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A Linguistic Odyssey | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6144 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 1 of 265 13 September 2009 at 8:17pm | IP Logged |
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Well I have finally decided to start my own log. I really enjoy reading other peoples' logs and gleaning little bits of wisdom and celebrating their triumphs with them, especially through Liz's Italian log. I thought that perhaps I would stop bothering people with my info in their logs, and instead put it all in my own. I hope this may be of some use to both myself (in organizing and documenting my progress) and others. But I'm not really sure. I've wanted to open a log for a while, but have been a little scared to do so. Why? I'm not sure. Let's see what happens.
So, this log is not for any particular language, but rather for all of the ones I'm currently studying. Since there are so many, over the summer I made a weekly schedule detailing my studies. Here is the modified version to fit the school year. (It should also be noted that I have Spanish and French classes at school every weekday in addition to my self-study.) Monday - Spanish Tuesday - French Wednesday - Portuguese Thursday - German Friday - Greek Saturday - Japanese Sunday - Italian I have also organized the languages according to priorities and goals, and so have placed them throughout the week to reflect when I have the most or least time. 1 - Italian 2 - Portuguese 3 - Japanese 4 - Greek 5 - German 6 - French 7 - Spanish I have goals for each of these languages also. I'm not including them here since they probably will not make sense to anyone. So, every week, I write down a list of linguistic to-do's, quite a few. I write more than I know that I can do, but few enough so that it still seems attainable. This way I stay motivated to achieve my weekly goals. They are mainly just things like "do 1 lesson of Japanese" or "review all German vocabulary." Small things. It should also be known that I am a master at the art of procrastination yet hate not being productive. Crazy. So, I am always behind because I get so easily distracted, and then find myself always very busy because of it. So I may end up doing my German lesson on Saturday, because I am two days behind schedule, perhaps because I had a lot of homework. Finally, my materials: Spanish: I don't have any actual learning materials for Spanish, since I've never been learning it on my own. I learned Spanish through immersion at a bilingual elementary school and now take AP Spanish at my high school everyday. I am going through a frequency list to build up my vocabulary by finding common words I don't know. This is REALLY boring, so I seem to try to avoid it. French: I take French 4 at my high school, one level below AP. It's really easy, but that is fine with me, because I have a lot of hard classes this year. Before I started taking French in school, I was using Ultimate French Beginner-Intermediate. The material is really easy and below my level, but I'm going through it just to cement my knowledge and find any new vocabulary it may have. And I'd like to actually finish a course for once. I also have a vocabulary book, French Vocabulary, and am going to start going through that, reviewing known words and learning new ones. Finally, I also have another coursebook Teach Yourself: Improve Your French that I bought when I was still beginner or intermediate in French because I thought I was good enough to use it. It has just been sitting on my bookshelf since then, so I guess I'll start going through that after I finish the other two books. Portuguese: I have Ultimate Portuguese Beginner-Intermediate that I bought because the French edition is very good. Unfortunately, the Portuguese edition is not. However, I might as well glean all the vocabulary from there and get it over with. I also have the book Teach Yourself Brazilian Portuguese that I abandoned for no apparent reason after doing one or two lessons. After I finish the other book, I'll go through that. I also am an English and Spanish tutor on Livemocha for Brazilians and must write all of the reviews, explanations, etc. in Portuguese. And apparently they decided (they didn't even ask me) that I was good at Portuguese, and now I am apparently also a Portuguese tutor. Whatever. I like Portuguese. Sometimes I go through some of the Livemocha lessons myself to try to find vocabulary. I have also found the BrazilianPodClass, and listen to the podcasts when I have some time. German: I have Ultimate German Beginner-Intermediate which is ausgezeichnet (excellent) and am currently working through that. I also "borrowed" my friend's German textbook from school last year and made copies of the vocabulary lists. I am going through all of those, and must borrow his textbook from this year now (I want to go into level 2 or 3 German next year at school). I also have a grammar book, German Grammar Drills, and a vocabulary book German Vocabulary, neither of which I have done much with yet. Greek: So, my family is Greek so I have lots of opportunities to practice (and I go to Greece during the summer). I can hold on conversations, but I still pretty much suck at Greek. Sad. I have Learn Greek Without a Teacher, which I am sorta going through (Greek seems to be sacrificed most weeks when I'm doing it on my own). I also bought Cortina Method Modern Greek in 20 Lessons, which is pretty good. Just tiring to go through. I also found this online course, Odysseas, which looks intriguing, but I think it's below my level. Oh well. Livemocha too (even though I was part of the whole translating-the-lessons-into-Greek project), could be a source of learning. When my grandparents return from Greece (in late October), I will resume my Friday lesson/social hour with my grandmother. She seems to thing I'm great at Greek and stuff, and that she can't teach me anymore. I beg to differ. I think I still have a ways to go. In some ways, I could be considered to have basic fluency, but I would still categorize myself as intermediate. [sigh] Japanese: I have Teach Yourself Japanese, which I'm working through now. It seems pretty good, except that