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Evilado TAC14 - Fr 2ème(+ Es & Zh) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| evilado Diglot Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3998 days ago 64 posts - 82 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 17 of 60 10 March 2014 at 7:37pm | IP Logged |
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Spanish
80% done with Al-Andalus, bunches of shadowing podcasts, which fits the bill for interesting and challenging. Skype - (12/100) TV - (22/100) Texts(6/100) Mandarin Assimil lesson 55, it's hit the point where I have to have the book handy with each lesson, as many of the lessons focus on new vocab. A little too intense for my present level of commitment. Luckily, I stumbled upon Chineseclass101 and accidentally started a 7-day trial. Really like the format: Dialog, bilingual discussion, vocab, grammar, repeat dialog. Like most courses, the topics slant towards travel/daily life/transactions while I would prefer culture and history, but I think those will be available at higher levels. French Finished italki's 6 week challenge, having spoken 20 hours of French. I'm quite happy with my level and overall progress, but I think I my jump-start period is over and now I have to solidify my grammar and usage while continuing to add vocab and listening. I'm finished with Assimil, at least to my satisfaction. The content is more interesting than Pimsleur and FSI, but not so interesting that I enjoy listening and reading multiple times. Like I said last time, I really prefer audio-only courses that I can listen to during downtime. Edited by evilado on 10 March 2014 at 7:38pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4136 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 18 of 60 10 March 2014 at 7:48pm | IP Logged |
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I see that we're both struggling a bit with writing in Spanish! Honestly, it's the only thing that I have to *force*
myself to do. I think I'm up to 10. I can see myself waiting too long, and either dropping the writing part of the challenge, or writing myself into burn-out in December. Your plate is really full! How much time do you spend on language learning every day? I'm finding your log very interesting - congrats on your progress! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| evilado Diglot Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3998 days ago 64 posts - 82 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 19 of 60 12 March 2014 at 2:45pm | IP Logged |
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I'm doing the Lingq 90-day challenge, and there's a little writing progress bar staring
at me every time I visit the site. I'll probably end up writing a couple thousand words whenever that comes around. I was much better at forcing myself to write last year, but I definitely struggle with "Perfection Paralysis" and a general lack of interest. I really enjoy summarizing movies and books when speaking, but when writing I over- explain just about everything. Maybe I need a timer: 10-minutes to summarize something. The bits and pieces probably add up to 3 hours a day, less on weekends. I always have a dedicated hour in the morning before work that's often an italki lesson. I usually walk to lunch with FSI(I think I got that idea from you) and listen during my commute and any exercise, doing anki and memrise in any spare minutes I can find. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| evilado Diglot Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3998 days ago 64 posts - 82 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 20 of 60 20 March 2014 at 5:15pm | IP Logged |
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Spanish Al Andalus is dragging on a bit as the section I'm mired in is dedicated
to the Christian kingdoms side of things. Focused on the Llosa this week, had to scramble a bit on hair-types and parts of the face for a Spanish tutoring session. Skype - (13/100) TV - (24/100) Texts(6/100) Mandarin Assimil Lesson 58, really enjoying ChineseClass101 Upper Beginner series. I also discovered the Sinica Podcast over on popupchinese, which has hurt my productivity. Highly recommended, though. Started learning some more characters through memrise, something I've avoided for some time to focus on speaking only. French FSI 7.5 Listened to Michel Thomas Advanced again, nice refresher. Shadowing some podcasts, just repeatedly listening to others. Couple hours with tutors, less intense than the italki challenge, but nice conversation nonetheless. Finished Le tresor de Rackham le Rouge, favorite Tintin so far. Next up, the 7 Crystal Balls of Peru! Finished reading/lingqing/listening to Le Petit Prince, surprised me how sad it was. Started my copy of Le Petit Nicolas, found a great link with audio and comprehension questions here:http://roble.pntic.mec.es/apadilla/autourdufrancais/con tenus/coursdefrancais/4ESO/ Litterature/Le%20petit%20Nicolas/le_petit_nicolas.html 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| evilado Diglot Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3998 days ago 64 posts - 82 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 21 of 60 01 April 2014 at 5:47pm | IP Logged |
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Spent last week on vacation in San Francisco and Yosemite: wonderful time, heard lots
