hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5131 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe
| Message 1 of 5 30 November 2011 at 2:44am | IP Logged |
I just discovered this website - accompl.sh - today through Lifehacker.com.
It looks like a neat, social way to track and accomplish goals. It's based on completing things in 365 days, which is perfect for me, since I tend to begin a new challenge at the beginning of the year. The site is by no means a language-only site. It can be used to set any sort of goal. But it looks like it would lend itself well to language-learning goals.
They also have a section on the site for challenges, which is group oriented.
Anyway, just thought I'd mention the site.
R.
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Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6621 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish
| Message 2 of 5 30 November 2011 at 8:33am | IP Logged |
Interesting, but many of the goals people had seemed very vague. I don't think it's very helpful to have a goal like "lose weight" or "learn Chinese." You have to have some way of measuring it, otherwise you don't really know whether you've accomplished your goal or not.
With learning languages, you can never learn everything. You have to be more specific. So I would suggest goals like:
"Reach B2 level in ...."
"Be able to watch and understand a movie in .... without subtitles."
etc.
Or perhaps not even try to reach a certain skill level, but just complete a project, which gives you a very concrete goal. It also means you know exactly what to do to reach the goal. e.g:
"Finish Pimsleur 2 for ...."
"Read Harry Potter in ...."
That way you really know what it is you're trying to do, and you know when you're finished.
If you do it correctly, it could be a great tool. People are much better at accomplishing their goals when they write them down and tell others. But if the goal is too vague, it's just frustrating.
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Luna Moonsilver Diglot Groupie Germany lunaslanglog.wordpreRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5079 days ago 77 posts - 99 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Mandarin, Korean
| Message 3 of 5 02 December 2011 at 3:25pm | IP Logged |
Thanks for the link, hrhenry! I started my own list on there a couple of days ago, though
I took Brun Ugle's advice and made sure my goals were specific. I've just listed
textbooks I want to complete and books I want to finish reading. I don't think I'd ever
be able to mark off something like 'be fluent in German' because I have no idea what
fluency is.
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NickJS Senior Member United Kingdom flickr.com/photos/sg Joined 4960 days ago 264 posts - 334 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese
| Message 4 of 5 02 December 2011 at 10:01pm | IP Logged |
That site is really interesting, definitely seems good in motivating you to accomplish
something as people can also take part in challenges. Think I might give it a go myself.
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hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5131 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe
| Message 5 of 5 17 December 2011 at 9:18pm | IP Logged |
So, I've definitely decided to use accompl.sh for one specific goal in 2012 - learn Georgian (get to an A2 level).
I've set up my list to automatically lock in on Jan. 1, 2012. You can see it here.
Since it's still not locked in, I'd appreciate any suggestions for improvement. The only thing I'm currently considering changing is dropping the George Hewitt Grammar. I'm only aiming for A2 after all, and the grammar book may be overkill.
R.
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Edited by hrhenry on 17 December 2011 at 9:20pm
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