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Some advice on my method! | ||
Tags: Learning Strategy | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Corinwright1994 Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4532 days ago 27 posts - 29 votes Speaks: Spanish Studies: Portuguese | Message 1 of 12 23 May 2012 at 1:58am | IP Logged | ||
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Hey guys, I currently study Spanish and Danish, my danish is superior to my Spanish
certainly. I had a few questions to ask about my technique and if you guys could give me your feedback on how well organized a routine this is. I change language every week, or what I should say is I shift focus every week. For example one week will be a "Danish week". a day of this week will usually consist of the following. 1. Revising the previous transcript/s I was working on the previous day, revising the newest vocab with flashcards (usually for 30-45 mins) 2. Moving on to a new transcript highlighting words I don't know and making note of them so I can revise them with flashcards (usually for 10-15 mins) 3. Doing an hours concentrated listening (this means playing the audio from the studied transcripts over and over until I feel I am understanding most of what's being said) (for an hour) 4. An hours listening in the background, this could be a podcast whilst I'm doing day to day around the house chores or at the gym etc 5. Choosing a topic to write 100-150 words on. (20 mins max) 6. Revising due for review learnt vocab. so that's it. Is it important to include Reading, Writing,Listening and speaking in ones everyday language routine? When it's a "spanish week" i do the same except for Spanish. On a danish week I'll still do an hours Spanish, but this will mostly be general revision of words or importing new passages and isn't too intense. Could it possibly be harming my progress that im switching focus each week or could this be a good thing? will one language really be hurt that much by going relatively light for a week before an "intense" week.? your help please!!! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6520 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes  4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 2 of 12 23 May 2012 at 11:40am | IP Logged | ||
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First, about your general method: it sounds really good but how long have you been doing this? You risk burnout. When you start with a new routine, it all seems great and exciting but if you start to feel overwhelmed, rather than forcing yourself to stick to this schedule, do some of the things less often. Especially writing doesn't have to be done daily unless it's your main focus.
Another things is that your activities should not be the same if your level isn't the same in two languages. In particular, as your Danish is already intermediate you'd better include some extensive reading and listening too. An hour of listening to the same thing over and over isn't bad, but an hour of listening to new material is great. Also see the techniques here http://learnanylanguage.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Techniques and examples of various flashcard items http://www.antimoon.com/how/usingsm-makeitems.htm (do you use paper cards or an SRS?) And as for alternating weeks, is it for one of the following reasons? a) you're worried about interference; b) this routine is stressful to follow for more than a week in the same language. If I guessed correctly, I think it's just better to make your learning less stressful. For example, here are a few links for Spanish: http://lyricstraining.com/ for playing with the lyrics, lots of songs in all genres http://gloss.dliflc.edu/Default.aspx tons of lessons on *interesting* topics. A good source for new texts? http://langmedia.fivecolleges.edu/lm_collection.html http://albalearning.com/ http://www.learner.org/resources/series75.html Destinos - series for learners http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/# A little more fun in your learning can only be a good thing :-) 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Corinwright1994 Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4532 days ago 27 posts - 29 votes Speaks: Spanish Studies: Portuguese | Message 3 of 12 23 May 2012 at 9:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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@ Serpent
Thanks a lot for the helpful reply mate! to answer some of your questions, Yeah the routine is slightly different for Spanish but pretty much the same. The other problem is that due to the fact there is hardly any Danish content on the internet (compared to other languages)This makes it harder to do the type of extensive listening you suggested as even when I subscribe to Danish podcasts it's hard to grasp what level of speaking they're..well speaking. thus creating more frustration. The danish listening I do "in the background" are podcasts and when I do try to listen to them properly I hear so many words I know, but can't quite process them fast enough to make any sense of it. I use online flashcards on lingq,whilst I don't use lingq solely for language learning as I don't think using it solely is a great way of learning how to speak a language, but the server space for storing words and transcripts certainly comes in handy, and there's lots of helpful people there too! all though recently in Spanish i've made some "real" flashcards to try and remember some of the irregular verb forms. To answer your question about switching focus. I was more worried about "interference". I felt if I am concentrating on one language mainly and thinking in it more often that week, in the long run it might benefit me in the long run, do you agree? Also by the end of the week changing to my other language seems to help level the enthusiasm and drive I have for each language. P.s would you say in a new routine reaching the burn out phase might actually make you feel like you are progressing slower, even if you aren't? I will also have a look at some of those links! :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4611 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 4 of 12 23 May 2012 at 9:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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Good advice from the earlier poster. I would add another comment about consistency.
I take it you mean you do 1 hour TOTAL for the entire week when a language is out of the rotation, and not 1 hour a DAY, right? I think that's probably hurting you a lot if it means you go long periods without exposure. I would want to make sure you have at least a good 15-20 minutes EVERY DAY of any language you're actively studying. Once you reach that, though, you could probably go on as long as you like with just the 15-20 minutes and keep improving. If you do 20 minutes a day, that's close to 2.5 hours a week, or 5 hours a week for both languages, minimum. You could even break it into two 10-minute sessions if you like, just don't abandon a language for any significant stretch of time. Keep those circuits in your brain active. You're already doing over 3 hours a day on your intensive language, so that shouldn't be too tough to arrange, I would think. (If I misunderstood and you're doing 1 hour a DAY of the off language, then that's more than enough IMO.) Edited by geoffw on 23 May 2012 at 9:32pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Corinwright1994 Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4532 days ago 27 posts - 29 votes Speaks: Spanish Studies: Portuguese | Message 5 of 12 23 May 2012 at 9:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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cheers geoff. you misunderstand :-P I do an hour at least of both languages but
alternating weeks will focus a lot more on one with the mentioned schedule! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4611 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 6 of 12 23 May 2012 at 9:46pm | IP Logged | ||
Awesome. In that case, I say whatever keeps you interested and consistent will work in the long run, and you've got some good breadth to your approach. Follow-up question: how long have you been trying to listen to the Danish podcasts? I suspect that the longer you listen, the more will make sense, even though you don't understand much right now. I've gone through that process before in Yiddish, French, and Dutch, where I just listened, casually, for a long time, for weeks, even though my level was low. It really helped me to get used to hearing and decoding the language at full speed, even when I don't know a lot of the words. IMHO, it's a cheap and easy trick for learning how to listen. Google "AJATT" for more on this method. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Corinwright1994 Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4532 days ago 27 posts - 29 votes Speaks: Spanish Studies: Portuguese | Message 7 of 12 23 May 2012 at 9:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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ive been listening to them for a good while. As I say usually just in the background. The
language is incredibly hard to make sense of, theres very few defining sounds as there is in Spanish, or German. German probably being the best example of a language that sounds very clear when spoken. In danish, it's difficult to tell when one syllable ends and the next begind. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Corinwright1994 Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4532 days ago 27 posts - 29 votes Speaks: Spanish Studies: Portuguese | Message 8 of 12 23 May 2012 at 10:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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*plus, podcasts are usually frustrating to listen to, because I get angry at the fact
i've been learning a language for about 8 months and have no idea whatever I just listened to. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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