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NeonQwerty’s Italian and German thread | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5980 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes  Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 65 of 206 07 January 2009 at 12:27pm | IP Logged |
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Got to about page 130 in Barron's. I want to get to ~170 by the end of the day. I don't know if it's been helpful as such, but it's one of those "If I didn't do it, I would regret not having done it" things.
I listened to the first Michel Thomas CD twice, so I'll move on to the second later. The priority is still the textbook, though, since I want it done by Friday (inclusively). Thought of the day: when hesitating between two possible actions, an easy way to decide is to think of which one has the longer-term benefit. That choice is pretty much always the best one. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5980 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 66 of 206 07 January 2009 at 2:32pm | IP Logged |
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Shockingly, I'm already done up to page 175. So I'm done for the day. Woohoo!
... Now on to schoolwork. And yes, I was using Italian studies to procrastinate from doing schoolwork. I think that's a whole new level of "sad"... 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5980 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 67 of 206 08 January 2009 at 6:41pm | IP Logged |
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I finished the book today, a day early, and spent about 20 minutes on the second Michel Thomas CD yesterday. You'd think I'd be elated, but I'm not. My head hurts.
I'm taking tomorrow "off", which means I'm going to focus on schoolwork. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5980 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 68 of 206 08 January 2009 at 10:57pm | IP Logged |
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Ok, I'm feeling much less pissy. The point of this post is not to record progress, but to set out a new plan.
The goals that I had set for myself during this break were tied to accomplishing certain tasks. The main change that will occur as of this Sunday is that I will re-start measuring progress based on time spent studying. Why? Because the amount of time I can spend studying is a function of how much time I need to dedicate to my schoolwork. Italian, while important, just doesn't come first. The standing plan is to spend an hour a day studying, 6 days a week. If I have time for more, that's fine. My day off, however, is written in stone. In terms of "pure" learning materials, I have the following left: -MT advanced -MT vocabulary -Grammar book -Vocab book Now, the dilemma is that I would love to get into "natural" material, such as television and reading... but I really think that I should power through this stuff first. So until I finish MT, I'll do half that and half text-based work (starting with grammar guide). Once MT is done, I will re-evaluate. I will also give myself occasional allowances to watch Italian TV and count it as study time. Simple, effective, hooray. I'd like to be "done" with Italian by the 31st of May. That's about 20 weeks. 20 weeks times 6 hours per week would be 120 hours of study. This seems reasonable. The goal is not to be an Italian God by that time, but to have NO problem with newspapers and be able to read novels and follow television / movies relatively easily. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5980 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 69 of 206 12 January 2009 at 4:53pm | IP Logged |
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Before getting into what I've done yesterday and today, I just want to say that the "break" that I took really served me well. I use brackets here because on Friday and Saturday I did read some of a surprisingly good Italian magazine I had bought around Christmas time. In case you're wondering, it's called OK!
Getting down to business now: Yesterday I did an hour of MT, finishing disk 2 and listening to the first two tracks again. Today I looked at my grammar guide for about two minutes and decided that I'd rather go through vocabulary instead. So I did. I got my old vocab book and started going over the chapters that I had already covered. When I came across a word whose translation I could not remember, I made a mark next to it. I will input those words into a flashcard program and devise a schedule to go over them at regular intervals. As far as the rest of the words are concerned, I will need to develop a system to review them periodically, but that will be done much less often. It used to be weekly; I may make it monthly now. So vocab: 35 minutes I also continued the 2nd Michel Thomas CD for 25 It's great to be back into the thick of things with regularly scheduled studying! Again, I'm fine with changing the "curriculum" as long as I study an hour a day, six days a week. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5980 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 70 of 206 14 January 2009 at 9:01am | IP Logged |
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Yesterday I finished up the second MT CD for a second time and did the first track on CD#3. I have to fill more time to get my hour's worth of studying, so I did more vocabulary. all this while sick. Because I am AWESOME*
*no 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5980 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 71 of 206 16 January 2009 at 6:53pm | IP Logged |
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Although I have not posted every day, I have done at least an hour of work per day, sometimes more. :)
Since the last post, I've "finished" (done twice) up to and including CD#3 of MT. In case you're wondering what the course is about, it's strictly about verb tenses. This is not necessarily bad, but it is news you need. I have also *almost* finished going over what I had previously studied in my vocabulary book, making a mark next to words that I don't know... and wow, there are a lot of them. This is not catastrophic, but I now know for sure that it will take a LOT of hard work to get where I want to be... coasting will just not cut it. Tomorrow is my scheduled day off. I may post in this blog, but I won't study. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ChiaBrain Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5625 days ago 402 posts - 512 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish* Studies: Portuguese, Italian, French Studies: German | Message 72 of 206 16 January 2009 at 10:00pm | IP Logged |
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I've enjoyed reading your journal especially as I am studying Italian myself.
It sounds as you are making progress and enjoying it. I am doing Michel Thomas now and plan on picking up Pimsleur at the local public library (as I dont feel like shelling out $300 for level 1). It sounds like from what you are saying it was better to do Pimsleur first before Michel Thomas. Do you still think so? Thanks in advance and keep up the good work! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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