tiia's log (FIN, SPA, SWE, EUS)

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tiia
Blue Belt
Posts: 735
Joined: Tue Mar 15, 2016 11:52 pm
Location: Finland
Languages: German (N), English (?), Finnish (C1), Spanish (B2??), Swedish (B2)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=2374
x 1997

Re: tiia's log (Finnish, Spanish)

Postby tiia » Tue Jan 24, 2017 12:47 pm

Elenia wrote:The internet situation sounds like a nightmare, I'm sorry. When I was in France, the internet got awfully slow after eleven, as a general rule. There were no data restrictions, and no real reason for it to happen. It just did, and sometimes would stop completely.

And I haven't even mentioned that I have to turn the router off and on again throughout the day, because sometimes it just doesn't keep the connection open or becomes so slow, that you don't even know whether there still is a connection or not. Some days this happens all the time while on others the connection is quite stable.
It's just awful, but I more or less got used to it, as weird as this sounds.

Elenia wrote:I don't think anyone who has ever met me would think of me as 'quiet'. And I have the same problem, it took my mum years to realise I was shy, even though I told her I am. I'm learning to just let the silence be though. Slowly, by I am learning!

I guess my parents still haven't understood this. When I meet them I'm talking a lot, and so it has been since my childhood. They never really understood the complains in kindergarten or school by my teachers that I didn't really say anything.
It took me quite some time to realise that my "talking too much" is quite often just a compensation of another person not talking enough or myself being nervous or unbalanced.

-------

Yesterday I tried to speak Spanish again wih a native! I got (again) credits for my pronounciation, though otherwise speaking was still pretty much on a beginner's level. But as I remember from Finnish, I will just need practice and then it should improve very fast, because the knowledge is already there. At least I start looking out for conversation now and really try to say something in Spanish, instead of still continuing with German or English only. So it seems I am now "ready" to practice speaking outside a course.


Other students have been discussing how to continue with Spanish, whether we should try to make the university open our own follow-up course, as the next level/next type of course is not what some of us are looking for.
Next monday we'll have the exam and then there is one lesson left on friday and the course is over again. (So now three more times including the exam.)
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User avatar
tiia
Blue Belt
Posts: 735
Joined: Tue Mar 15, 2016 11:52 pm
Location: Finland
Languages: German (N), English (?), Finnish (C1), Spanish (B2??), Swedish (B2)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=2374
x 1997

Re: tiia's log (Finnish, Spanish)

Postby tiia » Fri Jan 27, 2017 9:03 pm

Today was the last lesson before the exam and we surprised the teacher because so many of us - considering it's a friday - actually showed up. :D
I made attempts to say something (more than once actually!), but well.. I know that my vocabulary is not that great. But trying to say something about your own subject of studies without knowing the technical vocabulary... that's even worse.
The topic was somewhat environment-related and one of the points was pretty much exactly what I have been specializing in.

The starting day of my thesis is coming closer and closer and since I already accepted a topic, I went to the library today and noticed there are some Spanish water (supply) history books. And even one in Catalan about water in Barcelona! French and Spanish, ok... but Catalan? I doubt there will be many students ever reading this book.
I had some thought about taking one of the Spanish books home... Of course it wouldn't serve me as a resource for my thesis, but... you know... ;)
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tiia
Blue Belt
Posts: 735
Joined: Tue Mar 15, 2016 11:52 pm
Location: Finland
Languages: German (N), English (?), Finnish (C1), Spanish (B2??), Swedish (B2)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=2374
x 1997

Re: tiia's log (Finnish, Spanish)

Postby tiia » Mon Jan 30, 2017 3:41 pm

What an exam today... We had tasks for listening, reading and writing. We had finished the audio part and got the reading and writing tasks, but just after we had more or less finished answering the questions about the text, the fire alarm started.

We had to leave the building, wait for the firemen to come etc. and continued our exam while the firemen where still inside the building and our teacher tried to keep them silent :D

I have no idea how I would have performed without the alarm, but my writing was definitely not as good as it could be. At least the exam is not really important.


