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| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4243 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 49 of 212 22 September 2013 at 9:33am | IP Logged |
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Today I didn't have much time for language study, but I had scheduled myself to finish RS5 U2/L4 today, so I finished it. I have five days to finish Unit 3, Lesson 1 of Rosetta Stone 5 in order to meet my goal of finishing it before I start to hope Russian. Considering that I am able to get a lesson done in one day if I really set my mind to it, I should be able to make it... of course, when I do complete a full lesson in one day, I usually am not also trying to read a magazine or anything other than doing the lessons.
I read some more out of the book that is in English, but had a Spanish word to add to my Anki deck. I ran into some more words in Spanish, but I wasn't at my computer, so I couldn't write them down. Some of the Spanish phrases used in the book I already knew. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4243 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 50 of 212 23 September 2013 at 12:09pm | IP Logged |
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Had a lot to do today, but I managed to get some Spanish practice in. I figured today that to make my goal, I have to do at least two sections of a lesson in Rosetta Stone every day; today I did four.
While for the most part, I do like Rosetta Stone, there is something that sometimes bugs me (other than the fact that it will sometimes tell me I can't say simple words like gracias): in some of the lessons where they want you to speak something, they have you say this really long sentence... that by the time they finish saying it you forget what they said at the beginning of the sentence. I have a really hard time memorizing these long sentences in order to repeat it. A few times, I've written the sentence down, because I just can't memorize it. Other times, I have to listen to it a dozen times, and sometimes even that is not enough. Memorizing a super-long sentence that I'll probably never have to say in real life (and if I did, I wouldn't have to memorize it) really does not contribute to whether I will become fluent in Spanish or not. It's only a problem that I have in the more advanced levels of RS, such as levels 4 and 5. I also did a couple of one-page articles in the beginning of National Geographic. I read about mountains on other planets, and about this guy who puts portraits on things around the world. I ran into 22 words today that I did not know. I've finished all of the short articles in the front and now have the longer articles to read. Since I had a lot to do today, I'm pretty happy with today's progress. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4243 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 51 of 212 24 September 2013 at 11:28am | IP Logged |
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Today I finished two segments of Rosetta Stone 5 Unit 3 Lesson 1, Anki, and I read some picture captions and one little section of a 26 page article (that does include several pages with pictures and only captions though). There were a lot of words that I didn't know today, along with some phrases. The phrases will probably be easier to learn... but there were so many of them to learn!
So tomorrow, Anki is going to be very overwhelming. I have about 150 words to practice, plus 50 that I got wrong today (most of those being new words), which I want to study twice. That's the problem with adding a ton of words at once. I want to read these articles, but sometimes it causes there to be so many new words that it makes Anki overwhelming. The good news is that in a 26-page article, many of those words will probably be used multiple times, which will not only reinforce the words that I'm learning, but there's a lot of words now. I already noticed one word, marejada, meaning a tidal wave or surge of water, that was used more than once. I was at my husband's friends' house on Saturday, and the wife is a native Spanish speaker. I thought it funny that a hot dog was called a "perro caliente". I would have thought that they'd have a different word for it, like meat scraps or meat tube, or something. At least it's easy to remember, unlike some of these new words I'm going to try to memorize in Anki. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4243 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 52 of 212 26 September 2013 at 10:54am | IP Logged |
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I'm glad that I made that schedule of goals to finish Rosetta Stone 5, because it seems like I get to the end of the day and I haven't worked on it yet... so I finish my goal for the day because I know that if I don't, I won't reach it.
