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20 in 20 - learning log of the deranged | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5954 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes  Studies: French | Message 89 of 138 01 February 2010 at 7:55am | IP Logged |
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Since re-starting language studies earlier this month, I have completed the following, some of which was review from material previously studied last fall:
German / Deutsch Pimsleur, German I - Units 1 through 10 Deutsche Welle, Warum Nicht? - Series 1, lessons 1-3 Michel Thomas, Beginners German - Discs 1, 2 and 3 FSI, German Programmed Introduction - chapters 1 and 2 French / Français A certain amount of general French language television for background listening, and worked through some videos in French with French language subtitles. Japanese / Nihongo / にほんご Reviewing/practising the hiragana (ひらがな) and katakana (カタカナ). Handwriting the characters, reviewing with flash cards, reading sample kana sentences and some smart.fm review. The kana were still pretty solidly memorized, including the squigey ones. Miscellaneous dabbling - Albanian / (Shqip) Just for dabbling purposes (and not as part of the '20 in 20' protocol), I have started working through the BBC Quickfix languages: 12 phrases or more in each of 36 different languages, of the "hello" and "goodbye" variety of phrases (but really, once one has gotten down "hello" and "goodbye," the rest is just filler). This last week, learned the Albanian quickfix phrases, and also how to count to ten in Albanian. New favourite word: faleminderit ("thank you"). Edited by Spanky on 01 February 2010 at 6:12pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5954 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French | Message 90 of 138 01 February 2010 at 7:59am | IP Logged |
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Goal for this coming month:
German: - finish Pimsleur German I and start German II - finish Warum Nicht, series 1 and start series 2 - finish Michel Thomas, Beginners German - work through the next eight or so chapters of the FSI German Programmed Introduction course. French: - finally make a meal out of Le petit prince (audio and text), something at which I had only previously nibbled - review those Pimsleur French III units I had previously listened to, and work through the remainder that I had not gotten to before - significantly increase the ratio of my French over English television and radio consumption (currently about 15% French, 85% English; I would like to move to 50/50) Japanese - dust off the Heisig, Remembering the Kanji materials, reviewing the first 135 or so that I had previously studied, and adding another 50 - 100 characters. Dabbling - move on to Basque, the next of the 36 quickfix languages from the BBC languages website, and then Belarusian, which will involve learning the Cyrillic alphabet (including the idiosyncratic features relating to Belarusian specifically). Edited by Spanky on 01 February 2010 at 6:15pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| NuclearGorilla Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6784 days ago 166 posts - 195 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Japanese, French | Message 91 of 138 01 February 2010 at 6:54pm | IP Logged |
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I find your log very amusing, and I would like to wish you well for your goals this month. We like the same languages so we have to stick together, lest the languages beat us down into our graves.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Smurf36 Triglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5847 days ago 57 posts - 57 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Mandarin | Message 92 of 138 02 February 2010 at 7:11pm | IP Logged |
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Keep going Spanky. We all enjoy your posts and are hoping that you succeed in your objectives.
How would you (overall) assess your progress so far? Smurf 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5954 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French | Message 93 of 138 03 February 2010 at 2:58am | IP Logged |
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Many thanks NuclearGorilla and Smur36!!
NuclearGorilla, there is little doubt at this point these blasted languages will wind up beating me like a proverbial rented mule, so do what you can to save yourself, I am beyond hope. Smurf36, the preceding response may give you some sense of how I self-assess my progress! While I did not progress as far as I had hoped in French, I did get miles ahead of anything I had accomplished in many previous attempts, so I am counting my French year last year a success. Deservedly or not, I bumped myself up from (advanced) Beginner to (just a toe into Low) Intermediate in my profile for French. I'm liking German a lot, and it seems much easier for me from a pronunciation perspective. Japanese still just seems like some malevolent taunt, but I am figuring on it becoming better once I figure out some more of those squiggles. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Jinx Triglot Senior Member Germany reverbnation.co Joined 5691 days ago 1085 posts - 1879 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Catalan, Dutch, Esperanto, Croatian, Serbian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish, Yiddish | Message 94 of 138 03 February 2010 at 6:59am | IP Logged |
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Spanky, I just discovered your log and I love it! Not least because your writing style had me laughing at loud at
several points, but also because you're studying French and German, my two main languages right now, and using several resources with which I am familiar. I'll be checking in from time to time – good luck with your stupendous plan! :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5954 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French | Message 95 of 138 09 February 2010 at 9:02pm | IP Logged |
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Faleminderit Jinx! Please pop back by all means - keeps me honest in my efforts. Good luck with your own learning efforts - there is no question that my brain would explode if I tried to tackle your language load!
My language learning is on semi-pause briefly in light of the Olympics. Even though I did not make Canada's Olympic team (turns out much to my disappointment that snowball fighting is not actually an Olympic sport, drats), everyone here, at least downtown, is called upon as informal hosts to apologize to all our international visitors (in every language we can muster - in my case, English and questionable French) for the lack of snow, and this does tend to eat up one's free time. Edited by Spanky on 09 February 2010 at 9:04pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5954 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French | Message 96 of 138 17 March 2010 at 4:41am | IP Logged |
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I have taken some time away from studying recently. Le mois dernier, ma mère est morte, aux environs de treize mois après la morte de mon père. Ils ont vécu des vies longues et intéressantes, et le monde est maintenant diminué. Mom et Dad, grand merci pour tout.
While studying languages is only a hobby for me, one intended to fill the cracks in my available time between doing other schtuphf, I am reminded by recent events that the reservoir of time and opportunity is not bottomless and hence I hope to push myself a bit more concerning the modest goals I have set, both here on this forum (in relation to language learning) and before the High Council of Elves (where I had promised once and for all to rid the kingdom of troglodytes). Frankly, not making much progress on either front. My goals for this study year ending August 11th were principally to learn enough basic German to move from "totally awful rank beginner" all the way up to "mostly awful beginner" status, with the ancillary goals of significantly improving my French, and learning all the 2042 kanji in Heisig's RTK. A mid-season tack-on goal of learning a mish-mash of "quickfix" phrases from an odd assortment of 36 languages also arose. I am confident in saying that there just ain't no way any of this is gonna happen, at least not by August 11th. C'est tout simplement impossible. But I will do what I can - a deal is a deal. I did manage to learn the Cyrillic alphabet without much effort - as other posters have mentioned elsewhere, it is less of a task than one might expect. Just to be pretentious, I have decided to sign all documents at work with my (real) name spelled in Cyrillic, which much to my disappointment is less impressive and mysterious than I had hoped: "Том" Probably back to weekly posting, for self-motivational reasons. Спанки Edited by Spanky on 17 March 2010 at 4:45am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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