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TAC 2012 - zenmonkey - German, Arabic + | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| zenmonkey Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6550 days ago 803 posts - 1119 votes  1 sounds Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew | Message 1 of 47 16 January 2012 at 8:26pm | IP Logged |
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Well, I'm back. Congrats to my all the TAC 2011 participants that made it through the year!
After my unsuccessful attempt to keep a log the second half of last year I'll try again with a bit of a different approach: short term goals but a complete overall TAC objective. So I'm starting a new log for 2012 my previous log can be found here. In the posts below, I'll outline my languages, goals, tools and resources I've found. TAC Languages will be somewhat the same from last year. Languages  German --> goal was C1/C2 - this year it is the same but I'll detail with shorter, realistic SMART objectives.
 French --> continue to actively improve writing and reading, specific objectives to follow.
 Arabic --> 0 to A1, A2(???), learn the writing.
 Spanish --> continue to actively improve writing and reading, or at least not forget my first now second language, specific objectives to follow.
Lower priority  2011 was Brazilian Portuguese --> was to become an active speaker. Not at the beginning, might pick up again.
 2011 was Ladakhi --> was to move from 0 to B1. Ha. Lost everything there. Thinking about this, I liked it, but currently on hold.
 2011 I had a goal for Italian too - A2?. On hold for the first half of the year.
 Mandarin 2010-2011 Do not touch until I can concentrate enough - this is a learn, forget cycle.
and once again, other languages will be stumbled upon and played with, I promise! I'd love to join a team or two, 6WC, what not but past experience shows I have not always been consistent. Still learning. And still learning to learn. Some of the methods I use (and for which I'm creating links here so that I can find them easily): Scriptorium L/R or what I call Assimil method Shadowing Modified Iversen Word Lists Smoother SRS with Anki from AJATT Things to do with Assimil Iversen's Excellent Learning Guide Edited by zenmonkey on 27 February 2012 at 1:09pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| zenmonkey Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6550 days ago 803 posts - 1119 votes 1 sounds Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew | Message 2 of 47 17 January 2012 at 12:38am | IP Logged |
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So tonight I spent a large amount of the evening arranging material. One of the issues i have is that I have so much learning material and a rather busy life that I end up misplacing a book and then I search for it (is it in the car, with the work computer, at the office??) and lose 10-15 minutes or switch to something else.
So I've gone and had a 5S evening. What is this? 5S Methodology Sort: I sorted and selected the books I'll be using for the next week and put all the rest back in a shelf. I really have a lot of learning material and I do not need to go through it each day. Set in order: I tossed old notes, etc. and put my set of material in a clear bin on the desk where I work, easily accessible. Sweeping: sort of of, my work area is relatively tidier than it was before - far from perfect but better. Standard: My tools are standard, practical for me and good for my repetitions. (cards, mp3, etc...) Hopefully this will all help to Sustain. Well see... --- Arabic -- The last week has been well spent in learning the script and restarting the work. ASSIMIL is now loaded into my ipod. Flash my Brain has cards for all of the letters and some initial vocab. A nice spill-over has been that my girls are learing some of the words and the script. We do language lessons in the car, on the way to school, and along with the usual core languages we are now playing a little with that. German -- Conversations at lunch at work are all in German and I had a talk with a neighbor this weekend. Comfort level is up. I'll cover objectives and plan next. Edited by zenmonkey on 17 January 2012 at 12:38am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| zenmonkey Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6550 days ago 803 posts - 1119 votes 1 sounds Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew | Message 3 of 47 17 January 2012 at 7:14am | IP Logged |
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OVERALL BACKGROUND, GOALS & RESOURCES for German and ARABIC
German
