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Rob’s 2011 UNITED NATIONS ANNIHILATIONS | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| robsolete Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5385 days ago 191 posts - 428 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin | Message 1 of 9 04 January 2011 at 1:41am | IP Logged | ||
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Overview
After avoiding TAC for the last year and a half, it's time to get serious. I recently started a Masters' program for Applied Linguistics, which I enjoy, but which has ironically set back my language studies. It doesn't have to be that way, I just let it, because I figure "I'm already studying something." Which is absurd. So, no more excuses. It's time for the UNITED NATIONS ANNIHILATIONS. The Languages As could be guessed by the title, my grand, 10-year goal is to study the six UN languages to a high level. Since I'm in university, I figure that now is a good time to build a foundation in all of them, so that when I graduate and have time and opportunity to travel abroad, I'll be able to make the most out of my experiences in almost any corner of the world. English My native language. I have a BA in it. But there's always room for improvement. As a future teacher, I really want to do some concentrated grammatical study of my mother tongue, so that I know it inside and out. I don't quite have many resources for this yet, but will be shopping around for a good reference grammar (recommendations are most welcome). Spanish B2, aiming for a strong C1. Will take the B2 test in the summer. My first foreign language, recently revived after a few years of neglect. My reading is pretty strong, and my writing has recovered decently. That said, I need to focus on more of the details in composition, and need to work the most on my conversational abilities and listening comprehension (especially with more "difficult" dialects like Cuban/Dominican). I've finished the Assimil courses for Spanish, so now I'm moving on to native materials and native speakers! I have a subscription to LoMasTv.com to work on my comprehension, and have been hacking my way through Cien Años de Soledad slowly but surely. My goal is to finish this monster of a book (which should nearly double my vocabulary coupled with Anki) and also read the entire New Testament in Spanish. Lastly, I want to read one article on Latin American current events on El País just about every day. I also have been renting Spanish movies and trying to watch without subtitles, with some success. Lastly, I have started to make a few hispanohablante friends and am trying to expand my social circle. Really, this year I want to go from studying Spanish to integrating it into my life: the language, the culture, the people, everything. French A2, aiming for B2. In truth, my French motivation wavers. There aren't many speakers near where I live, so I get discouraged and distracted. So I've decided to more or less give up on talking for now and focus on reading, reading, reading obscene amounts of French. I'm happy for French to be an essentially literary language for me at the moment, so I'm aiming to build a mountain of passive vocabulary that--if I need to--I can then try to activate later. I do enjoy reading French literature, though, and consider it a great portal for looking into North and West Africa. I'm about halfway through Assimil's "French with Ease," and would like to finish that and "Using French" (perhaps via Spanish) by the end of the year. I also have a book of bilingual short stories to finish, and would also like to read the New Testament in French (I'm not rabidly religious, but the Bible is a really fantastic tool and freely available). I'd also aim to watch all of the French In Action videos, just to work on listening comprehension. After that I'll move on to renting more French films and trying to make them work without subtitles. French music is also fantastic, so I'd like to learn more. Lastly, I'd like to do my best to read a French news article about African current affairs every day. And perhaps work on some writing composition in this log and/or through a pen-pal exchange. In the end, French is not my greatest priority, but considering my native English and ever-expanding Spanish, I feel like an idiot for not investing time in it. Besides, the wealth of cultural output from Francophone countries is totally worth it, nevermind that French has a lot of great resources for. . . Arabic A1/2, aiming for B1. Ah yes. My muse, my mistress, my punisher. My linguistic holy grail. Arabic, we've been fighting for seven or eight months now, and you yield very little. But I swear that, be it with my last breath, I will some day conquer you. Uhm, anyway. Writing is my main focus at present, as is learning vocabulary regarding everyday things and politics/current affairs. By the end of the year I'd like to truly understand the verb system and the case system. I'd also like to improve my reading speed, which is rather sad at the moment. I've just about finished the crap-tastic Assimil "Arabic With Ease." Considering that Book 2 was never printed, I'm happy to switch over to other options. I have a pretty nice book by Dover Publications which has been helpful with the writing. I'd like to finish that off as well. On a short vacation in Egypt I picked up a bilingual Arabic/English Bible, so I'd like to at least finish the four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) in that. I also got a great Quran application for my mobile that lets you download and play recitations of the readings, so I'll be playing with that on and off when I feel like freaking out people on the subway. I have a Lebanese tutor that I have met with about a dozen times, but I'm hoping to increase this to weekly, or at least 3x/month. Arabic is definitely the most difficult language I've ever looked at, but it's addictive. I'm putting off dialect study unless I get a chance to travel in the region again, but if I can get to the point of independently reading a newspaper article or children's book by the end of the year, I'll be overjoyed. Chinese A1, aiming for B1. At my university I work as an ESL tutor, and about 50% of my students are Mandarin speakers. Thus I decided now would be a great time to start learning, since I'm literally swimming in Chinese people. I'm taking it