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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| djc463 Heptaglot Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5796 days ago 51 posts - 74 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, German, Italian Studies: Mandarin | Message 1 of 23 11 April 2015 at 6:07pm | IP Logged |
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Hello everyone. My name is David, and I have been logging my language learning hours ever since I ran into Judith
Meyers blog. She inspired me that recording my learning will help with the goals. So since last July, I have been tracking it, but I though I could put my monthly updates on this site as well, and interact more with the polyglot community! I first found HTLAL in 2009, after I had studied abroad in France, and was interested in the idea of being multilingual, but not knowing if it was possible. I read Professor Arguelles old posts here, and that inspired me to study Spanish and then Russian at the University of Iowa. Now, many years down the road, I continue to have the same passion for language learning, but am living in NYC, finishing medical school, and am trying to balance improving old languages, learning new ones, and fighting language wander-lust... which is difficult given time restraints that I put on language learning given my career and other interests. In any case, to finish with a short biography of where I am: French: learned in high school and studied abroad in Lyon Spanish: Studied 1 year in University, used semi-regularly in the NYC over the past 4 years. Travelled in Colombia (2 weeks), Chile 1 (1 week), and Argentina (1.5 weeks). Russian: studied 3 years in University, part of a fulbright group and lived/studied/worked in Moscow for 1 month. Used semi regularly in NYC Italian: Learned independently with a used University book I got for free and Pimsleur. Did Research in Milan for 2 months at Ospedale San Raffaele German: Learned with Assimil Allemand sans peine and perfectionnement. Traveled 1 month in Germany and Austria. Portuguese: Learned with only Pimsleur (low hanging fruit of the romance family) and then Skype. Currently learning: Chinese: I have a new fascination with east Asian languages and scripts. I have been studying Chinese for almost 3 years, but since I'm in medical school progress has been a very slow process. I finished Pimsleur 1, 2, and 3. I'm currently on Assimil's Chinese with ease volume 2, but still re-going through volume 1 with the assimil writing course to learn the characters. I also have been using Memrise apps to help learn the charecters. Japanese: Started last October, my interest was raised from a combination of reading Les Gouttes de Dieu, a French translation of a Japanese Manga about wine, and from using some anime shows to bolster my German last year (never had an interest in anime before, but it seems like an interesting world, that would definitely help me learn Japanese!). To study I'm using Pimsleur mainly (on Pimsleur 2), and colloquial Japanese. Dutch: spent 4 days in the Netherlands last year and loved it. I used duo lingo to learn enough to saw a few things. Dropped it after the trip. Plan on maybe getting back to it someday. Polish: Thought I may take a course/rotation in Poland, so I did Pimsleur 1 Polish. When the course didn't work out, I stopped working on Polish. Occasionally I spend 5-10 minutes looking at something in Polish. I would like to learn other Slavic languages, but have limited time. Modern Greek: I'm the best man in my friend's wedding that is going to take place in June of 2016. I found a Teach Yourself course for only 10 dollars in a bookstore. The store also had great materials for Hindi, Arabic, Polish, Dutch, and Farsi... but I told myself to slow down and only buy the Greek one. I haven't started using it yet. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| djc463 Heptaglot Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5796 days ago 51 posts - 74 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, German, Italian Studies: Mandarin | Message 2 of 23 11 April 2015 at 6:16pm | IP Logged |
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This is my post for the month of March:
Towards the end of the month, I travelled with my girlfriend to Chile and Argentina, which gave a boost to my Spanish, but slowed my Chinese and Japanese somewhat, and I failed to reach my goal of at least 10 hours in each of these languages/month. Below are my hours for March, and cumulative for 2015: Spanish: 20 hour, 30 minutes Japanese: 9 hours, 30 minutes Chinese: 8 hours, 30 minutes Russian: 4 hour, 10 minutes German: 2 hour, 25 minutes French: 1 hour, 0 minutes Portuguese: 1 hour, 0 minutes Italian: 50 minutes 2015 running total: Japanese: 38 hours, 10 minutes Chinese: 33 hours, 45 minutes Spanish: 27 hours, 10 minutes Russian: 13 hours, 0 minutes German:12 hours, 25 minutes Italian: 10 hours, 45 minutes French: 5 hours, 45 minutes Portuguese: 4 hours, 40 minutes Polish: 5 minutes For April, I didn't get back to the US until April 10th, so with Spanish immersion I had a lot of hours using Spanish. I also have done a lot more reading. In March I finished Ficciones by Borges and another book of short stories in Spanish. I'm currently reading La ciudad y los perros by Vargas Llosa. I have a lot of free time now since medical school is ending, but will have to prepare a bit for residency (starts in July). I'm also doing my residency in Dallas, Texas (goodbye NYC :(), so I'll have to find housing. I'll still be in NY until the end of May though, so I have time to enjoy spring in the city, but also I want to put in a good amount of time for language learning. That's it for now. I'll post another update at the end of the month with my "April hours" update. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4139 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 3 of 23 11 April 2015 at 7:13pm | IP Logged |
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That's a lot of languages! I look forward to reading your log.
