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Emme’s Small Steps - Team Sleipnir TAC’15 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Emme Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 5345 days ago 980 posts - 1594 votes  Speaks: Italian*, English, German Studies: Russian, Swedish, French | Message 129 of 360 02 April 2013 at 10:07pm | IP Logged |
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January – March Review and Plans for April
In the first trimester of 2013 I haven’t achieved as much as I had hoped for as far as language learning is concerned. Whereas January went more or less as expected, the February 6wc was brutally interrupted when life got suddenly serious and scary. March was mainly about trying to find my feet again in the real world, rather than about languages, even though in the last fortnight or so I tried to do a little Russian and a little Swedish. My goal for April is to implement the Pomodoro Technique again so that I finally get something tangible done. Above all, what I want is to do some “real” studying and not just settle for the easy choice of extensive reading and/or TV watching. I know those activities are important, but I truly believe they must be complemented by something more demanding at least a few times a week. In particular, I want to finally finish my current textbook for Swedish. This would be a first for me, as I tend to start many books but I never stick with one to the end. After 3 ½ months of uninterrupted studying in Russian (November to February), I had to pause for some weeks. Starting again, I really don’t feel like working with Il nuovo russo senza sforzo at least for the time being. Instead, I intend to use other materials that I had the chance to check out during the 6wc. I want to put particular emphasis on phonetics and pronunciation this time, as those aspects are often dealt with at the beginning of a course, but personally I find that those explanations are way over my head until I have had the opportunity to familiarize myself with the sounds of the language by listening to a reasonable amount of audio. While taking stock of the first trimester of the year, I realized that the half-way point in the 20-month Super Challenge went by unmarked and unnoticed in the tumult that was my life in late February. Now, we are beginning the 12th month, and I honestly don’t think I’ll be able to achieve my target (a more modest mini-SuperChallenge with only 25 novels to read and 100 films to watch) unless I get seriously working on it. Somewhere, I have the complete list of the novels I’ve read and the films I’ve watched so far. I’ll have to dig it out and update it here. Meanwhile, I shall update with the few items that I can recall off the top of my head: Mini-Super Challenge update. Films / Radio dramas: 14/100 Mandy will ans Meer (89’) 15/100 Meine-Tochter, ihr Freund und ich (89’) 16/100 Unter anderen Umständen Episode 1x5 Tod im Kloster (90') 17/100 WDR Hörspiel: Zurück zum Beton von Xao Seffcheque und Martin Ritzenhoff, ©WDR 2012, 55' 18/100 WDR Hörspiel: On Air von Robert Nacken und Christos Dassios, ©WDR 2013, 46' 19/100 WDR Hörspiel: Am I Black Enough For You? von Katatoma Weingartner, ©WDR 2012, 53' Books: 4/25: Donna Leon, Sanft entschlafen (Quietly in Their Sleep, 1997), Zürich 1998 (pp.352) 5/25: Donna Leon, Nobiltà (A Noble Radiance, 1998), Zürich 1999 (pp.304) Minutes studied in 2013: Russian: Jan / 805; Feb / 1470; March / 150; TOTAL so far: 2025 Swedish: Jan / 705; Feb / -; March / 50; TOTAL so far: 755 German: Jan / 255; Feb / 60; March / -; TOTAL so far: 315 French: Jan / 70; Feb / 25; March / -; TOTAL so far: 95 Chinese: Jan / 20; Feb / -; March / -; TOTAL so far: 20 EDIT: the numbers above. They looked so impressive that I could not believe they were real; so I double checked them and they were in fact wrong. I hope they are ok, now. Edited by Emme on 03 April 2013 at 6:55pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5164 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 130 of 360 02 April 2013 at 11:43pm | IP Logged |
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I hope everything is back on track now, Emme! Good luck with Russian, I hope you like the new resources you choose. It's pretty normal not to finish a Russian textbook. There are so many out there, anyway, that it's no big deal, as long as you find something that fits your level. I do think you'll like Nina Potapova's book, even though it has no audio. Maybe you could just check it once in a while; it has several short lessons like Assimil, with the difference that it focus more on grammar and not on dialogues.
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| Emme Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 5345 days ago 980 posts - 1594 votes Speaks: Italian*, English, German Studies: Russian, Swedish, French | Message 131 of 360 03 April 2013 at 7:15pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks Expugnator, yes, things have much improved and they are almost back to normal, or at least to our new normal.
-- I think the new resources offer some variety and that is something I missed while using exclusively Il nuovo russo senza sforzo. Now the real danger is that I start juggling too many activities and textbooks at once so that I lose focus. That’s why I’m slightly hesitant about putting in a request for the Nina Potapova’s grammar through the interlibrary loan right now. I’m not sure whether I’d better wait a few weeks so that I don’t have to add it to the growing stack of resources I plan to use in the foreseeable future. On the other hand, if it really is a brilliant book … ;-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Woodsei Bilingual Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Woodsei Joined 4795 days ago 614 posts - 782 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Egyptian)* Studies: Russian, Japanese, Hungarian | Message 132 of 360 04 April 2013 at 11:31pm | IP Logged |
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Good job there, Emme, and impressive progress! You put in more effort in Russian than I
did since starting to study it last year, so be proud of yourself, you're doing great. And it's normal to burn out and change resources, so keep the momentum, what matters is that you are learning something! Love following your log, you really inspire me :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Emme Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 5345 days ago 980 posts - 1594 votes Speaks: Italian*, English, German Studies: Russian, Swedish, French | Message 133 of 360 15 April 2013 at 2:50pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks Woodsei for your kind words. It’s always encouraging to get such nice feedback!