In case anyone is wondering: We somehow often have false alarms or tests (?) and in some buildings and I got quite used to them. Some people actually try to ignore them, but the sirens are so lound and annoying that they will leave the building anyway. The alarm today was one of the worst I can remember.
Plus, every wednesday at 15.00 there is the test of a city-wide alarm system. But it's not so annoying, nor so loud and when you hear it you just think "oh it's again wednesday 15.00". It used to be less often first, but somehow it's now every wednesday.
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tiia
Blue Belt
Posts: 735
Joined: Tue Mar 15, 2016 11:52 pm
Location: Finland
Languages: German (N), English (?), Finnish (C1), Spanish (B2??), Swedish (B2)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=2374
x 1997

Re: tiia's log (Finnish, Spanish)

Postby tiia » Thu Feb 09, 2017 12:56 pm

I didn't make it to my last Spanish lesson. I would have been very late and we were supposed to watch some film, so I though coming late might cause too much troubles in understanding what's going on. Besides, I won't get speaking practise.
Went to a book store this week and immediately found some interesting text book. But I guess it's still slightly above my level. It's entirely in Spanish and has a lot of shorter texts to read. But well, I still have some other stuff to read/do, if I get anything done.

The Super Challenge (Finnish) is going quite well so far, I now have read 50 "books" and my listening finally exceeds an equivalent of 20 films. :) I'd really like to get the 25 films done until the end of this month, because then it's half time.

Next week will be (most likely) the start of my thesis. 8-) I have no idea how much time that will take, but definitely some. Otherwise there might be some other stuff taking some time.*


-------------
*It's again february and in february we have again some annual demonstrations here. You never know long before when and where exactly they will take place. Most often it leads to a lot of chaos throughout the city.
Now just before those days we got the Monument and the city made it again to national (and international) news... I suppose this will also lead again to more media next week. (You might now know in which city I live in.)

Have been taking a look at the Monument yesterday evening. It leaves an impression. Absolutely. Fortunately I went there, when there were not too many people, so that there was mainly silence.


PS. I hope I didn't violate the forum rules too much as the last part is actually extremly political here. I really tried to take as much politics out of the topic as possible. If it's still too much, I'll delete that part.
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tiia
Blue Belt
Posts: 735
Joined: Tue Mar 15, 2016 11:52 pm
Location: Finland
Languages: German (N), English (?), Finnish (C1), Spanish (B2??), Swedish (B2)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=2374
x 1997

Re: tiia's log (Finnish, Spanish)

Postby tiia » Tue Feb 14, 2017 11:06 am

Who would have expected that I'm learning English words right now? :D
In addition to the technical words in the manuals I have to read for my thesis, I can now also add the word "spillway" to my vocabulary.

Yesterday there were 3-4 people asking me what's going on with the Oroville dam, because they knew what I'm studying, but I had not yet been able to read anything. Well, now have read some stuff (and could notice that some newspapers are messing up all the information).
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User avatar
tiia
Blue Belt
Posts: 735
Joined: Tue Mar 15, 2016 11:52 pm
Location: Finland
Languages: German (N), English (?), Finnish (C1), Spanish (B2??), Swedish (B2)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=2374
x 1997

Re: tiia's log (Finnish, Spanish)

Postby tiia » Sun Feb 19, 2017 1:38 pm

Still more English words for me. :D Maybe I should make a list, I cannot remember all of them.
Seems like the Dutch have been doing a lot of research in that field, luckily they were nice enough to publish the material in English. Might be interesting to see what kind of material is availabe in Dutch only.

I never wrote anything about the book I'm currently reading, despite it being in my possession since 2014. It's Eowyn Ivey's The snow child (Lumilapsi in Finnish). Has anyone here read it? I now got to the third of the three parts, when there's a time jump of six years and the neighbours get see the girl for the first time.
The vocabulary is a bit different to the previous books I read: more wild animals and farm life. I'm a bit lazy in looking up words, but I do get enough of the details, that it's no problem when I miss one every now and then. I think I already developed quite a good feeling, whether I have to look up a word or not.

Oh and I logged into my lang-8 account again after half a year or so and switched the second language to Spanish. Maybe I can make some use of it.
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User avatar
tiia
Blue Belt
Posts: 735
Joined: Tue Mar 15, 2016 11:52 pm
Location: Finland
Languages: German (N), English (?), Finnish (C1), Spanish (B2??), Swedish (B2)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=2374
x 1997

Re: tiia's log (Finnish, Spanish)

Postby tiia » Sun Feb 26, 2017 11:16 pm

I finished the audiobook of the 5th Harry Potter today, in total more than 31 hours. So I also got the 25 films for the Super Challenge done. (Now it's 29,5 films.) Means I'm perfectly on time having now done half of the planned amount.

