Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5866 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque
| Message 105 of 118 25 February 2014 at 7:16pm | IP Logged |
Inspired by your progress i started reviving my dying Duolingo levels :) Keep it up!
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ryanl321 Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4365 days ago 94 posts - 101 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish
| Message 106 of 118 27 February 2014 at 5:25am | IP Logged |
My overall Duolingo has slowed considerably. I've maintained my streak but have not met my goals in over a
week in all three languages. Plus I can tell just from this log that my listening has gone down quit a lot. This tells
me that I need other forms of stimulation. That's the fun part, coming up with new, interesting ways to learn my
languages. Here is my progress the last two days:
German - On Tues, I put in about 20 minutes of podcasts but did maybe 5 minutes of Anki and 5 minutes of
podcasts on Wed and 5 min of Anki. I did spend a good portion of Tuesday evening translating materials to
german and checking the actual translation. This was difficult stuff but I really struggled. What a good exercise.
Spanish - Listened to maybe 10 minutes in total of podcasts, no Anki training the last two days. However, we did
watch Frozen tonight and I put the Spanish subtitles on so at least I got some studying in!
French - I've really been putting in the minutes with French since my Spanish and German have gone down. I put
in 30 minutes each day on Pims, and did some Duo training.
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ryanl321 Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4365 days ago 94 posts - 101 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish
| Message 107 of 118 28 February 2014 at 5:53am | IP Logged |
German - I did listen to about 10 minutes of podcasts and spoke with myself in the car for another 10 minutes. I
tried to switch to German after talking in Spanish. Boy, that was hard! I wonder if practicing that more would build a
new language retention muscle? I might get to some Anki tonight I hit the bed. I did about 5 minutes on Duolingo.
Spanish - 10 minutes podcast, 10 minutes talking to myself, which actually helps out tremendously. No Duo
French - nothing today
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Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5866 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque
| Message 108 of 118 28 February 2014 at 5:47pm | IP Logged |
I've found translation exercises incredibly useful, especially at a more advanced stage since it forces you to use structures you might not be comfortable with.
When you get better with a language it gets easier to switch between them. When i started studying Mandarin, trying to write something in Russian i would think of the Chinese word first and vice versa when trying to think in Chinese. But it gets easier the better you get with the language :)
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ryanl321 Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4365 days ago 94 posts - 101 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish
| Message 109 of 118 01 March 2014 at 3:28am | IP Logged |
Crush wrote:
I've found translation exercises incredibly useful, especially at a more advanced stage since it
forces you to use structures you might not be comfortable with.
When you get better with a language it gets easier to switch between them. When i started studying Mandarin,
trying to write something in Russian i would think of the Chinese word first and vice versa when trying to think in
Chinese. But it gets easier the better you get with the language :) |
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Yeah, I just tried the translation exercises with advanced materials the other night. I had a text that I printed in
english, double spaced, then I would translate in German by writing it down in the double space. I have both
german and Spanish translations of this text so I could compare and it is funny how off I was. What an awesome
way to build my active recall!
Also, I want to build that skill up to switch pretty comfortably between German and Spanish. I have a feeling I'm
going to need that in San Diego one of these days!!
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ryanl321 Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4365 days ago 94 posts - 101 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish
| Message 110 of 118 01 March 2014 at 4:22am | IP Logged |
The day isn't over, I do intend to get some more studying in but didn't want to forget to log:
1.) German - spoke for about 10 minutes and Anki and Duolingo for about 5 minutes total. Arranged a italki skype
session for tomorrow. I need practice speaking.
2.) Spanish - spoke to my stepmother for 15 minutes on the phone. She said she's definitely heard improvement
with my Spanish. Listened to 5 minutes of podcasts.
3.) French - nothing today
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ryanl321 Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4365 days ago 94 posts - 101 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish
| Message 111 of 118 02 March 2014 at 4:45pm | IP Logged |
Didn't get my log in yesterday because it got too late.
German - had my skype call with my German friend last night, really spent about 35-40 minutes speaking German.
We haven't talked for 3 weeks and she said my German has improved. She commented on that several times. That
was a surprise since all the speaking in German I've done in advance was with myself! I think the significant effort of
listening and reading has improved my recall of words. Who knew just listening and reading could improve speaking
through osmosis! Did about 15 min of Anki and 15 min of podcasts/songs.
Spanish - got in about 5 minutes from Anki and 5 min from Duo. Got in 15 minutes of Spanish music while at the
gym
French - Got in 15 min of Pims
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ryanl321 Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4365 days ago 94 posts - 101 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish
| Message 112 of 118 03 March 2014 at 6:11am | IP Logged |
Today was a great day of studying, what else to do during the rain!
German - I found the following website schoener-
fernsehen.com, perfect for watching German TV und Nachrichten!! Today was a good day, about 30 minutes
of Anki, getting back into the swing of things with Duo, spent about 20 minutes there and watched about 1 hour of
German TV, not including the commercials I watched while watching the Oscars from this site!
Spanish - downloaded articles from la voz de rusa, to get a sense of Russia's take on the Ukraine stuff and to get
some studying in at the same time! Did about an hour of running and listened to podcasts most of this time. Did 20
minutes of Duo and about 20 minutes of Anki.
French - 12 minutes of Pims
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