-- Update for 1-14 April 2013 So far April has been quite a success when it comes to studying. Russian I’ve managed to work on my Russian very consistently, dedicating at least half an hour (but often more) to it every day. I’ve also begun an Anki deck. I had tried before to work with one of the public decks for Russian, but as I suspected all along (but hoped against hope it were not true) I really need to personally choose the words I intend to learn and when I want to learn them. The best method for me, and I imagine for everybody else too, is to only input those words that I’ve already come across in my books. In this way, building my own deck becomes yet another review, which helps memorization. The downside of this process is, of course, that inputting words is time-consuming and I honestly can’t count all that time spent on Anki as “study time”. Swedish I’ve been somewhat less productive with Swedish, in that I didn’t really study every single day. But the subjective difference of those two languages means that when I start with Swedish, I can go on for an hour or two without too much effort, whereas I still need to plan shorter sessions for Russian if I don’t want to get too tired too quickly and therefore inefficient in my learning. I generally can cram a lot more in an hour of Swedish compared to Russian, and in the end the amount of study done (when calculated in textbook pages covered) in these two languages in the past 14 days probably evens out. German One language to which I haven’t dedicated even a minute of study, unfortunately, is German. But I console myself with the thought that I’ve finally hit my stride with my mini-Super Challenge, listening to a radio drama in German every other day. This is a step in the right direction for me if I want to reach my target of 100 films/podcast/radio programmes by the end of the year. Soon I’ll have to tackle the reading part of the challenge, because at the moment I’m really behind schedule. Wanderlust There have been a couple of non-focus languages demanding my attention this past fortnight. One is French, which is constantly on my backburner but now and again gets a revision. And the other is Japanese, my go-to language when I’m hit by wanderlust. I’m not sure whether I’ll keep working on these consistently in the coming weeks, but as I’ve spent more formal study time on these two than on my German, I thought I might just mention them here. Mini-Super Challenge update. Films / Radio dramas: 20/100 WDR Hörspiel: Die Wahrheit über Hänsel und Gretel von Bob Konrad und Marcus Weber, ©WDR 2012, 55' 21/100 WDR Hörspiel: Cici Letters von Benjamin Tillig und Thom Kubli, ©WDR 2012, 45' 22/100 WDR Hörspiel: Der Buddhist und ich von Mariana Leky, ©WDR 2012, 50' 23/100 WDR Hörspiel: Vor Sonnenaufgang von Bodo Traber, ©WDR 2010, 42' 24/100 WDR Hörspiel: Die Höhle von Benjamin Quabeck, ©WDR 2011, 55' 25/100 WDR Hörspiel: Die Furcht hinter uns von Thomas Fechner-Smarsly, ©WDR 2013, 55' 26/100 WDR Hörspiel: Operation Nation von Thilo und Simon Gosejohann, ©WDR 2008, 55' Minutes studied so far in April (and in 2013): Russian: 830 (2855) Swedish: 345 (1100) German: 0 (315) Japanese: 280 (280) French: 70 (165) Chinese: 0 (20) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 134 of 360 15 April 2013 at 2:54pm | IP Logged |
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Lycka till! I had the same experience, Russian was more of a slog when working on it than
Swedish was. But I guess I have the advantage of being a Dutch speaker... 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5164 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 135 of 360 15 April 2013 at 3:28pm | IP Logged |
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I have this experience now with Russian and Norwegian :) I decided to boost up my
Russian by reading a textbook on Georgian written in Russian. It demands a lot of typing and translating, but I do hope it gets better because the grammar-related vocabulary tends t repeat itself. I think you're learning Swedish and German more or less like I'm learning French now. I'm only having fun with my French (watching TV, reading a book), even though sometimes I have to look up to many words. I agree with you that you can't count that time you put into adding words to Anki as study time. I personally prefer shared Anki decks, I don't think the time I'd spend on adding my own words and sentences would pay out, expect in the case of Georgian and Papiamento, words with limited resources. In the case of more common languages, though, I simply stick to the shared deck I like the most. The synergy of my 3 shared Anki decks has done great to my Norwegian. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Emme Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 5345 days ago 980 posts - 1594 votes Speaks: Italian*, English, German Studies: Russian, Swedish, French | Message 136 of 360 17 April 2013 at 8:19pm | IP Logged |
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@tarvos I’m sure it might have felt to you like a slog when you went through TY, Assimil and Colloquial, but from the outside, after reading your log, it seems like you breezed through those books in no time at all. I wish I could be just a little bit more like you and move faster with my materials, but I just don’t seem to have the mental energy to manage that. But you know how the saying goes: “Chi va piano va sano e va lontano” (“slow and steady wins the race” or lit.: “He who goes slowly goes safely and goes far"). @expugnator As for Anki, I can’t learn words without a context, I’ve tried and failed. So I’ve experimented with shared decks: I’ve suspended all the cards and then sifted through the facts to find those words I’ve encountered in my studies to un-suspend them as I meet them. But the process is almost as time consuming as inputting the words directly, and with the added drawback that I don’t get the boring but useful review consisting in writing those words and their translations myself with all those various annotations that you tend to add when you build your own deck. With your imported decks (for Norwegian, for instance), how do you behave when you meet a totally new word? Do you suspend the card until you meet it “in the wild” or do you try to learn it by brute-force memorization? I sure can’t do the latter! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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