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What’s your biggest roadblock currently?

 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
38 messages over 5 pages: 1 2 3 4
aabram
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Estonia
Joined 5532 days ago

138 posts - 263 votes 
Speaks: Estonian*, English, Spanish, Russian, Finnish
Studies: Mandarin, French

 
 Message 33 of 38
20 November 2014 at 4:31am | IP Logged 
Xenops wrote:
1. No high-speed Internet--for some reason, in my portion of the U.S., we
either have dial-up (still) or our "high speed" is ridiculously slow. At my house I have
dial-up, which limits my resources, and I have to visit the library for the "high-speed"
that I before mentioned.


I feel ya. That's seriously debilitating. I moved from Estonia to Canada and I get twice
slower internet for four times the price. And they have data caps here! I was like oh
come on, is this XXI century or is it not? Had to purchase unlimited option just to be on
the safe side. I need my daily internet!
1 person has voted this message useful



Mani
Diglot
Senior Member
Germany
imsprachendickicht.b
Joined 4904 days ago

258 posts - 323 votes 
Speaks: German*, English
Studies: French, Swedish, Portuguese, Latin, Welsh, Luxembourgish

 
 Message 34 of 38
20 November 2014 at 8:56am | IP Logged 
Health has been certainly an issue for me this year and also limited time since I started an advanced training for my work in August (though this actually added time for my English, but took away time from my other TLs).

The funny thing about this is that now my biggest roadblock in Welsh is English. I'm working through the superb Say something in Welsh course. It's the first completely audio course I've ever taken and I really love it! I wish I had discovered audio courses earlier on in my life and I would find ones like that for my other TLs as well, but now in lesson 6.3 of the old course (= end of the starting lessons) I'm hitting a wall. The course works the following way: each lesson you are taught some words and/or grammatical constructions in Welsh, the teacher gives you a word or a sentence in English then there is a pause in which you shall say it in Welsh (=speak it out loud) and after that it is repeated twice in Welsh, once by a female speaker, once by a male speaker (and you are encouraged to repeat it together with them). Now here's my problem: my brain blocks out English! I mean, I know the teacher speaks English, I can hear the melody and the rhythm as being English, gosh I can even identify the accent to be an English one! It's just that his words don't make it into my mind, it's only, well, noise. What he says in English seems to carry no meaning! Argh! It really makes me mad! I'm sure I'll overcome this problem but it bothers me nonetheless.
On the other hand, sometimes when I watch Pobol y Cwm (Welsh soap opera) I think I have miraculously cracked the Welsh code only to discover a moment later that they were speaking a few words/sentences in English...
2 persons have voted this message useful



darkwhispersdal
Senior Member
Wales
Joined 6039 days ago

294 posts - 363 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Ancient Greek, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese, Latin

 
 Message 35 of 38
22 November 2014 at 7:59pm | IP Logged 
Mani wrote:

On the other hand, sometimes when I watch Pobol y Cwm (Welsh soap opera) I think I
have miraculously cracked the Welsh code only to discover a moment later that they were
speaking a few words/sentences in English...


That's pretty common with welsh programs I watch Rugby on S4C and the presenters switch
between languages on a regular basis. If you like dramas there's Y Gwyll otherwise called
Hinterland which has both Welsh and English versions.
1 person has voted this message useful



Mani
Diglot
Senior Member
Germany
imsprachendickicht.b
Joined 4904 days ago

258 posts - 323 votes 
Speaks: German*, English
Studies: French, Swedish, Portuguese, Latin, Welsh, Luxembourgish

 
 Message 36 of 38
24 November 2014 at 8:46am | IP Logged 
darkwhispersdal wrote:
Mani wrote:

On the other hand, sometimes when I watch Pobol y Cwm (Welsh soap opera) I think I
have miraculously cracked the Welsh code only to discover a moment later that they were
speaking a few words/sentences in English...


That's pretty common with welsh programs I watch Rugby on S4C and the presenters switch
between languages on a regular basis. If you like dramas there's Y Gwyll otherwise called
Hinterland which has both Welsh and English versions.


Thanks for this recommendation. I had a quick look on Wikipedia and Y Gwyll sounds exactly like the kind of drama I like to watch though I think at my level it will be quite challenging.
1 person has voted this message useful



stifa
Triglot
Senior Member
Norway
lang-8.com/448715
Joined 4872 days ago

629 posts - 813 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, EnglishC2, German
Studies: Japanese, Spanish

 
 Message 37 of 38
26 November 2014 at 1:12am | IP Logged 
German - speaking/writing. I still can't speak as fluently as I want to, or have it
come naturally when writing.

English - pronunciation and accent. I still have a very distinct accent, although my
pronunciation has been slightly improving over the last few years (bascially, since I
started studying in the UK)

Japanese - My listening skills are still too bad to actually enjoy Japanese media.

Spanish - Can't get into listening; I was hoping that would be as easy as it was in
German, but apparently it's not... (especially penninsular Spanish...)
1 person has voted this message useful



epictetus
Groupie
Canada
Joined 3881 days ago

54 posts - 87 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 38 of 38
26 November 2014 at 1:56pm | IP Logged 
Time. I have all the right resources, the right motivation, and an immersion experience
coming up and I have no time to give to it.

I had expected to put in many hours at work, but it seems that was a short-lived
opportunity. Thankfully this is a temporary situation and I should be freed in a few
weeks.


1 person has voted this message useful



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