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TAC 2009 - DaraghM | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| tricoteuse Pentaglot Senior Member Norway littlang.blogspot.co Joined 6460 days ago 745 posts - 845 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, Norwegian, EnglishC1, Russian, French Studies: Ukrainian, Bulgarian | Message 49 of 177 03 February 2009 at 6:47am | IP Logged | ||
Agreed. I feel that there is lots of "we will get back to this later, so don't you worry!" sown all throughout the course, and then that "getting back to" something was just a list in a review lesson. I think they throw in too many tenses without thoroughly training you to use them first. Also the constant "As we mentioned in note 6 in lesson 24, this often happens." are very frustrating. How about indicating a PAGE or just repeating what the damned thing was? Often it doesn't feel like they saved much space or time much by that lenghty reference. They could have just explained again and then added (cf. note 5, p.78). 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 5933 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 50 of 177 03 February 2009 at 8:31am | IP Logged | ||
Exactly. They also have a nasty habit of referencing notes in lessons you haven't done yet. They've done this a couple of times already, including lesson 40. I totally agree with you on the way they're teaching tenses. While I can recognise a word, and guess which tense it's in, I can't use the tenses in my own sentences. For that reason, I'll try and use FSI Hungarian to fill the gaps. Edited by DaraghM on 03 February 2009 at 8:36am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 5933 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 51 of 177 04 February 2009 at 4:03am | IP Logged | ||
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03/02/09
Hungarian (Active ~2 hours, Passive 0 hours) Ireland is a country that specialises in rain, but last night was different. We managed water in all it's glorious forms, from snow, hail, and rain to sleet. If I had decided to walk, I would've been trying to read Hungarian off a cold wet sheet of paper in a high wind. Not the easiest language learning environment. I still managed some study at home, but not as much as I would've liked. In Lecke 39 they recommend that you review the earlier lessons, probably as preparation for the nightmare that is the active wave. I reviewed the first three lessons, and made an attempt to do the active wave of the first lesson. I could translate most of the English to Hungarian, but I was doing it without looking at the English. This means I've simply learnt the lesson off by heart, and I'm not really translating but parroting the original Hungarian. After this, I skipped over to using the FSI Basic Hungarian course, and listened to tapes two and three of unit 2. The FSI course is covering Hungarian a lot more thoroughly. If I learn this material off by heart, I feel I'll have more usable Hungarian than a similar Assimil lesson. For this reason, I'm pausing my Hungarian Assimil , and will use my time for the FSI Hungarian. I'll try and review the earlier Assimil lessons, but won't try ploughing ahead to new units. Edited by DaraghM on 04 February 2009 at 4:04am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 5933 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 52 of 177 05 February 2009 at 4:21am | IP Logged | ||
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04/02/09
Hungarian (Active ~30 minutes, Passive ~2 hours) In the 1980's there were a series of books called Fighting Fantasy. The books were interactive adventure stories, with each passage finishing with a multiple choice. You made a choice and then went to the corresponding page in the book, and so on, until you completed the adventure or died. As I was reviewing a few more earlier lessons from Hungarian Assimil, the self referencing footnotes reminded of these books. It felt more like I was completing a Fighting Fantasy adventure, than learning a language, as I had my fingers wedged in multiple pages. Though the audio quality isn't great, I've grown to really like the FSI Hungarian course. Each tape has so much instruction, they almost stand alone, like an all audio course. I drilled the same tape 2 from Unit 2, and I finally feel like I'm learning Hungarian over simply recognising the meaning. Russian (Active ~1.25 hours, Passive ~15 minutes) While my Russian has been gently simmering away in the morning, I knew I needed to put in an evening booster. I completed a couple of exercises from урок 5, and wrote out the dialogue from урок 6. урок 5 covered the basics of the accusative case, as in female noun endings going from А - У, and Я - Ю. In the associated exercise, I got most of the answers right but tripped up on письма (letters) from письмо (letter). I tried to decline it as a female noun, without really thinking that it was a plural neuter noun. The grammar section didn't remind about neuter plurals, which would've been useful. Edited by DaraghM on 05 February 2009 at 4:23am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Flarioca Heptaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5664 days ago 635 posts - 816 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Esperanto, French, EnglishC2, Spanish, German, Italian Studies: Catalan, Mandarin | Message 53 of 177 05 February 2009 at 7:30am | IP Logged | ||
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I really enjoyed that kind of books, which are the ancestors of so many popular videogames :-))
I'm not annoyed with the way Assimil deals with grammar, because I'm studying it mainly through grammar books. Assimil is only my reference, pointing which subjects to search for. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 5933 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 54 of 177 06 February 2009 at 5:08am | IP Logged | ||
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05/02/09
