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TAC 2010 - Team N - Spanish & Sanskrit | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Astrophel Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5736 days ago 157 posts - 345 votes  Speaks: English*, Latin, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Cantonese, Polish, Sanskrit, Cherokee | Message 1 of 15 05 January 2010 at 4:29pm | IP Logged |
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Hi,
I'm joining TAC 2010 to hold me accountable to my language-learning efforts. I need to focus by WORKING actively on my languages rather than just trying to use what I know when situations arise. By then, it's too late, because the language is buried in my memory and I don't have it when I need it! Also, opportunities to use other languages only come along now and again, meaning my skills just see-saw back and forth without ever really going forward. The good news, though, is that I'm sure I can get further by applying myself. I'm going to start easy by focusing on Spanish (a language I'm still learning), get used to being disciplined, and then intensify my study as I go. By the end of the year this topic is going to be HOT! :P I'm reviewing first because I need to bring all my Spanish to the front of my mind. On January 1st and 2nd I got through one chapter per day of my textbook. I think that's a decent rate for review material but I can do better. January 3rd I slacked a bit... But yesterday, January 4th, I entered 50 new vocabulary words into Anki, watched an episode of a cute little show called Hechizeros de Waverly Place (and understood about half of it), and shadowed it too. I think this is a good plan of action: work through my book, input vocabulary, listen and shadow a television show. I just need to do more of each! Expect to see this updated daily. If it's not, chastise me. :P Edited by Astrophel on 19 February 2010 at 6:45am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tomahawk Tetraglot Newbie Poland Joined 5803 days ago 13 posts - 12 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Italian, French Studies: Mandarin, German | Message 2 of 15 08 January 2010 at 10:21am | IP Logged |
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Hi,
good luck with your Spanish! Daily updates are quite a challange I think. It takes me something around 15 minutes to write a post ;p and that's a big chunk of my time. That's why I've decided to post weekly. I mean do what you think is best for you, but I guess it'd be alright to post once every couple of days. There's that risk that posting too often will just make the entire TAC more of a pain... I've never tried shadowing... and it looks like I should definitely! I sometimes catch myself using in a conversation phrases which I've actually heard in a movie or read somewhere. And I've always thought that repeating those phrases enriches my vocabulary a lot. To do this consciously might turn out to be a great idea. Once again good luck! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Astrophel Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5736 days ago 157 posts - 345 votes Speaks: English*, Latin, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Cantonese, Polish, Sanskrit, Cherokee | Message 4 of 15 19 January 2010 at 3:24am | IP Logged |
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Hi again,
If I update weekly it's easiest on Mondays...and actually, I have been very good with my studies :) I finished my textbook (all 15 chapters!) at the rate of one chapter per day, and have started putting vocabulary into Anki. I've put in about 500 words so far. Just today I decided to invest in a frequency dictionary so that I can learn the most relevant stuff first. If there's any gaps in my basic vocabulary, they'll be gone soon! The way I shadowed the show was by just watching it first, then playing it again and pausing every few seconds to repeat the sounds I heard. I was REALLY surprised to discover a lot of what I couldn't understand was just because of the speed or intonation of the speakers, not because I didn't understand the words! I'd repeat a line of rapid, incomprehensible Spanish to myself slowly, and suddenly it was obvious what they had said. Then I watch the show again and I can understand almost all of it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Astrophel Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5736 days ago 157 posts - 345 votes Speaks: English*, Latin, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Cantonese, Polish, Sanskrit, Cherokee | Message 6 of 15 27 January 2010 at 5:34pm | IP Logged |
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Back again :)
I've put in 500 more vocabulary words this week...at this rate I'll have the dictionary memorized, haha. I'm excited because I'm actually seeing the difference. I saw an ad the other day in Spanish and was able to understand EVERY WORD on it and understand the meaning. Then I saw a smaller translation in English below it and was even happier to see I had gotten everything right! But a few days ago as I was reading out loud I realized something very embarrassing! I had learned most of my words in Spanish orally, either in conversation or from audio files, so I would know how to pronounce the words I already knew.. but when reading, I would be at a complete loss as to which d or g to use! Spanish pronunciation is deceptively difficult because VERY FEW beginners' materials even touch on when to use which pronunciation...they just say there are "variants" of the same sound and leave it at that. I spent three hours straight on Monday drilling pronunciation on this website. Good job me. :) I think I have the sounds down in isolation and when reading slowly, but when I read at a normal pace I stumble, so I need more practice. Also almost everyone around me who isn't a native speaker studied at least a little Spanish in school, so I've started making small comments and having short conversations in Spanish with my coworkers, just so I can practice speaking. Since they aren't native speakers (but can still understand me and respond) I can just talk without being self-conscious of how I sound. I know a lot of people don't like the "talk with your classmates" approach but it's sure helping me with gaining confidence when I can't speak very well! My reading and listening is getting good but my speaking is still very poor so I'm using every opportunity I can to remedy that, both by shadowing and by producing my own sentences. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Astrophel Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5736 days ago 157 posts - 345 votes Speaks: English*, Latin, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Cantonese, Polish, Sanskrit, Cherokee | Message 8 of 15 30 January 2010 at 4:34am | IP Logged |
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I put it on hold because I wanted to see how TAC with one language would go first. But I've been really good about Spanish every day for the past full month, so I can go ahead and add Sanskrit too. Expect to see some in my next update :) I'm going to start logging my hours as well, so I can pay attention to exactly how much time per week I'm spending on language.
Today I did a lot. I sat and listened to people's conversations in English and wrote down a bunch of idiomatic phrases I need to learn the Spanish equivalents for, then looked them up. (I'm quite fond of "lo que sea" - "or something". So useful!) My boss asked me how my Spanish was going and said he wished he knew more of the language, so we made a little pact to speak Spanish to one another whenever possible. Bwahaha, I have a TAC partner offline too! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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