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| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4142 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes  Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 25 of 117 03 May 2014 at 3:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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Today I watched/listened to one of the videos on filipinopod101. If they were free, I'd use them. But I'm honestly not
convinced that it's worth paying for a membership. I might try a few more and then decide. I did find this very promising list of free links, organized into learning modules: http://www.language-cards.com/tagalog-links.html Very cool! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4142 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 26 of 117 10 May 2014 at 4:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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I planned on doing short daily updates on what I'm learning, but I'm not sure how useful that would be, seeing as
how my learning is currently based mainly on a textbook (and corresponding workbook). It was different when I started learning Spanish. If anything, I had too many (free!) resources, and I spent a lot of time sifting through them and figuring out what worked best for me. Now, I'm using three different approaches for learning Tagalog: 1. textbook: Tara, Mag-Tagalog Tayo Each chapter seems to take me from 5 to 7 days, at a pace of about 20-30 minutes per day. day one: learn the vocabulary: listen and repeat using the CD (which I do in the car), create anki cards. For difficult words, I bold the syllable that's stressed, since Tagalog's pronunciation rules are not quite as set in stone as they are in Spanish. day two: practice the dialogues, shadow the CD, read aloud with husband, make sure that I understand everything day three: read the grammar explanations, make a mind map to help me make sense of what I'm learning days four - ?: do the various activities in the textbook and workbook (mainly on my own, with some input/corrections from my husband). Activities include: translations, transcriptions, grammar exercises, reading comprehension, etc. 2. picture-based anki deck I'm creating a picture-based anki deck using the 625-word list provided on fluent-forever.com: fluent-forever I input five new words a day. My other anki deck (based on the textbook) is set at 20 new words per day. In all, I spend about 5 or 6 minutes running through my anki decks every day. 3. Tagalog tutors on italki.com I've only had one half-hour session. I sent my tutor the vocabulary and dialogues that I was working on, and we practiced reading them together. We also had a very, very limited conversation (Along the lines of: Hello! How are you? I'm fine!) For now, I'm going to stick with half-hour sessions once or twice a week, increasing that when I'm able to say more. I've finished the introductory lesson and lesson one from the textbook. Here are my stats for the first 9 days of the six-week challenge: May 1: 30 minutes May 2: 34 minutes May 3: 19 minutes May 4: 34 minutes May 5: 71 minutes May 6: 32 minutes May 7: 19 minutes May 8: 26 minutes May 9: 10 minutes I just got back from a long trip, and haven't quite settled back into my life yet. My long-term goal is to settle into a routine of a half hour per day for Tagalog. I'm not in any rush, and I don't want Tagalog to take over my life. I just want to learn the basics using a slow and steady approach. Aside from Tagalog, I also want to make time for Spanish - which is still my "most important" TL. When I started learning Spanish, it was relatively easy to spend 1.5 - 2 hours per day studying. Now, I'd like to aim for 30 minutes of Tagalog, one hour of Spanish (Hello SuperChallenge!), and 30 minutes of reading in English. Of course, the main thing holding me back right now is binge-watching television series on Netflix... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4142 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 27 of 117 15 May 2014 at 12:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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What I've been working on
I've started lesson 2 (the third chapter) in my Tagalog textbook. It's going relatively well, although my retention is a little weak, and I need *a lot* more exposure to get an instinctive feel for simple sentence structure. I've been drilling vocabulary (L1 -> L2) and sentences (L2 -> L1) using anki. I've also been listening to the related audio tracks in the car. The audio tracks are relatively simple: listen and repeat vocabulary lists, short dialogues (fast), dictations (slow). I'm up to about 10 minutes of audio (with pauses for repeating), which I can run through twice during my commute. I carpool about 3 times a week, and for some reason the driver isn't interested in my CD. Ha! So I only listen to Tagalog in the car twice a week. I've done some very simple writing, recombining what I know to create simple dialogues. Tutoring sessions So far I've had two half-hour tutoring sessions. Honestly, I don't usually recommend that people start with tutors until they have at least a bit of language already in their head. But I wanted someone to help me practice my pronunciation right from the beginning. JP (my husband) is more than happy to help me, but only for about 10 minutes at a time. The fact is that it's very boring for him, and besides, I wanted more than one set of ears. I hope to be able to use him more as a resource when we can actually have simple conversations. Anyway, my tutoring sessions turned out to be much more valuable than I expected! They're not conversational classes, although I hope that they will be within a few months. Instead, I emailed my teachers the dialogues that I've covered in my textbook so far. We practiced reading them several times, with a focus on rhythm, pronunciation and intonation. Luckily, my rhythm and intonation are decent - probably because I've spent hours and hours listening to the background noise of JP talking with his parents and siblings on the phone. While I don't speak or understand, I do have a sense of the music of the language. Aside from that, I've also been working with my tutor on my first island: introducing myself. Ako si Stephanie. (I'm Stephanie) 35 na ako. (I'm 35 years old) Hindi ako taga-Pilipinas. (I'm not from the Philippines) Taga-Canada ako. (I'm from Canada) Nakatira sa _________ ako, malapit lang sa Halifax. (I live in ________, just close to Halifax) Titser ako. (I'm a teacher) May-asawa na ako. (I'm married) I also have a few "get to know you" questions that we practice asking each other: Ano ang pangalan mo? (What's your name?) Ilang taon ka na? (How old are you?) Taga saan ka? (Where are you from?) Ano ang trabaho mo? (What is your work?) It's very repetitive, which is exactly what I need. It's probably very boring for the teacher to read the same thing