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JoshT’s Log - French, German, Russian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| josht Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6473 days ago 635 posts - 857 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Dutch | Message 153 of 161 22 February 2009 at 5:50am | IP Logged | |||||
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Alright, finally a bit of an update from me. Prepare for a long post...
2/14/09 Russian Assimil Russisch ohne Mühe - I listened to Lessons 3 - 13 while doing the dishes. When working with Assimil French with Ease before, I thought I was spending too much time listening to the lessons repeatedly, and not enough time doing other things. I think I may have gone too far, and am now not listening to them enough; so I'm going to start throwing in repetition listening sessions again. I just need to make sure I don't end up with it being imbalanced again. NPRC - I looked over some declension information in chapter 10, and started (re)reading chapter 11, which covers the past tense and reflexive verbs. I should probably do a quick read through the book up to where I'm at now as a refresher. French Reread Lesson 17 of Assimil; not structured at all, I just picked the book up and flipped to a lesson. Spanish I started to listen to Advanced Spanish with Michel Thomas while doing the dishes, but decided to wait until later. I couldn't pause and think about my response while doing chores, and that's when I get the most benefit from Michel Thomas's stuff. I get practically nothing just by listening. 2/15/09 German Did Anki reviews. I worked through a few pages of Der Rettende Weg, and looked up most of the unknown words. I tried to take my time and enjoy the process, rather than plowing through it like the language would disappear if I weren't done in record time. I think in trying to learn many languages at once, I was starting to turn it into work rather than pleasure - put my time in here, there, etc., and not enjoy the process. That's no good. Russian Assimil - I reviewed Lesson 32 and did a first pass through Lesson 33. I think I may focus my efforts on Assimil for now, while doing a quick read through NPRC, largely bypassing the exercises. I'll then turn to NPRC as needed for grammar clarification. I've been dutifully trying to trudge through NPRC, doing all of the exercises, but I'm not really sure it's working as well as Assimil seems to be. I seem to be picking up more grammar from exposure to legit language in Assimil than I am via grammar exercises in NPRC. NPRC - I read some more of Chapter 11, and didn't bother about memorizing anything. 2/16/09 Not much at all today, as I was studying for a world history exam at university. I did Anki reviews, and read some more of Chapter 11 in NPRC (Russian). 2/17/09 Again not much; the evening was spent writing a paper on Peter III's Manifesto, which freed the nobility from obligatory service to the state. Fascinating stuff. Anyway, I did Anki reviews and listened to French with Ease Lessons 93 - 103. 2/18/09 Russian Assimil - I copied out Lesson 11 by hand, and looked up some words that were giving me some trouble. NPRC - Learned around 20 words from Chapter 11 via IWLM. 2/19/09 No idea - I forgot to log it in my notebook. 2/20/09 French Added a few lessons of Assimil to Anki; I started playing around with turning many of the sentences to cloze deletions. I like them thus far. I did some other language stuff on this day, but I'm not sure what - I didn't note it in my notebook. I know I did Anki reviews, though, as I've been diligent in doing them every day. 2/21/09 Russian Assimil - Copied out Lesson 24 by hand and looked up unknowns. I suppose, in hindsight, I used Professor Arguelle's scriptorium method while doing this. Also, listened to Lessons 20 - 30. French Assimil - Listened to Lessons 100 - 113 (i.e., to the end of the course). German Anki, and listened to an episode of Schlaflos in München (20 minutes). Spanish Argh! Nothing. I really want to get to Michel Thomas Spanish Advanced, but I just haven't had the time. Perhaps four languages at once is folly after all. We'll see. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| josht Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6473 days ago 635 posts - 857 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Dutch | Message 154 of 161 21 March 2009 at 11:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm beginning to feel like I have multiple personalities; one day the idea of keeping a language log turns me off, and the next day I'm missing it. Today is one of the latter days, so here I am. I'm going to have another go at it, but I'm going to copy Iversen's format somewhat: rather than posting every little thing I do (which is boring to write and boring to read), I'll only be posting about some of the things I'm doing, mostly those which catch my interest in some way.
