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TAC 2011- organizing myself for TAC’12 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6085 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes  1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 129 of 161 08 July 2011 at 6:23pm | IP Logged |
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I'm discovering that it's taking me a humongous amount of time to get through ANKI because I keep piling on words and phrases. It's actually a good thing, it just means I don't have time for much reading or grammar study.
I have several decks, "Stuff I pick up" -- which is a dump for all the subtitles I write down from watching DVDs. This is my treasure trove of phrases, idioms, colloquialisms etc. "Michel Thomas" -- started out as "only" Michel thomas (from his review course/scripts online) but I've been piling on sentences in "Michel Thomas fasion". I start out with a card for something small 1. "le voir" then 2. "je vais le voir", 3. "je vais le voir ce soir", and I build from there. Sometimes I have 5 cards for one sentence, depending on how complicated the sentence is. Der Artikel -- grammar deck that I hardly look at. It's to practice the indefinite articles etc. Subjonctif -- collecting my subjonctif verbs and parts. Vocab -- This deck is for adding all the words I get from my reading. I have 600 cards for my Michel Thomas deck. It's gonna get bigger because I found a bunch of easy "I have to know these" - kind of sentences from The Ashcombe School -- really good, basic stuff that I absolutely have to be able to do by the end of july. So I'd better get on it! EDIT: I'm shortening the deadline for my personal challenge: gotta be B1 by the 18th. My mom's coming for a visit on the 19th and goodness knows I won't be able to keep up with ANKI after that. There's a good chance we'll be making a beeline for the Baltic coast Edited by Sunja on 08 July 2011 at 6:47pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6085 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 130 of 161 09 July 2011 at 11:19pm | IP Logged |
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I figure the last two weeks of July will be "down time" to give my brain adequate time to get caught up with all the stuff I keep pumping into it.
I'm getting faster with the easy-beginner sentences from Michel Thomas: sentences like Je voudrais manger quelque chose maintenant parce que j'ai faim I can rattle off pretty well without any major mental strain or hesitation. I have a lot more trouble differenciating between "devrions" and "devrons" or "si je pouvais", "si je pourrais", but I usually make a big, fat red hint on the card to watch the verb forms. I'm improving. I have to keep going strong for the next two weeks. I'm not working and the kids have summer break. My calendar will not be this empty again for a very long time! (Christmas) so I have to take advantage- Let's hope I can keep it up. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6085 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 131 of 161 10 July 2011 at 2:30pm | IP Logged |
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I've made another deck today. This is for production orale, B1, from a book I bought from Amazon.de, a while back. I've found some great material to pack into the deck, different situations that I have to talk my way through:
Situation one: I'm a tourist in Normandie and it's a Saturday. I've parked my car in an area and left it, thinking that parking is free on the weekends. I come back and an agent is putting a ticket on my car. Situation two: I'm passing by a cafe and someone recognizes me and stands up but I don't remember who they are exactly. they invite me to sit down and I accept. Isn't that great? I'm putting everything I can think of in Anki and googling like mad, of course, to find the right words. Once I'm done I'll start reviewing and trying to translate from Eng to French -- according to whatever situation pops up. There's another "situation" where I've contracted plumbing (!) work from somebody and they've charged more than what was on the agreement. I have to call and straighten it out. I'm leaving this one alone for now. That's a bit beyond "B1" and I'm still working on Michel thomas-type sentences. Who can go from Michel Thomas to arguing about contrats de travaux de plomberie? Not me! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6085 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 132 of 161 12 July 2011 at 10:13am | IP Logged |
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Well, every time I get an idea to learn something I "make a deck of it" in Anki. I've got about 7 decks. I've added 1,030 entries over the past 15 days. I'm not adding on as much (it's taking too long to review) but I can't help myself and will probably add on another 500 words this week. Hmmmm, 2000 words would be sweet by the end of the summer...:)
I have one more week of intensive study then I'll be taking a break from French/forum. My mom is coming. My sincere goal is to write one more Aufsatz for my German C2+ log, too, which is lying dormant and I have to go find it. I'll take one full day to write my Aufsatz and that will be good enough for a while. I don't plan to pursue my German studies beyond this Aufsatz-Training course that I'm taking, just so I can push myself farther in French! It was a calculated decision, but I'll profit more from a solid notch in my French belt than a notch in German. German will have to wait until The Goethe Insitut gets their act together in deciding what kind of C2 certifications they want to give in the future. It's way too risky to take the GDS. The GDS will be extinct after Nov. I -really- wanted to be one of the last alumni of that notorious certification, but I haven't pleased my tutor well enough to make me think I can pass the written. At 360 Euros (!) it's too expensive to take and not be absolutely sure of passing! I have some issues with Themaverfehlung+Grammatik that aren't all going to magically go away -- and French is more of what I want to do right here, right now. SO, the plan for this week: keep doing L+R Revue de la Presse and keep scarfing down new words for breakfast, lunch, dinner. one 100/word dication per day to aid in listening, spelling ("Training Französisch" 1./2. Lernjahr, Stark Verlag) read aloud every free moment with ASsimil (random, just open the book and read from it) review Anki decks (translate from Eng to French) until the ability to concentrate is gone all I can do is click the ("Noch Mal")-button on the far left IMPORTANT NOTE TO MYSELF^^: It's pretty important to separate my advanced reading vocabulary (Revue de la Presse) from my "speaking" decks. There are heavy/full decks of setences from Michel Thomas which fall into the 400-word-range. The videos/scripts from the Ashcombe School also fall into this range. (Their videos are all B1.) I'm trying to practice within the 400-word limit as best I can, and not try to go beyond it. (I keep forgetting that just because I have 1000+ entries doesn't mean I've acquired 1000 new words! A lot of the sentences are questions and rephrasings.) Edited by Sunja on 12 July 2011 at 1:35pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6085 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 133 of 161 14 July 2011 at 11:53am | IP Logged |
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Well, I've done nothing this morning except Youtube and HTLAL. There's so many interesting logs and I get so inspired when somebody starts one! (If you could bottle the energy in the first page of a log and sell it, it would be the best pill ever.)
