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Michael K.’s Multilingual log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Michael K. Senior Member United States Joined 5734 days ago 568 posts - 886 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 1 of 47 17 December 2011 at 5:34pm | IP Logged |
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I've decided that I'll post any other languages I'm studying other than Spanish, German, and Esperanto into a separate log so I'll have some idea of what I've been studying. I've been thinking of keeping a dabble log for a while, and now with a break from school and not much else to do, I'll have more time to study. Also, I don't want to have to keep making new logs everytime I'm interested in studying a different language.
The other languages I'm interested in, for the time being, at least, since I keep changing what languages I'm interested in, are: French Italian Portuguese Russian Japanese Mandarin Latin Will I study and learn all of them at the same time? No, of course not, but I can get started on them and enjoy learning a little bit of each of them. My plan is to complete a list of basic vocabulary for the languages of about 200-250 words that I found. I'll also use some lessons on lingq.com (Who is she? and Eating out, for starters) too, and maybe a basic textbook like TYS or Assimil. I have a basic textbook for all of them but Portuguese. I want to complete the list of basic vocabulary by the time I start school in the middle of January. Russian, German, and Latin will be a little difficult since they have case systems, and Japanese and Mandarin will be difficult because they use scripts completely difficult from the Latin alphabet. The language I aim to focus on for the time being, along with the other 3 I've committed myself to, is French. So far I’ve only really studied Spanish for a long period of time and dabbled a little in Esperanto and German. I should also point out that I have never had any formal education in those 2 languages before my self-study attempts, so maybe that’s why my attempts to learn those languages were not as successful as I would have liked. I think I’ll have better luck with French because I had formal education in the language, although that doesn’t really matter since I really don’t remember any of the lessons, although it does allow me to know what to expect while studying. French was the first language that I had a chance to learn. I took 9 weeks of it in 6th grade when I was 12 and thought I spoke the language after the course. Childish foolishness, LOL. When I had the chance to study a language year-round, everyday of the week, I gladly chose French. Unfortunately, I transferred to a private school where they only offered Spanish, so I studied Spanish the first 2 years of high school. After 2 years I transferred back to the local high school and I got to study French for the second 2 years of high school. However, when I needed to take some electives in summer school during my senior year at university, I chose to take Spanish instead of French, because at the time I thought Spanish would be more useful. Two and a half years ago I got carried away with buying resources for Spanish, and I bought a few resources for French as well. Among these resources were Assimil New French with Ease. I don’t think it will be quite as good as the Spanish with Ease that I have come to know and love, since they seem to introduce the imperfect tense much later and the learning curve is much smoother, but if it is still a satisfactory course I will be satisfied with my purchase A strange thing: I found an online test that claimed to evaluate your level of French with 27 questions. Half of these questions I had no idea what they meant, but I got a 24 on the test and it said my French was quite good. Of course, that doesn’t prove anything other than after 7 years of college I’m very good at taking multiple choice tests, but confidence is half the battle when learning a language so that makes me feel a little better. I tried studying Spanish, French, and German simultaneously back in July when I was unemployed and bored, but it didn’t go too well and I think I quit after 4 days or so. I think I’m not very good at studying multiple languages at once but I’m having a lot of fun with Spanish and German and want to try a little French, too. I’m using Moses McCormick’s Assimil strategy of combining 3 lessons for a week and writing out the dialogs, although I modified it to 5 days since it started to get boring. I’m also getting lazy with writing out the dialogs since it’s taking quite a bit of time to write out the longer lessons. I’m still in the experimental stage with this strategy and don’t know if it will work in the long run. I keep going back and forth if learning multiple languages simultaneously or studying only one is a good idea. I think if your time mangement skills and discipline are good it's possible, but it's probably a good idea to study only one language at a time. I think I'll also try to learn the kana and Cyrillic alphabet since I have some free time. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Michael K. Senior Member United States Joined 5734 days ago 568 posts - 886 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 2 of 47 12 January 2012 at 3:25pm | IP Logged |
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I didn't try to learn any kana, and made a rather weak attempt to learn Cyrillic. I've decided to put these on hold since I'm not even trying to learn Japanese or Russian right now.
