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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4254 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 9 of 32 20 August 2014 at 6:48am | IP Logged |
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¡Hola! The Chronicles of Narnia is one of the books that I am working on. I´m also working on Notes in Spanish Intermediate, although I might try out the advanced once I finish listening to all of the podcasts. I´m also reading the Divergente trilogy.
I've heard that the reading is easier later on in the challenge, after we have practiced more of the language. I'm behind on the movies myself... although I did get one "film" done today (listening to Notes in Spanish Intermediate). Keep up the good work! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Xenops Senior Member United States thexenops.deviantart Joined 3828 days ago 112 posts - 158 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese | Message 10 of 32 21 August 2014 at 9:56pm | IP Logged |
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iBuenas tardes! Thank you for the encouragement. I definitely feel like I'm moving at a snail's pace in regards to reading, but it sounds like that is expected. :) I will also be checking out your log (I read the first two pages).
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Xenops Senior Member United States thexenops.deviantart Joined 3828 days ago 112 posts - 158 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese | Message 11 of 32 28 August 2014 at 9:34pm | IP Logged |
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iBuenas tardes! I have come to a realization (probably useful for further learning): I find book drills boring. I
used to love them, especially when learning a brand-new language, but doing drills for Spanish and Japanese on topics I have covered previously is boring, and thus, I do not do as much grammar learning as I ought. Perhaps I need to move on from reviewing nitty-gritty to new-ish material, maybe that would help. As for the Spanish challenge, here are my stats: Minutes: 446 Pages: 112.5 I got the idea from Lorren's log of putting new vocabulary from native reading onto Anki. With my reading of "El Sobrino del Mago", I pick a few words that i don't know, look them up specifically, and ad them to Anki and to paper flash-cards. I don't look up every word, since then my reading would slow to snail's pace, but a few new ones per page. This makes me feel like I'm still learning without doing drills. :P Last night I did a exercise work out from a Jillian Michael's routine, but dubbed in Spanish. I had done the same program in English before, so I didn't depend on the language for instruction. The dubbing-actress spoke really fast! Good news! There is a local Italian Conversation group in my area. One of the members is from Italy, and another member is a first-generation American. I am excited! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4254 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 12 of 32 29 August 2014 at 1:25am | IP Logged |
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That's a good idea, doing a workout in a foreign language. If you're going to work out anyway, that's a good way to get in a little extra Spanish.
Hope the reading/Anki thing works for you. I've heard some people complain that it's hard to put your own decks together, but I've never found it annoying, especially if you're only doing a little bit at a time. My deck has 1728 words at the moment, but since I only did it a little at a time, it didn't seem so bad. I went through my entire review list today in 18 minutes. That can grow in the few days after I read National Geographic (which is where I do most of the reading that I get my Anki words from), but adding a little at a time makes the task much easier. I've been working on this deck for a little over a year. I like it better than the 5000 Spanish words deck that I downloaded from someone else. When I read for enjoyment, I usually highlight the occasional word and add it... mostly words that I can't figure out from the context and I'm curious about. If you're reading El Sobrino del Majo and you're familiar with The Magician's Nephew, then you're probably getting a lot from the context and familiarity with the story, like I am with the Divergente trilogy. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Xenops Senior Member United States thexenops.deviantart Joined 3828 days ago 112 posts - 158 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese | Message 13 of 32 03 September 2014 at 10:06pm | IP Logged |
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Hola Lorren,
my current challenge with Anki is actually sitting down and doing it. :P I did find YnEoS' posts about SRS rather useful, so I plan to incorporate sounds and images to my cards. For the Narnia book, I am cheating: I read the English with the Spanish side-by-side. I found that at this level, I get a lot more out of it than guessing purely from the Spanish. As for my update, here are the numbers: Minutes: 468 Pages: 120 I think my main problems are 1) discipline, and 2), regular schedule. I am currently unemployed, and despite having time, I find that having too much time makes more waste than usefulness. Also for the past few months, I have forgotten my reasons for language-learning. I used to have romantic ideas of learning a new language to reach a new people, to understand things before unknown (to me), to have a relevant puzzle, and most importantly the excitement of "I just wrote a sentence in a foreign language! Yes!" I need to return to this excitement, which I confess is dampered by my unemployment, but I need to make the best of my time, right? I also started keeping minutes of time studying Spanish (outside of the challenge), Japanese and Italian, and so when I return to my posting schedule of updates on the weekends rather than Wednesday (which confuses me), then I will post those numbers too. I have also suffered from wanderlust, from wanting to start Ancient Greek or German. The former I decided against, because I have hard enough time reading non-Latin characters of Japanese, and the prospect of learning a whole new 27ish alphabet seems to much. I have yet to find a method to disuade me from German, though. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4254 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 14 of 32 04 September 2014 at 6:11am | IP Logged |
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It can be discouraging to be unemployed... or underemployed. My dh has been going through a period of depression due to underemployment... although he just got the job offer of his dreams today (he first applied to this job in February, so the wait was long), so that should clear up soon.
