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Total Annihilation - Charlmartell | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6449 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes  Studies: German | Message 57 of 71 27 November 2008 at 7:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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So are you TACkling or what? :)
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| charlmartell Super Polyglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 6246 days ago 286 posts - 298 votes Speaks: French, English, German, Luxembourgish*, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch, Italian, Latin, Ancient Greek Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 58 of 71 13 December 2008 at 6:27am | IP Logged | ||
Of course I am! In 2009! For ALL of 2009! At the moment I'm still not sure what I'll do, besides continuing with Russian and Italian and refreshing some of my rusty languages. I just haven't decided which ones yet, besides Chinese and Japanese. And Hungarian of course. It will be mostly aural stuff (listening for meaning, definitely not doing drills). Using TWO earplugs has really revolutionised my acquiring language (cf. Krashen) and added fun: I'm at the moment listening to "Il Gattopardo" by Guiseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. There are some snippets of classical music between the different sections of text. Now I'm not interested in classical music and I hate those gimicky jolly tunes in audio material to go with language lessons. But I found that real music, not too long of course, does prove not only relaxing but also useful inasmuch as it seems to make the last words before, and the first after the music interval more memorable. Luckily there's no one but my dog with me when I not only talk to myself, but now even do funny stepping out movements while listening. I must work some classical music into my audio material! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6449 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes Studies: German | Message 59 of 71 18 December 2008 at 12:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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Cool, maybe I'll participate as well. Sounds like a cool challenge, lol
I'm looking forward to reading about your linguistic adventures. I might postpone the pleasure since hanging on the forum has not proven very beneficial for my language learning goals :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| charlmartell Super Polyglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 6246 days ago 286 posts - 298 votes Speaks: French, English, German, Luxembourgish*, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch, Italian, Latin, Ancient Greek Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 60 of 71 28 December 2008 at 4:33pm | IP Logged | ||
It does take up a lot of one's time, doesn't it? I've just realised that 4 hours a day (on average) over a year is less than 1500 hours. To make any noticeable progress in Russian, Chinese and Japanese, the 3 languages I would like to finally tame a little better, I would have to spend at least one hour a day on each. And if I want to be able to navigate Chinese and Japanese web-sites and make some kind of sense of newspapers and magazines, an extra half hour each would be required. And that be that, no time left over for any other language extravaganza. But I want to get to advanced fluency in Italian. Where on earth am I going to find the time for that, and what about satisfying wanderlust? I'll have to ration my time surfing the internet, browsing here and grazing there. News in Russian, Latin (Ephemeris) and ancient Greek (Akropolis World News). Just reading is fine but doesn't really get me anywhere fast, as I've found out. I'll have to try a little harder to remember new words/expressions I come across, at least some of them. And use them! On borrowed time? The bulk of my interaction with languages will be aural/oral this time round. I concentrate much better, and therefore remember better, when I listen than when I read. And I enjoyed listening to books I would never have read: Don Quijote (in Spanish) and Il Gattopardo (in Italian). Talk of coincidencies: I was halfway through listening to the Gattopardo book when there was a programme on BBC4 about Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa and the Gattopardo. With emphasis on the meals had in the Visconti film. A culinary delight, obviously, but also very interesting to see the locations the action took place in. And 2 days later the film was shown, all 3 hours of it, in Italian but with enormous English sub-titles spoiling the view. After seeing the film I just sat down and listened to the rest of the book. And to the commentaries made by Tomasi di Lampedusa's grandson, something I would never have read but actually enjoyed listening to. I won't say I understood every word of the book itself, but I did understand every single word of the grandson's commentary. Maybe his active vocabulary wasn't all that rich, whatever, I was rather chuffed anyway. Nice progress made in 2008, let's see what nice surprises 2009 holds in store. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| charlmartell Super Polyglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 6246 days ago 286 posts - 298 votes Speaks: French, English, German, Luxembourgish*, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch, Italian, Latin, Ancient Greek Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 61 of 71 01 February 2009 at 1:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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1st month gone, so where am I now?
