Tea With Tarvos - Tarvos' Log 2019

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tarvos
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2889
Joined: Sun Jul 26, 2015 11:13 am
Location: The Lowlands
Languages: Native: NL, EN
Professional: ES, RU
Speak well: DE, FR, RO, EO, SV
Speak reasonably: IT, ZH, PT, NO, EL, CZ
Need improvement: PO, IS, HE, JP, KO, HU, FI
Passive: AF, DK, LAT
Dabbled in: BRT, ZH (SH), BG, EUS, ZH (CAN), and a whole lot more.
Language Log: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/fo ... PN=1&TPN=1
x 6093
Contact:

Re: Tarvos' новый лог

Postby tarvos » Sat Oct 14, 2017 6:44 pm

I was so tired I fell asleep right before my Portuguese class the other day. It seems I am either overworked or my liver is just acting up. I have nearly finished Night Watch and also finished my first DELE C2 Spanish model. There are some things left to improve, but it's looking good. Not that I am satisfied, but it will do. For now.
0 x
I hope your world is kind.

Is a girl.

User avatar
tarvos
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2889
Joined: Sun Jul 26, 2015 11:13 am
Location: The Lowlands
Languages: Native: NL, EN
Professional: ES, RU
Speak well: DE, FR, RO, EO, SV
Speak reasonably: IT, ZH, PT, NO, EL, CZ
Need improvement: PO, IS, HE, JP, KO, HU, FI
Passive: AF, DK, LAT
Dabbled in: BRT, ZH (SH), BG, EUS, ZH (CAN), and a whole lot more.
Language Log: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/fo ... PN=1&TPN=1
x 6093
Contact:

Re: Tarvos' новый лог

Postby tarvos » Wed Oct 18, 2017 1:27 pm

I am progressing slowly with my Spanish mock exams and I have continued to read in French. I've also read some other articles in foreign languages, such as a news article about a homophobic murder attempt in Rethymno, Greece (in Greek), a little bit in Czech, and obviously many things in Spanish and Russian next to Dutch and English.

One thing that I would like to mention here is that soon it will be time for me to train my voice to sound more high-pitched and carry a more feminine intonation. However, intonation actually varies between languages and my Dutch speech therapy would be mostly focused on using Dutch, not any of my other languages (English or Spanish for example). As Dutch, English and Spanish are my three most important languages, I really want to be able to do it well in those languages, and then transfer the skill myself to other languages such as Russian.

There are a couple cons to this: Spanish people's lows are much lower than English people's lows. I have to move the use of my range upwards and probably focus on my breathing (much like in the case of singing). I have noticed recently I can go quite high with my voice (I definitely was never a bass and perhaps not even a baritone). Because I speak with a reasonably high pitch, the lower feminine range should be easy enough to hit.

Because I tend to like rock and metal music, I've started noticing how the good singers in that genre of music (and there are some wonderfully capable vocalists in metal - many of them have had classical and jazz training) use their diction and voice to sing. Especially metal requires insane vocal acrobatics (it's an extremely demanding genre to sing, and many classically trained singers cannot sustain those high notes for that long). I am not even getting into the various vocal effects, distortion, and unclean vocal techniques people use (growling, screaming, rasps) and the common falsetto.
5 x
I hope your world is kind.

Is a girl.

User avatar
tarvos
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2889
Joined: Sun Jul 26, 2015 11:13 am
Location: The Lowlands
Languages: Native: NL, EN
Professional: ES, RU
Speak well: DE, FR, RO, EO, SV
Speak reasonably: IT, ZH, PT, NO, EL, CZ
Need improvement: PO, IS, HE, JP, KO, HU, FI
Passive: AF, DK, LAT
Dabbled in: BRT, ZH (SH), BG, EUS, ZH (CAN), and a whole lot more.
Language Log: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/fo ... PN=1&TPN=1
x 6093
Contact:

Re: Tarvos' новый лог

Postby tarvos » Sun Oct 22, 2017 11:57 am

Right now I am just chugging further along. I have completed some Portuguese classes, but the only conclusion I can reasonably draw from this is that the basics of my Portuguese are completely fine. Here and there I use another word, and there are some small word order doubts I may have to allay, but other than that I can converse on complex topics just fine in Portuguese. Hooray!