it teaches using almost only rōmaji and it gives be some fairly useless words for vocabulary: hodōkyō (footbridge), ōdanhodō (pedestrian crossing), or ikebana (flower arranging), anyone? I am also going through Heisig's Remembering the Kanji, which is excellent and very addictive. I try to learn several new kanji a day. In supplement to that, I use www.kanji.koohii.com to review them. Italian: I have a lot. I found a copy of the Michel Thomas foundation course at the library and am listening to that. To date, I have listened to all of LearnItalianPod's weekly podcasts and listen to the new one that comes out each week. I have a vocabulary book, Italian Vocabulary, organized into thematic units and further separated into sets of words. I have three grammar books, Complete Italian Grammar, Essential Italian Grammar, and Italian Verb Conjugations. Sometimes (I used to do it a lot more often) I do some of the Livemocha Italian lessons. I also have a coursebook, Self-Teaching Guide: Italian. I got it mainly for more vocabulary, and because I didn't have a real coursebook that wove everything together. I just had separate vocabulary and grammar books. Wow, this post is like the longest one I've ever seen. Give yourself a pat on the back if you made it all the way to the end. And as Liz would say, "If you made it this far, my apologies to your eyes and brain. Go have some chocolate, it'll make you feel better." --Philip Edited by ellasevia on 19 September 2009 at 1:54am 7 persons have voted this message useful | |
| minus273 Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5767 days ago 288 posts - 346 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, EnglishC2, French Studies: Ancient Greek, Tibetan | Message 2 of 265 13 September 2009 at 8:31pm | IP Logged |
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Great! I love this idea of tackling seven languages per week.
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 Jiwon Triglot Moderator Korea, South Joined 6438 days ago 1417 posts - 1500 votes Speaks: EnglishC2, Korean*, GermanC1 Studies: Hindi, Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 265 13 September 2009 at 8:36pm | IP Logged |
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Good luck!!! (I think you'll need all three exclamation marks, don't you?)
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| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6144 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 4 of 265 13 September 2009 at 9:41pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks, guys.
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| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6144 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 5 of 265 15 September 2009 at 5:28am | IP Logged |
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Yesterday I was doing a lot of homework (this will be a returning theme in probably every post) but still managed time to fit some Italian study time. I did a review of some previous vocabulary and entered a new list into BYKI.
Today was Spanish, and I got nothing done. I really didn't even hear much Spanish today, because during my Spanish class it was all presentations from students about the AMIGOS program. On my agenda, I had listed getting up to #2000 in the boring frequency list and doing one list of Spanish vocabulary from last year that we didn't go over and to date I have been too lazy to learn. Part of my unproductivity was due to distractions (another reoccurring excuse, I'm highly distractable) and homework. I was scrambling to write an essay for my English class because apparently my previous draft was terrible. So that took all night, for some reason. Well, now it's late, my essay is finished, and thank goodness I had no other homework due tomorrow. I think that if I get a good grade on this essay, it will definitely be worth the skipped Spanish day. French, on the other hand... I am bringing my French book to school tomorrow and will try to do a lesson at some point. My days seem to go on and off for being productive, but are generally becoming more productive. But there still is that occasional day... Bueno, ahora es muy tarde y quiero acostarme porque estoy muy cansado (me despierto a las cinco de la mañana). ¡Buenas noches! (Escribo en español porque es probablemente la única vez que hago algo en relación de español hoy.) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6144 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 6 of 265 16 September 2009 at 6:22am | IP Logged |
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Tuesday: French
Goal: 1 Lesson of Ultimate French Achieved: yes Do you like my amazing new heading? I think it's pretty exciting, especially when it shows success. Well, today was French. But what I did first this morning was some of that Odysseas Greek course. I actually did units 1 and 2 yesterday morning (in addition to reviewing my kanji on that website) and did most of unit 3 this morning. It's really easy and far below my level, but you never know. And I think it gives you a certificate, so that's pretty cool. Then, I entered my vocabulary (food and marketplace!) into BYKI for the French lesson. A lot of the words were ones I already knew (or "knew"), but that makes it bearable. I really don't like lists of ALL new words; I like to have a few ones I sorta know (or something like that) in there too...makes it a lot easier to memorize stuff. On the bus on the way to school, I read the lesson. Very easy, all stuff I know already. Fun! I finished my French test really early today so I finished up writing some vocabulary and reading the lesson. My French teacher saw me reading the book and wanted to see it (saying that if it was what I had used a couple years ago to skip the first two years of French, that it must be a good book). She ended up borrowing it because she wants to make some copies for class activities. My friend said good luck getting it back. EEK! So, then in Spanish, I felt really awkward the entire class period because I was probably like the only one who didn't do the homework. It was an optional but "suggested" assignment, so it was sorta weird. I just didn't have time to do it. I'll try to do it sometime in the next couple days, before our test. Then, next awkward Spanish thing, I forgot the questions in my locker for this essay that I had to write for Spanish that's due tomorrow. I was finally able to call someone who had the questions and had them dictated to me over the phone. Phew, saved. After I did all of my homework (well, most), I did my French vocabulary list and then reviewed some kanji. A nice, productive day, I think. I just hope it will continue being this way. Bonne nuit! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6144 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 7 of 265 17 September 2009 at 6:14am | IP Logged |
