Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5949 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French
| Message 81 of 138 19 August 2009 at 4:44am | IP Logged |
Thanks Smurf36 and ExtraLean,
Portuguese? Absolutely, though as things stand now, Italian will be my next Romance language (year 4 or 5), with Spanish and Portuguese as Year 10 and Year 14 languages respectively. Have not decided between a Brazilian or European Portuguese approach - most likely Brazilian, but guess I still have a bit of time to decide!
Assimil? No principled reason against it – quite the contrary, I keep hearing really good things about it. It has just been that there is so much learning material for French and German that I had already stumbled over before getting my mitts on any Assimil material. I was planning on using an Assimil course for Italian (perhaps the Sans Peine version if my French is strong enough by the time I get to it). I took a quick look just now and see that there are Japanese Assimil learning materials, and I don’t really have much lined up yet for Japanese, so I may try it next year
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Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5949 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French
| Message 82 of 138 24 August 2009 at 7:53am | IP Logged |
I have a new language learning goal, courtesy of this quirky fellow:
speak French in Russian
“People hang on his every word – even the prepositions.
He can disarm you with his looks. Or his hands. Either way.
He can speak French - in Russian.
He is the world’s most interesting man.
…. ‘Stay thirsty, my friends.’ “
German
A: MT Disc 1 – previously studied through to the end of this disc many months ago, reasonable recollection thankfully. Michel would be apoplectic if he knew that I have tweaked (okay, disregarded) his direction not to take detailed notes as I go.
B: Pimsleur German I, units 1, 2, 3 and 4. I am working through each a couple of times orally first, but then going back and working with transcripts to get the written component down (yes, I know this is heretical), and then Anki-ing the vocabulary and sentences.
C: Lesson 1.1 (German greeting and courtesies), Lesson 1.2 (das Alphabet) and Lesson 2 (personal pronouns)
French
Pimsleur III, through to end of unit 15. Couple more weeks to go to get to the end of this course. Also, did some reviewing of Discs 1,2 and 3 of Michel Thomas, Advanced French, and continued with lots of French language TV.
Japanese
Concentrating on practising use (recognition and production) of the hiragana, including the dakuten and handakuten, the long vowels and “doubled” consonants. Reading practice in Japanese for Busy People: Kana Workbook and a couple of exercises on Tae Kim’s internet site: Tae Kim's Japanese page
Edited by Spanky on 24 August 2009 at 7:56am
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Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5949 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French
| Message 83 of 138 31 August 2009 at 6:56am | IP Logged |
Slow week for various reasons so not a lot to report, but I promised myself to log weekly. I have been studying some German, French and Japanese each day, and I am hoping that daily contact pays off, even if it may not necessarily be a lot each day. Using Anki quite a bit and stumbled across smart.fm, which proved very distracting.
German
A: Michel Thomas, Disc 2
B: Pimsleur, unit 4 and 5
C: GAC, unit 3 – noun gender and Capitalization and related articles and quiz
French
Pimsleur 3-16, quite a bit of Anki work, and starting up again with the Journal en français facile.
Japanese
Some more hiragana and katakana practice (finished Japanese for Busy People kana workbook and now working on smart.fm practice). Accuracy is there, but I want to eliminate the occasional katakana delays that still occur with both production and recognition.
Edited by Spanky on 31 August 2009 at 7:02am
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Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5949 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French
| Message 84 of 138 07 September 2009 at 5:31pm | IP Logged |
Well, if last week was slow, then this past week was absolutely glacial. But even if the pace is not quick, I am still totally loving both hearing and producing German.
Spent some time working out an elaborate schedule for completing all that I intend to complete by August 11, 2010, and realized only once the final "i" was dotted and "t" carefully crossed that mostly what this accomplished was just putting me a couple of hours even further behind where I should be.
German
A: working on Michel Thomas, Disc 3
B: Pimsleur, reviewing units 4 and 5 and completing unit 6
C: German.about.com lektion 4.1 ("Haben und nicht haben" and "sein oder nicht sein"), lektion 4.2 (basic verb conjugation) together with the related articles (20 most common orally used verbs, and a list of 50 common verbs).
French
Pimsleur III, up to completion of unit 20. I am also working through the French subtitles of Fun with Dick and Jane.
Japanese
Some more katakana recognition and production practice. Now working on saying a friendly "hey ya, hows it going" to the kanji that I had previously learned (Heisig-style) before putting Japanese aside several months ago to focus on French. I previously studied up to number 130 (from the sample excerpt from Heisig, RTK, 5th edition posted online).
Edited by Spanky on 07 September 2009 at 5:37pm
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Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5949 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French
| Message 85 of 138 14 September 2009 at 9:37am | IP Logged |
In the darkest and most obscure corners of the current configuration of the present universe, there occurs from time to time a failure of will, effort and study achievement so vast and inexplicable that post-failure analysis, explanation or excuse seems utterly misplaced and inappropriate.
Spanky is, at this time and place, in the unhappy position of having to advise that this unfortunate circumstance and the path of his own sorry existence have intersected solidly. One wishes, on such an occasion, that one could take the broader Tralfamadorian perspective: that the past week simpy was, is and always will be structured in that way. So it goes….
I will check in next week, with every good hope of advising that things have improved somewhat by that time.
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ExtraLean Triglot Senior Member France languagelearners.myf Joined 5987 days ago 897 posts - 880 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: German
| Message 86 of 138 14 September 2009 at 9:39am | IP Logged |
Ahh Spanky, your failure makes me laugh. ;)
I am well aquainted with study weeks such as those, but that does not mean that it is RIGHT! So get back to studying damnit and put less effort into your reports of failure and more effort into your attempts at success!
Thom.
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Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5949 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French
| Message 87 of 138 14 September 2009 at 9:49am | IP Logged |
Yeah, I suppose. But while I agree success may be better, failure is oh ever so much easier!
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Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5949 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French
| Message 88 of 138 19 January 2010 at 1:33am | IP Logged |
Crickey, no studying since September!!. I had this vague sense I was forgetting something. Will begin blowing the dust off this creaky language learing trainwreck and get back to studying this week.
My French has gotten rusty since last September and as the Germans say… well, I don't know what the Germans would say as I completely forgot to study German. May need to tinker with the timeframe a little bit in terms of the one language per year, especially as German was intended to be an anchor language.
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