I might have found a tandem partner for Spanish. But it's still quite unsure.

Otherwise there's not really anything new.
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MamaPata
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Joined: Tue Jun 21, 2016 9:25 am
Location: London
Languages: English (N), French (C1*), Russian (B1), Spanish (B1).

Long lost: Arabic and Latin.
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3004
x 1807

Re: tiia's log (Finnish, Spanish)

Postby MamaPata » Mon Feb 27, 2017 4:12 am

I read The Snow Child back in January and quite enjoyed it. What do you think of it?
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User avatar
tiia
Blue Belt
Posts: 735
Joined: Tue Mar 15, 2016 11:52 pm
Location: Finland
Languages: German (N), English (?), Finnish (C1), Spanish (B2??), Swedish (B2)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=2374
x 1997

Re: tiia's log (Finnish, Spanish)

Postby tiia » Fri Mar 10, 2017 11:58 am

MamaPata wrote:I read The Snow Child back in January and quite enjoyed it. What do you think of it?

Actually I don't know yet. I read only a few chapters more. It's a bit weird to me that Faina starts to like Garrett, although he killed the fox. Somehow I expect someone to make a terrible mistake so that she disappears.
I should really read more... I'm now at page 337 of 415.

-------------------------------------

Monday I got the result of the Spanish test and it's ok. Not that great, but considering how the test went, it's pretty good. Next week they will publish the new course programme, but again I'm not sure whether I should take a course or not. According to the reached/accepted level it might be that there's no suitable course anyway. (The have consecutive courses but somewhere in the middle there's more or less a gap, and that's exactly how far I got.)
Maybe I should contact the Spanish girl, because I guess that actual speaking would be more useful now. I'm terribly unorganised right now.

I officially started my final thesis now. So until June/July I will have to do quite some stuff, but the topic is nice and interesting. In case anyone wants to know: it has to do with shore protection.


After my last post I noticed that the Twitter bot had not logged to of the Harry Potter chapters, so the number I wrote here was incorrect. I had to post the missing two chapters again, and because I logged each chapter separately it now looks like I listened to the last chapters in the following order: 35, 38, 36, 37. Well, that would make a lot of sense, doesn't it? :?

Should I continue with the audiobook of the sixth Harry Potter?
I think don't really have a lot of audio for Finnish otherwise. A few films, but that's it. I liked the narrator's voice, although I never listened to any audiobook before, so I can't compare. If I had disliked it, I probably would not have been able to listen to the whole 30 hours. Close to the end of the book, when I listened to 3-4 chapters a day, I started to have his intonation in my head. And of course a lot of Finnish words.
So for those here looking for Finnish audio, you might want to give it a try. However, I'd recommend to have at least a copy of the first book for the first round of unknown words and some of the name changes. (The main characters still have their English names, but some other names change to a Finnish equivalent.)
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Project 30+X: 25 / 30

User avatar
tiia
Blue Belt
Posts: 735
Joined: Tue Mar 15, 2016 11:52 pm
Location: Finland
Languages: German (N), English (?), Finnish (C1), Spanish (B2??), Swedish (B2)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=2374
x 1997

Re: tiia's log (Finnish, Spanish)

Postby tiia » Sat Mar 18, 2017 1:27 pm

tiia wrote:Next week they will publish the new course programme, but again I'm not sure whether I should take a course or not. According to the reached/accepted level it might be that there's no suitable course anyway. (The have consecutive courses but somewhere in the middle there's more or less a gap, and that's exactly how far I got.)


Well, university would now accept me on the next course level. Not only that there I would now have the opportunity to take classes again, the courses are really different ones to choose from. And I thought the problem - whether to take a course or not - would solve itself by just no suitable course being offered at all.

Probably I should try to sort out what I really want to do with Spanish now. (I feel like it's not the first time I write it here.) I mean there's also my thesis, my other hobbies, friends etc.

Sometimes I regret that I didn't restart Spanish earlier...
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Project 30+X: 25 / 30


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