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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Lapislazuli Tetraglot Senior Member Austria Joined 7037 days ago 146 posts - 170 votes  Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, ItalianB1 Studies: French, Hungarian, Esperanto, Czech | Message 9 of 14 14 January 2013 at 12:21pm | IP Logged |
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Thank you Wompi and Majka for those examples. I have also noticed the one or the other thing already, and I guess it is going to be interesting to discover more along the way.
I have just overcome a little streak of frustraion with my Czech - actually rather with that Langenscheidt-book. I find they are making it unnecessarily difficult for the learner to use it. What extremely annoys me, is that the vocabulary lists at the end of each text are not in alphabetical order but in the order of appearance. This makes it tedious to find something (so I actually preferred to look it up in the dictionary, which went much faster). I really like to learn words and grammar-structures in context, but the structure of that course makes it difficult for me to do so. I also don't like the texts themselves very much, as I find them neither very useful nor interesting. I understand that they rather wanted to include the needed grammar and vocabulary then to entertain me, but maybe I just have low attention span for things that I am not interested in, that I find boring and tedious. Apart from that the chapters a bit too comprehensive for me right now. I'd rather want shorter ones that introduce one thing after the other instead of everything at once. You get tons of vocabulary and grammar in each lesson, which I find a bit overwhelming at my stage of learning. I plan coming back to this course at a later point. Maybe I will find it more useful then. For the moment I decided to return to Assimil. I changed my approach to the Assimil course a bit, and that is something that I really like about this course. You can use it in so many different ways at the different stages of your learning. Apart from that the chapters have the right length for my taste, and the dialogues are more interesting as well. Even though some of them are quite silly and absurd, that is what I tend to memorize much better in the end. (For example lesson 6: To hezky začíná! This is hilarious. Maybe just my sense of humour, but it helps.) When I last worked with Assimil I listened to the dialogs, made notes, read them loud to myself - all the typical activities to do in the so-called passive phase. I am just too impatient for doing that all though half of the course, I want something active too for things to stick a little better. So I am going on with what I have done so far. But I also started my own downgraded version of the active phase. I went back to the beginning and started translating the Czech text into German, write down things that I don't know on my flashcards. I also try to focus a bit more on the grammar here. I borrowed a grammar book from the library as a reference (Josef Vintr, Tschechische Grammatik, ÖBV Pädagogischer Verlag) I really was not happy with Langenscheidt’s grammar explanations either. I am not the best in grasping abstract grammatical concepts, I guess. But I am getting there … So right now I am quite happy with those activities, I notice how things start to clear up and structures become more understandable. As this is the first language that I am learning completely on my own, I guess there will be a lot of experimenting with different materials and approaches, which I am looking forward to as well. I also included something fun too. I now have a few recordings of Czech musicals to listen too, some Czech original ones as well as the Czech recording of Les Misérables (Bídníci), which I am listening to a lot these days. I don't understand a lot yet, but I am happy about every word or even sentence that I can figure out (I also used to listen to lots of musicals, as I learned Hungarian, which I found quite helpful) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Majka Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic kofoholici.wordpress Joined 4658 days ago 307 posts - 755 votes Speaks: Czech*, German, English Studies: French Studies: Russian | Message 10 of 14 14 January 2013 at 12:52pm | IP Logged |
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Lapislazuli,
regarding the Langenscheidt-book: I would switch the activities a bit to make your life easier. First, look up the vocabulary. Simply read first 10 words and then start reading the text. This is the way I am doing L-R. It means that in the text you won't see any really unknown words. The words stick much better this way. I actually prefer to have the list in order of appearance. If it suits you better, use Assimil as the primary resource. Don't abandon the Lagenscheidt, but use it less often or for shorter periods then now. Who says you have to go through the text at once? Stop in the middle. Do whatever you need to make is more palatable. If you think about abandoning the Lagenscheidt book, I heard good things about the books of Lída Holá - "Čeština pro cizince". There is a German version. You could buy it here - this is including the workbook and CD. As for the Czech musicals - here you can often find lyrics. Good luck! 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5010 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 11 of 14 01 February 2013 at 2:55am | IP Logged |
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Majka is trully awesome.
