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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6472 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes  Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 65 of 102 12 October 2010 at 8:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Seems to me you're looking for something to do in-between, low-commitment, which you can
drop without regrets once you figure out what you really want to study next. Esperanto would be such a project ;-) Just do it while it's fun; unlike any other language you know it won't take years to "finish". 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| NuclearGorilla Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6788 days ago 166 posts - 195 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Japanese, French | Message 66 of 102 20 October 2010 at 4:54am | IP Logged | |||||
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I think you've got it correct, Sprachprofi. If I had thought to do Esperanto before starting on Spanish, I may well have gone that way, but now I think it must be too late at present time. Although Esperanto, like too many other languages, is on my vaguely defined list.
I started reading along with the text, and have been doing so at a rate of a chapter per day. It would be best if I did more, but it doesn't appear that I have. Unlike following the Japanese, I have not felt sleepy, dozed off, or had to break to take a nap. I'm not sure of the specifics on this, but I'll just appreciate it. I feel like it's useful, at least to some degree, and I can follow along very easily to the extent that I can follow with very little guesswork. I believe what I remember of the two years of high school Spanish has been helpful for this, and maybe some of the French too. In any case, this has been a pleasant experience thus far. It feels much easier and also more useful than the same process with Japanese. I'm enjoying the contrast, even if it will make a return to Japanese more daunting. Unfortunately Spanish has not been making for very long entries, or I have not been feeling effortful enough. In any case, feel free to make up a satisfying conclusion to this entry of approximately 300 words. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| NuclearGorilla Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6788 days ago 166 posts - 195 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Japanese, French | Message 67 of 102 01 November 2010 at 6:09am | IP Logged | |||||
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I continued at a rate of one chapter per day, until a day which did not afford me the time. After this, I found myself unable to resume, at all, and so stopped with several chapters left to go. Will I finish up? I don't know. I'm inclined to say, "No." Note, however, that the sanctity of my Anki streak necessitated that I find time for it.
There's a lot of fun to be had in watching or attending to media that one can actually understand somewhat. I had forgotten that with the Japanese. The extension of my video watching streak I believe resulted in a continued state of mild misery, which made me unhappy in my study. It is mere conjecture, however, that the continued streak was to blame for this; it may have likewise been due to a lack of new/interesting materials. After this hiatus, though, I think I miss Japanese. I think I'd like to get back to it. When, is the question. I am apparently not doing anything with Spanish (although I could be), so I could rebegin with that time. However, I have a different project, unrelated to language learning, I'd like to spend November on. So, I may stop mostly during this time. I believe what I'll do is try to add some occasional Japanese study in, when desired and possible. While I would like to continue with Spanish, since I've accomplished very little, I don't think I will, simply because it'd be another thing to maintain when I would be better to spend the time on something else. I don't really care for the idea of consciously halting my studies, but it should be a welcome change to doing so unintentionally. I may set myself up for a second, hopefully this time successful, DECEMBONANZA. This time, I might actually plan it out in advance. (The only reason I want to hold on to the tradition is the terrible portmanteau. It speaks to me.) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| NuclearGorilla Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6788 days ago 166 posts - 195 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Japanese, French | Message 68 of 102 29 January 2011 at 5:26am | IP Logged | |||||
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Now that I've successfully accomplished a roughly three month hiatus, it's time to dehiatus.
The DECEMBONANZA did not happen, sadly. It would have been pretty neat, I think, although maybe it would have just worked out as poorly as the first one. Oh well. In my absence from this log, the observation holds true, that I was also absent from my studies. While there were some moments of activity, they were brief. I even stopped on my Anki reviews for somewhere around a month; this was precipitated by some computer issue and just spiralled out from there long after any such difficulty had been thwarted. So, for the past couple days, I've been addressing these 500+ reviews, eliminating their draining influence over my psyche. I'll be caught up tomorrow at the latest, at which point I will resume daily reviews, and hope that I do not fail again. I had an excellent record for the time prior, too, having missed only one day (I think) between mid-June and early December. Is it not fascinating how one trespass begets a second? It is, of course, never the first trespass that damages, nor the second, but those third and continued ones. I've been itching for some activity, though, and I'm getting to it. I've been having some hesitation, however, since I would love to go forth with all my languages at once, but realize it would be best to limit that a bit. My decision, as it now stands, is to return to Japanese, doing whatever seems reasonable in order to pick up some actual ability in the language. This will be my focus, and in other time, I'll give some effort towards my French and my German, neither of which I've given enough time. As of right now, I've a book in German I'd like to read, so that is my first goal. I'm not entirely sure what it is I will be doing in Japanese, but I expect it to include a revisiting of Tae Kim, as well as other things which I should come up with. I'm sure I'll ramble about whatever I come up with just fine as things get going here. Since I missed the DECEMBONANZA, perhaps a Februarathon's in order. I'll think about that, that name is suitably awful. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| NuclearGorilla Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6788 days ago 166 posts - 195 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Japanese, French | Message 69 of 102 01 February 2011 at 2:02am | IP Logged | |||||
