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JPike1028
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
piketransitions
Joined 5339 days ago

297 posts - 337 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Italian
Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic (Written), Swedish, Portuguese, Czech

 
 Message 33 of 59
17 December 2010 at 7:12pm | IP Logged 
Friday, December 17, 2010 - Svenska - Vecka 3

It has been a good week again for Swedish. The most important achievement of the week was getting my Mac back up and running. Now that I have full functionality back I have begun to use Anki again and have started to listen to podcasts as they become available. I am also working my way through the Hugo book I spoke of last week. I feel like I am getting a lot from the book in the way of understanding the format and grammar of the language, although I am not speaking as much as I would like to. As the knowledge I am gaining soldifies I am hoping that, as with Italian, I will just spontaneously be able to start forming thoughts out loud. For my Anki deck in Swedish, I am simply adding the vocabulary lists at the end of each chapter in the Hugo and going through them. I am really impressed with how well the book drills vocab into your head without you really realizing it. I am only three chapters in, but I think that I can definitely recommend this book series (at least the 1992 edition) to any one interested in learning a language.

I have nothing to say vocally, another subpar week on the practice time front. After the holidays I am hoping that I can start really focusing on my two endeavors and devote two hours a day to each.

Det har varit en bra vecka igen för svenska. Det viktigaste av veckan skulle hämat min Mac igång igen. Nu när jag har full funktionalitet tillbaka har jag börjat använda Anki igen och har börjat lyssna på podcasts när de blir tillgängliga. Jag arbetar också mig igenom Hugo boken jag talade om förra veckan. Det känns som jag får en hel del från boken i sätt att förstå format och språkets grammatik, även om jag inte talar så mycket som jag skulle vilja. Som den kunskap jag vinner konsolidera hoppas jag att precis som italienska, jag bara spontant kunna börja bilda tankar högt. För min Anki däck på svenska, jag lägger helt enkelt gloslistor i slutet av varje kapitel i Hugo och gå igenom dem. Jag är verkligen imponerad av hur bra boken borrar vokabulär i ditt huvud utan att du verkligen inse det. Jag är bara tre kapitel i, men jag tror att jag definitivt rekommendera denna bok serie (åtminstone 1992 års upplaga) till någon intresserad av att lära sig ett språk.

Jag har ingenting att säga muntligt, en annan stycket veckan på praktiken gången front. Efter semestern hoppas jag att jag kan börja verkligen fokusera på mina två strävanden och ägna två timmar per dag till varje.
1 person has voted this message useful



JPike1028
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
piketransitions
Joined 5339 days ago

297 posts - 337 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Italian
Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic (Written), Swedish, Portuguese, Czech

 
 Message 34 of 59
27 December 2010 at 7:32am | IP Logged 
Monday, December 27, 2010 - Svenska - Vecka 4

I had a very interesting experience this week in Swedish. This month, as stated earlier, I have been
playing around with the concept of working primarily on grammar and not worrying so much about
speaking right away. Well, this week after a session of practice I spontaneously began to speak in
Swedish! Not only was it spontaneous, but it was relatively simple and came out without me having to
think much about it. This is the most comfortable I have felt speaking any language, though my
vocabulary is slightly limited at the moment. I feel that I have really struck on something this month
from a pedagogical standpoint. In other news, I have started using Anki this week which has been
good as well as Byki. Both of these programs have advantages to them and disadvantages.

I currently have learned 97 words/phrases through Byki and 369 words/phrases through Anki in about
the same amount of time. The interesting thing about Byki is that though I have learned less items,
these items have been imprinted in my brain due to the amount of repetition and the general process
which Byki uses. The downside to Byki is that the free program has very few lists and I would have to
make more on my own in order to continue using it, but then it will be lacking the audio which the
pre-made lists have. Anki, on the other hand, is completely free and while I tend to not necessarily
remember the words as well the first few times through, the spaced repetition is a wonderful thing
(Byki uses this as well, but not as thoroughly). With Anki I can grade myself on how well I know my
items and I have developed a pretty simple system for grading these things. My vocabulary from Anki
is coming from the grammar book I am using which I have mentioned earlier and I figure on a
vocabulary of about 1000 words from this book by the time it is all said and done. Unfortunately,
that will not be this month as I have to start my new language in a mere few days, Arabic.

