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One Week Challenge | ||
Tags: Time to learn | Beginner | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| zerrubabbel Senior Member United States Joined 4601 days ago 232 posts - 287 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Mandarin | Message 65 of 70 10 April 2013 at 7:28am | IP Logged | ||
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In response to the original recommendations, I think I should actually try doing 5 pimsleurs a day lol. It spells burn
out to me, but then I guess a 7 day challenge is about intensity is it not? lol... perhaps cantonese or German... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sizen Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4340 days ago 165 posts - 347 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Catalan, Spanish, Japanese, Ukrainian, German | Message 66 of 70 10 April 2013 at 11:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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A friend and I are thinking about attempting this with Swedish in mid-May, when we'll
both have more than enough free time. He wants to learn the language really badly, and I figure this might be a good way to kill some serious wanderlust that I have going on. Warning: I won't be doing this in the most logical way (i.e. with strategically placed rests and using proven methods), but rather I'll be trying to see if very intensive study is a possible method of achieving some form of success in this challenge. I was thinking that I would do as much Assimil as possible every day and also do a relatively early active phase (somewhere around lesson 20-30). In theory completing the course in a week, or at least getting through more than half, shouldn't be impossible, but the result will obviously not be as great as if I did it over a longer period of time in a clearer state of mind, unimpaired by the fatigue of hours upon hours of uninterrupted study. Assuming I spend anywhere between 70-80 hours studying during the week, and that each passive lesson takes 40 minutes to complete while the active lessons takes 15 minutes each, I should finish ~70 lessons with 6-16 hours to spare for reviewing, re-listening, spoken practice and other assorted studies/preparations. The questions is: how much of those 70 lessons will I actually retain and be able to reproduce? Burnout and loss of concentration is the biggest threat to the success of this kind of project, but I guess everyone already knew that much. However, I already have experience doing Remembering the Kanji in under a month, spending upwards of 8 hours on it every day without burning out, so I'm hoping I won't with this either. If I don't chicken out, I'll report back with the results later in May. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| stout Senior Member Ireland Joined 5372 days ago 108 posts - 140 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 67 of 70 11 April 2013 at 12:12am | IP Logged | ||
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Not for me thank you.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4666 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 68 of 70 11 April 2013 at 3:21pm | IP Logged | ||
A one week challenge sounds just right for learning a language really badly :-) 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| eoinda Tetraglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 5949 days ago 101 posts - 113 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, Spanish, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 69 of 70 27 April 2013 at 5:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hmm this is a bit similar to my situation right now actually, but then we are not talking about a new language but making huge progress in a language I'm already studying in about two weeks time. The language is Chinese and the goal is HSK 5, unfortunately my school doesn't allow me to do HSK 4 so I have to magically improve my Chinese by leaps and bounds in the coming two weeks. It will be interesting though to see how much I can improve myself with two weeks of intensive studies.
I think my approach will be words, words and words and then doing mock tests. Here we are also talking about some amount of "faking it" by only focusing on the things contained in the test so the spoken language will be completely unimportant. Well, we will see what the results are :) Edited by eoinda on 27 April 2013 at 5:28pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| cacue23 Triglot Groupie Canada Joined 4300 days ago 89 posts - 122 votes Speaks: Shanghainese, Mandarin*, English Studies: Cantonese | Message 70 of 70 02 May 2013 at 11:10am | IP Logged | ||
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Since the project is to "fool" native speakers that you are B2 in their language, it looks more like mind-reading to me, instead of language-learning.
1. Learn the pleasantaries, self-introductry stuff (name, age, nationality, job, etc), days and times, weathers, small complimemts (that's incredible, awesome, interesting, etc.), and menu items (preferably of the bar/restaurant that the conversion is going to take place). 2. Learn a little bit of table manners and taboos of the country (which might be different from English-speaking countries). 3. Work out a conversation plan. Every trifle conversation starts like this: A: Hello, nice to meet you. B: Nice to mee you, too. Hope you are fine. A: I certainly am. How about you? B: Fine, too. Thanks. The weather outside is certainly nice. A: It sure is. It's been like that for the past several days. How fortunate. B: Well, let's take a seat, shall we? (Waiter!) You may order first. A: Thank you. May I have a _____, please? B: And I'd like some _____, please. Thanks. (pause) So, I don't believe I've known you that much yet. A: I do need to introduce myself properly. My name is _____. I'm from _____. I'm currently working in _____ as a _____. In my free time I'm quite interested in learning languages, such as _____, which is why I'm here. B: I see. Well, I'm _____ and I'm working in _____ as a _____. It certainly feels nice to know someone who is interested in knowing my language and culture. A: Would you mind telling me some interesting tales in your country? I'd really like to hear them. (Side note: hopefully you're not attempting Danish, the other party will certainly tell you about Snow White and you wouldn't know what to say.) B: Of course. (And B proceeds to tell A about the tales.) A: (Inserts here and there with Hmm, Ah-huh, Wow that's nice, Incredible, etc.) B: Wow, I can't believe it's been 10 minutes. Time sure flies. A: Oh yes, it feels like only a minute. It's been really nice talking to you. B: Same here. And you really seem to know a lot about the _____ language. I'm impressed. A: You flatter me. There is still much to be learned. Shall we meet up and chat again sometime soon? B: Sure, and we'll keep in touch in the meantime. A: Definitely. B: Alright, until next time. A: See you. B: Bye. 3. Rehease this model conversation, and other alternative ways of saying these things, until you are absolutely sick of them. Pay close attention to pronunciation - since you are not doing much talking, the only thing that's going to make impression on the other party is pronunciation. 4. During the conversation, look confident. Do not hesitate in speaking, even if you make mistakes here and there. In short, put on the air that you know the language - convince yourself that you know the language. Listen closely for key words instead of entire sentences - there are different ways to say the same thing, but key words will be the same. And do not forget to look for hints in gestures and other forms of body language. Edited by cacue23 on 02 May 2013 at 11:19am 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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