|
 |
NeonQwerty’s Italian and German thread | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5961 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes  Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 17 of 206 14 July 2008 at 10:26am | IP Logged |
|
Yesterday was an hour of vocabulary revision, including marking down words that I couldn't immediately translate so that I could go over them a bit more this week.
Today I should resume my regular-scheduled routine. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5961 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 18 of 206 16 July 2008 at 4:54pm | IP Logged |
|
Day before yesterday: just a half hour of vocab
Yesterday: half hour vocab, half hour Michel Thomas Today: nothing so far, and until the 21st I don't care if I don't study. I'm preparing for a brief trip to a wedding where I'm the best man while at the same time trying to find a place to live in Chicago. So I'm stressed. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5961 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 19 of 206 22 July 2008 at 12:33pm | IP Logged |
|
First off, I have to express some disappointment. It's been a few days since I've posted here, and this thread is still not bumped off the first page. For shame, people! To those who are reading and don't have your own thread, start one! This thread is still relatively young, but it has been very helpful in quite a few ways.
Second, my trip went well, the bride and groom are happy, etc etc etc. The toughest part for me relates to my language learning, so I'm going to express it here. One of my exs attended this small wedding. We had not spoken for something like 3-4 years, and we left each other on bad terms. Talking to her was really nice, and we both seemed to have a pretty good time conversing. She's teaching English in Japan, and seems to have quite a bit of Japanese under her belt at this point. This means that she now knows seven languages: English, French, Spanish, German, Russian, Thai, and Japanese Yikes. When you go to a gym, you eventually realize that "Are you in shape" is nearly impossible to define. It's always "Are you in shape compared to those around you?". It's why some days you feel like Superman and others you feel like the 98 pound weakling who gets sand kicked in his (or her?) face. There's more to it than that, but it definitely is something that you need to learn to deal with. When it comes to languages, I've known people who can speak 3 or maybe 3 1/2 languages, so it never felt like I was just totally out of my league. Speaking with my ex, though, wow... I don't begrudge her at all for her achievements; I'm very happy for her and think that it's really wonderful, just as wonderful as when I found out that a friend of mine came within a hair of making the Canadian Olympic judo team. But it made me seriously reassess my progress. Simply put, there's a balance to be struck between thorough learning and accelerated learning. If you pore over every tiny detail, you'll be left behind as others figure it out much more quickly. If you blast through everything too quickly, you'll end up missing huge chunks of information, and your progress will stall because your brain can't make the appropriate inferences quickly enough to cover the gaps. I know who I am, and I'm usually a thorough learning guy, although not an extreme case. This despite repeated evidence that I learn more quickly with a much faster-paced and riskier style. So I'm thinking of blasting through my Michel Thomas and then starting my Pimsleur Russian right away. Here are some thoughts that express both the pros and cons of such a move: -next semester is a busy one for me as far as school goes, so time is an issue -by next May, I will consider my Italian studies to be a failure if I can't very comfortably read basic texts and if I can't have normal conversations pretty easily. Plus I need to be able to follow Italian television pretty easily as well -I'm not worried about confusing the two languages, since they are so different -I am doing a masters thesis this semester; in theory, I shouldn't be studying Russian in order to allow for more time to do the thesis. In practice, NO ONE does the thesis in just one semester, so maybe it's best to start my studying with the expectation that I'll be getting an incomplete anyway This is getting confusing, so I'll just let this absorb for a while. Maybe I'll do it during August and re-evaluate once school starts. I wouldn't have lost that much if I decide to stop it and take it up in 2009 -------- As predicted, I didn't do work during the past few days. Today I did Michel Thomas until I finished CD 4. Today I'll review vocabulary and possibly do some of CD 5 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5961 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 20 of 206 24 July 2008 at 9:49am | IP Logged |
|
Since the last post:
-reviewed all my vocabulary words. The time off was pretty helpful in this regard; a lot of the words seem much more natural than they did during my last review -finished Michel Thomas up to and including CD5. This has been incredibly helpful to me. I still think that Pimlseur is the better audio program, at least at first. The best way that I can put it is that Pimlseur is the raw material, but it's in pieces; Michel Thomas is the cement that fills in the gaps and makes everything into a coherent whole Regarding the Russian rant in my last post, I realized that there's a good chance that I'll be able to take a Russian class (free) at school next semester instead of taking a political science course. Although courses are generally frowned upon when it comes to language learning, this may be ideal. It would not increase my academic workload, since the course would replace another one, and since it is an introductory class, it will focus on the bare essentials, such as alphabet and pronunciation. I'll speak to the head of the department about it and see 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5961 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 21 of 206 24 July 2008 at 9:29pm | IP Logged |
|
Did Michel Thomas CD6 today. There's a slim chance that I'll do some vocabulary before going to bed, but real life is starting to interfere here...
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5961 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 22 of 206 26 July 2008 at 9:44am | IP Logged |
|
Yesterday I did about 45 minutes of vocabulary and finished Michel Thomas, CD7.
A very good day! :D 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5961 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 23 of 206 26 July 2008 at 10:21pm | IP Logged |
|
Hooray! Finished the Michel Thomas Foundation Course! :) In theory, I could stand to go over the last CD again, but I'm not going to. There are other ways to spend my time. Plus the 8th CD is where I snapped and just started getting really angry at the two students in the CD. Even Michel seemed annoyed by the end.
I also finished a chapter in my vocabulary studies. So out of 24 chapters, I've done 1,2,3,4,5,13,14,15. Not bad. Tomorrow I head back to Chicago, and my living situation is totally messed up. So I don't know how much time I'll dedicate to studies. Tentatively, vocabulary study stays the same, and I'll go through the Italian reader I mentioned earlier on. I'm not going to care much about the vocabulary in the reader; I'm just going to use it as an excuse to read simple texts. I almost bought a verb workbook today but stopped myself; I really want to finish this reader first. Verbs are the next big thing for me to deal with, though. Good times! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5961 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 24 of 206 30 July 2008 at 3:11pm | IP Logged |
|
Back in Chicago, madly scrambling to find a place to live. This doesn't leave much time for studying, but I've actually kept up with my vocabulary. I went through a few mini-chapters in my reader, but it really is nothing all that exciting.
The bigger news is that apparently taking Russian would conflict with my teaching load next semester, so that's out! Since I don't want to work on Spanish until I really assimilate Italian, it looks like next semester I'll be taking a German course. :) While I did want Russian, this has its benefits too... Although German is hard, it is apparently not as hard as Russian, so I'll be able to master it more quickly. Onwards! 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
