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TAC 2010 Team F: He Fr Ru Sp | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| nogoodnik Senior Member United States Joined 5560 days ago 372 posts - 461 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Modern Hebrew, Biblical Hebrew, Russian, French | Message 25 of 194 05 January 2010 at 12:26am | IP Logged | ||
Hi Michael- I agree, FSI Hebrew is outdated and boring. I don't have any other textbook recs, because I've tried many and I don't have the ability to concentrate on them. Since you are at the intermediate level, I would focus on exposing yourself to native materials--movies, books, music and what not. If you can find a conversation partner or pen pal who shares your interests, that may also be useful. Language-learning is interesting, since what works for one person won't necessarily be the best plan for another. I try to do everything I consider "fun" in Hebrew. I ripped this idea off from the All Japanese All the Time guy. O.K. log time. My new apartment has a T.V. with cable and HBO in Spanish. I'm "TIVOing" several movies that I'd never let myself watch in English because I'd consider it a waste of time. I watched "He's Just Not That Into You" today in Spanish which was pretty stupid. I'd say that I understood about 10% of the movie. I'm a few lessons away from finishing Pimsleur 1, so the goal is to finish those asap. I also ordered a couple of books in Spanish from amazon. I don't expect to be able to read them yet when they arrive. I've been watching a bunch of DVDs in Hebrew and speaking the language constantly. I'm going to start reading my book tonight. Last night I watched 'Finding Nemo" in Hebrew, which was pretty boring but "Nemo" was pretty cute. Tonight I'm also going to watch "Igor." I must admit that I've been neglecting my SRSing, but I probably won't revisit it until tomorrow night. Another thing--I've decided to stop learning new English vocabulary from the Anki deck. Instead, I'm going to buy or borrow a couple of vocabulary-building books and make that a separate project. Also, I've decided to continue studying Russian and French later in the year. I don't want to change my TAC goals to include Russian and French because officially taking on two more languages stresses me out. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| nogoodnik Senior Member United States Joined 5560 days ago 372 posts - 461 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Modern Hebrew, Biblical Hebrew, Russian, French | Message 26 of 194 05 January 2010 at 7:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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To reiterate: HBO latino is my new best friend. I'm tivoing about 30 movies right now. This morning I watched a movie in Spanish and tonight I'll watch one in Hebrew. I'm not the type of person who likes to adhere to long-term plans, so I prefer to break it up week-to-week.
This week, the goal is to watch one Hebrew film and one Spanish film every day. Also, I'll try to spend one hour per day on Spanish--either Pimsleur or Michel Thomas. In addition, I will do my SRS reps and spend a minimum of 30 minutes reading my Hebrew book with corresponding audio or adding new sentences. I'm not officially working for the next couple of weeks, so this plan is doable. If I have extra time I'd like to begin reading Spanish Wikipedia. edit: thought of a couple more thoughts... I think that I've achieved basic fluency in conversational Hebrew. I have no trouble speaking with confidence in a variety of situations and I understand unsympathetic speakers. When I address an Israeli in Hebrew they no longer switch to English and almost all of them ask me if my parents are Israeli, or how many years did I live in Israel, which city am I from in Israel. I've been told that I have a slight American accent, so I want to work on that. I never figured that I'd get this far with Hebrew and I always thought I sucked at learning languages. Now I just need to learn how to spell, speed-read, and write. I am confident that I'll achieve near-native fluency this year in Hebrew and basic fluency in Spanish. The difficult part of learning languages is finding your learning style and discovering what works for you. After that, it's fun and games. Edited by nogoodnik on 05 January 2010 at 7:31pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| nogoodnik Senior Member United States Joined 5560 days ago 372 posts - 461 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Modern Hebrew, Biblical Hebrew, Russian, French | Message 27 of 194 07 January 2010 at 9:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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So yesterday I watched "The Soloist" in Spanish. I can't say that I understood much of the dialogue, but I could
still follow along because of the visuals. Last night/this morning I watched 101 Dalmatians in Hebrew. That was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid, so I enjoyed briefly revisiting my softer years. Worked through unit 27 of Pimsleur, and will start unit 28 in a few minutes. Basically, I'm always thinking of ways to be exposed to languages. My new years resolution (yes I know that it is lame to have new years resolutions) is to go from being in pretty good shape to being Rocky (but a female version.) So naturally I need to figure out a way to integrate language-learning with my new fitness goal. I tried running because I could listen to my ipod while exercising, but I didn't enjoy it. My friend is giving me her old stationary bike, so the plan is to do Pimsleur and watch foreign films whilst biking. I also lift weights, but I need to make more of an effort to have movies/other audio playing simultaneously. I am actually in pretty good shape now, so to improve dramatically I'd like to introduce some new activities. I'd really like to take up a martial art, but I'm not sure which one. My first thought was Krav Maga, but there isn't a studio nearby. Then I found out about Systema, a Russian martial art and even found a studio nearby. Honestly though, I'm slightly intimidated by the website which features buff and bald Russian guys in army uniforms beating the crap out of each other. I'm going to drive by and check it out. I also like yoga, which I practice frequently with DVDs. Now I'm searching for some good exercise and yoga DVDs in Spanish. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6142 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 28 of 194 08 January 2010 at 10:36am | IP Logged | ||
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My brother, who lives in New York, studied Система (Systema). He says it's a very intense martial art, but also very effective. Система isn't as rigourously controlled, and established, like the Asian martial arts, so it has a number of different styles at present.