I had a gentleman singer-friend today tell me that my high notes were becoming more tenor-like!
Overall, I have been impressed with how easy G's and A-flat's have been lately. I am not positive of
the quality, but it is still a great step forward that these pitches are becoming easier. Ultimately
muscular strength has to come before the coordination can be tuned. I have booked my plane to NYC
for my January lesson with JRL and am looking forward to finally having another lesson. I have not
had one in a long time and am curious how my work has been.

Jag hade en mycket intressant upplevelse denna vecka i svenska. Denna månad, anges som tidigare,
jag har lekt med tanken att arbeta främst på grammatik och inte oroa sig så mycket att tala direkt.
Nåväl, den här veckan efter ett möte i praktiken började jag spontant att tala svenska! Det var inte
bara spontan, men det var relativt enkelt och kom ut utan mig att behöva tänka mycket om det. Detta
är det mest bekväma jag har kännt att tala vilket språk som helst, men mitt ordförråd är något denna
månad ur pedagogisk synvinkel. I andra nyheter har jag börjat använda Anki den här veckan som har
varit bra liksom Byki. Båda dessa program har födelar för dem och nackdelar.

Jag för närvarande har lärt mig 97 ord/fraser genom Byki och 369 ord/fraser genom Anki i ungerfär
samma tid. Det intressanta Byki är att även jag har lärt mig midre objekt har dessa poster har märkt i
min hjärna på grund av mängden av upprepning och de allmänna process som Byki använder.
Nackdelen Byki är att den fria programmet har mycket få listor och jag skulle behöva göra mer för mig
själv för att kunn fortsätta använda den, men så kommer det att saknas ljudet som färdiga lista har.
Anki, å andra sidan, är helt gratis och även om jag tenderar att inte nödvändigtvis komma ihåg orden
och de första gångerna genom är repetitionsbaserad en underbar sak (Byki använder detta också, men
inte lika grundligt). Med Anki jag kan själv betyg på hur väl jag vet att mina artiklar och jag har
utvecklat en ganska enkelt system för klassificering av dessa sacker. Mit ordförråd från Anki komm
från grammatikbok jag använder som jag nämnt tidigare och jag siffra på ett ordförråd på ca 1000
ord från denna bok av den tid det är allt sagt och gjort. Tyvärr kommer detta inte vara dan här
månaden som jag måste börja mitt nya språk på bara några dagar, arabiska.

Jag hade en vän gentleman sångerska i dag berätta att mina höga toner belv mer tenor-like! Totalt
har jag varit imponerad av hur enkelt G's och A-flats har nyligen. Jag är inte positiv för kvaliten, men
de är fortfarande ett stort steg fråmat att dessa plaster blir lättare. Ytterst muskelstyrka måste
komma före samordningen kan anpassas. Jag har bokat mitt plan till NYC för min januari lektion med
JRL och jag ser fram emot att äntligen ha en annan lektion. Jag har inte haft en på länge och är
nyfiken på hur mitt arbete har varit.

Edited by JPike1028 on 27 December 2010 at 7:33am

1 person has voted this message useful



JPike1028
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
piketransitions
Joined 5339 days ago

297 posts - 337 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Italian
Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic (Written), Swedish, Portuguese, Czech

 
 Message 35 of 59
27 December 2010 at 9:18pm | IP Logged 
Just throwing a link in for my blog, which is the same as this log in case anyone wanted to follow it
outside of here.

Transitions
2 persons have voted this message useful



JPike1028
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
piketransitions
Joined 5339 days ago

297 posts - 337 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Italian
Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic (Written), Swedish, Portuguese, Czech

 
 Message 36 of 59
31 December 2010 at 8:55am | IP Logged 
This is the last week of the month of Swedish. I feel that this month has been my most productive
one to date. I have learned many things, not only about Swedish but about the study of language in
general. As a final test of my Swedish accomplishments for the month, I decided to read a newspaper
article and figure out the percentage of words that I understood. The tally ended up being this:

Total words: 416
Known words: 283
% of words known: 68.03%

I plan to do this from now on at the end of every month to gauge my growth every month, which I will
share here. I have one more day's worth of work in Swedish left, and then I will be starting Arabic on
Saturday.

