Crassyo Diglot Groupie United States Joined 6113 days ago 92 posts - 92 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Studies: Russian, French, German, Italian
| Message 1 of 91 25 September 2008 at 10:55pm | IP Logged |
Here is a short summary of my language experiences.
Spanish: Mother tongue + 3 years of High School
English: Started learning it at 2 years old (I consider it my strongest language)
French: 1 3/4 Semester of College 2007-2008
Russian: Self taught from Nov/Dec 2007-Aug 2008, Currently taking it in College
German: August 2008, Currently taking it in College
Italian: Experimented the language a bit through Michel Thomas; Picked it up 4 days ago and going to actively study it
The ones I plan to study and keep a record of are Russian, German, French, Italian
I know it will be difficult but I am determined. I know I wont confuse Italian and French because I studied French already. I know the distinction between the two
Knowing English will help me in German and since I've been exposed to cases through Russian It will be easier. German only has 4 and it has a weak inflection compared to Russian :)
Russian is completely different from all the other languages therefore its uniqueness will keep me from confusing it.
I have to find time and come up with a good plan to make this work.
Since I am already taking two in college (Russian, German) I will already be exposed to them 5 hours class time respectively + My college requires that we do 27 hours of lab for each language, which means we have to go there and study the language 2 hours per week. So since I am taking two languages that equals 54 hours.
Total time already for Russian + German = 7hours at least weekly
Yesterday I bought a coursebook for both Italian and French at Barnes and Noble
"Italian Now!"
&
"French Now!"
Going through the french will be more of a review and refresher. Will try to do at least 1 hour for each language making it 7 hours each
To supplement my Italian course I will listen to Italian Pimsleurs + Michel Thomas.
I work 5 days a week; which means I will have 2 hours to listen to Pimsleurs + Michel Thomas (1 hour to get to work + 1 hour to get home from work)
5 days a week x 2 hours = 10 hours which I can contribute to other languages (record a list of German, Russian, French, Italian vocab in case I want to take a break from Michel Thomas/Pimsleurs)
2 days of school = 1 way to get to school + 1 to get back home = 2 hours x 2 days = 4 hours...Will probably use this time to focus on my Linguistic class/History class.
I will try to follow this schedule as best as I can and will record a summary of my studies on here
Please feel free to leave me suggestions, comments, questions, etc....
Here we go!
Edited by Crassyo on 05 November 2008 at 8:58am
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Crassyo Diglot Groupie United States Joined 6113 days ago 92 posts - 92 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Studies: Russian, French, German, Italian
| Message 2 of 91 25 September 2008 at 10:56pm | IP Logged |
....
Edited by Crassyo on 26 September 2008 at 9:48am
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Crassyo Diglot Groupie United States Joined 6113 days ago 92 posts - 92 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Studies: Russian, French, German, Italian
| Message 3 of 91 25 September 2008 at 11:17pm | IP Logged |
9/25/08
Italian:
Michel Thomas Italian Foundation:
CD 2 on the way to work
Duration: 1 hour
CD 3 on the way back to la maison
Duration: 1 hour
Total: 2 hours
Russian:
While working I was approached by a man looking for cellphones and I showed him where they were. His phone rang and he began speaking Russian. When he got off the phone I spoke to him in Russian "Вы говорите по-русски?" (Do you speak Russian?)Of course I knew he did so it was more of a way to start a conversation. We exchanged a few other phrases and he was telling me about Moscowv(he is from there) and St Petersburg. I told him how badly I want to visit Russia! It was a nice little exposure of Russian for the day.
Duration: About 1 minute
Watched a movie in Russian Lilja 4-ever (Not a Russian movie but spoken in Russian) Really sad movie :'[
Duration: 30 min
Total: 31 Minutes
French:
Went out for some coffee with a friend of mine who is currently taking French. He has a test next week so we studied a bit together. We were there for about 3 hours, 10pm-1am
about 1hr 30 min study of french and the rest just off topic stuff.
Total: 1hr 30 min
Edited by Crassyo on 26 September 2008 at 10:46am
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Crassyo Diglot Groupie United States Joined 6113 days ago 92 posts - 92 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Studies: Russian, French, German, Italian
| Message 4 of 91 26 September 2008 at 10:51am | IP Logged |
I came up with an idea last night for Russian. I will study one aspect of the language for about 4 days and continue with something else. For example the next 4 days I will study only the "Genitive Case", which is probably the hardest of all the cases.
Woke up an hour ago and its now 8:36 AM. I shall begin!
