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JoshT’s Log - French, German, Russian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 5939 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 129 of 161 23 January 2009 at 6:15am | IP Logged |
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If you complete the whole MT Spanish course (Foundation+Advanced) before Assimil, it'll make it a lot easier. I used Assimil as a follow up to the MT Spanish course. If I could go back in time, and choose another course, I would've picked the Living Language Spanish Beginner-Intermdiate course instead of "Teach Yourself Spanish". Edited by DaraghM on 23 January 2009 at 6:15am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| josht Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6234 days ago 635 posts - 857 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Dutch | Message 130 of 161 23 January 2009 at 7:30am | IP Logged |
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Yeah, I was planning on doing MT and Assimil simultaneously, but I think I'm going to set aside Assimil until I've gone through MT. Did you start working with Teach Yourself Spanish only after being mostly done with Spanish with Ease, or did you tackle them simultaneously?
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| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 5939 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 131 of 161 23 January 2009 at 9:22am | IP Logged |
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I started with Teach Yourself Spanish, long before I discovered the Michel Thomas courses, but stopped it as language wanderlust set in. I returned to the course during TAC 2008 at this point. Between the time I stopped the course, and I picked it up again, my Spanish had improved a bit, so it was a good bit easier.
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| josht Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6234 days ago 635 posts - 857 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Dutch | Message 132 of 161 23 January 2009 at 9:25pm | IP Logged |
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1/23/09
Spanish After talking with Daragh (see above), I've decided to set Spanish with Ease aside for a short while, while I work through Michel Thomas's stuff. Today, I finished CD1 (I'd done about half of it during my grocery shopping, see previous posts), and finished the first half of CD2. While Michel has his frustrating quirks (those *noises!*), I still like his material; I learned quite a bit today, and it was all fairly painless, barring the male student. He seems to make the same mistakes over and over. Strangely, his voice sounds suspiciously like the male student in the MT French course - who was the "bright" student in said course, catching on to everything very quickly. French Assimil French with Ease - Copied out Lesson 90, and struggled a good bit over some grammar in it. The lesson shows how inverted questions are formed, and I was baffled for a while as to why it looked like there were two subjects in some of the sentences (Le Français and il, for example). After some staring and looking things up, it all clicked, however, which was, of course, a nice feeling. Russian Assimil Russisch ohne Mühe - I reviewed Lessons 29 and 30, and did Lesson 31. I tried a new approach this evening, specifically: read the text while listening, but pause after each sentence, and read it aloud during the pause. The vocabulary and forms seemed to stick with me much better this way, as I was actively engaging with the material, rather than just reading and listening, hoping for it to all stick. I went through Lesson 31 like this twice, along with reading and listening (without pauses) a few times through. Lessons 29 and 30 received the listen-and-pause treatment once each. An aside: I'm still tripping over the pronunciation of some words, particularly those with consonant clusters. When I'd hit a spot like this, I'd keep rewinding, relistening, and trying it again, until I could pronounce it correctly (and relatively quickly). 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| josht Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6234 days ago 635 posts - 857 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Dutch | Message 133 of 161 25 January 2009 at 9:34pm | IP Logged |
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Weekend Summary:
Not a whole lot, I'm afraid. Other responsibilities interfered with my language studies. What I did get done: Spanish I finished up CD2 of Michel Thomas's Spanish course. It's progressing nicely, but I chuckled at his little spiel at the end of the disk: "you should now feel confident in the language you have just learned." I've been doing things poorly, I suppose; you can apparently learn a whole language by listening to 2 CDs. ;-) Russian Assimil Russisch ohne Mühe - Reviewed Lessons 29 - 31, and did a pass through Lesson 32. I'll definitely need to go through it again tomorrow more slowly, as I didn't do the pause-and-repeat method. German I worked on some word lists from Using German Vocabulary, read a few articles at Deutsche Welle, and worked through a bit of Der Rettende Weg. The latter was quite slow going, as I was selecting sentences of interest, copying them, and looking up any unknown words. I also did some *very* passive listening to Deutsche Welle radio, but as I was doing various things in my room (cleaning), I missed a great deal of what was being said, so I probably shouldn't even count the listening session. French Assimil French with Ease - Copied out Lesson 92, and listened to it 3-4 times afterwards. It's really quite amazing what copying it out is doing for my listening comprehension. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| josht Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6234 days ago 635 posts - 857 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Dutch | Message 134 of 161 27 January 2009 at 7:40am | IP Logged |
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1/26/09
French I worked on a number of exercises from Ultimate French Review and Practice (henceforth Ultimate French), and did some word lists using Mastering French Vocabulary. I also read over Lesson 92 (the one I copied out yesterday), as I had my copy on me while at the university. German I read a few articles at Deutsche Welle, and perused a bit in Mastering German Vocabulary (certainly not as useful as word lists, but I was quite tired). -- That was pretty much it. I had intentions to do much more in the evening, including CD3 of Michel Thomas Spanish, but I fell asleep in my chair and awoke at midnight to go to bed. :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| josht Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6234 days ago 635 posts - 857 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Dutch | Message 135 of 161 27 January 2009 at 4:33pm | IP Logged |
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1/27/09
Spanish I started and finished disc 3 of Michel Thomas's Basic Spanish course. I must admit, I formerly had many doubts about his stuff, but I'm quite impressed thus far. I've learned quite a bit in what little time I've put in. My only real complaint is that I wish they had found a male with more than fifteen brain cells; the chap on the Spanish course is even worse than the female on the French course. I quite often find myself wanting to yell right along with Michel, "ONLY ONE PUSH! Only one push!" German I wrote a bit to my German tutor, and read over the (thankfully very few!) corrections. I'm a bit baffled, however, and am getting ready to fire off another message to him. I refer to umlauts in my message, and when I wrote it, I had to double check whether or not "der Umlaut" had a plural; I thought it did, but all of my dictionaries show that it's used in the singular only. Lo' and behold, my tutor corrected "Umlaut" to "Umlauten (plural)." Hm. :-) I also worked through some of my backlog of corrections, adding the sentences and corrections to Anki. Edited by josht on 27 January 2009 at 4:34pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| josht Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6234 days ago 635 posts - 857 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Dutch | Message 136 of 161 28 January 2009 at 12:44pm | IP Logged |
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1/28/09
Spanish Started and finished CD4 of Michel Thomas's Foundation Spanish course. Moving right along, and still quite prepared to throttle the male student. Russian NPRC - Reviewed chapter 9 yet again, going over the genitive case. The endings for it are killing me. Luckily, the author states that it's the most complex case, so I suppose once I get it down, the other cases will be down hill. I moved on to chapter 10, which I've also done previously; I'm going to be hitting this a lot in the near future, as I'd really like to get through it relatively soon. I feel like I've let myself slip with it, getting caught up on all of the exceptions rather than focusing on mastering the base rules. I called it a night with this particular resource when ей, ой, and other assorted genitive adjective / possessive endings starting swimming in front of my vision. :) German Did about 100 Anki cards today; just about caught up again. I've not noticed any great decrease in the efficiency of using a spaced repetition system by letting due cards sit a few days here and there. I wrote a message to one of my penpals, half in English, half in German. I also read corrections from my tutor, but haven't yet put the corrections / notes into Anki. French French with Ease - Reviewed Lesson 92, and dipped way back and reviewed Lessons 18 and 19, doing the active wave as Assimil says to. Going from English to French seemed quite easy on these early lessons; if only the later lessons were so easy. :) Edited by josht on 28 January 2009 at 8:31pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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