Aloyse's study log (ZH + some ARB, ARQ, KAB, EN, ES, JP)

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Aloyse
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Posts: 244
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Languages: Fr (N), EN (C1),
ES (B1?), ZH (B1),
JP (A1), ARB (A1?),
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Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... php?t=9983
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Re: Aloyse's study log (ZH, JP,maybe EN, ES, AR ?)

Postby Aloyse » Sat Aug 17, 2019 8:05 pm

15 hours of Chinese class in 1 week:

the small group class ended up being just me and the teacher.
So in a sense I got private lessons for the same price as group classes.
The teacher gave me a choice of topics from the list prepared for the group classes (all very current topics about Chinese society).
Each session started with smalltalk before diving into the topic of the day.
The handouts were a mixture of "somewhat too easy" and "somewhat too difficult" texts - apparently there is a lack of interesting material (i.e. about current topics) for intermediate level learners.
The videos were difficult to follow for me - full speed Chinese speech... my listening is still not good enough.

Regarding my spoken Chinese, I'm ashamed to say that I still make beginner mistakes like using 还是 instead of 或者 :oops:
But on the other hand I used 把 without even thinking about it.
I mostly spoke very slowly as I was trying to remember the appropriate vocabulary but in some rare instances my speech was more or less fluid when speaking about my interests.

At the beginning of the week I dreaded going to class (3 hours! one on one!) but thankfully the wall clock was behind my back and the class contents was interesting enough that it wasn't all that hard to keep going... I definitely needed some cafeine beforehand though.

In summary I am feeling satisfied and encouraged to take more classes and/or restart studying Chinese by myself seriously.
I'll definitely take these intensive classes again when available (i.e. during school holidays)
and I am considering also taking a regular long term class, although the teacher warned me that available classes might be somewhat easy for me... there's always private classes but that's pricey.

===
Interesting vocabulary:
码农 (code farmer :mrgreen: ) ~= 程序员 (programmer, developer)
996 is a verb.

todo: make smalltalk with myself about the random events in my life.
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overscore
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Re: Aloyse's study log (ZH, JP,maybe EN, ES, AR ?)

Postby overscore » Sat Aug 17, 2019 9:56 pm

Aloyse wrote:And I still haven't mastered the trick of forcing myself to answer 哪里哪里你的法语才好 to undeserved praise :?


I was going to protest at that sentence (哪里哪里你的法语才好), but at the very least if it means there's less cases of Paris syndrome coming from China than japan and korea, that will have served its purpose.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_syndrome
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Aloyse
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Languages: Fr (N), EN (C1),
ES (B1?), ZH (B1),
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ARQ (A0), KAB (A0)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... php?t=9983
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Re: Aloyse's study log (ZH, JP, maybe EN, ES, AR ?)

Postby Aloyse » Sun Aug 18, 2019 8:31 am

overscore wrote:I was going to protest at that sentence (哪里哪里你的法语才好)

I'm not quite following. Were you going to object on grammatical, cultural, or factual grounds?
Isn't it polite in Chinese culture to respond to compliments with a vigorous denial/display of 谦虚, and if possible return to sender?
As I am now living in a smaller provincial town, most of the non-French-born Chinese speakers I meet are already more or less fluent in French... and even if their French is still only barely intelligible, I don't (or rather, shouldn't) feel particularly hypocritical in giving false praise in return for false praise :)
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overscore
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Re: Aloyse's study log (ZH, JP, maybe EN, ES, AR ?)

Postby overscore » Sun Aug 18, 2019 1:57 pm

Aloyse wrote:
overscore wrote:I was going to protest at that sentence (哪里哪里你的法语才好)

I'm not quite following. Were you going to object on grammatical, cultural, or factual grounds?
Isn't it polite in Chinese culture to respond to compliments with a vigorous denial/display of 谦虚, and if possible return to sender?
As I am now living in a smaller provincial town, most of the non-French-born Chinese speakers I meet are already more or less fluent in French... and even if their French is still only barely intelligible, I don't (or rather, shouldn't) feel particularly hypocritical in giving false praise in return for false praise :)



Ah I completely missed the mark of what this means :D I'm sorry.
I asked my chinese girlfriend and she cleared it up for me.
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Aloyse
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Languages: Fr (N), EN (C1),
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Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... php?t=9983
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Back to school/work...

Postby Aloyse » Sun Sep 08, 2019 8:57 am

Subscribed to several Spanish and Chinese youtube channels and now trying to watch one video in each language per day.
Also registered for the Japanese class on Mondays, which will start in a few weeks.

Not sure about taking other classes (didn't find a suitable Spanish class, somewhat tempted by a dialectal Arabic class, Chinese classes that would fit my timetable are about 4x more expensive than other language group classes...)
I've been thinking about hiring foreign students as private tutors for conversation practice but having to deal with employment paperwork myself seems a huge hassle...

