Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5863 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque
| Message 81 of 118 07 February 2014 at 4:23am | IP Logged |
ryanl321, one thing to keep in mind is that if you decide to set French off for later it will come much more easily. There's lots of shared vocabulary between French and Spanish (as well as between French and English). Concepts you picked up in Spanish will also help, and at least in speaking French conjugation is much simpler. My French production isn't that great, but i don't have that much trouble reading it after a few months getting acquainted with French verbs, new vocab, and some stuff that just doesn't exist in Spanish (like y and en). So if you focus more on one than the other, don't feel bad, i feel like in the end learning one will help you out quite a bit in learning the other.
With regards to Steve Kaufmann, when you have experience with several different languages you have a larger pool of information and experiences to pull from. You've also got a better idea what works for you and what doesn't. It's nice to be inspired, but in the end it's about finding what works for you (and sticking to it!).
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ryanl321 Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4362 days ago 94 posts - 101 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish
| Message 82 of 118 07 February 2014 at 5:17am | IP Logged |
Bjorn wrote:
ryanl321:
I gave up Lingq on Android mobile,seems to be working on a mini iPad.
To early to say how effective Lingq is.
I subscribed to Lingq because of GEOaudio, I just love those travel letters. |
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I did not know about GEOaudio, I've very excited now. New material, you're my new best friend!
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ryanl321 Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4362 days ago 94 posts - 101 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish
| Message 83 of 118 07 February 2014 at 5:19am | IP Logged |
Crush wrote:
ryanl321, one thing to keep in mind is that if you decide to set French off for later it will come
much more easily. There's lots of shared vocabulary between French and Spanish (as well as between French
and English). Concepts you picked up in Spanish will also help, and at least in speaking French conjugation is
much simpler. My French production isn't that great, but i don't have that much trouble reading it after a few
months getting acquainted with French verbs, new vocab, and some stuff that just doesn't exist in Spanish (like y
and en). So if you focus more on one than the other, don't feel bad, i feel like in the end learning one will help
you out quite a bit in learning the other.
With regards to Steve Kaufmann, when you have experience with several different languages you have a larger
pool of information and experiences to pull from. You've also got a better idea what works for you and what
doesn't. It's nice to be inspired, but in the end it's about finding what works for you (and sticking to it!). |
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I couldn't agree more Crush, thanks for your thoughts. I'm pushing my way through French. I changed up my
routine with French and made it more fun. I'm going to stick with it until it doesn't get fun anymore..
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ryanl321 Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4362 days ago 94 posts - 101 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish
| Message 84 of 118 07 February 2014 at 5:32am | IP Logged |
Today was a good day for language learning. Not that I pushed through the hours but I received some good
advice and changed up my routine to make it more interesting. The change up was not significant but as you'll
see very simple with a huge change to my motivation..
German - I'll get some Anki done tonight. Hit about 30 minutes of podcasts with intense focus while I was driving
to my clients office about 40 minutes away. Using my podcasts in itunes instead of the lingq app is so much
better. I had Spanish and German songs/podcasts mixed so I had continuous learning as opposed to switching it
up or waiting a while until the app started. I manually posted my time in LingQ. Found a cool GEOaudio track on
LingQ thanks to Bjorn! That will be my next focus. Did 20 minutes of Duo and spent about 10 minutes on emails.
Spanish - Started using the LSLC level 1. Surprised that I found podcast #25 out of 77 was a good place to start!
Wanted to start at the fundamental level. Did about 15 minutes of LSLC then on the way back from my client did
about 30 minutes of podcasts. 10 minutes of Duolingo and some reading, perhaps 5 minutes early this AM.
French - I made a very small change on Duolingo for French. I am 60 points behind my target, which is
significant for me on one language. Instead of pushing through new levels each day and instead of doing practice
that picks randomly from all lessons I learned, I went on my desktop and did practice on the beginning levels
individually. I just wasn't too happy with going through new levels because I was forgetting some of those earlier
words. Seems silly now that I think about it but the review practice would take from all lessons that I've
supposedly learned and I just couldn't remember anything and I was getting frustrated. Re-learning the old levels
isn't bad and is ok. I'll just take a break, relearn each level at a time, not doing each lesson but just "practicing"
each lesson, then I'll learn new ones when I'm comfortable. I'm very pleased with this and my motivating went up
another level!! I also did about 20 minutes of Pims.
