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Jo’s B2 Trifecta TAC’13 Alef, Divan,Nebun | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5393 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 25 of 50 15 January 2013 at 4:29am | IP Logged | ||
I rarely watch TV in English anymore. I would rather watch the Spanish or French version, even tho it's dubbed. When I'm watching in French, I still need English subtitles, but with Spanish I learn more if I have the Spanish subs on. I usually pick up at least a few words every episode. I haven't tried it yet with Croatian very much, though. I'm saving that for later in the year once I've finished my Assimil course. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| JohannaNYC Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4450 days ago 251 posts - 361 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English*, Italian Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Arabic (Egyptian) | Message 26 of 50 16 January 2013 at 1:34am | IP Logged | ||
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@Julie I would actually read it again for Croatian, especially if I run out of
books for my Major Challenge. As for subtitles maybe you should try them for Russian, you'll have more options. @Kerrie it's a good thing you live in the US. If I'm not mistaken you can turn on the close captioning to most Spanish shows. There's also the SAP option for a lot of shows. Have you been able to find any Croatian subtitles for Croatian shows?? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| JohannaNYC Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4450 days ago 251 posts - 361 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English*, Italian Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Arabic (Egyptian) | Message 27 of 50 16 January 2013 at 2:22am | IP Logged | ||
Short answer: It would be hard for me to recommend Paul Noble over MT or vice versa not only because the methods are similar, but also because I've only done one of each and for very different languages (PN for Italian, MT for Arabic). If money is not a problem or if I can borrow them, I would try both. Long answer: Listening to PN without the students starting to hesitate and mispronounce the answer the moment the teacher asks it, is like music to my ears. PN also has built- in pauses for you to answer without having to pause your player. The PN Italian uses a lot less metaphors and mnemonic devices than MT. But this might be because Italian grammar is easier than Arabic so maybe he doesn't need to use so many metaphors. I also find his voice very enjoyable. The lady who teaches the Arabic MT can be really annoying sometimes. Like she goes so out of her way to make a point that sometimes she stretches the English word beyond recognition. Also, to help us remember the root, suffixes and other parts of Arabic word and sentence construction she came up with this really elaborate metaphor of the stem of the word, the flower, the base and then she has us running from one table to another table on the other side of the room. It's just too much to remember for a system that you're not supposed to try hard to memorize. There are also a few times when she spends a good 5+ minutes just going on and on about these flowers and bases and the window of the house. When I had enough of this, I started adding what we were learning to Anki, I wish I had started sooner. This same lady does the voice instructions for Colloquial Arabic of Egypt and in this one I like her just fine. If my memory serves me correctly there is more content in the Foundation MT than there is in PN. MT also has the advanced CDs and vocabulary. The Arabic MT has a native speaker who almost always gives the correct pronunciation after the students. He also shares some cultural information and popular expressions. For the Vocabulary CDs they actually have advanced students with very good pronunciation. So like I mentioned in my previous post I was disappointed that NP didn’t use a native Italian speaker and so far (I’m in CD 9 out of 12) there hasn’t been any cultural information. It also bothers me that PN only teaches the formal LEI form and only mentions the informal tu in the booklet. So I guess it all depends what you want to get out of the course. Pronunciation is VERY important to me and I've heard so many bad things about MT's accent that I decided to go with NP for Italian as I thought I would be getting a native speaker. Oh well, at lest her accent is not horrible, just too stiff for a native speaker. I just wanted a quick way to tap into all the similar vocabulary between English and Italian and I already got that. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5393 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 28 of 50 18 January 2013 at 8:51pm | IP Logged | ||
We don't even have cable, so I have no idea about Spanish captioning. There's plenty of stuff on the internet, though. :) I haven't found ANY subtitles for any of the Croatian shows I've found. It's rather disappointing, to be honest. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Hendrek Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4880 days ago 152 posts - 210 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Persian | Message 29 of 50 18 January 2013 at 9:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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Johanna, thanks so much for the thorough review. I will keep Paul Noble in mind if and
