Stelle’s 2018 log

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Stelle
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Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 1:37 pm
Location: Canada
Languages: English (N1), French (N2), Spanish (advanced), Tagalog (basic), Russian (beginner)
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Stelle’s 2018 log

Postby Stelle » Thu Dec 28, 2017 10:08 pm

New year, new log!

Looking back

I grew up speaking French and English. I live in English at home and work in French. I teach in a French immersion school, so second language acquisition is both my career and my hobby.

I started learning Spanish in 2013. I started with self-study, connected with language partners and tutors over Skype, and then spent six weeks in 2014 walking the Camino de Santiago in Spain. Last year, my husband and I took a sabbatical and spent six months learning and travelling in Central America. My estimated level in Spanish is C1.

After coming home from Spain in April 2014, I started casually studying Tagalog. I have a bit of a love-ignore relationship with Tagalog. I study it for a few weeks or months and then don’t touch it for long stretches of time. My husband and his family are Tagalog-speakers, but I have yet to find native media that interests me. If I had to estimate my Tagalog level, i’d put myself at an A2 (although as far as I know, there are no formal language tests for Tagalog). Considering the number of years that I’ve been dabbling in Tagalog, A2 is pretty underwhelming.

I started learning Italian in March of 2016, in preparation for a family trip to Italy that never materialized. I abandoned Italian in August 2016, when we started our travel year, and then picked it up again in May 2017, right after we got home. My Spanish discount has really helped my receptive Italian. I can read novels and listen to radio in Italian. But my productive skills are very weak, and for that reason I can’t even estimate my level. I’ve been very casual with my Italian study. edit: as of March 2018, I’ve decided to let Italian go for the foreseeable future.

Looking forward

This year I’d like to improve my Tagalog to at least a B1 equivalent. I would really like to listen to some of my father-in-law’s stories in his own language. I think that the best way to improve is simply to commit to putting in the time. 30 minutes a day would go a long way by the end of the year.

My Spanish is solid. I can do everything that I want to do with it. I would like to maintain by reading novels, watching TV shows and talking via Skype with my long-time Spanish tutor. Sometimes I think about sitting a formal exam, but it’s not really worth the time, effort or money. I’d like to explore some Spanish films this year.

I’m not exactly sure where I’m going in Italian. I think that for the first part of the year, I’ll just keep improving my receptive skills through regular listening and reading. At some point, I’d like to activate my Italian so that I can speak.

No new languages this year. I’d like to get my current languages to a level where I can confidently say that I speak all five of them, and that can’t happen if I keep adding new languages to the mix.
Last edited by Stelle on Thu Apr 26, 2018 10:36 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Stelle
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Posts: 580
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 1:37 pm
Location: Canada
Languages: English (N1), French (N2), Spanish (advanced), Tagalog (basic), Russian (beginner)
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Re: Stelle’s 2018 log - Spanish, Italian, Tagalog

Postby Stelle » Tue Jan 02, 2018 1:57 pm

So I started the dialang test in Spanish, just out of curiosity. Even though I understood all of the audio, I couldn't wrap my head around some of the questions. So, I did the most reasonable thing given the circumstances, and shut the whole thing down in a panic.

I started a journal yesterday. I'd like to hand-write one page daily, alternating between Italian, Spanish and Tagalog. I started with Italian yesterday, and it was both fun and brutal. I swear, my mind went blank every second word! My goal is to free write, without using a dictionary or getting corrections. I'm curious to see if my writing improves organically.

Thoughts on Tagalog

I've been doing that thing that so many of us do, where I waste time coming up with a plan, instead of actually studying. I need a plan of attack for Tagalog, otherwise I'll probably spend the better part of the year just tweaking my study schedule. I think that I've come up with three useful ways to spend a block of 30 minutes, and I'll just rotate through them, aiming for two per day, but doing a minimum of one.

Attack formation one: The-Software-That-Must-Not-Be-Named - I'll do a weekly tutoring session, and spend the rest of the time working through the flashcards, reading/listening to the stories, and practising vocabulary using anki.

