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PMs TAC 2015 crazy? French course mission | ||
Tags: TellMeMore | Fluenz | Linguaphone | Flash cards | Michel Thomas | Self-Study | Spaced Repetition (SRS) | Diploma/Certificate | Study Plan | Fluency | Dutch | Pimsleur | FSI | Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC) | Assimil | French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4912 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 153 of 451 01 July 2014 at 8:29am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Ah, you didn't mention TY Perfect your French before. It has great reviews, and I was thinking of getting it after I finished Assimil NFWE. But since I have Hugo basic and advanced, that will cover that need for the time being.
I laughed a little when I saw La prononciation française pour de vrai. I will be careful not to mention any more courses in your presence. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Sizen Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4342 days ago 165 posts - 347 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Catalan, Spanish, Japanese, Ukrainian, German | Message 154 of 451 01 July 2014 at 8:50am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Wait... You've completed ALL of those courses? You have an inhuman fortitude, haha. I'm actually really impressed. Also ashamed that I don't take my studies as seriously.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5479 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 155 of 451 01 July 2014 at 9:10am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
It almost is rediculous how many courses I have. It makes look greedy or insane. Anyway I didn't even know there were decent reviews of TY Perfect Your French... I just bought it in a frenzy of buying. If I get to it before you (unlikely) I'll let you know what I think of it!
Yeah I couldn't help myself! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5479 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 156 of 451 01 July 2014 at 9:34am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I've only completed the courses above the asterix which designate which courses I'm currently working through.... I'm pretty serious about my study as I spent too many years messing about thinking about studying, collecting courses, or when actually knuckling down unfortunately not studying consistently or over a long enough duration (not within one day, but over months or years) in one language before swapping to another and starting all over again. Hence my log title 'anti-procrastination log'. I know how much I love languages (like many I find them absolutely fascinating) so I know it's not a fleeting 'oh it would be nice to be able to get by in French'... it's more than that, so.... now I'm determined to not make the same mistakes. What adds to my determination is when I think about when I actually first aimed to learn languages to fluency back in 1998, and I still haven't reached that target due to the above mistakes. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5479 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 157 of 451 03 July 2014 at 10:19am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I have often thought about making some comments on what I'm about to talk about, and I haven't yet, so here
goes.... It is rather self involved, but hey this is my blog and I'd like to given a bit more information on my character. Three interesting topics that I feel definitely impact on one's ability to learn (or be high functioning at anything really): Exercise, Sleep, Diet = together = vitality (immune strength) Okay so I know these could be contained in a whole thread on their own, but I just want to give a little background on my own situation here. Exercise Years ago I was obsessed with sport with my father having been, and still remains highly competitive to the point he represented Australia on a number of occasions. I was exercising a LOT every day from about 10 years old to about 25yrs old. I think it's put me in good stead for my mid-life now as I'm still fit and healthy in appearance. Over the years I"ve decreased my exercise as I became busier and more interested in intellectual pusuits, namely languages. Had I been more consistent with exercise I may have had better results, so not only have I been inconsistent with language study but also with sporting goals, although I was consistent most of the time. This has been a valuable lesson for me in life, in many aspects of it (remaining consistent). So in my shift towards more intellectual pursuits... well I'm still extremely far from being a person familiar with great writings in literature by any means.... Anyway my exercise régime lately has been made of about one decent length ride on my bike a week, often over near a thousand meters climbing or more, so not a stroll in the park. I can't speak highly enough for exercising giving clarity of mind and i'm struggling to re- introduce it to balance my life. For now language comes first, later in the year i will attempt to reintroduce regular exercise without it impacting upon my language studies. Sleep I have always been the kind of person that's needed 8hrs sleep or more it seems. In my 20s I often slept 9 hrs or even 10 at a time and felt sleep was so important and absolutely hated any tiny aspect of tiredness. Therefore I'd always sleep long. Not