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| Duan Newbie Canada Joined 4797 days ago 36 posts - 48 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Polish, French | Message 25 of 118 12 January 2014 at 3:39pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I actually agree with her, but I'm not sure how to explain the difference, not being a linguist or knowing IPA... veux is a "shorter" sound, for lack of a better adjective. I pronounce je vous like the beginning of je voudrais. Veux rhymes with deux. Hoepfully someone who knows better will come along and elucidate, since to be fair I've only been actively studying French for 12 days at this point :)
I'm thinking I'm going to have to give this a try. My son has a sleep cycle that is completely off from the rest of the family's, so either me or the wife usually end up getting him settled back in bed and then try to go back to bed ourselves, which inevitably leads to sleeping in. Maybe on days where he's not up earlier than 5 I will just stay up with him and try to get in some study as well. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| ryanl321 Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4365 days ago 94 posts - 101 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 26 of 118 13 January 2014 at 1:50am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Sounds like you have a very little one? You have to get your sleep when you can, being flexible with your study plan though is the only way to make it work. However, those days with a good nap and at least 7 hours of sleep at night are priceless. Good sleep takes priority over studying I would say! I found myself on Duolingo more so than ever today at the price of some good quality time with the kids. I wanted to catch up to you for this week's score. It doesn't matter in the end but I had a lot of catching up to do!! Edited by ryanl321 on 13 January 2014 at 1:51am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| ryanl321 Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4365 days ago 94 posts - 101 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 27 of 118 13 January 2014 at 4:35am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I had more fun than normal getting my studying in. It took me from very important things around the house that
got my wife upset (for example, taking the xmas tree down!). I guess today I was in direct contradiction with not wanting to have my studying interfere with my family life. Today I think I spent too much time at the computer! German - Spent a significant time on Duolingo and caught up a lot on my LingQ goals. Changed my Anki deck to 5 new cards a day and 10 reviews, that is all I can handle for flashcard review until I just get bored. I completed this in about 10 minutes or so. Perhaps my Anki deck has too many difficult phrases. I probably spend too much time on each card. I used to have a consistent partner on Sundays to speak German but after Christmas we just haven't found a way to reconnect. Finding convenient times to have conversations with native Germans with a 9 hour time difference is challenging. It only works late at night or early in the AM. My Saturday evening native skype friend has been consistent for an entire year! But I need more interaction during the week. I might have to go on mylanguageexchange.com to find new partners for free or settle with my italki instructors and suck up the costs for a bit. I need to evaluate this some more. Spanish - I got significant Duolingo and LingQ.com time in today. Haven't gotten back to Destino's, I'm above the content on the first several lessons but I think I have to stick with each lesson just to enjoy the story. I've very interested to finish Destino's this year but found that I was not motivated to plug in for another 30 minutes. Maybe if I just do 1-2 lessons per week that would keep me motivated to stick with it for the rest of the year. French - Frankly I'm not spending too much time on French. My focus is solely on Pimsleur for maybe 30 min/day, Duolingo and some Lingq when I have the opportunity. However, if my wife and I are serious about Montreal or Quebec City (thanks Duan!) this year or next, that will be the spark that motivates me for sure. I'm just going to go at French slowly until I'm convinced we've committed to our travel plans. My goal for next week is to continue on my studying, I like where I was this week and keeping this log going is a big help in being accountable. However, I want to study only those times when no one is watching or I'm not taking away precious family time. For example, "dual purpose" learning while exercising, washing dishes, cleaning, or early/late parts of the day while everyone is in bed will be my focused study times. Let's see how that works next week. Hasta luego.. Edited by ryanl321 on 13 January 2014 at 4:43am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| ryanl321 Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4365 days ago 94 posts - 101 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 28 of 118 14 January 2014 at 5:11am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I rode my bike to work today so that gave me some good time to listen to my podcasts and I'm in the office this
