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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Rikyu-san Diglot Senior Member Denmark Joined 5339 days ago 213 posts - 413 votes  Speaks: Danish*, English Studies: German, French | Message 1 of 9 15 January 2010 at 11:05pm | IP Logged |
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I have rebooted my language learning efforts at the dawn of the new year. My target languages are still Mandarin, Japanese, German, French and Sanskrit.
Maybe I should call this my personal Self Annihiliation Challenge. But then again, maybe not. This is the menu: Sanskrit - the foundation of my language study. My wife is with me on this one. After a couple of months of incubation, I decided to place Sanskrit at the foundation of my language studies. The study of Sanskrit connects with my spiritual and professional life in many ways - Sanskrit being hailed as the most scientific language that we have. And I simply love the Devanagari script. Materials to be used: Thomas Egenes, "Introduction to Sanskrit vol 1 + 2". Sanskrit by CD by the American Sanskrit Institute. Atlas Courses by the American Sanskrit Institute. Learning goals for 2010: complete Egenes two volumes (vol. 1 this spring vol. 2 this autumn), the Sanskrit by CD course (this spring) and one or two Atlas Courses (this autumn). How to do it: Egenes books divide the content into relatively small segments - a little bit of grammar, a little bit of vocab, background info, exercises, letters in each lesson. Volume 1 consists of 18 chapters, a vocab list and a list of quotes from the Sanskrit litterature. One volume is supposed to be studied in one semester. Likewise with Volume 2. I will complete one lesson per week, make sure I memorize and can actively use ALL content in each lesson before the end of one learning week (which ends, for me, on Sundays). The Sanskrit by CD course is a huge course with lots of audio and written materials that give the basic structure of the language. I am currently listening to the alphabet section to get as good a pronounciation of the letters as possible. I would like to complete the Course and move on the their so-called Atlas Courses that continue their training with studies and chanting of selected verses from scriptures. Possible extras: sponsor one or more Spoken Sanskrit courses with a Sanskrit teacher and dabble in Sanskrit: An Appreciation without Apprehension by Bharat S. Shah. My longterm goal: I would like to be able to read the Gita, the Mahabharata (of which Gita is just a small part), the Ramayana, Patanjalis Yoga Sutras and the Isha Upanishad, to mention a few, in Sanskrit. I would also like to study Vedic Sanskrit at some point as well as being able to speak the language fluently. German and French: Two languages close to home. Of all my target languages, German will be the easiest for me to do - until I hit the ceiling of my school knowledge. From their it will be more challenging. I would like to be able to speak, read and write in these languages but it is most for the love of it and for travel. Materials to be used: Pimsleur I, II and III, both languages. FSI French and German Basic. I expect to add more stuff as I go along in order to practice reading, writing and speaking skills - podcasts, movies, conversational partners, etc. Learning Goals for 2010: Complete all the Pimsleurs. Be able to use all their vocab flawlessly with acceptable pronounciation. Complete one FSI but preferably both by the end of 2010. How to do it: Listen to one Pimsleur lesson in both languages daily. Rehearse the units. Actively use the language as part of my internal dialogue as I often do with English. By the time I am ready to move on to the FSI material, I will have to break it down into manageable bits. I have received some edited audio of the FSI German for which I am very grateful, and that will help me move through the whole course very fast. I might spend time help create edited audio for the FSI French to get the same speed boost there, too. My long-term goal: Being able to speak, write and understand German effortlessly in any situation the language is needed - at conferences, on vacation, when meeting Germans and French in Denmark. Have a lot of fun with it. Mandarin: I have many reasons for studying Mandarin. I would like to delve into Chinese philosophy and take my speaking and writing skills to a comfortable level in my life as a professional coach. I love the traditional hanzi and the fact that a deeper understanding of a word can often be derived from the components that make up the character. Material to be used: Pimsleur I, II and III. FSI Chinese. Remembering the Hanzi, traditional and simplified. Learning goals for 2010: Complete all 90 units of the Pimsleur. Go slowly but with consistent effort after that through FSI Mandarin until completed and mastered. Once I decide to put German and French on cruise pilot, Mandarin will be prioritized from where I have come to at that point. Complete RTH at that time, latest. A bit of realism is always appropriate but it is unacceptable for me to put Mandarin in hibernation. So small and consistent effort is key here. Longterm goals: to be able to progress into Classic Chinese and read the Confucian Analects and other important writings. To be able to coach, conduct business and lecture in Mandarin. To be able to be