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TAC 2010: Sharp Knives | ||
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| Sprachjunge Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 7168 days ago 368 posts - 548 votes  Speaks: English*, GermanC2 Studies: Spanish, Russian | Message 1 of 146 22 December 2009 at 12:40am | IP Logged | ||
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TAC2010: Sharp Knives
Welcome to my “TAC2010: Sharp Knives” language learning log! The title alludes to the saying that it is better to have one sharp knife in the kitchen than ten dull ones. Well, in my case, I would like three sharp knives: German, Spanish, and Russian. Go Team G! I too am wholly excited to take part in this project. It is wonderful to be able to encourage each other as we pursue similar goals. Hello, Icaria909! Hello, Joanthemaid! Another benefit is accountability. Even now, I can feel my fingers hesitating to share my linguistic ambitions with our little part of the blogosphere, because then I will be held to them. Courage, Sprachjunge. In this glorious year of 2010 I intend to pursue three languages: German, Spanish, and Russian. OVERARCHING VISION: By the time I am 30—in seven years—I would like genuine academic fluency in all three. I define this fluency within the four skill realms as follows: Speaking: Able to hold an impromptu, eloquent, five-minute speech (or allocution, as Francois charmingly calls it) on virtually any topic within my competence. This speech should be marked by educated, formal usage, and the occasional inspired turn of phrase not immediately known to a general audience. Listening: Able to follow an academic lecture, take notes, and summarize the main points with a minimum of reference to my notes. Able to understand the nuances of a fairly sophisticated modern work read as an audio book upon the first listen. Reading: Able to read any academic text and learn from it. Able to read any form of literature published after 1900. Writing: Able to write a ten-page academic paper with an average number of errors. Here I’m willing to be a bit lenient, as mastering the numerous registers of written speech is a prodigious task for one language, let alone three. OVERARCHING METHOD: All three of these languages, all the time. I listen to my iPod all the time anyway (I’m antisocial like that :) and have no problems listening to audio books while I sleep, so the trick will be to focus and concentrate on one language each day, in terms of surrounding myself with the language. I’d like to do a little bit of writing in German and Spanish five days a week, but intense grammar study following the schedule. Roughly: German: Monday, Thursday Spanish: Tuesday, Friday Russian: Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday With this overarching vision in mind, my goals for 2010 are as follows: GERMAN— Background: I started learning German between high school and college when I spent a year abroad in Herzogenrath, Germany. Afterwards, I studied it as my major for one year, then switched (to math) for two, but back for my senior year (I will graduate next fall). I completed a two-month intensive course at the Goethe-Institut in Frankfurt this summer and passed their C2 exam (Note: ,,sehr gut”). In all honesty, my German is not bad at all. However, I am at that uncomfortable stage where I can begin reasonably holding myself to the same standards as native speakers, so there is obviously a long, long way to go. Materials: Copious. A number of books (one of my suitcases on the way home from my exchange year solely comprised books), a number of audio books, a few upper-level books for immigrants learning German, and even a few pronunciation/dialogue tapes. TAC2010 Goals: -Know every word from “Using German Vocabulary” actively. -Finish all relevant exercises in “Das Oberstufenbuch,” a German exercise book from the Goethe-Institut. -Hunker down and redo every exercise in Hueber’s “A Practice Grammar of German.” -Read approximately one German book a month. -Write a 1-2 paragraph response on “Lang-8” five days out of seven. -Finish all relevant exercises in “Sprachkurs 5,” another old-school exercise book. -Finish Hugo’s “Advanced German Course” (I know, a little silly, but I bought the book and it’s sat on my shelf for three years, and I just need to suck it up so that I can sleep at night.) -Memorize all of the phrases and transitions from the middle of my Collins German-English dictionary (random, but they include useful formulations). -And through all of this, I’ve become a little enamored with the idea of “10,000 sentences,” so I’ve started inputting useful sentences into my SRS (Mnenosyne). So far, I have 300 (10,000 is a lot more than I thought!). SPANISH— Background: I may be married to German, but you, Spanish, will always be my first love. Embarrassingly enough, I’ve taken it since I was in the sixth grade, as my middle school had a special program (I’m from the U.S.). I stopped cold-turkey with the exchange year, and then took two courses my junior year of college. And there are still glaring gaps in vocabulary, my audio comprehension is disgraceful, and, perhaps worst of all: I don’t have the psychological ownership that I feel with