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Ellasevia’s TAC 2011: Team Ohana | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5336 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 385 of 392 30 December 2011 at 12:37am | IP Logged | ||
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Hi, I tried to look up your and Sprachprofi's spreadsheets, as they seem to have worked well for you, but I just get a "page not found" on both of them. Do you know how I could get something similar?
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6144 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 386 of 392 30 December 2011 at 11:35pm | IP Logged | ||
Sure! I just finished creating a new one for myself for 2012 and I've uploaded it HERE. You can download it and adapt it for yourself. I made several changes from last year's, including a space to list time spent on Anki over the course of the week so that it can be factored into the total study time. I've also switched from a timekeeping system based around half an hour as one unit to one which uses a minute as the basic unit. Much simpler. I hope it works for you! 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6472 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 387 of 392 02 January 2012 at 11:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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My 2012 spreadsheet can be found at
http://www.learnlangs.com/temp/WORKING_2012.ods 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6144 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 388 of 392 02 January 2012 at 11:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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2011 Final Evaluation
[I started writing this post on New Year’s Eve, but then got caught up in the festivities and some other stuff that was going on, and didn’t have a chance to finish writing this until now.] Well, we’ve reached the end of 2011. As I write this sentence, there are only an hour and 33 minutes left before 2012 (in my time zone, at least). Time is a funny thing – it does not seem like long ago when I was sitting here last New Year’s Eve and writing about my Esperanto vs. Polish dilemma. And yet, it seems like ages and ages ago and so much has happened since then. This past year, 2011, was interesting to say the least. I suppose the best way to describe it is as a whirlwind of change, excitement, pain, hope, and new experiences. This did not always leave much room for my language studies, but I do think it was worth it because of the many positive things that came out of this year. In the last update I promised a final weekly update before the year-end summary. However, I’m going to do away with the weekly update since I didn’t do any studying aside from Anki reviews (which I am going to count for study time in 2012) this past week. The rest of the summary of 2011 continues below; I just had to insert that explanation in here somewhere. Let’s begin the evaluation of 2011 with the final figures for study time: TOTAL FOR 2011: 575.5 hours 
Days highlighted in light blue were days when I did at least some language study (not including Anki). Now let’s move onto goals, and whether or not I achieved them. First, I must admit that have lost much of the faith that I once had in the CEFR system. Without a concrete example of what the levels mean in the context of myself, I really cannot make a proper evaluation; the descriptions are just too ambiguous. That said, any mentions of CEFR levels in the explanations below are rough estimates at best.  SPANISH: C2, Near-Native Fluency
I did very little work with Spanish this year at all. I spoke with or wrote to people usually at least a few times a week in Spanish, and occasionally did my Spanish Anki reviews. I don't think I've improved much, if at all, this year, but there is certainly still room for improvement. Because I haven't has as many opportunities to speak as much in the past couple years, my speaking in particular has definitely gotten a bit rusty and sometimes I just want to cover my ears when I hear myself speaking Spanish because of all the stupid mistakes that slide off my tongue, even though I know how things should be said.  FRENCH: C1-C2, Advanced Fluency
I did about 50 hours of active French study this year, and do believe that I had made some noticeable progress. I even got a 5 on the AP French Exam in May despite not having taken French at school in a year. Unfortunately, I have done almost nothing with the language since I finished reading Harry Potter this summer so things have gotten a bit rusty, particularly my speaking. Still, I do think that progress has been made and that it can be regained with a little extra effort.  PORTUGUESE: C1-C2, Advanced Fluency
Goodness, I seriously neglected my Portuguese this year. I spent about 10 hours on it total, not including a few occasions when I had a chance to speak it with natives of Brazil or Portugal. I set the goals of regaining some passion for it and perhaps switching my usage to the European dialect. Since I did not work on it almost at all, not very much changed in terms of my enthusiasm for it (although I got very excited when a friend of mine decided to learn it, and I was very enthusiastic about helping her). When I speak, it is a little closer to the European sound than before, but still very Brazilian-sounding. There is definitely still room for progress here.  ITALIAN: B2-C1, Basic/Advanced Fluency
The story of my Italian is an even sadder tale than that of my Spanish or Portuguese. I spent almost no time on Italian over the course of the year and as a result my abilities worsened to the point where I would not dare say that I speak it anymore. I can still understand it and speak some, but that is mostly because it is so close to the other Romance languages I know.  GREEK: C1-C2, Advanced Fluency
I spent about 60 hours on Greek this year and it was second only to Dutch in the amount of total study time. Thankfully, that time did not go to waste and I have definitely made tangible progress in Greek. I communicated with ease while I was in Greece for a month this summer, and successfully finished reading my first novel (and am about halfway through the second one, but haven’t even looked at that in months). I would not award the title of C1 or Advanced Fluency to myself just yet, but I think that would be a reasonable expectation for 2012.  GERMAN: C1, Advanced Fluency
