LearnLangs.com

The 6 weeks are over and I have given my talk at the first round of the Indonesian Speaking Competition. The topic I chose was "How to learn languages" (big surprise), which I chose for several reasons: I'm very comfortable with this topic, I knew it would be very interesting for the audience (especially coming from someone who just learned Indonesian quickly) and it's possible to talk about this with a very basic vocabulary.

I don't speak Indonesian yet. I spent maybe 10 hours on it several years ago and I have attended two 2-hour Indonesian lessons at the Indonesian embassy last month (awesome idea to offer free lessons...). At the moment, I can introduce myself and I know possessive pronouns and that's about it.

我昨天收到了通知单，说我被接受了，可以去中国参加“第四届中欧青年组织发展论坛”。

这个论坛很快就召开，是这个月底，从二十号到二十七号。所以，我应该尽快地准备旅行。我需要签证。我昨天已经约定了去大使馆的时间。幸运的是我的飞机票、旅馆是由会议队预定的。我在中国的行程会比较紧，每天有很多节目，而且我们并不只是留在北京那一个城市，也从北京飞到长沙、上海。七天内参观三个城市，游览的时间一定不多。不管怎样，我对能有机会去中国感到很高兴，希望认识很多有意思的人，看中国因特网的状态，讨论中欧的关系。

为了这个旅行，我现在觉得提高我的汉语是一个急事。我要每天练习口语，每天写一篇汉语课文，看汉语电影。我不知道我在中国那段时间有没有说汉语的机会，可是我要试试。我上次去中国是2004年，现在是2013年，不知道以后什么时候可以再去中国。

FluentU just published an interview with me, in which I talk at length about how I learned Chinese and the advice I have for other learners of Chinese:

Read the interview

Also, this made me think about a peculiar experience I had in China: being hired to be a white face. I wrote a text about it in French on Lang-8:

Employée comme visage blanc

Yesterday I was invited to a friend's birthday party. This friend is vegan and allergic to gluten (I'm neither), but I wanted to make her a cake for her birthday. Over-the-counter vegan cakes in Berlin don't generally taste good, unless you're used to eating vegan cake I guess - I usually decline to have any, and I'd otherwise never decline cake. I'm not a fan of milk/cream/cheese substitutes used in vegan baking and most of these products actually make my tongue tingle if I have more than a bite.

Dum la ĉi-jara JES mi gvidis diskutrondon pri plibonigado de vivo, jam por la dua fojo. La partoprenantoj kolektis multajn bonajn ideojn pri kiel havi...
- pli da motiveco
- pli da tempo aŭ produktiveco
- pli da ĝojo aŭ feliĉeco
- pli da mono
- pli da korpa/mensa bonsento

Vi povas nun elŝuti la resumon de tiuj ideoj ĉi tie. La dosiero inkluzivas ne nur la ideojn menciitajn ĉi-foje, sed ankaŭ tiujn de la antaŭaj sesioj. Elprovu unu post la alia kaj vidu kiel via vivo transformiĝas!

After some consideration, here are my language-related goals for 2013:

• finish reading 50 books, at least 30 in languages other than English or German
• write 50 texts on lang-8
• have a foreign-language conversation every day, enlisting Skype partners, italki and my boyfriend - if you want to do a language exchange, send me a message
• hit 700+ total hours of language study (2011 was 712h, 2012 was less than 600h because of work)

I am presently answering questions as "IAmA polyglot" on Reddit. If there's something you've always wanted to know about my studies or life as a polyglot and professional podcast host, just ask :-)

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/14q3rh/i_learned_11_languages_with...

私は"6 Week Challenge"の挑戦に参加します。これは言語の挑戦です。すべての人は六週かんで一つの言語の勉強をします。初心者でなければなりません。6週間の末に上達したかどうか見てみます。

今回私は日本語の勉強をします。多くの言葉の勉強をしたい。文法の学問を改良したい。かんたんではありません。六週かんで上達するでしょうか？

我读完了王蕤写的 《闯入美国主流》。以前，我已经读过 《小王子》，《苏菲的世界》 和 《二马》，可是这些我是用英汉双语课文读的。读王蕤的书，我没用英汉双语的课文，只读了汉语，所以我很开心。这是一个里程碑。

我觉得 《闯入美国主流》 很有意思。我热爱学习语言，而王蕤的书包括很多关于语言学习的劝告。我也喜欢她从局外人角度看美国社会，解释美国和中国的不同。同时她也教了我一些近代的汉语词汇，比如“看热闹”、“假洋鬼子”和“美女作家“。读完了书，我的词汇增加了很多。我的理解力也有了进步，看懂一本汉语课本变得简单一点儿。只有我的写作还是一样的糟糕，犯的错误太多。