So, this will be my last entry for a few weeks. I'm really going to go at it intensely over the next few days and I don't want to sidetrack myself. After that I'll be going on holiday and won't return until the first week, Aug. No French for two weeks! I've got 1,140 entries in Anki which I'll try to keep translating, ENG-FR. I'm only just grazing the top of the deck, though, because my mistakes quota is so high. SO I've been using little phonetic notes to help me remember the translations faster. I always stumble over word order or I'll lose my train of thought (very tiring, ANKI). "il y en a même" is easier now that I've associated it with "yawn" = "y en a". I can remember that faster than I can the "y before en"-rule. "ce que c'est" comes up in a lot and I would always get it wrong until I associated it with "succe(ss)" Can you explain to me what it is Pouvez vous m'expliquer ce que c'est ? is really easy to remember now. If there's an entry that I can't place a memory aid on I'll simply write it on my forehead. (Actually I write it on a scrap piece of paper and stick it on the computer.) These are just the little shortcuts that I use, for whatever it's worth. Be back in a few weeks. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| JPike1028 Triglot Senior Member United States piketransitions Joined 5397 days ago 297 posts - 337 votes Speaks: English*, French, Italian Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic (Written), Swedish, Portuguese, Czech | Message 134 of 161 14 July 2011 at 12:13pm | IP Logged |
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Sorry if you already addressed this, I've only read the last page of your log, but do you use Assimil as prescribed by
the company or just as a reading aid on the side? I've been using at as per their instructions + MT and found that my French has dramatically improved. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6085 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 135 of 161 14 July 2011 at 2:54pm | IP Logged |
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Hi JPike, thanks for reading! I would also only read the last page of my log -- the rest is history :)
I tried to do Assimil exactly as they say to do (study chapter for chapter and sysematically do the activation phase starting at Lesson 50.) I found that I was starting to memorize the full texts and i thought that was doing me more harm than good, so I stopped. I've learned a lot by doing other things (grammar, other materials) and I've noticed now, when I go back to Assimil, the words resonnate a little better. I'll probably continue to read from the book, but only at random. (That way it's not such a chore to finish.) I've really liked using the MT reviews. That's really helping me to make my own sentences. So Assimil is pricy but I just can't imagine not using it. The cultural contexts are good. I'll probably get the Spanish With Ease, too and go through the same problems I've had with the French With Ease! Edited by Sunja on 14 July 2011 at 2:59pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6085 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 136 of 161 31 July 2011 at 9:24pm | IP Logged |
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wow. I'm discovering how strange it feels coming back after such intense study.
I really took a break and went to Lübeck/Travemünde, about 1600 kilometres away, and got to spend two days: one beautiful sunny day and one windy, stormy day. We lucked out in that it was the Travemünde Woche and there was a lot to see and do. We spent the good, sunny day at the beach and I suprised myself by taking a swim, something that I would have thought only hearty northerners could tolerate -- the water was quite cold! Ah, it was good to get away, even though it was brief. Unfortunately my health has been giving me trouble and I'm having to deal with unpleasant symptoms which take a lot of energy and focus away from my studies. and I'm pretty sure what it is, I just have to get a diagnosis. I have an appointment in three weeks and I'll just have to suffer until then. I'll try not to let it distract me. I tend to start googling symptoms and before I know it I've blown whatever I've got out of proportion just by reading about the symptoms -- bad,bad,bad. So. I plan to start studying again to help redirect my focus. I found a nice, 1985 copy of Using French on Ebay and I'm on lesson 5. The audio is a bit of a bummer -- only cassettes -- but I've read a good portion of the book and I'm really happy with it and I'm going to try to work around the fact that I don't have a way to play back the audio -- aside from using kid's Sing-A-Long Cassette Recorder. That's okay. It was still worth 20 euros. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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