|
 |
Basica’s 4 week mini challenge | ||
Tags: Serbian | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| basica Senior Member Australia Joined 3528 days ago 157 posts - 269 votes  Studies: Serbian | Message 1 of 15 03 May 2015 at 2:15pm | IP Logged |
|
So, I think I am in a bit of a rut. I already have a log elsewhere which I may move over here as there's more
traffic and potentially more external motivation but for now I'll just do this mini challenge for myself and from there decide where I want to go. So, what does my current study schedule look like? I am consistently doing the following every day for the last few weeks: anki, memrise and glossika. Glossika I have been doing everyday for the last 4 weeks and I have a pretty consistent schedule so I think this won't be a problem to keep up. Anki and memrise I do during my morning tea at work and pretty much whenever I want on the weekend and have been doing these for the last 7 weeks. This current round of Serbian has been going on for about 8ish weeks. I started with my textbook which I was doing pretty consistently up until the last couple weeks where I have barely touched it. This has prompted me to change things up and give myself a mini challenge. So, what's entailed in this mini challenge? Here's what I plan on doing: At least 30mins of studying my textbook every day 2 italki tutoring sessions a week for a total of 8 sessions. Update this log at least twice a week This of course includes my usual habit of listening to glossika and doing my anki and memrise cards but they have been pretty ingrained so far so I'm not going to be tracking them in here. Thus I'm looking to accrue 22hrs of study this month with a stretch goal of 30hrs of study. This would mean aiming for around 45mins of textbook study a day. So, what are my thoughts on the achievability of my goals? I think they are both achievable and reasonable but I find that I will probably do the italki with ease, while I will probably struggle with the textbook study and may not reach my goal of 30mins a day, but we'll see. I'm thinking the motivation boost I'll get from the tutor might get me there, but the log will show for sure. I'm not one to usually time myself during my study so I'll try my best to keep an eye on my start/stop times but otherwise I will use my guesstimates. Anyways, that's enough blathering on for now. My personal challenge starts tomorrow and ends on the 31st of this month. 28 days, let's see what I make of them! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Clarity Groupie United States Joined 3514 days ago 85 posts - 107 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 2 of 15 03 May 2015 at 7:48pm | IP Logged |
|
I love the idea of a mini-goal log. I too struggle with the textbook side of learning. I can easily rack up the hours if I'm watching a movie or TV show in Spanish, but have difficulty forcing myself to crack open a book at the end of the day.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| nikolic993 Diglot Senior Member Yugoslavia Joined 3772 days ago 106 posts - 205 votes Speaks: Serbian*, English Studies: Italian, Mandarin, Romanian, Persian | Message 3 of 15 04 May 2015 at 1:13am | IP Logged |
|
Good luck with your goals!
How much will you be paying for an iTalki session? Edited by nikolic993 on 04 May 2015 at 1:13am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| basica Senior Member Australia Joined 3528 days ago 157 posts - 269 votes Studies: Serbian | Message 4 of 15 04 May 2015 at 3:46am | IP Logged |
|
nikolic993, thanks :) the tutor I'm using is charging 149 italki credits per hour which is basically USD * 10 so it's costing me just under $15 USD per hour. There are some that charge more, and a few that charge less. I'll stick with this one for now and maybe try experimenting with a couple next month depending on how happy I am with her. Her rate drops to about $12 per hour if you buy 10 lessons in bulk which is more in line with the average rate.