slow, focusing on speaking and listening but finally ready to dabble in characters. I'd like to complete the two Assimil books for Chinese by the end of the year, and learn to properly write all of the characters inside (about 800). I'll probably get one of the "Character a Day" calendars and do that, too, just for practice. I have the first book of the Dover course for Chinese, which I'd also like to work my way through. I'm also most likely going to pick out one of my students for a language exchange, so I can get some tutoring 2-3x/month. Russian A0, aiming for A2 Russian is, sadly, my lowest priority. I've only met a handful of Russians in the area, and the chances of setting up a real language exchange/tutoring situation without big money are kind of dim. So my expectations are low. I'd like to gain facility with the Cyrillic script, get a handle on pronunciation, and get a basic grasp of the verb and case systems. I picked up "El Ruso Sin Esfuerzo," which I had to special order here in the US, then promptly lost the book on the train! Now I have to order another one. So until I get the book it'll just be blind shadowing for pronunciation. I'd like to finish that this year, then move on to some bilingual short story books and maybe a Bible. I also have a friend that, while not a native speaker, has lived in Russia and studies Russian literature. So if I can meet with her for informal "help-alongs" once a month or so that would be good. But to be honest Russian is important to me, but not right now. But I'd still like to build a foundation and to have at least 10-15 minutes of daily contact with the language at least. The Battle Begins! So enough talking! I'm going to try to do this log at least weekly, hopefully writing updates in at least Spanish and French (and maybe the others too as my skills develop). Your corrections, advice, and well-wishes are so welcome and important! Edited by robsolete on 04 January 2011 at 1:42am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tommus Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5866 days ago 979 posts - 1688 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish | Message 2 of 9 04 January 2011 at 2:18am | IP Logged | ||
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Good luck and good success with your noble 10 year goal. Here is an HTLAL link that you might find interesting. You may be the first HTLAL member to achieve that little challenge.
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=19827&PN=1 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6470 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 3 of 9 04 January 2011 at 11:05am | IP Logged | ||
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Are you tackling all languages at the same time? I used to do that, but now I recommend
focussing on two at a time and switching every three months or so. See my 2010 TAC log for details. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| noriyuki_nomura Bilingual Octoglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 5340 days ago 304 posts - 465 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Japanese, FrenchC2, GermanC2, ItalianC1, SpanishB2, DutchB1 Studies: TurkishA1, Korean | Message 4 of 9 04 January 2011 at 11:09am | IP Logged | ||
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I love the way how you said "hacking my way through Cien Años de Soledad", hehehe..it sounds so cool!
Good luck with your UN annihilation challenge!!! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| robsolete Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5385 days ago 191 posts - 428 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin | Message 5 of 9 04 January 2011 at 1:32pm | IP Logged | ||
Yes and no. Basically my goal is to focus on one or two intensively, while making sure to give the others at least 15 minutes a day to maintain them (or, in the very beginning stages, I find that this is even enough time to learn new stuff). I have two hours worth of train ride in my usual daily commute, so this is my preferred time to squeeze in my non-priority languages. Like you say, I'll probably shift my priority languages every few months. So my priority this year will probably be Spanish, first and foremost, with the second "priority" slot rotating between Arabic and Mandarin. French occupies a weird space in that I'm going for quantity over quality. . . I just want to read it for now, so I'm just going to throw French in front of my eyes often, without worrying about accuracy, comprehension, or speaking ability. Russian will just sort of putter along, slowly growing unless something in my life changes. It's ambitious, but I guess I figure that if I'm going to maintain six languages throughout my life, I should get used to fitting them all in throughout the course of a day. I lost a lot of Spanish through neglect, and I don't want to do that again. After reading your fantastic log, I've decided to blatantly copy your strategy and divide my year up into 3-month segments. It makes a lot of sense. January-March: Spanish, Arabic March-June: Spanish, Mandarin July-September: Mandarin, Arabic September-December: French, Russian Since I'm studying to take the DELE in summer, six months of attacking Spanish is just what needs to happen. After that I can relax a bit and use my free summer time (with no grad school classes) to attack the heavies: Mandarin and Arabic. French and Russian will tick along in the background, but will finally get their due towards the end of the year, after nine months of building passive skills and vocabulary a little at a time. Thanks for the great read! Edited by robsolete on 04 January 2011 at 2:15pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| robsolete Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5385 days ago 191 posts - 428 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin | Message 6 of 9 05 January 2011 at 3:33am | IP Logged | ||
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Still in the process of setting up a more detailed time-keeping record for my studies,
