Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4849 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian
| Message 249 of 292 08 August 2013 at 11:10am | IP Logged |
Sunja wrote:
other words like Absatzausrichtung and "umbrochen" -- I need to learn those, too. |
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Ich glaube, du meinst "umbrechen", z. B. wie in "Zeilenumbruch".
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Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6090 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin
| Message 250 of 292 08 August 2013 at 1:29pm | IP Logged |
oh yeah! As you can see that word "sitzt noch nicht" ;)
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Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6090 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin
| Message 251 of 292 10 August 2013 at 12:58pm | IP Logged |
Time for me to psyche myself up! The new school year will start soon and I’m about to get really busy. We all know what happens to language studies when we get really busy. It’s such a balancing act! I’ve been doing well with my studies and I've been neglecting work a bit -- I’ve forgotten or postponed an important phone call because I’ve been concentrating so much on French and my studies. I’m worried that when things start up again I’ll let work suck up all my time and then there will only be 10-15 minutes per day – maybe not even that - for language study.
Another sign that I've been concentrating on French is that it's become difficult for me to write anything good in German. I'm having such a hard time writing Bewertungen at work! A catastrophe! I’ve quit doing my log in German for the time being. Not that I can’t but it would take more time because I have to "switch gears". English, I can prattle like this for pages and pages. German takes more effort.
getting back to the point, I have to find a formula for when my work schedule doubles. My work itself is actually not so terrible – I’m just constantly running from one thing to another. I never have a block of time (not even one hour) when I’m not moving.
So what works? I think Ankdroid is my best friend and if I can keep reading and listening in French, I can keep expanding my decks. I have my smartphone near me all the time and -so far- I've been able to keep up with all decks. I’ve been writing French definitions for all new words. I’ve also started doing a Lautschrift for whole sentences and highlighting them in red. This "Eselsbrücke" has proven very helpful. I can remember combinations–, strings of sounds better. I’ve been focusing on sounds.
"Er hat nicht so viele wie ich -- Il n'en a pas autant que moi (eelnona pazohton kumwa)"
One hinderance ist that the language is too fast: so to remedy this I’ve put my podcast for "RFI Francais facile" at half-speed. "écoute radio" is okay – I feel like I’ve reached the “Nikola Dambre-hurdle" already and can now move on to the next level. I’ve stopped listening passively -- films don't do anything for me. I now only listen if I can understand at least 60 pour cent. That doesn’t leave much to listen to.
Hinderance 2: words. That’s a no-brainer and it’s why I have anki. I need to do something other than anki but right now that's all I can keep up with. I'm not keeping up with Assimil very well. I returned to Assimil after I realised that half of it was forgotten or only partially learned. I need to revise lessons 80-113.
The book is falling apart so I've started taking the pages out and carrying them around with me! It actually works. I've found out that it's easier to pull pages out at a stop light or while walking. A book is a bit harder to handle (hide).
That's about it. I have to condense learning into smaller bites and not focus on "blocks of time" like I have in the past. Seems simple but it takes a major amount of thought discipline to stop and study when I have work or family pulling me in different directions.
So, I got my new pilates ring today and I'm about to try it out. then I plan to dive into my latest German Lernheft. I'm hoping to finish it this weekend. It's a short one.
Edited by Sunja on 10 August 2013 at 1:36pm
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Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6090 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin
| Message 252 of 292 10 August 2013 at 5:09pm | IP Logged |
ich bin nicht zufrieden mit "display", oder "show" als Übersetzung für "anzeigen".
Ich lese gerade:
Wenn sie also ein Programm aus dem Internet herunterladen, dann sollten Sie sich in den meisten Fällen dazu entscheiden, es auf Ihrem Rechner zunächtst zu speichern (vgl. Abb. 1.43). Im Explorer können Sie das Programm dann anzeigen..
--) So if you download a program from the Internet, then in most cases you should decide to save it on your computer first... Then you can display the program in Explorer.
Alternativ können Sie die Ordner auf der CD anzeigen; in diesem Fall würde der Explorer geöffnet..
--) Alternatively you can display the file on your CD; in this case Explorer would be opened.
