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Lucas´s 7WC - 500 more by Christmas | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Principiante Senior Member United States lucasgentry.com Joined 6201 days ago 130 posts - 138 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 1 of 16 06 November 2007 at 10:56am | IP Logged |
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Alright, so I just finished up my three and a half week challenge to finish off my first box of 500 flashcards by my birthday. Outcome: Success! I got them all right the first time through, the first thing that I did yesterday morning.
For my present to myself for completing my goal, I bought myself a new box of 500 flashcards, and I will be buying myself an audio book when I find one that I really like. Anyway, now I have another box of flashcards, so I´m setting up my next goal. The next 500 flashcards done by Christmas. ¨Done¨ meaning that I will be able to go (either direction) all the way through the deck and not miss any, in one pass. I´m off to work, but I´ve already typed in half of the flashcards into my SRS, and will finish that off after we close tonight. -Lucas 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Principiante Senior Member United States lucasgentry.com Joined 6201 days ago 130 posts - 138 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 2 of 16 11 November 2007 at 3:07pm | IP Logged |
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Though I haven't been posting, I've only missed one day since starting this thread. Basically, I'm still trying to get through the first pass with my vocab cards. My computer was out of commission yesterday, because I had my monitor et al hooked up to my brother's computer, which I was fixing, so I was doing the paper flashcards, and I noticed some pretty good results so far. I've got six weeks and two days to get this done, and it's looking very possible. If I get done before my due date, I'll start working on shadowing an audio book and doing some FSI Programmatic Spanish, but so far, my days have been so busy that I've only had time for the flashcards.
Well, I'm off to the next thing I've gotta do. Bye! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Principiante Senior Member United States lucasgentry.com Joined 6201 days ago 130 posts - 138 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 3 of 16 12 November 2007 at 9:57pm | IP Logged |
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Alright, so I'm only a week in, and I've already got to the point that I've gotten them all right at least once. Basically, I review a fairly small number of flashcards (using Mnemosyne) at a time until I have gotten them right one time (English -> Spanish counts as one flashcard and Spanish -> English counts as one flashcard in this), and then new words are added. Then, the flashcard program schedules randomly over the next couple days depending on how many times it took me to get it right, or something to that affect. Anyway, I've been doing my review from ones that I had gotten right, plus adding about a hundred new ones (50 words, both directions) each day. Today, I had 400 left (200 words, both directions) and I just stuck it out until I had them all in there. Now, I'm down to 0 that I haven't ever gotten right. Wheee! That's the first step in getting all 500 words right!
If my guess is right, I'll be significantly ahead of my goal schedule, which was/is getting all 500 right by Christmas. My parents already bought the third box of flashcards in the series for me, and I'll be receiving it for a Christmas present, so if I get done early, I'll just start using the BBC Mundo | Latin America website articles for new vocab words (inspired by this thread). *beams and gets all excited* I think the first box did me more than just teach me 500 words. I think it also got my brain working a bit differently, so it will learn faster. Edited by Principiante on 12 November 2007 at 9:58pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Principiante Senior Member United States lucasgentry.com Joined 6201 days ago 130 posts - 138 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 4 of 16 13 November 2007 at 9:10pm | IP Logged |
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So this is getting pretty exciting! I really do feel like I´m learning faster as I go. I´ve decided that when Mnemosyne begins to consistantly give me less than 100 flashcards to review per day, I´ll go hunting for more. It´ll probably be a couple weeks still before it gets to that point, but it does feel like I´ll be there well before Christmas, which is when my original goal is.
Before I get myself worked up way too much, in the next couple days, I´ll go through my paper flashcards and see how many I actually get right in one pass (using the new box and the old box combined). That way, I´ll get the chance to review my old box, which I haven´t had open for the past week, as well as gauge my progress so far on my new box. I think a lot of my new progress is coming from the fact that there are quite a few "friendly" words, or whatever you want to call them, that look quite similar to English words that mean about the same thing. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Principiante Senior Member United States lucasgentry.com Joined 6201 days ago 130 posts - 138 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 5 of 16 14 November 2007 at 8:48pm | IP Logged |
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I just wanted to give myself a bit of encouragement today, so when I tested myself, I started off with the Spanish-to-English, because I knew it'd be tons easier to do those than try to produce the Spanish words by myself. Impressive news! I got all but 117 (out of 1000) right! I hadn't done much with my last box of 500 flashcards in the last week, so I just added them in, half to keep them fresh in my mind, and half to make sure they got in my review stack if I happened to get them wrong. So, yeah, I'm already at 88% correct!!!!!!
