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| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4195 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 193 of 212 05 January 2015 at 8:33am | IP Logged |
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Hello!
I got quite a bit of language done in the last couple of days. I worked on Spanish, Russian, and German. Spanish - I did Anki flashcards, read a chapter in Leal, and finished lesson 11 in FSI. I also did some Duolingo. Russian - I did some Rosetta Stone German - I did some Duolingo. As you might notice, I opened an account with Duolingo. It's pretty fun. I took placement tests for both Spanish and German. I placed in level 4 in German, which isn't bad since I haven't really used it much in years. I was getting the German mixed up with the Spanish a little bit during the placement test, but after working with it for a bit, I think I'm starting to be able to split them apart. They are coming up with a Russian course later on this year, which I think I will sign up for. So I now have the incentive to study German once again. I don't plan on giving up my Russian study, but the German work is pretty easy and fun, so I'm going to do some. I haven't really done much Russian in months. The contrast between learning Russian and learning Spanish is amazing. It seems like I understand almost no Russian... although I do know that I know some. I have so far to go before I'm reading Russian like I do Spanish. I don't feel that way with German. Probably that has a lot to do with the five years I spent learning German in middle school and high school. I did pretty well, I think, in the Duolingo placement test. I know, obviously, that I have a long way to go before I could pick up Die Tribute von Panem and read it, but the language is very familiar to me. So this was a good weekend with languages, and I'm looking forward to a good week! My kids start Duolingo in their chosen languages (Spanish and French) tomorrow. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4195 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 194 of 212 07 January 2015 at 7:14am | IP Logged |
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Hola!
I am enjoying Duolingo quite a bit. It adds concepts in very bite-sized increments, but that's helpful. Even though I tested out of several Spanish skills at the beginning, I tested out of another skill today as well. There are some skills that I know fairly well, but I'm missing a word or two, or perhaps a concept, in my knowledge, so I just go ahead and do the skill anyway. With German, I'm getting back into things. There are plenty of words and concepts that I already know, but there are other words and concepts that I'm going through that I can't really say whether I ever knew them or not. It's been... 12 years since I last studied German in preparation for a trip that I made to Germany, and it's been even longer since I studied German formally. There's a lot that I've forgotten, however, there's a lot that I've learned in Spanish lately that is similar to German, so I think that will help. One example is reflexive verbs. I remember studying reflexive German verbs somewhere in middle or high school, and it did help me when I started tackling that concept in Spanish, but it's been a while since I used them in German. Same thing with direct objects. I'm not that far in the tree to study those things in Duolingo, but when I get there, it will be easier for me. My daughter despises it... she thinks that Rosetta Stone is better. Oh well. I think that she doesn't like it because she has to understand some of the concepts more thoroughly at earlier levels. Like when she can't use un homme when they want her to type l'homme, because a is not the same thing as the. When she gets something wrong, she just has to practice it more. My boy, on the other hand, seems to like it. He'd probably rather be watching TV than studying Spanish, but he actually did one extra lesson today that he didn't have to do. "I wanted to finish the skill" he tells me. I read six more pages in National Geographic en Español today. I think that I'm going to read some more from Leal before I go to bed. I didn't do any Russian today or yesterday. I will be visiting my family for Christmas this fall, if all goes as planned, so I would like to vastly improve Russian, but Duolingo is fun. They're supposed to come out with a Russian program this summer, so I will definitely be signing up. Until then, I'll be doing Rosetta Stone Russian, but I've got FSI Spanish, Anki, Duolingo, and the Super Challenge to do, and they're more interesting to me at this point. At this point, I think I might sign up for German in the 6 Week Challenge this year. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4195 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 195 of 212 08 January 2015 at 8:06am | IP Logged |
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¡Hola!
Someone else (I think Stelle) had the idea of posting some things in their chosen language(s) just for practice. So I will probably alternate Spanish and German. I do not know Russian well enough yet. Hoy, español. Mi abuela está in el hospital. Ella tenida ataques al corazon. Me llama mi abuela, por que vivo muy lejos. Ella estaba felíz porque mucho gente visto y llamado ella. I know that I butchered some of that, and I had to look up a few words with Google translate. But we all have to start where we are, right? I did some Duolingo again, pretty much splitting my time between Spanish and German. I read the "Images" section in December's National Geographic, where I found two words to add to Anki: expenditures and barber shop. I also read a chapter in Leal. I highlighted four words in the chapter, which was seven pages long. I was trying to translate thoughts into Spanish last night, and German words kept popping into my head. I guess that I've started to activate the long-dormant part of my brain that has been storing all the German that I once learned. I suppose that over time they will find their proper places and not jumble into each other. Hopefully. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4195 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 196 of 212 09 January 2015 at 8:57am | IP Logged |
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Heute schreibe auf Deutch. Gestern Schnee. Heute es ist warm, und der Schnee schmolz. Morgen, Schnee. Ich gehe zum Geschäft Heute. Morgan ich bleibe im Haus.
