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What to do in a language as a beginner | ||
Tags: Activating a Language | Beginner | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Emily96 Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4430 days ago 270 posts - 342 votes  Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Finnish, Latin | Message 1 of 15 15 August 2013 at 7:46am | IP Logged |
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I've started learning Finnish for this 6WC, but i'm realizing that it might not have been the smartest idea to take a
language that i have zero skills in as my target language. It does encourage me to study a lot, but it's hard to log multiple hours and get higher on the scoreboard. There is only so much actual studying that i can take in one day, and my skills are no where near good enough to enjoy reading books, watching movies, listening to music, or any of the other things that i do to rack up time with my other languages. So the question is, how do you guys spend your time when you've just started studying a language and cannot yet use native materials? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sizen Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4341 days ago 165 posts - 347 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Catalan, Spanish, Japanese, Ukrainian, German | Message 2 of 15 15 August 2013 at 10:00am | IP Logged |
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With the first language I learned outside of school, Japanese, I studied only 10-15
minutes a day for about a year before I started to get serious by spending long hours with the language every day. I liked that a lot. Less hectic. Less mind numbing. I'd love to do that for every "hard" language I learn. Now I'm in a different situation and want/need to learn Mandarin a little quicker, so I need to spend more time on it every day. To do so, I've taken a different approach with enough variety that I can study maybe 2-3 hours depending on the day before I get tired (better than 15 minutes!). I've got an audio course (Assimil this time), an anki deck full of example sentences and audio (suspend the cards with easy grammar or words I don't want to learn), a phrase book, scritter (an SRS) for recall of individual words and writing practice, and then a bilingual text of a Dr. Seuss. I try to go through 1 new lesson in Assimil every day, then I review 2 older lessons quickly, I translate an old lesson to English and then a lesson I've already translated into English, into Mandarin (40-60mins). After that I try to get through the 20 or so sentences of the day (20-30mins). This is usually more vocab oriented than it is grammar oriented. Afterwards, I add the new words I feel like learning to skritter to practice tones and writing mainly (10-20mins). I glance at some random sections in the phrase book (5-10mins). I visit the doctor (10-20mins) and there! Of course, it's never in this order, and I often break Assimil and Anki into smaller study sessions throughout the day. I also like to listen to some music throughout the day, mostly on youtube because I can easily add the titles to skritter or search for the lyrics when I want to know what they're saying. I also need to take French breaks all the time to get my mind off of Mandarin. Switching from listening, to survival phrases, to reading, to French, to single words, to music, to translation, to French, to music, to sentences, etc... keeps me a lot more interested than repeating the same thing over and over again. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5011 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 3 of 15 15 August 2013 at 12:35pm | IP Logged |
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I just try to get through the beginner phase asap. When I don't have time for that or just feel like enjoying some native material, I use the opportunity to practice my other languages.
There are a few beginner options though. Easy graded readers. Not sure how many you can find in Finnish but they will surely suffer from the trouble of all the easy graded readers: they get boring. Or some music is accessible quite early. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4146 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 4 of 15 15 August 2013 at 12:50pm | IP Logged |
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I think it's more motivating to start with a "how to learn" program on day one. If you're really focused, you'll
probably "graduate" before you're done, but it will get you started, which is often the hardest part. My examples are in Spanish, and I realize that I'm at an advantage here because there are so many Spanish resources available, but during the first 2 weeks of study, every day I: - listened to a free podcast called Coffeebreak Spanish - did a Pimsleur lesson (free from the library) - watched an episode of Mi Vida Loca (interactive video program on BBC) I didn't work my way entirely through any of these. They were a jumping off point, and I quickly moved past them. But they were great for organizing my study at the beginning. Once I knew enough words/simple sentences, I was ready for more difficult material. While I agree with other posters that easy readers are a great tool - but I can't even find those in Spanish at my library, so I don't know how difficult it would be for you to find them in Finnish. You don't want to spend a bunch of money - and besides, they probably won't even arrive until after the challenge! If I were in your place, and I didn't want to spend any money, I would do two google searches: 1) learn Finnish online for free 2) Finnish easy readers You could also check at your library to see if there are any resources. Another option would be to find a conversation exchange partner. Here are some Finnish speakers on italki who want to practice their English: http://www.italki.com/partners#learn=english&speak=finnish&n ative=1&page=1 You would have to be up-front when contacting them that you're an absolute beginner in Finnish, and that you're looking for help learning basic vocabulary - that you won't be able to have actual conversations in Finnish. In this case, not every conversation partner will work out. You need someone patient who's willing to be parroted and to repeat over and over again. But you'll advance so much more quickly if you actually work with living, breathing human beings! Good luck! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Henkkles Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4255 days ago 544 posts - 1141 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: Russian | Message 5 of 15 15 August 2013 at 2:41pm | IP Logged |
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Here's a part of a little reader with a glossary that I found.