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| Clarity Groupie United States Joined 3517 days ago 85 posts - 107 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 4 of 23 11 April 2015 at 10:15pm | IP Logged |
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I started checking out the Judith Meyers blog you mentioned. I hadn't seen it before. Just out of curiosity, is there a specific Spanish accent you're aiming for? It sounds like you've been in contact with lots of different varieties. And yes, an impressively long list of languages! At least you know if you get bored practicing one, you can switch to one of many others. ;)
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| djc463 Heptaglot Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5796 days ago 51 posts - 74 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, German, Italian Studies: Mandarin | Message 5 of 23 12 April 2015 at 12:33am | IP Logged |
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Funny that you mention my accent. I was just talking to a Colombian about it today! Spanish is unique for me in that
I don't have one accent that I'm aiming for, I just try not to sound so American. As you mentioned, being around so many different accents (principally in no particular order Puerto Rican, Dominican, Mexican, Colombian, recently Chilean and Argentinian, plus European Spanish media) means that I haven't really attempted to nail down any one accent. I always thought my accent to be more latin-American, but a Chilean told me that it sounds like I learned in Spain. So to make a long story short: I don't know :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| djc463 Heptaglot Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5796 days ago 51 posts - 74 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, German, Italian Studies: Mandarin | Message 6 of 23 04 May 2015 at 11:26pm | IP Logged |
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April update:
For the beginning of April, I was still traveling through Argentina and Chile, and returned on the 8th, which gave my Spanish a large boost. Furthermore, I'm moving from NYC to Dallas, Texas this July, and I spent a week in Dallas apartment searching. My sister lives their, and she is married to a Venezuelan. I spent a good amount of time with my brother-in-law and his family, plus meet some of their friends, which meant more time using Spanish. I continued reading La Ciudad y los Perros, but am only about half way through at this point. I also spent a good deal of time trying to "brush up" in a lot of my languages, and met my goal of 10 hours in Japanese and Chinese! This was possible because I only had about 1 week of classes, and had plenty of free time (which as I mentioned before, often gets squandered if I have too much of it!). My best friend is getting married in Santorini Greece in June, 2016, so I also learned the Greek alphabet and some basics/language structure. I'm not sure how much time I want/can afford to spend on Greek, and how much I want to learn before my trip. For now, I'll just continue to do bits here and there with spare time for fun. Without further ado, here is my list: Spanish: 32 hours, 35 minutes Japanese: 10 hours, 50 minutes Mandarin: 10 hours, 5 minutes German: 5 hours, 15 minutes French: 3 hours, 50 minutes Portuguese: 3 hours, 25 minutes Russian: 2 hours, 40 minutes Italian: 2 hours, 15 minutes Greek: 2 hours: 10 minutes 2015 running total: Spanish: 59 hours, 45 minutes Japanese: 49 hours, 0 minutes Chinese: 43 hours, 55 minutes German: 17 hours, 40 minutes Russian: 15 hours, 40 minutes Italian: 13 hours, 0 minutes French: 9 hours, 35 minutes Portuguese: 8 hours, 5 minutes Greek: 2 hours, 10 minutes Polish: 5 minutes 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| djc463 Heptaglot Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5796 days ago 51 posts - 74 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, German, Italian Studies: Mandarin | Message 7 of 23 01 June 2015 at 5:20am | IP Logged |
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May has been a busy month. I got engaged (most importantly :)), graduated medical school, moved out of NYC
(currently upstate NYC at my fiancées house, moving to Dallas next week). As far as language learning goes, I finished Assimil Chinese part 2, and am going over all lessons in part 1 (currently on #25) with a focus on writing an learning characters (along with memrise), and I found CCTV's series "growing up Chinese" on the internet, and finished 10 of the episodes. As far as Japanese goes, I am still using mostly Pimsleur (almost finished Pimsleur 2), and buffering vocabulary and studied Japanese writing systems with Colloquial Japanese. In Spanish I finished reading La Ciudad y Los Perros by Vargas Llosa which I really enjoyed. Here are my hours for May: Spanish: 12 hours, 35 minutes Chinese: 11 hours, 10 minutes Japanese: 10 hours, 15 minutes Russian: 3 hours, 30 minutes French: 2 hours, 0 minutes German: 1 hour, 55 minutes Italian: 1 hour, 20 minutes Portuguese: 1 hour, 15 minutes Greek: 40 minutes Dutch: 10 minutes Total 2015 running total Spanish: 72 hours, 20 minutes Japanese: 59 hours, 15 minutes Chinese: 55 hours, 5 minutes German: 19 hours, 35 minutes Russian: 19 hours, 10 minutes Italian: 14 hours, 20 minutes French: 11 hours, 35 minutes Portuguese: 9 hours, 20 minutes Greek: 2 hours, 50 minutes Dutch: 10 minutes Polish: 5 minutes My goals for June are to finish 2 books in English this week (The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde and The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan), and then I plan to do some reading in Russian or Italian (not sure what yet, but I've an itch to use these languages more). I plan to study 15 hours of Chinese and 10 hours of Japanese. I'm starting to feel like I'm making real progress in Chinese, as I'm now able to read more characters, write, and understand some actual speech. It's an exciting stage to be at, and I want to turn this excitement into productivity. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| djc463 Heptaglot Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5796 days ago 51 posts - 74 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, German, Italian Studies: Mandarin | Message 8 of 23 02 June 2015 at 3:51pm | IP Logged |
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Can anyone tell me how to edit the "tags" on this language log?
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