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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 33 of 265 02 October 2009 at 6:03am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Donnerstag: Deutsch!
Ziele: 1 Lektion von Ultimate German Erreicht: ja Well, that's all I'm going to write in German in this entry besides the usual good night at the end... I'm not that good. However, I have been considering promoting myself to intermediate level on here, but I'm not sure. What are some of your ideas of an intermediate level? I know a fair amount of grammar (by no means all of it yet), a good amount of vocabulary (between several hundred to a couple thousands words, tops?). Well, I don't know. I just don't like seeing that I'm almost at basic fluency in Italian and still at beginner level in German while I've been studying German for longer (well, only two months difference). Also, I don't like seeing German being grouped into the same category as Dutch, Swedish, and Japanese. Because I am considerably better at German than any of those three. Don't get me wrong, I still am furchtbar (terrible) at German, but I'm just...I don't know. Today I typed up my vocabulary, and then read my lesson. The lesson introduced the genitive case (which I already sort-of knew) and sickness/medical vocabulary, which was pretty interesting. For the prefixed verbs, I like to challenge myself to find a way to remember them, and sometimes it works quite well. Today one of my words was aushalten (to endure). I took apart the word and found "aus" (out) and halten (to stop, hold, contain). I was able to figure out the connection immediately: to hold out = aushalten = to endure. Hooray! So I learned that stuff from the book. During lunch I borrowed a friend's level 2 German textbook and went to the school library and made copies of all of the vocabulary lists in the book. I want to be at about level 3 level by next year, so I'm making sure I know all the words in 1 and 2. However, I should probably finish going over my level 1 lists (I know many of the words already though). Now, where did I put those? I actually had meant to review my Ultimate German vocabulary lists (all 15 of them, I believe) today, if I had time, but I did some Livemocha instead. I really want to finish up my courses on there so that I can have a sense of completion of at least ONE course (to this date, I don't believe I have yet finished a single course in its entirety). I reviewed the vocabulary from the previous two lessons (wow, those were done in like July!) and did the next lesson. Just three more lessons and I'm done with German 102, I think. 80% done. Finally. Not that it's really hard or anything, it's just that it takes discipline to actually do it. I was also able to save myself more than $60 today in language books, thanks to our very dear friend, Crush, who helped me find online scans of the Routledge frequency dictionaries for Spanish and French that I had mentioned earlier. Thanks Crush! This sounds really pathetic, but I think I might drop Swedish. I think that actively independently studying seven languages is my limit, and it is a little harder. I will wait until the Livemocha courses have speaking/writing exercises for Swedish, something that the Dutch courses already have. But that is very pathetic, dropping the hard language and sticking to the easy one. But I do have some nice resources for Dutch and I friend to practice with. I have relatively nothing for Swedish. :( However, I do like Swedish better. Dutch just seems like botched German to me, which is interesting in a way, but definitely not preferred over Swedish, especially in sound. I'm afraid it will interfere with my German--in fact, it already has a bit. I tried to remember how to say something from one of the early Livemocha lessons in German and I kept trying to say it in Dutch. I also kept pronouncing schwindlig (dizzy) on my German vocabulary list today as if it were Dutch. I don't like that. But I did also have this problem with mixing Spanish when I was just beginning Portuguese, and it's fine now... Well, I shall have to contemplate this. I may end up dropping both, actually, and have a "neutral" day, where I study whichever language suits me. Again, any feedback is very welcome. In fact, PLEASE comment with your opinions. Viele Dank! Gute Nacht! --Philip 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
 Jiwon Triglot Moderator Korea, South Joined 6438 days ago 1417 posts - 1500 votes Speaks: EnglishC2, Korean*, GermanC1 Studies: Hindi, Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 34 of 265 02 October 2009 at 7:52am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Firstly, it should be "Vielen Dank" not "Viele Dank". Dank is a masculine noun, remember that. :)
I think you are progressing faster in Italian than German due to your other Romance languages which boost up your understanding of Italian language, whereas German is your first Germanic language, if we don't count English. It just takes a bit more time to get used to the new structure. I think it's pretty important that one writes in the target language as soon as and as much as possible. It doesn't matter if you make lots of mistakes, as long as someone can give you a feedback and correction. So do keep writing German and I'm sure either me or German native speakers on the forum would be happy to correct your mistakes. I won't comment much on your other languages due my lack of experience with all of them. But I will try to give you some feedback on all of your German posts. :) Jiwon 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5867 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 35 of 265 02 October 2009 at 8:20am | IP Logged | ||||||||
"Una mañana, mientras podaba las rosas, Fernanda lanzó un grito de espanto e hizo quitar a Meme del lugar en que estaba, y que era el mismo del jardín donde subió a los cielos Remedios, la bella." Also, I started going through German Without Toil several months back and was surprised to see nearly every grammatical construction I studied in three years of high school covered within the first 40 lessons or so. It's available on Uz-Translations (the PDF and the MP3s). It might be another good source of vocabulary and a nice review of grammar. It could just be that German is probably the language that interests me the most, but I found the book really exciting and begrudgingly forced myself to stop so I could focus more on Spanish and French. Anyway I definitely recommend at least checking it out if you get the chance. 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 36 of 265 02 October 2009 at 2:52pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Ah, yes, silly typos.
