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Improving my Spanish and french | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5000 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes  Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 1 of 30 10 March 2011 at 12:18pm | IP Logged |
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So, I am about to write my first log here. I accidentaly found this forum yesterday and it is a wonderful thing. Even though I am really not as a polyglot as many people around here, I dare to join :-) I do not have much of a free time because of my studies at university but here are a few things I would like to do during next six months. Not sure how often will I be adding my progress in the log but I think even this first post will serve me well.
My Spanish: I have forgot a huge part of what I had learned so I would like to review my coursebooks and work on grammar and vocab exercises I recently bought (they are meant for level A1-A2 so they should fill my gaps without being too difficult). As well I would like to finally listen to the audio books I got some time ago. I've read the books before (they are meant for beginners :-) ), so the audio shouldn't be much or a trouble. I will continue using Anki, found two great Spanish decks for me (and three french ones). Speaking will have to wait till I have more time to find someone to speak with. Since I am making plans for next half year, I should add where do I want to be in September. I would like to get level B1 by then in grammar, vocabulary, listening and reading. My French: I need to stay in contact with the language, read newspaper on internet from time to time, listen to RFI. Perhaps find some french music to listen to (seems to work better for me than audio books). I need to review the grammar and master the points I have avoided in past (got a great exercise book for both purposes). I would like to continue with anki as well and make real flashcards so I can study anywhere. For the vocab flashcards, I will use all those old coursebooks I used to learn from because I realize I do not use at least 25% of their vocabulary. Enriching my vocabulary will be a high priority. After that, I would like to start preparing for Dalf C1. Or perhaps repeat B2 and pass better this time (it was too close last year). A few questions came to my mind but I should probably ask in different part of the forums. In september, I would like to have mastered at least 500 new (or old but forgotten) words. From the grammar I would like to have reviewed at least a quarter of grammar included in the exercise book. English: I have to keep using it. When I have more time, perhaps during the summer, I should probably focus on phrasal verbs and other things I am not quite good at. Perhaps there is a good deck for anki with those. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5000 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 2 of 30 10 March 2011 at 10:57pm | IP Logged |
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Hm. Since I am ill now, I have decided to spend my time in bed doing something useful, such as working on my languages. Spanish is alright, I am reviewing things (even though I'm looking at some of it as if it was the first time we have met) and I am progressing.
French is worse. My worse trouble when it comes to French is that I had to start three times in past because of the school system. So I am quite advanced at many areas of the language but I'm missing something. There are things I have covered several times with different teachers and there are things I have never properly learnt. So it seems I should take a coursebook, first level, and go through it page by page to find the things I have skipped. It's mostly vocabulary and idioms. Looking back, it was a small miracle I passed the B2. From tommorrow, I have to focus on school as well or it will be a huge trouble to come back. But I'll still have time for this. I thought I could give my languages about an hour every day, I hope it will work. It's quite funny how easier it is to begin learning a language than trying to continue from somewhere in the middle. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5000 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 3 of 30 13 March 2011 at 10:39pm | IP Logged |
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After three days, there is some progress to write about, surprisingly :-)
Spanish: I have gone through nearly one third of one of my old textbooks. It is interesting that some authors prefer to spread things in several volumes while others just put it all in one thick book. This one belongs to the second kind. I'll soon get to things I haven't covered in past. French: Working on my flashcards. This will take time. But it will be worth it. Next time I speak with someone in french, I don't only want to be fluent as usual, I want to say anything that comes to my mind without being limited by my vocabulary. Both: I've spend about two hours with Anki during last three days. It is a great thing! And I've spent some time doing flashcards for latin. Is it considered a full foreign language when I am only learning terminology needed for my other subjects? I guess not. I have already tried studying it as a language in past but I didn't like it enough to put much efforts in it. I don't need to read Ovidius in latin and there are no Romans around to speak with :-) Even though a friend of mine speaks latin fluently. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cyrus Diglot Newbie France Joined 5499 days ago 39 posts - 70 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Mandarin | Message 4 of 30 13 March 2011 at 11:12pm | IP Logged |
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Bonne chance et bon courage :)
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5000 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 5 of 30 16 March 2011 at 8:43pm | IP Logged |
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Merci beaucoup, Cyrus.