For my French studies I have been using evan1965's French lessons on YouTube. I'm on lesson 31 right now and he's completed about 35 lessons. I've really enjoyed the lessons so far and think it suits my style of learning quite well. I've been downloading Spanish & Esperanto books & audiobooks. I have Steve Kaufman's "The Linguist" that's on LingQ in Spanish & English, as well as the Spanish audio, and "El Principito." For Esperanto I've downloaded from LingQ the text & audio for "La Aventuroj de Alicio en Mirlando" and trying to read it has dispelled any delusions that my Esperanto & Spanish are at a similar level. I've also found links to translations of the Bible in several languages, including Spanish, Esperanto, and French, as well as several other languages I'm interested in. I've been thinking of doing one language for 15-20 weeks and just trying to maintain the other 2 because even during my break it was hard enough to do all 3 in a day. During school it will probably be impossible. I really enjoyed my break and hope I'll have enough time during this upcoming semester to keep up with my language studies. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Michael K. Senior Member United States Joined 5734 days ago 568 posts - 886 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 3 of 47 21 January 2012 at 6:07pm | IP Logged |
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I really didn't do much studying this past week because I just started with classes.
I really want to, though, so I hope this upcoming week I'll get more studying in. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Michael K. Senior Member United States Joined 5734 days ago 568 posts - 886 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 4 of 47 28 January 2012 at 4:46pm | IP Logged |
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Again, another week when I didn't study foreign languages that much.
I did study English grammar a lot because that's what we're doing in my Media Writing, Technical Editing, and Technical Grammar classes right now. I also volunteer in an advanced ESL classroom Thursday evenings so that's a lot of exposure to English in a learning environment. I'm in one of those moods when I'm interested in languages but don't really feel like studying them at all. I need to start doing something nice & easy like Pimsleur or MT and then start using something better like Assimil or TYS. Anyway, I have more free time than I thought I would have, so time isn't an issue, it's just that I don't feel like studying. It's quite annoying. Until next week. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Michael K. Senior Member United States Joined 5734 days ago 568 posts - 886 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 5 of 47 05 February 2012 at 1:39am | IP Logged |
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For the third week in a row I didn't study much.
I bought Peter Jones's "Learn Latin" this week and looked at the first lesson. I'm really tempted to get started. Someone posted a link to Karl Sandberg's "German for Reading" in my one thread, so I'm tempted to take a look at that. I need to start using Assimil Spanish and French daily again, even if it is just for 10-15 minutes a day. It wouldn't be much, but I'd get more done than what I've been accomplishing. I've been thinking of recording videos of myself speaking the languages I want to study to try to get a record of my progress. I don't think I want to upload them to YouTube, but it would be a good record. Since I like conlangs so much I actually think I might want to make one for myself, as a way of learning about linguistics. Some people might think this is a bit weird. I registered at a conlanging bulletin board and might start posting my ideas for it and seeing if I can get help. Well, that's about it for this week. Hasta luego. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Michael K. Senior Member United States Joined 5734 days ago 568 posts - 886 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 6 of 47 08 February 2012 at 11:21am | IP Logged |
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I listened to dialog 55 of Assimil Spanish 3 times, and learned the 5 Latin conjugation patterns along with some sample verbs. It isn't much, but after weeks of not doing much I feel like I'm progressing, even if it is slow.
I hope to actually do the exercises in my Latin book today and write some simple sentences. I also want to review Assimil more. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Michael K. Senior Member United States Joined 5734 days ago 568 posts - 886 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 7 of 47 23 February 2012 at 11:16pm | IP Logged |
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After a long time of not studying, I read some of the first chapter of "Spanish for Reading" and it was like meeting an old friend again. I forgot how much I enjoy Spanish.
I also want to work on Esperanto. I'm going to use parts of the German youth Esperanto course (the parts I could understand) and see how much I can learn. It's about 25 pages on Word, so it's looks like a good course. I still need to find a course I can stick to. Hasta luego. Gxis revido. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6444 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 8 of 47 24 February 2012 at 12:07am | IP Logged |
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Good luck.
Have you considered just sticking to one? Most really don't take that long. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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