German. When I approach native speakers, it’s still a toss-up if I’m going to understand them. This must change! On the plus side, I have a nice accent, not that Spanish is the most difficult language in the world to pronounce. But I won’t lie: I LOVED that when I went to Spain this summer, everyone thought I was Cuban. Ah, Spain, I will forever love you for that. (Okay, enough head-swelling, get back to business, your Spanish still sucks.) Materials: The relevant ones are the excellent clips found at sites such as LingQ and Audiria, two or three compendiums of Spanish prose, two comprehensive grammars, and “Must-Know Spanish,” a vocabulary book of 4,000 words. What I need is strong listening comprehension. The secret weapon: I have just purchased “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand in Spanish (“La rebelión de Atlas”) as an audio book and early Christmas present. It is hands-down my favorite book on this earth, and it’s the type of book that I deliberately don’t read because it is over 1,000 pages, and whenever I start, I can’t stop until I’ve read it to the end. It will be a pleasure and an honor to memorize whole passages in Spanish. TAC2010 Goals: -Know every word from “Must-Know Spanish” actively. -Reactivate a lot of grammar that has lain fallow by working through “Advanced Spanish Grammar” and “Manual de Gramática.” -Go through “La rebelión de Atlas” twice. -Write a 1-2 paragraph sample on Lang-8 five days out of seven. -Listen to one audio clip from LingQ or Audiria per day. Nothing extreme, but if I do it each day, I think that mid-year I will be pleasantly surprised by my progress. RUSSIAN— Background: Russian is the new dude on the block. I have no knowledge of the language, except that for some reason most of my German friends who have any interest in languages ended up taking it up. I also, funnily enough, live right next to (if Wikipedia is to be believed) the U.S. community with the highest percentage of people with Russian ancestry! And growing up, I thought it was normal that we had the following social groups: “the jocks,” “the writers,” and “the Russians.” I also like the sound of this language. It’s like a harder form of German—I want to speak like these people! And it has a case system, and I love case systems; I think they are efficient. And there are more than in German, so it will be an intellectual challenge. And plus, I love to listen to music, and wow does Russian have good music. This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Materials: The internet is really out of control; I don’t know how language companies make any money. Actually, two sources are completely above-board, and one is…ahem. I have Pimsleur’s Comprehensive Level 1 (from the library), the Princeton Russian course (it’s free), and … “El curso completo de lengua rusa” (CCLR). It will be interesting learning Russian through Spanish, and there are a lot of audio samples. I also have “Pronouncing Russian Correctly,” and will be frequenting LingQ for quotidian conversations. TAC2010 Goals: -Since this is the completely new language, and any sort of fluency is far, far off, since a) my primary focus will be German and Spanish, and b) I will not have the benefit of living in the country to start, I am willing to experiment and try to do things naturally. To that end, I’d like to try a genuine “silent period” of 6 months. I won’t be speaking any Russian, but rather listening to Podcast conversations, working through the grammar, and reading. Really getting the sound in me. I always feel that I rushed my German production because I literally had to talk to people every day from day one. As a result, there are a few habits that I am now working hard to get rid of. I think that if I had let my ear develop a bit more, I would have had a correct conception of the sound in the first place. So, for Russian, I’d like to let it swirl around, percolate, and nestle in until hopefully one day fully-formed sentences just pop out. But I will work through: -One-half of the Princeton Russian course -One-third of El curso completo -Pronouncing Russian Correctly -Pimsleur So, it’s a long post, but the set-up is pretty clear, no? I welcome any and all comments. Let’s rock this thing, guys! Viel Erfolg! ¡Suerte! ----? (one day soon :) Edited by Sprachjunge on 22 December 2009 at 12:57am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Quabazaa Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5612 days ago 414 posts - 543 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German, French Studies: Japanese, Korean, Maori, Scottish Gaelic, Arabic (Levantine), Arabic (Egyptian), Arabic (Written) | Message 2 of 146 22 December 2009 at 1:59am | IP Logged | ||
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Wow I am really impressed, you wrote this very thoroughly :) It's very interesting and I wish you all the best! Viel Erfolg indeed :)
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sprachjunge Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 7168 days ago 368 posts - 548 votes Speaks: English*, GermanC2 Studies: Spanish, Russian | Message 3 of 146 22 December 2009 at 12:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you for the message, Quabazaa!