As with Greek, I have made definite progress in German since the beginning of the year. I spent about 50 hours studying German on my own, but I also had several hours of German classes at school each week, which especially contributed to my improved spoken fluency. I do not remember using a single one of the courses that I listed for German on the first page of this log, but instead did more work with native materials and improved my vocabulary with those. As with French, I got a 5 on the AP German Exam in May. At this point I would award myself the title of C1 in German (success!), but I’m unsure about Advanced Fluency. Maybe I’ll change my mind in the coming days.  ESPERANTO: B2, Basic Fluency
Up until a few days ago and with the exception of one day in mid-August, I did not spend any time on Esperanto at all this year and took on Polish instead.  SWEDISH: B2, Basic Fluency
I made considerable progress in Swedish in the first months of 2011, enough that I upgraded it to Basic Fluency on here (success!). However, things have gotten very busy since then and I’ve scarcely had time to review my Swedish Anki deck. As a result, my level in Swedish has sunk quite a bit, almost enough that I considered setting it back at “Intermediate” on here. I'm disappointed at losing so much of my hard-earned Swedish, but I'm hopeful that it will be quick to return, so bringing my Swedish back up to a respectable level is one of my goals for 2012.  SWAHILI: B2, Basic Fluency
I officially stopped studying Swahili at the end of April after realizing that it was a hopeless cause, but I really hadn’t worked on it at all since the beginning of March. Spurred by having written my main college essay on studying Swahili and traveling to Tanzania, I did start to reactivate it for the 6WC in November and have managed to clock in about 20 hours of Swahili study this year. Thankfully all of that Swahili was buried somewhere in the depths of my mind and came flooding back once I started studying again, so I have managed to regain a low B1 level without too much effort. Swahili will be one of my focus languages in 2012.  JAPANESE: B1, High Intermediate
Having just read over the CEFR levels once again, I found that B1 perfectly describes my current level in Japanese (success!). I spent over 50 hours studying Japanese on my own over the course of the year, in addition to having several hours of Japanese class at school per week. My partner and I also got first place for level three at the Colorado Japan Cup in April. Hopefully 2012 will be the year when I finally bring my Japanese up to a fluent level. JAPANESE: Solid knowledge of all 常用漢字
My second goal for Japanese in 2011 was to relearn all of the 常用漢字 (~2000 everyday use kanji). While I can still recognize and read a good portion of them, I can only produce a few hundred of them myself. This is due to not drilling myself on them enough in Anki, which reflects back on my horribly lax use of Anki in general all year long. I have sought to remedy that in 2012 by allowing myself to count Anki reviews as study time so that I have some incentive to work on them.  DUTCH: B2, Basic Fluency
Dutch was the language that I spent the most time on – over 80 hours – in 2011, which was a complete surprise considering that I only intended to focus on it for the month of January and then let it be a minor side project. I just fell in love with the Dutch language – how it looks, how it sounds – and with the Netherlands. I would guess that I’m around B2 in Dutch at this point and have already awarded myself the title of Basic Fluency (success!). I’d like to continue to improve my Dutch in 2012.  ROMANIAN: B2, Basic Fluency
Sadly, this goal fell flat. I only studied a total of 14 hours of Romanian this year and officially stopped studying at the end of April, when I just didn’t have enough time to dedicate to it and when I learned that I wouldn’t be able to go to Romania after all as I had planned. I still love Romanian and although I’m not including it as a target language for TAC 2012, I do intend to pursue it sometime in the future.  RUSSIAN: B1, High Intermediate
I think my Russian is in a similar situation to my French. Like French, I spent about 50 hours on Russian in 2011 and felt like I had made real progress, but due to serious neglect in the past several months I have lost a lot of that progress. I would guess that I am currently at a low B1 level in Russian, which although is certainly better than where I started at the beginning of the year, it is not quite where I wanted to be with Russian by now.  PERSIAN: B1, High Intermediate
Persian was a real disappointment this year. I was originally on the Persian Team چ and made a lot of amazing progress with the language in the first few months of the year. Unfortunately, like with several other languages, my studies dropped off significantly at that point. I did not do any more studying until mid- to late summer, when I reviewed some of the courses and lessons that I had completed previously, but have not spent any time on Persian since then. As a result I would only classify my level of Persian at about A2, which is definitely not the high intermediate level which I had hoped for. Reading over my beginning-of-the-year summary, though, I found a silver lining – I mentioned that I still was having a lot of trouble reading the Perso-Arabic script. I can proudly say that I made a lot of progress in that area, because even after having neglected Persian for the better part of the year, I feel much more confident with the script and it is no longer giving me any trouble. I will continue to work on Persian as a focus language in 2012.  POLISH: A2, Beginner-Intermediate
Polish was my last-minute addition to my 2011 study plans and I only intended to get up to a strong A2 level in it this year. I worked quite enthusiastically on Polish during the first few months of the year, but because of lack of time and interference with my higher-priority Russian, I had to drop Polish along with a few other languages at the end of April. I was sad to see it go and would like to return to Polish once I have a solid grip on Russian and Croatian.  Keep Wanderlust to a Minimum
