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Ruskivyetr’s TAC ’11: Team Ł | ||
Tags: Georgian | Swahili | Icelandic | Farsi/Persian | Polish | Norwegian | Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC) | Russian | German | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| ruskivyetr Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5481 days ago 769 posts - 962 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Russian, Polish, Modern Hebrew | Message 25 of 77 30 January 2011 at 6:33am | IP Logged | ||
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Starts: 1/30/11 End: 12/31/11 Languages: 1. German 2. Russian 3. Polish 4. Farsi 5. Swahili This log has not really gotten off the ground at all, and I’m a bit disappointed in the progress I’ve made. I’ve decided to start anew, hopefully keeping this new spark strong. I’ve been studying, I just don’t really post my progress, and it’d be nice to actually post my progress and see how much better and more advanced my skills in my language become. Hopefully I can attempt to actually reach my goals, which I will restate here. I hopefully will actually be able to follow a schedule, as my personal schedule is actually already full. I have ZERO time to do anything languages wise, which is why I’m going to have to compromise. My average day consists of about 45 minutes of uninterrupted free time. If I cut into the 6 hours I allow myself to sleep, I can make that 45 minutes a good two hours, which I am planning on doing. Being an insomniac, this won’t be much trouble as half of the 7 hours I’m usually in bed, I’m actually sleeping for about only 4 (the other 3 are spent trying to get asleep :). My studying during this time will be entirely focused and extremely intense, as I will not be able to waste a second. I will also utilize my lunch period to do some extra practice since I don’t usually eat lunch. P.S. I used to be really limited with the amount of studying I would do due to my busy schedule, but now I’m going dead extreme. I’m not going to mess around anymore. I actually enjoy my languages, and I want to be able to reach my goals. OH and study sessions will NOT consist of entering vocabulary into Anki. That will be done during my lunch periods. Deutsch: Goal: C1 by the summer, if not, then by the end of the summer. Description: German is a very important language for me. When I was little, my Grandpa (my mother’s stepfather) spoke to me in German. I would be sitting in my highchair, and he would be in the kitchen doing something (like always). My parents did not realize what he was doing until my second or third word was in German. My mother attempted to foster and nourish this second native language (she understands German, but only speaks a little). Until the age of five or six, I think that I was fully bilingual. Moving far away from my grandparents signalled the end of my bilingualism, and the increasing dominance of my English. Fast forward to a few years ago. My interest in languages grew more and more, and by the time I turned 9 or 10, I bought a German grammar book for English speakers, and put names and explanations for the things I knew in my rapidly deteriorating secondary native language. I managed to hone my language skills and maintain a very good level for someone in my situation. I used a variety of books, movies, and FSI to get my German to a level where I felt that I had improved past the abilities my 5 year old bilingual self. Fast forward to today, and I’m taking the highest German level at my school (for the sake of an easy A), and reading high level books in my own time. I’d like to improve my writing, which is why I will use Lang-8 for submissions. I will be working as much as I need to through Hammer’s German Grammar, and I will attempt to complete my vocabulary book (“Mastering German Vocabulary”) by the summer. I’m also visiting my grandparents much more in the next few weeks, so I’m going to speak with my granddad as much as possible. I am not sure if I will be able to return to Germany this summer, so I’m just going to wait and see. I wish to take the TestDaF as soon as possible, so I will also be researching testing dates and application dates for that. Materials: -Hammer’s German Grammar -Mastering German Vocabulary -Native Materials Русский: Goal: C1 by the end of the year. Description: I fell in love with Russian for reasons I cannot remember. For a while it has been lying dormant in my mind, as I’ve been desperately trying to bring up the pace I was learning it at last year (about right before the summer). At that time my main book from which I learned was “Cortina Russian”. Throughout that whole time, and throughout the summer (from working with various books), I managed to get to a highish A2 level. Unfortunately, with the start of the new school year this past fall, my Russian suffered severely. I’ve barely managed to maintain my level of it. My goals are ambitious, but I think hard work will make quick work of the CEFR levels. I plan on working through The Princeton Russian course completely (I’m currently fast tracking it through the first chapters, which have about 11 lessons each), alongside my Schaum’s Grammar book, and a vocabulary book I intend to buy with an up and coming purchase of a couple of language books (which I will discuss below later in the post). I would also like to use my Russian reader that I have. It’s quite handy, and I think it’d make a great addition to my studies. I also intend to possibly use Cortina Russian for some grammatical exercises as those helped me exponentially in the times when my Russian was strong. Materials: -Princeton Russian Course -Schaum’s Russian Grammar -Schaum’s Russian Vocabulary* -Cortina Russian -Russian Reader -Either Modern Russian: An Advanced Grammar Course, or A Comprehensive Russian Grammar (Blackwell Reference Grammars)* Polski: Goal: B2 by the end of the year. Description: Polish is a language, like German, that is VERY near and dear to my heart. If you notice in my German paragraph, I