The TAC doesn't begin until January 1, but knowing myself, I think I would do well to get into the rhythm of keeping myself accountable as often as possible. Monday, 21.12.09 was a German day. German: -Reviewed vocabulary for "Accounts and Costs" from "Using German Vocabulary" (UGV) -Worked through Chapter 2, sections A and B of Das Oberstufenbuch (DO). There are 8 chapters total, and each chapter has four sections. I have already done all of chapter 1. -Wrote a writing sample on Lang-8 Spanish: -Read Octavio Paz's "El ramo azul" -Wrote a short response on Lang-8 -One audio clip from LingQ (Why Spanish as well? The goal is to write, even if it's a tiny bit, in German and Spanish five days out of seven. Since my life really isn't interesting enough to sustain daily journal accounts in any language, I usually read a short story or article and respond to it. And I will try to listen to a Spanish clip every day. They're only like 3-6 minutes long. Alas, "the things that are easy to do are also easy not to do." -Tony Robbins) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Stryozyk Newbie United States Joined 5473 days ago 39 posts - 44 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian | Message 4 of 146 22 December 2009 at 10:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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Good luck man! I really like some of your methods. I am trying the "silent method" for Russian as well. And
I'm glad you have a book that you love in Spanish - that's the greatest way to learn, in my opinion. I recently found "Watchmen" in Spanish and I'm in heaven. (Of course "Atlas Shrugged" may have slightly more material in it than a comic book...somewhat coincidentally, some of your foreign language goals are more than I could say for my English. : ) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Icaria909 Senior Member United States Joined 5594 days ago 201 posts - 346 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 5 of 146 23 December 2009 at 2:38am | IP Logged | ||
God, I love that book. I've read it twice, so tell us if the book gets even better in Spanish =). I can already tell that this is going to be a good team for the Team TAC challenge. good luck! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sprachjunge Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 7168 days ago 368 posts - 548 votes Speaks: English*, GermanC2 Studies: Spanish, Russian | Message 6 of 146 23 December 2009 at 11:58am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the encouragement, guys! I appreciate it.
Tuesday, 22.12.09 was a Spanish day. Spanish: -Reviewed (embarrassingly enough) the first 2 sections of chapter 1 in "Must-Know Spanish." There are 2-5 sections per chapter and 12 chapters total. It was purely review, but I'd like to be thorough and do the entire book. -Read Octavio Paz's "Encuentro" -Wrote a response on Lang-8 -Completed chapter 2 of "Advanced Spanish Grammar." There are 12 chapters and I had already done chapter 1. -Started listening to "La rebelión de Atlas!" (I couldn't resist; forget Christmas.) Ooooh, this is what people mean when they say get the most interesting material possible. I literally listened to the man read the first three pages 10 times. I feel really stupid now; this idea should have occurred to me years ago. On the other hand, I've only recently started getting serious about Spanish again. It's not that I haven't done L-R before, but it has always felt like work, because I don't generally listen to audio books in English. Good work, but work. But this was pure pleasure. Too bad there are only like three books out there that I like this much. But who knows what the future will bring. German: -Wrote a writing sample on Lang-8 Tomorrow is a Russian day and I'm quite excited. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sprachjunge Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 7168 days ago 368 posts - 548 votes Speaks: English*, GermanC2 Studies: Spanish, Russian | Message 7 of 146 24 December 2009 at 3:25am | IP Logged | ||
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Wednesday, 23.12.09 was a Russian day.
Russian: -iTunes has very good Russian podcasts. One series, "Russian Audio," has 2-5 minute clips of ... Russian people talking. I swear. So simple, so clever. I downloaded the clips, put the playlist on repeat, and went about my day letting Russian sounds float around. When I tired of just hearing talking, I switched over to the Russian songs I found. No one can say that Russians don't make excellent music. -reviewed the first section of "Pronouncing Russian Correctly." I don't know if I should be highly encouraged or very suspicious. The content was fine; vowels. But the woman's voice has a pitch perfect English accent. Either she is not a native Russian speaker, or she is inspiration to everyone that achieving a native accent in a foreign language is possible! -I reviewed one dialogue from the Princeton course. It was brilliant. The speakers were calling each other jerks in the first lesson. (Нахáл! НахЌлка!) It's tough to make beginner's content that is even moderately interesting. If they keep this up, the Princeton course may become the go-to. German -wrote a writing sample on Lang-8 Spanish -wrote a writing sample on Lang-8 -listened to a clip from LingQ. Also funny. But strange funny. Two Argentinians started discussing cultural stereotypes (against Asians!). I was so shocked, I was like, am I understanding this? Did they just put a slightly racist clip on LingQ?! That is another way to make people remember vocabulary, I suppose. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Icaria909 Senior Member United States Joined 5594 days ago 201 posts - 346 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 8 of 146 24 December 2009 at 5:11am | IP Logged | ||
Hey, just wondering what Russian bands you're listening to, I need to start listening to more than one band. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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