when I start French (longer term plan). I personally found the Italian MT course to be helpful, but primarily once I got to the review discs. I would put them on loop during my commutes and answer in the brief pause provided until I had them down pat. These are the CDs where it's just MT saying the word or phrase in English, about a 1 second delay, and then him giving the correct Italian version. Trying to say everything within that brief pause eventually trains it to be automatic, which helps a lot in conversation. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| JohannaNYC Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4450 days ago 251 posts - 361 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English*, Italian Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Arabic (Egyptian) | Message 30 of 50 28 January 2013 at 5:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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No estaba muerta, andaba de parranda.. not really. I had a lot of prepping to do before
my guest's arrival and then I got sick. Then at the beginning of this past week I received a nasty financial surprise that left me without any desire to communicate with anyone unless I had to. I'm like a turtle, I go inside my shell when things are bad. Anyway, throughout it all I managed to work on all my languages. ITALIAN: 1/14 - 1/20 = 10 hours and 26 mins 1/21 - 1/27 = 7 hours and 15 mins Finished Paul Noble, went back to Pimsleur, did some Assimil Scriptorium, read Twilight and watched Winx Club in Italian. But most exciting of all, I had my first Italian conversation last week!! I had to constantly ask "how do you say..?" but I did most of the talking with my tandem partner and another guy asking me about the languages I'm learning and what not. This week my partner was sick so my Italian conversation was a lot more tiring as the guy I was speaking with wouldn't slow down unless I asked him to. Yesterday someone gave me an Italian documentary with Italian subtitles, I can't wait to watch it! I've decided that reading extensively at this stage is not that useful, so I'm spending a lot of time looking up words, writing them down and adding them to Anki. So of course I'm counting that as study time. As a matter of fact I'm no longer distinguishing between immersion and study hours for any of my languages as I can learn just as much by speaking and watching TV with subtitles (which I write down of course) as by textbook studying. CROATIAN 1/14 - 1/20 = 5 hours and 51 mins :( 1/21 - 1/27 = 9 hours and 44 mins Teach Yourself Croatian, read Percy Jackson, talked with my friend (and with his parents on Skype), watched TV shows in Spanish and English with Croatian subtitles. My friend leaves on Feb. 6 so I want to have at least one full 30-minute conversation daily in Croatian between now and then. I had a lot more to say (what a surprise), but I accidentally hit refresh before posting. ARABIC 1/14 - 1/20 = 10 hours and 5 mins 1/21 - 1/27 = 9 hours and 51 mins . Except for 3 hours of MT and daily Anki review all of my study time the past 2 weeks went to Colloquial Arabic of Egypt. Speaking is a great motivator for my studying and the best way for me to remember what I study. So I’m trying to get through the Colloquial textbook as quickly as possible so I can have conversations in Arabic that don’t have to do with haggling over prices or ordering “omleits” with “botatos”. Of course, my time is not unlimited so I have not been practicing my script much lately. So much to learn, so little time… SIGH I watched this awesome movie called Dunya, which is now my favorite Arabic movie. I will write about it later, now I have to study before going to work. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| JohannaNYC Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4450 days ago 251 posts - 361 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English*, Italian Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Arabic (Egyptian) | Message 31 of 50 28 January 2013 at 6:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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I just registered for the 6WC with Italian. I was debating whether to do the 6WC at all
this time around, but having 3 languages all in the A1-A2 range is too tiring and Italian would be the easiest one to get out of that range. To make sure I don't neglect my tougher languages too much I only plan on spending about 100 hours total in Italian during the challenge. I did the math and I will still be able to spend about 12-13 hours weekly for both Arabic and Croatian. Off to study Arabic, for real this time. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Amerykanka Hexaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5169 days ago 657 posts - 890 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Polish, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian | Message 32 of 50 30 January 2013 at 2:37am | IP Logged | ||
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Hi, Johanna! Where are you in Assimil Italian with Ease? I have only finished three lessons (I am
supposed to be doing another one tonight - who knows if that will happen, though :) ), but so far I really like the book. I am so glad I bought it! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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