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JoshT’s Log - French, German, Russian

  Tags: Russian | German | French
 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
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josht
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6227 days ago

635 posts - 857 votes 
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Dutch

 
 Message 97 of 161
02 December 2008 at 11:56am | IP Logged 
magister wrote:
josht wrote:
At least for me, it hasn't worked out that way; doing something like the Direct Method is probably what my German adjective declensions need. :)


A nitpick: Dowling advocates the major assault on the paradigms prior to engaging in the "Direct Method," which is something else entirely.

Incidentally, I regularly keep an eye on your log.


Ah, okay. Thanks for the clarification!
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josht
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6227 days ago

635 posts - 857 votes 
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Dutch

 
 Message 98 of 161
03 December 2008 at 8:56pm | IP Logged 
12/3/08

German

Did some word lists from one of my pocket dictionaries. I think I actually enjoy working from a dictionary more than a thematic vocabulary (like Using German Vocabulary); due to the nature of a dictionary, the words are (generally) all from different subjects, which is a bit more interesting than learning 50 words about insects or some such.

French

Assimil French with Ease - Reviewed Lesson 64 very carefully (double checking on specific meanings of words, reading everything out aloud, etc.). All in all, I probably spent around 40 minutes on the one lesson. I continued on with Lesson 65, which I'm about halfway through.

I also took a (very) quick glance through Ultimate French Review and Practice at the past tense of verbs, something I need to memorize. Indeed, while Assimil has given me a good "feel" for the language, I feel like I need to now return back to basics, and do a good bit of memorizing. While I'm able to recognize various conjugations, I can't produce them hardly at all, even struggling with basic present tense stuff.

Russian

NPRC - I covered about 20 words via IWLM from the NPRC - from chapter 7, I believe. My word lists with Russian move along at a terrifyingly slow pace, as not only do the words not want to stick, but the spellings don't want to stick, either.

I also reviewed a bit of grammar from the NPRC, including the accusative and prepositional forms for the possessives (мой, твой, etc.). One thing about the NPRC which I'm not crazy about is the fact that there are, in my opinion, not enough texts which show the grammar in action. This seems to change in the later chapters, but a large bit of beginner-friendly texts to display basic grammar would be nice. I may dip into Russian for Beginners by Duff to see if I can pull some material out.

Assimil Russisch ohne Mühe - Listened to Lessons 12 - 18 while exercising. Missed tons of it, as I was counting reps in English. I suppose I could have counted them in Russian. :-)

As an aside, I've got a dual language Russian-English book, full of short stories (the fairly popular book at amazon.com), but the stories are far too advanced for me right now.

Edited by josht on 03 December 2008 at 9:33pm

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josht
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6227 days ago

635 posts - 857 votes 
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Dutch

 
 Message 99 of 161
04 December 2008 at 9:04am | IP Logged 
12/4/08

Morning

German

Did Anki reviews; had a little over 200 cards to review.

Wrote a few messages to my German tutor, one of which consisted of me correcting two stupid adjective declension blunders I had previously made.

Afternoon / Evening

Russian for Beginners

Read through some of the previous lessons I did, 7-9.

NPRC - Finished learning the words from chapter 7 via IWLM; skipped chapter 8 vocabulary, as I learned it previously, and started on chapter 9's vocabulary. Did around 50 words. Reviewed genitive declensions. Today's Russian word lists seemed easier than last time, including my ability to remember spellings.

Edited by josht on 04 December 2008 at 9:46pm

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josht
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6227 days ago

635 posts - 857 votes 
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Dutch

 
 Message 100 of 161
05 December 2008 at 4:07pm | IP Logged 
12/5/08

Russian

NPRC - I finished learning the words from chapter 9 using IWLM, and reviewed the genitive declension patterns once again; they're finally beginning to stick. After memorizing the vocabulary and reviewing the grammar, I read through the dialogues / texts for the chapter, and had no problems with it.

All in all, I spent about an hour and a half studying.

German

Did some grammar study, using Hammer's German Grammar and Practicing German Grammar. I worked on an adjective declension exercise (something I *still* make mistakes with).

Also, I watched a bit of the first episode of "Die Deutschen" at the ZDF website. It's a 10 episode series about the history of German; each episode is around 45 minutes long, and they seem to be quite well made. It's here, for those who are interested.

Edited by josht on 05 December 2008 at 11:49pm

1 person has voted this message useful



josht
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6227 days ago

635 posts - 857 votes 
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Dutch

 
 Message 101 of 161
07 December 2008 at 7:47pm | IP Logged 
12/6/08

Not a great deal at all, in any language. I listened to some German radio, and looked at a few Russian word lists, but that's about it. I've screwed my knee up, and spent most of the time laying on the couch.

