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Aokoye’s Spanish and German log | ||
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| aokoye Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5545 days ago 235 posts - 453 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Dutch, Norwegian, Japanese | Message 1 of 6 25 February 2010 at 6:41am | IP Logged |
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So I've been waffling over whether or not I wanted to learn Spanish or French - which would be more useful in the long term, which is easiest for me, resources, etc. Finally I've decided my plan of action - I will start teaching myself Spanish now and start French in the summer at a local university. My main reason for this is because I have taken Spanish before, though I have forgotten a fair amount and that combined with the fact that it was an easy language for me and the sheer amount of resources make it more accessible than French.
Now where does German fit into this? Well I have been studying German continuously for the past three and a half years (and spending one of those years in Vienna), though primarily in a college setting. My goal right now is to improve my reading ability as well as my grammar. I also have two German pen pals (one through email and one through regular mail). My Spanish resources include the following:
I also get a number of TV channels in Spanish (at least five) and have an intermediate college textbook and one intermediate reader that is a compilation of authentic texts. Along with that there is at least one free Spanish newspaper that is publish where I live. As far as German goes I'll be using the Aspekte B1+ book along with one of the Hueber Grammar books and possibly the reading textbook (which again, has authentic texts) Der treffende Ausdruck. Along with those I also listen to the podcast Grüße aus Deutschland regularly which the Goethe Institute puts out. For both Spanish and German I intend to use the BYKI and Anki flashcard programs, something I'm already doing with German with a lot of success. I use BYKI to commit words to my short term memory and Anki to commit them to my long term memory. My goal right now for Spanish is to work through a third of a lesson in Arriba per day, one chapter in the Easy Spanish Reader per day, and a few pages of one of the verb books each day or as I see fit. For German I want to do a chapter of Aspekte and out of Der treffende Ausdruck a week along with a few grammar book pages a day. I will also be listening to the German podcasts I already listen to. I will also be writing in German to my pen pals. Edited by aokoye on 25 February 2010 at 6:48am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| aokoye Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5545 days ago 235 posts - 453 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Dutch, Norwegian, Japanese | Message 2 of 6 26 February 2010 at 7:29am | IP Logged |
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Day 1
Today I worked on part 1 of the first chapter in Arriba, the same textbook that I used when I took Spanish in college. I first worked on the vocab, making sure I knew all the words before going on to the rest of the lesson. I also realized that I really need to get the workbook and am kicking myself for not doing that earlier - I'll order it tomorrow. I also started the Easy Spanish Reader book. Originally I decided to work on one chapter a day - I did five today (in the first part of the book the chapters are organized in groups of five with a review after every fifth chapter). Yes I was going a little fast, but I remembered all of the words from the last time I studied Spanish and could understand the texts completely with out any difficulty what so ever. I think I might get a tad frustrated at the slow speed I'm taking with the textbook in the beginning. This is because I do seem to have a fair amount of knowledge stored way back in my memory. I think I'll finish up the last two thirds of this chapter (the third part of the Arriba text book in chapter one has a sheer lack of info that I don't know as it's primarily cultural info) and then see how I feel. I also worked on my Anki lists (I have two for German and need to make a Spanish one later tonight or tomorrow morning) and the vocab for the third quarter of Chapter one in Aspekte. Tomorrow I need to put some new cards into my Zertifikat Deutsch list - my goal is to learn all of the words required for Zertifikat Deutsch and then either take it or study for the B2 test and/or the TestDaF. At this point it really does seem to be coming down to my reading, vocabulary, and, to some extent, my writing. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| aokoye Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5545 days ago 235 posts - 453 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Dutch, Norwegian, Japanese | Message 3 of 6 28 February 2010 at 7:05am | IP Logged |
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Day 3
Yesterday I finally ordered the workbook for Arriba and it shipped today and should get here by Wednesday I would assume. That said, as far as Spanish goes I mainly worked on vocabulary and then read a few chapters of the Easy Spanish Reader. I've gotten into a habit of going through my Anki lists every morning. I also watched the premiere of some Spanish language detective program. I understood bits and pieces of it and recorded it so I can watch it again. As far as German goes, I spent a fair amount of time looking for exercises on cases (I'm very bad at them and finally unearthed my Practice Makes Perfect: German Pronouns and Prepositions book. I ended up working through four units until reaching the unit on the dative case. I have a lot of trouble identifying the indirect object and the first question of the unit had me confused so I decided to put it down and pick it back up tomorrow. That said even though I did end up not working through the dative case exercises today, I do think I made some progress. I also need to figure out how I'm going to tackle my reading issues as far as German is concerned. The problem is that I love reading and am judgmental (of myself) enough that when I don't understand something I get extremely discouraged. This makes reading regular books not aimed at learners of German horribly difficult. I did just order the third edition of Mitlesen Mitteilen: Literarische Texte zum Lesen, Sprechen, Schreiben und Hören and am hoping that will help some. I'm also going to try to get into an intro to German lit class at a local university which should really help me. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| aokoye Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5545 days ago 235 posts - 453 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Dutch, Norwegian, Japanese | Message 4 of 6 01 March 2010 at 5:33am | IP Logged |
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Day 4
Today I did a lot more reading for German than the other days. I four or five pages of a German's kid's novel, skimmed a little bit of the first Persepolis graphic novel in German, and looked for some other books online. I got some good advice from Pyx today to just read something really interesting and not look anything up in the dictionary. While I do think that's going to be hard for me, I'm going to try and go through with it. Spanish wise, I finished the first chapter of Arriba today and also watched a few Spanish language documentaries (my favorite type of movies) and listened from some audio from another Spanish book that I found for free on the publisher's website. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| aokoye Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5545 days ago 235 posts - 453 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Dutch, Norwegian, Japanese | Message 5 of 6 04 March 2010 at 2:49am | IP Logged |
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Day 7
It's been a week since I've started again with Spanish. So far I have completed one and a half chapters in my college textbook (and the work book that goes along with it, read 10 chapters (which are a page each so far) in the easy Spanish reader, and have 105 words in my Anki deck. I have a hold on Pimsleur but seeing as I'm 12th in line for it it might make more sense for me to just get it from Audible. I do think I really need more conversational practice so I'll have to look more into that. As far as German goes, I got a few books a few days ago at Powells (the best bookstore ever!). I also decided that I'm going to start reading more tech stuff in German I'm going to read Deutsche Welle more often. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| aokoye Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5545 days ago 235 posts - 453 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Dutch, Norwegian, Japanese | Message 6 of 6 06 March 2010 at 5:52am | IP Logged |
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Day 9
I finished the second chapter of the textbook I'm using for Spanish today - I would have finished it yesterday but I was out of the house most of the day. I also learned (and by that I mean, I went through them in ProVoc and was able to use them all in numerous exercise from my textbook's workbook without looking them up) 50 "new" words and realized that I totally remembered how to conjugate all of the regular verbs in the present tense. I think my new goal is to finish 2+ chapters a week. If I had all the time in the world I would try for 3 a week but that's not going to happen every week. If I manage that I'll be finish with the textbook in 7 and a half weeks though I think I will probably easily be able to do three chapters some weeks. Yesterday I did a at least an hour of reading out of my German children's novel. I didn't look up any words and instead only underlined the words I didn't know which is a huge deal for me. I don't think I've ever read as much German in one day as I did yesterday and I understood the gist of it (for the most part). I'm also waiting for a German reader to come in the mail, I thought it would today but maybe tomorrow. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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