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TAC 2011 - the scholarship is MINE! | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Mistral Diglot Senior Member Poland Joined 5929 days ago 160 posts - 179 votes  1 sounds Speaks: Polish*, English Studies: Mandarin, German | Message 1 of 36 07 January 2011 at 12:40pm | IP Logged |
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Hey!
I'm so happy to take part in TAC 2011! I'm more of a doer than talker so let's make it brief. English Current level: C1 Goal: pass bilingual English matura exam getting at least 75%. Deadline: 6th May Materials: -"SuperMemo Power Words!" (TOEFL vocab, pretty advanced for me) -newspapers, news in general (BBC, Newsweek) -podcast (BBC Documentaries - i love this podcast!) -Longman "Advanced Learners' Grammar" -Virginia Evans "Successful Writing Proficiency" Subgoals: -revise all delayed cards in my Anki deck (so many! :( ) -and keep the deck up-to-date -go through Longman's book -be a successful and proficient writer thanks to Virignia Evans! Japanese Current level: B2? (I haven't use it for over a year and forgot A LOT) Goals: -get a scholarship for undergraduate students in Japan! -be able to survive in Japan for 2 months -pass Nihongo Nouryoku Shiken N2 (or N1 if I suddenly discover some ultra powers to learn languages) Deadline: end of July for the scholarship exams and December for N2/1 Materials: so many! I guess I'm an avid collector of Japanese learners' books. When I use any, I will just add it here Subgoals: -revise all delayed cards in my Anki deck (around 10 000 haha) -keep my Anki up-to-date! -go through my kanji deck (like 8 000 entries, that's gonna take me AGES!). At the moment I want to focuse on reading them rather than writing. Lack of time for that stuff! (not that I'm a lazy person) -converse with my friends from Japan to improve my speaking skills. -improve my reading skills. Okay, and short explanation for those who can't read my mind and don't know what the scholarship is about: Japanese government is so kind as to grant few scholarships to those people who want to study as undergraduates at Japanese universities. All I need to do is pass their exams (which is Mathematics-A aka 数学Ａ, Japanese and English) and do well on the interview. If everything goes smoothly, I will spend next 4/5 years studying there, yay! Wish me luck! Edited by Mistral on 12 March 2011 at 5:38pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Meelämmchen Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5083 days ago 214 posts - 249 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Modern Hebrew | Message 2 of 36 07 January 2011 at 1:09pm | IP Logged |
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Hey, good luck to you! I have a very small English Anki deck myself but I have had serious problems with that and stopped it for the moment. It's for now an failed experiment. It still has nontheless probably 50 words and phrases of the more uncommon vocabulary. And I had massive problems memorizing these few words and phrases althoug having reviewed it quite regularly for some time . But I have to admit that this was my only serious attempt to improve my English. Since I guess that you also added a lot of progressive vocabulary I wondered how that works for you. I would suggest that you also could try watching actively movies and reading 'professional' texts and jot down the words or maybe the whole sentences. Or maybe it is even better to not jod them down and to watch the movie a little bit later again. I don't know. I think that you need a sort of connection to that uncommon words. Maybe it would help that you add especially vocabulary related to your interests. And do the exercises work well?
