Rdearman 2016-24 You Can't Have Your Kate and Edith Too.

Continue or start your personal language log here, including logs for challenge participants
User avatar
rdearman
Site Admin
Posts: 7231
Joined: Thu May 14, 2015 4:18 pm
Location: United Kingdom
Languages: English (N)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1836
x 23122
Contact:

Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby rdearman » Thu May 19, 2022 9:48 pm

Mandarin
I was contacted by my Chinese friend and she wants to start speaking again. Also I have been watching a couple of vloggers in Chinese, mostly because I'm a bit of a foodie, and have the waistline to prove it. So.... I might pick this back up. We'll see.

Korean
I had a lesson this week, and two language exchanges. Language exchanges in Korean are just me speaking English to Korean people and giving them corrections. However, they have also been kind enough to assist me with the phrases (see above) and give corrections.

My Korean teacher asked my at the end of our lesson why I was learning Korean. I was a little confused about this question, but said it was because I had planned a holiday in Korea. But he said, yes; I know that, but why are you still learning Korean? I don't have a very good answer for this question, really. I will probably be dead of old age long before I actually get to the point of fluency, given my track record with French and Italian. :) So I just told him I was interested in the culture and I like the people, and I like learning languages. Two of these things are true (the first two), so not really lying.

He said he thought I was moving to Korea originally, and he was teaching me Korean, but I think if he'd known that it was only for a holiday he would have done it differently. Probably not so much grammar work. Still, it isn't a problem since I've decided to carry on. I am quite jaded now after French, Italian, Mandarin, Setswana and Czech. I know I'm not going to learn Korean in 90 days, or even 9 years, most likely. But the way to eat an elephant is one spoonful at a time.

He did recommend that I start using my mouth. I need to start speaking and getting used to Korean. One problem is when I read out loud, I am pronouncing each syllable. This is a problem because, for example, if I say 김밥 (gimbap), I say 김 < long pause > 밥 (gim .... bap) which you would think is ok, however the first syllable is also a word. 김 is a seaweed wrapper, like Japanese nori. This is just one example, there are many. So I was instructed to keep my mouth shut until I had processed the entire word and say that. :)

He also suggested I find a song I like and memorise it. Then he went on to suggest some K-Dramas for me to watch. Well.... he started to, except he would say one and I'd say "seen it" to all of them. So then he suggested I pick one, and watch it without subtitles, or with Korean subtitles. No point in using Korean subtitles, so I'll have to pick one and start. I think I could probably transcribe, since I can write Hangul, so I might attempt to do that.

Italian
My LE partner had to bail out on me this week, her child was sick. So didn't have any conversation, and I only read a couple of pages. But in theory it is in maintenance mode, so should be OK.

French
No language exchange for French either. Normally this would be on a Friday, but my LE partner is at some conference in Paris, so that got rescheduled to next week. But you know something odd? I had decided that French wasn't even going to be in maintenance mode, and I would just ignore it other than perhaps speaking to my friend. But it seems French has done a sneak attack on me!

I made some recommendations to Carmody about YT channels I've watched before and enjoyed. Then suddenly these channels were putting on more content? So the language I wasn't going to bother with, I've been watching videos in. Ages ago I subscribed to Quora in French, and normally the questions and answers are a bit crap, but some interesting stuff got pumped into my email, and suddenly I was reading in French as well as listening and watching podcasts.

Anyone else ever had a sneak attack from a language you were trying to ignore?
17 x
: 0 / 150 Read 150 books in 2024

My YouTube Channel
The Autodidactic Podcast
My Author's Newsletter

I post on this forum with mobile devices, so excuse short msgs and typos.

