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Total Annihilation - Charlmartell | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5845 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes  1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 65 of 71 27 February 2009 at 6:45pm | IP Logged | ||
That's a very important saying that every learner is different and that's the real truth. Everyone has to experiment and to develop one's own optimal way of learning. I would never get the idea to copy the methods of Prof. Arguelles or Iversen for example, because I have my own approach towards languages. I for example have good experiences with "listening-reading", because I can assimilate the language well and at the same time the written text sticks into my head. I can let me inspire by the learning methods of other people, but would never 1:1 copy them, because language learning methods must fit individually. Fasulye-Babylonia Edited by Fasulye on 27 February 2009 at 6:57pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| charlmartell Super Polyglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 6242 days ago 286 posts - 298 votes Speaks: French, English, German, Luxembourgish*, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch, Italian, Latin, Ancient Greek Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 66 of 71 06 March 2009 at 8:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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I said I'd update on the first of March but on that day my telephone line went dead and wasn't resuscitated till today. No telephone, no internet!
I've had quite a good month. My main problem with language-learning used to be becoming obsessed with one language, overdoing it and getting frustrated because ratio 'effort invested'/'result achieved' was never very satisfactory, except for last year's Italian. This time I've done 2 things differently: 1. I mainly used audio, mp3 players, much more enjoyable for me and more effective. My mind goes walkabout much less. And I don't mind listening to the same stuff again, not immediately though, that´s why I cycle through a lot of material so that, when I get to the beginning I have already encountered most of new words or structures somewhere else and am maybe, hopefully, able to turn passive into active more easily. 2. I played with several very different languages, different levels ranging from Turkish, weakest, to Italian, now strongest of the ones I'm trying to up a level. A bit of Spanish reading thrown in for good mesure, or light relief: I listened to Alba reading Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (not all, just some of it) and read a book of short stories "Los funerales de la Mamá Grande" by Gabriel García Márquez. But Spanish belongs to the group of native/near native fluency and doesn't really count, any more than English when comparing poems by Robert Burns in English to their translation into Russian. I read some of those, goes under Russian. I'm still trying to find the best ratio 'listen audio'/'read text' but think I have to do a bit more reading than I've done during the month of February. So far for today, otherwise this gets too long. I'll write about what I've done in the various languages tomorrow. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| charlmartell Super Polyglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 6242 days ago 286 posts - 298 votes Speaks: French, English, German, Luxembourgish*, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch, Italian, Latin, Ancient Greek Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 67 of 71 08 March 2009 at 4:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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Italian
mp3 listening for 1/2 hr a day, every day: Assimil (Le nouvel italien sans peine, L'italien (latest version and I think best) and Perfectionnement italien) L'Italia dal vivo (BBC second stage radio course 1983, lots of interviews with people from all walks of life on all sorts of topics, very interesting indeed) Reading some of the above checking up on doubtful points. Some more "Fiabe Italiane" as well as some 3rd grade "Come Quando Perché", the history section, all elementary stuff I know but full of words I understand passively, wouldn't have been able to use actively though. Russian Like Italian, 1/2 hr mp3 listening every day: Assimil (the 1971 version and Le nouveau russe sans peine) Le petit prince (easy) Дороги (roads, pathways) an advanced Russian text-book (for German upper forms. Very interesting texts, interviews, conversations and songs (mainly Vissotski and Bulat Okudjava). My favourite "The Parrot Song" by Vladimir Vissotski unfortunately made it crystal clear that my rolled R is not good enough. The way the R is rrrolled from here to eternity in Каррамба, Корр-рида и чёрррт побери! I just can´t keep it going like that. Reading, lots on the internet, still not as fluent as I'd want, like a not very good 7th grader I suppose. Nowhere near as good as my Italian. I'll have to try and hammer in long, and therefore difficult words as I keep stumbling over them. And I keep forgetting which of the following обидеть - убедить means "to convince" and which "to offend", and so on and so forth. On one hand long words I can't read fluently and have to puzzle out first (in itself easy enough as they are derived from words I do know), on the other confusing words that I can't use because I haven't learnt them properly. Understanding in context is no problem, not knowing for sure without context is frustrating. So, whether I like it or not, there is only one solution: revise often till they stick and sound like they actually mean what they are supposed to mean, alone or with others. So, to sum up: I'll have to do a lot more intensive reading to improve my vocabulary, in all languages, not just in Russian. Some words do stick immediately, most don't. Extensive reading is fine for global understanding and familiarization with words and structures, but for in depth understanding and active mastery of lexical items a lot more intensive work is asked for. And I haven't done enough of that. I'll try to do better this month. Forever hopeful! Report on other languages some other day, this has taken practically as long as, no, even longer than, the rolled R in the parrot song! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| charlmartell Super Polyglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 6242 days ago 286 posts - 298 votes Speaks: French, English, German, Luxembourgish*, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch, Italian, Latin, Ancient Greek Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 68 of 71 09 March 2009 at 1:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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Other languages, to prevent me from obsessing about Italian or Russian, the 2 I'm really concentrating on for the moment, i.e. that I'm doing regularly, every day.