I began practicing in my apartment this week. It is a little uncomfortable, only because I do not want
to bother the other people in my building. I try, however to only practice in the middle of the
afternoon when few people are around. I warmed up to an easy B-flat consistently this week and
today was able to sing, rather comfortably, some A's in context which was encouraging!

Detta är den sista veckan i månaden i svenska. Jag tycker att denna månad har varit min mest
produktiva en hittills. Jag har lärt mig många saker, inter bara om svenska, utan om att studera språk
i allmänhet. Som ett sista test av mina svenska prestationer för månaden, beslöt jag att läsa en
tidningsartikel och ränka ut den procentuella andelen av ord som jag förstod. Det stämmer till slut
blev detta:

Totalt ord: 416
Kända ord: 283
% av de kända orden: 68,03%

Jag planerar att göra detta från och med nu i slutet av varje månad för att mäta min tillväxt varje
månad, som jag kommer att dela här. Jag har ytterligare en dag till ett värde av arbete i svenska
vänstern, och då jag kommer att börja arabiska på lördag.

Jag började träna i min lägenhet denna vecka. Det är lite obehagligt, bara för att jag inte vill besvära
andra människor i mitt hus. Jag försöker dock att endast praxis i mitten av eftermiddage när få
människor runt. Jag värmde upp till en lätt Bb konsekvent här veckan och i dag kunde sjunga, ganska
bekvämt, några As i sammanhang som var uppmuntrande!

2011 Learning Plan

Since it is the end of the year, I feel I should update my learning plan. Although Arabic is technically
the end of my one-month cycle, I have decided that since January is the beginning of the year, that I
would fix my cycle so that it corresponds more with the calendar year. Therefore, Arabic will being
my three-month cycle. After this will follow Italian, French and German. My goals for these four
languages this year will be to get to an intermediate level in Arabic, a professional level in Italian and
French, and an advanced intermediate level in German. In addition to the three months allotted to
each of these languages, I will continue to work on my Anki decks in Swedish, plus the languages of
the present year as they come up. Also, I plan to do my reading exercise/test in Swedish, plus the
other four languages as they come up. I will continue to maintain these things even once their
allotted time is up. I have determined that I should maintain as I go the languages which I have
previously worked on at least once a month. I think that this will add to my abilities and enable me to
continue to grow, at least at a passive level.

A little further explanation of my reading exercise/test

For my reading test, I pick an article out of a native newspaper, read and click on the counter on my
phone when I come across a word I do not know. After I tally up those scores presented above, I
then go back and catalog the unknown words into Anki with their relevant translation. In this way I
can add pertinent language to my vocabulary. I choose the articles at random so that way my
vocabulary can be varied. My goal with these tests is to eventually get my % of known words above
95%.
1 person has voted this message useful



JPike1028
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
piketransitions
Joined 5339 days ago

297 posts - 337 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Italian
Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic (Written), Swedish, Portuguese, Czech

 
 Message 37 of 59
07 January 2011 at 8:36am | IP Logged 
FRIDAY, JANUARY 7, 2011 - الهربة - الأسبوع 1

Week one of Arabic down. This week has been a fun, challenging and occasionally painful week for
my language study. After tonight's studies (it's still Thursday for me) I will have learned all of the
Arabic alphabet! As of the present time I have put in 7.45 hours of study, which breaks down to a
quarter of my first Arabic text, Mastering Arabic, and nearly three CDs of Michel Thomas. I like the
combination of audio work and written work even more than I liked purely working on grammar last
month. The interesting thing for me in this language is that all of my written work is dealing with
Modern Standard Arabic and my audio work is in Egyptian Arabic. For those who do not know, there
are many different dialects of spoken Arabic, with Egyptian being the most prevalent, but most
publications and news broadcasts are in MSA, hence the need to learn both. I have really enjoyed the
process so far and am surprised by the amount that I can already say after only a week of work. If I
can continue my current pace for the rest of the time I am studying Arabic this time around (until
March) then I should reach my goal amount of hours and should be right at the level that I want to be
at for this first part of the cycle.

