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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6442 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes  Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 9 of 16 07 January 2009 at 7:43pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Hi; welcome to the forum, and good luck in your studies!
A few comments: - parallel texts are useful in several situations, but it's certainly possible to do quite a lot of work without them - intensity is intensity; I'm hesitant to call anything without it L-R. There are several traditions of reading and listening, and I suspect all are helpful, but I wouldn't lump them together under one term, L-R or otherwise. - you've stated repeatedly that you need a minimum level in a knowledge to L-R effectively. I'd have to strongly disagree with this; after a couple dozen hours, I could easily match words and structures between Polish (my first Slavic language) and English, and L-R has become my favorite way to 'demystify' a new language at the beginning of my studies of it. I genuinely don't think there's a minimum level needed; you simply learn different things at different levels. - if you want to hear more French/German and can afford an mp3 player, get one; I've 'reclaimed' a ridiculous amount of time over the last year through having one and loading it with material in my target languages. Commutes, unexpected waits during the day, walking dogs, etc, all become language-listening time. Similarly, you can listen to online streaming radio or download podcasts; if you can work effectively with them in the background, you may be able to get in a little listening while doing less demanding homework, for instance. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Faim de Siècle Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5810 days ago 36 posts - 39 votes Speaks: English*, French | Message 10 of 16 08 January 2009 at 3:36pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Hey Volte,
Thanks for your response!
This is certainly interesting, and I would tend to trust your own experiences over my speculations. If (and I doubt this) I ever have massive blocks of free time, I would be more than willing to prepare an "authentic" German L-R text to test the system.
I do have an mp3 player (which I was all too ecstatic to receive for Christmas a year ago). What type of Polish audio programs, for example, do you load onto your mp3 player, and what site(s) do you download them from?
Haha, thanks for the suggestion! I'm doing this right now while doing some math homework. :) Edited by Faim de Siècle on 08 January 2009 at 3:39pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Faim de Siècle Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5810 days ago 36 posts - 39 votes Speaks: English*, French | Message 11 of 16 08 January 2009 at 9:42pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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French
Today, I just listened to French radio while doing my homework as suggested by Volte. I didn't have much time for anything else. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Faim de Siècle Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5810 days ago 36 posts - 39 votes Speaks: English*, French | Message 12 of 16 10 January 2009 at 9:53pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Today was, compared to most other days, a fairly effective day.
French I listened to some French radio again, frequented some French forums, listened to (and watched) a French concert DVD, and plan to read a chapter of The Three Musketeers before heading to bed. I also taught my dad French for an hour. It's nice to see him progressing. :) German The bulk of my time today was spent studying German. I listened to approximately 40 minutes of live German radio (understanding a few words here and there and generally able to understand the topic being discussed) while reading my How to Learn German book and making flashcards using unknown vocabulary/sentence structures. Hindi My Hindi supplies finally came, and I spent some time today reading the prefaces of both books which explained the origins of Hindi, its alphabet, and other basic background information. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Faim de Siècle Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5810 days ago 36 posts - 39 votes Speaks: English*, French | Message 13 of 16 15 January 2009 at 9:39pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Woohoo! School is cancelled tomorrow thanks to the subzero temperatures!
As a result of not having to do much homework (as the cancellation wasn't announced until the evening), I managed to accomplish a variety of things: French I went to a used bookstore and picked up a few interesting books (Mastering Advanced French, La France Contemporaine, etc.) which I plan to slowly read over the next few months, starting tomorrow. German I listened to approximately 45 minutes of German radio while reading German Made Simple (By the way, can anyone recommend a simple German text on the same level? I have heard that this book is rather outdated.) and making notecards. I can't wait for tomorrow! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Faim de Siècle Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5810 days ago 36 posts - 39 votes Speaks: English*, French | Message 14 of 16 16 January 2009 at 9:37pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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French
Today I read a short selection from Mastering Advanced French called «Le Français Individualiste» and completed the few exercises that followed. The only two new vocabulary words from this passage were prôner (to extol) and le fronton (pediment). Later on in the morning I read the first section of La France Contemporaine entitled «La France Physique». Here's an interesting, graphic snippet for those who care: La France a une grande variété topographique. Les écoliers français apprennent que la topographie de leur pays ressemble à un amphithéâtre, dans la mesure où il y a une partie plate, la «scène», et puis des «rangs» de plus en plus élevés. Le Bassin parisien (autour de Paris) et le Bassin aquitain (dans le Sud-Ouest) constituent la «scène». Formant un demi-cercle autour de ces pays plats, il y a le premier «rang» des montagnes, c'est-à-dire le Massif central, les Cévennes, le Jura, le Morvan, les Vosges et les Ardennes. Enfin, il y a les «galeries» de l'amphithéâtre, les chaînes de montagnes les plus élevées, les Pyrénées au sud-ouest et les Alpes au sud-est. Although not written in French, I managed to read the preface of The Story of French (a story about the origins and the evolution of the language) and another chapter of I'll Never Be French (a humorous, light read of a man's adventure throughout France, all the while not speaking a word of French). German Today, I mainly reviewed the notecards that I made the last couple of days and solidified any conerns that I previously had. Hindi I read the introduction to Colloquial Hindi and began the lesson on the writing system and pronunciation. When called for, I listened to the CD while reading the text and (poorly) attempted to reproduce Hindi sounds for the first time. I think that this will prove to be a major challenge in learning the language... Edited by Faim de Siècle on 16 January 2009 at 9:38pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Faim de Siècle Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5810 days ago 36 posts - 39 votes Speaks: English*, French | Message 15 of 16 17 January 2009 at 11:06pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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French
I read some more interesting tidbits about the origins of French in The Story of French, read two more chapters of The Three Musketeers (a wonderful book), and taught my dad French for an hour or so. German I reviewed the various vocabulary terms which I had had trouble remembering, delved a little further into my book, learning about the generalities of plural nouns, the imperative, and other grammatical structures, and created some more notecards. Hindi Today, I managed to more thoroughly confuse myself by attempting to reread the text on Hindi pronunciation without listening to the CD at the same time. Hopefully through sheer repetition of the CD audio I will be able to distinguish between the various sounds in Hindi. Pronouncing them is another matter entirely... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6145 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 16 of 16 15 May 2010 at 4:18pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Hello Faim de Siècle,
How are your studies coming along? Are you still studying German and Hindi, or just French now? It's been over a year since you last posted in this log... I hope to see you back soon. :) ellasevia 1 person has voted this message useful |
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