Background and Plans: I live in Germany and have been learing the alnguage since I arrived 4-5 years ago. I’ve studied German more or less for 3-4 years and have used several courses up to this point. I am a level below what I should be, had I been in an all German work environment as I can pass the day without speaking German at all. Even the house environment in non German (French and other languages), although my girls are now fully fluent and we could use some of the time. This is a shame, so my German learning has been mostly planned and active. I'm at a B2/C1 level, I've dropped the 1 on 1 classses, too expensive and time-locking, I’ll be using a mix of unfinished courses, training material, web stuff and native materials. I clearly have more material than what I might need. Current Level: B2 – Basic Fluency Goal: C1 – Solid Advanced Fluency Materials: - German Vocab - Books - Erzählungen by H. Böll, others - Practice makes Perfect German - Workout German - Busuu - Podcasts - Native Materials - ASSIMIL - Perfectionnement Allemand - ANKI Short term activity (2 weeks) - Activate busuu - 10 lessons - Complete reading my current book - 5 exercises - Activate ASSIMIL or podcasts - 5 podcasts - Cards Arabic
Background and Plans: I've been looking for a non-European language and have dabbled with Chinese, Ladakhi and Hebrew in the past. I like Arabic for the script, literature and history, as well as the utility of MSA. So I've decided to give it a go and see how much I can achieve in a year. I know no Arabic except for the loan words in Spanish and some very basic concepts. A wonderful trip in the past to Jordan and future travel plans do also have me intrigued. I’ll be using mostly recently bought learning material and web resources and native materials. Current Level: Absolute no-nothing Beginner Goal: A1/A2 (?) – Beginner Materials: Initial Material - The Arabic Alphabet, How to Read & Write It - learning the alphabet - ASSIMIL (French to Arabic) - Living Language Arabic - The Basics - SRS: ANKI, Flash my Brain - Arabic for Dummies - Sprachführer Arabisch (two for the price of one!) Later to be added - Al Kitaab (classroom focus?) - FSI - Living Language Ultimate (comes recommended by several HTLAL people) - don't have it. - Modern Literary Arabic - arabic.colegioo.com? - busuu.com? Short term activity (2 weeks) - Finish with the Alphabet (all letters, all words in TAAHTRWI entered in Flash my Brain and learned) - 5 ASSIMIL exercises Resources Arabic Resources at wordreference.com arabic.desert-sky interesting and informative site on learning Arabic learn arabic on tripod questions regarding arabic - long thread arabic overview thread - excellent! All the Arabic you never learned the first time - nice grammar thread My Arabic music sources thread podcasts Arabicpod101 using this, good beginner to advance ArabicPod - Fantastic podcast, both MSA and colloquial lessons that can be understood throughout the Arabic world, recent series of Levantine episodes Arabic Podclass Arabic Audiobooks - A good range of books from Taha Hussein to Dan Brown News in Simplified Arabic - Includes exercises and transcripts but unfortunately not updated too often BBCe! Best Bits - A bilingual Arabic/English programme aimed at Arabic speakers learning English BBCe! Quiz Time - Weekly 10 minute show when the hosts test listeners on their English skills (in Arabic) BBC Xtra - 2 hour magazine programme entirely in Arabic about various social and controversial issues Doroobcast - Intellectual series, includes things like poetry reading and short stories RTVE Emisión en Árabe Imtidad Cultural Podcast - Literary Podcast Fouad Sindhi - Saudi Arabian's journal blog Edited by zenmonkey on 19 February 2012 at 11:24am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| zenmonkey Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6550 days ago 803 posts - 1119 votes 1 sounds Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew | Message 4 of 47 17 January 2012 at 3:39pm | IP Logged |
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Well, I was looking at my card software and I remember moving many of my cards to Anki. I like the Flash my Brain interface but since it does not appear to be supported any more and since export to a CSV file isn't possible, I'm going to slowly stop using. Shame.
Incidental Learners. I've been thinking about the learners that are just tagging along with me as I learn languages - accidents of sorts - first of all my daughters. Whenever I attack a new language, they'll see me with the material and will tag along, caught in some sort of slipstream of language learning - so my 7 and 9 year olds (bilingual German/French) are also learning English and Spanish (rides in the morning are in a good time for that) plus a little bit of Arabic... Activity completed German
busuu (20 min) test and start of a new B1 unit. Makeup! I'm not going to pay a lot of attention but words like wrinkles I should know... Reloaded the Assimil Lesson 77 Reading (20min) The book I'm reading is Erzählungen by H. Böll - I finished the first story last night. Arabic
FmB (10min) - All alphabet tested to 'Mastered' podcast (8min) - added ArabicPod101 to my podcast Assimil (10min) - 1 & 2 review Edited by zenmonkey on 27 January 2012 at 12:10am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| zenmonkey Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6550 days ago 803 posts - 1119 votes 1 sounds Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew | Message 5 of 47 18 January 2012 at 5:06pm | IP Logged |
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A series to check out: astrophysics. Thanks to Sprachprofi and Flarioca.
