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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Elenia Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom lilyonlife.blog Joined 3854 days ago 239 posts - 327 votes  Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Swedish, Esperanto | Message 57 of 129 14 January 2015 at 11:39pm | IP Logged |
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So. Update time!
This past seven days I studied a grand total of (drumroll, please) 544 minutes for French! Which makes just over 9 hours in total, if I'm not mistaken. This 544 minutes is comprised of: 364 minutes of reading 100 minutes of class time (give or take) 32 minutes of BookTube 22 minutes of Anki 14 minutes of Grammer and 12 minutes of ReadLang flash cards* The obvious heavyweight of all of my activities is reading, in particular, reading Carpe Jugulum, which made up a whopping 306 minutes of my time. The reading was done in Readlang and on my phone, which means that it was semi intensive. (On my phone, I can look words up in the French dictionary while commuting, but I won't always find a definition as it's a standard dictionary and Pratchett's writing is often very colloquial.) German and Swedish came bottom, naturally. I'm not sure which of these two featherweights actually came out lowest, as I definitely did a lot more German reading, but I actually used Swedish FSI. In addition to this, my Swedish anki decks are these giant, (sometimes) unwieldy behemoths while my German Anki deck is currently a passing summer breeze. However, I am anticipating spending a lot more time with German than Swedish over the coming weeks. Sorry, Swedish! So, that is all! I have a nine am class on Brecht and the Drama tomorrow, which requires me to leave my house at something like 7.30 - yes, yes, I know. I live in un trou perdu. But what can I do? Here's to next week being even better than this week! *which I count separately from Anki because of just because. Also, because the flashcard system isn't as good for vocab study as Anki is. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Elenia Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom lilyonlife.blog Joined 3854 days ago 239 posts - 327 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Swedish, Esperanto | Message 58 of 129 22 January 2015 at 12:08am | IP Logged |
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This past seven days, I studied French for roughly 376 minutes, which is 6 hours and
16 minutes. Not as good as last week, but all that studying really wore me out. In addition to this, we had really strong wind all of last week which kept me awake most nights, and I worked overtime on friday and saturday, as well as being awake for more than seventeen hours on Thursday... So, I didn't actually do any language study at all until Monday. I'm feeling a lot more rested this week, so hopefully I manage a bit more. The breakdown goes: 160 minutes of class time* - 55 minutes for both speaking and translation, and about 50 minutes for commentaire de texte 57 minutes of news 52 minutes of grammar - exercises for my translation class* 35 minutes of miscellaneous reading 30 minutes of my independent translation project (!!!)* 25 minutes of watch the film Le Havre and finally 17 minutes of Anki As we can see, class work really buoyed my numbers. The misc reading was probably also for class, as was the news watching, and the film. A note on the film: I actually watched a lot more of it than that, but as there isn't much dialogue I halved the time I spent watching it. It's a really good film. Although I don't usually like films which deal with Issues (or films in general, I find it difficult to dedicate so much time to sitting down and watching), I really enjoyed what I saw of it, and would recommend it to others. Otherwise, you may have noticed the time spent on my translation project. I've finally continued with it! This was just free translation, done today while I was on the train. I had no access to a dictionary, although I do have an offline conjugator on my phone which I used to make sure I was spelling my tenses correctly. To be honest, the translation is probably terrible, but this is an independent project and a labour of love, so I don't mind having to go through/over it several times to get it halfway decent, or having to spend a lot of time on it. Anki was clearly the victim of last weeks exhaustion, but the small backlog I built up meant that I have been spending more time on it per session than usual. --- In other studies: I've read quite a bit of Låt den rätta komma in this week. Almost all, if not all, of my reading has been extensive, and I found that I could understand much of what I was reading without looking words up, and even more if I concentrated and took more time in trying to figure out/ recall the meanings of words I didn't immediately recognise. Apart from that, I've done some Anki reps. For German, I have also read a little more both intensively and extensively. I am no way near reading the amount I set out for myself, but that is okay. I think it may take me a while to get into my stride. Other than that, I have been exposed to a little German in all of my non-French modules over the past seven days. Two of these modules are taught by native Germans, and one is taught by a German enthusiast. All three are professors in the department of German at my university. Naturally, the language itself comes up in class, which I am happy about. Other than that, I have done a very small amount of Anki reps. My Allemand deck is really quite small - when my other decks even out a bit, then I'll expand it. *Rough estimate 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Elenia Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom lilyonlife.blog Joined 3854 days ago 239 posts - 327 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Swedish, Esperanto | Message 59 of 129 28 January 2015 at 5:18pm | IP Logged |
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I've given up hope of accurately counting my time for this week... oh well.