extreme, but long, every night. Then late 20s early 30s I started to ignore my body a lot as many of us do becoming busier with worklife, being distracted by entertainment (ie TV/computer) and consistently going to sleep later than I should and then often paying the price for it being dog-tired the next day. I'd promise to go to be early the next night and yet i'd do the same. I still do this sometimes nowadays. In my realisation a year or so ago that I needed a LOT of study time to get through what I wanted to get through (ie learn a lot of languages) as a result of wasting years not studying or not studying consistently. Stupid idea really but I was careful- i thought i'd read if i could just sleep less, not actually necessarily do it. So about a year ago I read about some very extreme sleep experiments that supposed famous minds such as Leonardo DaVinci had implemented into their lives. I can't remember the title of it (sorry) but I think it went something like every 4 hours on the dot you MUST sleep 15 minutes (could've been 20, can't recall), and you could NOT break the pattern or your body would suffer. I read a blog of a guy that tried it while at university. He hit his stride after a couple of months and was awake for a lot more of the day, he did get a lot of work done, but only because he was awake for so long, he felt his clarity was probably worse. All in all I didn't want to do this was my conclusion, nor could I realistically carry it out either. I read further on reducing sleep. Some research said it was doable, other research said don't be stupid. I decided it wasn't for me... Diet This is something I have found profoundly interesting. Perhaps as a result of my own vanity, not liking ANY signs of ageing when I first reached my 20s, I began to explore what causes skin to form lines as I found it difficult to just 'accept' ageing as normal. Nowadays I feel the same way- ageing is very largely environmental- the environment being your body- if you don't treat that environment well it will show. Gong back again... I read extensively finding out that sugar is VERY destructive to proteins in the body, one of which is collagen which helps keep skin youthful. My research went further, I read about acid/alkaline balance, the proven links of sugar to cancer and sooooo many other diseases it's rediculous, food additives etc, genetically modified organisms, organic foods, raw foods, super foods, vegatarianism, paleo, and many cutting so called cutting edge products, etc etc Being a perfectionist I sought to eradicate all the rubbish out of my diet. However this brought about crazy extremes in my diet. Being someone who has often eaten sweets and high carb loaded meals without issue since I'd kayak, run, play basketball or do weights every day I found trying to cut those things out went against my basic understanding of energy and diet, but the more I read the more it made sense- I just couldn't get it to run optimally for my energy requirements. Thus I binged on sugar-swamped foods to the point i my stomach wouldn't possibly fit any more in, then I go days of eating much healthier, juice fasts, celery and cucumber galore, brown rice, and them bam! I'd be back on the sugar train. This lasted years in various forms. Recently I've been fortunate enough in my opinion to become more and more interested in what most people don't know about the human world- some might call this conspiracy theories. I turned against sugar once and for all, against any form of processed carbs, against fluoride and pharmaceutical medications, GM foods, many carefully marketed 'healthy' products, against anything that burdens the immune system including most modern medicine practices and the mainstream media. Now I eat predominantly low carb vegetables, eat a high fat diet (not processed rubbish), with a good mix of protein, use food grade hydrogen peroxide, liposomal vitamin C, colloidal silver and bicarb all as common remedies or continual immune boosters. This means I can sleep 6 hours a night often and not feel the drowsy effects I used to. I know I'm tired but it barely effects me, I know I should sleep more but I get distracted. My point here is that I'm extremely healthy and have very strong clarity of mind when it comes to studying, I can sleep less but don't necessarily advocate it or aim to (i get distracted). Now when I rise at 6am every morning (keeping my circadian rhythm intact) it's not an issue anymore even when I'd ignored my body's tiredness for more than a couple of hrs the night before. These three key elements are giving me more energy. More energy means more study time. I am considering trialling in a few months after i reintroduce regular exercise gettng up at 5am. I feel it will work, provided I take advantage of earlier nights when I can (days off). Just sharing, feel free to write back if you please with your experience or comments PM. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5479 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 158 of 451 07 July 2014 at 8:55am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Hmmm the topic of wanderlust seems to me making its way through HTLAL, as per usual. While you're planning a return to German Jeffers I'm once again really tempted to return to Spanish. If I do I won't be doing any extra hours of study. Instead, I will be taking away from my Dutch studies on an every 2nd day basis. ie a couple hours French plus 1hr Dutch one day, a couple of hours French + 1hr Spanish the next... not really committing myself to it, but it's certainly doing the rounds up there in my skull of late :) Damn skull! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| sctroyenne Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5394 days ago 739 posts - 1312 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Irish | Message 159 of 451 07 July 2014 at 10:35pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I've been trying to focus on my overall wellness also. I have a tendency to drop the basics in favor of staying up late, cramming, etc which is backwards. It really goes back to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs - you need a foundation of physiological wellness and security in order to support higher brain functions. I don't always respect my sleep schedule but I've been getting better. It's tough for me to shed the sluggish feeling on weekends, though. I suppose I should probably just get out of bed and go to cafes/libraries first thing so I don't laze about. I was doing low carb high fat for a while and felt pretty good about it. But what got me were the cravings (which would only get worse if I tried one of the fake low carb desserts). When my work schedule changed I fell out of the habit of preparing my meals and I fell off. I'd like to get back on, though. Going back to sugar and carbs it becomes apparent how sluggish they make me feel. I've always been an indoor person with sedentary interests, I've never been athletic and P.E. experiences turned me off exercise. Not to mention, being ginger, I hated going outside in the summer and getting horribly sunburnt. I definitely need to get in the habit of getting more activity (beyond walking during my commutes). I sometimes feel resentful towards activity and other personal maintenance chores crowding my studying/exposure time but I've been around the block a few times now and realize if I don't keep it up my studying just ends up suffering. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5479 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 160 of 451 09 July 2014 at 12:44am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Yes indeed, it certainly makes sense.
If I get in a cycle of bad habits I find sometimes changing one slight thing each day eventually leads back to a large improvement overall. You could try getting up slightly earlier or eating a little healthier each day. Pick one small thing a week even until you get 'control' back. To me it seems in the end it comes back to discipline. If you go through phases like me in which you seriously lack self control it means you need to work on your discipline and get back to directing your own life instead of being ruled by your senses which usually are enticed only by fleeting moments of pleasure that ultimately don't usually help lead to overall success.
Yesterday I had my first taste of sugar in a loooong time. A simple hot chocolate at a café. Later in the day i was craving chocolate. I think if you do a high fat/protein/low carb diet, it's got to be done very well. I think trying to go for low carb desserts is likely to trigger that taste for something sweet. Cutting something out completely and accepting that it's not going to be substituted and it's not going to come back is one way to look at it. Sugar does nothing for our wellbeing and nothing for our health. To get rid of it is a big long term bonus. To eat it here and there in the moment is great tasting in the moment but seriously undermines our long term health if we continue to do so as an every day pattern. It's a shame most ppl don't have the time, patience or drive to want to understand such things more. To think corporations that manufacture food have our best interest's at heart when even developing low sugar or no sugar foods would be completely wrong. Money motivates and it motivates to the point that human health is ignored. I know you are probably well aware of this, but the sooner you take control of your health the better. Even some small improvements today will make for a better you 10 years down the track- a better you more capable of doing the things you enjoy in life. edit: Anyway I find the best solution to stopping sugar cravings is either cheese (strictly not ideal either, and yeah it is another substitute, but it's not sweet) or even better just eat more high quality fat. Easier said than done I know, we are all different and react differently to different foods, but go long enough on a healthier diet and you'll begin to become acutely aware of how foods make you feel, and you're likely not to want sugar so much anymore if you go long enough to develop a healthy lifestyle habit.
Well I can understand this. We are all different, and even myself a person who does really like to exercise is finding it difficult to find the time when I don't even work as long hours as most people do, because I want to get somewhere with my language study! Which means I need hours every day to commit to learning. I think if you're inclined to avoid physical activity then it's even more important to eat healthier so you don't hit your body with a double negative - bad food + sedentary lifestyle. Thanks for sharing sctroyenne PM Edited by PeterMollenburg on 09 July 2014 at 1:05am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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