Update: 11:06am
Italian:
Completed Michel Thomas CD 4
Total: 1hr
Edited by Crassyo on 26 September 2008 at 1:21pm
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Crassyo Diglot Groupie United States Joined 6113 days ago 92 posts - 92 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Studies: Russian, French, German, Italian
| Message 5 of 91 30 September 2008 at 2:01pm | IP Logged |
Haven't updated in a few days
German:
9/27 Completed Michel Thomas Foundation Disc 8 : 1 hour
9/28 Read a bit on German grammar   ; : 45 min
9/28 Completed Michel Thomas Advanced Disc 1 : 1 hour
9/28 Watched Die Fetten Jahre sind vorbe (Movie): 2 hours
9/29 Started Michel Thomas Advanced Disc 2 : 30 min
9/29 German Class & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; : 3 hours
9/29 German mandatory lab &nb sp; &nb sp; : 1 hr 30 min
In class: First thing we did was go over the homework. One page was translating about 12 phrases in English to German. Second homework was using negation "Kein vs nicht". We did a review for the test. Accusative case, vocab, kein vs nich etc...
Total: 9hr 45 min
Russian:
9/29 Re-did Pimsleur Russian III track 27&28 : 1 hour
9/29 Russian mandatory language lab &nb sp; : 1 hour 30 min
9/29 Russian class & nbsp; & nbsp; : 3 hours
In class: We presented our family to the class in Russian of course :]. Did a few exercises figuring out the gender of nouns and making them plural. Also translated a letter as a class. Went over vocab and talked about the test for tomorrow. I studied Russian for a while now (and this is a beginners class) so I am not to worried about the test.
In the lab: did my homework and studied the genitive case a bit.
Total: 5hr 30 min
I have a test for both Russian (Unit 1) and German (Chapter 2) tomorrow.
Goals for today:
Study for Russian test
Study for German test
Complete 1 chapter in French workbook
oh yeah I am also taking an Anthropology Linguistic class where we are suppose to create our own language (in groups). That is our final for the class. I am not sure if I should keep track of the progress on that? Perhaps. Although we haven't done much. All we did was come up with our culture which will be on 'Theater, Visual Arts, Performing Arts'. Yesterday in class we learned about Phonetics and mainly on consonants.
Wish me luck on my test!! I shall update when the need to arises and when time is available.
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Crassyo Diglot Groupie United States Joined 6113 days ago 92 posts - 92 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Studies: Russian, French, German, Italian
| Message 6 of 91 30 September 2008 at 7:09pm | IP Logged |
Update
French:
Completed Unit 1 & 2 of "French Now!" : 1 Hour
Total: 1 Hour
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Crassyo Diglot Groupie United States Joined 6113 days ago 92 posts - 92 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Studies: Russian, French, German, Italian
| Message 7 of 91 01 October 2008 at 11:48pm | IP Logged |
10/1/08
German:
Studied for the German test before class Total: 30 min
German Class:
We had our test right when class started. First we had an oral part where the teacher would read a few paragraphs and on the test we have questions to answer regarding what she had said. I might have missed just one on that part. The second part was conjugating about 8-10 verbs. I believe I got all of those right. 3rd part was translating about 5-6 English sentences to German (nicht vs kein) On that part we had to use the word "Flower" but I could not remember it so I guessed it only to find out after the test that I got it right "Die Blume". I might of missed 1-2 on that one. Finally the last part was making a conversation about buying stuff. I think I did good on that one. I will post my results when I receive them next week.
After the test we watched a German movie (Lola rennt). Pretty interesting film.
total: 3 hours 30 min
German mandatory lab - Total: 1hr 30 min
Completed Michel Thomas Advanced German Disc 2: total 1 hour
Overall: 6 hours
Russian:
Had a test. It was fairly easy. First part we were given about 16 words which we had to change from the singular to plural (Watching out for the Russian spelling rule: Never write the letter "Ы" after the letters 'Г, К, Х, Ж, Ч, Ш, Щ' instead use "И")
I believe I got all of them right. The 2nd and last part was to figure out the personal pronouns of 8 sentences or so. I am sure I got 0 wrong on the whole test. We shall see. After the test we were able to go home.
Total: 1hr 30 min.
Russian lab - Total : 1 hr 30 min
Overall Total: 3 hours
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Crassyo Diglot Groupie United States Joined 6113 days ago 92 posts - 92 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Studies: Russian, French, German, Italian
| Message 8 of 91 02 October 2008 at 4:16pm | IP Logged |
10/2/08
German:
Created flashcards for the vocab and phrases of our next chapter (Kapitel 3).Total 30 min
Our homework for the week is to conjugate quite a few verbs that have vowel changes. e->i
like Ich spreche (I speak) to Du spricht (you speak) in the informal you. I scanned and printed the page of my textbook that had the homework so I can do it during my lunch/breaks at work. I did this because its such a hassle to bring my book.
I shall update later on when I return from work. Hope everyone has a nice night/day wherever you are!
be back soon.
Edited by Crassyo on 02 October 2008 at 4:17pm
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