Russian (Active ~3 hours, Passive ~15 minutes) There's a term in code cracking called "brute force", in which every possible combination of a encryption key is tried in order to decipher a text. This method requires vast amounts of computing power, and will crack almost all codes given enough time. This methodology reminds me of the FSI courses, which provide huge amounts of text and audio to cover all the combinations of verb conjugations, case declensions and associated grammar patterns. A Russian course from the 1980's called Modern Russian 1, though not an FSI course, employs a very similar structure. The associated audio material comprises 28 CD's. I don't plan on adding it to my study plans, but it's very tempting. Has anyone else used this course ? Like all good study plans, mine went to the wayside yesterday, and I ended up studying totally different languages than I'd envisaged. My original plan was to study Hungarian, but with sleet and snow pouring down, it was soon aborted. I spent the evening completing Living Language урок 5, and a revision unit. This revision unit was quite tough, and combined material from the first five units, and some translation exercises. The exercise to translate from Russian to English was easy, but the other way around was hard. I forced myself to translate into Russian without checking the spelling, case endings or verb endings. The verb endings were easy, but I slipped up on some spellings. I mistakenly spelt студенты (students) with a ю instead of a у, as the u is palatalized in the English. I also did a couple of exercises from "Teach Yourself Russian Grammar". The exercises cover plurals, and irregular plurals, in the accusative case, over two different units. I hade a quick look at the start of the units on the genitive case. Russian cases are so irregular, unlike Hungarian. :-( Spanish (Active ~40 minutes, Passive ~0 minutes) I didn't plan on doing any Spanish, but ended up reading El País and creating a wordlist. The article was on the gas dispute between Russian and the E.U. I've just found the article online here. I don't have the wordlist handy, but some of the words I noted were, las tuberías - the pipelines la falta de acuerdo - the lack of agreement de sordos - muffled\deaf. su homólogo ruso - his Russian counterpart. una cumbre - a summit. portavoz - spokesman. ( I had this word before, but it's useful.) celebrarse - to take place. (celebrar itself means to celebrate.) El entorno - the setting\environment. (I don't understand this in the context of the article). "El entorno de Timoshenko acusa al presidente de torpedear unas negociaciones" Edited by DaraghM on 06 February 2009 at 5:10am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 5933 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 55 of 177 09 February 2009 at 5:04am | IP Logged | ||
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Weekend Summary 06/02/09 - 08/02/09
Hungarian (Active ~20 minutes, Passive ~3.5 hours) I find my learning oscillates between loving and subsequently disliking certain methods. Last year, in TAC 2008, the Assimil courses weighed heavily in my learning strategy. So far this year, they don't feel as beneficial, and I'm resorting to other courses. That's not to say I've gone off Assimil. I still like their courses, but they're not rounding out my language learning. I reviewed a couple more Assimil lessons, but still haven't moved from Lecke 41. I drilled the FSI Unit 2 Tape 3, and found it very helpful. This tape is a series of translation drills, with the English first, and then a very short gap before the Hungarian. It feels like a Michel Thomas review CD, but more thorough. The tape covered most of the verb endings, and the basics of the accusative case. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 5933 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 56 of 177 10 February 2009 at 4:14am | IP Logged | ||
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09/02/09
Russian (Active ~1 hour, Passive ~1 hour) I've started adding Russian into some of my lunch time sessions, and I've made a discovery. The Living Language Russian course comprises 4 all Russian CDs, and an additional 4 'On the Go' CD's, with English and Russian. Up till now I've only used the Russian CD's, as I've a vague memory of Prof.Arguelles posting a review, in which he wasn't impressed with the 'On the Go' companion audio. I might be misremembering his review, but you really need to use the 'On the Go' set, as they contain a lot of Russian missing from the main set. The Living Language course is good, but it has some very annoying features, that may or may not be intentional. Last night, I was completing a written exercise in урок 6 about adjective agreement when I tripped up on two words. The first кровать (bed) I thought was male, and nowhere in the lesson did it mention that is was female, so I got the adjective agreement wrong. I should've written уютная кровать (a cozy bed). The second tripped me up as it was an irregular plural, стулья (chairs). I was a bit annoyed about this, as I'd thought in my head "isn't chair masculine стул", but I still slipped up. The plural hadn't been mentioned in any previous lessons. Of the 5 sentences in the test, three had irregular Russian features, and this was the first time teaching adjective agreement. This makes it a tough course. Hungarian (Active ~45 minutes, Passive ~1 hour) Finally moved onto the third FSI unit, and the opening dialogue. I really like the structure of this course, and the audio quality, which is very good considering when it was recorded. I'm trying to follow the FSI recommendation that material should be truly mastered before moving on. This makes it slightly tedious, but I can feel the benefits. I also reviewed some more Assimil lesssons, and they seemed slightly easier since using FSI. The Hungarian vowel harmony is really apparent now. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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