johntothea Senior Member United States Joined 6627 days ago 193 posts - 192 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Russian, Norwegian, Polish, French
| Message 33 of 74 02 June 2007 at 10:38am | IP Logged |
I would like to participate again, considering my last challenge was an utter failure.
I would like to do afrikaans again, becuase last time I really didn't learn anything. I don't even remember how to say hi or bye or anything like that. I think I remember thank you...but I'm not sure.
Or German, get that one out of the way.
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Jiwon Triglot Moderator Korea, South Joined 6435 days ago 1417 posts - 1500 votes Speaks: EnglishC2, Korean*, GermanC1 Studies: Hindi, Spanish Personal Language Map
| Message 34 of 74 02 June 2007 at 11:54am | IP Logged |
I want to do Russian... (i don't even know how to say hi or goodbye) or even Japanese sounds ok..
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Darobat Diglot Senior Member Joined 7187 days ago 754 posts - 770 votes Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Latin
| Message 35 of 74 02 June 2007 at 12:57pm | IP Logged |
I wouldn't mind doing French, or possibly German. French is weird, because until a few days ago, I loathed the language, and recently I've decided I'd like to learn it. Even the sound which had been the biggest turn off in the past has grown on me. Something else to consider though, would be that I have a fair bit of passive knowledge in French, and can even occasionally read texts in it. However, my active ability is next to nothing.
German would also be fun. I know my profile says I'm studying it, but that's very much a lie. I have a book, and I've done the first few chapters, but that was a number of months ago and I haven't really touched the language since and have forgotten a lot of what I had learned. The language does still interest me though, so maybe a 6 week challenge would be a good motivation.
Edited by Darobat on 02 June 2007 at 1:00pm
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Maxwell Diglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 6681 days ago 29 posts - 29 votes Speaks: French, English*
| Message 36 of 74 02 June 2007 at 2:29pm | IP Logged |
Shall we make it easy to organise then?
How about we post and say if we are in and then list our proposed languages and a few lines about our proposed methods of learning?
My proposed method has been outlined in my earlier posts in this thread.
Here is my "wish list" in no particular order:
1) Spanish - relitively easy and highly useful.
2) Italian - relitively easy, maybe not as useful as Spanish.
3) Norwegian - Great beginner for the Scandinavian family. It is somewhat under represented but deemed as easy if you are a native "Germanic Speaker".
4) Romanian - Seem like a "bridge language" to East Europe.
5) Hungarian - Toughest one on my list but it seems a few people are interested in it so I would be happy to give it a go.
I personally think as it is only 6 weeks we should stick to "easy" languages and as the majority of people here use the latin alphabet with their native tongue then we should try and stick to the latin alphabet as it would lend itself to progressing in the language a lot quicker than if we have to learn characters etc.
Maxwell.
Edited by Maxwell on 02 June 2007 at 2:30pm
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Jerrod Senior Member United States Joined 6502 days ago 168 posts - 176 votes Studies: Russian, Spanish
| Message 37 of 74 02 June 2007 at 2:47pm | IP Logged |
Maxwell, I agree with only easy languages but in the end everyone will choose what they want. If we can get people to concentrate on a top 5 I would say:
1. Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian (as one because they are close)
2. German, Dutch (what else?)
3. Norwegian, Danish, Swedish
4. Slavic languages (if you have a background in one)
5. Any other language (if it is close to one you know)
Why should only easy languages be considered? Because I doubt you can make much progress in Mandarin in 6 weeks (let alone 6 months), while in "easy" languages a good amount can be learned. Though if 10 people choose Georgian we could definitely learn a lot from that as well...
I for sure am in with Spanish (unless we can get 10 Georgian learners). I will be starting July 5 or so.
I am still thinking about how I want to proceed. I have a TYS in 3 months and I would really like to see what can be accomplished by just using this program. At the same time, there are a great deal of cognates in Spanish, and many people recommend learning these in the beginning. So maybe I may be using a modified form of Iversen's prelearning concentrating only on cognates and capping it at about 2,500. This is all subject to change once I get closer to the deadline of starting.
Last time everyone said a time limit was bad. For those that will participate do we limit the time to 2 hours per day?
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Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6596 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish
| Message 38 of 74 02 June 2007 at 4:02pm | IP Logged |
what about languages like Indonesian, that are not related to the mother tongues of most people here, but are supposedly relatively easy?
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jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6908 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map
| Message 39 of 74 02 June 2007 at 4:07pm | IP Logged |
As long as I didn't have any major assignment, I could easily have studied for an hour or more per day, but I stuck to the 30 minutes plan. However, suddenly I had too focus heavily on my regular studies and couldn't even manage that half hour (and I still have a few of those sessions left).
I let you all decide on a list of languages (and methods).
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shyopstv Groupie United Kingdom Joined 6719 days ago 86 posts - 91 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: German, Esperanto
| Message 40 of 74 02 June 2007 at 5:14pm | IP Logged |
Well I am one of the people that was going to do the last 6WC but in the end didn't. I was supposed to be doing Swedish that time but eventually, I did one lesson of Pimsleur and gave up. I can remember one word just (vorstoren(sp?) meaning to understand.. as someone with a basic knowledge of German, that one stuck quite easily) which is as good as never having learnt it so I could do it again. Someone else mentioned Hungarian which I would also like to try plus there is an Assimil course for it in English which is a method I have never used and would also like to try but if we are going to stick to "easy" popular languages then I will go for Swedish again.
I will have a lot of time on my hands so will be able to commit to it this time.
As for the 30 minute limit, I think we should be able to spend as much time as we like up to maybe 2 hours as long as we keep a record of how long we spend each day
Edited by shyopstv on 02 June 2007 at 5:15pm
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