tornus Diglot GroupieRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5136 days ago 82 posts - 113 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Spanish, Swedish, Danish
| Message 1 of 5 21 December 2013 at 10:42pm | IP Logged |
Hi everyone.I've been lurking around this forum for quite a while but never really participate actively. I'm not entirely sure on how to run a log by the way, so I hope I'm not doing anything wrong.
Anyway I'm currently studdying in Denmark and I'm supposed to stay here for quite a while, so learning the language is definitely worth it( I'm interrested in language learning in general anyway).
Prior to start learning Danish, I taught myself some Swedish and went volunteering in Sweden for a couple of weeks. I can therefore often understand written Danish but it's impossible to get anything when it's spoken.
We were given the opportunity to attend some Danish courses made by the language center but it's incredibely slow and uninteressting ( for instance we've spent so much time learning only numbers)
It feels like learning the language with this course is going to take such a long time that it is not worth it. I want to be able to use the language in my everyday life within months, I don't want to wait years before being able to do so.
I plan on using Teach Yourself Danish and Assimil Danish in the begining and then move on to natives materials. So far I went through 6 units in Teach Yourself and 10 lessons in Assimil. I'm going to concentrate on Teachyourself first for I find it more effective and easier to start with. As far as I'm concerned, I think Assimil lessons are well designed but each lesson introduces too much and too specific unnecessary vocabulary.
Today I listened to all the units tracks I've covered so far around 4 times each while I was in the train. I tried to pay attention to the pronunciation and shadowed it when I thought it was relevant. Danish sounds clearer than before. I covered one unit everyday for the past four days, I'm gonna try to keep this pace as long as I can.
Edited by tornus on 21 December 2013 at 10:42pm
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montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4821 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh
| Message 2 of 5 22 December 2013 at 7:15pm | IP Logged |
Good luck. I have also followed TYS (Complete) Danish, and one of these days will do the
Assimil that I already have, but Danish is taking a back-seat for the moment.
You might also look at the "Copenhagencast" podcasts. The podcasts are free to download,
but you have to pay if you want transcripts (which are not expensive).
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tornus Diglot GroupieRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5136 days ago 82 posts - 113 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Spanish, Swedish, Danish
| Message 3 of 5 23 December 2013 at 11:32pm | IP Logged |
Thanks for answering! Copenhagencast looks good,I will consider buying it after completing TYS, it is indeed affordable.
Yesterday and today I covered unit 07 and 08. I will definitelty need to review them again later on. Nonetheless each unit becomes easier to study which is very encouraging.
I'm focusing a lot on the pronunciation. I'm struggling with the d sound mainly, it's rather similar to the th sound in English but used so weirdly. I guess I need to put even more efforts on reading out loud properly the texts.
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tornus Diglot GroupieRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5136 days ago 82 posts - 113 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Spanish, Swedish, Danish
| Message 4 of 5 09 October 2014 at 5:27pm | IP Logged |
Just a short update. I intend to start writing here on a regular basis.
I would say my level Danish is between A2-B1 and I eventually want to achieve B2. From there, I will not really try to learn the language anymore but just use native materials.
I finished covering all TYS lessons but I far from mastering them. in 2 days I have a week vacations so I will take the opportunity to improve my Danish.
I started using Anki around August, and downloaded a deck that apparently teaches the 3000 most common Danish words. There is 160 unseen flashcards left, and I have 20 new cards everyday. A lot of words are pretty uncommon or the translation wasn't done properly, I corrected a lot of them so far. However I can feel it makes a huge difference, I can read newspapers most of the time which is encouraging. I've also been able to understand some public speeches last week. Speeches are nice because speakers tend to speak more slowly and in more structured way.I Also managed to understand a Miyazaki movie that was broadcast in the theater with only Danish subtitles.
However I relied to much lately on using Anki. I decided therefore to study again the language, its grammar, pronunciation, and so on.
I feel proud of my improvements and look forward to studying the language in more depth next week.
Edited by tornus on 09 October 2014 at 5:29pm
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tornus Diglot GroupieRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5136 days ago 82 posts - 113 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Spanish, Swedish, Danish
| Message 5 of 5 14 October 2014 at 10:13am | IP Logged |
I just finished my current Anki deck. I will keep on studying the flashcards of course but it felt like a big achievement.
I listened to the 4 first TYS Danish units and it'S way easier than it was last year.
I'm planning to study the units in more depth starting from the 5th unit.
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