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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Elenia Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom lilyonlife.blog Joined 3857 days ago 239 posts - 327 votes  Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Swedish, Esperanto | Message 9 of 129 13 June 2014 at 6:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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I wrote a little resumé of my chateau visit in French for Lang-8, and got some pretty
nice comments on it. Aside from that, my French performance this hit a new low when I had to ask my roommate's friend to repeat herself three times before getting my roommate to translate from me. Yes, I am ashamed. I have slowed down reading La Huitième fille, as well. Yet another of my friends is leaving soon, and so we have been maximising time together before she has to go. This has meant barely any language practice at all! However, I have continued (sporadically) with anki, and have also started a pretty steady reading habit of a section a day of Låt den rätte komma in. Although the sections are of varying lengths, with some of them being so small that I want to read on, I have been fairly strict with myself. This is because I am reading extensively at the moment, and I know that if I read too much at a time, I will probably either burn out, and stop completely for a long time, or I'll not be able to understand anything that I read at all. My friend asked me why I read it, saying 'shouldn't you learn the language before you read it?' and I contented myself with telling her that the book was one of the main reasons I started learning Swedish, so I should at least read it. In truth, I think I learn a lot more from reading native texts than anki-ing words and phrases, at least for Swedish. I find it quite easy for me to understand, and for the most part grammatical structures make sense to my English mind. Reading is not only helpful, but also enjoyable, so I won't stop just because my proficiency in other areas is next to nothing. I have done a little more German at Deutsche Welle, but not much, sadly. I started with a different course, which is more suited to my learning style, but I find the s-l-o-w speaking very irritating. This is, of course, the main downfall of a beginners course, and it's quite hard to find anything satisfying at my level. I will probaly return to lingq at some point. Finally, Esperanto. I think my work done on and enthusiasm for Esperanto warrant the language being pushed up from it's current status on my language learning profile. The more I learn and read about it, the more I want to know. I have started another course on lernu, and will probably start the Ana Pana course soon, too. -- Otherwise, I had the very noble intention of writing a series of about ten 100-word stories in French. I say 'intention' because I got distracted by writing something in English, instead. However, the intention is still there, and now that I've acknowledged it publicly, I have higher hopes for following through. I decided I wanted to learn French primarily because my mother did, but I have also always wanted to be able to write in French. I have never managed to get that far, however, and find translating my own work into French shockingly hard. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Elenia Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom lilyonlife.blog Joined 3857 days ago 239 posts - 327 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Swedish, Esperanto | Message 10 of 129 15 June 2014 at 2:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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A short paragraph about my current reading in French, I'd be grateful for any
corrections or comments*: -- « Voilà comment je vois les chose, fit-il. Avant de l’entendre parler, j’étais perplexe, indécis à propos des petits détails de l’existence. Mais à présent – son visage s’éclaira – je suis toujours perplexe et indécis mais sur un plan plus élevé, voyez-vous, et au moins je sais que ce sont les questions vraiment importantes, fondamentales, de l’univers. » … « Je ne les voyais pas comme ça, dit-il, mais vous avez absolument raison. Il a vraiment repoussé les limites de l’ignorance… » Ils savourèrent tous deux l’étrange et chaude sensation d’être beaucoup plus ignorants que le commun des mortels, lequel n’était ignorant que de chose communes. Il s’agit d’un extrait de La Huitième fille que je lire toujours, à pas lent et un peu paresseux… Deux mages sont en traîne de parler d’un élève prodigieux de l’université des mages, l’Université de l’Invisible. Cet étudiant parle de chose qu’ils ne comprennent point, et les mages se confort en le fait qu’au moins ils ne sont plus confus sur les choses ordinaires et quotidiennes. Ce genre de blague n’est qu’une des raisons que j’adore l’écriture de Terry Pratchett. Ces mages sont une satire des gens sages mais qui manque du sens commun et le savoir pratique. Son humeur mis à part, son écriture est une écriture assez facile à lire. C’est de la fantaisie, bien sûr, mais ce n’est pas de la haute fantaisie assez difficile à comprendre. Il a créé tout un monde qui est, en plusieurs aspects, une réflexion de le notre, et il est peuplé des nombreuses espèces fantastiques comme les nain : des vampires : des golems, mais cette aspect fantastique n’est qu’une manière par laquelle il explorait les caractères des gens et les phénomènes du monde et de la société. Son langage est une langage clair est simple, mais il exprime des idées sur le monde beaucoup plus complexe. Comme on dit : la somme est plus importante que la somme des parties ! -- *sorry if it's not very coherent, I had trouble organising all of my ideas! Edited by Elenia on 15 June 2014 at 4:19pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Elenia Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom lilyonlife.blog Joined 3857 days ago 239 posts - 327 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Swedish, Esperanto | Message 11 of 129 19 June 2014 at 2:15am | IP Logged | ||
