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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Melya68 Diglot Senior Member France Joined 4290 days ago 109 posts - 126 votes  Speaks: French*, English | Message 1 of 12 08 February 2014 at 1:00am | IP Logged |
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For now, I'll simply keep a log of everything I do in English.
I've decided not to bother with dates. If I ever learn Chinese again, I might make another log or just use this one. I have recently decided to skip the boring pages I come across when I'm reading. I will do my best to log only the pages I actually read. I also do a lot of skimming. I devote this extra time to dictionary look-ups. Read: Your Best Brain Ever (240 pages, read about 160) H.I.V.E #1 (read in less than 24 hours: 320 pages, 300 pages actually read. I looked up tons of words.) H.I.V.E #2 (read 10% of the book so far, I'll update on book status another day.) How to Learn a Foreign Language by Graham E. Fuller (I think I've read this book before but I'm not sure. 102 pages long, but I'm doing a lot of skipping. At the end of the book, I'll have read 50 pages.) The Four-Hour Workweek (audiobook) expanded edition 416 pages (380 pages read, almost done) 160+300+50= 510 pages+380 pages(audiobook) = 890 pages = about 207,900 words read I also read forum threads and some blog posts. ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------- I didn't add blog posts or books that I started reading and then got rid of. EDIT: Done with the 4-Hour Workweek. More non-fiction reading to come. Edited by Melya68 on 08 February 2014 at 2:00am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Melya68 Diglot Senior Member France Joined 4290 days ago 109 posts - 126 votes Speaks: French*, English | Message 2 of 12 08 February 2014 at 7:06pm | IP Logged |
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Listened to 15 pages of a boring book which I deleted.
Currently listening to the 4-Hour Body. EDIT: Whoa, this book is bad. 2/3 of it is really bad. I doubt I should finish listening to it so I'll probably just read it (skim it) from now on. All right. +340 pages (4-hour body) +20 pages (random books I swiftly discarded). Superfreakonomics (read last month) +150 pages Freakonomics + 270 pages CHERUB 1 340 pages CHERUB 2 305 pages CHERUB 3 275 pages BCT 1 250 pages BCT 2 260 pages 890+2210= 3,100 pages. This year, I've read 3,100 pages (books) so far. I've also read hundreds of blog posts in English, but sadly I didn't keep track of the actual number of blog posts I read. 3,100 pages= 775,000 words, or just over 11 books! Edited by Melya68 on 09 February 2014 at 2:01am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Melya68 Diglot Senior Member France Joined 4290 days ago 109 posts - 126 votes Speaks: French*, English | Message 3 of 12 12 February 2014 at 1:19pm | IP Logged |
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I read The language hacking guide (Benny). Some bad parts, some good parts, overall not worth the price but it was a quick read (I finished the book at 6 A.M. as I seem to suffer from "middle insomnia" these days.)
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| Cristianoo Triglot Senior Member Brazil https://projetopoligRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4120 days ago 175 posts - 289 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, FrenchB2, English Studies: Russian | Message 4 of 12 12 February 2014 at 2:06pm | IP Logged |
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I have the same insomnia problems, but since I was born... :)
I read Benny's manual and I liked it, except for the impraticability of some advices, like speaking from day one. Unless one speaks with the walls (and of course do not expect an answer lol), it's so hard to find a native willing to communicate with someone who simply can't speak yet that I think it has a pretty good chance to be a waste of time on trying to speak from day one. Edited by Cristianoo on 12 February 2014 at 2:06pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Melya68 Diglot Senior Member France Joined 4290 days ago 109 posts - 126 votes Speaks: French*, English | Message 5 of 12 12 February 2014 at 11:10pm | IP Logged |
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I completely agree with you, plus some of what he says is downright discouraging like "Once you've learned one language, think long and hard if you want to learn another."