taught the guqin by a guqin master in Mandarin. Japanese - the language of the land of the rising sun. Many reasons for learning this language. My wife is with me on this one, domo arrigato gozaimasu. It is primarly the culture, the art and the spirituality that drives me towards the land of the rising sun. Materials to be used: Pimsleur Japanese I, II and III. Heisigs Remembering the Kanji 1, 2 and 3 and Remebering the Kana. From there I don't know yet but users on this forum have provided me with plenty to explore once I get through it. Learning goals for 2010: Complete the Pimsleurs this spring and learn the Hiragana and Katakana script as soon as possible. Take RTK once my Sanskrit studies allow me time to focus on more characters. Long-term goals: To be able to read Bashos haiku in Japanese with no need of a dictionary. My overall TAC wish for the five languages - all of the above done by the end of 2010. Edited by Rikyu-san on 18 January 2010 at 5:25pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Rikyu-san Diglot Senior Member Denmark Joined 5339 days ago 213 posts - 413 votes Speaks: Danish*, English Studies: German, French | Message 2 of 9 18 January 2010 at 5:24pm | IP Logged |
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Status after one week of TAC immersion:
Sanskrit. Goal: chaper one of Egenes "Introduction to Sanskrit vol. 1". Chapter completed (on track). Pimsleur German I. Goal: seven units. Completed unit 12- 18 (on track) Pimsleur French I. Goal: seven units. Completed unit 2-8 (on track). Pimsleur Japanese I. Goal: seven units. Completed unit 3-8 (almost on track, one behind, but that is OK). Pimsleur Mandarin: only in my dreams. Status: I completed most of my Sanskrit studies early in the week. This left me with plenty of time to learn the material and help memorizing it. Topics covered, among other things: roots, stems and endings (present indicative): gacchati and prrchati and the Sanskrit word for "and" (ca) as well as six vowels. There is also a beautiful introduction to the language and the course in the introductury chapter as well. Pimsleur German: I did a quick run-through of about 35 units late last year with several units per day. But even though the units themselves were in and of themselves relatively easy, remembering the nitty-gritty grammar details was made difficult by my rapid progresson. So I have started all over again, just to make sure I remember everything, and this time I take notes on my iPhone for quick review. I have surfed the Internet for audiobooks (hörbücher) in German and consider copying Doviende's example of reading Harry Potter und der Stein der Weisen this spring just for the fun of it and to get the t-shirt. Reading Audible's German site went OK - German is slowly beginning to change from a school subject to a living and useful language, at last. Sanskrit is said to be almost unbelievably complex and a real challenge to learn. And I agree. So pathways have to be found that makes it possible to learn it nonetheless, regardless of its complexity. I am therefore very grateful to have discovered Thomas Egenes' books which is written on the promise to break it down into more manageable bits. So far it seems to work for me. When I study Sanskrit the way I do, one chapter per week supported from time to time by audio from the "Sanskrit by CD course", and German at this point being a breeze, I have more time to concentrate on French, Japanese and, oh my, Mandarin. And that is, as they say, something else entirely. Late at night, before going to bed, my wife and I have begun to do one Pimsleur Japanese unit. Unit 1 to 5 went fairly well and the two of us have all ready fallen in love with the language. "Ah, hai, wakarimasu!" and "sukoshi hanashimasu" are two of our favourite expressions. Plenty of imput to the "You know you are a language nerd..." thread! But Unit 6, 7 and 8 were much more difficult. Got a more clear perspective on our difficulties after having finished the reading practices accompanying the lessons. They help make sense of the way language is used, and particularly the confusing use of particles: wa, ga, de, ni, mo, ka, no and to. Pimsleur French: Here the negations are what is causing me the most difficulty for me. And since I can't write it I am not able to take notes. So I have had to listen to some of the units more than once in order to get across a comfortable 90 % correct mark. Pimsleur Mandarin has been sleeping throughout the week. I am currently at unit 2. Mandarin is great fun - I really like the sounds, and my wife thinks I am sexy when I speak Mandarin (can one ask for more, then?). I am concerned about whether or not I can memorize the tones and pick up the often very subtle sounds that are difficult for me to hear clearly, especially without access to pinyin translations. FSI Chinese has a great pdf-file that teaches one to write in pinyin but I can't cope, or believe I can't cope, with both Pimsleur Mandarin and FSI Chinese at the same time. But maybe that is just a limitation in my thinking and not a "real" issue (that is, I might pick it up if I just get on with it). We'll see. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Rikyu-san Diglot Senior Member Denmark Joined 5339 days ago 213 posts - 413 votes Speaks: Danish*, English Studies: German, French | Message 3 of 9 25 January 2010 at 8:21pm | IP Logged |
