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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Mork the Fiddle Senior Member United States Joined 3961 days ago 86 posts - 159 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian, Latin, Ancient Greek | Message 1 of 3 02 November 2014 at 2:41pm | IP Logged |
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Because this is my first post in this log, it will be rather long so that I can say when I began learning languages, how I learned and where I am now. Explaining all this will take some time, so this first post will be just a place holder. For now I will just give the order that I started languages in: Spanish, German, French, Latin, Ancient Greek and Old Norse. Along the way I flirted briefly with Provencal, Catalan, Italian and Galician. During the course of my life my goals for what I wanted to do with languages changed, and now only reading them interests me.
There will be more as time allows. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Mork the Fiddle Senior Member United States Joined 3961 days ago 86 posts - 159 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian, Latin, Ancient Greek | Message 2 of 3 03 November 2014 at 2:17am | IP Logged |
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To continue.
The When. I took Spanish for two years in high school, German and French for 12 hours each as an undergraduate and Latin for 6 hours as an graduate student. Shortly after I left graduate school, I took up Ancient Greek. About ten years ago I began some work on Old Norse. As supplemental "aids," as it were, to my language acquisition, I lived nine of my years near the Mexican border, and I visited Mexico many times. Also, albeit only once and very briefly, I vacationed in Montreal and Paris, Spain and Germany. Through the years I read a bit of literature in French and, to a lesser extent, Spanish. The How. The schools in which I studied Spanish, German, French and Latin taught the "traditional" grammar and translate way. The JACT Reading Greek texts provided my basic instruction in Ancient Greek, but I would call that the grammar-translate method, too. Three web sites and one text provided my grounding in Old Norse. Again, that was grammar-translate. The grammar of Spanish and French from those days "sank in," though some particulars, especially particulars about the usage of certain prepositions and about the subjunctive, later escaped me. The same can be said about Latin and Ancient Greek, except that a lot more escaped, especially accidence. All that was forty or more years ago. Because I took up Old Norse so much more recently, most of the grammar and such is sticking. Knowledge of the use of the subjunctive is slipping away, though in Old Norse the use of the subjunctive is fairly straightforward. An occurrence of the subjunctive never puzzles me, though sometimes I am puzzled when it is not used. In all these languages, however, vocabulary is a different matter. Vast chunks of vocabulary slipped out of my memory. Time played a role in that erosion, but maybe a more significant reason is the fact that I spent relatively little time with any of those languages in the formative learning process for the vocabulary to really "set." Simply put, I did not get enough exposure. As time becomes available, I'll get to the "what" and the levels attained then and now and the "hows." 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Mork the Fiddle Senior Member United States Joined 3961 days ago 86 posts - 159 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian, Latin, Ancient Greek | Message 3 of 3 27 November 2014 at 8:01pm | IP Logged |
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AVE Spanish Proficiency Exam
The Instituto Cervantes’ Spanish Virtual Classroom is an Internet-based educational tool set up to provide Spanish instruction for all proficiency levels. It offers an online proficiency test that presents 30 or 60 questions, depending on the examinee's proficiency. I took the 30-question test in about 10-15 minutes and scored B1.3 - B1.4 on what I assume to be a standard system of levels*. Assessing my own proficiecy subjectively, my score seems reasonably valid. * Proficiency Levels: A1.1; A1.2, A2.2, A2.4, B1.1, B1.2, B1.3, B1.4, B2.1, B2.2, B2.3, B2.4, C1.1, C1.2, C1.3, C1.4 The simple and straightforward test covers four areas: reading, writing, understanding (oral) and grammar. I think I understood the reading and the oral presentation almost perfectly, but I felt quite uncomfortable with the writing and grammar sections. Writing Spanish is not a priority of mine, so no surprise there. Note that the Instituto offers courses in Spanish, but the courses are not free. Sources: Instituto Cervantes: http://chicago.cervantes.es/en/elearning_spanish/spanish_onl ine_spanish.htm Proficiency Test: http://ave.cervantes.es/prueba_nivel/default.htm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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