Brun Ugle の mehrsprachige bitácora (NO, ES, DE, JA) 2019 -- now with Polish!!

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Brun Ugle
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Re: Brun Ugle の mehrsprachige bitácora (NO, ES, DE, JA) 2019

Postby Brun Ugle » Thu Jan 03, 2019 7:37 am

Thanks, Mista! The comma rule I didn’t even know, because as I said, I never learned Norwegian beyond the very basics in Teach Yourself. The other rule I did sort of know and I actually corrected it a few places, but obviously, I missed it a lot more often than I fixed it. It’s really hard to correct my own Norwegian and I’ve never had anyone to correct me before, so thank you very much for pointing out my errors. Now, I know the most important points I need to work on for next time. Maybe this will be the year I finally polish up my Norwegian and make it pretty.
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Brun Ugle
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Re: Brun Ugle の mehrsprachige bitácora (NO, ES, DE, JA) 2019

Postby Brun Ugle » Thu Jan 03, 2019 5:50 pm

Spoonary wrote:Now, I obviously can't read Norwegian, but I just wanted to pop in and tell you that I am proud of you for sharing a post in Norwegian, if you are, as you say, embarrassed by it. The only way is up from here :)

I'm really glad I swallowed my pride and did it. Now, I have a much clearer idea of what I should work on first. I'm looking forward to whipping my Norwegian into shape.
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Re: Brun Ugle の mehrsprachige bitácora (NO, ES, DE, JA) 2019

Postby Brun Ugle » Thu Jan 03, 2019 5:53 pm

Now for part three of my introduction... It was going to be in and about Spanish, since that is my third best language, but that’s the only part of the introduction I haven’t written yet and I don’t think I can manage it today. So, it’s going to be about Japanese, but written in English. Unfortunately, I wrote it quickly, thinking I would polish it up before posting, but I’m not really up to it, so you get the first draft.

I seem to have started this year on the wrong foot or something because I’m very clumsy and my brain isn’t functioning. I’ve been like this since the 1st. I hope it’s just a virus or something I ate and will go away soon. It’s really annoying. I keep getting my Anki cards wrong, I’ve been dropping things, I’ve walked into doors because I somehow forgot to open them first (Not even glass doors. Wooden doors!). So, like I mentioned in my first post, I need to do activities that don’t require much brain power. So, I think I will give up on the Anki, FSI, and grammar and just watch TV for the rest of today.

日本語
I’m not going to even try to write in Japanese just yet. I’ve forgotten too much to even attempt it and I was never that great at writing or speaking anyway. Japanese and I have a difficult history. I started learning it about 25 years ago, when I was twenty years old and had a Japanese boyfriend. At that time, I had no idea how to learn a language and didn’t really get that far. Since then, I’ve picked it up and dropped it again many times. The last time was in 2011, I think, and I eventually got good enough to make it through the entire Harry Potter series, but it took me ages and I really struggled with the last few books. I ended up reading them mostly in parallel with the English versions as I recall. I also managed to watch a couple of series and sort of half-way understand them, but my listening comprehension was never that great. That was before I finally learned Spanish and, in the process, learned how to listen. It worked with Spanish because 1) Spanish is more transparent for an English speaker. That can’t be denied. 2) I’d managed to get to an intermediate level of Spanish, so I had some hope of being able to understand a TV series. I’ve made it to that level in Japanese before though, so it should be a problem to hit intermediate again. 3) I found an extremely addictive series without any subtitles available that was simple enough for me to follow. 4) I technically had a bit of listening practice because of Destinos, Extr@ and Notes in Spanish Intermediate. What does this mean for my current attempt at Japanese? Well, I can’t do anything about 1. Japanese is not going to turn into a level 1 language. I’ve achieved 2 before, so I can do it again. For early listening practice there’s Erin’s Challenge, I suppose, and maybe my readers can suggest some other low-level videos or podcasts, all in Japanese, but simple and not too boring. A podcast like Notes in Spanish Intermediate would be nice. The other difficulty is finding something interesting to watch that is easily available to me. That’s another difficulty of Japanese. Spanish media seems so much more easily available on the net. Of course, part of it is that it’s easier to find your way around a Spanish website with a basic level of Spanish than to navigate a Japanese website with a basic level of Japanese.

I don’t have any big plans for Japanese. I’ve been trying and failing to restart it for years, so I’m just happy that I’ve finally gotten back in the habit of doing something, anything, with the language on a near daily basis. I hope to run through RTK again, and make it through the Core 6000 Anki deck. I will probably also continue with Glossika and slowly pluck away at my old textbook, which is in tatters after so many attempts. I’d like to try to do fairly regular listening, but I still haven’t found something that appeals to me and is at a good level.
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Re: Brun Ugle の mehrsprachige bitácora (NO, ES, DE, JA) 2019

Postby rdearman » Thu Jan 03, 2019 8:19 pm

What is the next part about? French?
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Re: Brun Ugle の mehrsprachige bitácora (NO, ES, DE, JA) 2019

Postby SGP » Fri Jan 04, 2019 7:55 am

Brun Ugle wrote:So, it’s going to be about Japanese, but written in English. Unfortunately, I wrote it quickly, thinking I would polish it up before posting, but I’m not really up to it, so you get the first draft.
I can definitely relate. It keeps me puzzling why Nihongo is my only at-least-A1 language that I still can't express myself too clearly in. This could simply be about the Language Family Distance. But it seems like there is more to it, too. Could it be something unique to Japanese and Japan because of the long isolated isle past (relatively speaking)?

