|
 |
Making it fun | ||
Tags: Motivation | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6943 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes  Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 17 of 22 13 August 2012 at 5:31pm | IP Logged | ||
That was my experience with Spanish, but it hasn't been with German. My guess is that the difference is due to how I got started with the two. With Spanish I first went through a textbook, a graded reader, and a set of dialogs on tape. I also read through an intermediate grammar book and consulted more advanced grammars for specific issues on several occasions. With this base, reading and vocab work (I mostly used notebooks and paper flashcards for vocab) definitely helped with the active skills. With German, I was extremely impatient and wanted to "have fun", so I just quickly read through all the textbooks in bilingual format with grammar notes that I had (Rosenberg, Cortina, Berlitz Self-Teacher, Charles Berlitz, Assimil), augmented with a quick read-over of a more grammar-based textbook and an intermediate grammar, as well as listening, without pausing and repeating, to Michel Thomas on a couple of long car trips. After that intro, I read some 44 novels in German, mostly extensively, with an occasional dictionary lookup. There was progress, but it was too slow. Since the New Year's, I have read 18 more novels on a Sony reader, looking up all the new words in a built-in dictionary. I think this has improved the pace of progress considerably. However, I am not sure I would dare to order a cup of coffee in German. I certainly haven't tried to speak or write in it yet. My best guess is that your statement is correct, but only after a proper foundation has been laid in the TL. In any case, I will have to solve my "German problem" somehow, since I don't want to take up any new languages until I figure out what went wrong there. Edited by frenkeld on 13 August 2012 at 5:36pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6597 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 18 of 22 13 August 2012 at 6:05pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Have you tried Ilya Frank's method or LR? I don't think these are a must but they can be a great aid.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| maydayayday Pentaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5219 days ago 564 posts - 839 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, SpanishB2, FrenchB2 Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Russian, Swedish, Turkish, Polish, Persian, Vietnamese Studies: Urdu | Message 19 of 22 13 August 2012 at 6:43pm | IP Logged | ||
Now that's what I call FUN! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6151 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 20 of 22 14 August 2012 at 10:09am | IP Logged | ||
|
I find watching films and television in my target languages a lot of fun, especially after a long study session. Recently, I've been watching a good deal of Peruvian and Chilean television to see if I can copy the accent.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6943 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 21 of 22 14 August 2012 at 7:57pm | IP Logged | ||
I briefly tried both at some point, but didn't get sufficiently fired up about them to continue with either. I am willing to try again, but I have a few other things I want to experiment with first. As far as the topic of this thread, at some point I came to the realization that a study program that is 100 percent "fun" can lead to major inefficiencies. Some things just need to be done, so if one can make them more engaging, so much the better, and if not, it may be better to force-feed oneself for a little while. Otherwise, what seems like fun at the moment may look a lot less appealing once you realize how long things are taking. Anticipation of progress must surely have some motivating value in itself. Edited by frenkeld on 14 August 2012 at 8:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6582 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 22 of 22 14 August 2012 at 9:06pm | IP Logged | ||
|
What I do is that I do whatever I feel like. Usually, studying is fun and I can do it for hours at a time. Then I
often get tired of language learning, and I stop doing it altogether, for maybe six months or so. After a while I get back the urge and I continue studying. Often I'll be interested in a specific language and focus on that one. Since starting a new language isn't very fun it usually takes many "false starts" before I get a foothold and an obsession and keep going. I started both Cantonese and Spanish something like half a dozen times each with months inbetween each try before I got going. So yeah, my secret for keeping things fun is: stop whenever it stops being fun. After a while the interest will come back and you'll have more fun study time. But forcing yourself to study when you're not enjoying it is a surefire way to kill your language love. This might not work for everyone, but it's the way I work. 3 persons have 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. |
