a 暴发户.

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Re: Saim's log 2017-2018

Postby Saim » 2018-11-28, 11:16

Hebrew

I tried listening to a couple of Hebrew news streams, which made me realise that my comprehension is quite low at least for some registers of Hebrew. I think the idea I had two years ago that I was anywhere near B2 is laughable now; I think I just got excited that I had such a solid B1 that I could talk rather fluently about a limited set of topics, but the moment I stepped out of that range my Hebrew would fall apart. Now it's coming along a fair bit but I think I need to specifically get a hang on journalistic language so that I can understand enough of news streams that I don't find them boring. This will make it easier to find material for extensive listening (we can't only do intensive activities, can we?).

What I'll do is read through several paragraphs of a Hebrew news article and highlight every word I'm unsure of in Readlang. Then I'll pick the five most relevant or interesting (so they can be relatively uncommon, sometimes those words are important to learn too) of those words to create Anki cards for (recognition sentence cards for audio). I'll try and do this every week although it's not likely I'll be able to manage it. A similar method has done wonders for my extensive reading and listening skills in German and Urdu so hopefully it'll work for Hebrew as well. I have been making cards for Hebrew but I've mostly gotten my input from TV shows, which I can kind of get the gist of already so maybe it's time to move onto a medium I have more trouble with.

Polish (+Romance)

I've gotten less hard on myself regarding my Polish level; my Polish is massively better than a year ago and that's all that matters. I need to stop comparing my knowledge of Polish (or Serbian) to Catalan or Spanish: I've realised that even after my three years in Catalonia I would still make loads of mistakes and mix up Catalan and Spanish, and I kept learning quite a lot even after I left so there's no rush to get to a very solid C2 before I leave Poland. I've also learned much more Hungarian (my best 'non-fluent' language) in the past couple of years than I did Polish before I moved here (my best 'non-fluent' language at that point), so I think I've gotten better (or more disciplined?) at learning languages in general. I used to get frustrated at how much trouble I have writing other Slavic languages (Russian, etc.) and felt that it's because Polish and even Serbian still don't come naturally to me but come to think of it writing Romance languages other than es/ca took ages to get a hang on and I of course still make mistakes, so this'll come with time I guess.

Speaking of which, I've realised that writing Italian, Portuguese and French is much more intuitive for me than it used to be. Even if I don't know how to say something I find it easier to look up and then remember the correct word/construction. I of course still make mistakes but I have the feeling my texts aren't the same Catalan/Spanish calquefests that they used to be.

I have been watching some TV in the evenings, though, even sitting through the torture of watching American movies z lektorem (I turn the subtitles on as well so I get less confused by hearing English and Polish at the same time).

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Re: Saim's log 2017-2018

Postby Saim » 2018-12-09, 23:57

I adore my Chinese cards and hate my Bulgarian and Slovak cards. I think if I really want to study the latter two adding phrases from textbooks is overkill, I should just read and listen and occasionally try to write short comments. I also deleted all my French and Italian cards after importing them back into Anki, it's a waste of time and distracts from the languages that Anki is a better supplement for.

I've started watching videos on the channel "Spoken Arabic Simplified". I watch them again and again with and without subtitles/focusing on the transcription as a listening comprehension exercise. This is actually a low-effort exercise because I don't have to type or open the dictionary. At some point I should watch that Levantine series that's on Netflix.

I've also gone back to those learner's magazines for German and French (and will probably do the same for Russian and Italian). I've realised that listening comprehension exercises work better when you do a listen through in the target language without consulting any sort of notes or translation. Who knew my language teachers were all right.

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Re: Saim's log 2017-2018

Postby voron » 2018-12-10, 0:35

Saim wrote:I've started watching videos on the channel "Spoken Arabic Simplified"

That girl makes me super envious.

At some point I should watch that Levantine series that's on Netflix.

What's its name?

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Re: Saim's log 2017-2018

Postby langmon » 2018-12-10, 8:14

Saim wrote:Speaking of which, I've realised that writing Italian, Portuguese and French is much more intuitive for me than it used to be. Even if I don't know how to say something I find it easier to look up and then remember the correct word/construction. I of course still make mistakes but I have the feeling my texts aren't the same Catalan/Spanish calquefests that they used to be.