I had a hard time with the Magician's Nephew. I only got to page 30 before I had to turn it back into the library. Part of it, probably, was that I hadn't read the book in a couple of years, at least. It might have been 5 or 6 years. The other part was that I was more interested in Divergente. But I found the writing to be more difficult. So don't feel bad if you have to use the English book. I sometimes look at the English Divergent book to double check on things. I'm hoping that by the time I finish Leal (the third book) I'll be ready to tackle Los Juegos del Hambre. I've seen the movie, but haven't read the book in English, so it will be a step up in the challenge department. Keep up the good work! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Xenops Senior Member United States thexenops.deviantart Joined 3828 days ago 112 posts - 158 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese | Message 15 of 32 08 September 2014 at 3:29am | IP Logged |
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iBuenas noches! I have had much improvement in the language learning this week. First, the least impressive, the challenge stats:
Minutes: 535 Pages: 123 Since I last shared the updates of such on Wednesday, not much has happened since then. Now, for my success stories: I found that keeping a time sheet of how much study I in each language encourages me, as I can say "hey, I got THIS much done this week! Woot!" The numbers are in minutes. Spanish (outside of challenge): 94 Japanese: 136 Italian: 83 My second success story is the use of sound and pictures on Anki. This has made a HUGE improvement for my Japanese, which I struggle with the most with remembering vocabulary (just a random thought as I look at my cat sitting next to the keyboard--I don't know the Japanese word for fur. I should look that up). I looked at YnEoS' blog for the jump-off point, and referred to Gabriel Wyner's website on the actual process of adding sound, etc. I am still suffering from wanderlust in regards to German, and also Latin. One thought I had was I can "reward" myself with studying one (or both) of these if I study my primary three first in the day. We'll see. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Xenops Senior Member United States thexenops.deviantart Joined 3828 days ago 112 posts - 158 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese | Message 16 of 32 15 September 2014 at 1:11am | IP Logged |
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iBuenas tardes! I made better progress with reading this week, one day I put in seven (7) pages! I am still continuing with "El Sobrino del Mago", which I realized is a bit difficult: along with all the new vocabulary, there are lots of little auxilliary words "ya", "aun", etc. that I'm not always certain what they mean in that context. I might have to dig deeper in FSI Spanish and see if it explains such things.
As such, here is my Super Challenge stats: Minutes: 583 Pages: 134 I read someone's log, I believe he studied either Italian or a dead language, and he liked to keep track of the hours he spent on each language, so instead of minutes I will put in hours: Spanish (outside Challenge) 2.76 Japanese: 3.35 Italian: 3.21 As for materials, I will give an update: Spanish: I borrowed "Living Language Spanish Ultimate" from the library and I found it was just the right pace for reviewing the grammar. I now need to return to FSI or something since I ran out of renewals. :P I am working through "Las Cronicas de Narnia" for reading and "Notes in Spanish" for minutes. Japanese: Still working through Pimsleur's Comprehensive I, as it has new vocabulary and constructions. When I am able to say the sentences that are prompted before the answers, I move on to the next lesson. I try to spend twenty (20) minutes or so each day on "Let's Learn Kanji!", and the link is here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/4770020686/ref=oh_aui_detai lpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1. Since I am bored reviewing material from Genki, and feel I'm gaining anymore from it, I started on "Japanese for Everyone": http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0870408534/ref=oh_aui_detai lpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 I also began using Anki with Gabriel Wyner's method: https://fluent-forever.com/ Italian: At the beginning stages of Pimsleur's Comprehensive I. Also working with "Schaum's Outline of Italian Grammar", which gives a nice grammar breakdown: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0071635297/ref=oh_aui_detai lpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 I am still tempted by German and Latin, and my current thinking is: I don't have school, so no homework; and when I get a job, I still won't have homework, so maybe now is the time to indulge in such things because I might not get such a good chance (and maybe learn Irish too!), since I plan to return to school, and might not have time to do more than maintainance. I still have time management to conquer, then I will consider this more carefully. Loves, Xenops 1 person has voted this message useful |
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