neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6105 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish
| Message 81 of 206 22 January 2009 at 9:02am | IP Logged |
Yesterday I read for an hour. It wasn't great, but I did it.
That is all. :)
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neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6105 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish
| Message 82 of 206 22 January 2009 at 2:51pm | IP Logged |
A fantastic day!
I woke up stressed, mainly due to school deadlines and such. Today didn't start out much better; it just felt as though it was taking me way too much time to do anything. I don't go to school on Thursdays, but I use it to catch up on both domestic tasks (such as laundry and groceries) as well as academic work.
I did half an hour of new vocabulary studying, and the language learning gods must have been smiling on me, because the words were exactly the correct level of difficulty for me to be challenged yet make progress. After all the reviewing and audio work, studying word lists again was really exciting to me!
Later on I needed to go to the post office, which is just over half a mile away... Again, the stress level was increasing, but I figured that on my way I could re-listen to Alice in Wonderland. I got through two chapters, and the combination of the walk, the sunshine and realizing that I understand it much more than the first time I heard it made me feel great. Yes, I heard it once before, albeit a long time ago. And yes, my understanding was facilitated by the fact that I know what the story is about. Yet it occurred to me that a unilingual English speaker would have only heard pure gibberish. I was understanding a good number of the words, and to top it all off, was oftentimes recognizing the subjunctive tense.
Who would've thunk it, huh? :-)
I'd love to do more work today since I'm so hyped up, but at this point it would just be irresponsible... Schoolwork needs to get done.
Tomorrow, though!
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ChiaBrain Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5750 days ago 402 posts - 512 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish* Studies: Portuguese, Italian, French Studies: German
| Message 83 of 206 22 January 2009 at 7:38pm | IP Logged |
Are you still studying German at the same time?
How's that going?
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neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6105 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish
| Message 84 of 206 22 January 2009 at 8:00pm | IP Logged |
I am not, unfortunately. The plan is to take it up again in June. I'm really looking forward to it; I found it to be a surprisingly beautiful language, and not as difficult as I had been led to believe. Come August I may be singing a different tune, though...
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ChiaBrain Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5750 days ago 402 posts - 512 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish* Studies: Portuguese, Italian, French Studies: German
| Message 85 of 206 22 January 2009 at 10:27pm | IP Logged |
I can sympathise. I'm really into Italian right now but I'm also really curious about
a lot of other language
It does makes more sense to focus on one at a time, though.
And I can't help but think that in learning a language one is also learning how to
learn languages.
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neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6105 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish
| Message 86 of 206 24 January 2009 at 2:50pm | IP Logged |
ChiaBrain wrote:
And I can't help but think that in learning a language one is also learning how to
learn languages.
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... which is in fact why I started with an "easy" language like Italian!
Study-wise, I felt like crap yesterday. I wanted to do more vocab, but couldn't concentrate, so I read more of my magazine (very interesting, actually) and listened to two more chapters of Alice and Wonderland. It probably wasn't quite an hour, but it was close, so I don't feel so bad.
Today is my day off, so no work allowed.
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ChiaBrain Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5750 days ago 402 posts - 512 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish* Studies: Portuguese, Italian, French Studies: German
| Message 87 of 206 26 January 2009 at 6:14pm | IP Logged |
It's important to just enjoy the language sometimes.
Where'd you find Alice in Wonderland in Italian? Is it audio and text in Italian?
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neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6105 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish
| Message 88 of 206 26 January 2009 at 7:15pm | IP Logged |
To be honest, I found it on a private torrent site; it's the text with unabridged mp3s
Since last update I listened to more Alice in Wonderland and read stuff online. Not averaging an hour a day, but I've been pretty upset about other things lately, so I don't care.
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