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Wednesday: Portuguese
Goal: 1 Lesson of Ultimate Portuguese Achieved: yes Yay, success again! This morning I got up early and finished the entire Portuguese lesson (including memorizing vocab and all that) before 6:20 in the morning...and still had time to review my kanji, have breakfast, get ready, and do a homework assignment due tomorrow. In French, my teacher gave me back my French book (phew) and used my test (100%, yay!) as an example for perfect answers. Sorta awkward but happy. I also got a good score on our test on passé composé vs. imparfait. Good, but expected. In Spanish, we turned in our essays and played fun games to work on memorizing vocabulary for our test tomorrow. After school I procrastinated for two hours (not good) and then realized I should probably start on homework. I did it, with the last homework being my language homework for school: 1. memorizing a bunch of random words for my Spanish test tomorrow 2. completing that "optional but suggested" workbook assignment that was due a couple days ago 3. completing the second "optional but suggested" workbook assignment that's due tomorrow 4. rereading this odd story (forgot the name) for French and answering some comprehension questions on it I also found this list of the 410 kanji you need to know for the AP Japanese test, which I'm planning on taking in like 2 years. I printed all those kanji out neatly and highlighted the ones I already know. Considering that I have never taken a Japanese class and haven't been studying very intensively (and that I know many more characters than just the ones given on the sheet), I would say that I was pretty pleased. I'm going to try to keep track of the ones on the sheet as I learn them and be happy when I know all the AP Japanese kanji, even though they are only about 21% of the total Jōyō kanji. Kanji is fun!!! So, that's my language day all summed up. Boa noite! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6144 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 8 of 265 19 September 2009 at 3:01am | IP Logged |
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Thursday: German
Goal: 1 lesson of Ultimate German Achieved: yes Yay, so it's a day late, but I did finish my German goal. I got up early yesterday and typed all the vocabulary into BYKI. Car and highway words... Interesting, I suppose. Probably not useful, though, since I don't even drive yet. In my world history class, my teacher unfortunately mentioned something that triggered something in my brain, that made me start hearing segments of Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (in several languages, including ones I don't speak or study!) in my head. Weird. Wouldn't go away for over an hour. I kept hearing... [Catalan] Tots els éssers humans neixen lliures i iguals en dignitat i en drets. Són dotats de raó i de consciència, i han de comportar-se fraternalment els uns amb els altres. [Romanian] Toate fiinţele umane se nasc libere şi egale în demnitate şi în drepturi. Ele sunt înzestrate cu raţiune şi conştiinţă şi trebuie să se comporte unele faţă de altele în spiritul fraternităţii. [French] Tous les êtres humains naissent libres et égaux en dignité et en droits. Ils sont doués de raison et de conscience et doivent agir les uns envers les autres dans un esprit de fraternité. [Portuguese] Todos os seres humanos nascem livres e iguais em dignidade e direitos. São dotados de razão e consciência e devem agir em relação uns aos outros com espírito de fraternidade. [Italian] Tutti gli esseri umani nascono liberi ed eguali in dignità e diritti. Essi sono dotati di ragione e di coscienza e devono agire gli uni verso gli altri in spirito di fratellanza. [Dutch] Alle mensen worden vrij en gelijk in waardigheid en rechten geboren. Zij zijn begiftigd met verstand en geweten, en behoren zich jegens elkander in een geest van broederschap te gedragen. Weird, huh? Well, I think I was having a bit of mental overload. I pretty randomly just started laughing almost until tears too. Bleh. Brain issues. My conclusion? Too much language stuff. Nah, that's just an excuse for why I didn't do my German vocab yesterday. But the voices thing is true! Well, in French, we did...stuff. Oh, right, we did a listening comprehension activity. Boring. In Spanish we corrected our "optional assignment" and then had a test, which was way easier than I expected. I was way over-prepared. Today we didn't have school, so I just wanted to relax after school yesterday and didn't do my German. I bought a new Greek book that looks good. I might buy a few more if I like this one when it comes. I was doing a lot of homework today because my teachers decided to give us double the amount of work since it was a three-day weekend. Unfortunately for me, my family had decided to go backpacking in the mountains for two out of three of those days, so I really only have half the amount of time to do twice the amount of work. I have yet to do my Greek, I'll post later if I get it done. I did finish my kanji goal for the week (14 new kanji, up to #190), though, and then I did my German. I am leaving tomorrow (Saturday) morning and will not be back until Sunday evening, so I may not post until then. If then at all. Tschüs! (By the way, in writing, how would you say goodbye in German? In person you say Auf Wiedersehen and over the phone you say Auf Wiederhören... In writing would you say Auf Wiederschreiben or Auf Wiederlesen?) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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