mentioned that the grandfather who speaks German with me is my mother’s STEPfather. My mother’s real parents are both Polish Jews, born in Poland, narrowly escaping the Holocaust when immigrating to America. Unfortunately, mój dziadek (my grandpa) is now dead, and my grandmother is the only surviving family member who speaks Polish better than English (the only one in America, the rest live in Poland). Not only do I have her to speak to/listen to her rant, but I have plenty of Polish friends who come from Poland (so they don’t speak Ponglish), who I love to hang out with. I actually have picked up a lot of words from being exposed to so much Polish (mostly slang/swears). I plan on using Spoken World Polish, and my Polish speaking friends and family (my family visits often from Poland). I need another book/grammar book so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I have some stuff that I’ve downloaded from UZ Translations, but that’s all in the depths of my hard drive, so I’ll have to search. I do know that I have Intermediate Polish: A Grammar and Workbook, so I’ll work from that as soon as possible. Chung kindly pointed me to a story that has audio earlier in this log, so once I reach Lesson 5 or 6 of Spoken World, I’m going to take the bold jump and try to read this story with a dictionary, that I still have yet to purchase. NOTICE: I know that my ambitions for Polish are very large, however keep in mind that with a text or two and a short car ride, I can be in a completely Polish speaking environment for HOURS at a time, so I’m counting on that (and my Russian), to pull me through relatively quickly. :فارسی Goal: High A2/Low B1 by the end of the year. Description: Rewind to like last year (I forget specifically when). I started Farsi with GREAT enthusiasm (and yes I will be calling it Farsi), yet I didn’t have enough room on my language plate. Fast forward until the beginning of this month. I started secretly studying Farsi again (away from this forum) to see where it would go. I only studied for a few minutes at a time, however I LOVE it again, and I’m hoping to keep this spark. I can already read the Perso-Arabic alphabet so there isn’t a problem with that. I will be using Spoken World Farsi, and Teach Yourself Modern Persian (which is NOWHERE near as good as Spoken World). I plan on acquiring a dictionary and a grammar sometime in the near future, but I don’t know when that will be specifically. My goals aren’t really set in stone, I just want to finish “beginner’s learning” (Spoken World, Teach Yourself, etc.) in a timely fashion, and then see what happens from there. Materials: -Spoken World Farsi -Teach Yourself Modern Persian Kiswahili: Goal: Lower/middle A2 Description: Yes. A completely different language family. Something I have not had ANY experience with WHATSOEVER. I’m a complete Green-foot to this part of the world, and I’m SUPER excited to start with it. I saw Ellasevia communicating in the Swahili thread in the multilingual lounge, and it absolutely fascinated me. I’d LOVE to visit Kenya someday, and I’m positively in love with the idea of learning it. To start, I’m going to do a 2 week trial period with working it into my language schedule, and see whether or not I shall continue with it after that. My hopes are to get to a lower A2, probably more in the high A1 range. I plan on using Spoken World Swahili and Teach Yourself Swahili, BOTH of which I still have to purchase. I’m SUPER excited to get started :). Instead of starting this week and next week with the two books, I’m going to utilize online resources to get the hang of pronunciation, basic phrases, and EXTREMELY basic grammar for my two week trial period. Materials: -Spoken World Swahili* -Teach Yourself Swahili* *Still need to purchase. So as you can see, I’m being extremely ambitious, and hopefully tightening the noose on my free time will actually force me to study. I’m going to make smaller, shorter term goals. I have found that doing this helps immensely when learning a language. The schedule below indicates my language schedule for this week and next week (and the rest of the school year if I decide to continue with Swahili). Remember, I have two hours for each day (not including entering Anki etc.) Sunday: Deutsch (1 hour), Русский (.5 hour), Polski (.5 hour) Monday: (1 hour) فارسی, Deutsch (.5 hour), Русский (.5 hour) Tuesday: Kiswahili (1 hour), (.5 hour) فارسی, Deutsch (.5 hour) Wednesday: Polski (1 hour), Kiswahili (.5 hour), (.5 hour) فارسی Thursday: Русский (1 hour), Polski (.5 hour), Kiswahili (.5 hour) Friday: Deutsch, Русский, Polski, فارسی, Kiswahili (all for .5 hour) (I have a little extra time on Fridays) Saturday: Deutsch (2 hours 45 minutes*), Русский (2 hours), Polski (1 hour), (.5 hour) فارسی, Kiswahili (.5 hour) *This German in the morning is due to a native German speakers class I attend every Saturday morning. Deutsch: A total of 4 hours and 45 minutes a week Русский: A total of 4 hours and thirty minutes Polski: A total of 3 hours and thirty minutes فارسی: A total of 3 hours Kiswahili: A total of 3 hours This of course, does not include Anki studying time, nor does it include preparations such as typing stuff into Anki, and writing here for lesson plans, or immersion activities. Edited by ruskivyetr on 30 January 2011 at 6:57am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6142 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 26 of 77 30 January 2011 at 7:28am | IP Logged | ||
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Ich freue mich sehr, dass du jetzt Swahili und Persisch lernst! Sie sind wirklich prachtvolle Sprachen. Es ist aber Schade, dass du Neugriechisch nicht mehr lernst (aber wahrscheinlich wäre es zu viel, beide Neu- und Altgriechisch gleichzeitig zu lernen). Ich habe auch gemerkt, dass deine Mitkämpfer bisher nicht sehr aktiv sind. Wenn du es wünscht, darfst du nach der Persischen Mannschaft „چ“ umschalten. Dieses Jahr haben wir nur zwei Personen, also es wäre wunderbar, einen anderen Mitkämpfer zu haben!
