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CarlyD’s German/Spanish Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| carlyd Groupie United States Joined 3991 days ago 94 posts - 138 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 17 of 63 19 December 2014 at 3:45am | IP Logged | ||
Thanks! I'm leaving all the resources I have "on the table" for December exactly to see what I want to keep for 2015 and what I want to set aside. Then I can start the 2015 challenge with books/resources that I know will help me. The only comic book I have so far (ordered, but not arrived yet) is an older Donald Duck comic. I found a bunch of easy adult/kids books fairly cheap and want to go through those before I start looking at the native German stuff. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| carlyd Groupie United States Joined 3991 days ago 94 posts - 138 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 18 of 63 19 December 2014 at 3:46am | IP Logged | ||
Wonderful site!! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| carlyd Groupie United States Joined 3991 days ago 94 posts - 138 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 19 of 63 20 December 2014 at 7:43am | IP Logged | ||
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It's evolving that Friday will be my "day off"--I will do my 30 minutes, and probably no more, and probably won't be posting to my log that day.
Otherwise, I'm settling in to 1 hour a day the rest of the days, making goals each Friday for the next week, and checking off my goals as I meet them. So far, so good. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| carlyd Groupie United States Joined 3991 days ago 94 posts - 138 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 20 of 63 21 December 2014 at 11:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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How can anyone learn a language just by using Rosetta Stone? I do like it in some ways--the native voices are great and helping me understand spoken German faster. But doing a Grammar section where they have a picture of a kid eating an apple and the correct response is "einen Apfel" instead of "ein"--how does that help anyone when previous pictures said "ein"?
Yes, I'm also using textbooks and I'm learning about changing to einen. But if I didn't have a textbook, I'd be giving up in disgust about now--their pictures just don't explain grammar. A few days ago, they showed a picture of what looked like a group of Tibetan monks. Then another picture with just one monk and introduced the word, both singular and plural. So I learned the word for monk? Nope, I looked it up. It was "adult". Well, yes, they were all adult. Not the point. So I will continue with Rosetta Stone on a lag-behind basis. As in, cover the material in the textbook and then use Rosetta Stone to reinforce it. The plan that's working so far is--textbooks every day and then reinforce it with everything/anything--Rosetta Stone, Assimil, Duolingo, youtube, whatever. But my "backbone" will be the standard textbooks. Goal for upcoming week: Chapter 4 in textbooks Duolingo every day Assimil, Rosetta Stone--4 times over the week Reading--1 full page from Café in Berlin, Chapter 2 in Reader go over flashcards at least 5 times a day, every day 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| carlyd Groupie United States Joined 3991 days ago 94 posts - 138 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 21 of 63 25 December 2014 at 9:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've started reading a bilingual book that says it is "pre-intermediate". Lots of words I don't know, but I'm reading the German sentence, then the English one, then the German one again. Actually, it's a good story about a guy that inherits his father's house--the next chapter has him learning how to cook.
Otherwise, I'm staying on the set program--textbooks, audio, Duolingo, Rosetta Stone. I'll re-assess the end of January to see what, if anything, needs to be changed. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| carlyd Groupie United States Joined 3991 days ago 94 posts - 138 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 22 of 63 31 December 2014 at 2:11am | IP Logged | ||
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I keep thinking I should be learning the "right" way. Stay with the textbook, stay on track. Instead I'm picking up various books, paging through, spending time wherever I feel like it. I'm finding things to be easier and easier, so I'm just going with the flow. But I need to start writing in German--on lang-8 or somewhere.
I'm supposed to be doing plurals this week. Seriously? 492 different rules that are in effect "most of the time." So the textbook says it's easier to learn them word by word. But they've already given me a couple hundred words in previous chapters, with no plural. Gah. So I'm making flashcards with the word, the plural, then any common phrases that it's used in, or maybe common compound words. That's working. For the rest of the week (lots of stuff going on): stay with textbooks, reading, Duolingo. Decide on a clear goal for January. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4535 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 23 of 63 31 December 2014 at 11:34am | IP Logged | ||
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But there is no one right way to learn. You need to find the method(s) that work best for you.
My personal view is a little grammar, a lot of input, then increasing output; but there are other's here who do very different things. I think we all agree that an overview at the start is important, and that input/output are important - but how much and when varies widely. I wouldn't worry too much about learning the plurals. If you really want to start writing immediately, then it's perhaps useful, but the plural forms become somewhat obvious after a while (for any given word there is usually only 1-3 options, and it's usually relatively obvious which one). You might want to check out my blog for a post I made a couple of weeks ago about using Readlang for learning passive vocabulary. I've been finding this really helpful to improve my vocabulary fairly quickly. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| carlyd Groupie United States Joined 3991 days ago 94 posts - 138 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 24 of 63 05 January 2015 at 2:10am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the advice, Patrick! I'm going with the flow on the plurals for now.
I've spent the last several days on a time-sucking project, battling some weird sinus thing, so haven't done more than the minimum with my German. I've done Duolingo every day and a lot of review, but haven't really moved forward. I've been reviewing my flashcards, which a lot of people don't like, but they work for me. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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