What is TAC?
TAC stands for Total Annihilation Challenge, but what it really means is "to learn as much as possible in your chosen language(s) during the year, keep a log of your progress, and if you are on a team to join in discussions and help out your teammates as best you can." (quote from Brun Ugle, organizer of TAC 2016)
Who can sign up for Team East Asian Languages?
Right now, I believe primarily everyone who has signed up is focusing on Japanese, Korean, or Japanese. But if anybody is studying Thai or Vietnamese or Hindi or something a bit off the beaten path that is sometimes, or was historically referred to as Asian or Orient--we'll welcome you with open arms!
Your skill level and study plan and discipline are not under fire. This is a place to make your goals with other language learners, and find support from others working next to you.
What do members of Team East Asian Languages do?
* learn at least one Target Language (TL) throughout 2016
* follow this team thread
* keep a TL log
* read teammates' logs
* provide community, support, and encouragement to teammates
How do I sign up?
* post in the general TAC 2016 sign-up thread
* either start a log with TAC 2016 in the title or edit a current log to include reference to TAC 2016
* post in this thread with a link to your log
Who are the members of Team East Asian Languages and where are their logs?
AiyaLianxi: Korean, Chinese, Japanese
aliciaftw: Korean (absolute beginner), Spanish
Amyhere: Mandarin Chinese, French, German
Anya
Esme: Korean (beginner)
Evita: Korean
Expugnator: Mandarin, so many other languages, check out his log!
Jimjam: Japanese, German
lupine: Japanese, French
Nandemonai: Japanese, Korean, Mandarin
Polyglotmaya: Japanese (3 years studied), French
Rotasu: Japanese
Woodsei: Japanese
Yuhakko
Hey! I'm studying this Asian language, and I'm not on the list.
Did you sign up for a team through here, or the official TAC list? If you are listed as studying an East Asian language, you are more than welcome to join, but I'm also not going to force us to join your team. Many of us are studying many languages, and might want to be more active in a different team for whatever reason. Let me know you want to join either when you sign up, or by posting here, and I will add you!
Why didn't you link my log?
I'm sorry! post here or send me a PM. I will try to check for new members once a day.
Resources
Mandarin Chinese
- The Chairman's Bao: Simplified Chinese Newspaper for those learning Simplified Chinese.
Japanese
- NHK News Web Easy: Japanese newspaper with furigana and audio to help beginning Japanese readers. Also has definitions pop up over more difficult words.
Korean
- Talk to Me in Korean: A Korean learning podcast with 9 levels of free lessons, and many more resources for free or $$$.
Hey! What about this resource?
Comment or PM me, I'll make sure it gets added. Right now, I'm trying to get everything updated from this page, and then I'll be checkout out your various logs. If I miss an awesome resource, please let me know, and I'll add it to the list! We're going to WIN TAC this year, by which I mean, we are going to make it to Dec 31, you guys!
Week 0 Late Start:
How about we start with which language(s) we're focusing on, how we intend to study, and what our goals are for this year?
I'm focusing on improving my Mandarin Chinese and Korean, and maintaining my Japanese. I'm giving myself tangible deadlines for signing up for the appropriate language exams, HSK/JLPT/TOPIK. Though I need to call my regional Korean embassy on Monday, as I still don't know which date they're hosting the TOPIK for the school I will travel to.
I really want to increase input this year. Last year I tried doing podcasts but...it didn't really work in Korean, because my vocabulary wasn't there yet. Also falling behind didn't inspire me to catch up. So I'm going to aim for 9 dramas a year, three per language. I know I'll start watching at least 10 per language, but watching the full 12-16 hours of content only happens when the story is extraordinarily good, you know?
Outputwise, I'm still working with my italki Korean tutor for the TOPIK, focusing on grammar, pronunciation and vocab still. Since (I believe) I'll be taking the TOPIK first, I'm thinking I'll hold off fitting Japanese and Mandarin italki lessons into my week (also I don't know when I'd fit it in), so I'm going to work this week and next to committing to a Korean, Japanese, and Chinese language text/workbook to work through by March 30.
Anyways, welcome! I'll try to check in on us once a day, because I did love the challenge, when people were active.