Ukikuwa na nafasi, utuandike ujumbe kwa Kiswahili Ukumbini Mwenye Lugha Nyingi! Tutafurahi sana kuzungumza nawe, ingawa hutaweza kusema vitu vyingi. (Wenn du Zeit hast, schreib uns eine Meldung auf Swahili im Multilingual Lounge! Wir werden sehr froh sein, mit dir zu sprechen, obwohl du nicht viel sagen kannst.) Edited by ellasevia on 30 January 2011 at 7:35am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ruskivyetr Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5481 days ago 769 posts - 962 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Russian, Polish, Modern Hebrew | Message 27 of 77 31 January 2011 at 12:07am | IP Logged | ||
Vielen Dank Ellasevia. Ich warte zwei Wochen oder so und dann kann ich entscheiden, ob ich das machen möchte. Also, to anyone remotely interested in reading this, I will update my progress once a week on Saturdays, however I will still write within about certain things etc. and state what my languages are for the day. I have developed a language tracker with a spreadsheet, so I can enter in the amount of time I study a certain language each day, and then it calculates the total amount of time I study that language per week, and then it calculates how much of the language I study overall (in hours). I calculated how much of each language I SHOULD be studying, and I set it up in a table and programmed it so when I enter in a number, it automatically calculates the percentage of my progress in reaching my goals. This is very similar to what Ellasevia is using, however I made mine all alone, and it does not have as many features :). Well I'm about half done with studying for the day, and then I have to go do some work. Perhaps later I will write a bit in German. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Vos Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5566 days ago 766 posts - 1020 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Dutch, Polish | Message 28 of 77 31 January 2011 at 9:33am | IP Logged | ||
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Good luck with all your languages ruskivyetr! Especially your Polish! Looking forward to following your progress in
this language and seeing how you find it's intrinsic complexity and difficulty, or so I've read. Hope to be joining you a bit later in the year with this one. Powodzenia! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ruskivyetr Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5481 days ago 769 posts - 962 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Russian, Polish, Modern Hebrew | Message 29 of 77 31 January 2011 at 4:04pm | IP Logged | ||
Dziękuję! You SHOULD learn it! It's so much fun :)! It is quite difficult! I find it harder than Russian actually, but maybe that's just because I'm not as experienced with it. Edited by ruskivyetr on 01 February 2011 at 8:41pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| strikingstar Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5173 days ago 292 posts - 444 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Cantonese, Swahili Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written) | Message 30 of 77 31 January 2011 at 4:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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Bahati nzuri kwa masoma yako ya Kiswahili. Ninatumaini kwamba utafurahia lugha hii na
utaendelea kuijifunza baada ya wiki mbili. Good luck with your Swahili studies. I hope that you will enjoy the language and will continue with it after the two weeks :) Edited by strikingstar on 31 January 2011 at 5:00pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ruskivyetr Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5481 days ago 769 posts - 962 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Russian, Polish, Modern Hebrew | Message 31 of 77 31 January 2011 at 5:49pm | IP Logged | ||
Asante :). I'm very excited to get started. I hope to continue it :); it seems like a very fun language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Élan Senior Member United States Joined 5444 days ago 165 posts - 211 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Persian | Message 32 of 77 01 February 2011 at 6:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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Good luck with your studies! I am (only) studying Persian, so I will be watching that part of your log with much enthusiasm!
I don't know if you've seen it, but you might want to check out John Mace's Persian Grammar. I adore it. I often feel like TYMP and Spoken World Farsi leave out decent grammar explanations. I refer to Mace's book all the time to get clarification of particular grammar points. I think he does an excellent job explaining the grammar in a very straightforward way. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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