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

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Carmody
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Re: Rdearman 2016/17/18/19/20/21 [One good deed is better than a thousand good intentions]

Postby Carmody » Sun Feb 07, 2021 4:51 pm

GaryB

Would you please suggest better
ways of gauging your level in a language?
Many thanks.
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Re: Rdearman 2016/17/18/19/20/21 [One good deed is better than a thousand good intentions]

Postby lusan » Sun Feb 07, 2021 8:30 pm

尹蕾

"I'm not THAT smart, but I'm definitely not dumb, OK?"

ja jajajaj.....
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Re: Rdearman 2016/17/18/19/20/21 [One good deed is better than a thousand good intentions]

Postby rdearman » Mon Feb 08, 2021 1:02 am

Carmody wrote:GaryB

Would you please suggest better
ways of gauging your level in a language?
Many thanks.

Well, I'll have a go at suggesting some way.

  1. You are seriously frustrated and angry because you can't do anything you want in the TL, and what you can do is limited to childlike blabber. Then you're probably about A1/2.
  2. You can do most of the stuff you dreamed of doing when you started, but have since realized that it isn't enough, and you're still frustrated, but not angry. You're probably at about B1/2
  3. You can do what you want in the language, and you realize there is still more to learn, but you're not frustrated, just resigned to the fact you'll never know everything. You're probably C1/2
  4. You know the language is easy, you can't understand why all these foreigners can't understand, and you're frustrated with people who try to speak your language. You're probably a Native Speaker.

Or if you prefer:

A famous, historical Zen teacher named Qingyuan Weixin said …
Before I had studied (Zen) for thirty years, I saw mountains as mountains, and rivers as rivers. When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge, I came to the point where I saw that mountains are not mountains, and rivers are not rivers. But now that I have got its very substance I am at rest. For it's just that I see mountains once again as mountains, and rivers once again as rivers
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Re: Rdearman 2016/17/18/19/20/21 [One good deed is better than a thousand good intentions]

Postby Carmody » Mon Feb 08, 2021 1:45 am

Rick

Many thanks for the answer.
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Re: Rdearman 2016/17/18/19/20/21 [One good deed is better than a thousand good intentions]

Postby rdearman » Mon Feb 08, 2021 12:28 pm

Carmody wrote:Rick

Many thanks for the answer.

It is "an" answer, but probably not a good one! :lol:
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Re: Rdearman 2016/17/18/19/20/21 [One good deed is better than a thousand good intentions]

Postby rdearman » Mon Feb 08, 2021 1:26 pm

Still working on Korean. I've discovered a channel with does the news in short video clips, and these clips have a transcription! Yay!

http://world.kbs.co.kr/service/index.htm?lang=k

They also do Japanese, and English. (Probably more but I didn't check) They also have a "Learn Korean" section where they take clips from TV shows to give a transcription and also explanations about the dialogues.
http://world.kbs.co.kr/service/contents ... 918&page=1
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Re: Rdearman 2016/17/18/19/20/21 [One good deed is better than a thousand good intentions]

Postby garyb » Tue Feb 09, 2021 8:01 pm

Carmody wrote:GaryB

Would you please suggest better
ways of gauging your level in a language?
Many thanks.
My post was of course a joke, but I'm not sure I know any better ways! CEFR is the best standard of levels we have, but it's used and abused in so many ways that it's not really clear what the levels mean. The checklists suggest very high standards of ability and precision that few people with a certificate for that level actually attain. Some of the exams seem to not care much about mistakes and (arguably quite rightly) focus on what you can do in the language rather than how correctly you can do it, although they can also have a bias towards academic language and formats. Online tests assign levels based on crude estimates that favour some learners over others such as number of recognised words and knowledge of grammar points (they tend to overestimate mine since I'm quite good at remembering these things even if not so good at using them, but could underestimate those of people who might not have such a strong theoretical knowledge of the language but are better talkers than me). Universities assign levels by default to anyone who completes a course. Courses and textbooks make exaggerated claims, or base their level on their content rather than on the level they can take you to.