entire week so it should be pretty easy to get study in. My wife's first day of school was not a problem. I think we're through the worst of her classes, this year she'll complete nursing school which is a relief. I love to give her grief, she has a major in Psychology, a masters in Education and now she wants to be a nurse! We're in our late 30's so if there is a time to change careers, now's the time to make it happen.. German - listened to almost 3 hours of podcasts today. Got my Anki deck completed, which only took me about 5 minutes with 5 new cards and 10 review cards. Maybe I should have left it at 10 news and 20 reviews? No matter, I'll try this and see how it works this week. Completed Duolingo goals, no sweat! I shouldn't even post that anymore, I should just post about Duolingo if I go over my goal. I have a blast with that program. Not a lot of active learning today though. Perhaps I'll talk to myself in German tomorrow on the ride to work. Spanish - listened to about 2 hours of podcasts on my bike, to and from work today. I have the same # of news and reviews in my Anki deck like I do for German. However, my Spanish deck is much easier than my German so I'll probably change this one back first. No prob with Duolingo today. Did all Duolingo at my lunch break, and a question or two, or three while taking little breaks at work. Amazing how much you can get done in this time! French - Did about 45 minutes of Pimsleur today. About 15 minutes while taking a shower when I got back from work today and the rest was when I wasn't listening to Spanish on my ride. My ride is about 1 hr and 15 minutes each way. The car ride is usually 30 minutes each way when no traffic problems. But in San Diego, if those clouds even look like they're going to rain, add another 20 on top of that! Adding up my listening time you would think that I have no life. Obviously my listening to podcasts is completely passive and I can do that while I'm working sometimes. Not always possible, I'll have my struggles this year but I'm taking advantage these first few weeks of the year before it gets busy! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| ryanl321 Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4365 days ago 94 posts - 101 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 29 of 118 15 January 2014 at 4:55pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Wow, I had this my log opened last night and I completely forgot to log my entry for the day. I assure you this
isn't the inevitable decay in my motivation, I had every intention to make my entry and I got a lot of studying in. I guess I'll have two posts today. German - I've been very unsatisfied with my lack of recalling words I've learned when I'm speaking. I'm sure this is a weak point of most people not having daily access to speakers of the target language. Yesterday, I decided to talk to myself in the car, "Ich spreche mit mir selber" for about 10 minutes in German. Now, this isn't anything new. I've done this before and the problem has been coming up with topics that I haven't talked about before or sticking to difficult subjects. When I talk to myself in German or Spanish, I always, always fall back on the content that I know just to continue and not get frustrated. This 10 minutes was good to reflect back on how useful speaking to yourself can be in the TL. I have a great idea today though on my ride to work. Since I have relatively few cards to review in Anki now based on my changes earlier this week, I will use those words I learned today or yesterday to create a subject to discuss. My subject should include several conversations using those new words I learned. I'm just trying to find a to find a consistent plan to maintain my spoken German. We'll see how this goes. I also met my Duo and Anki goals and got in about an hour of podcasts. My next goal on LingQ is that I have a 15 minute podcast that I'm trying to get through. I printed out all the LingQ's, or the words I don't know, there are about 300, and I printed this list and I plan on memorizing it before I bring up the podcast again. I hope this helps capture more of the conversation next time. I also reached out to mylanguageexchange.com (actually I just went on the site for a second and later someone sent me an email to chat so I think the system puts you at top in the queue when you log on). I hope to be emailing her now to eventually start speaking more often. I also set up a tutor session on italki.com for Saturday. Of course I did this at noon so the kids can eat lunch while I study which shouldn't interfere too much. I'll be cognizant of that this weekend. Spanish - I also got 10 minutes of speaking in similar to my German and met my Duo goals. I have a Friday tutor session, at lunch time. I'll be home then so this doesn't distract with work or family. I got 1.2 hours of podcasts in and met my Duo and Anki goals. French - Something paid the price and it was French. I only got in about 10-15 minutes of study. I really love this language, I need to commit more to French the rest of the week. Met my Duo goals though. Off to work.. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| ryanl321 Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4365 days ago 94 posts - 101 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 30 of 118 16 January 2014 at 7:23am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Time for winding down. Most of my activity today did not interfere with life, did not take time away from family,