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FEBRUARATHON
I have decided that Februarathon is go. (Go is also go.) If anyone cares to join in the madness, I encourage them. What is the Februarathon? It is a month of setting high goals for your study. Then could be time-based, material-based, effort-based, go nuts. Since there's short notice, you can let a couple days slide to preparation, as long as you make up for it somehow. That's the magic of the process! The two most important facets are, however, that you give some degree of daily effort, and that you will put forth more effort than you would otherwise. Why you should join the Februarathon: -February is a short month, so you can claim you worked especially hard for a month, while utilizing less effort than you would for one of those longer months. -It's too early in the year to let your studies slump. Make your new year's resolutions last just a bit longer! -Guarantee success by becoming accountable to a group of focused individuals! -Februarathon is a pretty catchy name. -There are only so many months left before you die. Why, it could be just this one. Don't you want to die knowing you've done your best to learn your target language(s)? -If you publicly join the Februarathon, I will (poorly) draw for you an animal while I should be working on my goals. -C'mon! -Do you really want to be outefforted in February by me? That would be pretty sad, wouldn't it? -You would waste your extra time anyway. Well, maybe not, but to reiterate, c'mon! Who should not join the Februarathon: -If you're not really looking to put effort into the language, instead just learning it to impress others with little to no knowledge of it. (If you are looking to put effort into and want to impress others anyway, that's okay.) -If you've some condition which would make study hazardous for you. I refuse to be held liable for anything. Although as long as you agree not to hold me liable for anything, it does seem noble to study oneself to death. -If your home/flat/place of residence is currently on fire or under threat of natural or manmade disaster, you are free to join, but you really should deal with that first. How to join: Just say you're doing it. Kind of obvious. Although if you want an animal drawing, I'll have to know about it. You can also do a personal dance of mild excitement to celebrate your entry, but this is entirely optional (personally I'm foregoing it at this time). --- My personal goals for the Februarathon are as follows: -Read a minimum of three pages per day in German. (Might increase this if I stop reading so slowly.) -Complete one hour of Japanese study per day, not including non-initial Anki reviews. This will at least initially be Tae Kim (again), but may progress to other things later in the month. The study is to be from some structured regimen, i.e., TV watching such as that I so diligently performed earlier in the course of my studies cannot becounted toward this time (although it will be a good thing to include as time permits). -Complete at least two hours total study per day between the first two totals. (This should allow me flexibility in what I spend my time on.) Hopefully I will choose to complete more than two hours per day with some regularity, but we will see. I'm more concerned about the German reading, since I think I'm less interested in doing that, but I have to keep those skills fresh somehow. JOIN THE FEBRUARATHON I realize I wrote this appeal for co-participants in vain, but like so many other things in this log, it will amuse me in the future to see the misplaced effort. At least I will complete the study, and that will nowise be wasted. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5958 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French | Message 70 of 102 01 February 2011 at 2:35am | IP Logged | |||||
Count me ten thousand percent in, with a Februarathon commitment to two hours study per day during this month to kickstart things for me, as my TAC efforts have been uglier than gruesome so far. Celebratory dance of mild excitement postponed until I get better curtains, at the insistence of my neighbours.
I will require a hat for my animal, but as I recall, this should not present too much of a burden for you! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ReneeMona Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5337 days ago 864 posts - 1274 votes Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2 Studies: French | Message 71 of 102 01 February 2011 at 2:56am | IP Logged | |||||
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This sounds like fun! I’d like to join.
I’m afraid I won’t be doing a dance, as I make it a point only to dance under threat of torture or death. As for my Februarathon goals, they will be: - Finish all of French in Action. I just started today and watched three episodes so that means I’ll have to watch 1.75 episodes per day. I can do that….. - Finish reading Charlie et la chocolaterie. I have nine chapters left and I normally do only one per week but I’m getting sick of this book and I want to move on. With school just having started again, joining the Februarathon is probably a very irresponsible and overconfident move on my part and I will probably fail to achieve either of my goals. However, I am on a linguistic high at the moment and my house is not on fire so I figured I might as well give it a shot. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5984 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 72 of 102 01 February 2011 at 10:15am | IP Logged | |||||
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Februarathon! I love it! My January TAC start has seen good headway made with kanji at the expense of other things so in the spirit of aiming high I would love to join in and push, push, push further!
My Februarathon goal I think is simple: Finish working through Japanese for Busy People 2 and 3. I have complete the first two chapters of Book 2, which conveniently leaves me with 28 chapters left, one for each day of the month (well, 27 and a half, but as I am already 9 hours into the 1st February, I think that's ok). All while continuing to study a minimum of 20 kanji a week. And keeping up with Anki reps. And still enjoying Japanese. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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