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Language-learning Wanderlust | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Marj Senior Member United States Joined 6391 days ago 257 posts - 283 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, French | Message 25 of 33 11 April 2010 at 8:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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Update for April 3-April 9.
French--1.5 hr., all on the Nintendo DS. I don't know how much I'm actually learning, but it is fun, and can be done in small moments of time. The longest at one sitting was .5 hr. but there were a couple that were only 7-10 minutes. After some consideration, I think I have learned a little from it. It presents vocabulary words, and pronounces them. And I've run across a couple when reading, and immediately knew the meaning, even though it had been awhile since I had seen them. So, for vocabulary, it does seem that I'm learning at least a little from the DS. Spanish--.5 hour, all on the DS. This .5 hour was done in a 10 minute sitting (right after doing .5 on the DS in French), and a 20 minute sitting. German--1 hr., with Michel Thomas. I am now up to CD 1, track 6. Because I've always thought of German as a hard language for me to learn, I decided to do each track several times. So I did track 1-3, then (because track 1 had no learning material) I did track 2-4, the next session was 2-5, and the last session was track 3-5. The next will be track 4-6, or maybe 4-7, depending on my time and how I think I'm retaining the lesson. This seems to be working out for me at the present time. Total time for all languages this week--only 3 hours. Luckily, I'm in no hurry to learn any of these languages, and I'm still in wanderlust mode. As the mood strikes, I pick up something to learn in whatever language calls out to me. So I don't feel badly about not spending enough time on language learning, and am still enjoying the process. For some reason, I wasn't in the mood for Assimil last few weeks, in any of the languages I'm playing with. I do like it, I think I need to put it in a more accessible place, at least have it in sight, so I'm reminded it's there. I think if I saw it sitting there, I would probably spend some time on it, I enjoy the lessons, in all of the languages I've tried so far. When I started this little adventure, I was afraid that studying both French and Spanish would be confusing, but it doesn't seem to be too bad--I do occasionally use a French word when starting a Spanish session (or vice-versa), but 5 minutes into it I don't make that type of mistake again. I find I do the same thing with German, substituting French (so far, no Spanish) for the German word. But I haven't so far tried to use a German word for either Spanish or French! I guess it's just a matter of getting my brain into the correct language mode. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Marj Senior Member United States Joined 6391 days ago 257 posts - 283 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, French | Message 26 of 33 18 April 2010 at 5:59am | IP Logged | ||
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Well, studied more this week than last, although that isn't saying much. But this week I started an exercise program, and it used up a lot of my free time. However, I have found a way to listen to my CD player while on the exercise bike, so that will help in the future.
Anyway... Update for April 10-April 16 French--did about 1.5 hours, half an hour on the DS, the rest watching French in Action. Spanish--did 1.25 hours, all on the DS. German--1.75 hours, all on Michel Thomas. I also watched most of a cooking show in Spanish. Didn't know what some of the ingredients were, but managed to have a general understanding of what was going on. I'm going to try to do this more often (not just cooking shows, but watching Spanish programs on TV.) Maybe I'll just turn the TV to a Spanish language channel, and leave it on in the background while I'm doing other things. I noticed that I was understanding more of the words at the end of the cooking show than when I first started watching, and I think it was because I had gotten use to the speed and inflection of the talking, so maybe just hearing the Spanish as background will help with my listening. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Marj Senior Member United States Joined 6391 days ago 257 posts - 283 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, French | Message 27 of 33 22 April 2010 at 4:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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I revisited some of my older posts in my TAC 2009 thread, and discovered today that I have just passed the 100 hour mark in learning French. Granted, it covers over a year of studying, but it still astonished me that I had put in this much time, since I had given up the TAC early in the fall, and this year I've been wandering from language to language just for the fun of it.
