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Slothrop tries to beat procrastination | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Slothrop Newbie American Samoa Joined 4770 days ago 14 posts - 17 votes Speaks: Portuguese* Studies: English, Italian | Message 1 of 3 27 March 2015 at 9:28pm | IP Logged |
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Hi everyone.
I'm a hopeless procrastinator with regards to language learning (and a few other activities as well, to be honest). So, my story is full of false starts, weeks of enthusiastic study followed by months and months of no study at all, aborted projects and so on. This trait of mine can be noticed even in my very limited participation here: three years ago I wrote an introductory post called "Time to delurk", but you all can tell by my number of posts that said delurking did not happen; then, I signed up for the Assimil challenge, and wasn't able to actually take part in it afterwards; recently, I've asked for advice on approaches to learn Ancient Greek, got a lot of good responses, and haven't started it yet (I've done some Kypros lessons, though). So it's not without trepidation that I open this log, knowing full well that the likelihood of it dying after only three or four updates is high. Anyway, I'll proceed with it. Maybe it's the kind of motivation I need to mantain momentum. So, what's this log about? My main goal now is to improve my English and finally bring it out of intermediate level. As I said earlier, in my introductory thread, I've learned English on the fly, without much organized study. I have a somewhat good knowledge of the language and can easily comprehend texts with limited vocabulary (technical papers on computer science or book and film reviews, for example), but I'm at a loss when I try to read a literary work. Huge gaps with regards to grammar and vocabulary. Besides that, my pronunciation is awful to say the least; I'm working on that as well. So, what was then a problem is still a problem. Of course I've made some progress, just by being heavily exposed to the language on the media etc., but not nearly as much progress as it could have been accomplished with actual effort over a period of three years. This is also something that bothers me whenever I start to think about picking up any language to study: a voice in my head saying, "You know, you really should improve your English first." And I should indeed. The plan: I've been systematically studying grammar for the past few days and will continue to do so. I'm using Cambridge's Essential Grammar in Use and will follow it up with the other books in the series (English Grammar... and Advanced Grammar...). Also, any good Internet resources I can find on any given topics I may need clarifications at the moment. Verb tenses and prepositions are my Achilles' heel, by the way. For vocabulary, at my stage, the best approach is to use lots and lots of native material, which I already do, of course, using the Internet, this forum, watching movies and so on. But I need to do it purposefully and aiming to expand my vocabulary - in other words, I'm going to try and read (or even L-R) lots of fiction, starting with Harry Potter, and use Anki extensively. To activate the grammar and vocabulary, I plan to produce written output. This week I posted three texts on lang-8 and got them corrected; I'll mantain the habit. I'm considering signing up for the Output Challenge (writing only, at first). This very post count as study for me, but if I sign up I'll consider only texts written with the deliberate goal of forcing me to make use of what I'm learning, and not ordinary log entries. Regarding pronunciation (and listening), apart from L-Ring, I'm going through a great book called Pronouncing American English. I'm also using Assimil mainly for listening practice, as well as VoA News, and I'm going to watch Anglophone movies and TV series only with English subtitles (or no subtitles at all) from now on. If by the second semester my pronunciation is at least a little better than it is today, I may expand to the full Output Challenge and make some recordings. If. What else? Well, I've just started to study Italian, with Assimil (Italian with Ease) and Duolingo. Since it's a Romance language, I intend to tackle it somewhat aggressively, but that's for when I reach the intermediate level. My main focus now, however, is improving my English (I know, I know - a guy improving his English, what could be more uninteresting in a place like this? But that's life). My Greek ambitions are, for now, on stand by until I'm comfortable enough with my English to not feel guilty about starting another language. I have a hit list, but for the moment being, I'm not even thinking about it. Focus, focus. That's it for now. I'll post updates every Friday or Saturday. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| jmagyar Triglot Newbie SlovakiaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5370 days ago 16 posts - 21 votes Speaks: Slovak, Hungarian*, English Studies: German | Message 2 of 3 27 March 2015 at 10:23pm | IP Logged |
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Good luck to you! I've found the Cambridge 'in Use' books very useful, I hope you will enjoy them. They have great books on vocabulary. I liked
especially the ones on phrasal verbs and idioms. If I may recommend one similar book, I'd tell you to buy Oxford Practice Grammar (Intermediate or Advanced). It really taught me how to use verb tenses (along with the Cambridge book). And writing definitely helps. Maybe you could start writing a fanfic? I don't know if you are up to things like that, but if you find a native beta who is willing to correct your works (or you can use lang-8 for that, too), it could help you a lot. First, you write a longer story and it is a story, not just some random post and if you get more comments that can motivate you to sit down and write. I speak from own experience again, it worked for me, you know how you feel about it. You are doing everything right in my opinion, so you only need to be patient and if you feel overwhelmed by some part of your study, just drop it and carry on with the others. In my opinion, you can improve a lot only by watching movies or TV series. Books could be a great addition to it, but only if you read something you like. So find something interesting. Based on your interest in Greek, you might enjoy Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series, I think. And if you are into crime novels, you can try Agatha Christie. The language might seem a bit 'too old', but it's simple and enjoyable. :) I wish you all the best, I hope this time you can achieve your goal. Just be patient and don't expect rapid progress on this level. Edited by jmagyar on 27 March 2015 at 10:24pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Slothrop Newbie American Samoa Joined 4770 days ago 14 posts - 17 votes Speaks: Portuguese* Studies: English, Italian | Message 3 of 3 28 March 2015 at 2:56pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks for pointing me to Cambridge Vocabulary in Use books, I was totally unaware
of their existence! I thought the grammar books were the only ones in the series. And I'll certainly read Agatha Christie - I like her novels a lot, and have read roughly two thirds of her crime fiction in Portuguese. Also, one of the TV series I plan to watch soon is Poirot starring David Suchet. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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