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Bookworm’s adventures-TAC15 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4534 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes  Studies: German | Message 49 of 217 13 March 2015 at 11:25am | IP Logged | ||
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If you don't want to read on a Pad you could also use Readlang, which works very well.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Mohave Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Mohave1 Joined 4008 days ago 291 posts - 444 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 50 of 217 13 March 2015 at 2:19pm | IP Logged | ||
Cavesa - I didn't want to buy a Kindle either, so I've used an iPad app, French Reader, to read many books for the Super Challenge - and I love it! The same developer has a German reader app in the iOS App Store, German Reader. In the French Reader app, I can select a word and get an English translation (or multiple other languages depending on dictionary you load), or get a definition in French, or have google translate translate the word, phrase, sentence, etc. I can't speak for the quality of the German app, but I have to believe the same programming underlies both programs. The app accepts many different formats, but all files must be DRM-free. For $1.99, it may be worth a try. Secondly, thanks so much for your great advice on my log the other day. The chocolate analogy was perfect- and you hit the nail on the head with it! The fact that so many people, like you, reach out to help others, is what makes this forum so special. Thank you very much! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5010 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 51 of 217 13 March 2015 at 4:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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Gemuse, thanks for your advice. I am already doing Assimil. And the trouble is it
still feels too much like work, not like a fun book. I have obviously grown a bit fun dependent over the last few year :-) But you are most probably right Assimil or some other easy learner reading source could serve me the best at the moment. I still hesitate whether to dive into Eragon or not. Patrick, Mohave, thanks for the advice, I will certainly try. the German app might be a great choice. I like reading on the iPad in many cases (for exemple, a Kindle won't show you the colourful textbooks with images that I can easily carry with me on iPad and study) but I've really missed the Kindle-like simplicity of using a dictionary at the same time. And the fact is that I couldn't find such an app on my own without being extremely lucky. There are just so many apps (and so much crap) so it is usually the best to follow advice from someone who has already found something they are happy with. The issue, however, may be to find DRM-free German books. I found awesome French libraries online (both pirated and free domain), Spanish is greatly represented, I accidentally found a huge cache of Russian ebooks (and downloaded it just in case I'd ever learn Russian)... but the German and Swedish ones are more difficult to find. Readlang sounds good as well, I'll have a detailed look at it. Really, there are so many apps that I am unlikely to find most things on my own, thanks for both tips. I'm glad you liked my chocolate analogy, Mohave. :-) I'm always glad to help, whenever I can, as I keep getting help from others here all the time and feel the need to not be too selfish and greedy ;-) . It is a really wonderful community we take part in. Thanks a lot everyone for help and encouragement! Now, I need to put my room in a better order, wash the dishes and then I'll open the damn German Assimil and get moving! :-D By the way, I am still struggling with El palacio de la medianoche, 50 pages till the ending. It is not a bad book, not at all. It just really resonates with me in a weird way. I am looking forward to having it finished. After that, I can choose from a few more Pratchetts, two more CRZs, a sci-fi and two historical novels. And a detective novel. My previous hoarding (especially in sales) is proving useful now. And there were sales in one of my favourite bookshops, so I got a few more Spanish resources (and an Italian one) to keep me busy and progressing for a year or more. So, I cannot give 40 euros for a Kindle right now. And somehow, it feels wrong that a girl like me would own that many gadgets. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 52 of 217 13 March 2015 at 6:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hm, but isn't it much worse if someone owns many gadgets and there's no e-reader among them? :)
I love my Onyx. To me that's much more important than having a smartphone ;P 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5477 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 53 of 217 14 March 2015 at 5:01am | IP Logged | ||
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Hey Cavesa,
I see you're on the lookout for free reading material preferably, so I'm not so sure this really helps, but on my iPhone I've been able to download in built dictionaries in both the iBooks app and the kindle for iPhone app. Not to be one to encourage the use of modern technology (the more I read about it the more I'm appaled by what's been kept from the public- surprise surprise), still for the moment i'll happily play for their team and encourage it's use. Once these apps were installed (i'm sure it can be done on an iPad too) I simply highlighted a word and then I was given an option of downloading a in-built monolingual dictionary from among the 'larger' languages of the world. You know you've come so far with French. It's easy from my perspective to draw the conclusion that is well within your capabilities of learning German to the same level by applying similar (not necessarily the same) things you did to your French. It sounds like you had many ups and downs with your French along the road as you pointed out to me just recently. You've also alluded to the fact that you've probably forgotten that you did all the 'hard yards' with French some time ago now and moved on to very interest-driven/ entertainment-driven materials that appealed very nicely to your tastes. I'd recommend with however much time you have per day that you divide it up into a certain amount of time in which you MUST do the 'hard-yards' with German as you would've done with French (eg Assimil) and divide the rest of your time up that you have for language learning however you like (German, French, Spanish, whatever). Ie do some 'hard work', get it out the way, and enjoy some of the other stuff too. It will take time but you can do it as you have done it before, just commit and move forward in a consistent manner that doesn't burn you out. PM Edit: Don't forget you have provided and continue to provide inspiration to other aspiring learners (such as myself) who want to be able to achieve what you have. Thus, once again I say, you have done it before and you can and will do it again :) (or else I'll call the police) 2nd Edit: in-built? what the hell is wrong with me... built-in is what I meant. I swear sometimes I don't know how to speak my own language. I'm ALWAYS getting idiomatic expressions mixed up. It's like English is my 2nd language sometimes and I say many expressions applied to the wrong situations or even mix two together. Edited by PeterMollenburg on 14 March 2015 at 5:05am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 4083 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 54 of 217 14 March 2015 at 9:37am | IP Logged | ||
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inbuilt is legit AFAIK.
