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10 languages-2000 hours TAC 2011 Team ש

 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
52 messages over 7 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7  Next >>
Hakan D
Tetraglot
Groupie
Turkey
Joined 5092 days ago

45 posts - 77 votes 
Speaks: Turkish*, Icelandic, English, German
Studies: Spanish, Greek, Swedish, Hungarian, Mongolian, Modern Hebrew, Russian

 
 Message 1 of 52
07 December 2010 at 2:21pm | IP Logged 
DISCLAIMER
==================
This log is created by various inspirations, me being a very enthusiastic language learner, the ideas that I had especially from Oasis88 (see his Italian - 1000 hours log), and Iversen who is having a multilingual log and a lot of other people who share their knowledge here or in other forums, websites. This is an experiment and by no means a bet or a race. My aims may seem high but as this is an attempt to see where I can reach in a limited time with a lot of concentration it's better to shoot for the moon rather than setting the goals low.
===================


Hello everyone,

My aim with creating yet another log is to challenge myself learning languages in a more disciplined way and rather in a long run. I've learned a plethora of languages (perhaps over 30-40) and of course forgot dozens of them.

This is also an experiment on whether one can reach fluency (and mostly advanced or native) in all of the 10 languages that he studies with a limited time given (200 hours for each). So you'll have to bear with me. At least we'll see how far I'll be able to come.

***Please do note that 2000 hours are counted as the time spent studying actively sitting at the desk. Time spent watching movies in those languages mentioned, reading a book without a dictionary and taking down notes (however using a dictionary and taking down notes will count as studying), getting exposed to the language and having time to speak with the natives are NOT counted in.

I'll count in the initial word memorization as active study, I'll count the later repetitions separately so there'll be two logs for active study + word memorization repetition.***

Here's a very short summary for the ones who don't want to read all the way through. This log will go on approximately 2-3 years. I'll learn Greek, Spanish, Russian, Finnish, Hebrew, Hungarian, Mongolian, Korean, Japanese, French (on top of this I'll also take a Dutch challenge for 6 weeks beginning January 2011). I'm thinking of taking up the latter three around June.

I already speak English and Icelandic with native fluency apart from my native language Turkish and before I attained native or advanced fluency in Greek, Spanish and German nevertheless due to the lack of practice and not studying/reading etc. my knowledge has immensely regressed in the latter languages.

So the 10 languages that I've chosen are (I have a very basic knowledge in a few of them and I've noted them down)

- Greek (knowledge: intermediate level)
As I unfortunately haven't been exposed to Greek speaking environment much in the last 5 years I happened to forget quite a lot. I'd like to reach again a native fluency but I'd be glad also to reach the advanced fluency level. I'll follow the book "τα νέα ελληνικά για ξένους" published by the University of Aristoteles. Definitely not a self-study book nevertheless it's just to brush up my grammar and go over the basic words and phrases. I'll go through the 13th chapter to the end of the book (36 chapters). And of course doing some other reading.
Aim: native fluency

-Spanish (knowledge: intermediate level)
Aim: Native fluency/Advanced fluency
Book: Espannol 2000 Nivel Medio, some grammar books that I have in hand

-Russian (knowledge: beginner)
Aim: Advanced fluency
Book: A comprehensive Russian Course

-Finnish (knowledge: basic)
Aim: Basic Fluency
Teach yourself Finnish

-Hungarian (knowledge: none)
Aim: Basic Fluency
Book: Teach yourself Hungarian

-Hebrew (knowledge: basic)
Aim: Advanced fluency
Book: Hebrew in Three Months

-Mongolian (knowledge: none)
Aim: Basic fluency (if I can get exposed to the language otherwise intermediate level)
Book: Modern Mongolian

-Korean (knowledge: beginner)
Aim: Advanced fluency

-Japanese (knowledge: none)
Aim: Advanced fluency (though my aim is not to be able to write japanese scripts perfectly)

-French (knowledge: beginner though never studied)
Aim: Advanced fluency

-Dutch (knowledge: none) (this is actually the 11th language but I'll take a 6 week challenge in January 2011 for 6 weeks)
Aim: not known

Probably when I finish these books I'll try to find some more advanced stuff. Along with the books I'll do some readings also to expand my vocabulary... I'll start with Korean, Japanese and French later on probably in June.

I'm thinking of recording myself onto camera and publishing it on youtube frequently so that the native speakers or advanced second language speakers can judge my progress and correct the mistakes that I'm doing as well as giving tips on my accent, as my aim is also sounding like a native speaker.

I appreciate all the help and I'll surely ask a lot of questions to the fellow language enthusiasts.

So here we go!!!

Edited by Hakan D on 31 December 2010 at 11:28pm

6 persons have voted this message useful



The Real CZ
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5640 days ago

1069 posts - 1495 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese, Korean

 
 Message 2 of 52
07 December 2010 at 4:59pm | IP Logged 
Good luck. I can't speak on the other languages, but 200 hours for Korean and Japanese is most like insufficient. Maybe if you were already fluent in one (as they're both really similar except Korean doesn't use Chinese characters anymore) I could see it happening.

