A language learners’ forum

OK, I've decided to combine everything into one log in 2016 following Radioclare's example. This hopefully means I'll log more and the log will be more interesting than previously (probably not though).

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First links to my previous logs, which have some resource links in them. I'm planning to create a second post in this topic where I list all the resources. Mostly for my benefit.
My Mandarin Log on this forum
My Mandarin log on the old HTLAL
My SC Log on this forum.
My SC Log on the old HTLAL
FLC Log for Czech & Setswana

I've also managed to somehow convince myself I should learn Esperanto, although I have no actual reason why I should. But hey, why not huh, I've done stupider things (and regretted them).

On the 1st of January I got an email from myself from last year. I emailed my future self and asked me if I'd accomplished all the stuff I wanted to in 2015. Sadly I'd only done about 50%, but it is better than nothing. If you're interested in emailing your future self with encouragement or questions, you can do it at Future Me. A nifty free service which stores your email and sends it to you on a date in the future you select. I'd actually forgotten I'd done it. Enough of that, lets start with my goals for this year 2016 by language.

1. Mandarin: A2 or low B1 by the end of the year. (no challenges for Mandarin, just studying)
2. Italian: Output Challenge for 2016, start full Super Challenge in Italian and try to reach C1 level if possible.
3. French: start full Super Challenge in French and try to reach C1 level if possible. (I haven't listed French as TAC although I'm part of Les Voyageurs)
4. Esperanto: TAC in Esperanto and try to attend some kind of Esperanto/Polygot event near Oct/Nov time in UK or Europe and "try my arm" at Esperanto.

Plan to participate in the 6WC for Esperanto a couple of times. Hopefully that will get me going.

Just to make sure I'm not bored this year, I've also decided to lose weight and run another marathon.

Reserved for Resources:

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Mandarin


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Resource additions below
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YangYang Cheng on YouTube
Online Chinese Character to Pinyin (Vocabulary List Builder)
Calibre
Learning Chinese is Fun (Episode 1)
Introduction to Chinese Characters
Chinese Frequency Lists
Online Flashcards Texas.edu
Chinese character stroke order rules
Chinese Dictionary Lookup
Coursera Online Chinese Course
Defense Language Institute Mandarin
Growing Up With Chinese
University Page which has LOTS of links to Chinese resources available on the Internet.


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Television Shows in Mandarin
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( Say It ) 好好说！慢慢讲！ Episode 1
Say It Season II Ep 1
http://www.viki.com/tv Has a lot of Mandainr, Korean and other shows which have subtitles in just about every language.

I've found some quite good food shows from Singapore like:

李囯煌 -- 香港
Food Source 3 - Episode 01 (食在好源头 3 - 第01集)

Kids Shows
childrens stories with sub-titles
大耳朵图图

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Collections of Materials
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http://web.csulb.edu/~txie/ccol/pdf/online2.htm
http://data.hskhsk.com/lists/ - HSK Vocabulary

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Korean


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Resources for Korean
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How to study Korean
Korean Newspaper List
Free Korean-English Dictionary
Korean Cartoons/Comics
Jenny's Learn Korean Playlist
Go Korean


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rdearman wrote:

1. Mandarin: A2 or low B1 by the end of the year. (no challenges for Mandarin, just studying)
2. Italian: Output Challenge for 2016, start full Super Challenge in Italian and try to reach C1 level if possible.
3. French: start full Super Challenge in French and try to reach C1 level if possible. (I haven't listed French as TAC although I'm part of Les Voyageurs)
4. Esperanto: TAC in Esperanto and try to attend some kind of Esperanto/Polygot event near Oct/Nov time in UK or Europe and "try my arm" at Esperanto.

Plan to participate in the 6WC for Esperanto a couple of times. Hopefully that will get me going.

Just to make sure I'm not bored this year, I've also decided to lose weight and run another marathon.

Slacker. Ha!