User avatar
MorkTheFiddle
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2113
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 8:59 pm
Location: North Texas USA
Languages: English (N). Read (only) French and Spanish. Studying Ancient Greek. Studying a bit of Latin. Once studied Old Norse. Dabbled in Catalan, Provençal and Italian.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 11#p133911
x 4823

Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Fri May 20, 2022 5:23 pm

rdearman wrote:Anyone else ever had a sneak attack from a language you were trying to ignore?
Yes, occasionally Latin tries to hit me with a sap. But Latin is a deep and inescapable hole just like Ancient Greek, and I have only one lifetime and only so much leisure, so generally I dodge it. :)
4 x
Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson

User avatar
daveprine
Yellow Belt
Posts: 70
Joined: Mon May 30, 2016 7:47 pm
Languages: English (native speaker); working to maintain German, Spanish, French, Italian, and Indonesian; slowly revisiting other languages studied but poorly maintained in hopes of maintaining them for the long haul.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=8921
x 262

Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby daveprine » Fri May 20, 2022 10:28 pm

rdearman wrote:Anyone else ever had a sneak attack from a language you were trying to ignore?


Only every day or so.

At the risk of trying to convert you, you might be suffering from something similar to what I do. You might like the learning process more than the actual languages. Specifically, learning about languages in the bigger scheme of things. I know you hate grammar, and I don't think you're crazy enough to be an actual linguist, but maybe there's something else there.

Although like me, you do have a tendency to learn languages for travel plans. Who wouldn't, right? (More people than you'd think.) And once you return, you don't want to lose it. Kudos.

But you also really spend more time getting to know the language, use it in many contexts. Impressive to my butterfly brain.

Gareth asked if I was going to the Gathering this year. I said no, and then turned off the lights, hobbled to the nearest corner, and sobbed loudly.
7 x
Main: German, Spanish, French, Italian, Indonesian
To a lesser degree: Hungarian, Dutch, Ukrainian, Brazilian Portuguese, Albanian, Plains Cree
And then: Manx, Japanese, Tunica, Chinuk Wawa
And then I'll cure world hunger and build a hotel on the moon.

jeffers
Blue Belt
Posts: 848
Joined: Sat Aug 22, 2015 4:12 pm
Location: UK
Languages: Speaks: English (N), Hindi (A2-B1)

Learning: The above, plus French (A2-B1), German (A1), Ancient Greek (?), Sanskrit (beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=19785
x 2774
Contact:

Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby jeffers » Wed May 25, 2022 1:41 pm

rdearman wrote:...But when I speak French it seems that if there is a word which exists in both languages I always pronounce it the English way,

Just curious, does this ever happen the other way around for you? A few years ago I got confused about how to pronounce "surveillance" in English, thinking it's normal to pronounce the double L the French way! I went around and around in my head about it for a bit. :lol:


rdearman wrote:I made some recommendations to Carmody about YT channels I've watched before and enjoyed. Then suddenly these channels were putting on more content?

I'm currently looking for new things in French to watch on YT. Could you share your recommendations here?
Just in case you're interested, one of my recent discoveries has been A Toute Berzingue ! by Lorant Deutsch. Each episode is about 18-20 minutes of him running around a city, talking quickly, explaining the history of the city by period. I like the fact that the history is in chronolgical order, rather than jumping around the periods. I find his speaking style quite engaging, even if I often have trouble keeping up.
3 x
Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien (roughly, the perfect is the enemy of the good)

French SC Books: 0 / 5000 (0/5000 pp)
French SC Films: 0 / 9000 (0/9000 mins)

User avatar
rdearman
Site Admin
Posts: 7231
Joined: Thu May 14, 2015 4:18 pm
Location: United Kingdom
Languages: English (N)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1836
x 23122
Contact:

Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby rdearman » Sat May 28, 2022 11:34 pm

1 x
: 0 / 150 Read 150 books in 2024

My YouTube Channel
The Autodidactic Podcast
My Author's Newsletter

I post on this forum with mobile devices, so excuse short msgs and typos.

User avatar
rdearman
Site Admin
Posts: 7231
Joined: Thu May 14, 2015 4:18 pm
Location: United Kingdom
Languages: English (N)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1836
x 23122
Contact:

Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby rdearman » Sat May 28, 2022 11:50 pm

Mandarin
Not really doing anything worthwhile in Mandarin, and my friend seems to have disappeared again.