over and over again - but that's why I need a paid tutor, and not a free language partner at this point. New learning I'm starting to get the hang of ang markers, although I'm going to need *a lot* more exposure to get a feel for even simple sentence structures. ang - the subject is a singular common noun ex. Titser ang babae. (The woman is a teacher) ang mga - the subject is a plural common noun ex. Titser ang mga babae. (The women are teachers) si - the subject is a single person ex. Titser si Ana. (Ana is a teacher) sina - the subjects are multiple people ex. Titser sina Ana at Marta. (Ana and Marta are teachers) Day-by-Day May 10: 10 minutes just worked on anki, inputting words from chapter 2 and running through my decks May 11: 30 minutes worked with chapter 2 dialogues: reading, inputting some sentences to SRS, reading aloud, ensuring understanding ran through my anki decks May 12: 33 minutes mind map: ang markers ran through my anki decks May 13: 65 minutes started working through grammar notes on "saan" (where) 30 minute session with tutor ran through my anki decks wrote my first italki notebook entry: kumusta! May 14: 40 minutes listened to my Tagalog CD twice copied several dialogues by hand, added tricky bits to anki ran through my anki decks Edited by Stelle on 15 May 2014 at 12:29pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| SomeGuy Groupie Germany Joined 5098 days ago 56 posts - 75 votes Speaks: German* Studies: Arabic (Written), Turkish, Mandarin | Message 28 of 117 15 May 2014 at 12:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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cant believe that the other carpool driver isn't interested in listening Tagalog :)
Edited by SomeGuy on 15 May 2014 at 12:56pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4142 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 29 of 117 17 May 2014 at 12:48pm | IP Logged | ||
I know, right? Very odd... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4142 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 30 of 117 17 May 2014 at 11:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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I guess I can file this one under “well, duh...”
learning Tagalog isn't the same as learning Spanish I had so many advantages learning Spanish. I'm already fluent in French, so a lot of the grammatical structures made intuitive sense to me. I've been a French teacher for over a decade, with the past three years in small group intensive adult classes, so I have a pretty good grasp of what does and doesn't work in language acquisition. I was *very* motivated to learn. So in a way it wasn't all that surprising how quickly I advanced. Still, I have to admit that I was feeling quite pleased with myself. While I don't believe that anyone's “bad” at languages, I do believe that some people learn more quickly than others. And – while I wouldn't be so vain as to say it out loud – I sometimes whispered to myself in my secret inside voice that I was one of those people to whom languages came quickly. And then I started learning Tagalog. Ha! Tagalog is a truly foreign language. It's taking me longer to wrap my head around basic structures than I expected. I'm starting to “get” stuff, and I know that I'm getting there. The teacher in me recognizes that my progress is acceptable. Slow, but acceptable. If I were my student, I wouldn't be writing an individual learning plan just yet. But it's definitely more of a challenge than I expected. I like the textbook that I'm using. It's well laid-out and advances at a good pace, but not impossibly fast. It has a nice mix of activities, although the listening is a bit sparse. I'm finding that 20-30 minutes working through my textbook per day is ideal. It's about the fastest I can go without hurting retention, and the longest I can go without feeling restless. In addition to that, I'll spend another 5-10 minutes on anki. Most days I try out sentences on my husband for 15 minutes or so (although I'm not tracking that for the six-week challenge, since it's very informal). Once or twice a week I read the textbook dialogues out loud with an italki tutor. And...that's it. About 30-40 minutes per day. I'm ok with this. I'm not in any rush to learn Tagalog. Besides, there are only so many hours in a day, and I'm still dedicated to improving my Spanish. But I also believe in variety, and I don't like the fact that all of my study is based around a single resource, even if it's a resource that I like. But I don't know what to *do* in Tagalog, aside from work my way through my textbook. It was easy, even as a complete beginner, to put in 2 or 3 hours of Spanish without even noticing it: a page or two of Practice Makes Perfect Verbs, an episode of Mi Vida Loca or Destinos, 15 minutes on Duolingo, a few pages of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a podcast, a language exchange, a Pimsleur lesson. The time flew by! I need to find some accessible (and free or inexpensive) Tagalog resources to add variety to my learning, both so that I can stay interested past the first few weeks of newbie high, and also so that I can take advantage of the beauty that is synergy. Here's what I need to find in Tagalog over the next few weeks: Accessible text. Children's easy readers would be ideal. I've found some books here, but I haven't quite figured out how to open them yet. I pretend to be tech-savvy, but I'm kind of a liar. Accessible audio and/or video. There are podcasts and youtube videos floating around, but most of them seem to be the equivalent of vocabulary lists. I'd love some Tagalog audio with subtitles or transcripts. A few good songs that aren't cheesy love ballads. Wish me luck! Edited by Stelle on 17 May 2014 at 11:09pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5260 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 31 of 117 18 May 2014 at 2:27am | IP Logged | ||
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I found some free children's videos for you Ang Unang Pinya/The First Pineapple. The videos were made by a Filipina mother in the US for her six year old son and are collected here on youtube. They include English and Tagalog onscreen subtitles.
The International Childrens Library you linked to is a great resource for many languages. The files are "zipped" and you'll need a utility to unzip them like winRAR or some other zip utility. After unzipping you can read the book on your computer. Edited by iguanamon on 18 May 2014 at 2:28am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4142 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 32 of 117 18 May 2014 at 2:56am | IP Logged | ||
Amazing!!! I hereby crown you the regent of finding exactly the resource that I was looking for! Thank you… you're very kind to put so much of your own time into helping other people. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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