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It doesn't seem so obvious through my few posts on this log, but it's becoming more and
more clear to me that Swedish is my baby. Although my goal for German is the most ambitious, and although French is the language that I should probably be focusing most on improving, Swedish receives the majority of my attention. I don't mind taking a break from studying French - after all, I've been studying it all year. But really, I ought to pay more attention to German. Part of the reason why I don't is because Swedish is easier. I didn't start out trying to learn Swedish, I started out trying to read a book (the same one I'm still reading now, what feels like an age later...) I knew nothing when I first picked up this book. I had no clue about pronunciation. I just google translated every single word I came across. I got through about eighteen pages doing this and, honestly, it wasn't that bad. I liked the book, so I didn't mind having to expend all that effort. I was remembering things, and even managed to pick up a few things about tenses and conjugations. Then I was sent a short story written in Swedish. I've read through it a few times now, although I haven't made huge efforts to translate it. I also have a recording of the text which I usually listen to when I want to sleep. Unsurprisingly, I can repeat the first few sentences almost flawlessly! The result is, now that I'm actually trying to learn, I find Swedish much more transparent. Although I know more Germans and have made more of a formal effort with learning German, things simply do not click into place as easily as they do with Swedish, and so I end up spending less time on it. I'm trying to rectify this, but simply going through courses bores me. Audio-based courses go to slow, and don't necessarily help me learn new vocabulary. And most courses tend to go through boring things first that put me off. Looking back at how I started Swedish, I'm thinking the easiest way for me to start with German is to get a hold of a book I enjoy in German and go from there, translating word by word. Yes, it's time consuming, but I've always liked annotations. -- In other news, I did some grammar study yesterday. It was amazing. I've never understood grammar before, mainly because I'd never been properly taught it before in English. Not that I think I'd be more successful learning English grammar than another languages, but because at least then I'd have some way to actually understand the terms used! But yesterday I read, wrote out and understood the different cases for German declination. Finally, I see some light! I also, of course, spent some time with my darling Swedish. I watched a nine minute long childrens TV program with subtitles intensively: watching, rewatching, writing out unknown words, rewatching... Later on in the day, I watched a thirty minute long sitcom and was amazed just how much language I recognised from the kids program. I didn't understand or remember most of the words, but it's made me want to make extensive use of kids TV as a learning resource. Edited by Elenia on 21 June 2014 at 3:26am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Elenia Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom lilyonlife.blog Joined 3857 days ago 239 posts - 327 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Swedish, Esperanto | Message 12 of 129 26 June 2014 at 2:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've barely done anything on the language front as I moved out of my uni residence and
back to England yesterday. All of my time has been spent cleaning, packing and despairing. However, I managed to move out without problem and cancel my insurance, which was my big worry: I've never had to do anything like that in English, let alone in French. However, the person who cancelled my insurance was friendly and seemed to remember me from when I set it up ten months prior. The process was easy and we chatted a little bit, so I walked out feeling like a star. I surprised myself on the plane by being able to read three and a half pages of Låt den rätte komma in without difficulty. There were only a few words I didn't understand, despite the fact that I was operating on only a few hours sleep. So, that was another boost to my confidence. I am scared that, now I am back home, I will study less, but I guess that really depends on me: there will always be a moment when I can study something, somehow. I just have to push myself to it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5237 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 13 of 129 26 June 2014 at 3:05pm | IP Logged | ||
One trick is to get a paper calendar and everyday which you've done something in French/Swedish/German/etc then put an X on that day of the calendar. Then just make sure you don't have any days without an X. And don't worry if it was only reading one paragraph, it counts. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Elenia Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom lilyonlife.blog Joined 3857 days ago 239 posts - 327 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Swedish, Esperanto | Message 14 of 129 26 June 2014 at 6:15pm | IP Logged | ||
Yeah, I was thinking of maybe keeping a progress spreadsheet on excel, and I could do with the extra reminder that a wall chart or calendar would give me. My main problem is that I tend to forget to look at these things, so it'd probably do me good to have both! I used to keep a wall chart back in school and forgot how effective it was in reminding me to do my homework, so thanks for the suggestion :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Elenia Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom lilyonlife.blog Joined 3857 days ago 239 posts - 327 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Swedish, Esperanto | Message 15 of 129 03 July 2014 at 1:39am | IP Logged | ||
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Although I've done very little with my languages, I am finding reading a lot easier.