Korean
OK, so my teacher gave me a dialogue in Korean and asked me to practice my pronunciation and speaking. We used this last week, and I was terribly slow and awkward with speaking.

Code: Select all

A: 서울은 오늘 날씨가 어때요?
B: 더워요. 도쿄도 더워요?
A: 아니요. 어제는 더웠지만 오늘은 안 더워요.
B: 아, 그래요? 서울에 언제 와요?
A: 토요일에 가요.
B: 그럼 조심해서 오세요.

So, I copied this down, went to my AWS account and created some TTS and downloaded an MP3. Then I used audacity to find the silences and length of sentences and created a subtitle file.

Code: Select all

1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:02,500
<font size="44px" color="#ffff00">서울은 오늘 날씨가 어때요?</font>
<font size="22px" color="blue">How's the weather today?</font>

2
00:00:02,501 --> 00:00:05,000
<font size="44px" color="#ffff00">더워요. 도쿄도 더워요?</font>
<font size="22px" color="blue">It's hot. Is Tokyo too hot?</font>

3
00:00:05,001 --> 00:00:09,000
<font size="44px" color="#ffff00">아니요. 어제는 더웠지만 오늘은 안 더워요?</font>
<font size="22px" color="blue">No. It was hot yesterday, but it isn't hot today.</font>

4
00:00:09,001 --> 00:00:12,000
<font size="44px" color="#ffff00">아, 그래요? 서울에 언제 와요?</font>
<font size="22px" color="blue">Oh yeah? When are you coming to Seoul?</font>

5
00:00:12,001 --> 00:00:13,700
<font size="44px" color="#ffff00">토요일에 가요.</font>
<font size="22px" color="blue">Go on saturday</font>

6
00:00:13,701 --> 00:00:16,000
<font size="44px" color="#ffff00">그럼 조심해서 오세요.</font>
<font size="22px" color="blue">Travel safely (Then come with caution.)</font>

I have loaded the MP3 and the subtitle file into WorkAudioBook and I've been drilling myself every day in order to reproduce each sentence as quickly as a native speaker. Still can't do it perfectly, lots of hesitation, but seems to be working. I've also been watching a ton of dramas, but I do that anyway. I've also started to watch one drama with no subtitles. This is untenable, so I need to stop. I need to find some short dialogue I can transcribe and then check the transcription. I'm sure there is a website, iguanamon linked to, so I'm going to find that and try to just transcribe some 2 minute newscaster speaking.

I also did a long language exchange with a Korean fellow, and he was very interested in how I did the subtitles and such, so I might do a video about that at some point in the future. Again, Korean LE's are just me speaking English to Koreans. But this week that seemed to be a theme with all languages.

Italian
Had a language exchange, but spoke English the entire time. I was just being lazy really and didn't feel like speaking in Italian. However, I might be going to Milan later this year, so probably should get back to working with Italian.

French
Missed my LE with my French friend. I had to take my daughter to a dentist appointment and didn't get back in time.
8 x
: 0 / 150 Read 150 books in 2024

My YouTube Channel
The Autodidactic Podcast
My Author's Newsletter

I post on this forum with mobile devices, so excuse short msgs and typos.

DaveAgain
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1968
Joined: Mon Aug 27, 2018 11:26 am
Languages: English (native), French & German (learning).
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... &start=200
x 4049

Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby DaveAgain » Sun May 29, 2022 6:17 am

rdearman wrote: I've also started to watch one drama with no subtitles. This is untenable, so I need to stop. I need to find some short dialogue I can transcribe and then check the transcription. I'm sure there is a website, iguanamon linked to, so I'm going to find that and try to just transcribe some 2 minute newscaster speaking.
In Katie Harris' PGathering talk she mentioned two websites, "viki" and "fluentu".
0 x

User avatar
rdearman
Site Admin
Posts: 7231
Joined: Thu May 14, 2015 4:18 pm
Location: United Kingdom
Languages: English (N)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1836
x 23122
Contact:

Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby rdearman » Sun May 29, 2022 12:37 pm

DaveAgain wrote:
rdearman wrote: I've also started to watch one drama with no subtitles. This is untenable, so I need to stop. I need to find some short dialogue I can transcribe and then check the transcription. I'm sure there is a website, iguanamon linked to, so I'm going to find that and try to just transcribe some 2 minute newscaster speaking.
In Katie Harris' PGathering talk she mentioned two websites, "viki" and "fluentu".

