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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Felixelus Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6841 days ago 237 posts - 244 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 57 of 74 10 June 2007 at 1:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hey everyone! I havent posted here for ages and it's lovely to see some new faces here (as well as some old ones!)
I'd love to take part in the 6WC since I was planning on learning Italian this holiday anyway (travel reasons...I'm heading to Rome in January!). I'm already pretty good at French so this will give me an advantage while studying Italian so I dont know what everyone wants to do! I've already bought Michel Thomas Italian and TY beginners Italian...I'm going for an all round approach. Starting July 1st is perfect for me so whats the plan? Do we all promise to study for at least 30 mins a day then do a weekly diary to collect feelings/progress and then do a test at the end of the 6 weeks to compare methods? I cant wait to start! :D 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6912 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 58 of 74 10 June 2007 at 3:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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Regarding a test at the end of the six weeks, I came to think of the Lernu.net site (which I use to learn Esperanto).
It has exams for three levels: basic, intermediate and advanced, and it's said that one may take the basic exam after finishing the "Ana Pana" and "Ana renkontas" courses (both of which should be possible to finish in a six week period). Perhaps there are sites like this for other languages, and if so, we could easier decide what would be the proper test to take. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6912 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 60 of 74 10 June 2007 at 4:43pm | IP Logged | ||
Good idea. It's nearly impossible to come up with rules that everybody will agree on (and those who don't agree, will break the rules anyway). As somebody said in the original thread (Ari?), this kind of "challenge" could be done anytime, it's just a matter of deciding when (and maybe how, to compare results (if that's important)). Personally, I haven't yet finished the original challenge (but will do so within a few days). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6442 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 61 of 74 10 June 2007 at 6:03pm | IP Logged | ||
I -did- do a 6 week challenge, with Persian. Quite a lot of other people started, as well, and some others also finished, or are about to. There was no explicit testing at the end, and I freely admit that my progress was scant (some idea of some basic parts of the grammar, and the ability to say basic things like 'hi, how are you, thank you', etc), decent pronunciation, and an initial familiarity with a larger variety of things that are quickly activated and remembered as soon as I ask a native speaker about them (ie, basic questions with what and where). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Jerrod Senior Member United States Joined 6506 days ago 168 posts - 176 votes Studies: Russian, Spanish | Message 62 of 74 11 June 2007 at 4:07am | IP Logged | ||
I disagree with your post. The whole point of the 6 week challenge is to evaluate learning methods. This can not be done without sometype of thought out control. That is why this whole thread to the present moment is speculation. The point was to brainstorm till mid-June, allowing everyone to give their input, and then set the standards so we are all on the same page. The last 6 week challenge did not work for multiple reasons. For one this was for a lack of planning. The 6WC, as I have stated, should be for the serious student of languages (even if your point is to only have fun). Without people that are dedicated (or really have the time) to finishing the challenge in 6 weeks, why do it? Why not 3 weeks? In 3 weeks one would be hard pressed to learn 250 words, let alone very basic grammar. How can we even begin to evaluate the methods? Why Polish, Russian, or Dutch? Most people, if you have read this thread, want to choose their own language. Moreover, Russian and Polish are not easy languages. Why Dutch, many people here have studied German. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6706 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 63 of 74 11 June 2007 at 4:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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DerDrache has a point, - you have to stop talking at some point and just get going, but I don't like his concrete proposals. I prefer the original version with 6 weeks, a starting point in about a month's time and a broader choice of languages (my Dutch just need some practice, I'm already studying Russian, and Polish will definitely have to wait until I have conquered Russian).
My main problem is the choice of a language that is both new and not too difficult. The easy choice would be Esperanto, but I'm more inclined to choose Icelandic (and Old Norse) - even though that would be a violation of the rules because I already have a certain amount of passive knowledge about that language. But apart from the almost extinct Frisian (plus Swedish and Norwegian) Icelandic is the only officially recognized Germanic language that I still need to learn. And it is irritating me more and more to have that hole in my knowledge. Among the Romance languages I still miss Sardinian, - though in another sense of the word "miss" I don't. Latin would be a possibility ... later. In brief flashes of utter madness I'm even been considering trying out something distinctly non-Indoeuropean like Bahasa or Turkish, though both would violate my long-term strategy of sticking to the Indoeuropean languages. Maybe succombing to that kind of frivolous vagaries is as dangerous and ominous as lightening the first cigarette? I really don't want to end up as a miserable Wanderlust victim! - Fortunately I don't have to choose right now. I'm not too concerned about the testing, - my preferred first test will always be to read some non fiction about scientific or cultural topics. If I can do that my subsequent tests will be to listen to a television program about the same kind of topics, and to try out my command of the spoken language on some unsuspecting native victims during a travel to a suitable country (and no, I don't mean pillow talk, - I'm too old and lazy for that). Edited by Iversen on 11 June 2007 at 5:24pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| MeshGearFox Senior Member United States Joined 6698 days ago 316 posts - 344 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian | Message 64 of 74 11 June 2007 at 5:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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I do wonder how long I spent on finnish. While I sort of stopped after three weeks from a lack of... materials, I also spent about two hours a day on it at times. So probably going on just hours spent, if you consider the 30 minute rule, maybe I finished. In any case, I wouldn't consider it a failure at all. I think I got a very good idea about how finnish works, and it'd be much easier to move to more serious study if I ever get ahold of resources I like.
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