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Gizmo2012 - Italian immersion in the home | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| gizmo2012 Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5085 days ago 49 posts - 49 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French | Message 1 of 36 02 January 2011 at 2:23pm | IP Logged |
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NOTE: if you are here to learn Italian, go straight to page 3. Ignore all this bit before it. Hi , I'm James. I'm studying two languages at school (Spanish and French) and three on my own accord (German, Italian and Russian). French and Spanish are obviously high priority at the moment but German is the highest as I want to go there later this year. Italian is of the least importance. Russian is important to me as I have the most interest in it. My learning will be done through programs such Busuu and LingQ to gain vocabulary, podcasts to get the pronunciation correct and also to hear the news, websites to turn the vocabulary gained into active vocabulary, youtube and books. I'll update mainly on German but also from time to time on the other languages, if that's allowed. Thanks for reading and if you have any tips for any of the languages mentioned, I'll happily take them on board. James Edited by gizmo2012 on 28 January 2011 at 5:07pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| gizmo2012 Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5085 days ago 49 posts - 49 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French | Message 2 of 36 02 January 2011 at 3:44pm | IP Logged |
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Okay, I've just made up some flashcards on my iPod touch (it's a great learning tool). I have 212 words to review. I obviously won't do them all straight away but I'll take a quick break from German and do half an hour of another language. I'm going to settle down and read a small story in Spanish with one of my parallel text books. Any sentence I am not sure of, I'll look to the right and note it down, later on I'll try to remember it.
Here is my list of how many words I need to review in each language: French: 91 German: 212 Italian: 56 Russian: 252 (I started before German, just last year) Spanish: 202 Looking at that, I need to do more work on french and Italian and start remembering more words in the other three. I don't want any to fall behind. I know for sure my grammar needs to improve in Russian, Spanish, German and Italian. My French is okay (it better be after four years of study at school). This looks like a promising year for me in languages. I'm looking forward to the results. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5838 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes  1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 36 02 January 2011 at 4:49pm | IP Logged |
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Hi Gizmo,
Ich habe dir ein "ß" geschenkt, denn nicht jeder hat soetwas auf der Tastatur. Viel Erfolg mit deinem TAC 2011 und den vielen Sprachen, die du lernst! Fasulye 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| gizmo2012 Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5085 days ago 49 posts - 49 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French | Message 5 of 36 02 January 2011 at 5:08pm | IP Logged |
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@ Fasulye Danke! As you can see, my active vocabulary isn't very large at the moment. Viel Erfolg mit deinem TAC 2011 auch!
@Kuikentje danke auch. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| gizmo2012 Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5085 days ago 49 posts - 49 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French | Message 6 of 36 02 January 2011 at 6:02pm | IP Logged |
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I have a few goals for January! Okay, I'll list them here (in order of priority and when I think of them):
German: I have to make at least 3000 flashcards with at least 1000 of them learnt. That's going to be tough but I did it with Spanish a few months back so I should be able to do it now. Russian: Complete a few chapters of my Russian course. Hopefully around ten. Spanish: Revise on grammar a bit. Not sure what yet. Italian: Complete Berlitz Italian in 30 days. French: To carry on with lessons at school and have around three hundred flashcards. These goals are subject to change at any time, but they won't be made easier, that's for sure. Edited by gizmo2012 on 02 January 2011 at 9:24pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| gizmo2012 Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5085 days ago 49 posts - 49 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French | Message 7 of 36 03 January 2011 at 12:53pm | IP Logged |
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Okay, I think a quick update is in order of what I learnt this morning with regards to podcasts.
To pass the time whilst walking this morning, I first downloaded two sets of podcasts on my iPod for Russian. I like audio courses as they help me get used to the sounds of the language and I find that once I get used to the sounds, words are easier to remember. Te problem is though, podcasts are aimed at the average learner. When you start to learn five languages at the same time, I don't think you can be classed as an average learner. As such, I only learnt around fifteen words this morning and only three or so stuck in memory. Well, I can't really expect much from "One Minute Russian" (which is peculiar as it lasts for around six minutes). Russianpod was promising but I found the man on that irritating, unfunny and he sounded like an over excited teenager. His voice was adenoidal and kept changing by mistake in the pitch. Also, the woman was hard to understand due to an extremely heavy accent. It helped my pronunciation though. Secondly, I've realised how important it is to learn words through context. Seeing "Entschuldigung = Excuse me" on a help card thirty times won't be as effective as seeing "Entschuldigung, können sir mir helfen" [by the way, I don't think that that phrase was grammatically correct but I just used it for demonstration]. I found that adding that phrase helped me a lot more in remembering the original word. Thirdly, I've started Russian handwriting. I'll update on that later. Finally, I have a problem! I have a French test on the 10th which I need to revise for so German has to be less intensive at the moment. I'll still study it but not as much as I have been. French is the priority at the moment and will be composed of gaining vocabulary and revising my grammar. Also, I'll start reading more native French material, instead of material produced by LingQ which normally revolves around languages themselves. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| gizmo2012 Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5085 days ago 49 posts - 49 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French | Message 8 of 36 04 January 2011 at 6:06pm | IP Logged |
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A few updates on my language learning method:
Okay, I am no longer using LingQ. I find it a waste of time. This is because the articles seem to specifically revolve around language learning. How often will I have a conversation on Esperanto, retaining vocabulary or someone elses language adventure? I want to socialise in a foreign language, not discuss it. Also, I've went on to FSI. I'm not doing the courses but *borrowing* a few phrases and remembering them, which saves me trawling through the internet trying to find transcripts of German translation. Later this week, I'll probably buy myself Nicholas J. Brown's Russian Frequency Dictionary. I have his course, which is very good and I really recommend it. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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