Anyway, good luck with your plans!
1 person has voted this message useful



Hakan D
Tetraglot
Groupie
Turkey
Joined 5092 days ago

45 posts - 77 votes 
Speaks: Turkish*, Icelandic, English, German
Studies: Spanish, Greek, Swedish, Hungarian, Mongolian, Modern Hebrew, Russian

 
 Message 3 of 52
07 December 2010 at 5:13pm | IP Logged 
So I wanted to have a kick start in Hebrew. I'll have some possibility to meet my Israeli friend during this month so I'd rather get my tongue slippery. I did the first two chapters of "Hebrew in three months", learned the alphabet with the vocalization but as I'm aware that printed material are without any vocalization I'm tried to learn them without doing so.
Materials learned: pronouns, negation, a few useful phrases like barookh haba (welcome), bvakashah (please), daber l'at (speak slowly) etc. One interesting point was the conjugation of "I understand" differed for a male speaker and female speaker (so probably for all the verbs in the future?) which reminded me of the Russian past tense.

80 minutes spent in total! (11920 minutes to go)

Does anyone know of any good transliteration site from Latin to Hebrew? I found this one but some of the final letters are missing.
http://www.iosart.com/nlp/heb_enc_dec.html

And anyone who's familiar with a good online Hebrew-English dictionary? I'll probably use it a lot in the future

Thanks!
1 person has voted this message useful



Lianne
Senior Member
Canada
thetoweringpile.blog
Joined 5106 days ago

284 posts - 410 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Esperanto, Toki Pona, German, French

 
 Message 4 of 52
07 December 2010 at 6:07pm | IP Logged 
I love optimistic goals! I'll be following this one for sure. It's a huge endeavour but even if you don't reach all your goals you'll definitely have learned a lot in the process. I'll be rooting for you! :)
1 person has voted this message useful



Arekkusu
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Canada
bit.ly/qc_10_lec
Joined 5372 days ago

3971 posts - 7747 votes 
Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto
Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian

 
 Message 5 of 52
07 December 2010 at 6:11pm | IP Logged 
Hakan D wrote:
-Japanese (knowledge: none)
Aim: Advanced fluency (though my aim is not to be able to write japanese scripts perfectly)

... in 200 hours?

To reach a similar level in all languages, you'd have to allocate your time accordingly, as languages like Japanese or Korean will need 3 or 4 times more hours than French or Spanish.

Edited by Arekkusu on 07 December 2010 at 6:13pm

1 person has voted this message useful



TixhiiDon
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Japan
Joined 5455 days ago

772 posts - 1474 votes 
Speaks: English*, Japanese, German, Russian
Studies: Georgian

 
 Message 6 of 52
08 December 2010 at 5:25am | IP Logged 
Arekkusu wrote:
Hakan D wrote:
-Japanese (knowledge: none)
Aim: Advanced fluency (though my aim is not to be able to write japanese scripts perfectly)

... in 200 hours?

To reach a similar level in all languages, you'd have to allocate your time accordingly, as languages like Japanese or Korean will need 3 or 4 times more hours than French or Spanish.


Japanese and Turkish apparently have many similarities so this goal may not be quite so unrealistic for Hakan as for native speakers of other languages.

Anyway, Hakan, welcome to the forum and good luck with your studies. I look forward to reading about them.
1 person has voted this message useful



Teango
Triglot
Winner TAC 2010 & 2012
Senior Member
United States
teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5547 days ago

2210 posts - 3734 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Russian
Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona

 
 Message 7 of 52
08 December 2010 at 8:12pm | IP Logged 
10 languages to fluency in 2000 hours - indeed a challenge and a half! However I'm a great admirer of courageous odds, so I wish you Godspeed in your odyssey. :)

Do you have a particular approach or methodology in mind?
2 persons have voted this message useful



Hakan D
Tetraglot
Groupie
Turkey
Joined 5092 days ago

45 posts - 77 votes 
Speaks: Turkish*, Icelandic, English, German
Studies: Spanish, Greek, Swedish, Hungarian, Mongolian, Modern Hebrew, Russian

 
 Message 8 of 52
08 December 2010 at 9:56pm | IP Logged 
Along with Hebrew I've also started Hungarian. Currently I'm more concentrated on Hebrew though.

Hebrew: (3 hours 20 minutes)
I was able to finish 4 chapters in Hebrew in three months pretty easily. Topics done: definite article, plural, some prepositions, present tense of regular verbs and pi'el type verbs and some infinitives. The book is so far clear with the instructions. One prospective difficulty (that is memorization work) will probably be the infinitives as it wasn't explained so far how to construct it. Acquired around 70 words. The downside of this book is probably that it adds a very few words each chapter nevertheless easy to understand. (If I'm not judging too early I reckon 200 hours would be enough to reach an advanced fluency if I can get some speaking practice with my friends). I should be recording myself speak in about 10 days.

Hungarian: (1 hour)
I did two sessions. First chapter of Teach yourself Hungarian. As there are merely any valuable exercises in this book I had to resort to another one. Though a very old book FSI seems to be quite good. Lots of new words and lots of exercises. When I study languages I also go by memorizing sentences rather than memorizing the words only so it's a plus to have a lot of examples. I still need to type in the words and sentences from FSI on Jmemorize and study them. (So I'll also check the Hebrew one for these series)


1 person has voted this message useful



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