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NeonQwerty’s Italian and German thread | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6012 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes  Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 113 of 206 22 June 2009 at 5:32pm | IP Logged |
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Addendum:
I just came up with what I think is a really good method to determine whether or not you're really fluent in a language. Take a grammar book and vocabulary list of your native language, and try going through it. You'll probably have a hard time, just because you'll be so frustrated and bored at the ease with which you go through the material. When it comes to my language learning, I think that's going to be my standard to determine when I've "finished" learning Italian.. when anything other than reading authentic material is frustrating because of its simplicity, I'll know that I've "made it". 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6012 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 114 of 206 23 June 2009 at 10:00pm | IP Logged |
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Slightly less than an hour, but slightly more than 100 words! :) I reserve the right to study slightly more tomorrow... The thing with vocabulary is that my method of study isn't really conducive to quick 5 or 10 minute bursts.
TANGENT: I was at a department store today and, on impulse, bought a foam roller. As I left the store, I was immediately a bit embarrassed, figuring that I had wasted my money. I just used it for the first time and... it's magnificent. If you're fit enough to support your own bodyweight (no trivial task), you really should look into getting one. I don't have back problems, but after that session, my back feels wonderful. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6012 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 115 of 206 25 June 2009 at 12:35am | IP Logged |
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Another day, another hour, another 100+ words :)
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6012 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 116 of 206 25 June 2009 at 11:48pm | IP Logged |
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Today's hour was strenuous... probably a combination of lack of carbs in my diet these days, the heat wave going through Chicago, my lack of an air conditioner to get me through the heat wave and the terrible sleep I'm getting due to the heatwave.
Nonetheless, I got through significantly more than 100 words without a drop-off in quality or retention. :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6012 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 117 of 206 27 June 2009 at 1:22am | IP Logged |
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Did another hundred or so words today. Starting this Sunday, I'll do two hours of work per day instead of just one. At least one of those hours will just be vocabulary; the other can be whatever combination of reading, vocabulary or audio that I see fit.
Tomorrow, of course, is my glorious day off :-D 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6012 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 118 of 206 27 June 2009 at 10:47pm | IP Logged |
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Although today is my day off, I thought that I'd write a bit on my thoughts of language learning in general, as well as where I stand with my goals...
Language learning is a difficult proposition. On the one hand, it requires a tremendous number of hours that are dedicated to a process that, for all you know, just isn't working very well. On the other hand, there is tremendous personal satisfaction, pride, and even fun involved in the process. The problem is that language learning is so time-consuming relative to other "leisure" activities that it's difficult to strike the balance between working hard and getting overwhelmed and losing perspective. Trying to maintain this balance is what makes me take a day off every week (whether I want to or not) and to periodically lighten the load, as I did last week. Quite simply: there is a lot more to life than language learning, and if I immediately dropped my studies in order to learn ping-pong or just watch more TV, no one would care. I would not be less of a person; feelings like "But I would know that I failed" are, IMO, an indication of a fundamentally unhealthy and unhappy mindset. Would you consider anyone else to be a moral failure of a person because they tried to do something really tough and gave up? Nah. Anyway, I've experienced enough of that attitude to know what it is, but I'm really happy that I don't feel that way. Now, as far as my goals are concerned... My goal from the outset of summer was to progress to a point where I could shelve my Italian studies come September, and merely spend ~3 hours a week being exposed to authentic material in order to maintain my level. In a sense, I'm on track, but in another I'm not. To explain: I know that by the end of the summer, my problem will not be a blank look that is due to not recognizing many words in a text, and I will at least be aware of 95% of grammar rules. So come September, I think that "authentic" material really will be sufficient. The trick is that I don't think I'll have such a good command of the language that I'll be able to merely watch a movie or two a week and be confident in my Italian skill. This leaves me in a conundrum, as I've wanted to re-start studying German in earnest in September. I can't promise any more than 6-10 hours a week worth of study when September hits, and I'm not sure if by that time I should a)temporarily forget Italian, letting it assimilate subconsciously, while I work on German b)spend maybe 2 hours studying Italian and the rest with German c)spend roughly half my time with Italian and half with German Notice that "delaying my study of German" is not an option for me. I'm incredibly excited about getting started with German again, but for now I'm equally excited to be going through the last of my pedagogical Italian materials. I suppose I'll figure out what my plans will be based on my progress come mid-August (still ~6 weeks away), so at this point it's just musings... But I can definitely say that I am not a fan of trying to simultaneously learn two languages. I realize that this may put me in a minority on this forum, but I really don't think it's helpful. I suppose that's it for now! A demain... 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5758 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 119 of 206 27 June 2009 at 10:59pm | IP Logged |
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One question, why isn't it fun all the time? Maybe if you could make learning Italian less of a 'study' thing and more of a 'fun while learning' thing then you'd be at no risk of burnout and would neither need nor ever want a day off... I haven't read your whole thread so I don't know what techniques you're using but based on the last few posts - let's just say I'm the kind of person who simply can't cram vocabulary, so your method doesn't strike me as enjoyable, and if I did that myself I'd probably lose all enjoyment in learning, even with a language as beautiful as Italian. Whatever floats your boat though. But fun doesn't have to be a secondary thing that hopefully crops up every once in a while inbetween all the tough study stints. It can be fun all the time :-)
You should be able to maintain your level by reading, watching, listening, without that having to detract from German at all. What you do depends where you want to go with it I guess... Liz 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6012 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 120 of 206 28 June 2009 at 1:16am | IP Logged |
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Hey Liz,
Thanks a lot for your thoughtful reply! I think that you touched on why any method of study becomes "boring"... An activity is only fun if it's entertaining and/or appropriately challenging. An activity like watching an Italian movie can be quite dull and frustrating for a beginner, just because it's all gibberish. With a bit more skill, watching the same movie can be very enjoyable, not so much because of the plot itself, but because of the challenge in trying to make sense of it. With even more skill, it's possible to enjoy the movie more for its content than for the challenge of understanding it. In my case, I think I'm in a transition between the second and third situation I outlined above... A month ago, pretty much any material was interesting to me because I was just so happy to understand it. As of a couple of weeks ago, though, I was getting increasingly frustrated because my skill level was beginning to outgrow my study methods. Whereas before I could download anything and enjoy it, now I need to be interested in the content in order to stave off boredom. So I need to modify my methods and find more interesting material. As far as vocabulary lists are concerned, I really like them because it's very easy for me to feel appropriately challenged by them; if it's too hard, I scale back my studies and if it's too easy, I just add more words. Simple. :) It's also fun for me, probably because I use mnemonic techniques when studying. For me, studying wordlists requires a lot of imagination. Finally, as far as burnout it concerned, I think that in my case it just had something to do with having a pretty busy schedule in general and the fact that my "job" requires some pretty intense brainwork as it stands. But I do also think that for some people (and maybe for myself at some time in the past), the ego gets so caught up in the process that people add a lot of extra stress to language learning. It's frustrating when you pin your self-esteem on language learning and find yourself not progressing as quickly as you would like... Anyway, thanks again for the input! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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