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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Michael K. Senior Member United States Joined 5671 days ago 568 posts - 886 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 33 of 47 31 March 2012 at 3:32am | IP Logged |
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I studied some German today, and it certainly was fun. I forgot how much fun studying languages is. I felt the same way Wednesday when I was studying for a communications test, and the same today when I was studying theology.
I studied the first chapter of German for Reading, and it's almost as good as the Spanish course, just that there isn't an essay at the end of the chapter. Still, it was a lot of fun to work through. I also reviewed a few lessons in Assimil, and I enjoyed it a lot. I think my biggest problem is that I'm a terrible procrastinator. I could get by with it in school if I had enough time before a test, but of course there is no scheduled test in my independent language studies. I'm not sure how to overcome it. Anyway, today was a great day, and I hope I can repeat it tomorrow. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Michael K. Senior Member United States Joined 5671 days ago 568 posts - 886 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 34 of 47 14 April 2012 at 11:47pm | IP Logged |
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I took a break from the forum for two weeks. Nothing was wrong, I'm fine.
I started an internship at a mayor's office. It's not in my city, but it's at the biggest city in the county. I've lost interest in language learning and have thought about trying other hobbies. I still want to learn a language, but I'm not interested in doing it right now. I might try studying German or Esperanto again on Monday. I have 3 weeks left in the semester, and then I have about a month break before I start summer school. I'm taking 3 classes during the summer, and two of them are online courses, so I really only have one very long class two days a week for five hours. The rest of the time I have to use for my other two classes, my internship, and whatever side projects I have. Anyway, I look forward to be taking part in the forum again. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Michael K. Senior Member United States Joined 5671 days ago 568 posts - 886 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 35 of 47 18 April 2012 at 5:00am | IP Logged |
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I still haven't studied any languages.
It's been two and a half weeks since I studied a language. I'm not really sure which one I want to do, and there are a lot of them that I want to try. I'm thinking about a few possible courses of action: 1) committing to a language to 6 weeks of study; I tried this with Esperanto and didn't even make it 3 weeks 2) committing to going through an Assimil or TYS course (or Living Language, as is the case with Portuguese) and then moving on to another 3) like this other person keeping a log, I might just learn a little bit of a language, like a few hundred words, and then move on; this sounds too haphazard for my liking I'll try to figure it out. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4964 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 36 of 47 18 April 2012 at 9:01pm | IP Logged |
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I suppose you need to find study methods that you find enjoyable. If you get bored,
you'll never be able to keep at it long enough to learn anything worthwhile. To be honest, I don't really think of it as "studying", and if I did, I wouldn't have been able to stick it. You need to enjoy what you're doing, and you need to do it everyday. I know you've already tried Assimll, but It might be worth trying again. I found it really easy to stick to because you can learn a lot in only a few minutes a day. I think the trouble could be that your not sticking to any one language long enough to really get in the groove. Those early stages, when your learning numbers and stuff, are the most boring, because there's so much you don't know, and it takes a long time to get the hang of things. But if you hack through this stage, things start to get really fun. Which language have you enjoyed the most so far? And which is your strongest? Edited by dbag on 18 April 2012 at 9:03pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Michael K. Senior Member United States Joined 5671 days ago 568 posts - 886 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 37 of 47 18 April 2012 at 10:24pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks.
It's hard to say which one I've enjoyed the most so far. So far, I've tried to self-study: Spanish French German Hebrew Mandarin Latin and a little Japanese. I've probably enjoyed Japanese and German the most. The only ones I didn't enjoy were Hebrew and Mandarin, but I'm interested in the cultures. I'm most advanced in Spanish, and have gone through about half the Assimil lessons, plus whatever I remember from summer school at university. I'm kind of bored with it, though. I've tried a combination of self-study and classes for about 3 years, but I've been on and off self-studying Spanish. I don't remember the last time I've studied Spanish. I've been thinking about doing some Japanese, and might try that for a while. I have a TYS and want to get the first level of Assimil. I also need to learn the kana. Anyway, I'm not so sure what to do. I might just do 6 weeks in the languages I haven't done yet and see what I like and don't like. Edit: I've decide to try Japanese for 6 weeks. Edited by Michael K. on 18 April 2012 at 10:48pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Michael K. Senior Member United States Joined 5671 days ago 568 posts - 886 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 38 of 47 20 April 2012 at 5:39pm | IP Logged |
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I actually think I'm going to try Mandarin.
I'd rather learn Japanese, but I have Assimil and the Foundation and Advanced levels of Michel Thomas, so that will be enough. I only have a TYS for Japanese and I don't really want to spend the money on a Japanese Assimil and MT set right now. So for now my plan is to use the Assimil and MT sets I have and then go from there. I'm not really sure how I can learn the Chinese characters, but I saw a list Sprachprofi made of some books so I'll check those out when I get the chance. The reason I'd rather learn Japanese is that it has kana, so I could learn that and use it with native Japanese speakers if I struggled with the kanji and needed to write something out for them. I know there's bopomofo for Chinese, but I don't know if it would be analogous to kana. Another linguistic reason is I don't like tonal languages, but the tones aren't that bad. The third reason I'd rather learn Japanese is that I'm more interested in Japanese culture than Chinese culture, but they're both really interesting and very different from American culture. I had a class, but didn't like it and stopped going halfway through the course. I'll start my official 6 week committment this Monday, but I might dabble with it a little this weekend. Happy studying, everyone. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Michael K. Senior Member United States Joined 5671 days ago 568 posts - 886 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 39 of 47 21 April 2012 at 9:07pm | IP Logged |
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I've started studying some Mandarin.
Yesterday I did lesson one of Assimil and did about 10 tracks of MT. So far, it's been fun, but it's always fun at the beginning. I'm looking forward to studying more and enjoying myself. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Michael K. Senior Member United States Joined 5671 days ago 568 posts - 886 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 40 of 47 23 April 2012 at 11:15pm | IP Logged |
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Today I bought a hanzi book. It's the Matthews' book by Tuttle, "Learning Chinese Characters," which is supposed to be good for beginners. It'll teach me my first 800 hanzi.
The mnemonics in the book might be ridiculous, but like they say: if it's stupid, but it works, it isn't stupid. I did lessons 1 & 2 in Assimil over the weekend, and I still need to get to work this week. I need to figure out how many hanzi I want to do. I haven't looked at the book, but I'll need to figure out how long it will take to go through. I think 100 a month might be a reasonable goal, so that's about 3 a day. I already know 3 hanzi, so I'll do 6 for today. Good luck studying, everyone. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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