Attack formation two: Elementary Tagalog - I started working through this textbook when I first started learning Tagalog, and it's really an excellent resource. I'm going to start it again from the beginning, working through the exercises and inputting sentences into anki for review. I also know a tutor on italki who owns this resource, so I've pre-booked 10 weekly sessions with her, starting at the end of January. I'm hoping to spend half the time working through the oral exercises in the book, and the other half the time on informal conversation.

Attack formation three: Other Stuff™ - I'd like to include some native materials this time, even though I often struggle to find native materials that I enjoy. I'm going to listen to short clips of Bandila, a Filipino news show. I'd like to learn to sing some Filipino songs, so that I can kill it at our next basement karaoke night. I have English and Filipino copies of a kids' zombie book that I'd like to work through, although I need to see if I can get someone to record the Filipino audio for me. I can also use this time to journal or record myself speaking. This will basically be my "do whatever I feel like doing" block of time.

OK, mag-aral tayo!
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Stelle
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Re: Stelle’s 2018 log - Spanish, Italian, Tagalog

Postby Stelle » Wed Jan 03, 2018 1:10 pm

If you know Filipinos, then you know they like to sing. One of my not-so-serious goals is to be able to rock out during our next basement karaoke night. My brother-in-law has a big screen with a projector, and two microphones. We usually alternate between Tagalog and English songs (in large part because the teenagers will leave otherwise), but I'd love to be able to belt out the cheesy Tagalog love songs and make my mother-in-law laugh. We only set up the karaoke three or four times a year, so I have lots of time to practice.

If, over the next ten weeks, I learn a new song every week, then I'll have a repertoire of ten Tagalog songs that I can sing.

So here is my first specific goal of 2018, and my as-of-yet only progress bar:

songs: 0 / 10 - own ten Filipino songs

I started today with Freddie Aguilar's Anak. It's a bit of a cheat, since I learned(ish) this song a few years ago. I already know the tune and the rhythm. Today I listened to the song once while reading the English translation, then a second time while singing along in Tagalog. I love this song - it's a drama-filled three-minute guilt trip laid on a wayward child:



I don't own this song yet. But I will, and soon!

edited to fix YouTube link - Thanks iguanamon!
Last edited by Stelle on Wed Jan 03, 2018 2:06 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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iguanamon
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Re: Stelle’s 2018 log - Spanish, Italian, Tagalog

Postby iguanamon » Wed Jan 03, 2018 1:46 pm

Stelle wrote:... [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXEiOyi071I[/youtube]

edited to add: I can't seem to embed the YouTube link. I'm sure it's something easy that I'm missing. Can anyone help me? ...

Ok, you need to put just the alpha-numeric soup behind "v=" (which is "aXEiOyi071I", of course, don't use the quotation marks that I put in for illustration) in between the [youtube][/youtube] and you'll get your video

E vwala, zanmi'm !
Last edited by iguanamon on Wed Jan 03, 2018 3:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Stelle
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Posts: 580
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Location: Canada
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Re: Stelle’s 2018 log - Spanish, Italian, Tagalog

Postby Stelle » Wed Jan 03, 2018 2:07 pm

iguanamon wrote:Ok, you need to put just the alpha-numeric soup behind "v="
Mesi zanmi'm!
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Whodathunkitz
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Re: Stelle’s 2018 log - Spanish, Italian, Tagalog

Postby Whodathunkitz » Wed Jan 03, 2018 2:48 pm

The karaoke is a great idea for tagalog, less so for cebuano as fewer songs and most bisaya seem to prefer singing tagalog or English.

I've had at least ten perplexing conversations on why and still don't understand. Mostly comes down to "sounds funny".

