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TAC ’10 - Slacker’s 9-lang. all Pimsleur | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
 Slacker Diglot Pro Member United States Joined 5455 days ago 62 posts - 99 votes  Speaks: Spanish, English Studies: German, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, Arabic (classical) Personal Language Map | Message 1 of 38 22 December 2009 at 5:18am | IP Logged | |||||
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The Plan:
Complete each of the 9 "Comprehensive" Pimsleur courses (levels I, II, III, and sometimes IV) for all currently available languages except English and Spanish by X-mas 2010. The Reason: Neat party trick. Languages and Starting Points: - Arabic (Eastern): Other than being able to read the script and knowing a few words, no functional ability. - Chinese (Mandarin): I know "Ni Hao" and "Shei-shei"... that's about it. - French: I've watched about 3 episodes of the PBS series "French in Action"... Mireille's too distracting. - German: I've got no idea what German people are saying when they talk. - Hebrew: Other than "Shalom!" and "kibbutz" I have no knowledge of the 'brew. - Italian: I took a semester and a half in college about 15 years ago and have visited Italy a couple times. I can kind of understand it when I see it written, since I know Spanish, but my speaking is limited to pronouncing Spanish with an over-emphasized stereotypical accent and a lot of hand gestures. (BTW, my college grades were "D" in Italian 101 and "W" in 102)... so, not quite zero, but pretty close. - Japanese: I love Japanese! But its really difficult to read. I took one semester at a community college about a decade ago, but didn't/couldn't continue. - Portuguese (Brazilian): Probably as close to Spanish (which I can speak fairly well), and I have already started on this course a while ago; currently I'm on Pimsleur Comprehensive Portuguese II, lesson 12. - Russian: I took a little more than a year of Russian in college back when the USSR still existed; my ability faded about as quickly as the Soviet Empire. The only thing I remember are most of the words to the song "podmoskovnye vechera"... but it only sounds good after a lot of vodka. The Method: My current plan, to which I have given about two hours thought, so I reserve the right to amend it as needed, is to do two languages at a time, staggered. This way, I'm not doing the exact same materials in both languages at the same time, which would be confusing and could fry my brain. I think doing one "easy" language (Portuguese, Italian, French) and one "hard" (the rest) at a time would be good. For starters I'll continue where I'm at with Portuguese and start with German. Not too hard, not too easy! ...Right? It'll be like training for a marathon, except without all the sweat and shin splints. Some quick number crunching has shown that this would take, at the fastest, about 400+ hours, or about 10 US work week (5 days x 8 hours). However, that would be the total time to just "listen" to each of the lessons once. While that might work for Portuguese and Italian, I think I'll probably have to repeat the lessons of the other languages a couple times. Why Pimsleur? Well, for starters because I have immediate access to the Portuguese course (obviously) and the German course. Also, my intent isn't to be a scholar in any of these languages, but merely to be able to hold a very basic level conversation. I'm pretty lazy and get bored easily, and the thought of studying a book, doing grammar exercises, using flashcards, etc. makes me want to flip on the TV and drink some beer. Also, I hate being the American tourist that goes places and "translates" by speaking English slower and louder. I've never been much of a "specialist" and have always preferred to be a mile wide and an inch deep... which I just happened to look up in the Urban Dictionary, which says "Impressive at first but with experience, found to be stupid or unimaginative." Awesome! I'll just have to remember to not stick around much longer than the first impression. -Slacker 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Quabazaa Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5611 days ago 414 posts - 543 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German, French Studies: Japanese, Korean, Maori, Scottish Gaelic, Arabic (Levantine), Arabic (Egyptian), Arabic (Written) | Message 2 of 38 22 December 2009 at 4:24pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Oh man, your post made me laugh :) Especially because I recognise myself in it! I always felt like the eternal dabbler in languages, thank the gods I married a foreign speaker! If you haven't already done it, I totally recommend it :P The perfect method for slackers: your very own native speaker who speaks on demand! :D
How long per day do you think you will spend on it? How do you keep yourself listening? Do you plan to do something else while you are listening? I really like your ambition though, I wish you all the best :) I'm amazed you're going to do this through Pimsleur, bit hey whatever works! Personally I would get bored with it, I much prefer say, podcasts. Hehe I'm sure you're gonna be a hit at parties in no time XD Power to slackers everywhere! Edited by Quabazaa on 22 December 2009 at 4:25pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Slacker Diglot Pro Member United States Joined 5455 days ago 62 posts - 99 votes Speaks: Spanish, English Studies: German, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, Arabic (classical) Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 38 24 December 2009 at 5:19am | IP Logged | |||||