Thanks for telling us about FutureMe...nifty service!

Oh man, I have so been tempted by Esperanto lately. There was once a *free* snail-mail correspondence class in my area--I'll have to Google for that and see if it still exists. I'm curious about your materials on that one.

Good luck juggling all of those languages: I decided to stick to mainly two (Spanish and Japanese) for now.

Xenops wrote:Oh man, I have so been tempted by Esperanto lately. There was once a *free* snail-mail correspondence class in my area--I'll have to Google for that and see if it still exists. I'm curious about your materials on that one.

Good luck juggling all of those languages: I decided to stick to mainly two (Spanish and Japanese) for now.

Actually Radioclare sent me some resources from the British Esperanto Organisation last year, which I've avoided until now. There is an email course available but can't remember where and I used to use Lernu and I think they have a lot of resources and tutors, etc there for you.

Check the TAC Esperanto thread, there are some resources being posted into that thread.

rdearman wrote:Actually Radioclare sent me some resources from the British Esperanto Organisation last year, which I've avoided until now. There is an email course available but can't remember where and I used to use Lernu and I think they have a lot of resources and tutors, etc there for you.

Check the TAC Esperanto thread, there are some resources being posted into that thread.

If I find the language too irresistible, I shall check those out.

I'll be following along for your French Super Challenge! Good luck!

Rebecca wrote:I'll be following along for your French Super Challenge! Good luck!

Cool, thanks. I'd recommend it to you too, when I started the SC 2014/15 I was only reading one page of French every 5-6 minutes, and now I can do 5-6 pages per minute, and only a few unknown words. If you start collecting now, you should get 100 films (TV series, audio books) and 100 books to read before it all kicks off again this year.

EO:
What have I done this year? Well not a lot as it turns out, however I have read the entire Esperanto Mini-Course, which sounds like it should be a great accomplishment, but it is only 32 pages. It did remind me of a lot of the things I had already learned about Esperanto ~15 years ago. I plan to read the mini-course on Esperanto Grammar later this week, and possibly listen to the pronunciation guidelines CD while commuting.

ZH:
Just doing the anki cards I have built up with the Pimsleur Mandarin, and the phrasebook cards (with audio) that I have. I'm reviewing Hanzi characters in anki also when the mood strikes, or I cannot do my audio cards.

FR:
I've been listening to French talk radio in my car for awhile now at least 1-2 hour(s) per day. Today I branched out and started listening to Le petit Nicolas audio book for a change.

IT:
This is my output challenge. I've shot myself on video cooking some spaghetti and I need to now do voice-over and sub-titles. Sure it is boring, but it is content.

Ciao tutti! Devo scrivere in italiano per conto di il mio "output challenge", ma penso più tardi, perche ho uno video per quella prossimamente. Oggi ho ascolto della CD esperanto allo scopo di imparare la pronuncia della lingua. Addesso è la primo tempo ho usa la lingua italiano per due or tre giorno. il mio amica italiana ha mi dato libri molto della science fiction! Questo è molto bene per mi, perché quanto la SC comincia.

I have managed to download some free books/newsletters in Esperanto, so I'll try to do a mini-reading challenge to see if my poor brain can scrape back what little I learned of Esperanto some 15 years previously. I have been listening to an esperanto pronounciation CD during my commute, and reading the little mini-books from the British Esperanto Association. I have been browsing the mini-grammar book. Seems there is more grammar in Esperanto than I rememberd, I thought there was only about 11 rules.

I've been installing windows movie maker so I can edit my cooking video and hopefully get it loaded with sub-titles, etc. Although I think this would probably be easier on my Linux machine. I'll probably do some recordings while I'm in Poland next week, just to have something to talk about.

Mandarin is still on the back burner, with anki card only at the moment.

French is still getting the radio treatment, and I've found another potential series I might like called Spin (Les Hommes De L'Ombre) which looks good, and is already in the second season in France.