I have studied [probably/around/at least - delete as you wish] 441 minutes this week, which is 7h21. The breakdown: 145 minutes of class 101 minutes of writing 77 minutes of reading 58 minutes of translation 30 minutes of film 18 minutes of Anki and 12 minutes of Booktube The class time is lower than usual, as I spent a fair amount of my commentaire class speaking in English and not really paying attention to the French text. The writing time is partially based on rough estimate, the writing itself was an article for our University's French magazine, for which I am an editor. I also wrote a little bit of information down on a plan for an exposé. The reading time includes some 17 minutes of reading aloud in my best French accent. The translation only includes time spent on my personal translation project - not time spent on a translation that I had to do for class, as I did not time myself and so only have the vaguest idea of how long it took me (maybe an hour?) The time I've given to film, as last week, is less than time spent actually watching the film- it is still Le Havre and so still lacking in dialogue. Other than this, I've actually done quite a lot more reading in French than I've indicated. This is because I've spent a fair amount of time this week trawling Goodreads and its French counterpart, Babelio, for interesting original French fiction to read. I will also be doing a lot more reading in the near future, as I have opted to do my second oral exposé on la BD francaise. Hopefully, it will be fun! I already have three longer BDs on my to-read list, thanks to that. --- I did a little bit of FSI for Swedish this week as I tidied my room - I listened to the dialogues, then skipped the breakdown and went straight to the points to practice section. I only reviewed things I had already done, rather than adding in anything new. I have not done any Swedish reading this week, but did make an attempt at some Swedish sentences. [They weren't very good). I have done a lot more reading for German, thanks to the multilingual Hobbit read-a- long that I am sure I have mentioned before... The reading is going slowly, but isn't too tough right now, as I am reading the books in parallel. I also read the article on the book on de.wikipedia with Readlang, so now I have a fair few flashcards containing (hopefully!) useful vocabulary. Finally, I bought Le Faucheur from Abebooks this weekend, and it arrived today. Yay! I bought it only to use in conjunction with Alles Sense, as I'm hoping to start creating German sentence cards in Anki, using the French translations. I have probably said this before, but I will say it again: the French translations of Terry Pratchett are amazing. The translator, Patrick Couton, won an award for his translations, as well he should have done. Once I've had my fill of Pratchett, I will have to look to see if he translated anything else. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Elenia Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom lilyonlife.blog Joined 3854 days ago 239 posts - 327 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Swedish, Esperanto | Message 60 of 129 12 April 2015 at 11:19pm | IP Logged |
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Shortly after the above post, my very elderly laptop finally broke down completely.
Following that was a visit from my boyfriend, a small bout of something fluish which left me feeling tired for the better part of two months, and school. I only got a new laptop last week, and as almost all of my activities are done through a computer, they pretty much all ground to a solid halt. That being said, I still have managed to get a little done (mostly for French and German). French is a constant, thanks to school study. I have also recently started a new french book - Noir et blanc by Andrea Schwartz which is ridiculous, but fairly readable. I have also been reading Goethe's Faust in French (admittedly, with little success.) For German, I have practiced and performed a scene from Der aufhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo Ui by Bertolt Brecht, which was quite a confidence booster. I also watched Faust, a 2012 film by Alexander Sokurov (I believe?), which had the interesting side effect of me trying to think to myself in German. Which would have been nice if it didn't turn out that my subconscious is more proficient than I am. I am currently in Sweden, and doing my usual shy-girl thing of not talking any Swedish at all, but I have understood enough to make me feel like my efforts are not in vain. So there we have it. I guess I'm back. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Elenia Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom lilyonlife.blog Joined 3854 days ago 239 posts - 327 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Swedish, Esperanto | Message 61 of 129 12 April 2015 at 11:22pm | IP Logged |
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Also!
