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Emme’s Small Steps - Team Sleipnir TAC’15 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4142 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes  Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 289 of 360 28 February 2014 at 12:02am | IP Logged | ||
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| Emme Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 5345 days ago 980 posts - 1594 votes Speaks: Italian*, English, German Studies: Russian, Swedish, French | Message 290 of 360 28 February 2014 at 8:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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@Stelle
Happy you enjoyed it too! Have a nice week-end (it's already Friday night here). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Emme Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 5345 days ago 980 posts - 1594 votes Speaks: Italian*, English, German Studies: Russian, Swedish, French | Message 291 of 360 16 March 2014 at 5:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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The February/March 6wc ended last Friday. I finished 40th in my target language (Spanish) with 984 minutes (16h24) logged and 8th overall in the total score with 7148 minutes (119h8). As you can see it was a rather mediocre performance, exacerbated by the fact that I wasn’t very meticulous when logging my “language sessions”. My underreporting affected not just English — for which I’m willingly selective about what I count as “learning” and therefore about what I log — but also the other languages.
One example for all: I only logged 704 minutes of extensive reading in German, and yet I know that during the 6wc I read another Comissario Brunetti thriller by Donna Leon. I’m fully aware that reading speed increases with experience (just have a look at the wonderful results obtained by those taking part in the Super Challenge), but seriously, I’m not yet at the point where I can read a 332-page novel in German in just 11-12 hours: that’s the kind of speed I can reach while reading in English, not in German, even though that could be a worthy objective for the upcoming Super Challenge, now that I think about it. Generally, I don’t clock my reading and if it weren’t for the 6wc I would never know how long it takes me to read a novel in any language. But thanks to the data I collected in the past few 6wcs I can say with a modicum of accuracy that I read an average (300-400 pages) literary (but not obscure) novel in English in 10-12 hours. So, if and when the new Super Challenge begins, I could actually focus on increasing my reading speed in German with the final aim to finish a 350-page airport novel in 12 hours or so. Edited by Emme on 16 March 2014 at 5:42pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Emme Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 5345 days ago 980 posts - 1594 votes Speaks: Italian*, English, German Studies: Russian, Swedish, French | Message 292 of 360 23 March 2014 at 8:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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Another update in which I haven’t much to report about language learning.
As I wrote at the beginning of last year’s TAC, I’m not very good at balancing language learning with reading literature. At the moment I’m in a “reading” period and most of my spare time is eaten up by novels. At least they all are in English, but if I can pretend that in this way I’m still working on my English, my other languages are languishing almost totally neglected. I was thinking of taking up another forum challenge for next month (the Learning-Based Challenge) to see if I can get out of these doldrums. I should probably set myself a teeny tiny objective for April, something rather easy and not too demanding just to get myself going again. Remember the SMART goals I was talking about in January and that I wanted to learn to implement this year? Well, I haven’t made any progress on that front, but I suppose this new Learning-Based Challenge is just another name for setting a SMART goal. I’ve got a few more days to decide what to focus on next month: hopefully in next week’s update I’ll be able to commit to something concrete. EDIT: typo. Edited by Emme on 23 March 2014 at 8:30pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Emme Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 5345 days ago 980 posts - 1594 votes Speaks: Italian*, English, German Studies: Russian, Swedish, French | Message 293 of 360 30 April 2014 at 7:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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As is probably very clear by now, 2014 is turning out as a quite unproductive year on the language front. That’s why I’m so negligent in updating this log: I haven’t really much to write about.
Facing reality and well-aware that I’m not concentrating on languages enough to warrant my presence on four TAC teams full-time, I’ve decided to retrench and concentrate my efforts on just English and Swedish. So I’ve taken advantage of the new TAC rule and become an “observer” in team Lobo and team Катюша. If you wonder why I chose English and Swedish over Spanish and Russian I can only say that English is such a big part of my life that I can’t imagine not using it even for a day. And Swedish is my “darling” and usually it's the one which lures me back into language learning. Let’s hope it does its magic this time around too. Now I’m off to reading: there’s still something I want to finish by midnight. Tomorrow the Super Challenge 2014/15 begins and I want to start it with a clean slate. --- PS. As I’m now on just one TAC team which still does challenges, I’ve only one entry to re-post here this month. April Challenge for team Asgard Jag har läst om regissören och författaren Ingmar Bergman. Jag gillar bio och när jag har möjligheten tittar jag gärna på svenska filmer. Ingmar Bergman, som dog 2007, är ännu Sveriges mest berömd regissör och hans filmer visas ofta utomlands. Många av hans filmer är svåra och trokiga: kanske det är mitt fel att jag inte förstår dem. Min favorit är Det sjunde insegle som jag tror är ett mästerverk. --- PPS. Back in January I said I would continue my mini-SuperChallenge until the beginning of the new “official” one. I haven’t done much in German in the past few months, but for completeness’ sake here’s the final items to add to my previous list. Mini-Super Challenge Books: 9/25: Donna Leon, Feine Freunde (Friends in High Places, 2000), Zürich 2001. (pp.332) Films / Radio dramas: 83/100 WDR Hörspiel: Captain Berlin vs Dracula von Jörg Buttgereit, © WDR 2013, 55' 84/100 WDR Hörspiel: Alle Räder stehen still - Küchenpersonal von Mathias Greffrath, © WDR 2013, 54' 85/100 WDR Hörspiel: Die Spur des Bienenfressers von Nii Parkes, © WDR 2013, 55' 86/100 WDR Hörspiel: Der Affe von Katja Reinicke, © WDR 2014, 55' 87/100 WDR Hörspiel: Sense von Jörg Juretzka, © WDR 2014, 55' Edited by Emme on 30 April 2014 at 7:33pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Emme Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 5345 days ago 980 posts - 1594 votes Speaks: Italian*, English, German Studies: Russian, Swedish, French | Message 294 of 360 08 May 2014 at 8:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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Super Challenge 2014-2015