http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/1250/built-in-or- in-built 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5477 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 55 of 217 14 March 2015 at 12:55pm | IP Logged | ||
Ahh, there you go hey. Tnx Gemuse :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5010 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 56 of 217 18 March 2015 at 1:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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You are certainly right. There is actually a pretty ugly and precise word describing
what I have become: lazy. So, now I am trying to do a bit of the "hard work" every day before diving into fun (except the reading in public transport sessions, I don't carry courses with me usually). And I've decided to choose a priority resource for each of my actively learnt languages finally. German priority: Assimil I am continuing again and my progress: passive wave: I am struggling with huge lesson 56. active wave: Just finished lesson 10. I am making lots of mistakes Spanish priority: Gramatica de Uso A1-A2 and to finish Vocabulario A1-A2 from the Anaiya series. How far am I? Approximately in the middle of Vocabulario and just started with Gramatica. The reading apps: I found the readers (after more searching than I had expected). I'll buy them as soon as new month comes, I need to pay some other things first and, as I can't remember who said, I have a little bit too much month left at the end of the money. :-) Really. French reader shows mostly crap when trying to find it directly, German reader is better. And readlang leads to even more chaos I still haven't got my DALF certificate and I am growing nervous as people are congratulating me and I still feel like there has been a mistake and I will stop feeling like that when I hold the paper in my hand. Since a few related phone calls are related to my cooperation with my tutor (I was asked to write a short review for the language school who found him for me, I am still a bit unsure about it), I thought of giving it one more thought and writing briefly the pros and cons of this experience with a tutor. Unlike in the horrible thread "moving from B2 to C2", or what was it called, I will focus on this one experience only and disregard any other tutors, teachers and other nightmares I had experienced before: pros: +this tutor was really willing to meet my needs and demands. That is the base of any success. We did a few exercises concerning things I hadn't asked for and hadn't needed but as soon as it was clear I had been right, we moved to other things. +speaking maintanance: I spoke better after the first meeting because I got rid of the rust. Later, I didn't get much better at speaking but I kept it going until the exam, so I could try without any rust. +writing. The French exams require writing similar to the writing the French need to suffer at Lycee. So, the advice on getting into the narrow space between reusing the parts of your input "dossier" (which is a huge mistake) and getting out of topic (which is a disaster) was useful, just as getting corrected on my grammar, which would have taken me much longer on my own. I got better at writing thanks to this kind of practice. +he was an exceptionally educated man. I don't mean it as if he had had ten degrees and understood advanced physics and it's consequences for chinese philosophy on Thaiwan. No, but his interests were quite wide, his experience varied and he didn't turn down natural conversation topics of a medicine student, such as autopsies. +A few unexpected topics where I lacked vocabulary and real facts, such as dealing with a bank and such economical tasks. There were several such topics and I learnt quite a lot there and had to leave my comfort zone not only languagewise. But that is something that is much less related to the exam than the rest. neutrals: writing: Yes, he tried to correct my unnatural sentences. However, most of them were caused by avoiding the sentence I was forbidden to copy from the dossier so it was of limited help as I had usually known my sentence was weird. grammar: I was corrected repeatedly however I don't know whether I have improved in any significant way in this area. Firstly, I make mistakes when I am not focused enough and there is not much any kind of correction can do about it. I know what the mistake is, I feel stupid, yet I will make it again if I write while deprived of sleep and don't have much time to read after myself. Of course, I got better in a few points where I asked a question related to something I had been studying on my own before the meeting. speaking: again, I don't think the constant corrections are per se the miraculous way to progress. I would have progressed more had I studied more on my own (and had I not splitted the time between university exams and DALF). And, I was really good at the beginning, I got complimented on the accent and on the minimum amount of mistakes (like two per hour). So, as an extension to the 80/20 rule, I am probably far enough to need huge amounts of time to notice any larger chunk of progress. cons: -I got lazy. I get the subconscious feeling, very common among class attending learners, that I don't need to work that hard on my own when being taught. Combine that with university exams and you'll get a much worse result than expected. -I found out quite late my tutor hadn't known much about the DALF exam structure and typical tasks. He had prepared students for various exams and similar tasks, just not for this. -One thing where I had hoped for more corrections: the content and text structure. That is something you probably need someone who used to work (or still works) as the examinator to advice you on. I want the certificate already to finally have peace!!! And I want to prepare for a Spanish exam as it seems to be a good motivation. Now back to Assimil. And I need to run elsewhere. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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