Pim's language log

[pact83]

I'm hoping to use this log as a place to think out loud about how I do my language learning at what works for me. In the past, I've tended to do less "book learning" and concentrate more on reading and watching. I took part in the first Super Challenge and started the most recent one and found this really useful to some of the languages that I had studied in the past but not done much with recently. For some of my other languages I think it's more important for me to do some more formal study.

I was on HTLAL but am using a new username name here - my old username was my old RL name and as I've changed that I wanted a new username too. That's also why I stopped logging on the Super Challenge, though I may see about starting up logging again.

At the moment I'm actively studying three languages: Japanese, Mandarin and Spanish - with a very strong focus on the Japanese. I'm also maintaining Dutch, German and French and my native English.

JP (Actively Learning - Focus Language)

My goals in Japanese at the moment are:

• to study at least one "session" (which is 20 mins of study for me) every day
• to read one manga every week day and read some of a book at the weekend
• to watch one episode of unsubtitled anime a day

I'm currently studying using mainly the Minna no Nihongo books, though at the moment this is mostly familiar material. I went about things in a fairly informal way to start, so the reading a watching goals are doable, but I need to build a more formal core under that learning. I spent a month at a language school in Japan last year which was a great boost to that - I'm hoping to be able to go back there in the future.

ES (Actively Learning)

I'm aiming to study Spanish at least once every second day and also to read and watch some. I'm fairly well a beginner here, but with a fair amount of gain from French and English.

ZH (Actively Learning)

I'm aiming to study Mandarin at least every second day and also to read 5 pages of manga or manhua a day. At the moment I'm reading a manga translated from Japanese, but will also be reading some native Chinese material. I'm looking up every character I don't know on at least one page out of the five, but then skim reading the other four. With manga that means I can get enough of the story to still keep up momentum. The manhua I have seems to have a smaller amount of text than the translated manga, so I may change what I'm doing once I switch on to that.

NL (Maintenance Language)

My goals in Dutch are mainly just to keep up the language by reading and watching television/movies. At some point in the future I might think about working more on my written Dutch and possibly going doing some more formal grammar study. I learnt the language in a very informal way, and whilst I'm happy with where I am, I wouldn't mind getting it under a more formal footing.

FR (Maintenance Language)

My goals in French are just about reading and watching. Reading isn't too much of a problem, but I need to work on listening/watching a bit more.

DE (Maintenance Language)

As with French and Dutch, German goals are just about reading and watching. I need to work on feeling that German is a tiring language to use. I learnt German before Dutch, but my Dutch overtook it very quickly and I always feel like I need to be on my best behaviour with German after the more relaxed Dutch.

EN (Native Language)

I do set myself reading goals for English as I found I just wasn't reading as much with concentrating on other languages.

[pact83]

Just finished my first manga in Mandarin! I've "read" some readers with audio, but this was my first time reading Mandarin without audio.



A month of so I bought the complete set of Dragon Ball manga and started to read the first volume without massive amounts of dictionary help! At the start of the month, I decided it would be better to read with a version I understand more to see if what I thought I was getting was right. I looked into buying the English versions, but these seem a bit more difficult to get hold of, and I also thought it might be difficult to read two translations, so I went for the original Japanese version.

I'm currently reading 5 manga pages a day (so roughly one book page). For the first page, I write out the Mandarin and then write out the pinyin I know in blue, with the ones I don't know in red. I then make an attempt to translate to English, using the Japanese version and sometimes Google translate to get the sense of the sentence. For the other 4 pages, I read the Mandarin text as well as I can and then switch to the Japanese version on a panel by panel basis. Luckily most of the panels are quite short so I get confirmation of what I've read quickly.

I'm finding that writing out the Mandarin can talk a long time, so I now don't always do the whole page in writing depending on how much time I have. I still think I'm getting a fair amount from it though - particularly given the level of my Mandarin.

Now on to the next book - a native Chinese manhua:



No handy Japanese (or English) translation for this, but gorgeous artwork and far fewer characters per page, so we'll see how I get on!

[pact83]

Prompted Daily Output Challenge

Is it more important to be smart or personable?

In het algemeen denkt ik dat het beter is om beleefd te zijn dan slim. Als je allebei kunt zijn dan is dat het beste, maar sommige mensen zijn gewoon niet slim en daar kan je niet veel aan doen. Maar een mens die niet slim is kan wel beleefd zijn, hij of zij kan andere mensen helpen en meedoen aan het maatschappij. In mijn werk heb ik veel te doen met mensen die echt wel slim zijn – ik werk aan een universiteit – sommige van de slimste hebben geen sociale vaardigheden en dat vind ik echt triest. Ik bedoel hier niet mensen met een of andere verstandelijke beperking hebben, want die doen meestal hun best om met andere mensen om te gaan, maar mensen die gewoon onbeleefd zijn. Mijn groetmoeder zou zeggen: “Beleefd zijn kost niets!”

Ik wou een goeie vertaling van “smart” en “personable” vinden en heb dus een onlinewoordenboek gebruikt (weet niet of ik dat echt heb gedaan of niet...). Die gaf de woord “knap” voor beide, dus die zijn misschien wel hetzelfde!

[pir]

"Slim" is intelligent, smart, clever, bright.

"Knap" is much more often used to mean handsome, good-looking, pretty, chic -- only occasionally for "clever".

"Persoonlijk" or "innemend" or "aardig" for personable, but I admit, I kinda float with "personable" in English, it seems a very vague word to me. I think of it as a combination of sociable and friendly.

(I love that manhua art -- who is the artist?)

[pact83]

Yes, "aardig" is probably the best word here - don't know why it didn't occur to me.

The artist is 夏达 or April and the book is 长歌行 vol 1. There are a couple of full colour pages at the front of the book that are really lovely - it seems full colour's much more common in Chinese manhua than in Japanese manga.

The first couple of pages are a chase on horseback and I just want to sit and read it for the art, even without getting what's actually being said.

Thanks for the tip on the Japanese audio dramas in the other thread - will definitely keep an eye out for them.

[Monox D. I-Fly]

Just realized that the Chinese character for "dragon" isn't the same with its Kanji character. Also, is "Akira" in Kanji also written with the character for "bright"?