I finished Le Roi de Fer but I moved on to "Under det rösa täcket", which is a famous book from the 90s on feminism by Nina Björk. Although I am not a traditional feminist in the sense that not all of my actions are motivated against the patriarchy, nonetheless I am feminist in the sense that I don't accept the traditional gender role models, so it's quite an interesting read. That said, I should probably put Whipping Girl on my to-read list.

I've also decided to delve deeper into Polish. It looks like I can afford the digression, because my Romance and Germanic languages seem in order.
1 x
I hope your world is kind.

Is a girl.

User avatar
tarvos
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2889
Joined: Sun Jul 26, 2015 11:13 am
Location: The Lowlands
Languages: Native: NL, EN
Professional: ES, RU
Speak well: DE, FR, RO, EO, SV
Speak reasonably: IT, ZH, PT, NO, EL, CZ
Need improvement: PO, IS, HE, JP, KO, HU, FI
Passive: AF, DK, LAT
Dabbled in: BRT, ZH (SH), BG, EUS, ZH (CAN), and a whole lot more.
Language Log: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/fo ... PN=1&TPN=1
x 6093
Contact:

Re: Tarvos' новый лог

Postby tarvos » Mon Oct 23, 2017 5:04 pm

I just had my first hour of Polish, and I managed to keep the entire conversation in Polish during that time. There are some words in Polish I understand but wouldn't have come up with myself, for example Polish doesn't use the Czech/Russian word for to do, but robić (as in Slovak). It helps that I know some of the basic words that are Slovak but not Czech, and can now use these in Polish. Sometimes the word is the Russian one, not the Czech one (tylko, not jenom).

Polish pronunciation is a toughie, but I can handle it well enough to the point that I am quite easily understood in Polish despite not speaking much at all (I can distinguish between soft and hard consonants very well by now). The vowel y also doesn't scare me. The difference really is that the endings of the words are different, the orthography is completely different and Polish stresses different syllables. (There's also the nasal vowels).

Because the basics of Polish are very similar to the other Slavic languages, all that I ought to do is learn what the endings are, and which word is the natural Polish word for something (as opposed to the natural word in Czech or Russian). Picking up Polish is going to be fairly easy now because Czech and Russian have prepared me for the difficulty of most Slavic languages.

The two main ones left are Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian. I know a bit of Bulgarian and Croatian, so they will be next on the Slavic list.

And none of these have to be C2-like. I can deal with them being B1-B2 or so.
1 x
I hope your world is kind.

Is a girl.

User avatar
Jar-Ptitsa
Brown Belt
Posts: 1000
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 1:13 pm
Location: London
Languages: Belgian French (N)

I can speak: Dutch, German, English, Spanish and understand Italian, Portuguese, Wallonian, Afrikaans, but not always correctly.
x 652

Re: Tarvos' новый лог

Postby Jar-Ptitsa » Tue Oct 24, 2017 1:34 am

It's interesting that you will get speech therapy to learn how to make your voice more female. I hope that you will tell about it here.

ARGG ik schreef in het engels op jouw log!!! :evil: :lol: Alleen omdat je de laatste tijd alles in het engels hier hebt geschreven dan deed ik ook zo verder.

Ik ben bijna altijd totaal oververmoeid. Daardoor heb ik wenig te zeggen.

Groetjes.
0 x
-w- I am Jar-ptitsa and my Hawaiian name is ʻā ʻaia. Please correct my mistakes in all the languages. Thank you very much.
: 1 / 50 Spanish grammar
: 5 / 50 Spanish vocabulary

User avatar
tarvos
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2889
Joined: Sun Jul 26, 2015 11:13 am
Location: The Lowlands
Languages: Native: NL, EN
Professional: ES, RU
Speak well: DE, FR, RO, EO, SV
Speak reasonably: IT, ZH, PT, NO, EL, CZ
Need improvement: PO, IS, HE, JP, KO, HU, FI
Passive: AF, DK, LAT
Dabbled in: BRT, ZH (SH), BG, EUS, ZH (CAN), and a whole lot more.
Language Log: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/fo ... PN=1&TPN=1
x 6093
Contact:

Re: Tarvos' новый лог

Postby tarvos » Fri Oct 27, 2017 6:47 pm

I've spent too much money lately, so not going to buy any new books or shit for a while. Spent it on other stuff and now I have to live with my pink hair. :p
3 x
I hope your world is kind.