And a little list of logs that I find useful or motivating -- I'll add later, and adjust. This is mostly for me as a simple place to have a link to these logs. Flarioca's log - for the German, tools and methods listed and linked, this log has content I find quite rick covering material and methods. Tops! Jinx's log LanguageSponge log Team Freutsch TAC 2012 Spanky's log Turnesol's TAC 2012 - German and French, I like the log parts in French Bjorn’s TAC 2012 Team Freutsch log - German and French, struggling with cards Quabazaa log - for the Arabic Kanewai and the Romatics log - excellent notes on Arabic Activity completed German
Took posession of a new car and our entire discussion was in German. Pocasts (30 min) GermanPod101 Assimil 77-80 (15 min) Watched Die Maske des Zorro and Desperado in German - I love mixture of Mexican Spanish and German Arabic
A very nice morning workout. Assimil (30 min) reviewed the text for lessons 2-3, 4, writing. FmB (10 min) Alphabet Edited by zenmonkey on 29 January 2012 at 6:56pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| zenmonkey Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6550 days ago 803 posts - 1119 votes 1 sounds Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew | Message 6 of 47 20 January 2012 at 8:22am | IP Logged |
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A word about my use of ASSIMIL, as reading from some other logs has me thinking.
Here is my usual program for the passive phase for German: - Try to listen without the book to see if I understand - Read through the lesson 1-3 times until I'm comfortable understanding it. Work through the lesson and notes. Review translation of words I don't understand. (often a break) - Listen/Shadow without book, usually 5+ times in car. (break) - if needed re-read the lesson, try to listen at the same time. Exercises are left until Active mode. I've generally taken the German sound files and removed the silences with Audacity. What I'm not really doing and should think about is visualizing the lesson in my mind or doing variations on the text. Going to try both. Comments or input? Activity Completed German
- Reading (15 min) from H. Boll book - Lunch was all German at work, worth mentioning because I felt comfortable with a higher understanding than a few months back - ASSIMIL (30 min) L/R80, L81 Arabic
- Flash cards out of ANKI - caught up with my 50 or so. Need to edit them. - ASSIMIL (45 min) L/R 2-3, R 4-5, L/R 6 I need to go back to 4-5 as I did not have them with me today on my long drive. - I have a reasonable understanding of the script now and can decrypt the words slowly in these initial lessons.So script took about two weeks to get a good base understanding. Edited by zenmonkey on 27 January 2012 at 12:13am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| zenmonkey Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6550 days ago 803 posts - 1119 votes 1 sounds Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew | Message 7 of 47 21 January 2012 at 11:03am | IP Logged |
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German
Es schneit. Wir haben 15 cm Schnee über Nacht bekommen. Ich ging und pflügte den Schnee anstatt zu studieren Sprachen. Jetzt werde ich einen Kaffee trinken, während ich diese kurze Sätze zu schreiben. Vielleicht kann ich auch Arabisch studieren jetzt. Ich weiß, ich muss üben, um in Deutsch zu schreiben. Aber das gilt auch in allen meinen Sprachen. Español Lo que me sorprende siempre es que puedo hablar estos idiomas con menos problemas, de lejos, que cuando escribo. No se si es una memoria oral o una falta de aber estudido estos sin la parte escrita de los idiomas. Siempre me hago guaje cuande tengo que escribir. Tengo que trabajar esta falla. Pero en los ultimos años digo que voy a leer y escribir mas y no lo hago. Que hacer? Français Eh bien, peut-être la chose à faire c'est d'utiliser ce journal pour écrire des phrases courtes dans mes langues. Une paire de phrases dans chacune, chaque semaine. J'ai besoin de trouver une façon sans doute de faire ceci d'une manière qui n'est pas vide de sens. Je pense à rejoindre quelques forums dans mes langues cibles. Je sais qu'il ya des forums français et allemand de VTT. Peut-être cela aidera. Et je vais essayer de continuer ici. English In any case, the issue is identified - one of my prinicipal weaknesses, in all my studies except English is my comfort level and capability in writing. How to work on that and make it enjoyable and therefore assure that I do it on a regular basis? That is the question. Maybe I need a typing class on top of that? And a single keyboard!! I use a French keyboard at home and a German one at work! Arabic !دَرَسَ Edited by zenmonkey on 21 January 2012 at 11:09am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Flarioca Heptaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5880 days ago 635 posts - 816 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Esperanto, French, EnglishC2, Spanish, German, Italian Studies: Catalan, Mandarin | Message 8 of 47 21 January 2012 at 2:36pm | IP Logged |
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I haven't yet used Busuu for German, but since you are at a higher level than mine, I wonder which activities do you think are worth trying? Edited by Flarioca on 22 January 2012 at 1:21am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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