I had to look up a few words, both yesterday and today. My grammar may be way off base... but it´s been a very long time since I´ve really worked on my German. My kids are doing their Duolingo... they need to learn conjugation. There are specific questions that need a person to conjugate correctly. Yo ____ una manzana. Como or come? I tried to explain conjugations to them today, but I'll probably have to explain it again more times. I remember in fifth grade when I took my first German class, it was foreign to me as well. Today I did Duolingo, read a mostly pictorial article on food in National Geographic (I had to look up words for oats, deceased, eggplant, and stove), and I did Anki. I still plan to read a chapter of Leal today. We don't have school tomorrow, so hopefully I'll be able to get some more language done. Although I like Divergente, I'll be glad to finish the book and read something else for a change. I still want to read Cuatro in Spanish, but I think I'll take a break and do Los Juegos del Hambre first. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4195 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 197 of 212 11 January 2015 at 7:46am | IP Logged |
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Hoy escribe en español. Hablo con mi abuela hoy, pero ella es muy enferma. Estoy triste porque no penso puedar hablar con ella una otra vez. Cuándo hablo con ella hoy, te digo quierar.
I´m sure I butchered that big time. That´s why I´m studying español. ;) Today I got a lot done. I practiced German and Spanish with Duolingo, and practiced my Anki deck. I worked in chapter 12 of FSI, read a chapter of Leal, and read an article in National Geographic. In the latter, I had to look up 20 words in about 6 or 7 pages of text, including untucked, agave, cinnamon, cactus, and wheelbarrow. When I read about some topics, I barely have to look up anything. I know a lot of words describing shooting, hunting, and that sort of thing: between articles of National Geographic and 2 1/2 books of the Divergent trilogy, I've read quite a bit of words that describe fighting, war, and battle. However, I don't know as many words that describe different kinds of food... or perhaps, there are just a whole lot of food words. Of course, I know the obvious words, like kitchen, apple, potato, beef, etc., but I guess cinnamon and agave are more obscure. I also did some Russian with Rosetta Stone. I did the writing segment for the current lesson that I'm on and the past one, and a listening segment. I'm getting better at using the Russian keyboard, but it's still difficult. I'm looking forward to Duolingo getting Russian later on this year, but until then, I want to continue with Russian periodically. Duolingo today wanted me to "strengthen my skills" in a few topics in both Spanish and German. They were lessons that I had tested out of, but it was good practice to do a review of them. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4195 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 198 of 212 12 January 2015 at 7:21am | IP Logged |
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Heute ist Sonntag. Wir gehen nach der Kirche. Es schneite.
I need to set up the German keyboard on this computer. I have the Russian one set up and the Spanish one set up, but not German. I've typed on a German keyboard before, so I know that it's not difficult to type umlauts and such, but I need to install it. Today was a productive day. I did a few pages of FSI, read a section of a National Geographic (Spanish) article and had to look up two words, did my Anki, listened to part of Buenos Dias America as I made dinner, practiced German and Spanish with Duolingo, practiced Russian with Rosetta Stone, and watched a History Channel show in Spanish. I also read some of Leal and will be heading to bed soon to read another chapter. Phew! Since tomorrow is Monday, I probably won't do as much tomorrow, but that's okay. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4195 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 199 of 212 21 January 2015 at 10:10am | IP Logged |
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¡Hola! Esta semana no está bueno. Mi abuela muerte domingo. :( En los años pasados, ella no es feliz. Hablo a ella viernes. Ella no responde, pero ella sonrió cuándo mis hijos y yo hablamos. Después hablamos viernes, se quedó dormida.
So I will be visiting mí familia next weekend, although the rest of my family will stay home. Too expensive. I have been having a pretty good week with languages though. I'm almost done with Leal, and went downstairs to put Los Juegos del Hambre on my dresser for when I'm done. I'm still having a good time with Duolingo. I'm doing a contest where this week... the winner is the person who gets the most skills done. I do a little bit of both Spanish and German every day. Neither of them are difficult, but I am reinforcing some skills while picking up a few new ones. I got so carried away with Duolingo that I didn't do my Anki for two days. Getting caught up was not fun. Yesterday I did Anki so late that I was tired and there were way too many words that I could not remember. I suppose though that when I really know the language well, I'll remember what the words mean, even when I'm tired. So, even though there has been some sadness in my life in the past couple of weeks, my language skills have been improving. I didn't do FSI or Russian over the weekend, but to some degree, I'm mostly excited to do the Duolingo Russian course. I'm sure that I'll be done with both the Spanish and German courses by then. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4088 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 200 of 212 21 January 2015 at 12:25pm | IP Logged |
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I'm very sorry for your loss.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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