Today I had a little bit fewer Anki cards than yesterday, which was just crazy. I'm starting to learn the massive influx of new words from two days ago; I only have 31 words that I forgot today, which I suppose is probably on the high average side. It will go down some more tomorrow, unless I add some more new words. Since tomorrow is going to be a very busy day, I'm not sure if that will happen or not. I received my next National Geographic en Español. There is a good thing and a bad thing about that. The bad thing is that I am just starting to read the longer articles in September's issue, and that's still going to take me a while to read. The good thing is that the new issue has a ton of photos, and it looks like there will be less text to read, so once I get to it, it won't take as long to get through. At the same time, I know that the more I practice, the easier each article will be to read. I know that there will be specialized words that I'll need to look up for quite some time, but eventually I'll understand most of the more common words, and won't have to look them up. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4243 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 53 of 212 28 September 2013 at 11:47am | IP Logged |
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Worked a lot on RS 5 Unit 3 lesson 2. I should be able to get that done ahead of my goal date if I work on it. I also worked on my Anki deck and read one section out of a National Geographic article. I only had 17 words/phrases to add today... some of them were a little specialized, but something that a native would probably know (or at least they do in English): phrases like global warming and ice sheets. Those will probably be easier to learn in Anki, and I'm sure that after a while, I won't end up seeing those cards for months at a time, because they're not really that difficult once you see the translation.
I am seeing more and more words that I've run into before. Some words I've run into through Rosetta Stone, others I've run into through reading and putting into Anki. Tomorrow I'm going to see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2. I first saw the trailer en Español several months ago, probably after I had finished Rosetta Stone level 3. I watched the Spanish trailer again; this time, I understood a lot more than the first time that I saw it. I couldn't understand everything yet, but I definitely understood a lot more than before. Perhaps it helped that I saw an English trailer earlier today, but most of my ability to understand it better is that I know more Spanish than I did in the spring. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4243 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 54 of 212 01 October 2013 at 10:37am | IP Logged |
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I got a lot done today. I finished RS 5 Unit 3 lesson 2 a day ahead of schedule, and started on the next lesson, which is discussing catastrophic weather, like hurricanes. It goes along with the article that I've been reading in National Geographic. I'm almost done with the article; there have been a lot of new words in it for me.
Sometimes it seems like I'm learning a lot of Spanish and I'm starting to really get the hang of the language, and then I run into an article where there are a ton of words that I don't know. I suppose that the longer I keep learning, I'll run into fewer words that I don't know. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4243 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 55 of 212 02 October 2013 at 9:38am | IP Logged |
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Today I worked on Rosetta Stone and Anki, but I didn't do any reading, even though I'm so close to finishing the article I'm working on (I have two normal-sized sections).
I hate having my daily workload in Anki get too big; right now, I've been adding so many words (again) that it's been getting a little bigger than I'd like it to be. So I have to slow down with that for a day or two until I start learning some of these new words. If I get enough correct tomorrow, I should be able to read some more (and add more unknown words). At least when I finish RS Spanish (I have less than 6 lessons to go) I will be starting up Russian, so I'll have something to study when Anki is too full of new words for me. There's also podcasts to do. On a slightly related note, I was browsing the software on Amazon.com (they were giving away $15 worth of downloadable software with coupon code MACR0913, I don't know how long that is still good). I was looking for downloadable software under $20, and I noticed the Instant Immersion series. Now, I used Instant Immersion French about 13 years ago, and I wasn't particularly in love with it. I thought that it was okay. I'm sure that the software has improved over the last 13 years... I know that Rosetta Stone's has. What impresses me is how many languages are available through their program... there were over 100! RS only has 25 languages available with their current system. I would like to learn Greenlandic at some point, but it's not available with RS... it is available with Instant Immersion though. I suppose when I'm ready to learn that language, I'll probably want to check out that program. My plan to learn it had been to learn Danish first (which shouldn't be too bad since it's related to German), and then learn Greenlandic using Danish materials. It looks like I won't have to do that though. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4243 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 56 of 212 04 October 2013 at 9:55am | IP Logged |
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Today I read another section of a National Geographic article and did a couple of sections of Rosetta Stone. I only have 5 more writing sections to go for RS Spanish... I think that I despise the writing section. I usually don't mind the screens where they have a couple examples that you pattern another answer off of (unless it's not obvious what they want you to say), but having to listen to a (sometimes long) sentence and then write what the person is saying can be maddening at times. One little accent that's off, and it's completely wrong, and if you get too many wrong, they want you to do it again. I know that it helps me think about where the accents go, and that writing is important (which is why I do it and don't just skip over it), but I don't like it. Maybe the writing sections in Russian won't be that bad. I will only be doing the first three levels of RS Russian, so perhaps there won't be as many challenges.
Anki is looking a little bit better for now. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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