Is a girl.

Bluepaint
Brown Belt
Posts: 1272
Joined: Fri Jul 03, 2015 7:41 pm
x 1031

Re: Tarvos' новый лог

Postby Bluepaint » Fri Oct 27, 2017 7:25 pm

tarvos wrote:I've spent too much money lately, so not going to buy any new books or shit for a while. Spent it on other stuff and now I have to live with my pink hair. :p


Pink hair rocks
1 x

User avatar
tarvos
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2889
Joined: Sun Jul 26, 2015 11:13 am
Location: The Lowlands
Languages: Native: NL, EN
Professional: ES, RU
Speak well: DE, FR, RO, EO, SV
Speak reasonably: IT, ZH, PT, NO, EL, CZ
Need improvement: PO, IS, HE, JP, KO, HU, FI
Passive: AF, DK, LAT
Dabbled in: BRT, ZH (SH), BG, EUS, ZH (CAN), and a whole lot more.
Language Log: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/fo ... PN=1&TPN=1
x 6093
Contact:

Re: Tarvos' новый лог

Postby tarvos » Sun Oct 29, 2017 6:00 pm

Yup. I'm still continuing my reading trip, and have already finished The Door by Magda Szabó. Fantastic book, truly recommend it.

Now reading about Private Ivan Chonkin and his adventures in the Soviet army.

I'm not doing much actual study because, guess what, my brain has taken leave of its senses and staying awake is hard enough.
0 x
I hope your world is kind.

Is a girl.

User avatar
tarvos
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2889
Joined: Sun Jul 26, 2015 11:13 am
Location: The Lowlands
Languages: Native: NL, EN
Professional: ES, RU
Speak well: DE, FR, RO, EO, SV
Speak reasonably: IT, ZH, PT, NO, EL, CZ
Need improvement: PO, IS, HE, JP, KO, HU, FI
Passive: AF, DK, LAT
Dabbled in: BRT, ZH (SH), BG, EUS, ZH (CAN), and a whole lot more.
Language Log: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/fo ... PN=1&TPN=1
x 6093
Contact:

Re: Tarvos' новый лог

Postby tarvos » Thu Nov 02, 2017 7:22 pm

I have moved forward with Private Chonkin, but not finished it yet. I've also done some instant tutoring for French and Mandarin. French mostly because I haven't spoken French in ages and Chinese because I can always do with more Chinese. In a bit I will do some Spanish homework and after that tomorrow will be spent on my last hour of Portuguese (turns out I can speak it just fine).

I'm going to save up and then spend some money on improving my Polish, I think. Polish and Bulgarian will be the easiest fixes for me. I don't feel like working on Mandarin right now and Korean feels a little daunting. Which means I'll probably study more Korean, knowing me. :roll:
4 x
I hope your world is kind.

Is a girl.

Ольга
Green Belt
Posts: 261
Joined: Sun Sep 13, 2015 10:42 am
Languages: English, French, German, Greek, Portuguese
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=6206
x 196

Re: Tarvos' новый лог

Postby Ольга » Sat Nov 04, 2017 10:43 am

tarvos wrote:I have moved forward with Private Chonkin, but not finished it yet. I've also done some instant tutoring for French and Mandarin. French mostly because I haven't spoken French in ages and Chinese because I can always do with more Chinese. In a bit I will do some Spanish homework and after that tomorrow will be spent on my last hour of Portuguese (turns out I can speak it just fine).

I'm going to save up and then spend some money on improving my Polish, I think. Polish and Bulgarian will be the easiest fixes for me. I don't feel like working on Mandarin right now and Korean feels a little daunting. Which means I'll probably study more Korean, knowing me. :roll:

Great success, anyway. And how's your Russian? :)
0 x
Output Challenge 2018
Hours of Recorded Speech: 0 / 50
Words: 4732 / 50000


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