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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 6003 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes  Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 153 of 206 26 August 2009 at 3:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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I should post here more often. Not because it helps my language studies (which it does), but because, as I mentioned earlier, this is probably the most supportive and enthusiastic piece of cyberspace I've found. :)
Since last time... Italian, Nothing changed on the Italian front, and that's a good thing. Doing ankis (adding 20 new ones per day) and reading. I also occasionally write to myself in Italian. I don't get "down" very often, but I noticed that writing down my thoughts in Italian seems to help more than writing them down in English or in French. Just a guess: maybe the fact that it takes effort changes my state of mind? I can't just spew stuff out in Italian; I need some measure of control in order to get it right. So I'm simultaneously talking about how I feel and being challenged in the process. Anyway, if you're reading this and learning another language as well, you may want to give it a try. :) German, Pimsleur, pimsleur, pimsleur! I'm thinking that I should quickly gloss over (not study) the German declension rules and grammar structure, just so that when new things pop up in Pimlseur, it will be at least a tiny bit familiar. But no biggie. Pimsleur 20: 20 minutes Pimsleur 21: 22.5 minutes Pimsleur 22: 25 minutes Pimsleur 23: 23 minutes Pimsleur 24: 25 minutes Pimsleur 25: 22 minutes Pimsleur 26: 24.5 minutes Time: 162 minutes Total time: 807 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6003 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 154 of 206 27 August 2009 at 3:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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2 days in a row! ;)
Italian, Nothing new under the sun, with one small exception. I do 20 new ankis per day, 5 or 6 days a week (if there's a lot to review after my day off, I'll just do that). I have not skipped any days, but it's getting to be a pain in the butt to go through my book, transcribe the words I'm not confident with, and then study those new words plus whatever is to be reviewed that day. So on Sundays I'm going to transcribe 100-120 new words all in one go. I'd rather spend a good chunk of time on one day than go through the tedious process every day. In practical terms, though, it's not much of a change Also, my sister decided that she too now wants to learn Italian! :) I won't press her or hound her about it, but I'm really happy about that! Like me, she speaks English and French. While we're going to have different learning styles, I really hope that I can help spare her from some of the mistakes I made in my studies. She's going to pick up my old materials early next week German, Pimsleur 27 (twice): 37 minutes Total time: 844 minutes Things are starting to get hairier with the Pimsleur tapes... I'm pausing more often, occasionally getting overwhelmed, etc. It's no big deal; worst case scenario I just re-do the tape. I also seem to remember this was about the time that I found the Italian tapes difficult as well, so everything seems to be under control 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ExtraLean Triglot Senior Member France languagelearners.myf Joined 5834 days ago 897 posts - 880 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: German | Message 155 of 206 27 August 2009 at 3:45pm | IP Logged | ||
'lo Neon, If that doesn't work, you could always just do 10 or so a day, and half as many on the sunday. 10 words shouldn't take so long as to get tedious, whereas I believe 120 is going to be a bit much. It's good to see that you're encouraging your sister, make her get an account here! Then we can can turn her into a super Italian learner and pit her against you in a battle of wits and tongues! Good luck, in boca lupa, bonne continuation etc. Thom. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6003 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 156 of 206 28 August 2009 at 4:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the words, Thom. I'll keep them in mind... I think that I need you and a few others to occasionally prod me into the "don't be hard on yourself" camp. :)
The funny thing about my sister's interest in Italian is that I wasn't trying to get her excited at all! She was telling me that she was thinking of studying Arabic (my parents are both fluent; they're Egyptian), but she knew it was hard and was thinking of studying something easier like Italian first. I actually half-tried to dissuade her from learning Italian, saying that if what she really wanted was Arabic, she may as well get started with what she loves. The more we talked, though, the more she seemed convinced that Italian was a great language to learn for it's own sake. Did I mention that she got her undergrad in creative arts and her masters in drama? :) So Italian makes more sense for her than it does for me... Ok, onto the specifics: Italian, Same as always :) German, Pimsleur 28: 26 minutes Total time: 870 minutes 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6003 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 157 of 206 29 August 2009 at 5:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yabba dabba do! Finished Pimsleur I! :)
Taking stock of my language learning, I'm really very happy with the slow and steady pace that I'm keeping. I'm treating both Italian and German as meaningful hobbies. I don't actually need to improve much in the foreseeable future, and so I have the luxury of going at a jogger's pace. Italian, Anki. No reading for the past few days, though. I should change that; I'll try to pick up a magazine over the next few days German, Pimsleur 29: 26 minutes Pimsleur 30: 24 minutes Time: 50 minutes Total time: 920 minutes 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6003 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 158 of 206 31 August 2009 at 8:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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Italian,
Yesterday I followed through with my plan to do nothing but review and to add 100 new words to my Anki, a process that entailed going over well over 100 words (since I don't include words that I know cold). Adding words to anki isn't really the funnest thing in the world, but I much prefer doing it all in one day than diving it up over the course of the week. For one thing, I'm much less busy on Sundays. For another, Sundays is when I listen to the new weekly edition of the Essential Mix, an electronic music radio show. Putting in the words while listening to the music isn't bad at all! Not having to add new words in today's anki review was really great. So I'll try to keep this plan up. German, Started part 2 of 3 of Pimsleur's German course. Yeah! German sentence structure is obviously new to me (some might call it... foreign. hyuk! hyuk! ... get it? "foreign"? cuz this is a foreign language? ok, I'll shut up), but some aspects are getting to be more comfortable. Pimsleur 1: 28 minutes Total time: 948 minutes 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6003 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 159 of 206 04 September 2009 at 4:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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Moved to San Diego on the 1st; with no contacts, mode of transportation or furnishings, language learning has taken a backslide. Behold!
Italian, I'm still doing the ankis, but nothing else. Still, I'm really happy with this! Imputing 100 new words last Sunday turned out to be a godsend German, Niente! I mean, nichts! It's no big deal. I should have important basics settled by Sunday, so I'll start up then 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6003 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 160 of 206 08 September 2009 at 6:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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Man, moving sucks. :)
This past week has been me running around trying to find things like, oh, a CHAIR. Apparently finding a cheap chair is not especially easy in my neighborhood. I've gotten a chance to do a bit of language stuff, so I'm not really upset. Things seem to have stabilized, so I'm back to my slow-but-steady routine Italian, No drop-off in my ankis, and writing up all the new ones for the week in one day is very pleasant, or much more so than dealing with adding new entries every day. Still, I want to incorporate reading into my routine. I'm still a bit overwhelmed with stuff to do (including math studying), but maybe I'll dip my toe into the pool again with an RSS feed... German. Finally did unit 2 of Pimsleur 2. I did it twice; my few days of layoff showed when I did it the first time, but the second time I was rocking and rolling. Pimsleur 2 (twice): 56 minutes Total time: 1004 minutes 1 person has voted this message useful |
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