Fortunately the CEFR levels are distinct enough and there are few enough of them that it's not hard to self-estimate, if you can look at your own abilities honestly, or estimate with a teacher's help.
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Re: Rdearman 2016/17/18/19/20/21 [One good deed is better than a thousand good intentions]

Postby rdearman » Thu Feb 18, 2021 8:53 pm

Obviously I'm not posting in my log enough, since I'm buried way to the back!

I'm doing some more language exchanges in Italian. I scheduled with 5 people, 2 were no-shows, 2 showed once, and 1 person has done multiple times, at the times scheduled. This 4-1 ratio seems to be about the norm. It amuses me sometimes when people say they tried to do language exchanges, and I ask with how many people and they say 1. Unless you are extremely lucky, you only have a 1 in five chance of them doing more than one exchange. :geek:

I am still doing one French exchange each week with the same person. She shows up 99% of the time, and if not it is normally because she has something to do for her children. Need to think of something more difficult to speak with her about.

Still plodding through my trilogy in Italian about Alexander the Great, and reading a French scifi book. It is pretty interesting, they've just broken into the spaceship, buried under the Antarctic ice for 100,000 years and entered the chamber where the pods are. Inside are forms kept at near absolute zero, and they are human! Sorry if you know what I'm reading, and it is a spoiler, but I don't think I ever said the name of the book, so you're probably OK.

I've parked Setswana, and Mandarin for the foreseeable future, although I still watch a YT Vlogger in China who I found interesting. (He speaks in Mandarin)

Korean is mostly just watching a shed-load of dramas. Probably between 4 & 6 hours a day. I'm also dipping in and out of Korean teaching podcasts and YT channels. I try learning what I believe should be a commonly used word, then listen out for it during the dramas. Rather than just focusing on the subtitles. It seems to be working. I worked out that 가 means go (erroneously because the dictionary says it means "end"), then 가다 was go and 가다가 was something like, I'm coming, or I'm going? But the guy kept saying 가 and kicking the horse, so... Anyway, I'm trying to puzzle out some stuff.

I tend to remember words which I've tried to work out myself better, so hopefully this will help.
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Re: Rdearman 2016/17/18/19/20/21 [One good deed is better than a thousand good intentions]

Postby IronMike » Fri Feb 19, 2021 7:03 am

rdearman wrote:I tend to remember words which I've tried to work out myself better, so hopefully this will help.

This works for me, as well. I'll try to use context to figure out the meaning. Before long if I've got an idea and I'm tired of not know for sure, I'll look in an English-L2 dictionary at what I think the word means and if the L2 word is one of the definitions, then I won! If not, I look up synonyms till I find it.
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You're not a C1 (or B1 or whatever) if you haven't tested.
CEFR --> ILR/DLPT equivalencies
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Re: Rdearman 2016/17/18/19/20/21 [One good deed is better than a thousand good intentions]

Postby DaveAgain » Fri Feb 19, 2021 9:40 am

rdearman wrote:Korean is mostly just watching a shed-load of dramas. Probably between 4 & 6 hours a day. I'm also dipping in and out of Korean teaching podcasts and YT channels. I try learning what I believe should be a commonly used word, then listen out for it during the dramas. Rather than just focusing on the subtitles. It seems to be working. I worked out that 가 means go (erroneously because the dictionary says it means "end"), then 가다 was go and 가다가 was something like, I'm coming, or I'm going? But the guy kept saying 가 and kicking the horse, so... Anyway, I'm trying to puzzle out some stuff.

I tend to remember words which I've tried to work out myself better, so hopefully this will help.
I used to watch a French YouTuber who had learned some Korean. She made one, how I learned Korean video, where she recommended talktomeinkorean.com as a good resource.
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