|
 |
German: where will I be next year? | ||
Tags: German | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Avid Learner Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4664 days ago 100 posts - 156 votes  Speaks: French*, English Studies: German | Message 9 of 10 24 July 2012 at 5:26am | IP Logged |
|
Thanks for the encouragements! :D Thanks for the tips as well, and best of luck with your own studies! :)
I do own one German movie with subtitles in several languages, but I was not sure in which languages I should put the subtitles. I also found the spoken German in the movie more difficult to understand than a narrated report was despite the lack of subtitles, but that was 2 or 3 months ago, it would probably worth it to attempt it again. I'll do just like you suggested me and put the English subtitles. The German subtitles do not match exactly the speech anyway. Now this is strange, today I listened to a TV show and I swear I could understand a good 40% of it if not more, which had never happened to me. Not that I could understand any type of show, but I was really surprised. I guess my brain just really needed the break. A week ago, I would have been the queen of the "consistency" thread... which I'll probably join soon! :D But I could also start the "it's time to take a little break" topic, I guess! I've spoiled myself recently and bought a tablet mainly because I felt this would help me studying German. I've realized yesterdat I had this software I did not even remember downloading, and it's so cool because each time I hear a new word, I can write it (handwriting or typing) immediately and get the translation while watching the show... and it keeps the history of past ressearch, so then I can go back and review the words slowly. This is so helpful, and motivating too! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Avid Learner Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4664 days ago 100 posts - 156 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: German | Message 10 of 10 05 August 2013 at 4:12am | IP Logged |
|
Wow, it's been so long since I've posted here that I had to dig to find that topic. Well, I guess I never felt I had anything that would be particularly of interest to share, but at this point I think it might be useful to others to share where the path I'd chosen had led me. :)
I started 22 months ago with FSI and dutifully followed it, unit by unit, for perhaps 10 months, until I reached unit 16 and 17 and then... well, I started having a much harder time progressing with it. Those units were longer, plus I had always been eager to learn something new, which had led me to neglect revision, and it caught up with me. I guess I was also starting to feel that it was time to do more with the language - reading, listening, writing... But it took me some time to figure out what my next step should be. That's when I realized that while FSI is a very good program, I had a problem. It's one thing to do exercise #5 from a) to e) about a particular verb or grammar point. But it didn't help me that much because outside of that particular context, I found it hard to remember anything about it. I knew I'd learned something about it, but I couldn't actually use it on the spot. Even revising everything wouldn't have helped me much, because it still would have been the same context. I also had a similar issue with vocabulary: I could think of a particular word when doing an exercise, but completely out of those sentences, in a regular text or on TV, too often, I just couldn't tcome up with its meaning quickly enough. My conclusion: many people here say that words should always be learned in sentences. I can't disagree, since I started progressing in English so much more as I got more exposure to it, as opposed to strict memorization of words. Myself, I find isolated words very difficult to learn. But I found out that I also needed to make sure I knew what the words meant completely out of context. I also need to learn words both ways - from L1 to L3 and L3 to L1, because I found out that it was actually possible to be able to come up with a particular word myself, but have trouble recognizing it. I started using Anki for all the vocabulary I had already went through. I also created a seperate deck with sentences from FSI. Aside from the first 6 units, which were relatively quick to revise, I entered at least one sentence for each particular word, verb conjucation or grammar explanation. This way, when I revise, it's all mixed up and there is no way to answer using short term memory, which, as I said, is unavoidable for me otherwise when I use FSI. I realize that the repetition in FSI is meant to help make things automatic, and that I might miss out on that by keeping only maybe a quarter of it or so, but I feel I have retained a lot more this way, without making it overwhelming. I know I can always go back to practice something in particular if I feel I need it anyway, or perhaps one day I'll browse through the units and add more sentences into Anki. I'm still at FSI unit 17 and while I've never been through the next units before, I'll keep this method anyway. I've left out writing and speaking for the moment, because I felt the most important thing for me was to get more exposure. I feel like my understanding (listening or reading) should be good enough to allow sentences and words to stick in my mind before I go back to that. I'm getting there: I can read more and more effortlessly and I'm about to start reading my real first book in German (over 300 pages, and not a manga/comics type, for the first time). We'll see how it goes. :D Another issue I've had is that my goal was to put in one hour a day, but along with full time work, I'm also a student, so at times it's been really hard. Sometimes I'm so tired that I can't retain much, even if I put in the time. Since I know I'll be busy in the next months, I chose to attempt to learn 10 new words a day this fall and listen and read as much as I can in German, as I feel that I can do that even when I'm extremely tired and it will still be enjoyable. My schedule should give me a little more freedom next winter, so at that point I'll attempt again to work on my writing and speaking skills. 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. |