Ausgeblendete Datein, Ordner und Laufwerke anzeigen
There's probably not a good translation and I'm just going to have get a bunch of example sentences together and sit down and chew on this word a while.^^
edit: another word might be "einblenden"
Edited by Sunja on 10 August 2013 at 5:16pm
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g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5987 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German
| Message 253 of 292 13 August 2013 at 10:59pm | IP Logged |
Sunja wrote:
Another sign that I've been concentrating on French is that it's become difficult for me to write anything good in German. |
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I despair of the way I cannot concentrate on one language without paying the price of losing some ability to use another. I've seen this happen to people who have already achieved a really high level in one language and although the effect is temporary, it makes me wonder if I will ever be able to improve more than one language at a time.
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Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6090 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin
| Message 254 of 292 13 August 2013 at 11:17pm | IP Logged |
I had a Japanese coworker who said, "you can only achieve mediocrity in both languages" She was referring to herself but it still sends a chill down my spine -- and that was 15 years ago. I feel motivated to prove that statement wrong.
The good news is, the lag in my German writing is not permanent. It's just a matter of fanning the flame to keep it going. If I read and translate a lot, and do a lot of grammar excercises, my writing ability improves. unfortunately that's not going to happen at the moment.
The way I see it, I've got two fires going. French is the one that needs the most maintenance. It always burns out (year after year) because I never feed it. This year I have to keep it going.
Sorry about the metaphor but it's getting late and I've had a long day :)
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Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6090 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin
| Message 255 of 292 15 August 2013 at 11:44am | IP Logged |
I had bought "Peur sur la ville" (incl. CD) for my daughter to try, but I've started using it instead of Assimil. I'm using Assimil about once a week, but the lessons aren't very interesting. I should know -better-, the words in Assiml are pretty necessary for B1/B2; words like chaîne, la météo, inédit. I will try to force myself.
In the meantime I'm using "Peur sur la ville" which is A2 and exactly the right speed and word level (500) for me to blind shadow. It's worked out so well the past few days, that I've dug up another A1/A2 book "Radio mystère", which only has a level of about 300 words, and I'll read out loud with it.
As for vocabulary, I'm packing cards into Anki every day. Some cards are from the 1000-2000 frequency list that I downloaded. My Word program says I have about 5 pages of words (one giant column) to go. Whether I find definitions for all of them remains to be seen!
I'm also using the transcripts from FrenchPodcast.com and packing everything I find useful into Anki. This is a must, because I'm not able to practice speaking with a partner. I just make cards of two people (Paul and Marie) speaking to each other and I'll either cloze the cards or translate from English to French. It's the best spoken French with transcripts that I can find (that's free).
Having cards from FrenchPodcast.com means that I'm translating about 25 cards a day, each containing at least 2-3 sentences. I'm usually exhausted afterwards and it's hard for me to continue through the other decks (Assimil and 2000 vocab decks) I'll try to keep track of that. Maybe I can find a way to increase my endurance..
edit: the little A1 book, "Radio mystère" is a bit too lean. It's hard to challenge myself with a level of 300 words. I have no CD so there's not much point in using it. I thought I had another A2 book around here somewhere. I could use "Qui joue avec le feu", but that has a level of 1000. I'd like to stay within the 500 range for a while. At least until I get faster.
Edited by Sunja on 17 August 2013 at 4:48pm
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Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6090 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin
| Message 256 of 292 17 August 2013 at 5:07pm | IP Logged |
Anki has slipped out of my watchful control this weekend. I have to finish another Arbeitsheft before Monday. There will be a lot of Anki-flashcards to review when I get done so I have to take my vitamins and prepare myself for major flashcard-congestion when I log back in.
I find myself hoping my private students won't call next week. I like my schedule just the way it is -- I'm not ready for school to start! And I'm not the only one. There are some grimm faces around this house this weekend, that's for sure.
I've gotten past those seemingly "hard-to-get-through" lessons in Assimil, and I'm back on track. I've picked up where I left off at leçon 90. I plan to stick to it until the bitter end.
I've stopped FrenchPodcast.com for the time being. After three days I've exhausted all truly useful phrases and I'm just copying them saying, "alors; violà; mais enfin; donc; ben" a lot.
I have a new little book, "Le prisonnier du temps" from the same publisher as "Peur sur la ville". This new one is at the level of 300 à 500 words, a -tick-- higher than what I've been shadowing. Blind shadowing will become really important next week. I don't plan on having any time at all to study. I've already gotten used to warning my daughters: "If you see me with my earphones on and hear me speaking to myself in French, don't freak out, it's just me studying." This helps to prepare them in case they call me and I don't respond.^^
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