I think I was mostly successful in this endeavor and only added three extra languages over the course of the year, all of which I think were justified. Those three were Indonesian, Finnish, and Croatian. Indonesian was temporary because I started it only for the May 6WC, and only ended up doing about five hours of study because of lack of time and motivation. Introducing Finnish in June was my successful strategy for motivating myself for language study in general again, but I really haven’t done anything with it since August. Lastly, Croatian was added around the middle of November because of the high chance of me going to Croatia next year on an exchange program, which has now been confirmed. I also dabbled lightly in a few languages over the course of the year, namely Arabic, Georgian, Hebrew, Hmong, Hungarian, Korean, and Mandarin. In addition to those official goals, I should also mention what I’ve accomplished for Finnish and Croatian, which were not included:  FINNISH
As I mentioned above, I began studying Finnish in June in order to make myself more motivated again to study languages in general. The idea behind the strategy was that I usually get very excited about new languages, so introducing a shiny new one, particularly one which I had been eyeing for a long time like Finnish, would make me have a better attitude toward my language learning. Of course, I also wanted to learn Finnish in its own right because I consider it among my favorite languages aesthetically-speaking. I finished the first few lessons of TY Finnish and about 30 from Le Finnois Sans Peine, and was well on my way to building a foundation in this beautiful language. Unfortunately I have not had time to work on it at all since August, but it will be a part of my next TAC in 2012.  CROATIAN
I only began studying Croatian a little over a month ago in anticipation that I would be going to live in Croatia next year for an exchange program. I was awarded the spot and will leave for Croatia in August 2012. In the meantime, I’ve made a start at learning Croatian. It’s not too difficult in terms of grammar or vocabulary because of my prior experience with Russian and Polish, but I am having some trouble with the stress and the distinctive pitch accent. I would only give myself the title of A1+ at best, but I hope to make lots of progress in the language before moving to Croatia in a little over half a year. I believe that’s all that I need to talk about for my 2011 studies. I’d like to thank everyone for the time they’ve spent reading my log, especially those who took the time to provide support, corrections, advice, and feedback over the course of the year. I’d also like to thank my wonderful teammates and congratulate them on winning the TAC! I wish everyone all the best with their language studies and everything else in your lives in 2012! I will be posting a new log within the next couple days for my TAC 2012 Ne Nur Team. Edited by ellasevia on 03 January 2012 at 5:31pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ReneeMona Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5337 days ago 864 posts - 1274 votes Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2 Studies: French | Message 389 of 392 03 January 2012 at 3:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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Congratulations on a great year, Philip! I have to admit that I feel a little smug to see
Dutch as the winning language of 2011. As you already know (but it bears repeating), I have loved reading your log and being your team mate and I look forward to doing the exact same things in 2012! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6785 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 390 of 392 03 January 2012 at 8:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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You continue to blow my mind, Philip. I wish 2012 to be a less "disappointing" year for
you. I actually spent way more time on languages this year than you (I don't have the exact numbers but 1000 is a good ballpark), but I count things like watching tv even when I only really listen and even that without much commitment. I downplay intensity so I can keep it going, that's what I tell myself. I also do way too much gold plating which is to say sticking with the same book or program or whatever long after the point where it's teaching me a lot, simply to "get the last few drops off the bottom". I need to learn to focus on what's efficient (not merely effective), but that's a big change of mindset that shows up in many aspects of life. Anyway, unplanned rambling aside, hope you have a good time in Croatia! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Jinx Triglot Senior Member Germany reverbnation.co Joined 5695 days ago 1085 posts - 1879 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Catalan, Dutch, Esperanto, Croatian, Serbian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish, Yiddish | Message 391 of 392 12 January 2012 at 12:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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Fantastic summary post, Philip! I continue to be awfully impressed by your talent, dedication, and organization. Also, you may like to know that your exciting news about Croatia was, for me, the "straw that broke the camel's back" – in that it was the final event in a string of recent events that finally convinced me to start learning this language too. So I guess I should thank you for that... ;)
Congratulations on winning the TAC and best wishes for a wonderful 2012! :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6144 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 392 of 392 16 January 2012 at 4:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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@ReneeMona: Dank je wel, Renee! Ik kan hetzelfde tegen jou zeggen. Ik ook kijk ernaar uit!
@numerodix: Thanks to you too, numerodix! I'm adopting something more similar to your method of counting time in 2012, so hopefully it will work out for me a bit better. Good luck to you in 2012! @Jinx: Thank you for the compliments, Jinx, although I can't say that I'd agree about any of those supposed qualities of mine. :) And molim! I'm looking forward to watching your progress in Croatian this year! Sretno! EDIT: Just in case I forgot to mention it before, here is the link to my new 2012 log. Edited by ellasevia on 16 January 2012 at 4:31pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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