Vaya Equipo F. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| nogoodnik Senior Member United States Joined 5560 days ago 372 posts - 461 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Modern Hebrew, Biblical Hebrew, Russian, French | Message 29 of 194 10 January 2010 at 3:42am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the info Daragh. I'm definitely going to look into Система. Most of the studio's website is in Russian, so I'm hoping to meet some Russian-speakers and become proficient in the martial art simultaneously.
I finished Pimsleur 1 today. It was a slog. Now my plan is to complete the Michel Thomas Beginner's Spanish course. I was half-way through it before I took my break from language learning, so I've decided just to review it from the beginning. I'd like to complete it tomorrow, but if not, the next day is fine. After that I'll start Pimsleur 2. I've started reading אחות קטנה with the audiobook. I must say that I'm having a difficult time understanding the details. I'm still not sure how I will use this tool, but following along in the text is helping my reading speed. Man, I wish that Hebrew was phonetic like Yiddish. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| nogoodnik Senior Member United States Joined 5560 days ago 372 posts - 461 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Modern Hebrew, Biblical Hebrew, Russian, French | Message 30 of 194 12 January 2010 at 6:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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Wow there are a lot of interesting TAC logs on this site now. It is really inspiring to see everybody working so hard.
I spoke Hebrew last night with someone else. He says that I have a good command of the language but have a Russian accent. What I generally like about Israelis (stereotype ahead) is they don't try to flatter you if it's not warranted and are not afraid to embarrass you with corrections if it doesn't break the flow of conversation. This guy corrected my grammar a couple of times which was extremely helpful. I was thinking of trying Assimil for Spanish. I don't want to study two languages with the 'sentences' method because I need some variety. My thought was to spend the next month-month and a half finishing all the Pimsleurs and Michel Thomas courses I have, and then review it all with Assimil after I'm finished. I regret not focusing more on the written language when I was first studying Hebrew, and I don't want to repeat that with Spanish. Also, I've decided to let myself succumb to wanderlust a bit. Provided I work a minimum of 2 hours on Hebrew and 30 minutes on Spanish, I'm letting myself spend my free time studying other languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| nogoodnik Senior Member United States Joined 5560 days ago 372 posts - 461 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Modern Hebrew, Biblical Hebrew, Russian, French | Message 31 of 194 16 January 2010 at 8:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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I lost my anki Hebrew sentences. There were quite a lot of them. I was sad but I got over it.
I did get a new ipod nano and I set the default language to Hebrew! The problem is that ipod doesn't allow voice commands in Hebrew, so if I want to use that feature I'll have to switch the language. I've decided to begin studying Russian again. Learning Spanish has turned out to be more straightforward than I imagined, so I think I'll have enough time to take on all three. Becoming fluent in Russian is a goal I'm setting for TAC 2011 though! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| nogoodnik Senior Member United States Joined 5560 days ago 372 posts - 461 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Modern Hebrew, Biblical Hebrew, Russian, French | Message 32 of 194 20 January 2010 at 2:00am | IP Logged | ||
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Sooo, I've got to rebuild all of those Hebrew sentences I lost and then some. I don't have a lot of enthusiasm for this project at this second, so I'm going to set a goal to do just 20 sentences a day for the next month. Another thing I want to do is find good text-to-speech software for Hebrew. I've done some cursory searches, and all of the voices sound like robots.
I really need to find some new good Hebrew music. I listen to mostly classical music, but I need the exposure. I'm doing Pimsleur and Michel Thomas with Russian and Spanish now. Nothing interesting to report... edit: I'm making an extra push this month to finally obtain fluency (whatever that means) in Hebrew. I can definitely get by at a shuk or a Hebrew-speaking Shabbat dinner, but I still can't use complicated vocabulary or discuss subjects at an intellectual level. This frustrates me! I also mess up numbers all of the time! So this month is vocab, vocab, vocab...more exposure! listening to my audiobook at night while I'm falling asleep and while asleep and when I wake up. Finding more Hebrew-language music. The longer I study Hebrew, the more I fall in love with it. I just want to be able to speak it eloquently already. preferably now. :) Edited by nogoodnik on 20 January 2010 at 2:42am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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