I even tried bisrock...
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2018 Cebuano SuperChallenge 1 May 2018-Dec 2019
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Tristano
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Re: Stelle’s 2018 log - Spanish, Italian, Tagalog

Postby Tristano » Thu Jan 04, 2018 11:00 am

Ciao @Stelle!
Ho visto il tuo nome ed i tuoi log più e più volte nel corso degli anni e ad essere sincero, non avevo la benché minima idea di cosa fosse il Tagalog prima di aver letto il tuo log per la prima volta. Come te, ho un partner di lingua straniera e come te mi sta costando molti anni imparare la sua lingua (l'olandese) in quanto un semplice livello B2 non basta ad essere considerato fluente in una terra dove tutti la parlano come lingua nativa, a differenza dell'inglese dove uno stentato B1 ti porta lontano.
In bocca al lupo e ti auguro buona fortuna!
4 x

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Stelle
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Re: Stelle’s 2018 log - Spanish, Italian, Tagalog

Postby Stelle » Thu Jan 04, 2018 12:30 pm

Whodathunkitz wrote:The karaoke is a great idea for tagalog, less so for cebuano as fewer songs and most bisaya seem to prefer singing tagalog or English.

I've had at least ten perplexing conversations on why and still don't understand. Mostly comes down to "sounds funny".

I even tried bisrock...
Everytime I read your log, I remind myself that I shouldn't whine so much about Tagalog! It would definitely be harder to find stuff in Cebuano.

Tristano wrote:Ciao @Stelle!
Ho visto il tuo nome ed i tuoi log più e più volte nel corso degli anni e ad essere sincero, non avevo la benché minima idea di cosa fosse il Tagalog prima di aver letto il tuo log per la prima volta. Come te, ho un partner di lingua straniera e come te mi sta costando molti anni imparare la sua lingua (l'olandese) in quanto un semplice livello B2 non basta ad essere considerato fluente in una terra dove tutti la parlano come lingua nativa, a differenza dell'inglese dove uno stentato B1 ti porta lontano.
In bocca al lupo e ti auguro buona fortuna!
Grazie per il tuo messaggio! E difficile per me scrivere in italiano, ma debo provare più spesso. Ci sono molte persone dalle Filippine qui in Toronto, e tutti parlono l'inglese ed il Tagalog, ma molti parlono anche altra lingua materna (o due). Ci sono molte lingue nelle Filippine.

Cerchi di raggiungere C1 in olandese? E un lavoro duro, ma so che puoi farlo!
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Tristano
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Re: Stelle’s 2018 log - Spanish, Italian, Tagalog

Postby Tristano » Thu Jan 04, 2018 12:35 pm

Idealmente voglio diventare C2+ in olandese, essendo la lingua della terra in cui vivo ed in cui, insieme all'italiano, stiamo crescendo mia figlia (di quasi un anno). Non solo è difficile, ci vuole anche un'infinità di tempo per raggiungere questo obiettivo :) Se ciò non bastasse, stupidamente spendo più tempo imparando altre lingue che non l'olandese.
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Whodathunkitz
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Languages: English (N), Cebuano (basic spoken daily, best L2), Spanish (beginner, but can read), Esperanto (beginner and not maintained). Sometimes dabble with Dutch, Serbian, Slovak, Czech, German and Arabic.
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Re: Stelle’s 2018 log - Spanish, Italian, Tagalog

Postby Whodathunkitz » Thu Jan 04, 2018 1:59 pm

Tagalog not easy either in my opinion.

I agree with you on the media being not very interesting.

Celebrity, singing shows and pretty depressing news.

Tfc
"100 days" soap is uplifting rather than "slap stare dramatic music". "The greatest love" family kids etc. "Dream dad".

Tony Gonzaga ... "Home sweetie home" comedy.

Romcom "on the wings of love".

Cooking shows.... Adobo that baboy...(not a real name). Example cooking shows not sure but check YouTube as well as tfc.

Nature programs "matanglawin" by Kim Atienza, a weather forecaster who does a sideline in documentaries.
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2018 Cebuano SuperChallenge 1 May 2018-Dec 2019
: 150 / 600 SC days:
: 6 / 1250 Read (aim daily 2000 words):
: 299 / 9000 Video (aim daily 15 minutes):


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