Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4137 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog
| Message 81 of 117 14 August 2014 at 4:57pm | IP Logged |
Yesterday...
listen to something (30 minutes)
Extensive re-watching of several short Tagalog cartoons. I understand a few more words every time I listen.
read something (20 minutes)
Extensive re-reading of comprehensible texts (mix of texts from my courses, song lyrics, children's early readers,
etc)
write something (5 minutes)
Wrote a short text to a penpal.
practice vocabulary (14 minutes)
anki and memrise
other (27 minutes)
lesson 5 of Pimsleur
TOTAL TIME YESTERDAY: 96 MINUTES
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Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4137 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog
| Message 82 of 117 15 August 2014 at 12:07am | IP Logged |
Today...
listen to something (17 minutes)
TMTT lesson 8; dictation exercise
YouTube: Pixie Can Share, Bumitaw
read something (16 minutes)
TMTT lesson 8; reading comprehension exercise
Re-reading of comprehensible texts
write something (20 minutes)
TMTT lesson 8; grammar and writing exercises
practice vocabulary (16 minutes)
anki and memrise
other (27 minutes)
lesson 6 of Pimsleur
TOTAL TIME TODAY: 96 MINUTES
Edited by Stelle on 15 August 2014 at 3:29pm
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Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4137 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog
| Message 83 of 117 16 August 2014 at 2:30am | IP Logged |
Today was a really good day for Tagalog! The last few days have been a bit of a slog, so it was nice to have a day
when things just seemed to fall into place.
listen to something (54 minutes)
Extensive re-watching of cartoons. I have a playlist on YouTube with 8 or 10 short (2-4 minute) cartoons. I watch
them while running on the treadmill. This is the third time that I watch the playlist, and I catch a little bit more
every time. I never did this kind of listening in Spanish, since I was able to find something comprehensible right
from day one, and slowly increase in difficulty. It's a very different kind of work to try to puzzle out meaning bit
by bit! It's much harder, but it isn't less fun. The fact that I'm very willing to rewatch cartoons aimed at toddlers
time and time again is a testament to its usefulness.
Very focused eavesdropping on a conversation between my husband and his mom. I understand a surprising
amount! Just a few months ago, I would have been nowhere near able to understand what I can understand now.
I'm not saying that I understood everything - I didn't, not by a long shot - but I'm hearing each individual word
and the ones that I know are jumping out at me. I was able to follow the general conversation (they were talking
about houses that we might buy when we sell ours).
Listening exercise from TMTT lesson 8. As usual, I did this as a transcription exercise. It's amazing how the first
time, I hear the words, and get the general gist, but miss the details. But after listening and writing down what I
hear, it's like all the mud gets washed away. When I listen to something after having transcribed it, it seems like
everyone's speaking so much more slowly and clearly!
read something (10 minutes)
Sat in my comfy chair with my book bin. I'm going to write a post about my book bin tomorrow - it's basically a
collection of texts that I understand well.
write something (12 minutes)
Scriptorium of TMTT listening exercise. I write out a "good copy" in my listening notebook, paying attention to
every word and saying them aloud as I write them down. And with that, I've now finished lesson 8 of Tara Mag-
Tagalog Tayo!
practice vocabulary (21 minutes)
Anki and memrise. I finished the Hacking Tagalog course on Memrise, so from now on I won't be planting
anymore - just watering the four courses I've already planted. The last 2 levels of Hacking Tagalog were a
collection of sentences to show how the language works. What's interesting is that I - a beginner in Tagalog -
caught several errors! I wrote a note in the forum, but I doubt that anything will happen since the course author's
profile has been deleted. If I was able to catch errors, there must have been more. I don't want to drill and
practice sentences that are wrong, so I ignored all of the sentences in levels 17 and 18. I still think the course is
good for vocabulary up to level 16.
other (27 minutes)
Lesson 7 of Pimsleur. My husband really didn't like lesson one of Pimsleur - as he said, "nobody talks that way" -
but it gets better in later lessons. It's still overly formal, but he says that it doesn't sound quite so weird. And I do
think that it's very useful for practicing sentence structure.
TOTAL TIME TODAY: 125 MINUTES
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Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4137 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog
| Message 84 of 117 17 August 2014 at 11:04pm | IP Logged |
I had a quiet weekend with regards to languages. I was tired. I needed a bit of a break.
Over the past two days, I've logged 79 minutes of Tagalog. Both days, I watered my words on Memrise, ran through
my anki deck, and did Pimsleur lesson 8 (twice).
And that's it!
