PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5469 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1
| Message 65 of 73 11 June 2015 at 12:54am | IP Logged |
Well done on passing everything Rem... You must've felt particularly pleased with getting
decent results on the exam you thought you might have failed. Good work :)
As for italki... I'm keen to hear how you go. Good luck!
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Rem Groupie United Kingdom Joined 3750 days ago 66 posts - 96 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Mandarin, Czech, French
| Message 66 of 73 11 June 2015 at 1:26am | IP Logged |
PeterMollenburg wrote:
Well done on passing everything Rem... You must've felt
particularly pleased with getting decent results on the exam you thought you might
have failed. Good work :) |
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Thanks. :)
I had to look twice at my results just to make sure that I wasn’t seeing things. Then
I had a massive grin on my face for a good while after. ;)
PeterMollenburg wrote:
As for italki... I'm keen to hear how you go. Good luck!
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Well...I managed to get through the first lesson of my challenge (mostly) in one
piece. Lots of stuttering, stumbling and umming and ahhing, but I survived it...I
guess.
Hopefully it will get better with time but, for now, all I can think about is how
stupid I must have sounded. :(
I know that I’m paying the teacher for their time but I kind of feel I should be
apologising to them for the mess that I’m making of the language.
Oh well...one down...ELEVEN more to go! Here’s hoping that I start to handle them a
little better.
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Rem Groupie United Kingdom Joined 3750 days ago 66 posts - 96 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Mandarin, Czech, French
| Message 67 of 73 12 June 2015 at 5:16pm | IP Logged |
Not really an update...more of an observation.
I used to think that my environment was pretty much monolingual English. I'd go through
everyday in English; surrounded by English but, since I started to focus on learning
other languages, I’ve become much more aware of my surroundings. It’s surprising how many
different languages I notice being spoken around me now. They were probably there before
but I guess I was oblivious. It’s nice to hear them...even if I can’t understand them. :P
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Rem Groupie United Kingdom Joined 3750 days ago 66 posts - 96 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Mandarin, Czech, French
| Message 68 of 73 16 June 2015 at 4:17am | IP Logged |
italki challenge - update
I’m a third of the way through the italki challenge with 4/12 hours completed, making
this officially the longest that I’ve ever managed to stick with online lessons. :)
I’ve decided that I’m going to start writing down three things after every lesson that
I think went well. I’m hoping that this will help me to focus more on some of the good
points of my lessons instead of spending all of my time worrying about my mistakes.
So, here are my 3 good points for my last lesson...
1. I’m picking up new vocabulary*
2. I’m starting to speak more (not much more admittedly...but definitely more)
3. I’m actually enjoying my lessons in spite of my nervousness.
*Vocabulary is something that I definitely need to work on, particularly in Mandarin.
I’m not really sure how to do this though as I often don’t know what words I’ll need
until I need them (which is a bit of a pain).
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tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4700 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish
| Message 69 of 73 16 June 2015 at 4:20am | IP Logged |
Download Pleco onto your phone and use it every time you don't know a word. Cheat, cheat,
cheat.
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Rem Groupie United Kingdom Joined 3750 days ago 66 posts - 96 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Mandarin, Czech, French
| Message 70 of 73 30 June 2015 at 8:45pm | IP Logged |
Mid-Year Update
German
My progress in German seems to have stalled again (or at least been reduced to a very
slow crawl). I think I’ve reached a point where I really need to start focusing more
on native materials instead of just dabbling with them like I have been doing so far
(I'm finding the idea of using native materials a bit intimidating to be honest).
Mandarin
I’m still chipping away at Mandarin with my main focus here being on my speaking and
listening skills. I’m working on reading and writing as well but I know that my
speaking/listening skills require more attention at the moment. Hopefully by the end
of the summer holidays I'll feel at least a little bit more comfortable actually
using my limited knowledge of the language.
French
For my Uni course I had the opportunity to select a third language as one of my second
year options. I decided to choose French. This means that, next year, I’ll be studying
French for credit alongside my main languages (German/Mandarin).
I am a little worried that the workload for 3 languages might be a bit much but I was
taking French classes for interest alongside my course last year and I was able to
keep up, so I’m hoping that I can manage it next year as well. My French classes last
year still had assessments and exams etc. so the only real difference this time is
that it will actually be a part of my degree.
Czech
I feel a bit guilty that I'm not devoting as much time to Czech as I am to my other
languages because I really do want to learn it. It's just that I have to prioritize
somehow and I have classes for the other 3. It's a shame that my Uni doesn't offer
Czech as an option. :(
I’m still trawling my way slowly through Colloquial Czech. This course is definitely
not my favourite, but I’m stubborn and I will finish it!
I've put off using my copy of Assimil Czech because it has a German base and I don't
feel confident enough to use it yet.
Italki challenge
I haven’t completed the italki challenge, which is a bit annoying as I’m actually very
close to the 12 hours that were needed, but I started late so it was difficult for me
to plan my schedule to fit in the time.
Regardless of that I am VERY happy with what I have managed to achieve this
month. I am still nervous about speaking on Skype but I’ve stuck with it and completed
a good number of sessions (much more than I thought I would be able to). This time I
can at least say that I came close to completing the challenge (last time I didn’t
even manage to get halfway).
I’m sure that part of this is due to my teacher. They have been very patient with me
and are good at allowing me the time that I need to speak. I’ve found that, if you
don’t answer right away, some people immediately assume that you haven’t understood or
that you can’t answer; so they either keep repeating what they said/asked or just give
you the answer and move on. Neither approach is particularly helpful when you know
what you want to say and are nervously struggling to force the words out. I’m glad
that I’ve found a teacher who seems to understand that I just need more time at the
moment.
Another thing that helps is that my teacher is willing to talk in English during the
lesson. Admittedly this has been serving as a bit of a crutch for me (but it’s a
necessary one at this point).
I intend to continue having lessons so that I don’t lose the progress that I’ve made
and (hopefully) as I improve I can reduce the amount of English that I need to get me
through the hour.
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Rem Groupie United Kingdom Joined 3750 days ago 66 posts - 96 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Mandarin, Czech, French
| Message 71 of 73 03 July 2015 at 4:58am | IP Logged |
I'd forgotten how difficult it was to keep going without having something concrete to aim
for. Uni exams and assessments may be stressful and annoying but at least they keep me
focused.
Now that I have no classes until September I think I need to set myself some goals.
Unfortunately, I have no idea what I could try to aim for with 2 months of study.
Any suggestions?
Edited by Rem on 03 July 2015 at 4:59am
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PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5469 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1
| Message 72 of 73 25 August 2015 at 3:44am | IP Logged |
Are you still out here Rem? meet us over on the how-to-learn-any-language.org alternative
website if you want! Hope you're studies are going well!
PM
Edited by PeterMollenburg on 25 August 2015 at 4:33am
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