12/7/08

German

Anki reviews.

Did a few "blocks" of German wordlists (1 block = 5-7 words). I may do more this evening.

Finished transcribing the Deutsche Welle article about the FDJ; looked up the rest of the words that I didn't know.

Listened to a podcast from Deutsche Welle, from the Top Thema mit Vokabeln series: Deutsch lernen in neuer Dimension. It was about the interactive German course that Deutsche Welle offers for free, Deutsch Interaktiv. It apparently offers material to take you to A1 / B1 levels, and a vocabulary of around 7000 words. I've not used the course, but if it's like anything else from Deutsche Welle, I'm sure it's nice.

French

Assimil French with Ease - Went through Lessons 65 - 67 for the second wave. I did some "active wave" things, going from English to French, but only after reviewing the French text and listening to each lesson a few times. I mostly just focused on the French, however. I think that this second wave, even if I haven't stuck strictly to their structure (English -> French), is quite beneficial. I'm catching a lot of things this time around that I didn't during the first wave (for example, I didn't notice initially that for "half empty", there is an à at the beginning of the expression, i.e. à moitié vide).

Edited by josht on 07 December 2008 at 10:51pm

1 person has voted this message useful



josht
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6227 days ago

635 posts - 857 votes 
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Dutch

 
 Message 102 of 161
09 December 2008 at 8:21am | IP Logged 
12/8/08

Russian

Assimi Russisch ohne Mühe - Did Lesson 23 for the first time. I listened to it a few times while reading along, and then spent 20 or so minutes figuring out all of the words. Even though I love the Assimil French course, this course seems even more comprehensive.

French

Assimil French with Ease - Reviewed Lesson 67 again.

German

Read a few news articles at Deutsche Welle.

Did Anki reviews.
1 person has voted this message useful



josht
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6227 days ago

635 posts - 857 votes 
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Dutch

 
 Message 103 of 161
09 December 2008 at 8:22am | IP Logged 
12/9/08

German

Wrote to my German language exchange partner. Took about 20 minutes to write a fairly lengthy email (half in English).

Wrote a number of messages to my German language tutor. Probably spent around ~40 minutes at it. Also, I went back to the beginning of our correspondence, and added a number of corrected sentences of mine to Anki. It's a waste to have my material corrected and not learn it.

My other German language exchange partner showed up on Google Chat, so we talked for 10 minutes or so. The bulk of it was in German.

Listened to an Alltagsdeutsch podcast while exercising, LKW-Fahrer. Tons of words I didn't know, so I'll work through the article later.

Russian

Assimil Russisch ohne Mühe - Listened to Lessons 18, 19, 20, and 22, 4-5 times each. Yet again, words have been forgotten completely. :-) Russian is going to be a hard nut to crack...

French

Assimil French with Ease - Listened to Lesson 67 twice, 68 once. More this evening; company arrived.

Reread Lesson 68 twice.

I filled half a sheet with words using IWLM, so around 50 words. The vast majority of them were review, as I knew them from Assimil, but I did pick up a few, as well as solidify my knowledge of what gender they have.

Edited by josht on 10 December 2008 at 7:26am

1 person has voted this message useful



josht
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6227 days ago

635 posts - 857 votes 
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Dutch

 
 Message 104 of 161
10 December 2008 at 9:41am | IP Logged 
12/10/08

Morning

Russian

Russian for Beginners - Reread Lesson 11, read Lesson 12. I need to go through all of the lessons and memorize the words. I've done this with the first 7 or 8, I believe, but not these later lessons.

French

While it wasn't really a study session, while driving to school, I caught myself thinking to myself in French about what was going on. As I've not really done this before with French, it was a pleasant surprise. I got frustrated when I started stumbling over vocabulary that I didn't know.

Afternoon

German

Did about half of the Anki reviews I have due today (80 review cards and 20 new). I'll finish the rest this evening.

Did a couple blocks of German words from my pocket dictionary while waiting for class to start.

I got the book "Der rettende Weg" again via OhioLINK, and am going to work through it. I started over at the beginning, and read the first couple pages of the introduction. I'm not sure if it's due to the topic (history), or just how the fellow writes, but I already have 30-40 words to learn. I've already looked up their definitions and written them down, now I just need to put them through their paces with IWLM.

Edited by josht on 10 December 2008 at 7:23pm



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