I know, I know, It's going the easy direction, but it's good for some encouragement. I've got to do some programming for my work now (and maybe grab a bite to eat), but if I have any brains left after programming, I may (probably not, but potentially) test the harder direction, so I can see where I'm at and set some learning goals. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Principiante Senior Member United States lucasgentry.com Joined 6201 days ago 130 posts - 138 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 6 of 16 29 November 2007 at 1:22pm | IP Logged |
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veintinueve Noviembre, dos mil siete
Well, it´s been like two weeks since I posted last, basically because I´ve been slacking. Not completely ignoring my studies, but I missed several days (like six or seven) in a row, to the point that my "scheduled" flash cards on mnemosyne got up to 600, whereas before, they were around 150-200 per day when I left off. I basically got hooked on Guildwars (a computer game -- I posted earlier about borrowing it from a friend in order to try to immerse myself more in the Spanish by setting it so that all the user interface is in Spanish, but after a few days, there were parts that I couldn´t understand at all, so I set it back to English and forgot to turn it back. I ended up just getting hooked on the game, so I´ve cut back to maybe one or two days a week on that game now, and only an hour each time). Anyway... The last few days or so have been better. I´ve been doing the flashcards more, though I need to get more consistant on it to bring my able-to-sit-at-one-time duration back up. At the moment, I wander off after fifteen minutes or so, and I had been up to around thirty or forty five before my slack off period. I almost won an ebay auction for Assimil Spanish with Ease as well as Using Spanish, but it ended up that the other guy´s max bid was like 130 and mine was 120, so he won. In a small way, I´m glad, so that I´ll still have the money, but I was hoping that Spanish with Ease comes back up for auction, so I can get it (and cost less, because it would only be the one). I asked for an amazon.com gift certificate for Christmas, so if I end up getting that, then I´ll be buying combining it with my money to get Assimil Spanish with Ease. Okay, so I just re-tested myself to see what words I had lost since my last test, since it had been two weeks, and because I had slacked so much. Anyway, oddly enough, I ended up getting almost the exact same number wrong as before, though only about 30% of the incorrect words were the same as last time. I got 115 out of 1000 wrong, going from Spanish to English. I´ve gotta take a shower, because I´m heading out with some friends, but if I have time before we leave, I´ll test myself English to Spanish, so I can gauge how far I have to go, since I hadn´t done that since the beginning of this challenge. Lucas 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Principiante Senior Member United States lucasgentry.com Joined 6201 days ago 130 posts - 138 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 7 of 16 01 December 2007 at 6:13pm | IP Logged |
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Yesterday was pretty busy, so I didn't end up finishing the English-to-Spanish test, but I'm still truckin' away at it. I've tested a bit more than half of the cards to far (after posting this, I'll do the other half) and I'm pretty consistently getting about 75-80% right, which is better than I was expecting. I was thinking I'd get around 65-70%, so that's super cool.
I tried something fun this morning. I didn't say any English words until I got to work. It was pretty neat, although I still don't know how to say a whole lot. I don't want to fall behind on my flashcards again, but once I get this batch back on track, I'll be adding in a bunch of sentences as well. I've got several canned phrases memorized like, "I don't understand" and "Could you say that slower, please", "What's your name?", etc., but I still am not very capable at creating my own sentences, even though in theory I know all of the individual words needed to build them. On a YouTube.com note, I just discovered a song called "Bonito" by Jarabe de Palo, and I think it's one of the most fun songs I've listened to recently. So my top three Spanish-based songs are -- in no particular order -- "Bonito", "Bendita Tu Luz" by Maná, and "The First Semester of Spanish Love Song" by the folks at runawaybox.com. I know the third one is sung as a mockery of Spanish classes, but it's got the fun phrases in it, so if you didn't know them before, you can learn them from the song. I'm pondering writing and recording a "Phrasebook Spanish Love Song" using the same music, but using canned phrases from a phrase book, just to help me learn them better. Anyway, I'm off to finish my flash cards, then to get ready for church tomorrow and go to sleep. If I get done with the flashcards, I'll write how many I missed, but if not, this is all for today. Later. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Principiante Senior Member United States lucasgentry.com Joined 6201 days ago 130 posts - 138 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 8 of 16 02 December 2007 at 2:54pm | IP Logged |
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Alright! I just finished up testing myself on English-to-Spanish flashcards, and I got 174 out of 1000 wrong. Referencing the earlier post from a couple days ago, when I tested Spanish-to-English, I got all but 115 right. So...
Current situation: 3 weeks and 2 days left to complete 2000 cards. (1000 either direction) Current card status: All but 289 correct (That´s right at 85% correct) Goals: 100 per week learned (22 days left == 14 new words per day) at minimum 30 minutes of flashcards per day Today: Sunday, December 2nd -- 289 missed Next Sunday, December 9th -- 189 missed The Next Sunday, December 16th -- 89 missed Christmas Sunday, December 23rd - <20 missed Final, Christmas, December 25th -- 0 missed Okay, let´s see how close I can get! Edit: I just realized that I´m about the same number wrong as I was in my three week challenge. I had roughly 275 left with three weeks to go, so it´s definately doable. Edited by Principiante on 02 December 2007 at 2:56pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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