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Lorren’s Language Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| 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 113 of 212 04 May 2014 at 9:12am | IP Logged |
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Been very busy for the last few days... I finally got some time to relax. I read quite a bit out of December's National Geographic En Español; I'm about halfway through already, but the second half of the issue is where the densest text is. Although I read quite a few pages, I only had to look up 13 words.
I'm almost to the point where I want to be in reading. Or at least it feels like it. I want to be able to pick up a book or a magazine article and just read it. Just like I do English. Of course, I know that the last little bit towards my goal is the hardest part. Surely after I'm done with the Super Challenge, my reading skills will have improved way more. I spent about an hour and a half watching CNN. There was some interesting commentary about Israel, and then a boring section about some recording artist from Guatemala, and then right when I was going to turn it off, there was a thing about the Cold War. Since I really didn't want to stay up and watch it, I set the Tivo to record it for me. Since I was only half watching, I only counted a fraction of my viewing for the Super Challenge. So I made progress today. That's a good thing. 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 114 of 212 17 June 2014 at 11:49am | IP Logged |
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It's been a while since I've updated this thread... but it's also been a while since I've done much with language either :-(. It seems like there's not enough time to do what I want to get done, or I just get too tired after working and doing all the things that I have to do.
In the last few days though, I did work on my Anki deck some (which has become horribly backlogged since I haven't been practicing). I finished reading an article on some guys hunting elk on skis as well. Lately, I have been used to seeing maybe 10 new words in an article, but I had to look up 28 new words for this one. Some of the words were those that I don't use often in English, like horsehair or wolverine... and there were a couple of words that I had to look up in English, because I didn't know what it meant. So right now there's a struggle with balance. I'm trying to work almost full-time, homeschool my kids, and then work on my business so that at some point I'll make enough so that I don't have to work outside the home and will have more time. At least I got something done today. 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 115 of 212 19 June 2014 at 7:50am | IP Logged |
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So the last couple of days I have found time to practice my Spanish. Not a lot, but a little. I'm slowly clearing the backlog of words that I have in Anki, and I started reading an article about a guy that was walking from Ethiopia to the tip of Chile, retracing the steps of humanity from its beginnings to what is likely to be the farthest reach of the planet. It sounds pretty interesting... the journey is supposed to take seven years, and this article that I'm reading only deals with year one. I guess that I will be continuing my subscription to National Geographic en Español for another year; I was debating it, since I'm currently about half a year behind. I can imagine that when he finishes his journey six years from now, if I continue to study my Spanish, I should be pretty fluent. I should definitely be an excellent reader. Reading does help some with my listening as well, so that should be improved as well.
I had the chance to use my German today at work. Not much... it's been years since I last studied German in preparation to a trip to Germany that I took. I did study it for six years in school, but that was a while ago. I was checking a German into a hotel where I was working at, and at least I was able to use polite terms like thank you and you're welcome with him. We have pool wristbands that you have to wear, so when I was giving him his pool wristbands, I wrote D for Dienstag instead of T for Thursday. Friday and Saturday have the same initials. But it was nice to be able to use my Deutch a little. We sometimes get a deaf guest that stays with us, and I will say thank you in ASL to her; once she stopped by on her birthday and I told her happy birthday in ASL. I ran into quite a few words today when I was reading, even though I only read about a page and a half. I had about 20 words that I had to look up. I don't feel really bad about the words that I didn't know though... words like sinewy, suffocate, plankton, crotch, and magnitude. I'm sure that I will be running into words like that for years; some articles just have more words like that than others. I'm excited to get more reading done... I guess that language learning for me has to go in cycles. I wish that I had more time, but I do have four days off starting Sunday night. 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 116 of 212 20 June 2014 at 11:37am | IP Logged |
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Today I read 2 1/2 pages from an article... he was describing some of the shoes that people wear in Ethiopia, how water is important to life, and how these people living in the desert have cell phones that they charge with a generator that runs for a few hours every day. I only had to look up 7 words today... a lot less than I have been looking up. I guess that what I read today does not have much difficult vocabulary.
I ran into a word today that doesn't seem to have a translation into English... or none that I know of: palimpsesto. It describes an ancient tablet that people would erase and write on again... perhaps the equivalent of an ancient Etch-a-Sketch. I'm sure that there are plenty of words like that, but I don't really seem to notice many. I put the translated definition into Anki. Will I run into that word much in the future? I don't know, probably not... but at least I will be prepared if I ever do. I only have a couple of more pages left in the current article that I'm reading... I can probably finish it on the next day I get the chance to read. Perhaps tomorrow. I'm still working through the Anki backlog that I created through a period of disuse. I should be able to get through it in a few days. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4953 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 117 of 212 20 June 2014 at 5:16pm | IP Logged |
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Hi Lorren, nice progress! I admire the way you make time for languages despite such a huge workload.
Are you buying National Geographic en español as paper or digital? I've considered subsciribing to one of the language mutations (perhaps even the original for my little sister) but paper must be very expensive to have sent abroad, I suppose. 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 118 of 212 22 June 2014 at 11:02am | IP Logged |
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I get the paper version. I looked on the page where they have the printing information... the one that I get is printed in Miami. I guess that we have a large enough Spanish speaking population to make it worthwhile to print in the states. It looks like they also print it in Mexico, Chile, and Argentina as well.
There are quite a few other magazines that are available digitally in a lot of languages. Zinio has a ton of choices. From the Czech Republic, it might be a little hard to get a paper subscription. The Zinio interface is pretty nice too. I was hoping to finish the current article that I'm working on, but I only got one section read. I only had to look up six words though. I also did some Anki practice. I still have a backlog, but it's getting smaller... and I have four days off after tomorrow, so I should be able to take care of that during my long weekend. 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 119 of 212 24 June 2014 at 10:09am | IP Logged |
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Yesterday I worked and didn't really get around to doing any Spanish, although I did get quite a bit of work done on my business. Today I took the time to do some Spanish. I read two pages, finishing the article that I'm reading about a guy that is going on a seven year route going from where humanity began to the tip of the Americas. I had to look up 24 words, but I learned a new term in English while I was at it: lupine. Some of the words are synonyms to words that I already know an equivalent term for... but as in English, I guess that you would assume that the Spanish language would have that as well. I have two more articles left in this particular issue.
In Anki, I now have a backlog of less than 100 words. Yay! Today it seemed that I remembered more of the words than on some days. There are some words that I just have trouble remembering though. 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 120 of 212 26 June 2014 at 12:27pm | IP Logged |
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I've been able to get some work in Anki both today and yesterday. Today I was able to read a couple of pages from National Geographic En Español. I only had to look up 8 words.
My four days off has flown by... I have one day left till it's back to work. I should be back to part time, at least for the next couple of weeks. Who knows after that. The good news is that all this extra work has more than doubled my sales in the past month. Perhaps if I keep working hard, at some point I can work full time from home again... that will give me more time to study languages ;-). 1 person has voted this message useful |
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