but a brief summary so far. SP: I've re-read the first two Chapters of CAdS, understanding quite a bit more vocabulary thanks to the Anki decks I've made for them. Next up in making a Chapter 3 deck, then on and on! I've also watched a few music videos on LoMas, and am trying to get through a very, very difficult Argentinian soap opera called "Cuatro Amigas," a blatant Sex and the City ripoff. Also signing up for a language exchange and getting in contact with a Dominican friend to practice. AR: Since I lost my Arabic book on the train last week, I've actually been very happy that I scanned a PDF copy. Since I only had 11 lessons left, I've just decided to Scriptorium the remaining lessons and make my own book! This has been a huge help so far, and I've done 3 of the 11 lessons. It's inspired me enough to, once I finish, maybe go back and Scriptorium the whole thing. FR: In a surge of boredom I read seven lessons of Assimil yesterday, and have been going over them while walking around, audio-only. I actually like this method for French, and it's something I can do without carrying the book around all day. Up to Lesson 60. RU: Since I didn't scan this book before losing it, I went in and ordered another. Should be here in a few weeks. While I wait I did find a PDF version (in French). I figure that since I'm paying for the book TWICE, Assimil can't be mad at me for "pirating" a copy to work on in the meantime. I've done Scriptorium on the first two lessons, and then just walked around listening to audio, like French. MA: I've been doing some of the worksheets in my Dover Chinese course, two so far this week. Will be picking up the Assimils as my main focus again, now that Chinese is getting "back burner" status until March. 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 7 of 9 05 January 2011 at 3:49am | IP Logged | ||
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Seeing your dedication to Arabic, I suggest you use the Al Kitaab series. It has not only DVDs (which I think have
audio). 3 volumes of hardcore studying. Yeah, you would probably like it. If you want to go for a cheaper option (one volume is about $40-$50 and there are three), you could go with Living Language Ultimate Arabic. It has a concise and clear layout for grammar, comes with audio, and it has dialectal studies with their own lessons (of course to be referenced to AFTER completion of MSA). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| robsolete Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5385 days ago 191 posts - 428 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin | Message 8 of 9 07 January 2011 at 12:18am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks very much for the recommendation. I think I might try the Al Kitaab series once
I've fully swallowed the Assimil content and made it through my Dover book. Maybe I'll be able to more or less skip to the second volume at that point, which might defray the costs? I've designated Thursday as my weekly update day. In the past I've ended up spending way too much time on this forum instead of actually studying the damn languages, so I'm not going to update daily--otherwise after I update I'll find something else to comment on, and before you know it. . . Since the New Year: Spanish I've re-read the first three chapters of Cien Años de Soledad, and I've been keeping up with my Anki decks. This weekend I'll try to make a new deck for Chapter 3 (and maybe 4), and press on with la guerra larga. Probably about 2 hours of reading. I've spent approximately 3 hours this week reviewing/blind-shadowing my Assimil Using Spanish tapes on my headphones. After another week or so this won't be of much use and I'll switch to podcasts, but it's helpful for solidifying the content before I move on. I've spent two hours this week watching soap operas and interviews on LoMasTv.com. This is a little less than I'd hoped for, but I'll try to do a little more next week. Also wrote a few e-mails to conversation partners and friends. Spanish is coming along alright, though the denseness of Garcia Marquez is making progress a bit difficult. I should really be reading something less challenging, but I have a sick preoccupation with having a "mountain" to climb, so I'll continue climbing it. LoMasTV is helping with listening comprehension, but as most of the soap operas are Argentine I'm having trouble following the accent as I'm not that familiar with it. Spanish total: 7:00 Arabic I've done Scriptorium on Assimil exercises 28-33. Each one takes me about 30 minutes going slowly, so this totals 2:30 of Scriptorium. 30 minutes each day of listening comprehension on my Assimil exercises, again while walking or on the subway. Going over older exercises at the beginning of the book has been surprisingly useful for activating vocabulary I'd almost forgotten. This should see me through for a few more weeks, but after that I'll probably need to move on to new audio material. Another 2:30. About 1:30 on grammatical exercises in my Dover book. Helpful, but I'm trying to "kill" the Assimil off first. I'll hopefully be meeting with my tutor more often again now that the holidays are over. In general, Arabic is as difficult and slippery as always, though I do feel that my listening comprehension is growing, and I'm able to parse out sounds much better than before. Pronunciation isn't fantastic, but I've done a little bit of quick practice with some of my Arab students and they say they have no trouble understanding me. Maybe they're being nice. First on the list is ordering some stickers for my keyboard so I can finally start typing. I've just been lazy about this, no real reason for not getting to it yet. Once I finish off Assimil, it's on to hacking through the Dover book while trying to find some podcasts for audio stimulation. Arabic total: 6:30 French Read through a glut of Assimil lessons, then have been audio-reviewing them and blind- shadowing them throughout the week. Probably 15-30 minutes a day, call it 2 hours for the week. French total: 2:00 hours Chinese Slow and steady progress, one Assimil per day, about 20 minutes each day. Chinese total: 1:30 hours Russian The usual 15 a day, with a few Scriptoriums of 30 minutes thrown in. Russian total: 2:00 hours Feeling pretty good already! That makes a grand total of 19 hours this week of language study, pretty much a part-time job. As the semester starts at school and work picks up, I'm not sure I'll be able to maintain this pace, but I'm aiming for 15 hours/week as a milestone. Edited by robsolete on 07 January 2011 at 12:20am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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