|
 |
David’s learning log | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| davidtalbot Pro Member United Kingdom lingoschmingo.com/Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6957 days ago 11 posts - 11 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 1 of 8 19 October 2013 at 11:27pm | IP Logged |
|
After far too long away from this site I've decided to open a log to keep track of my language learning.
I've been feeling lately that I've been making very little progress in advancing my level of my German or French and this seems like an ideal chance to get things moving. My French is very inactive - I learnt a fait amount at school and was able to pick up a fair bit of conversational ability in my early twenties but right now it's next to inactive. As a bit of an introduction to my to German: although I've never taken any formal qualification in German I would estimate the reading, speaking and understanding elements to be somewhere between B1 and B2 with my written German being a fair bit behind this - I rarely seem to write in German. I've been learning the language off and on for a number of years without any real focussed effort to achieve any specific goals. In terms of my exposure to the language, my wife is from Hamburg which is a massive help although we speak rather too much English at home (in London). Through my wife's friends I have a certain amount of time speaking in German, although if I were to add up the time I would doubt that in total I would spend more than a couple of hours a week speaking the language. A beautiful moment just over a year ago was when I was sitting in bar in Berlin at three in the morning with only German being spoken and realising that I wasn't in the least bit exhausted with the effort of communicating. It was a real boost. I'm at the stage now where although it would be good to be able to take an exam, it would be great to feel as if another such moment were possible to unlock which I could focus upon. Edited by davidtalbot on 21 October 2013 at 11:29pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| davidtalbot Pro Member United Kingdom lingoschmingo.com/Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6957 days ago 11 posts - 11 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 8 31 October 2013 at 10:16am | IP Logged |
|
I've begun the six week challenge with Spanish as my target language.
This seems as good a reason as any to start a Spanish log. With a young child and lots on at work I don't have a huge amount of time on my hands. My aim is therefore to find at least 30 minutes a day active study using Assimil with some additional time to log phrases to Anki, to listen to the Assimil recordings and to record my attempts at Spanish to SoundCloud (soundcloud.com/tweet). I'll be keeping a record of the time I spend on individual learning tasks on a Google spreadsheet. I started today with lesson one of Assimil, done in the recommended way. I made a note of three phrases which I feel may be useful in future and have added them to my Anki stack. On the way into work I listened to lessons one to six of Assimil. My thoughts at this early stage: I love the voices in the Anki recordings. I never realised just how poetic Spanish could be, my assumption being that the language was staccato, machinegun-like. This really will make a difference to my learning, I'm sure of it. I'm so much more likely to follow the audio when listening to it is so pleasurable. In terms of my understanding, I feel as if I understand about 80% of the first six lessons to which I've so far listened, which perhaps puts me out of the range of an absolute beginner and which I can only assume has come from my passive exposure to Spanish and French over the years. Part of me feels that I could push for doing two lessons a day but, as mentioned above, I'm very much limited in the time I can give to study at the moment. My aim with SoundCloud is to repeat the lessons within Assimil, hoping for feedback on my pronounciation. I've never before recorded my voice with the specific aim of gaining feedback so this should be an interesting experience. Edited by davidtalbot on 31 October 2013 at 10:49am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| JonnyJ Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4049 days ago 8 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Swedish | Message 3 of 8 31 October 2013 at 8:41pm | IP Logged |
|
Hi davidtalbot.
That sounds like a really good way of developing your spoken skills - I hope it helps you. In terms of you understanding, I do think it's important that you understand a good percentage of each lesson because it helps reinforce everything. Good luck with your studies. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4829 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 4 of 8 31 October 2013 at 11:51pm | IP Logged |
|
David,
If you live in London, you might think about joining a German Meetup group there. I think there are several in London. (I don't live there myself, but have noticed them online). And / or Spanish ones, of course. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| davidtalbot Pro Member United Kingdom lingoschmingo.com/Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6957 days ago 11 posts - 11 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 8 04 November 2013 at 10:22am | IP Logged |
|
JonnyJ and montmorency - thank you for the thoughts!
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| davidtalbot Pro Member United Kingdom lingoschmingo.com/Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6957 days ago 11 posts - 11 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 8 04 November 2013 at 10:31am | IP Logged |
|
I thought it would be worth posting a bit of an update about my Spanish language
learning so far. Although I've used the 6 week challenge as a vehicle for taking me towards fluency I'm fully aware that I'm able to spend far less time on the language than a lot of people. As an example, I set my alarm for 5.30 this morning so I could be awake 30 minutes before by ten-month old son which would give me time to get my Spanish Assimil lesson in. This should give some perspective of how much uninterrupted study time I'm able to find right now :) In terms of using Assimil, I'm sticking to the one-a-day recommendation but in addition I'm going through each lesson periodically - listening, talking to myself(!) and reading through the texts. I use Anki to add phrases which I feel will be useful and leaving out those phrases which I either know or don't feel I will need to have on a regular basis. Other ways in which I'm trying to make learning Spanish easier:
Edited by davidtalbot on 05 November 2013 at 12:34pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| JonnyJ Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4049 days ago 8 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Swedish | Message 7 of 8 04 November 2013 at 10:52am | IP Logged |
|
From my little bit of exposure to thr Assimil
system when I flirted with french about a year ago, I can honestly say its a great system so I hope you enjoy learning from it. As for time - I can empathize with in that respect, it can sometimes be hard to find the time to study, but keep at it! Even having only studied swedish for a week I am finding it so rewarding. I personally prefer using memrise as opposed to anki however I know a lot of people prefer anki so I hope it works for you :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| davidtalbot Pro Member United Kingdom lingoschmingo.com/Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6957 days ago 11 posts - 11 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 8 05 November 2013 at 4:48pm | IP Logged |
|
My first really challenging day.
There was enough in the lesson six of Assimil Spanish today to make me have to consider things carefully - half of the sentences constructs were new to me. My approach? Create two-way Anki cards for each of the sentences and let the card scheduling take care of when to present me with the information. I often (ironically) forget just how easy it is to add new info to Anki and have it sync with my computers at work and at home and on my Android phone. There's never any excuse not to be learning. Additionally, I have the audio on my phone and am listening to the lesson periodically just to check that I understand what is being said. I'm still finding the narration on Assimil really beautiful. It's so much easier to learn from well-spoken audio. The trilled Rs still make me smile. 1 person has voted this message useful |
If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