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Quabazaa,
Hey! Thanks for the encouragement, unfortunately, work and other life commitments have gotten the better of me and I've had to drop out of this TAC thing... it was fun while it lasted! Ok, I'm kidding, it's only been like two days, but still, I figure that once I get past the "quitting stage" it should all be pretty easy, right? Anyway, to answer your questions: How long per day do you think you'll spend on it? --- Well, on work days I have about a 50 minute commute each way, which gives me time to do the 30 minute Portuguese program 1.5 times in the morning, and the 20 minute German program at least twice in the afternoons (sorry NPR, you'll have to wait until 2011). Additionally, my "plan" is to repeat each lesson as needed to actually get it... much harder for German than it is for Portuguese. How do you keep yourself listening?--- Actually, "listening" isn't the problem, the problem is paying attention. I've found in the last couple days that I'm pretty focused in the mornings, but after work its harder to concentrate since I'm thinking about work and what I'm going to do when I get home. Perhaps I should swap out and do German (harder for me) in the mornings and Portuguese (easier for me) in the evenings? Weekends or free time might be all about review, if needed, or new lessons if things are going well. Do you plan to do something else while you are listening?--- Funny that you should mention it, a friend of mine "challenged" me to train for an actual foot-in-front-of- other-foot style marathon in April, so... I expect I'll be doing a lot of running in the coming months. Great time to also listen to some Pimsleur Portuguese and German! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Woodpecker Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5813 days ago 351 posts - 590 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Arabic (Egyptian) Studies: Arabic (classical) | Message 4 of 38 24 December 2009 at 6:11am | IP Logged | |||||
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This is a wildly entertaining project, and I intend to hold you to it.
My prediction is that at somewhere around the fourth language, continually having the same English cues starts to fry your brain and you end up speaking some strange tonal language with an I-E vocabulary and an abjad script which no one else can comprehend*. *The language, not the script. Freaking English... 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Warp3 Senior Member United States forum_posts.asp?TID= Joined 5537 days ago 1419 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean, Japanese | Message 5 of 38 24 December 2009 at 6:33am | IP Logged | |||||
This is what I've been doing with Pimsleur Korean and Spanish. Most of the Korean units have taken me 3 passes to feel "comfortable" with them. Spanish was 1-pass per unit initially (having some prior experience with Spanish helped a ton), but I am up to 2-passes per unit now which works well for that language.
This is the main reason I always schedule the first pass of a new Korean lesson for my morning commute, not the afternoon one. I would definitely agree with putting the more difficult language into the time slot where you feel more alert. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Slacker Diglot Pro Member United States Joined 5455 days ago 62 posts - 99 votes Speaks: Spanish, English Studies: German, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, Arabic (classical) Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 38 24 December 2009 at 4:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks Woodpecker,
I had to look up "abjad script" ...good Dennis Miller factor on that one! When I invent my own language, I'm going to use the Javanese script, it just looks brutal: http://www.omniglot.com/writing/javanese.htm ...I'm definitely on the watch for brain-fry. Staggering the two languages by about half seems to be working ok for now, the Portuguese is prompting me to say things like "I can't go to the movies with you tonight because I'm leaving early tomorrow on vacation in Bahia," While the German is prompting me for "Excuse me, where's Goethe Street?" 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Slacker Diglot Pro Member United States Joined 5455 days ago 62 posts - 99 votes Speaks: Spanish, English Studies: German, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, Arabic (classical) Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 38 28 December 2009 at 4:09am | IP Logged | |||||
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WEEK 1 - Pimsleur Portuguese, Level II, Lesson 17 and Pimsleur German, Level I, Lesson 7
Well, thanks to a lot of holiday vehicular travel time, I've been able to do Portuguese 2.12 through 2.17 as well as German 1.1 through 1.7 this week. As mentioned above, the German is totally new to me, so I'm doing each lesson at least twice, and sometimes three or more times, focusing especially on pronunciation. Fun stuff! Portuguese is rolling along with no problems. -Slacker 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| apparition Octoglot Senior Member United States Joined 6652 days ago 600 posts - 667 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), French, Arabic (Iraqi), Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Pashto | Message 8 of 38 28 December 2009 at 4:27am | IP Logged | |||||
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I like this. Pimsleur always has a way of putting me to sleep (I need visuals!), but good luck!
2 persons have voted this message useful |
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