All that is at least the perspective I spontanously would give if I had to improve my English not living in an English speaking country. And I am really one step ahead from making serious efforts to improve my English. It would be a justification of watching more movies in English. ;) 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Mistral Diglot Senior Member Poland Joined 5929 days ago 160 posts - 179 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Polish*, English Studies: Mandarin, German | Message 3 of 36 09 January 2011 at 2:42pm | IP Logged |
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Meelämmchen, thank you for your support! It means a lot to me :)
I wouldn't say that my deck is small because I have over 10 000 entries haha. It works for me, however, I can't deny the fact that most of my vocabulary is passive. I don't know whether what I do is right but my technique is to learn passively as much words as I can and wait for them to turn active. When I hear them in a movie, or find words like that in a newspaper, they just turn active. I try to use them in a conversation but sometimes it's a hard thing to do (e.g. I usually don't use word "fibreglass" in a conversation, if you know what I mean). Good luck with your TAC and don't slack off because I will keep track of your progress! haha My progress for today: -I wrote my personal statement, yay! Took me so many hours to finish. -started using my Anki again which pretty much means that I have around 6500 entries to revise ;) Well, today I revised around 1500 so it means 5000 more to go! Edited by Mistral on 09 January 2011 at 2:44pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Meelämmchen Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5083 days ago 214 posts - 249 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Modern Hebrew | Message 4 of 36 09 January 2011 at 3:52pm | IP Logged |
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The trick really seems to be to make the passive vocabulary an active one and it is my problem, too. The best thing I can imagine is practising speaking (but I only did that once the last year and one wouldn't have called that fluent). But since I'm writing here for two weeks my grasp of English also came back a little bit again. Writing also helps. But I still need to look up too many words, especially the correct phrases, in the dictionary. Hopefully it will change in the course of the year.
By the way, the method of counting hours was actually not my own idea. I saw it used at some of the logs here, and there also was the similar approach of Doviende (I hope it's spelled correctly), but which I have not copied. Although it is very abstract in a way it is on the other hand a good indicator to see when you get drifted off the course and I think this will be helpful throughout the year. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Mistral Diglot Senior Member Poland Joined 5929 days ago 160 posts - 179 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Polish*, English Studies: Mandarin, German | Message 5 of 36 11 January 2011 at 11:42pm | IP Logged |
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Yesterday:
No progress at all! Well, definitely not in English because I talked with my Japanese friend for a whole day. But it was really refreshing to blow the dust from my Japanese dictionary and revise it a little. Today: I decided to count how many hours I spend slacking off and how many I spend learning. So today I spend 3.5 hours doing nothing and 6 hours revising English vocabulary! I also learnt how to write all the writing forms requiered for my matura exam. Revised around 1700 words, still around 3600 left to be back on the track with my Anki. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Mistral Diglot Senior Member Poland Joined 5929 days ago 160 posts - 179 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Polish*, English Studies: Mandarin, German | Message 6 of 36 13 January 2011 at 1:01am | IP Logged |
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Progress for today:
-2 hours slacking off -3 hours learning English -1000 words revised, 3000 to go -polished up my Personal Statement. It's finally finished. I have to be admitted to university of my dreams! :( 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| rob4languages Groupie Egypt Joined 5197 days ago 53 posts - 55 votes Speaks: Arabic (Egyptian)* Studies: English | Message 7 of 36 13 January 2011 at 3:10pm | IP Logged |
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Hi Anna ! (I knew your name from your profile!)
I see you're doing a good progress in learning English , but I'm really have a question : which accent do you study :British or American ? I'm ask you that 'coz I want to know any of 'em is more popular for gettin' Certificate ... I'm study at A.E 'coz I think it's more easier than B.E and a lot of Movies & TV Series that I can watch through it (for listening practice) , but the weakest point at A.E is the resources , B.E has much more resources than A.E . I wish you to reach all your goals this year ! Robert Edited by rob4languages on 13 January 2011 at 3:10pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Mistral Diglot Senior Member Poland Joined 5929 days ago 160 posts - 179 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Polish*, English Studies: Mandarin, German | Message 8 of 36 16 January 2011 at 8:25am | IP Logged |
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Hi, Robert! Thank you and good luck with your studies!
Well, the thing is that I study both. I'm kind of forced to do so because at school we learn British English (there is no choice) while I really want to learn American English. I go for American accent, it's just more popular and not that bad, actually. What's more, I want to study American because there is a huge demand for it in Asian countries, where I plan to go soon. They just don't want to learn British English, it's less practical. Unfortunately, most certificates are in BE (FCE, CAE, CPE) but I think that TOEFL is in both or in AE. My Progress: -revised 2000 words (2500 to go. Those repetitions are killing me, I'm never gonna reach 0) -watched a movie The Social Network. I found it kind of boring, too much talking about nothing special. And Eisenberg was speaking WAY too fast haha. -read some articles in English 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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