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My method (A1->C1, 5 months) | ||
Tags: Learning Strategy | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4693 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 9 of 29 18 March 2012 at 10:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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If we take the OP literally, it wasn't from scratch, either, as A1 > 0. The Goethe Institut, e.g., estimates 75 "hours"
to achieve A1 in German, and 150 hours (200 * 45 min) to reach A2. Supposing we just guess 1 actual hour spent per day during the 3.5 months, that's about 105 days * 1 hr/day = about 100 hours. Adding the A1 base, that could be equivalent to close to 250 hours, at which point the OP placed into B2. I'm not sure if that's a class level looking to reach B2 as the next target level, or a measure of level already achieved. Going by GI again, they expect about 450 hours to reach B2, but only 250+ to reach B1, so let's assume it was the B1 going on B2 option. Thereafter we have 7 weeks (approximately 50 days) of immersion. Let's call it 7 hours a day for 350 hours. Add that to 250 from before, and, voilà, we have 600 hours (which is what GI sees as the C1 prerequisite--GI is the only place I know of with this kind of level-by-level hours breakdown--FSI calls for 750 hours for German, IIRC). This doesn't get us to 600 hours PLUS a lot of extracurricular time, but 1) these are all VERY approximate numbers to begin with, and 2) the suggestion is that this was a quicker than average learning process--and we at least are in the general ballpark now. Anyone care to check my math? Am I too credulous? It looks like the OP already had one language learning success (German) before starting French, so there's no reason to think the OP would have to be on the slow side. EDIT: And since FSI indicates that less time is required for French than German, these numbers from GI could plausibly also be adjusted lower, since these are all numbers for German, not French. Edited by geoffw on 18 March 2012 at 10:11pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| smallwhite Pentaglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5313 days ago 537 posts - 1045 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish | Message 10 of 29 18 March 2012 at 10:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks, gwyner, so, do all those 11+ tasks in message 6 (lang-8 ones deducted) count towards the 45 mins a day x 3.5 mths?
Or is 45mins just Anki review time, reading time, etc, actual study time? Doing all those tasks PLUS studying and reaching B2 in 80 hours sounds like magic. How much of that was listening practice? PS. my math = 3.5 x 30 x 45 mins = 80 hours Edited by smallwhite on 18 March 2012 at 10:48pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| gwyner Pentaglot Newbie United States Joined 5955 days ago 23 posts - 75 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchC1, GermanC1, ItalianB1, Russian Studies: Hungarian | Message 11 of 29 19 March 2012 at 7:05am | IP Logged | ||
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The main body of my studies was on the train to work, which gave me about 45 minutes of daily study time. I built
my Anki decks in obsessive spurts on a few afternoons and a few weekends, making 400-500 cards in a sitting; the deck was done fairly rapidly - about 1/3 of it in a few-day spurt in early March, 1/3 in a spurt in April and 1/3 in a spurt in June, but that doesn't by any means equal zero time, so yes, it's gotta be substantially more than 80 hours over 3.5 months. For my French, I didn't do any listening or writing; I did all of that work in the immersion program. Other stuff that would make this go faster than normal would be that I had learned Italian a couple years before, which made vocabulary learning much easier, and this was my third language, which is always easier. Backtracked enough? :P I was working on two masters degrees and a job at the time, so it's not like I had significant amounts of spare time, but 80 hours is admittedly ridiculous. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| smallwhite Pentaglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5313 days ago 537 posts - 1045 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish | Message 12 of 29 19 March 2012 at 1:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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Okay, thanks for answering. I thought "I did 45 minutes a day for 3.5 months" meant you did 45 minutes a day for 3.5 months, and I thought "placed into level 3 (~B2)" referred to all listening, writing, reading, speaking, vocabulary, grammar and stuff.
I think your method is great, and your presentation even better. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5435 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 13 of 29 19 March 2012 at 4:54pm | IP Logged | ||
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The math has my head spinning. My take is that the basic method is very solid and workable. There's really no silver bullet here. I like the use of flashcards albeit in electronic form, Anki. I'm a great fan of paper flashcards myself because I can write on them. I can't really understand why many people dislike flashcards.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5386 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 14 of 29 19 March 2012 at 5:11pm | IP Logged | ||
Can you explain what you mean here? How are you using no English if you are using Google Translate? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| gwyner Pentaglot Newbie United States Joined 5955 days ago 23 posts - 75 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchC1, GermanC1, ItalianB1, Russian Studies: Hungarian | Message 15 of 29 19 March 2012 at 7:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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Nothing wrong with paper flashcards; you can get similar spacing to Anki with
URL=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leitner_system]Leitner boxes[/URL]. Arekkusu: Good question, I should make that more clear. The no-English-allowed rule applies to the flash cards - the stuff you see every day. If you need to produce some language that you're not familiar with, I haven't found any quick way to do it (without a native speaker nearby) except through bilingual dictionaries and Google translations (although if someone has a good technique for this, I'd love to know it - I know you can go searching for a word in Wikipedia, but that takes too long for writing daily essays); using lang-8.com to doublecheck those translations before putting them into your deck makes sure that the words are good choices to add to your vocabulary. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4641 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 16 of 29 19 March 2012 at 11:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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Excuse me if I misread and missed it, but do you use any courses or a tutor or anything?
1 person has voted this message useful |
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