I watch viki all the time and I've used "learn mode". I was looking for the news site iguanamon mentioned, which I think is a Japanese news broadcaster, but they have the news in both Korean and English with transcripts in both languages. (They also do Japanese, Spanish, etc.)

I have been looking at SBS Korea, https://news.sbs.co.kr who have transcripts of the articles in Korean, but I really wanted something with a sort of parallel text type of thing. The reason I want this isn't to have dual subtitles. What I want to do is have a very short segment which I listen to and write down what I think they are saying, and match it against what they actually said. The English transcriptions would let me understand what I heard.

At the moment I list and understand nothing. So the objective is to listen and get the word boundaries, etc. Then look up the meaning.
6 x
: 0 / 150 Read 150 books in 2024

My YouTube Channel
The Autodidactic Podcast
My Author's Newsletter

I post on this forum with mobile devices, so excuse short msgs and typos.

Beli Tsar
Green Belt
Posts: 384
Joined: Mon Oct 22, 2018 3:59 pm
Languages: English (N), Ancient Greek (intermediate reading), Latin (Beginner) Farsi (Beginner), Biblical Hebrew (Beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9548
x 1294

Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby Beli Tsar » Sun May 29, 2022 7:25 pm

rdearman wrote: I was looking for the news site iguanamon mentioned, which I think is a Japanese news broadcaster, but they have the news in both Korean and English with transcripts in both languages. (They also do Japanese, Spanish, etc.)


Sounds like NHK. It is a very useful site.
2 x
: 0 / 50 1/2 Super Challenge - Latin Reading
: 0 / 50 1/2 Super Challenge - Latin 'Films'

alaart
Green Belt
Posts: 338
Joined: Sat Aug 03, 2019 6:58 am
Location: Kaoshiung
Languages: DE (N), EN
B1: NL, JP, PT (BR), ZH
A2: KR
A1: ES
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=10867
x 1027

Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby alaart » Sun May 29, 2022 8:18 pm

Good to see you are still studying Korean even after your trip.

I read that you are doing language exchanges but have trouble starting to speak. It really is very difficult - especially in Korean. Since you have more than one exchange partner, I would recommend the following trick:

1) Use a very simple story from your real life (the real life connection helps with memorization): This week I went to the bakery. I bought bread for my friends, and we ate it together. Or: I went to the park and saw a women with a dog. This reminded me of a dog my cousin once had. - something like this or even simpler.

2) Prepare maybe a bit of vocabulary, the nouns and so on. But I often skip this step.
3) Tell your language exchange partner your story in English. Ask him to tell you how to say the first sentence in Korean, or all the parts you don't know in Korean. Then ask him to write it down, try to tell it yourself and let him understand you. Then the next sentence until the story is complete.

4) Record the audio of your friend speaking the sentence (I use audacity for a skype call, or in real life I ask people to speak into my phone), ask him to speak slowly if needed.

5) After the language exchange add all the unknown words from your short story into Anki (with Audio, I use forvo to get the words), but also add the whole sentence with the audio from your first language exchange partner.

6) Drill speaking by repeating the Anki vocabulary and sentence / story.

---

Now simple tell the same story - now in Korean - the second language exchange partner, and maybe the third one too. (repetition, memorization, practice of speaking etc.)

Each time you do this your weekly stories get longer and richer in vocabulary and because you tell it several times you practice how to say it along with the grammar and the vocabulary.

This works for me and after a couple of months I overcome the speaking barrier and I can speak somewhat, and for the words I don't know, I get help and I manage to tell my story in one way or another.

Or maybe you find something else that works for you, that is just my way of overcoming this barrier.
7 x


Return to “Language logs”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests