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Mikonai’s TAC 2013 Log: German + Swahili? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| mikonai Diglot Senior Member United States weirdnamewriting.bloRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4928 days ago 178 posts - 281 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Swahili, German | Message 1 of 8 30 December 2012 at 11:00pm | IP Logged |
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Because challenges always help me focus:
I don't actually speak any German at this point. My mother's parents were German, but especially seeing as it was just after WWII, they never taught it to their children. I'd love to learn it though, since it's a strong part of my heritage, and on top of that it seems a fun language to learn. Anyway, I have an Assimil course on order (though I don't think it's been shipped just yet), and I'll see if I can apply some learning skills and strategies I got from learning Italian to learning German. That'll involve Assimil, hopefully no other specific course, if I can avoid spending the money (I'm cheap), Anki for vocabulary, maybe some Duolingo exercises and the like as well. As for Swahili, it's less of a priority, but probably an easier language to learn. The main difficulty will be finding materials for it: the good news isthar my parents both speak at least a little, and they'll be nice enough to talk to me for practice, and help explain some grammar. I think I might challenge myself to learn this language using minimal money, if I can. So here are my actual goals: *Achieve German B1, hopefully *Achive Swahili A2, at least. *Log it all! Definitely need to focus on my listening comprehension, since that's my weakest area even in Italian. It's just not my favorite thing to sit and listen to things for an extended period of time. At a certain point though, games like Minecraft should help me out, since they give me something to do while I listen to an audiobook or podcast or some such. Which reminds me, I want to work on Italian at least enough to keep it on level, even if I don't make much improvement this year. So... this should be fun! Current Running Tally of Handy Resources I'm Using (divided by language!): German: http://www.ielanguages.com/German.html (nice German grammar reference!) http://www.podclub.ch -- podcasts for learning languages, just simple stories/someone talking carefully, with transcript in the same language. No translation. Swahili: Edited by mikonai on 01 January 2013 at 6:24pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| mikonai Diglot Senior Member United States weirdnamewriting.bloRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4928 days ago 178 posts - 281 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Swahili, German | Message 2 of 8 30 December 2012 at 11:29pm | IP Logged |
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Seeing as the first of the year is coming up soon, and my book hasn't arrived yet (has it
even been shipped yet? I can't tell), I think I'll want to go ahead and do a little research on basic German syntax and pronunciation. I've actually looked up the sounds in German, and I think I can pronounce them all, but I don't know anything much about German spelling. So off I go! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| mikonai Diglot Senior Member United States weirdnamewriting.bloRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4928 days ago 178 posts - 281 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Swahili, German | Message 3 of 8 31 December 2012 at 9:07pm | IP Logged |
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Is it allowable to go ahead and be posting before the first of the year, anyway? Oh
well. I was in the middle of composing an entry here about what I was going to do while I waited for my Assimil course to arrive, since it looked like I wasn't going to get it until Wednesday or so, but then the mail arrived, and with it a package! This works out great: I have time to rip the CDs and load them onto my MP3 player and be ready for when the challenge officially starts. And here I was worrying about cobbling together some Swahili resources in time, and furthermore staying focused on Swahili when there are always German options... Anyway, a few first-impression comments about the book: this appears to be a 2001 printing/edition, 486 total pages, 100 lessons. There are notes on pretty much every lesson, and a pronunciation key at least on the first few (much like in my Italian course). There are also some pronunciation instructions at the beginning and a grammatical appendix in the back. All in all I think I'll be pretty happy with it (although I've never had an older course to compare). Anyway, tomorrow I'll plan to do the first lesson, and since I can decipher IPA, I'll probably find another source for learning the spellings, which should help out. I'd also like to spend at least an hour or two on Swahili, gathering some grammar essentials and the like. I think I'll also use Anki for both languages and vocabulary, although Assimil of course says that sort of thing isn't exactly "necessary". I'm a little too shy to do the "speaking from day one" thing, at least speaking with other people, but since I have such a wonderful team of people to help me out, I think with German at least I'll be trying to write from very early on. As for Swahili, well, in the absence of anyone to write to (for now) I'll have to figure something else out. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| mikonai Diglot Senior Member United States weirdnamewriting.bloRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4928 days ago 178 posts - 281 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Swahili, German | Message 4 of 8 01 January 2013 at 6:37pm | IP Logged |
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Happy New Year, everyone! Ooh, how do you say that in German? Ah, Frohes Neues
Jahr. I think at least half of learning a language is knowing where to look for things to learn with. I still don't have that down yet. Anyway, today I stumbled upon a wonderful "language tutorial" site, which seems to include a very nice overview of German grammar, including German pronunciation (with IPA and examples!), useful phrases, all sorts of grammar things... seriously, that place is huge. They also have tutorials for other Germanic languages and Romance languages, but I haven't looked around there much yet. I'll add the URL to my running tally in my first post (which is now a thing), and I guess put it here for those too lazy to scroll up a few posts (also habits are good, usually, well sometimes): http://www.ielanguages.com/German.html Anyway, I also did the first lesson of Assimil several times through, but I'm not satisfied with their approximation at pronunciation explanations, which is why I was looking for more online resources in the first place. Also grammar, because I like grammar. But I do know how to talk about tea now! Well, a little. Der Tee ist kalt und die Tasse ist zu klein. Or something like that. Not a very good cup of tea, actually. This morning my tea was actually in a nice big mug and it was hot and absolutely delicious. But I don't really know how to say that yet. I can manage der Tee ist gut though! Oh well. I grabbed quite a few vocab words from the Assimil lesson and loaded them into my Assimil deck in Anki, and the "useful phrases" from the other site and loaded them into another deck, which all in all should keep me busy for a few days. I haven't started on Swahili just yet, but it's still on the agenda. Of course, I should also give Italian at least a few minutes of my time so I get a little practice there as well, but I can probably just listen to a podcast and call it gut. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| mikonai Diglot Senior Member United States weirdnamewriting.bloRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4928 days ago 178 posts - 281 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Swahili, German | Message 5 of 8 03 January 2013 at 8:14pm | IP Logged |
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I originally had plans to log pretty much every day, and what happens? I come down with
a case of gastroenteritis, which knocked me out literally all day. I couldn't even focus well enough to read through an Assimil lesson, or listen to it. Even today I don't feel brilliant, so I think I'll take it easy instead of trying to catch up, and just do the one lesson for today. Furthermore, I'd sort of forgotten, but from Sunday to Thursday I'll be off on a ski trip with some friends. I'll try to get something done every day, but at the very least I don't expect to be able to log anything during that time. It'll probably be something like a 6-hour car ride, so I can probably get some work done on the way there and back. I don't know about while I'm there though: there's going to be about 20 people crammed into a condo (because we're all poor college students), which means I may or may not ever find any spot to do much language work. I'll certainly try, but odds are I won't get much pronunciation practice, at least -- too many people around. Alas... 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| BAnna Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4621 days ago 409 posts - 616 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Turkish | Message 6 of 8 14 January 2013 at 1:28am | IP Logged |
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Schnitzel teammate here to say: Hope you're feeling better now. Gute Besserung! (That's actually "Get well soon", so maybe not needed now. All the best to you with your studies.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| strikingstar Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5172 days ago 292 posts - 444 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Cantonese, Swahili Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written) | Message 7 of 8 14 January 2013 at 9:05am | IP Logged |
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Hujambo mikonai.
Niambie ukihitaji mssada kwa Kiswahili. Pengine naweza kukusaidia. Na ukihitaji rasilimali ya Kiswahili, mimi husikia kwamba tovuti hii - http://mwanasimba.online.fr/E_TABLE.htm ni salihi kwa mtu yeyote anayejifunza Kiswahili. Translation: What's up mikonai. Let me know if you need help with Swahili. Perhaps I may be of assistance. And if you're looking for Swahili resources, I've always felt that this website - http://mwanasimba.online.fr/E_TABLE.htm is really useful for anyone studying Swahili. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| mikonai Diglot Senior Member United States weirdnamewriting.bloRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4928 days ago 178 posts - 281 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Swahili, German | Message 8 of 8 07 February 2013 at 11:48pm | IP Logged |
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Gasp! I sort of drop off the face of the earth for a while, and I come back to these
encouraging posts from other HTLAL'ers! Unfortunately school's started by now, and I haven't really gotten back to my language learning. I still have a fairly light load, but I haven't made time yet to get back to my studies... But it's not too late, right? I hope this week to get back on track, or at least start my way in that direction. That is, if school doesn't slow me down too much. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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