I'm not quite ready to give up my wanderlust, but it seems my interest has narrowed to just three languages lately--French, Spanish, and German. With my new-found information, on the days where I feel like studying, but no particular language is pulling at me, I think I will work on my French. I haven't quite reached the point where I can watch movies and understand most of what is said in French, but I don't think it will be long before I am there. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Marj Senior Member United States Joined 6391 days ago 257 posts - 283 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, French | Message 28 of 33 24 April 2010 at 7:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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Update for April 17-April 23
Not as much as I had hoped, but this was a busy week for me. My exercise program also suffered this week, as I was gone from home so much. But I did manage to do a little exercise, and a little language learning. French--didn't do much French the beginning of the week, but did do some (one hour total)towards the end of the week. All on the DS. Spanish--Did an hour and a half on Michel Thomas (finished CD 3, beginners) and one and a quarter hours on the DS, for a total of 2.75 hours on Spanish this week. Plus, I spent a couple of hours with Spanish radio on in the background. German--didn't spend a lot of time on German this week. Half an hour early in the week, another half hour towards the middle of the week, and half an hour at the end of the week--all on Michel Thomas. This is a total of 5.25 hrs. this week. Since 1 December 2009 I have studied a total of 72.5 hrs. to this point, with a variety of languages, including, Russian, Mandarin, Irish, Esperanto, Italian, German, French and Spanish. I've discovered I don't want to study Russian, Irish and Esperanto for a while. Lately, I've been most interested in French, Spanish and German, although I still occasionally have urges for Italian and Mandarin. So far, I'm enjoying my wanderlust. While I know that if I had spent this much time on my French, I would probably be at least an advanced beginner, possibly even intermediate, I also suspect that I would not have spent this much time if I only concentrated on one language. So I'm going to continue studying as the mood strikes me, and studying what I'm in the mood for at that particular time. Edited to add the actual time I spent on French, and to correct the German times. Edited by Marj on 26 April 2010 at 6:14pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| glossa.passion Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6146 days ago 267 posts - 349 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, EnglishC1, Danish Studies: Spanish, Dutch | Message 29 of 33 29 April 2010 at 9:55pm | IP Logged | ||
This is also my way of studying, although I wouldn’t call it wanderlust, just the one and only possible way I’d like to study in my free time, otherwise I’d quit ... Enjoy what you do and it’s nice that you keep track. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Marj Senior Member United States Joined 6391 days ago 257 posts - 283 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, French | Message 30 of 33 30 April 2010 at 2:17am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for commenting, and I do enjoy my language learning.
The keeping track is just to feel a slight sense of accomplishment. I've learned from this site that it takes at least a couple of hundred hours of study to be able to speak another language, and keeping track reminds me that I'm getting closer to my goals, even when I can't remember anything like I'd like to, and even if it is at a slow pace. I'm glad to see that someone else studies like this, and hope you are enjoying your language journey as well! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Marj Senior Member United States Joined 6391 days ago 257 posts - 283 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, French | Message 31 of 33 06 May 2010 at 8:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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Update for April 24-April 30
I did almost no studying of languages. Two days I was gone from home and busy, and when I got back I had no desire to study. So I didn't. Spanish--a little Michel Thomas, and a little on the DS, for a total of 1.25 hours this week. French--just a little time on the DS, .75 hours. I spent a total of 2 hours on language learning this week. And I'm not doing much studying this week, either (May 1-till now, May 6). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Marj Senior Member United States Joined 6391 days ago 257 posts - 283 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, French | Message 32 of 33 06 June 2010 at 7:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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Update for May 1-May 7.
Update for May 8-May 14. Update for May 15-May 21. Update for May 22-May 28. Update for May 29-June 4. Made some changes in my lifestyle--started to lose weight, started exercising, babysat more, outdoors more and language learning fell by the side. I've discovered when I start something new I need to gather as much information as I can, so spent much of my time learning about weight loss, and learning about starting to exercise. This resulted in little time and desire for learning languages. Did little if any language learning for the last few weeks. I remember doing a little on the DS while waiting a couple of times, and I remember doing a little MT Spanish, but didn't bother to record any of it. However, I think I'm over the acquiring information stage, and have begun to miss my languages. I've dug out my MT Spanish CDs, and downloaded some German lessons to my iPod. I think this week I will be reviewing some of my languages, and start again. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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