I had a good week of singing including coming upon some sensations that I had not made contact
with since my lessons six months ago. I was able to vocalize up to a (not pretty) high C yesterday and
am becoming more and more comfortable with A-flats every day. Only two weeks until my lesson
with JRL!

I am not going to type this in Arabic this week as I have not yet learned the entire alphabet. Plus, it
will take me a long time to do and I have studying to do yet.
1 person has voted this message useful



JPike1028
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
piketransitions
Joined 5339 days ago

297 posts - 337 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Italian
Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic (Written), Swedish, Portuguese, Czech

 
 Message 38 of 59
18 January 2011 at 11:36am | IP Logged 
FRIDAY, JANUARY 14, 2011 - الهربة - الأسبوع 2

This week was a good week and a somewhat frustrating week all in one. It started out really well, but
the last few days I have not studied as much as I would have liked. I have valid reasons for this,
however it is still annoying after putting in so much consistent time to have a skid of any degree.
Despite this, I had a realization last night - I believe that I may be able to eclipse my initial goal for
Arabic by the end of this first month. This is great, but requires me to come up with a new set of
goals for the additional two months I have to work on this language. Luckily, I discovered these
checklists which outline very specifically what is contained in each respective level and I will use them
to set my short and long term goals for each language. I am using the CEFR guidelines because they
are more universal.

I do not have much to say about my vocal progress. There were two observations this week:

1.) I vocalized a full voiced B-flat in my exercises that felt like it was a part of my voice.

2.) I have noticed a generally more heady feel to my singing, however upon checking I still have chest
resonance throughout most of my range (including increased resonance in the lower range).

1 person has voted this message useful



JPike1028
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
piketransitions
Joined 5339 days ago

297 posts - 337 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Italian
Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic (Written), Swedish, Portuguese, Czech

 
 Message 39 of 59
04 February 2011 at 10:00am | IP Logged 
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2011 - العربية -- أسبوع 5

Admittedly, I have not been doing well with studying as of late. I have become rather dis-enamored with my
resources and thusly lost a little motivation to continue using them. I have however been pushing through and
still working with them as best I can, and as much as I can tolerate. In my text book, I am just now getting to
actual verb constructions and I am already more than halfway through the text. On the plus/exciting side of
things, I have recently come into the acquisition of new resources which will renew my vigor for study.

Vocally things are still going well. I am now vocalizing up to the F above high C daily and in general I am
beginning to accept the sounds that I am making now as being more correct than before. Changing one's aural
image is a difficult and disconcerting task and takes much time before it really feels natural. I have noticed that I
am hearing new things in singers I listen to as well since finding this new aural image. I tend to be able to hear
more of the dark sound in many voices which I could not hear before, for whatever reason. I am excited at the
route my voice is going now and look forward to the coming weeks of work and progress until I next get down
for a lesson.

1 person has voted this message useful



JPike1028
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
piketransitions
Joined 5339 days ago

297 posts - 337 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Italian
Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic (Written), Swedish, Portuguese, Czech

 
 Message 40 of 59
11 February 2011 at 11:10pm | IP Logged 
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2011 - العربية- الأسبوع ٦

This has been a decent week for my Arabic studies. I began a new approach this week which was developed by
Moses McCormick. I modified this a little bit, which is probably slightly to my detriment, but I skipped over the
first couple of phases of the method and went straight to the textbook work. Moses has put out a number of
videos on youtube highlighting his skills as well as his method. I have noticed a lot of progress this week, which I
am not sure whether to attribute this to the FLR method of Moses or, more likely to the amount of time put in,
which I will discuss in my methodology minute this week.

I have been continuing to have wonderful progress vocally. I had a realization this week that I had not been
practicing as effectively as I could be. So, I have modified my approach to practicing so that I can be more
intensive in my work, which should compound my achievements.



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