Chinese mp3 listening 8hrs, plus some reading Assimil (no problem with passive, active needs improving) Modern Chinese (a second year book, all conversations, good) Chinese Tales (compiled by Ilya Frank). When listening most of it passes me by, so I did read some of them first, in Russian. The Ilya Frank format doesn't suit me though, I'd prefer parallel where I can check what I need to, not be confused by all those notes in the middle of sentences. And it's impossible to convert into a parallel text, too finicky. A shame, the stories are quite nice. Japanese mp3 listening 4 1/2 hrs, plus reading of some Assimil lessons Assimil (got a bit lost halfway through the second book) The Little Prince (comprehension patchy, to say the least) Ancient Greek mp3 listening 6 hrs Assimil, listened to the wole book once, their funny pronunciation is still proving a bit of a handicap. Reading Greek (the JACT series). I wasted time doctoring all those files I'd downloaded from the web, they were barely audible. Not the new recordings, on cassettes, I don't know about those, but the older ones, sound now okay but quality disappointing: badly read and only up to section 8 (out of 17). Some reading on Acropolis World News. Latin mp3 and some listening on-line: Finnish site and Ephemeris. Plus listening to (sampling rather) a lot of the material on the vivariumnovum site. I can't say I was impressed, but, as I've said before, some audio is better than none. As long as it isn't pronounced the English/American way! I quite liked Luigi Miraglia, despite his Italian ci, ce, gi and ge, at least he is lively (but not silly, like some) and obviously knows Latin well. Hungarian mp3 listening Assimil (last 3rd of the course is still problematic, I'll have to listen-read next) The Little Prince (I always know where we are in the story, but details.... A bit better than Japanese, if that's any consolation) Polish mp3 listening over 8 hrs, including 4 hrs totally wasted trying out that highly acclaimed MT. How anyone can stomach that boring translation course beats me. It teaches how to translate English into foreign, the way we learnt Latin in school in the dark ages. Boy was that fun! What's the use of all that grammar if we have no words to go with it? I did learn something, ONE word, ponieważ (because), in 4 hours! No other beginners' course, in any language, has ever taught me that little in 4 hours. I'd had about 50 hrs of Polish before, so it's not like I was too advanced to benefit from a beginners' course. One word in 4 hours. I even had to look it up in the booklet, the teacher just expected us to know it after she'd said it once, too quickly at that. And last Turkish, the weakest of them all. mp3 listening 5hrs 1/2 checking things in books about 2 hrs Get By in Turkish (very basic, I won't have to re-listen to that) Türkisch in letzter Minute (quite basic but still quite a few words/expressions in the second part of the book that need hearing more times) Turkish in a Week, much more meat, both vocabulary- and grammarwise. Grammar is fine, words and expressions need more attention. Edited by charlmartell on 01 August 2009 at 9:35pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| charlmartell Super Polyglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 6242 days ago 286 posts - 298 votes Speaks: French, English, German, Luxembourgish*, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch, Italian, Latin, Ancient Greek Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 69 of 71 02 August 2009 at 7:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have been Tacking, 4-5 hours a day between Italian (audio-books), Russian (a mixed diet of audio, normal reading, some of it for Tricoteuse's Russian reading group including writing my opinions in a language I had never written before), Chinese audio and reading some of that much derided "At the airport" stuff, except there was no such section in my book but useful things like agreeing/disagreeing, proposing, accepting and rejecting etc. I found it very useful indeed, even if the book, called 初级口语 [Elementary Spoken Chinese] is based on an initial vocabulary of 1000 words only. I've also finished Assimil, active phase. Plus some more Heisig kanji. That has really revolutionised the way I learn kanji (and hanzi, I use both Heisig keywords and Japanese/Chinese readings) and helped me to get a real grip on those primitives. Some kanji/hanzi I would have had enormous trouble with before now just click into place automatically. I was trying to learn by rote and just couldn't remember much medium term, let alone long term. I can't say I'm displeased with the way things are going, language-wise. It's just this forum that has started getting me down. I don't need any incentive to play around with languages and was really wasting far too much time here, too many rubbishy, repetitive posts and one special definitely non-me person, so I have now decided to deactivate my membership and leave. Thank you moderator for trashing someone else's topic and my last frustrated post, thereby helping me make up my mind, at last. My TAC 2009 at how-to-learn-any-language.com finishes here. So does Charlmartell. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6445 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes Studies: German | Message 70 of 71 02 August 2009 at 10:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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Good luck with your language studies but the amount of hard work you're putting in will
certainly do. I am also trying to spread my wings and fly away. The bird metaphore is nicer than the one about a fly always coming back to the same old turd. The forum is not all bad - the archives are very interesting. For this reason or another the most interesting and insightful posters have flown the coop. I cannot justify the number of hours I've spent here. Google is not my friend - the number of visits is embarrassing. I hope that you have enjoyed the TAC and found it somewhat useful (learning about how NOT to do things counts). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6468 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 71 of 71 03 August 2009 at 4:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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Same here, I've moved my TAC to my blog and I check the forum very rarely.
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