With Swedish, it is not necessarily that I know more words, just that I am able to recognise the ones I do know more easily, and therefore make better-informed guesses about the ones I don't know. I have been neglecting Anki for over a week, but as I'm an underachiever, I only had two or three hundred cards to work my way through yesterday and today. I've cleared my backlog already, and so there are no demotivating numbers of repetitions waiting for me tomorrow. Apart from that, I have committed myself to doing something in Swedish, German and French every day this month. This is proving harder than expected, and I'm only two days in. I am easily tired out, and I have a lot of other things that need doing, so languages usually get pushed aside until later in the day, when I have the energy, the brain power or the time to do anything meaningful for any of my languages. However, I have a whole month in which to sort that out. I have also signed up for Camp Nano, an offshoot of Nation Novel Writing Month which runs every November. I have signed myself to write ten thousand words and I'm hoping that I'll finish my current authorial project in this time. If I do, I'll use the rest of the month to write short stories in French of about 100-500 words. -- Goals for this month: French - Restart reading Manon Lescaut. Finish watching Les Revenants. Watch Intouchables. Make some progress with La Rue des boutiques obscures. Swedish - Finish the first part of Låt den rätte komma in, and start my second reading of it. Finish reading the Swedish short story I was sent. Complete learning Rött och guld and translate the lyrics fully. Intensively watch through Tjuvgods. German - Be consistent. Get a good vocabulary base from which to build up reading ability. Use German with German-speaking friends. I would also like to do something with Esperanto twice a week. Wish me luck, all! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Elenia Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom lilyonlife.blog Joined 3857 days ago 239 posts - 327 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Swedish, Esperanto | Message 16 of 129 09 July 2014 at 10:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've realised that doing something every day for three languages, while also writing
300+ words a day; sustaining a more-than-usually active social life and sorting out all of my belongings in a new house was perhaps, just a little, overambitious. On a good day, I can get a bit of two languages in. Somehow, Swedish seems to get the most time, which does not surprise me in the slightest. However, on a writing trip to a bookshop on Monday, I managed to find a German A2 textbook. It's studio d's Deutsch als Fremdsprache and it still has the original CD, despite being second hand and only £7.50. It's completely monolingual, and my German knowledge isn't even worth mentioning, but I can understand a decent amount of it while reading. The audio is a lot harder. I also bought an anthology of short Swedish texts that I'm looking forward to reading my way through. I had a very weird breakthrough moment with Swedish. I have been trying to learn the song Rött och guld by Loke Nyberg since I started this log, and have found it pretty much impossible. And then, just to see, I recorded myself singing it, while reading along, and have found I know most of it. Now I sing it to myself constantly... At least, that is, when I'm not singing Formidable or Papaoutai by Stromae to myself. My goal is to learn the words to both of these songs. Formidable will probably be a lot more difficult than Papaoutai, but it'd be nice to know them both and hum along to myself. It'd also be great to sing along if I ever get the chance to go to a Stromae concert. I have done precisely nothing in Esperanto for a month. It is official, I have even received an email from lernu to the tune of 'revenez, on se manque de toi!' or something similar. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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