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| Eimii Groupie United States Joined 5859 days ago 44 posts - 47 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian, Polish | Message 121 of 161 19 January 2009 at 4:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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"I think I may have lost my sanity..."
That's exactly how I feel when I listen to Michel Thomas lessons. :D Good luck. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| josht Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6473 days ago 635 posts - 857 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Dutch | Message 122 of 161 19 January 2009 at 6:57pm | IP Logged | ||
Hah! Yeah, they can be frustrating at times. Michel's old man noises get on my nerves, and the token not-so-bright student generally makes me want to scream. But I still find his stuff beneficial. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| josht Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6473 days ago 635 posts - 857 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Dutch | Message 123 of 161 19 January 2009 at 7:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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1/19/09
German Anki reviews; around 100 cards today. Also, at one point today I was feeling rather tired and didn't feel like something that was going to tax me much, so I skimmed through some of Assimil German with Ease. Some of the English translations in it are rough, to say the least. :-) French Assimil French with Ease - I actually had two sessions with this today: 1) Audio only, while doing some chores. I listened to Lessons 88 - 96, twice each. 2) I copied out Lesson 88, listening to each sentence on my MP3 player before doing so. Then I read it aloud as I wrote each word, then read the sentence aloud again in full. Basically, Professor Arguelle's scriptorium exercise, but with listening to each sentence before copying. I then reviewed with reading / listening Lessons 89 and 90. Vocabulary - a few blocks of words from Mastering French Vocabulary, along with a review of the words I did yesterday. Russian Assimil Russisch ohne Mühe - Listened to Lessons 15 and 16 twice each, just as a review, while doing some laundry. NPRC - My more serious block of Russian for the day. I did some grammar exercises from the Penguin course, which took me what seemed like forever and a day. I learned a few things from it, though, so all is well. I then skipped ahead a bit in the book to read about the various uses of the two aspects. This seems like a quite daunting part of the language - the fact that practically every verb is actually *two* verbs, and you have to think about which one to use depending on what happened, when it happened, if it was completed, if it failed, etc. As if I needed another daunting aspect to add to the language... Edited by josht on 19 January 2009 at 8:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| josht Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6473 days ago 635 posts - 857 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Dutch | Message 124 of 161 20 January 2009 at 9:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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1/20/09
French Assimil French with Ease - I copied out Lesson 89, using the same method I used yesterday (listen to a sentence, read it, write it, read it out loud, move on to the next sentence). After finishing, I read the lesson out loud a few times, and was quite surprised at how easily it came. I can say the same of my understanding of Lesson 88. It would seem that transcribing a lesson in this way is much more beneficial than just passively listening to it over and over. Russian Russisch ohne Mühe - I reviewed Lessons 27 (reading / listening), 28 (reading only, as it's a review lesson), and did a few passes over Lesson 29. While I understood everything in the lesson when I finished my session, I'm sure that by tomorrow, I'll have forgotten half of it. This seems to be the norm for me and Russian - I seem to be picking things up quickly, but said things are quite fleeting. There are a number of words which, despite how many times I learn them, they slip from my memory. Масло is one such word, the Russian word for butter. There was an example of how the meanings of perfective / imperfective verbs differ in Lesson 29, which helped jog my memory a bit regarding what I read on the subject yesterday. Spanish Yes, indeed, I've utterly lost my mind. Maintaining / slowly advancing my German, and actively studying Russian, French, and Spanish. My copy of Spanish with Ease arrived today, and I couldn't resist (Wanderlust, anyone?) going through a few lessons. I went through Lessons 1 - 3, which all seemed rather straightforward to me, other than the word "hoy" at one point, which didn't seemed to be translated into English. Looking up the word at wordreference.com, it appears to mean "today", which I'm fairly sure wasn't in the translation. Now I'm off to double check the book... Edit: Yep, it's not included in the English translation. Spanish: Hoy tengo una cita. English: I have an appointment. German A few pages of Der Rettende Weg before going to sleep. Edited by josht on 21 January 2009 at 5:32am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| josht Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6473 days ago 635 posts - 857 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Dutch | Message 125 of 161 21 January 2009 at 5:43am | IP Logged | ||
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1/21/09
German Read Schule für den Frieden at Deutsche Welle. Russian Assimil Russisch ohne Mühe - Reviewed Lesson 29, and did a first pass through Lesson 30. I'm going to review 30 again later today, when I have more time to listen to it. Spanish Assimil Spanish with Ease - Reviewed Lessons 1 - 3. I went ahead and did Lessons 4 and 5 as well. I finally figured out a sentence in Lesson 1. There's a typo, and instead of it reading "de ver te" (to see you), it says "de verte." I finally noticed it last night, thankfully. Previously I was baffled by the sentence, Tenía ganas de verte, with the English translation "I wanted to see you." "De" meaning "you" seemed wrong to me, due to my knowledge of French, but I was too dense to see the simple typo on my first few passes through the lesson. Edited by josht on 22 January 2009 at 5:32am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| josht Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6473 days ago 635 posts - 857 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Dutch | Message 126 of 161 22 January 2009 at 10:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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1/22/09
A bad day for language learning. I had classes during the day, and this evening was taken up almost completely by a family outing. All I got done today was half a sheet full of French words from Mastering French Vocabulary, and a bit of review with Spanish with Ease / French with Ease. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6178 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 127 of 161 23 January 2009 at 4:33am | IP Logged | ||
I didn't get to read this entry when I PM'ed, so I'll flesh out my answer a bit more. The Spanish phrase "tener ganas de" literally means, "to have gains of", and can be used to translate "I want". So, "tengo ganas de verte" literally translates as, "I have gains(wants) of seeing (to see) you". "De" is similar to the French, and does translate as "of". What isn't explained, is that the personal pronoun is attached to the infinitive. This article explains the usage. I hope it helps. Edited by DaraghM on 23 January 2009 at 4:34am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| josht Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6473 days ago 635 posts - 857 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Dutch | Message 128 of 161 23 January 2009 at 5:41am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the information; it does indeed help. Making use of that construction in the first lesson and not providing a note for it seems a bit odd, considering how literal they tried to keep the English translations for clarity. :)
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