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Isabliss - TAC’12 - Team Sputnik & German

 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
29 messages over 4 pages: 1 2 3 4  Next >>
Isabliss_27
Diglot
Groupie
Brazil
Joined 4749 days ago

68 posts - 74 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, English
Studies: German, Russian, Latin, French

 
 Message 1 of 29
29 December 2011 at 3:32am | IP Logged 
(A very short) Introduction:
My passion for languages started with my passion for everything that’s foreign: music, movies, history, literature. The fact I love reading pushed me to learn more languages.

I’m committed to do a serious learning. In 2009 I started learning Italian (then German and Russian, sometime later) through Livemocha. Back then I didn’t know much about language learning and methods, so 2010 went through almost the same way. Soon I got mad with LM, with my own lack of commitment and lost motivation, but now I’ll do better. :)

Russian

As I told before, I tried some units in LM, but never finished the second one. If there’s one thing I don’t like about LM is to read a word for the speaking exercise which wasn’t taught before.
I also tried Pimsleur, but it didn’t please me as much as Michel Thomas did. I’m still finishing Foundation Course.
So, here I am now. I want to accumulate at least 400 hours of study in 2012.

   Resources Hugo’s Russian in three months. I plan to start with it, along with the Princeton Course, FSI Russian FAST, Survival Russian and some other resources I may gather. I'll also continue with Michel Thomas Russian Advanced.

German

This year I took a course at University, but I didn’t like it. Too slow, besides, we were forced to speak only German since our third class. How students without previous knowledge were supposed to do this? (I could babble words I remembered from LM, but even so… ) And I didn’t like the material either. At least I was happy because my teacher complimented me on my pronunciation. :)

   Resources: German in Three months too, and Assimil German with Spanish base. I'll do the Michel Thomas courses also.

This is what I can think for now.
"That's all, folks", let's rock!   





Edited by Isabliss_27 on 05 January 2012 at 3:34pm

1 person has voted this message useful



Tecktight
Diglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4980 days ago

227 posts - 327 votes 
Speaks: English*, Serbian
Studies: German, Russian, Estonian

 
 Message 2 of 29
29 December 2011 at 4:46am | IP Logged 
And we shall rock! Speaking of, your language plan looks pretty rock-solid so far! (sorry, couldn't help it).
Also, continuing the motif you started, I have composed a haiku (I think) in your honor:

-ahem-

Among the learners
породы were a-falling
und viele Steine

3 persons have voted this message useful



Solfrid Cristin
Heptaglot
Winner TAC 2011 & 2012
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5338 days ago

4143 posts - 8864 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 3 of 29
29 December 2011 at 1:50pm | IP Logged 
Rocking it is!! The only Russian ressource we share is Michel Thomas, but I look forward to hearing how you like the others.

Best of luck, and let us get this sputnik off the ground!!
1 person has voted this message useful



Teango
Triglot
Winner TAC 2010 & 2012
Senior Member
United States
teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5560 days ago

2210 posts - 3734 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Russian
Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona

 
 Message 4 of 29
29 December 2011 at 3:41pm | IP Logged 
Language learning is largely about staying motivated enough to keep on going. If you don't like one resource, just judo throw it over your shoulder and try another...and if necessary, then another and another - bam!...just keep on trying out different material and approaches and you'll eventually find something that's actually fun and really works for you.

When I moved to Germany, I signed up for some one-on-one Berlitz lessons. The German tutors (who changed from week to week due to high turnover) reprimanded every single little error that came out of my mouth, and dogmatically refused to reference any English during the lesson despite being fluent English speakers (failing miserably after half an hour's attempt, for example, to explain advanced grammatical and abstract concepts through German linguistic metalanguage and sign language which mainly involved jumping up and down in sheer desperation - lol). In those initial few weeks, I started to really fall out of love with the German language and question my own abilities to learn any language: I felt like a mentally-challenged mouse being shocked every time it tried to take a nibble out of some tasty-looking cheese. So I ended up playing dumb most the time, and took an inordinate number of toilet breaks, simply to escape the barrage of soul-crushing criticism and my overall frustration with the approach. My speaking skills also took a nose dive once I started worrying about getting every ending right and replaying the declension/preposition/etc tables over and over in my head whilst trying to talk to anyone. The moment I dropped these classes and stopped worrying about the grammar, it was such a wonderful relief - I even celebrated my decision out with friends at a local Hofbräuhaus that day. And after this, I turned to real life conversations and listening/reading instead, and progressed in leaps and bounds, and most importantly, started to fall back in love with the language. Learning German simply became fun again...

So keep on rockin' in the free world, and never let dull or maddening resources dampen the passion! >u<
4 persons have voted this message useful



Isabliss_27
Diglot
Groupie
Brazil
Joined 4749 days ago

68 posts - 74 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, English
Studies: German, Russian, Latin, French

 
 Message 5 of 29
29 December 2011 at 11:18pm | IP Logged 
@Tecktight
Thanks for the haiku in my honor, so nice of you! =D

@Solfrid
Best of luck to you too :)

@Teango
You said everything, mate! By the way, I promise I'll 'judo throw' every bad material over my shoulder and won't let them make my passion for German fade away. :D
1 person has voted this message useful



Woodsei
Bilingual Diglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
United States
justpaste.it/Woodsei
Joined 4801 days ago

614 posts - 782 votes 
Speaks: English*, Arabic (Egyptian)*
Studies: Russian, Japanese, Hungarian

 
 Message 6 of 29
02 January 2012 at 11:19am | IP Logged 
I know what you mean by bad experiences, I've been ther myself. I guess the best way in life is to find our
own way, believe in ourselves, and charge through. But now I sound like I'm preaching so I'll stop :) Judo-
throw everything negative over you back a la Teango style! :)

Can't wait to hear more of your adventures! Good luck an rock it!
1 person has voted this message useful



Isabliss_27
Diglot
Groupie
Brazil
Joined 4749 days ago

68 posts - 74 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, English
Studies: German, Russian, Latin, French

 
 Message 7 of 29
04 January 2012 at 2:11am | IP Logged 
I'm finally at home, and now it's time to update this log!

Today I spent half an hour on Michel Thomas and reviewing some vocab on Anki.
I learned some sentences like: У вас есть всё что вам надо. Я думала что у нас ешё есть время. Actually, I'm not sure if they are written correctly...
I'm still lazy from the trip, ugh.

As I'm terrible with long-term planning, I've made up weekly mini-goals, so it will be easier for me to achieve them. It will cover three months. More than that, and I'll end up procrastinating, being lazy and God knows what else.

That's all for now.

~B
1 person has voted this message useful



Flarioca
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Brazil
Joined 5886 days ago

635 posts - 816 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, Esperanto, French, EnglishC2, Spanish, German, Italian
Studies: Catalan, Mandarin

 
 Message 8 of 29
05 January 2012 at 3:16am | IP Logged 
Adicionada ao Time Alemão! Para mudar o título do seu log, basta editar a primeira mensagem. Fiz as primeiras 33 lições do curso de russo da Princeton e gostei muito. Quando voltar a estudar russo, será meu caminho.

Sorry guys, but it is nice to write here in the only language that I can do that really well (though not mistake-free) ;-))


1 person has voted this message useful



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