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Kanewai 2015: Team Caesar | ||
Tags: Super Challenge | Catalan | Ancient Greek | Turkish | Polyglot | Arabic | Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC) | Italian | Japanese | French | Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5387 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 41 of 331 25 February 2012 at 2:14am | IP Logged |
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Hey, there are days I can't handle even one, and I've got six I try to study at least every other day.
Besides, I always make the excuse that Spanish, French, and Italian are (kind of) like dialects of the same language. Well, they're not, but . . . it helps me justify over-extending myself. =) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4881 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 42 of 331 28 February 2012 at 4:47am | IP Logged |
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Rotating days is working for me so far. It's not a perfect system, but it's the best I
can pull off right now. French My "French" days are the easiest. I'm further along, so there's a lot less formal studying involved. I finished up Pimsleur III last week. I was worried it would be deathly boring at this point, but it turned out to be my favorite of the series. In part it's because there was not much new, and I was mostly solidifying my base. Today I moved on to Michel Thomas Advanced. This is also mostly review for me, but also very helpful. I listen to it on my commute. I started 20,000 Lieus Sou le Mer, and have been doing it "Assimil-style" - I listen to the Librivox recording while reading the English text. I go back later and re-read the French. The nice thing about the free Kindle versions of these books is that they tend to be word-for-word translations. It's not very artistic or elegant, but it's great for us students! I also started Aux Heures Impaires, a graphic novel about a deaf night-watchman who counsels the art at the Louvre. I like the reading enough that I do it on my non-French days too. I do need to finally study French literary tenses, though. I'll put that on my to-do list tonight. Italian My Italian day involves listening to Pimsleur II on my commute, and doing an FSI FAST Chapter at home or over lunch. I go pretty quickly through the FSI; it takes about 90" per lesson. If I were a more serious student I would be spending twice that time on it. Right now I'm just seeing how far I can get. I find that it takes me longer to 'turn on' my Italian. I flounder for the first five minutes or so before it clicks. This was an issue when I was trying to do three languages a day, each in small doses. It's not so bad when I know that I'll be coming back to Italian throughout the day - once it clicks on, it tends to stay on for the day. Arabic And here I suffer. I don't have a good Maghrebi audio-course, so I listen to my phrase book on my commute. It's not the same at all. And my coursebook doesn't have a dictionary, and not all North African words pop up on on-line dictionaries. The result is that I spend half my time each session looking up words, and referencing my grammar sheets, and I never quite get a flow. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4881 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 43 of 331 29 February 2012 at 1:47am | IP Logged |
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Teach Yourself Catalan arrived yesterday, and all I could think was, 'oh crap.' It wasn't due until next week, and even then I had no real idea how I was going to integrate Catalan into my studies.
But now it's here. And though I'd like to say I put the course on the shelf, I did exactly what 90% of everyone on this forum would do - downloaded the audio onto my computer, and started on the first chapter. I think I'm gonna give up on trying to follow my spreadsheet for awhile, and just go day by day for awhile. Since when did Amazon deliver things early??? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5387 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 44 of 331 29 February 2012 at 1:52am | IP Logged |
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Oh, I get stuff from them in 2-3 days, usually. =)
And I think you're underestimating us. I think more than 90% of us would have picked the book up and started working on it right away! Sometimes it's nice to take a break from the routine of things and just go with it. Enjoy it! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4881 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 45 of 331 01 March 2012 at 8:57pm | IP Logged |
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T minus 4 Weeks
And my brain hasn't exploded yet. Italian and French are the only two languages that I have good audio to work with on my commute, so I alternate them. I read Jules Verne over lunch, and if I'm still conscious by the time I get home I work on Arabic, written Italian, or Catalan. Except that I should try and keep Italian and Catalan to separate days, so this might get complicated. French French is taking less and less brain power ... I think that's a sign that I'm finally reaching a stable level. 20000 lieus sur le mer - Our heroes have finally met the mysterious Captain Nemo. This has turned out to be a very enjoyable read. Aux heures impaires - His girlfriend left him, his only friend thinks he's nuts, Winged Victory has learned to fly, l'enfant Henry IV is smashing things in the atrium, and La Jaconda just winked at him. Our hero is having a rough time of it. Michel Thomas Advanced - Up until now MT has been a review. On CD 2 he actually entered into new territory for me. This was a nice surprise. I usually can do a full CD (one hour) in a single day. Maghrébi Arabic Méthode d'arabe maghrébin moderne - I've made it to Lesson 24. It's slow going. The focus now is on the masdar and the various verb forms. I'm not sure how much I need to know all this ... I like the Assimil / Pimsleur style of teach you to read and speak first, and explaining the underlying mechanics afterwards. Assimil Arabe tunisien de poche - At some point I'm going to have to dive in and just start memorizing phrases. I know more grammar than vocabulary, so at least I can figure out the structure of each phrase. Italian Pimsleur II - I did Lesson 11 today, and struggled. Maybe I was just tired - I even forgot my shirt this morning (I bike commute, so this isn't as mental as it sounds). Or maybe it's because I tried some Catalan last night, and it's too soon to be adding a new Romance language. The lesson wasn't even hard - but I kept tripping up over the small things, the de da a alle il gli et al., and couldn't seem to remember the second person casual tense at all. This will be the first lesson I need to repeat. FSI Italian FAST - This has been good for vocabulary, and for seeing how the language is actually spelled (I didn't do the Pimsleur readings). The conversations are a bit less dated than in FSI French Basic, and the pace is a lot faster. If I were aiming for fluency I'd still go for the full FSI course. Catalan Teach Yourself: Complete Catalan - This is going to be a challenge. The book is arranged nicely, and has clear notes marking which audio tracks correlate with which lesson. But Lesson 1 is dense - there's a lot of grammar right off the bat, and the pronunciation is different enough that I can't just look at it and "get it." Català sounds pretty sexy, though, so that's some motivation. Edited by kanewai on 01 March 2012 at 9:01pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4881 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 46 of 331 02 March 2012 at 8:47pm | IP Logged |
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Michel Thomas Advanced - The third CD has entered into more complex verb tenses. We now have sentences like, vous l'auriez acheté si vous l'aviez vu
This is definitely beyond Pimsleur III, and beyond FSI Volume I. I'm sure Assimil touched on these, but not enough for me to use them with confidence. I do remember these from college, and I remember hating them. Our professor surprised us with the plus-que-parfait one Monday, and all I thought was, 'what the hell do I need with that? Don't we have enough tenses already?' Thankfully, M. Thomas is not worrying us with what to call these tenses, or with complex definitions; he's just focusing on getting us to use them. I can't imagine tackling the MT Advanced Course right after the Foundation Course. It seems like there's a big jump there. Edited by kanewai on 02 March 2012 at 8:57pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| blackdahlia Pro Member United States Joined 4721 days ago 64 posts - 66 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, French Personal Language Map | Message 48 of 331 05 March 2012 at 3:45pm | IP Logged |
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Ooh, that's good to know.
I forget, have you looked at FSI Vol 2? If not, do you plan to incorporate that in? Note to self: go finish MT Basic Course 1 person has voted this message useful |
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