Also, you can always enjoy listening to music. You might not know all the words but when you keep listening to it and one day you realize what they're saying; even one part of it, it will be great. Edited by Henkkles on 15 August 2013 at 2:48pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7158 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 6 of 15 15 August 2013 at 2:57pm | IP Logged |
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In general I make sure that I complete at least one or two formal courses for independent learners before even starting to get native material. I admit that I'm quite old-fashioned in how I start learning languages. I even shy away from starting from scratch with online courses since the internet is too distracting. I'm much more productive at my desk with the textbook, dictionary in hard copy, MP3 player with the relevant audio, and pencil and paper.
As it relates to Finnish, I started learning it in earnest with "Finnish for Foreigners I". My interest in the language was such that I felt good learning the grammar gradually doing tons of exercises along the way. It wasn't boring at all. Only then did I feel that I could plow through short Finnish texts or kids' books (e.g. Finnish translations of "Le Petit Nicolas" (Nikke in Finnish) without getting bogged down by checking my dictionary to the point of distraction. If you want a graded reader, you probably know about FSI Finnish Graded Reader although it's not something that I recommend until you're sufficiently familiar with most of the frequently-used items in Finnish grammar and lexicon. Another option to keep your interest up would be perform a weekly exercise where you try to understand and translate one installment of Oswald, looking up things in a grammar book or dictionary when necessary. Compared to the other Finnish comic strips that I include in my log's entries, its humour is quite straightforward while the language used is often in the standard variant and suitable for younger folks. Post the comic strip as an embedded image in your log with your attempted translation, and then one of the Finns (or maybe even I?) could provide feedback. The idea is that a handful of words or expressions from the comic strip will stick and you'll also get to see how Finnish grammar is applied on contrast to the sometimes abstract or isolated presentation in whatever course that you're using. Lykkyä tykö! / Bon courage! 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5209 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 7 of 15 15 August 2013 at 3:02pm | IP Logged |
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That's one of the things I don't really get about the whole 6 week challenge thing - it encourages putting in the hours of study, but in a language that's new to you and is quite different from everything you're familiar with, you reach the daily limit of what your brain can handle fairly quickly. To me that sort of challenge would make more sense for a language that you either already have a decent grounding in, or similar to one or more that you already know well. I dabbled in Russian a while ago and one hour per day was more than enough to make my head hurt, especially at the absolute beginner stage. I agree with Luca that at the start, it's about quality rather than quantity.
I suppose that once you reach your limit of active study, you could fill in the hours with passive exposure like films with subtitles or listening to get you used to the sound of the language, although I question how productive that would really be. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Emily96 Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4430 days ago 270 posts - 342 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Finnish, Latin | Message 8 of 15 15 August 2013 at 10:44pm | IP Logged |
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Excellent advice, thanks everyone! I was really having trouble finding things to do, since all i've been using so far is
one particular online course. I would read the dialogue, go over the vocabulary, take notes on the grammar, and then try to make some sentences with what i learned, but even doing all that would only take ~45min. And i didn't want to just keep going, because i didn't think i could take in much more. Now, i'm definitely going to incorporate flash cards for vocab review and then spend some time going over survival phrases from a book I got from my library. Once i'm tired of that, i'll listen to some music ( i have a huge list of finnish songs to go through that i've compiled from one of the threads in the Music forum). Hopefully soon i'll be able to use the graded readers that were suggested, they look like they would be perfect. and the idea of working with a comic strip is really interesting. i'll be sure to give it a try as soon as possible! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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