of languages(lots of Mandarin speakers), used some Spanish, but I had a mountain of memrise and a lot of lingq to catch up on when I got back. Spanish: One of the reasons I chose to learn Spanish was that my girlfriend was just chatting away with people in Spanish when we visited New York, and it continues to be among the most rewarding experiences to be able to speak with more people wherever we go. And a reminder to keep speaking, I was a bit shy with participating in conversations. Finished Al-Andalus, dragged a bit towards the end, but overall quite an entertaining read. Next up: either Napoleon, Islam, or the Mongols. Mandarin Wussed out on speaking Mandarin to anyone, but listened and understood a good bit. Sometimes I feel like I'll never be able to read a Chinese newspaper and actually visiting China or Taiwan is too far in the future, so seeing lots of opportunities to speak is encouraging. French Heard one family speaking French around in Mariposa Grove, and a couple ladies in the airport, but otherwise my French last week was dormant. Had a pretty good conversation this morning with my tutor, and it was much easier to get back into the groove than I was expecting. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| evilado Diglot Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3998 days ago 64 posts - 82 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 22 of 60 10 April 2014 at 3:43pm | IP Logged |
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Spanish 42% done with Breve Historia del Islam, quick and easy read. Watched
Valentín, a cute argentine movie, caught back up on the Llosa book. This is the final week of the LingQ 90 day challenge, so I will be writing up a storm, ~3000 words. Mandarin Listened to Assimil 74, ChineseClass101's Lower Intermediate Series, had a great session on italki instant. I really just wanted to work on my tones and simple sentences, but she said she had no problem understanding me and we ended up speaking for an hour. Really encouraging and I'll be scheduling another session in the near future. After reading a couple logs here, I decided to do FSI's pronunciation modules. French Finished Les 7 Boules de Cristal, started Le temple du soleil. Not crazy about these two, but Tintin will be in space soon enough. Le Petit Nicolas is actually quite difficult from time to time. Slowly plodding my way through 1001 Nuits, right now on Night 46. Also need to write about 1000 words of French this week. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| evilado Diglot Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3998 days ago 64 posts - 82 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 23 of 60 22 April 2014 at 12:10am | IP Logged |
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Spanish
Finished Breve Historia del Islam, really quick read with not much detail on anything later than Al-Andalus. Wrote about 1500 words, but didn't care to finish the challenge, sort of sick of LingQ's interface. Caught back up with some Buffy and El Donante, lots of speaking. Skype - (21/100) TV - (40/100) Texts(15/100) Books(2/10) Mandarin Nothing much to report here, been playing around with FluentU and up to Assimil 83. French Completed the 90 day challenge with flying colors, FSI 8 was a slog through all the the y/en sentences I could take. Then I did them all again and I'm happy to report that it really helped. Still can't come up with a sentence like "On n'en a pas" on the fly, but I understand more. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| evilado Diglot Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3998 days ago 64 posts - 82 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 24 of 60 28 April 2014 at 3:56pm | IP Logged |
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Spanish Finished watching el Donante. Even though it was quite repetitive
(someone gets kidnapped or ransomed in 5 or so of the 12 episodes), I really enjoyed this series and it was a bit of a shock when I realized it was only a miniseries. Started watching Jorge, another Argentine show. Quite funny. I think I've finally found a decent group of Spanish language short-ish shows. Also watched a couple episodes of Historia del arte universal on youtube, in addition to a documentary about Paul Gauguin. Read about 80 pages of the Llosa, over 60% done. It's not necessarily what I always want to read, but I'm really enjoying this book and starting to appreciate Llosa's style. When I started, I was struggling with all the new vocabulary, but now it's a pleasure and I'm having fun with the word choice and juxtaposition of a proto- feminist crusader with her sex-crazed syphilitic painter grandson. Also started listening to Diana Uribe's historia de la francia on ivoox. Busy weekend for Spanish, but it's sort of a last hurrah before I do an intense month of French before Paris. Today is also my last session teaching ESL. Skype - (23/100) TV - (49/100) Texts(15/100) Books(2/10) Mandarin Assimil lesson 94, another session with an italki tutor, this time a little more difficult to talk about all the plants and herbs that I do not know how to talk about. Overall, I find that I don't yet get into a Mandarin groove, where speaking leads to more speaking: after 20 or 30 minutes, I hit more bumps. I'm almost decided to start serious Mandarin study this summer, if only to solidify and activate what is foggy and recognizable now. French FSI 9.4. Definitely want to finish FSI Unit 12 before I leave, probably going to up my tutoring to 2 or 3 times a week. Tape 8's y/en exercises were immensely helpful. Podcasts are getting easier, I think I want to really push myself to use more grammar and vocab that I recognize. Finished Tintin's Temple du soleil, started Tintin au pays de l'or noir. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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