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Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4137 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog
| Message 85 of 117 19 August 2014 at 3:40am | IP Logged |
talk to someone (40 minutes)
Tutoring session with Joanna - my lovely italki tutor. It was supposed to be an hour, but I was running late. While
I had worked my way up from 30 minute to 60 minutes sessions, I think I'm going to drop back down to 30
minute sessions 3 times a week rather than 60 minute sessions twice a week. I think that the first 30 minutes of a
session are much more valuable right now than the last 30 minutes. I start running out of steam after 30
minutes. And besides, I have to stretch out my italki credits, since my budget for the next little while is zero
dollars and zero cents.
(I talked about money and language learning on my blog this week.)
practice vocabulary (8 minutes)
I've decided to stop building my image-based Tagalog deck. While I do think that it had value, it simply took too
long to make for what I got out of it. Besides, a lot of the words that were on the list for my image-based deck
were words that I'd already learned through my other courses.
other (29 minutes)
Lesson 9 of Pimsleur. I only have six lessons left, so I'm going to aim for one a day and finish by the end of the
week.
TOTAL TIME TODAY: 77 MINUTES
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Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4137 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog
| Message 86 of 117 20 August 2014 at 1:06am | IP Logged |
listen to something (43 minutes)
Extensive re-watching of several short Tagalog cartoons, songs and stories. I made a 30-minute playlist on
YouTube that I'm going to try to watch at least once a week while on the treadmill:
30-minute Tagalog playlist on YouTube
I also worked through the first dialogue of Teach Yourself lesson 8. This chapter is about restaurants.
read something (10 minutes)
Re-reading of texts from previous lessons in Tara Mag-Tagalog Tayo.
write something (25 minutes)
I worked on a few paragraphs in Tagalog, one on learning Tagalog and one introducing Canada. I'll correct them
with my tutor over the next few days. I also transcribed the dialogue from Teach Yourself into my dialogue
notebook.
practice vocabulary (13 minutes)
anki and memrise
other (28 minutes)
lesson 10 of Pimsleur
TOTAL TIME TODAY: 119 MINUTES
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Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4137 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog
| Message 87 of 117 21 August 2014 at 1:44am | IP Logged |
talk to someone (30 minutes)
Very good half-hour session today with an italki tutor! I was able to talk about my frustration that I don't have
work this September. It sucks to not have a contract. But it's fun when a half hour of Tagalog goes too quickly
and I'm not ready to stop!
listen to something (20 minutes)
Teach Yourself lesson 8, dialogue two: ordering Filipino food in a restaurant. I love Filipino food! Kare-kare,
adobo, escabeche, lumpia, pancit...it's all so good!
I also put on a timer for 10 minutes and listened to several earlier dialogues. I think that I need to review old
dialogues more often. I'm going to try to build more review into my week, maybe taking 10 minutes to review
before listening to a new dialogue.
read something (12 minutes)
Reading familiar texts: Napoleon books, song lyrics, texts from my courses.
write something (10 minutes)
I copied the dialogue from Teach Yourself into my dialogue notebook. I also reworked a few paragraphs that I
wrote a few weeks ago.
practice vocabulary (12 minutes)
anki and memrise
other (26 minutes)
lesson 11 of Pimsleur
TOTAL TIME TODAY: 110 MINUTES
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Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4137 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog
| Message 88 of 117 22 August 2014 at 8:29pm | IP Logged |
Yesterday:
talk to someone - no
My tutoring session was cancelled due to internet interruptions in the Philippines. This seems pretty common. I'm
impressed by the fact that my tutors almost always find a way to get in touch with me and let me know – usually
by going to a cafe and emailing me from there.
listen to something – no
Oops! I really try to never skip listening. But yesterday was just a busy day. We had to get the house ready for a
showing – the first one in months. Let's hope it sells this time!
read something (15 minutes)
I ordered some bilingual storybooks from a company in Toronto, and I received them yesterday. So exciting!
Three of them were at a pretty good level – tricky, but readable with the support of the pictures and English text.
One of them is in rhyme (in Tagalog). I wouldn't have purchased it if I'd realized that it was in rhyme, since
rhyming storybooks often play with word order for the sake of the rhythm. One of the four books – a picture
book about the People Power Revolution – is much too hard for me. I'll keep it as an aspirational read for the
future.
I wrote a long post about how I read extensively in foreign languages, and a lot of it touches on what I'm
currently doing in Tagalog:
On Reading Easy Stuff
write something (10 minutes)
I worked a bit on translating another of the Napoleon easy readers. I need to learn -um verbs soon, because I
keep getting stuck!
practice vocabulary (10 minutes)
anki and memrise
other (27 minutes)
Pimsleur lesson 12. The verbs are a bit tricky, so I'm going to repeat this lesson.
TOTAL TIME FOR YESTERDAY: 62 MINUTES
Edited by Stelle on 22 August 2014 at 10:34pm
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