Okay, so I found it on there (and other stuff too), but I don't know what to do next. I registered and such, but I don't see any download button. How does this site work. Actually, what IS this site? I couldn't find information on it. Well, if I figure out how to get it to work, it looks like it would be a great source of materials for free. Silly me, I've been wasting money on paper copies of books all this time. Apparently I have underestimated this aspect of the Internet (more likely that I was just oblivious) because you can download books online for free! Thanks. -Philip 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| vilas Pentaglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6962 days ago 531 posts - 722 votes Speaks: Spanish, Italian*, English, French, Portuguese | Message 37 of 265 02 October 2009 at 3:54pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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1 - Italian 2 - Portuguese 3 - Japanese 4 - Greek 5 - German 6 - French 7 - Spanish I think that is better to put together the latin languages , for pan-romance dictionary that is common to all of them , then greek German and japanese.. 1 - Italian 2 - Spanish 3 - Portuguese 4 - French 5 - Greek 6 - German 7 - Japanese For a serial learner like you it is good to find a simple little book , like "The Little Prince" of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry that is available in almost any language and read the same chapter each day in a different language . It is a nice method , I did it with the romance languages and I memorized a lot ! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Leopejo Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6111 days ago 675 posts - 724 votes Speaks: Italian*, Finnish*, English Studies: French, Russian | Message 38 of 265 02 October 2009 at 4:11pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
First of all, it is more or less... not very legal. It contains links to uploaded materials to normal download sites (Rapidshare et co.), it hosts very little material in its own server. Once you are registered and logged in, just click on the title you want to download. Under the picture and the description in a greyed field, and before the comments field, there is a Download here place, where you get Rapidshare or other links, which you are supposed to click. IF you are not logged in, there is a warning along the lines of "Only registered users may read this".
On the other hand a paper copy of a book has its own advantages, both practical and of "affection". Now, some books come in two formats: book only without audio (very cheap), and book with audio (very expensive). Some people might go for a compromise. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5867 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 39 of 265 02 October 2009 at 10:11pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Also, speaking French (and Spanish) you have access to a lot more resources. Just be careful not to get trapped in the largeness of the Internet, passing more time downloading new courses than actually using them :P And Leopejo, about paper copies of the books, some (like the old Russian Without Toil book) can be hard to come across or just plain expensive. What I did was take the PDF file to a printing company and they printed out the entire book for me for a little over $10. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Leopejo Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6111 days ago 675 posts - 724 votes Speaks: Italian*, Finnish*, English Studies: French, Russian | Message 40 of 265 02 October 2009 at 10:36pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
You are right. I was talking in general.
You got me! On second thought, downloading useless courses is a pleasure in itself, a pleasure not as expensive as shopping at the bookstore every second day.
Right again. And now, having researched my files for that pdf, I became nostalgic of Russian again. Should I..? Edited by Leopejo on 02 October 2009 at 10:37pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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