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Language goals for 2007 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7207 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 1 of 98 24 December 2006 at 5:50am | IP Logged | ||
Following in frenkeld's footsteps, here's my progress report.
On the FSI Platiquemos front, I'm currently working through unit 47 of 55. I've said that before. I haven't spent much time on the FSI readings, and rarely get tempted to do that. I'm familiar with the 4 street Spanish books I mentioned, but haven't done any diligent study of them. I've spent a little time (I mean very little really) on the frequency dictionary. Last time I hit it I was around word 1775. At this point there are maybe 2-5 words per page that I'd like to activate. I'm not fired up about this goal today. I've made more progress in the books I'm studying in detail and know most of the words, but there are still a few per page that aren't in my vocabulary yet. I generally understand almost all of these books though. I can do a pretty fair job of shadowing them when I'm feeling up to it. One of them has a very fast narrator and long sentences, so that's good progress. I haven't read more than a few pages from Gabriel Garcia Marquez nor Isabel Allende. My comprehension of Dish Latino has improved, but there are plenty of shows that don't strike my fancy and are fairly incomprehensible. Channels I do well with are those that I like, V/ME and HITN. I haven't done any mock exams yet. From reading what Jerrod said about the Russian TORFL, I'm thinking that a C level exam this year may unrealistic, unless I find something that really ignites Spanish in my brain. Even then, as I understand it, C2 is pretty close to native proficiency, somewhere between FSI level 4-5. That's where I want to get, but don't know I'll make it this year. Perhaps I should look at a B level exam. At some point I'll ask others if one of these milestone exams helped them on their way to the big one. Part of me thinks that as long as I'm studying full time, it's too early to evaluate my progress. The testing center isn't convenient for me. It would involve a 10+ hour drive, and a night in a hotel. Not a huge deal, but also not like going across town for a few hours either. I am seriously intrigued by this post and am thinking about trying siomotteikiru's method. I'm going to ask some questions in that thread. The challenge for me is that the book that seems to fit the bill, Don Quixote de La Mancha has some archaic language and is almost 1000 pages long. The audio is about 60-70 hours. But then again, if it was December and I could understand the audiobook real well and talk in the style of that time, I would feel good about it. I don't think Quixote is quite as unusual as his contemporary Shakespeare, or rather, I think Spanish hasn't changed quite as much as English has over the last 400 years. Edited by luke on 26 June 2007 at 6:33pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6911 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 98 24 December 2006 at 6:23am | IP Logged | ||
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During 2006 I've focused on German, Mandarin and Russian (I've only maintained Spanish and flirted with Cantonese for a brief period) and will continue to do so in 2007, although with a more well-thought attack plan.
Now I study Russian at the university, and in January I'll take Mandarin as well. I will go to Germany in February and need to improve my active vocabulary. I've gone through Pimsleur 1-III for the three languages (OK, I'm only halfway through in Russian). Basically I'll follow the multi-track approach for the three languages, combining the study material (for Russian and Mandarin) with anything I might come across at the library; text books, tutors, graded readers et.c. It's my ambition to go through FSI German as a crash-course method for the next two months, and then take FSI Chinese at a more moderate pace. It's worth a try! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6945 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 3 of 98 24 December 2006 at 8:37am | IP Logged | ||
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My main goal for 2007 is to complete the current introductory phase of studying German, and then bring my reading skills in French, German, and Italian to intermediate level; and if I get there before the end of 2007, to start learning Hindi both passivly and actively.
To maintain Spanish, I will read a few novels, but without a dictionary - I plan to start working towards fluency in Spanish only after I am intermediate in Hindi, which is unlikely to happen before some time in 2008. With children, the goals are to watch all the episodes of French in Action with my older daughter and to try to get the younger one interested in a foreign language. Edited by frenkeld on 25 December 2006 at 8:30pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| johntothea Senior Member United States Joined 6630 days ago 193 posts - 192 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Russian, Norwegian, Polish, French | Message 4 of 98 24 December 2006 at 8:44am | IP Logged | ||
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My goals are:
For Spanish, to learn how to conjugate verbs in all 14 tenses, and to be able to talk to my Spanish speaking friends all in Spanish by the middle of the year. For french, to finish french in action, and then start reading newspapers and listening to french radio. For russian, I want to get to a good intermediate level by the end of the year. Where I can hold conversations, but can't really claim fluency. For korean, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it. I do any goals for it, and I might actually drop it for mandarin, cantonese, or japanese. [no offense to any korean speakers, just that I don't really have a use for it currently, or just study one of those three along with korean] I hope everyone follows through with their goals :] 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Darobat Diglot Senior Member Joined 7190 days ago 754 posts - 770 votes Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Latin | Message 5 of 98 24 December 2006 at 9:09am | IP Logged | ||
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1) Reach "Basic Fluency" in Russian. This will mostly require working on my poor aural comprehension.
2) Finish my "Wheelock's Latin" textbook. 3) Start another language (maybe). Dutch and/or German would be nice! _________ EDIT: UPDATED! See new post Edited by Darobat on 28 December 2006 at 9:59am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Roger Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6594 days ago 159 posts - 161 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Indonesian | Message 6 of 98 24 December 2006 at 9:36am | IP Logged | ||
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1- Build on my italian. More vocab needed.
2- Start German, with michel thomas and assimil. 3- start Spanish, with michel thomas and assimil. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| FuroraCeltica Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6867 days ago 1187 posts - 1427 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 7 of 98 24 December 2006 at 11:18am | IP Logged | ||
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Goals for 2007
Well, by March, I'd like to have gotten cards made for the 5,000 most used words in Spanish, to have finished TY Improve Your Spanish and be well on the way with Platiquemos (I think I will get it after all, despite some concerns about sound quality) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| *Aquarius* Triglot Newbie Poland Joined 6604 days ago 39 posts - 40 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, German Studies: Spanish, French | Message 8 of 98 24 December 2006 at 12:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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1. English: I've done about 1/3 of matieral in "SuperMemo Speedup!" and I want to master another 1/3. Besides, my objective is to watch English TV, read in English and go through at least 50% of a book preparing for CPE.
2. German: to enrich my vocabulary in all possible ways and go through a book preparing for ZMP. 3. Spanish: to buy and master the majority of Profesor Pedro's content (a good computer program, unfortunately accessible only in Polish), work on grammar structures, too. 4. In a forthcoming week I'm going to a shopping centre to buy Profesor Pierre (French version of aforementioned program). I want to master at least 1/2 of it and learn basic French grammar. The goals seem ambitious to me, but of course possible to achieve. If I devote to languages enough time (usually 1 hour, sometimes up to 1,5 h) and concentrate on what I do, there'll be no problem. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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