I'm experimenting a new habit tracker format instead of my previous monthly tracker.
Keeping all my previous categories as row headers, but now each double page has only 2 weeks on the left page, so I can note down todos, targets and priorities for each row on the right page.
Currently my priorities are finances, health, and a tiny daily dose of ZH/JA/ES.

After a rather quiet summer period, my workload has increased suddenly this past week. Ouch.

Need to do some boring housework today. Better get the mp3 player.
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David27
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Re: Aloyse's study log (ZH, JP, maybe EN, ES, AR ?)

Postby David27 » Sun Sep 08, 2019 12:22 pm

What kind of YouTube channels? Anything interesting?
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Aloyse
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Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... php?t=9983
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Re: Aloyse's study log (ZH, JP, maybe EN, ES, AR ?)

Postby Aloyse » Sun Sep 08, 2019 4:10 pm

David27 wrote:What kind of YouTube channels? Anything interesting?


Currently I'm watching mostly "ASÍ ES LA VIDA" and "真實故事" stories with animation video. I wouldn't watch this in my native language, but the level is about right for me in Spanish and Chinese. (Drawback: not culturally relevant, since the stories are originally American ones).

Also GENIAL - a Spanish channel with various more-or-less serious informative videos. (these also look like they were translated from English).

Also random self-help or cat lovers videos in Chinese like 花花与三猫 Cat Live, 黃阿瑪的後宮生活, Yale Chen, 思维改变命运 王魄, but these are a little hard to follow (either because of vocabulary or slurred words).
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Aloyse
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Posts: 244
Joined: Sat Jan 19, 2019 9:00 am
Languages: Fr (N), EN (C1),
ES (B1?), ZH (B1),
JP (A1), ARB (A1?),
ARQ (A0), KAB (A0)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... php?t=9983
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Adulting

Postby Aloyse » Mon Sep 09, 2019 4:25 pm

Attempting to be a grown up:
apparently in order to hire a foreign student as a "language teacher" legally, I need to
1) get myself an employer number / register with CESU
2) find a suitable employee and check that they have the nationality and student residence permit that allows them to work AND that they have a health insurance (sécurité sociale) number already
3) sign a CESU employment contract with the student
4) warn the préfecture that I intend to hire this foreign person
5) pay this person and all the associated mandatory stuff like health insurance, retirement fund, unemployment insurance etc. CESU supposedly makes this easy.

I'm still confused about hourly pay before/after deductions and also how the new income tax scheme is supposed to fit into this.
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Aloyse
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Joined: Sat Jan 19, 2019 9:00 am
Languages: Fr (N), EN (C1),
ES (B1?), ZH (B1),
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Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... php?t=9983
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Journal'ísimo

Postby Aloyse » Tue Sep 10, 2019 5:17 pm

I'm starting the study of Journal'ísimo today.
This is a textbook of Spanish media vocabulary. The suggested schedule is 50 words per week for 26 weeks.
I chose this book over "Le mot et l'idée" because it has example sentences for every word.
Feeling rather confident that I can learn these 1300 words over time, even though it will take me more than 26 weeks.
After all I'm not in a hurry. And learning Spanish words is pretty easy compared to Chinese.
I'll need to read some Spanish articles (or listen to news in Spanish) to complement this systematic vocabulary study.
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Aloyse
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Posts: 244
Joined: Sat Jan 19, 2019 9:00 am
Languages: Fr (N), EN (C1),
ES (B1?), ZH (B1),
JP (A1), ARB (A1?),
ARQ (A0), KAB (A0)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... php?t=9983
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2019-2020

Postby Aloyse » Sat Sep 14, 2019 10:36 am

Current mindset now that the high from the Chinese class high has abated:
(sorry to be macabre) once I'm dead it won't matter whether I reached level X in language Y.
So I'll just prepare my 2019-2020 schedule keeping in mind that I'm studying languages for fun and it must not add any stress to my life.
Also winters are cold here. Any activity that requires me to go out again at night every week is likely to fail. Best if I can go directly from work.

Tentative schedule (14 sept):
Mon: Japanese class
Tue: nothing (might hire a student to come to my place for Chinese or Spanish conversation practice)
Wed: walk back home for exercise
Thu: one of sophrology class/dialectal Arabic class/any kind of gentle gymnastics class, still undecided
Fri: nothing, keep open for overtime (ugh!) or (hopefully) socializing
Sat: alternating Chinese oral practice class and Chinese culture conferences (in French)
Sun: walking for exercise (and might hire a student for conversation practice)

Edit: I just found more possibilities! Wednesday basic Spanish class ?

Also let me note down my personal study routines. Something like this:

Everyday: review cards, watch 1 Chinese and 1 Spanish youtube videos
Tue: review Monday's Japanese class & prepare a new Spanish vocabulary card
Wed: read a Chinese article & prepare a new Chinese patterns card
Fri: prepare a new kanji card, prepare oral Chinese class
Sat:
Sun:
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