Did that IT/PT/FR breakthrough happen gradually, or was it more of a One Time Blast that appeared All of Sudden Out of Thin Air? And how did you get there?
this is a reboot

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Re: Saim's log 2017-2018

Postby eskandar » 2018-12-10, 15:41

Saim wrote:I've started watching videos on the channel "Spoken Arabic Simplified".

Thanks for the recommendation, this is great. She is so easy to understand!
Please correct my mistakes in any language.

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Re: Saim's log 2017-2018

Postby voron » 2018-12-10, 16:20

eskandar wrote:
Saim wrote:I've started watching videos on the channel "Spoken Arabic Simplified".

Thanks for the recommendation, this is great. She is so easy to understand!

She is not a native speaker, but her Arabic is flawless. People in the comments say she sounds native.

(I saw videos with this girl long time ago, she also has a video where she speaks Italian with a near-native accent, but I didn't know she made a channel for those who study Arabic).

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Re: Saim's log 2017-2018

Postby langmon » 2018-12-10, 16:49

voron wrote:
eskandar wrote:
Saim wrote:I've started watching videos on the channel "Spoken Arabic Simplified".

Thanks for the recommendation, this is great. She is so easy to understand!
She is not a native speaker, but her Arabic is flawless. People in the comments say she sounds native.
(I saw videos with this girl long time ago, she also has a video where she speaks Italian with a near-native accent, but I didn't know she made a channel for those who study Arabic).

Any idea how she got a near-native accent? Because simply "mimicking" (for the lack of a better expression) native speakers usually wouldn't be enough.
this is a reboot

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Re: Saim's log 2017-2018

Postby Saim » 2018-12-12, 13:42

voron wrote:That girl makes me super envious.


That she's a home-language speaker of Hebrew who then studied Arabic at university? :P

At some point I should watch that Levantine series that's on Netflix.

What's its name?


الهيبة.


SomehowGeekyPolyglot wrote:Did that IT/PT/FR breakthrough happen gradually, or was it more of a One Time Blast that appeared All of Sudden Out of Thin Air? And how did you get there?


I feel like it's mainly because of many years of exposure, but the reason I've noticed my progress now is because I put in a concerted effort to improve my active production by writing short comments and doing translation exercises. I also have a lot more French, Italian and Portuguese in my Facebook feed since I actively went looking for it a couple of months ago so I have it all fresh in my mind, I guess.

eskandar wrote:Thanks for the recommendation, this is great. She is so easy to understand!


I could've sworn I'd talked about her before on this forum! I'd just never had the time/motivation to use these videos much, but now I feel like this is just the sort of thing I can repeatedly listen to without having to look at the dictionary since the translation is already there, so it's not about fully decyphering an incomprehensible text as it normally is with Arabic (at least for me with my current level).

SomehowGeekyPolyglot wrote:Any idea how she got a near-native accent? Because simply "mimicking" (for the lack of a better expression) native speakers usually wouldn't be enough.


This is one of the few things in language learning that seems to be strongly influenced by natural talent rather than time and effort, and there are also psychological issues at play (identity, not wanting to sound 'fake', not wanting to sound like you're mocking the natives, not having high enough proficiency to express yourself well). But there are definitely ways (shadowing and chorusing, recording yourself to be aware of your mistakes, reading phonological descriptions of the language) to get closer to a native accent if you want.

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Re: Saim's log 2017-2018

Postby Saim » 2018-12-12, 15:44

I've decided to stop adding Hebrew cards and just go through short subtitled videos like this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=12&v=Qti0JHzm88k

This will be my system:

1. one listen/watch without paying attention to subtitles
2. look up new words in the subtitles
3. listen/watch again with the subtitles
4. listen several times without the subtitles (and without watching the video, I can do this while walking around)

I think I'll start making playlists of videos like this that I've already studied so it's easier for me to immediately find something to listen to in any given language.


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