I've had a few exams for French, recently, and I've been doing (surprisingly) well in all of them, which is very nice indeed. The grades received are all in the 70s, for both translation and speaking, which is a lot more than I expected and which is just another ego boost. I have actually been speaking French to real people, although sadly I still have no francophones to practice on. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Elenia Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom lilyonlife.blog Joined 3854 days ago 239 posts - 327 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Swedish, Esperanto | Message 62 of 129 19 April 2015 at 3:32am | IP Logged |
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I wrote, a few months back, that Swedish takes care of its self, and this is still
true. My boyfriend and I are now messaging in a fifty-forty mix of Swedish, English and French, which feels great. Seriously, who knew I could successfully communicate with another human being in this language? Of course, speaking is another thing entirely, and I'm not sure how easy or hard it will be. I am, however, absolutely determined to force myself out to a Swedish language meetup on Wednesday. The idea is terrifying to me, but less terrifying than it was before I realised I could actually make myself understood in written form. Otherwise... I have returned to duolingo. I returned for the Swedish course, and have powered my way through the first set of skills in the past couple of days. I'm finding the course to be decent, and some of the explanations given have cleared things up for me in ways that no other resource has previously managed. Watching has also been reintroduced, and I watched an eleven minute documentary about freerunner, I watched it through twice, and will later watch it again. French? German? What are they? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Elenia Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom lilyonlife.blog Joined 3854 days ago 239 posts - 327 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Swedish, Esperanto | Message 63 of 129 20 April 2015 at 3:36am | IP Logged |
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Powering on with Swedish, although it will definitely have to take a back seat soon.
There are, I would say, two reasons why I'm so intense with Swedish study recently. The first is that I have put Swedish on my CV (with the caveat that it's reading only and also (in my covering letter) that I am self taught). So I want, if it ever becomes necessary, to actually be able to use the language in some capacity. Secondly, I decided that next time I go to Sweden I have to actually use the language to do more than murmur sweet nothings to my boyfriend/train conductors. What? I feel fairly ashamed of myself, knowing that there are situations in which I can use the language, but where I choose not to. It's usually shyness or last minute panic that prevent me from trying to speak to people, rather than a complete inability to understand or form sentences. I finally managed to access the dialang server today (I used the online test board, a trying to access it from the program on my computer was impossible). I tested for listening, reading and writing, and got B1 for all of them. My listening was a bit shaky in places, as was my reading. But I did much better than I expected for both of these, which gives me hope. Other than that, I have been continuing on with Duolingo, which often feels like a slightly more interesting version of FSI drills, and Anki. I have also read through a few of the FSI grammar points, and read more of Kallocain on ReadLang. -- As exam season is coming up, and coming up fast, I'm going to have to step up my french game. I have to give an exposé next week proper, then I have commentaire and traduction exams midway through and at the end of May. Then I will be going back to Tours for a weekend in June - who knows, I may even speak some French there! Aside from that, I am currently applying for a lot of jobs, some of which would like me to speak French. For them, I would like to speak French, also. I guess I am a work in progress. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Elenia Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom lilyonlife.blog Joined 3854 days ago 239 posts - 327 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Swedish, Esperanto | Message 64 of 129 30 April 2015 at 2:08am | IP Logged |
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Language study slowed down again these past few days, thanks to a 4,000 word essay that
is worth 80% of the mark for the module. Today (yesterday, really), I had a speaking exam which didn't go nearly as well as I would have liked but which potentially did not go nearly as badly as I had thought. The next week or so should see me slowly surrounding myself with French, if all goes to plan. I have two French exams left, translation and commentaire, and I want to do as well in them as I can- Helpful to this effort, although completely unrelated, I have started the mammoth task of trying to translate City of Roses into French. I've wanted to try my hand at this for a while, although I honestly don't expect to make it through the fist chapter. But, as they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Right? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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