So, I have just made a change in my profile. I am now actively studying Spanish and I plan to continue with it. I am reviewing things, making exercises and practicing with anki. It's going quite well, even though I need to get more used to grammatical differences between Spanish and French. Those are mostly minor things, in general French has been helping me a lot with Spanish. French is still at the point of studying on and off. Anki is my good friend there, I have found not only flash cards for vocabulary, I found a deck with verbs! Some are pretty difficult for me so I have consulted my grammar book a few times. It's great, because verbs are a huge part of French grammar and this way of practicing them seems pretty effective. I am now thinking of buying another french dictionary because I have a nice discount in two bookshops till the end of March. For both languages, I have now set new vocab in Anki to really low numbers because the number of words to review for each day has grown too high :-D I am quite pleased with my progress but I need to focus on my studies for school subjects now. I got a bit carried away with Spanish during last week :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5000 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 6 of 30 20 March 2011 at 11:07am | IP Logged |
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Hello,
I have decided to post once a week-on Sunday. If I posted more often, there would soon be nothing new to write about and if I posted less often, it wouldn't help me the way I expect. So, here are some news. I'be been more busy studying for school (and it will be only worse till exams) but still. Spanish: I am in love with the language. I found a pace that quite suits me with learning new things from my textbook. Will do more exercises from next week. How can the Spanish speak so fast? Audios in my textbook are not that difficult when it comes to vocabulary or grammar but it is a real challenge to learn to speak that fast while keeping right pronounciation. I am practicing by listening to the text without reading first, than trying to read it with the audio, than I find out my tongue and mouth are not capable of such movement so I read without the audio a few times before another try:-). Seems to work. Spanish sounds so great! French: My old love but I can't seem to find out what to do with her. I read two BDs last week, Persepolis 3 and 4 by Marjane Satrapi, and I enjoyed them a lot. But from my experience, reading in general gives me a lot of passive vocabulary but I need to make it active. I thought I could review my old textbooks to find all the vocab I understand but don't use but I find them boring (at least the one I started with). So I will probably make a huge anki deck using a dictionary. I'll go through and find words that seem familiar or useful to me. It will take time but might be more worth it than my original idea. And I need to listen more again. And today I'll do some translation grammar exercises. And even better thing:my friend might study with me so I would have someone to practice speaking and writing with:-) English: I spend a lot of time with it, reading, writing, listening, but it is no longer learning. Perhaps during the summer when I have time, I could look at the advanced grammar lying on my shelf :-) And there is Anki. During my illness I had lots of time to spend with Anki, among other things, so I have tons of words to review every day now. I set new cards at zero. Fortunately I can choose to review them after more than a month now, so I will soon look at new words again without feeling overwhelmed. And I am going to make my own deck for French. So my plans for next week: Firstly I need to past some tests at school. Secondly I would like to do another lesson or two of Spanish. I should as well find some more audiobooks for French, preferably short ones. And some more French music. A week or two ago I got a CD by Zaz. She's got beautiful voice and I like both the music and lyrics. I am enjoying the languages a lot and I'm glad I decided to continue. It's just the question of time management and the sooner I learn how to organise my day effectively, the better for me. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5000 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 7 of 30 28 March 2011 at 4:33pm | IP Logged |
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I know I missed Sunday, which I had chosen as my "write log" day but last week was the worst for me so far at university. Things are getting worse and there is not that much time for languages (I expected this to come in late April).
However, I have finished a revision lesson of Spanish (one with twice as much exercises as the usual lessons). My plan for next week is lesson 8. French has been, unusually, moving more forward than Spanish. I have done some grammar exercises and read a little bit. Got some new materials from the library, one is for verbs and the other is for various structures used in communication. Hope to have a look at it during next week. And I have a test of Latin next monday. I know nearly nothing of it. But it's not that bad. Hope I'll have better news next week, something like "Hello, I've just spent a wonderful week, I have done all I have planned and had a few small successes at school so no need to feel in stress. Therefore I've done:-a long list of things-" :-) See you later. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5000 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 8 of 30 28 March 2011 at 4:36pm | IP Logged |
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But there is one success! I have gone through the flood in Anki. Now I can add new words from the decks each day again. Some of the numbers to review were a bit too high to be fun but I am back at the ground now.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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