As the Assimil drove you to Langenscheidt and now you consider heading back, I would advise a different approach to Assimil, to prevent the troubles you had with it at first. If the Assimil method doesn't suit you, use the great content more traditionally. Anki the vocab, add grammar exercises, review the same couple of lessons several times before moving on. And keep listening a lot, of course. I agree with Majka that there is no reason to abandon that other course completely. There is no harm in using two or three ressources together (even though more might lead to spreading yourself too thin). And as it has been two weeks since your last post, how are you? And how is your Czech going? :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lapislazuli Tetraglot Senior Member Austria Joined 7037 days ago 146 posts - 170 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, ItalianB1 Studies: French, Hungarian, Esperanto, Czech | Message 12 of 14 12 February 2013 at 6:15pm | IP Logged |
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Thank you for your advise and encouragement, Majka and Cavesa.
I have not made up my mind yet, about the Langenscheidt course. It is not that I have spent money on it yet, as I had it borrowed from the library, so I think I'll just borrow it again at a later point and see whether it's going to be more useful for me then. Right now I am quite happy again with Assimil, trying to do something every day. Usually I am translating the text from Czech to German, writing flashcards, with words, sentences and structures that I don't know. (At a later point I'll go back again, and translate everything in the other direction) I like writing down things by hand as I study, that's why I am not using any flash-card-programs but ordinary old-fashioned paper flash-cards. What I still need to do is make a habbit of going through them, more often, so I'll retain everything. I also have a grammar book to look things up every now and then, trying not to get too confused with all the cases. But what I am certainly going to do, maybe when I am trough or maybe halfway though with Assimil, will be getting a grammar book that has lots of exercises. Looking back doing that has always helped me in any of my languages, but not when I was just starting out, but at a later point when I had more of a feel for it. On the side I am having a bit of fun with my musical lyrics. At the moment Les misèrables/Bidnici, as I know those lyrics in other languages already so I have an easier time figuring things out. This is something I have done in other languages too, the lyrics in the musicals might not really be close to spoken language, but I found that I can retain things much better, when I heard them in a song, or when I am even able to link them to a character in a story. My brain seems to like stories, and the amount of emotional envolvement you can develop with the stories and characters in a textbook is quite limited (though in this regard the Assimil dialogs are thrillers in comparison to what you find in other textbooks.) So I guess, I am making some progress, slowly, but it is not a competition. I think that is also important to remind myself of every now and then in order to avoid frustration. Things are not going to happen from one day to the other, and I have been studying languages for long enough to know that, and in fact I do, but I still get impatient. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Majka Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic kofoholici.wordpress Joined 4658 days ago 307 posts - 755 votes Speaks: Czech*, German, English Studies: French Studies: Russian | Message 13 of 14 12 February 2013 at 8:33pm | IP Logged |
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I am happy to hear that you are still working on Czech.
Slow and steady is the way how to do it - Czech is not an easy language. The musical Bídníci isn't the easiest one. It has a lot of ... slang? Perhaps even argot, if there is something like it in Czech. As next, I would try Jesus Christ Superstar - there are few tricky passages, but it should be easier. You may find interesting the film "Noc na Karlštejně", if you can find it. The texts are in the link from my previous post and it is a funny one. Czech musicals produced in the beginning of the musical boom in Czech republic (Drákula, Monte Cristo, Kleopatra) should all have easier lyrics from language perspective than the one you choose. Again, under the mentioned link you can find the texts and often videos. Don't be afraid to ask help with translations, if you need it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lapislazuli Tetraglot Senior Member Austria Joined 7037 days ago 146 posts - 170 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, ItalianB1 Studies: French, Hungarian, Esperanto, Czech | Message 14 of 14 13 February 2013 at 11:46am | IP Logged |
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Thank you for pointing me out to something with easier lyrics, I will certainly look into those. Right not I am not really trying to 'translate' the lyrics, more looking through them, for words and phrases that I can figure out, looking up the one or the other thing in the dictionary. But it will certainly make more sense to do that with something that has more 'recognisable parts'. Well, they are going to get more as I progress in studying which is always the fun part in it.
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