Clarity, yes the weird thing is that I actually enjoy studying once I get into it. I dunno why I am so reluctant to start up. I think maybe for me it's probably more to do with not setting aside a specific time to study like I would with my anki/memrise/glossika stuff. Anyways, let's see how I go! :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| basica Senior Member Australia Joined 3528 days ago 157 posts - 269 votes Studies: Serbian | Message 5 of 15 04 May 2015 at 2:26pm | IP Logged |
|
OK. WOW. Just finished my first lesson and it was HARD but REALLY FUN. I don't know how to describe it but
I honestly feel like I've been stretched. It's almost like I just finished a work out. I am basically exhausted but I really did enjoy it. I feel almost tricked :P I was expecting her to sorta feel out my speaking ability and from there we might go into a "lesson" where English is primarily spoken and stuff is explained etc. Instead we spoke primarily in Serbian and with a small amount of English here and there when I really just didn't understand anything but that was only on a couple of occasions. I guess the main advantage a lesson like this has is that when times get tough - we still stick to Serbian. When speaking with my Skype friends their English is usually vastly superior to my Serbian so I lazily switch to it when things get tough or when I couldn't be bothered speaking Serbian. This lesson forced me to stick to it - even on one occasion where I'm like I have no idea what you want from me, man lol. Another positive note was she said I made really good progress for two months and said keep doing whatever I'm doing as it seems to be working - good to hear :D Anyways, I've already scheduled my next lesson and I suspect I will keep up this routine. She gave me a list of corrections. At some point I should probably put these into anki or something. Aside from that, I unsurprisingly didn't do any textbook study but I will try to make up for it tomorrow. Will probably update again after my next lesson end of this week, but might do it earlier if I am overcome with desire :) Till then! :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| basica Senior Member Australia Joined 3528 days ago 157 posts - 269 votes Studies: Serbian | Message 6 of 15 08 May 2015 at 5:12pm | IP Logged |
|
OK, time for my second update. Like I expected I had been really slack with my study - but I did do some
study related things like adding cards to my deck and my teacher sent through the material we'll be working through so I did read through the chapter I believe we're working on. It was quite nice actually having something that was basically comprehensible input which was longer than a couple of lines of contrived dialog from a textbook (despite it actually coming from a textbook lol). I really appreciated that. So, by today I was meaning to have around 150mins of study done, but I only really have about an hour. I will try to be a better student for the weekend :) Today I did not have my lesson with my usual tutor due to some unfortunate circumstances so instead I organised some instant tutoring. It was an interesting experience. He too was quite impressed with my Serbian level, and to be honest I was kinda amazed at how much I understood. I certainly did not understand every word, but it was more like "I am from X and ..... child of Y years .... we went to Z" with the dots representing one or more words that I may have missed or not understood which was more than I was expecting especially since he spoke at a far more regular pace than my other teacher does. I think next time though I might ask him to write down the new vocab he teaches me as while I repeated what he said, it's sorta one ear out the other. I'd like to have a record of it so I can put it in my anki deck. On more than one occasion he repeated something several times and after using it once I immediately forgot it which I felt a bit embarrassed about but obviously my mind is very efficient at taking out what it unfortunately considers to be trash! So, with that said I guess I should offer a guesstimation of my current speaking level. I know quite a bit of vocabulary now I guess. I'm broaching about 800 words or so. I'm not keeping an exact count as there are a few words I know pretty well that I don't need to put into a deck like anki but it would be around 800 and possible 900 but unlikely 1000. This is at the passive level, my active vocabulary is significantly smaller and I am working on bringing that up - partly by speaking but also just written output. I can write much better than I can speak, my reading ability could do with improvement as I find I am quick to translate the text and then go back over it. Listening is ok - better than I thought but will need more lessons to get a more accurate idea. So with all that preface, I would say my current overall level is probably an A1.5. Because the textbook I use has an academic focus - the day to day and touristy related is not really touched upon and this is where I am sort of weak in (like how to introduce oneself or what the socially appropriate way to order a beer etc) and I think I might switch pace a bit and go to my TY Serbian book for a little while to build this up. Anyways, that's it for now. I've been really enjoying this speaking practice aspect of it and I feel this is probably the key to help me progress to my desired B1 level by the end of the year. Until next time, ciao! :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| basica Senior Member Australia Joined 3528 days ago 157 posts - 269 votes Studies: Serbian | Message 7 of 15 15 May 2015 at 1:50am | IP Logged |
|
OK, so I didn't update earlier in the week like I thought I did.
I did my lessons all so far, and still keeping up with anki and memrise. My textbook study still sucks. I have gotten around an hour to 90mins the last 2 weeks. When I get back from work today I will try to do some more. Hopefully I can get an hour in tomorrow and Sunday. Really need to start pushing myself but it's a bit hard as I am feeling rather unmotivated at the moment, not really sure why though. Anyways, I know this one is a bit shorter than my last couple posts but nothing really interesting to add :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| basica Senior Member Australia Joined 3528 days ago 157 posts - 269 votes Studies: Serbian | Message 8 of 15 17 May 2015 at 12:18pm | IP Logged |
|
ok, another update. So, my study schedule has been real lax, but I decided to give myself a break as I had
forgotten that I had some training and studying to do for some certification at work. Having finished that today (and passing, yay!) I can get back on track. Once again, I am hoping for 30mins a day sessions. Aside from that, how motivated am I feeling? I enjoy having the conversations that I am getting weekly, and I'm also enjoying my tutoring sessions. Anki and memrise are really starting to become a chore as I'm getting to the 10week mark of using them. Glossika is in a weird way getting easier and harder. I am getting use to the patterns used in speech and I feel it "sinking in" but at the same time I am going through a stretch where the recordings are getting to about 30mins and it's a bit hard to sit there as I don't have the best concentrating skills. Motivation overall is at about a 5/10. I was given some homework by my tutor, so I plan on doing that tomorrow afternoon. I'll use that to ease into the studying i'll be doing from tomorrow onwards in my textbook. Gotta kick myself around some more I think, too early yet to be losing motivation - that needs to come after the intermediate stage :P 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