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ryanl321 Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4362 days ago 94 posts - 101 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish
| Message 85 of 118 08 February 2014 at 5:46am | IP Logged |
I find that my need to have flexibility in my routine really takes a toll on my overall studying. I had some
incredible opportunities today to really put in some study time but because I feel like I'm all over the place with
several languages and several various programs and things I want to achieve, I don't accomplish anything! Clearly
this is why people stick to one or two languages. This is ok. I see it as a weakness of mine. Even though I have
Duolingo goals, which I typically meet (as well for French finally!), I'm not as incentivized to keep meet my LingQ
goals or my Anki goals. Perhaps if I really evaluated my weeks and days I could see what is really possible? I have
so many cards to catch up on in Anki that my daily goal is not attainable anymore. I also have so many podcasts
that I want to listen to that I just can't settle for one! Anyway, good to go through this. This is a good problem of
mine. I can fix this because we get out of the first quarter:
German - 35 minutes on Anki; met Duo goals + in about 20 minutes; and listened to about 5 minutes of
podcasts/songs.
Spanish - No Anki so far, maybe before I go to bed, nor LinQ, but I met my Duo goals only for about 10 minutes.
I stayed home with sick kids (still had a ton of work to do) so didn't have dedicated times to listen to podcasts in
the car etc. Could have been a great opportunity to fit in some podcasts doing the dishes but it didn't happen.
Does anyone know of any really good lessons in Spanish for LingQ? I find the German collection much, much
better. I import all my own stuff for Spanish because I haven't found anything I really like on LinQ.
French - Finally caught up on my Duolingo!! Took about 30 minutes but this is all I did for French, no podcasts or
Pims.
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Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5863 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque
| Message 86 of 118 08 February 2014 at 6:11am | IP Logged |
If Anki is starting to get overwhelming, you might consider deleting some of your older cards so that you don't have quite so many reviews. I also hate spending an hour on reviews when i could do something much more fun...
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ryanl321 Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4362 days ago 94 posts - 101 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish
| Message 87 of 118 09 February 2014 at 5:12am | IP Logged |
Crush wrote:
If Anki is starting to get overwhelming, you might consider deleting some of your older cards so
that you don't have quite so many reviews. I also hate spending an hour on reviews when i could do something
much more fun... |
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I have a system of several decks in each language. I need to catch up so I can manage each a bit more uniformly. I
have a special system that works for me but I got excited a few weeks ago and loaded more new decks than I could
handle. I hope to be caught up by mid-next week. I'll keep that in mind that about deleting older cards. I think when
I start going through these later on, I might delete those words that I could just never possibly see or experience
again in typical context...
Edited by ryanl321 on 09 February 2014 at 5:32am
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ryanl321 Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4362 days ago 94 posts - 101 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish
| Message 88 of 118 09 February 2014 at 5:31am | IP Logged |
I had my long ride and a run in today but I did them with a group so I couldn't get any listening in for my
podcasts this time. Still got a lot of review in and I feel was a productive day, but again, I didn't really have any
objectives so I'm not sure if I really progressed or not. I think though each time I pick up something, Anki, do a
lesson on LingQ, etc, that I progress. Every little bit helps:
German - Completed by Duo goals in about 10 minutes and got in about 15 minutes of Anki. I have my Skype
conversation in an hour so I"ll see how I do and may post afterwards if I remember. Got in about 15 minutes of
podcasts today as well.
Spanish - Did about 22 minutes of Anki and 10 minutes of Duo goals. Read an article and did some LingQ's for
about 20 minutes and read an email on reflexive pronouns while at a b-day party for one of my son's friends. Got
in some Anki during this time as well!! Listened to about 20 minutes of podcasts and 10 min of LSLC
French - met Duo goals in about 5 minutes. Did about 12 minutes of Pimsleur.
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