And so the first week of the new Super Challenge is over and so far I’ve managed one (real) book, three films, two Hörspiele and about five hours in other assorted “film credits”. I haven’t tweeted them to the bot yet, because I’m not sure what the best way to update my reading and watching is. I don’t particularly enjoy logging in on Twitter and so I’m considering whether updating only weekly or monthly would be the best solution. In particular, as someone pointed out in the Challenge discussion thread, waiting to finish a novel or a TV-series before tweeting about it would give you – at the end of the Super Challenge – a nice, clean list of titles of what you’ve read and watched, and that’s something quite appealing to my list-loving self. ENGLISH Books 1 - David Lodge, The British Museum Has Fallen Down, 1965, pp. 176. Films Various: 290min GERMAN Films 1 - Kein Entkommen 2 - WDR Hörspiel Sir Joe von Bodo Traber, ©WDR 2013 (55’) 3 - Commissario Brunetti: Reiches Erbe 4 - Woran Dein Herz hängt 5 - WDR Hörspiel Das Kreuz auf dem Erlenberg von Bodo Traber, ©WDR 2014 (55’) As you can see, I’m attempting two Super Challenges: English and German. But I have a confession to make: after it was announced that the Half Super Challenge was again possible, I toyed with the idea of doing a Half Super Challenge with Swedish as well. But then I thought: “Who am I kidding? There’s no way I can squeeze so much language input in my life over the next 20 months unless I win the lottery and can stop worrying about that time-drain called work.” And so common sense prevailed once again. Moreover, if from now to December 2015 I find myself with time to spare, I’d probably better opt for reading more than the required 5000 pages in German, which right now seems the area where I’m going to struggle the most. So, no Swedish for me this time – but who knows – maybe if a new Super Challenge is organized in 2016-17 I may go for it then. For now, let’s see how this challenge develops and what fruits it brings. Edited by Emme on 08 May 2014 at 9:05pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Emme Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 5345 days ago 980 posts - 1594 votes Speaks: Italian*, English, German Studies: Russian, Swedish, French | Message 295 of 360 18 May 2014 at 7:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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Some of you may have noticed that I haven’t been very active on the forum lately. Maybe it’s just me, that I’ve been following the wrong threads, or that I’m over-sensitive right now, but for some reason there seems to be so much tension on HTLAL at the moment. It’s made reading posts rather unpleasant and it certainly hasn’t encouraged me to take part in the discussions going on, no matter how interesting they are.
Enough with the complaining and back to languages. As you now, I’m currently doing the Super Challenge but I’ve also signed up for the 6wc with Spanish in the hope it would give my “active studying” a much-needed shot in the arm. It’s been pointless: almost all the time I’ve logged so far has been in my strongest languages (English, German and Swedish) and apart from watching some episodes of Isabel on the wonderful RTVE website I’ve completely stopped studying Spanish, or Russian for that matter. As I’ve already said in this log, 2014 seems to be a year for literature rather than for languages. So be it, I can live with that, especially since the Super Challenge is the perfect vehicle to bridge my two big passions. From a practical point of view, I’m still trying to figure out how to keep track of what I do in the most efficient way possible: the problem is compounded by the fact that I’m twitting for the 6wc almost daily with the time spent on each activity, whereas I plan to log only completed books and films/TV series for the Super Challenge. I’m currently juggling three files with different lists hoping to keep track of everything, but right now I can’t wait for the 6wc to be over so I don’t have to bother with it. Probably I won’t sign up again in August unless the urge to “study in earnest” strikes me before then and the 6wc becomes meaningful for me again. EDIT: typos. Edited by Emme on 18 May 2014 at 7:52pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Emme Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 5345 days ago 980 posts - 1594 votes Speaks: Italian*, English, German Studies: Russian, Swedish, French | Message 296 of 360 27 May 2014 at 12:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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We’ve almost reached the end of the first month of the Super Challenge and even though my never-satisfied self can’t help but hope I had done more, rationally I believe I’ve set a decent pace that if I can keep up over the next 19 months should allow me to complete the challenge successfully.
Looking back on what I’ve done so far, I’m surprised – almost appalled – to notice that I’ve watched only one film over the past four weeks. This is strange for someone who used to be a real movie fanatic, who used to watch several films a week, staying up late at night for the kind of “art house films” no one else was interested in. Lately I’ve grown disenchanted with what’s on offer, especially from the big studios. If I watch something (and time constraints don’t always allow it) it’s more likely to be a well-received TV-series than a run-of-the-mill Hollywood production. It’s as if the best TV has some faith in the viewer and his/her capacity to follow a storyline for grown-ups, whereas movies treat their audience as eternal teenagers and that I find unbearable. I’m sure there must be a few gems out there that only need to be uncovered. Probably I simply have to watch out for those. Of course the Super Challenge is all about quantity over quality, but this could be a nice side project to ensure I also get to experience some worthy cinema alongside good literature, at least in English where my proficiency level allows it. With German it’s going to be quantity over quality for many more months to come, I’m afraid. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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