and only minimal time away for work for little breaks here and there, but I was satisfied with my progress. German - Using Anki to get new words and then go to work talking to myself about these new words was not as fun as I thought. I did learn an important thing though. Perhaps words that I'm learning I will never use, ever, when I read or speak in German. For example, "Inkrafttreten". When will I ever use this word that is a noun to mean "taking effect". Seems logical but should I really be studying this word. I deleted it from my deck. So I'll continue this process for a bit to see where we go. I finished my Duo goals and talked to myself in the car for like 20 minutes but I did nothing else with German except finishing my Anki deck. Spanish - the LingQ 90 day challenge started today so I'll be focusing a lot time on LingQ with mostly just Spanish since that was the language I wanted to strengthen on this site. I listened to 1.8 hours of LingQ podcasts and did some LingQ reading but was a bit shy from meeting my goals. No matter, I can make those up no problem tomorrow. I'm excited to see if LingQ can really push me over the hump with my Spanish to get me to a solid B1. Completed Anki and talked to myself for like 10 minutes. French - Listened to at least 50 minutes of Pimsleur while getting ready and on the car ride back home. Did Duo and just glanced at some text in French. I was surprised how much I could pick up in French just by knowing a bit of Spanish. What motivation! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| ryanl321 Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4365 days ago 94 posts - 101 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 31 of 118 17 January 2014 at 5:36am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Another solid day, amazing how much I get down just on my phone. Made some changes to my Anki deck. I have
a 15 minute podcast that I have translated into both German and Spanish on my LingQ account. I printed out the LingQ's and tried to study the words in both languages but it just wasn't working out for me. I instead downloaded these LingQ's into separate decks in my Anki file. I upped my limit for Anki per day to try to get through these words memorized. I'll continuously go back to this podcast in both languages and make sure I completely understand this podcast and see how this works. I might take this approach with new podcasts I listen, with the intention to learn as much for that one podcast as possible. Then after flashcards and reading, I'll just continuously listen to it in the respectively language to ensure I can recite or shadow the podcast with no problem. Perhaps this will be my break in my study? German - Met duo goals and did almost 70 Anki cards. My German has taken a bit of a backseat, that's ok though. I can see the cycle between Spanish and German very clearly already in my log! I just get in the mood to do one language or the other!! Spanish - listened to about 2 hours of podcasts, to and from work and while at work. Did about 30 flashcards and met both my Duo and Lingq goals today. Tomorrow I have my lesson. I haven't had a lesson in Spanish yet, it's usually just talking to my step mother. We'll see how this goes. French - got through about 45 minutes of Pims. Need to review the words in unit 9 and 10 and now it's fixin' to be 11. Need to catch up here tomorrow. Got through Duo goals... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| ryanl321 Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4365 days ago 94 posts - 101 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 32 of 118 18 January 2014 at 6:17am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Got up this morning and instead of going to the gym I did an hour of solid study time. Very effective but that
wasn't my plan. I did get my gym time in later in the day so I don't feel I cheated myself out. Last year when I was studying Spanish, I would get carried away with my study time in the AM and completely get out of my routine of going to the gym. It was so easy to sit back with coffee and study than to get motivation to go to the gym. I had to work myself out of that so I was a little surprised that I let myself do this today. Oh well, it all worked out.. German - Met Duo goals and got in about 15 minutes of listening time on a podcast I've been focusing on with LingQ. I have an Anki deck specifically for this podcast so I've been going at it pretty hard trying to understand what they're saying. As a result, I've learned at least 40 new words with no problem now. My approach with LingQ before has been listening randomly to various podcasts. I haven't focused on narrowing the LingQ's in a flashcard program. I just assumed I would continue to see the LingQ's in other contributions and eventually learn them. Yeah, that happens but I like this approach now of mastering a long, intermediate 2 level podcast. This new approach for me I can imagine being very useful to learn the Top Thema on dw.de each week. Exciting times! Got through about 50 new cards on Anki and several reviews from prior days. Listened to the news from podcasts on dw.de and a number of German songs. Spanish - Didn't do any LingQ with Spanish today but did get through my Duo goals. I had my first skype session with Spanish for an hour. My speaking interactions have mostly been with my stepmother, not too often. I don't think it went very bad and I didn't get a chance to get in the Spanish zone in advance so it was a rough start. Trying to listen was tough. I could usually understand the jist but in some cases when the tutor continued to speak I really didn't know what he was saying. I'm certain I have some form of ADHD so I found myself very often thinking about what I needed to do for the rest of the day while he was talking. I needed to focus and pay attention but that was hard. I noticed I can do that when someone is talking to me and English and get away with it. I can't in Spanish. More practice will help in this area. At least I'm aware of this deficiency of mine. French - About 30 minutes of Pims and met my Duo goals. Nothing out of the ordinary to report here, won't start Anki until I have a firm handle of pronunciation. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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