I've not been able to do a great deal of language study in the past few weeks, as it was time for midterm exams at my university. I didn't stop altogether by any means, but it was perhaps 20 or 30 minutes per day for a couple languages each day, between German, Russian, and French. Spanish has been put on hold for the time being; I just don't have enough free time to jump between four different foreign languages effectively. German has mostly been the same: vocabulary acquisition. I've taken to following in Iversen's footsteps a bit, often just grabbing a dictionary and opening it randomly to find words to learn. I always find words that I need to know, so it seems very time efficient; I also find it strangely enjoyable. Give me a dictionary, some blank paper, and a pen, and I can entertain myself for at least an hour, sometimes two. Russian has been a mixture of grammar study (NPRC) and vocabulary (dictionaries, word lists from NPRC, and pulling words from Assimil Russisch ohne Mühe). My Russian progress is woefully slow, as the words seem to slip from my memory the moment I look away from the page. The grammar is beginning to take some sort of hazy form in my mind though, and I'm beginning to pick up more quickly on patterns (e.g., from dative plural to prepositional plural, ям / ам -> ях / ах). French study has also been largely vocabulary related, as I continue to make word lists from Mastering French Vocabulary. I've also tried to listen to some native level news podcasts, but have been unable to follow it very well; I catch many words I know, but not enough to figure out the meaning. More words required, apparently. :-) Back to the books! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| josht Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6473 days ago 635 posts - 857 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Dutch | Message 155 of 161 25 March 2009 at 3:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
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March 25th, 2009
Russian Yesterday I spent some time working with the New Penguin Russian Course, studying chapter 12, which introduces the dative case along with the endings for dative adjectives, possessives, and demonstratives. To explain the adjective endings, the author referred back to the prepositional endings, to which you just add у, e.g. prepositional -ом / -ем -> dative -ому, -ему. To make sense of this, along with the other things introduced, I made a chart on a sheet of printer paper, with arrows pointing this way and that to show how things are transformed from one case to another. I suppose it would be confusing to someone else, but it's crystal clear to me. I found the act of simply making the chart helped make the endings stick. German I reviewed some word lists I'd done a few days ago, using words pulled from one of my dictionaries. After reviewing them with IWLM, I added them to Anki; there were a number of words that I felt needed some further context (such as 'Aufseher'), so I added sentences from Langenscheidt's Großwörterbuch: Deutsch als Fremdsprache. I've found that using IWLM to first learn words and then using Anki to keep them in my memory is quite effective. I also wrote a few emails to some German penpals, and chatted with one of them for a while. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| josht Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6473 days ago 635 posts - 857 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Dutch | Message 156 of 161 13 April 2009 at 3:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I've recently been focusing more on Russian, and as a side effect of this, I've compared some lessons of Assimil's Russisch ohne Mühe with the original version of said course, Le russe sans peine. While I'm going to continue to principally use the German version, as it is my stronger language between it and French, I've found that the original French version is actually quite a bit better. The German version tends to give the meaning of the Russian sentence, very often not providing a literal word-for-word translation. The French version, however, gives both a general meaning and a word-for-word translation, which I find extremely helpful in dealing with Russian. With the German version, I'll often find that I know the meaning of the Russian sentence via the German translation, but I'm unsure as to what function each individual word in the Russian sentence serves. An unfortunate situation, to be sure.
In comparing the courses, I also discovered something else: much to my surprise, the German version isn't completely true to the original version, particularly in regards to the notes for each lesson. The German version has notes which the French version doesn't and vice versa. Unfortuantely, it seems the French notes are generally more helpful, touching on the very things I need or would like to know. Fortunately, however, I have both, so whenever the German version isn't clear on something (or is outright wrong, as I've seen a number of typos and ommissions), I can grab the French version to check things over. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| josht Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6473 days ago 635 posts - 857 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Dutch | Message 157 of 161 26 April 2009 at 11:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I recently watched Professor Arguelles's latest video dealing with shadowing (here), and after doing so and understanding the overall shadowing process much more thoroughly, I've been using it some in my studies. While I'm still getting the hang of the process - I still struggle with trying to listen and speak at the same time - I'm impressed with the results I've seen thus far. I tried it before, but more or less tried to do it how I would find it most easy - sitting in a chair using the book. However, this time around, I've been giving blind shadowing a go while walking, and have found that the walking really does help. I know that I can blind shadow 10 or so Assimil Russian lessons while sitting and miss tons of words, then do another 10 while walking and miss far, far fewer words.
I've also been surprised to find whole bits of sentences popping into my head from the material I've shadowed, a day or two after having shadowed it. From my other study methods, I've had isolated Russian words pop into my head, but not many sentences. I've also started going through the Assimil French with Ease course again using shadowing; as I've already worked through the course, I'm going through the lessons at an accelerated pace, but I still find the shadowing to be helping my ability to actually say a thing or two in the language. I recently read about Iversen altering his word list method a bit, namely by leaving space on the original word list sheet for his review session. I'm running into the same problem that he has described: I tend to forget to do my reviews in a timely manner (or altogether), as I've got so many word list sheets floating around. Having the review space on the original sheet would be nice, but I can't cramp my writing much more, and I like using standard printer paper for my lists, as it's easy to get and quite cheap. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| fairyfountain Senior Member Zimbabwe Joined 6155 days ago 254 posts - 248 votes 5 sounds | Message 158 of 161 26 April 2009 at 11:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I don't know whether that would be motivating for you or not, but we can voice chat from time to time, if that interests you. I'm French & learning American English.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| josht Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6473 days ago 635 posts - 857 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Dutch | Message 159 of 161 27 April 2009 at 12:50am | IP Logged | |||||
I'd like that sometime, but probably not yet; I struggle to say practically anything, and I'd probably just make a fool of myself. I just read through your log; impressive dedication! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| fairyfountain Senior Member Zimbabwe Joined 6155 days ago 254 posts - 248 votes 5 sounds | Message 160 of 161 27 April 2009 at 1:26am | IP Logged | |||||
You prolly wouldn't make a fool of yourself, but I understand you :) I still have a long way to go myself, so it's not like I'd disappear off the face of the language-exchange Earth anytime soon :p
Right back at you ;) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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