This is part of the reason why I can't seem to start studying Chinese again. Deep down, I want to, but obviously English is my main priority. I'm happy I quit studying around 10 languages over the years to focus on English, and I don't regret anything. What bothers me about Benny is that he has no respect for what he has already learned and usually doesn't bother working on the languages he's studied before. It seems like he wants this to change in 2014, and kudos to him for making this decision. Sure, it's more "impressive" to speak 10 languages (even badly) than to speak one language well, but it's the same, really. If I had devoted about one year per language, I'd now speak 10 languages "badly" since I started studying languages very early. Actually, I might even speak 20 by now, who knows. However, I can proudly say that I did paid translation work from French to English, and that my client was very happy with the results. Sure, I was paid very little compared to professional translators, but it's a start. I would go as far as to say that becoming "fluent" (=conversational in Benny's case) in a language in 3 months is easy. It's also a really good way to make sure you never, ever want to speak the language again once you're done with the experiment. Seriously, language learning is not a race. In his latest post, he admits that he forgot most of what he learned. Learning a language once then forgetting everything is easy and useless. Edited by Melya68 on 12 February 2014 at 11:11pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cristianoo Triglot Senior Member Brazil https://projetopoligRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4120 days ago 175 posts - 289 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, FrenchB2, English Studies: Russian | Message 6 of 12 13 February 2014 at 1:51am | IP Logged |
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Well, I think you misunderstood me, and him.
Most of what he says is true, at least in his manual. I only disagree with the need of speaking straight from day one, which in my point of view could be a waste of time, since at day 1 one cannot speak anything (and natives are often a valuable resource). I don't think he discourages anyone, but I didn't read his book yet, just the manual, so I can't really make any opinion about something I didnt read yet. For what I've read, he favors exploring cultures over languages, and I believe is by that he doesn't bother to learn and then forget a language, because he uses the language as a tool. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Melya68 Diglot Senior Member France Joined 4290 days ago 109 posts - 126 votes Speaks: French*, English | Message 7 of 12 17 February 2014 at 2:09am | IP Logged |
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I don't dislike Benny, but he did admit on his website that learning languages and then forgetting them is somewhat useless.
Anyway, some things have happened since my last post. I have given Chinese another try, and played with Japanese for a few hours. While I had some fun, I have decided not to study a third language for now. I watched the first 11 episodes of Fairy Tail in English, and understood more of the dialog than I did a few months ago. I'll definitely keep watching this show, as it's pretty easy to understand. I'm not sure I want to watch Detective Conan again. Only about 10% of the episodes have been dubbed, and I'm afraid that reading subtitles for 700 episodes wouldn't be very useful, especially since we're talking about fansubs here. I *could* read the manga, but I borrowed it in French and found it somewhat boring. I've also been reading tons right before bed. I can't even keep track of all the books I've read/started to read and discarded. READ/PARTIALLY READ: The 100 Simple Secrets of Happy People: What Scientists Have Learned and How You Can Use It 210 pages Arrest-Proof Yourself: An Ex-Cop Reveals How Easy It Is for Anyone to Get Arrested, How Even a Single Arrest Could Ruin Your Life, and What to Do If the Police Get in Your Face 25 pages I've read other stuff but I can't remember, or deleted the book already. 3,335 pages (probably more) total, not too shabby! Over 830k words read and still counting. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Melya68 Diglot Senior Member France Joined 4290 days ago 109 posts - 126 votes Speaks: French*, English | Message 8 of 12 18 February 2014 at 3:29pm | IP Logged |
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I did the exact opposite of what I had planned to do. Yesterday, I started learning hiragana. While I don't regret studying Japanese for a few hours, like I said, I'm going to stop.
I looked at some real Japanese, and it really hurt my eyes. Okay, my eyesight could be better, but that's not the point. All the little details and strokes are driving me crazy. It's not that I can't learn Japanese. I believe anyone can learn any language. I studied Chinese for a few weeks, which was much worse than Japanese in many respects. But why would I learn Japanese? For the anime? For the manga? I've only ever watched a couple of anime, and I'm not really into manga either. I think I'm frustrated because it seems that I'm going nowhere with English right now. However, I'm probably wrong. My listening comprehension is slowly getting better. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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