And by the way, you have been featured at "you know you're a language nerd when...".
Direct link.
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Brun Ugle
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Re: Brun Ugle の mehrsprachige bitácora (NO, ES, DE, JA) 2019

Postby Brun Ugle » Fri Jan 04, 2019 5:18 pm

Part 4. My brain still isn’t working, but I at least managed to write something. I can’t believe how far behind I am on the Output Challenge already though. What a time for my brain to go on strike!

Español
Mi español ha mejorado mucho en los últimos años, pero no tan rápido como yo había creído que iba a mejorar cuando empecé a estudiarlo otra vez en 2015. Ahora puedo ver series de televisión casi sin problemas, así que puedo disfrutar del idioma. Puedo leer también, pero no tan rápido como querría y algunos libros son todavía difíciles al principio. Cuando empiezo un libro de un autor que no he leído antes, me cuesta mucho leer los primeros 20 páginas, pero se mejora usualmente después de un capítulo o dos.

Ahora, lo más difícil es hablar y escribir. Por eso voy a participar otra vez en el reto de producción. Cuando me apunté, pensaba que no sería tan difícil cumplirlo este año, pero ahora no estoy tan segura. Mi mente está tan torpe estos últimos días. Creo que he dejado mi cerebro atrás en 2018, porque podía pensar el 31 de diciembre, pero desde entonces, no.

Bueno, si encuentro mi cerebro, mis metas para este año serán: Leer mucho (lo suficiente para terminar 100 “libros” en el SC) y terminar el reto de producción. Tengo la GdUdE C1/C2, pero voy a esperar un poco más. Este año voy a seguir asimilando el idioma relajadamente y tratando de mejorar mi fluidez.
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Re: Brun Ugle の mehrsprachige bitácora (NO, ES, DE, JA) 2019

Postby rdearman » Fri Jan 04, 2019 7:27 pm

So Part 5 is French?
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Re: Brun Ugle の mehrsprachige bitácora (NO, ES, DE, JA) 2019

Postby devilyoudont » Sat Jan 05, 2019 12:14 am

Polar Bear Cafe is an anime that I think is probably reasonably understandable for a beginner.
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Brun Ugle
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Re: Brun Ugle の mehrsprachige bitácora (NO, ES, DE, JA) 2019

Postby Brun Ugle » Sat Jan 05, 2019 8:38 am

rdearman wrote:So Part 5 is French?

You can pretend it is.

Morgana wrote:
Brun Ugle wrote:... and maybe my readers can suggest some other low-level videos or podcasts, all in Japanese, but simple and not too boring.

I have no idea if this would be appropriate practice listening material:

Benjiro - Japanese Conversations. "Long-form listening practice for beginners. Some easier, some harder."
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChBBWt ... LSOh_aPt2Q

Thanks! I’ll try it. I just listened to the first minute or so of one episode and it seemed extremely easy, so I hope it gets a little harder than that.

devilyoudont wrote:Polar Bear Cafe is an anime that I think is probably reasonably understandable for a beginner.

Thanks! I’ll give that a try too. It looks like it could be fun.
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Re: Brun Ugle の mehrsprachige bitácora (NO, ES, DE, JA) 2019

Postby Chmury » Sat Jan 05, 2019 9:32 am

Brun Ugle wrote:Puedo leer también, pero no tan rápido como querría y algunos libros son todavía difíciles al principio. Cuando empiezo un libro de un autor que no he leído antes, me cuesta mucho leer los primeros 20 páginas, pero se mejora usualmente después de un capítulo o dos.


Bueno, me imaginaría que eso pasa a casi todos nosotros a menos que uno está por el C2, lleva años leyendo muy a menudo en castellano y tiene un vocabulario profundo. Me tarda un poco acostumbrarme a los libros dirigidos a adultos también y siempre necesito unos cuantos capítulos hasta que me sienta cómodo y a gusto en el lenguaje poco familiar de un nuevo autor o autora. ¿Cuáles tipos de libros llevas leyendo? ¿Has encontrado algunos que te gustaron mucho?

Me alegro de que vayas a seguir trabajando en tu castellano este año y espero que mejores un montón. ¡Y felicitaciones con la nueva casa también! Sé que puede ser bastante estresante tener que mudarte y llevar todo lo que te pertenece de un lugar a otro, pero espero que fuera un poco emocionante a la vez y que ya te instalaste. ¡Que sea un año estupendo para ti Brun Ugle!
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