I'm still intending to hoist both Italian and Russian up to "advanced fluency". I've been busy with both every day, mainly active listening (includes some sort of shadowing) and news in Russian as well as all sorts of writings at Uz-translations. And in Italian I finished listening to the Gattopardo, in one sitting after seeing the film on BBC4. I also read a book of "Fiabe Italiane", collected and transcribed by Italo Calvino. I've re-listened to the first part of "El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha" and I'm going to re-listen to the second part later on this year. Ancient Greek I've redone the parallel text of "The Library" by pseudo-Apollodoros and have finished reading Book III, I'll finish the Epitome some time this year. The Acropolis World News site has resumed work after the Christmas vacation so I've read Juan Coderch's latest articles. Latin got read quite regularly, i.e. when there was new material on both the Ephemeris and the Nuntii Latini web-site. All my other languages I gave a rating "intermediate level", though they range from very basic (Turkish) to very near basic fluency. But as I am quite comfortable with the basic structures of all of them I wouldn't dream of joining a beginners' course in any of them. By structures I mean: word-order, past, present and future tenses, conditionals and suchlike. The weak point is lack of vocabulary and, in the case of Japanese and Chinese, unsatisfactory reading and writing skills. Anyway, I'm concentrating on the aural component of all of those, though not all at the same time. I'll intend to get 3 of them up to the "basic fluency" level this year, but have not yet really decided which ones. So I'm playing with all of them for now. I have re-listened to both the Japanese Assimil and the Chinese one, both volumes. Chinese is fine, Japanese proves rather a hard nut to crack after lesson 75. I'll have to spend quite some more time on Japanese listening. Before seriously considering the kanji/hanzi component. They're both strong contenders for moving up a level, as far as listening-speaking is concerned, but the written component still proves problematic. Turkish: I've gone over (listening only) "Türkisch in letzter Minute" and "Get by in Turkish", both still easy, "Türkisch für den Urlaub" (half of that is easy, the rest is just about understandable). I might toy with that some more, except if I decide to go to Istambul in June. In which case I'll give it my all for a while. I've also re-listened to the Hungarian Assimil and the Polish one, too. I think the Hungarian Assimil is by far the least well thought out, the Polish one I find excellent. I'll tinker a bit with those 2 and see where I'll go later on. For the moment they are just also-runs. Dutch is a definite candidate for refurbishing more drastically. I once worked my way through a Course called "Neerlandia" (3 books) for Belgium secondary school kids. And I got through half of the 4th/5th year "Taal en Kunst" before life's other activities took over. I think I could even, with a bit of determination, get Dutch up to "advanced fluency". Question is: does the language interest me enough? I've got some books I could read, as well as some audio-books I could listen to. And there are plenty of Dutch living around here and, though they all speak English, most speak it rather badly. I'll think on it. Swedish I haven't touched in years but it would come back very quickly. I've got some very good and interesting material in that language. I'll dabble for now, but, like in the case of Dutch, haven't started yet. Time spent on languages during January: about 4 hours a day. That does include making parallel texts, transferring cassettes to computer and general tidying up of language materials (hard and soft). 11 more months to play. Next update on March 1st. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| JonB Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6267 days ago 209 posts - 220 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Italian, Dutch, Greek | Message 62 of 71 23 February 2009 at 1:36pm | IP Logged | ||
Charlmartell, I'm having a little problem with my Italian learning, and don't know if you could offer me some advice? Firstly I should explain: I have an A level in Italian, and I also studied some supplementary courses in Italian at university. This was all several years ago, and my active knowledge is a little rusty now. However I do have a fairy solid basis for reading in Italian. The problem is this: it seems SO hard to take it all up to 'the next level' - i.e. reading serious titles of fiction and non-fiction in Italian. I can't seem to figure out a way to deal with the huge gap which seems to exist between high-intermediate and low-advanced level. I realize, of course, that the best approach would be to live in Italy for a year or two! (Indeed, living in Germany was how I was able to bridge the similar gap in German.) But residence abroad isn't an option at the present time, unfortunately. Do you think there is some other strategy or method of learning which I could use to achieve the same objective? Do you think that applying the Assimil/Linguaphone method to an audiobook could do the trick? (Yet this would be a truly mammoth undertaking!) There are times when I wonder whether I can, realistically, go beyond high-intermediate level in Italian, without being completely immersed in it on a day-to-day basis? Obviously, this kind of doubt quickly starts to sap motivation! I would be very interested to hear your opinion on this. :-) --Jon 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| charlmartell Super Polyglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 6246 days ago 286 posts - 298 votes Speaks: French, English, German, Luxembourgish*, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch, Italian, Latin, Ancient Greek Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 63 of 71 27 February 2009 at 6:24pm | IP Logged | ||
I'm having the same problem with Russian. People say: read, read, read. Which unfortunately is not an option for me as far as Russian is concerned: I read too slowly so it would be a somewhat painful experience. I´m now doing the same in all languages: transfer short texts to mp3 players and cycle through them, 20 to 30 minutes at one walking. It's also very good for my oral production, because I sort of shadow whatever strikes me, takes my fancy, makes me think: oh, I wouldn't have thought of saying it that way.... I then read some of the parts I listened to and make sure I heard properly. And try to actually remember a few new words, as many as possible before boredom sets in. Trying to learn 100-200 new words per sitting is definitely not for me. I cycle through Assimil (Italian both 1st and 2nd level) and assorted other material, according to the level I'm at: for both Italian and Russian mainly short stories or extracts from novels. I couldn't do L-R of whole novels because they'd quickly bore the pants off me: too slow to get through (I can't do 10 hours a day, I can't even do 1 hour without being interrupted, several times). And I would certainly not want to read a long book twice, let alone an extra 3 times. Some short stories I can listen to again and again with no problem, so I settle for those right now. And, as I've said before, I'm concentrating on the audio part of all languages, I find it much more enjoyable, and effective, as my concentration doesn't go walk-about quite as much, or at least not for as long. I'm afraid I can't be of much help, because we're all different therefore all have to find our own way. And you seem to be much more thorough and serious in your approach. I tried too hard before and suffered burnout as a result, umpteen times, I'm not going to risk that again. And to make sure, doubly sure, I am not going to concentrate on one language and become obsessed like I did before, I spread myself out and enjoy a stress-free pastime. I am going to read Anna Karenina one day, but there's not going to be any deadline, so no rush. Have fun with Italian, don't expect miracles to happen over night. Just persevere and you'll get there. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| JonB Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6267 days ago 209 posts - 220 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Italian, Dutch, Greek | Message 64 of 71 27 February 2009 at 6:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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Many thanks for the advice, Charlmartell ;-)
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