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Status week two:
Sanskrit. Goal: chaper two of Egenes "Introduction to Sanskrit vol. 1". Chapter completed (on track). Listened to the vowel sounds of the Sanskrit alphabet from Sanskrit by CD and had some pretty powerful experiences. The resonance of the letters are absolutely amazing when they are pronounced correctly. And I had a Sanskrit nerdery victory: After having struggled with isolating the "r." sound and the "r.-" (I can't put the punctuation mark underneath the r and the dash above for the long sound", I finally made it. That was quite satisfying. Pimsleur German I. Goal: seven units. Completed unit 19-23 (behind) Pimsleur French I. Goal: seven units. Completed unit 9-23 (behind). Pimsleur Japanese I. Goal: seven units. Completed unit 9-10 (very much behind). Played around with Remembering the Kana and did two lessons but without the degree of concentration needed to benefit 100 %. Got a decent introduction to the system and now know, after having tried it, that it will indeed help me remembering the Kana. Pimsleur Mandarin. Goal: seven units. Finally got started and completed four lessons (behind). The week started out fine. The momentum from the first week carried on in the second week. On Thursday something happened (that had something to do with learning languages but was not part of my own process) that forced me to focus on other issues outside the language learning context, and it had a strong negative impact on my momentum. I ended up losing steam which is very unfortunate. I then had a tough weekend with professional coaching work, and even though I had anticipated in advance that it would be challenging and had accepted beforehand that I might not be able to do any language studies, because of the bleak Thursday not studying anything had much more impact. Losing one day is one thing - losing nearly four something else. Some thoughts on the different languages: it strikes me how relatively easy German and French is to me compared with Japanese and Mandarin. Mandarin and the tones and the almost backwards approach to sentence construction in Japanese, and the fact that most words bear no resemblance whatsoever to either Danish, English or German words, make this the biggest challenge. And there are sounds and thus sentences in Mandarin that I simply cannot understand. I do not have enough familiarity with the Pimsleur programs to decide whether I should ignore it for now and just move on or repeat it until I do pick it up. I tried to move ahead with Japanese after lesson six but it quickly became overwhelming. My concern is how I make the best use of my time. This makes me appreciate even more those of us who have accomplished in one or more languages - whether it is one or twenty-one. I salute you - and find comfort in this fact as I think that, if they can, so can I. Week three is clear to go without any language learning obstacles I know of. So once I get back on track I should make progress once again. My gut feeling tells me it will be a positive turning point - if I get back on track. I will try to take a few more steps towards rising up earlier which frees up more time for language studies. This will, if implemented, help me to spend more time on repeating difficult lessons without taking time from other projects. I just saw Professor Arguelles June 2009 video once again and find much inspiration in that. If I could finish my Pimsleurs, before the kids get up in the morning, or just three out of four, I could actually hear the French, Japanese and Mandarin lessons one more time during the day... hm... interesting... With yoga I would need to get up at three o'clock in the morning... hm... not likely, to say the least! So what IS more likely to happen...? Wait, I've got an idea... 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Rikyu-san Diglot Senior Member Denmark Joined 5339 days ago 213 posts - 413 votes Speaks: Danish*, English Studies: German, French | Message 4 of 9 02 February 2010 at 4:48pm | IP Logged |
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Status week 3:
Sanskrit: Completed chapter three of Thomas Egenes "Introduction to Sanskrit vol. 1". Listened to the consonants, sibilants and semi-vowel sounds of the Sanskrit alphabet from Sanskrit by CD. Both felt great. Pimsleur German I: Completed nine units - the last seven of Level I and the first two units of Level II. Pimsleur French I: Completed four units. Pimsleur Japanese I: My wife and I took a break from our Japanese studies, so I did just one unit for review. Pimsleur Mandarin I: Had a hard time with unit 4 and 5 but not time to review them and simply hammer them down until they stuck so just one unit this week, alas. How do I evaluate this? Is this a failure or a problem in any way, or is it a success? I have to choose my chriteria carefully when doing this evaluation. In quantitative terms, I did not meet my weekly goals, but I feel nonetheless that I have progressed nicely. I reached a major milestone. I did finish German I, but more importantly, during the week, German began to make sense to me - as a spoken and living language - in a way that it has never done before. I now feel that I can speak German, even if it still just a little and more or less limited to the Pimsleur vocabulary. But I consider it a milestone because that is a feeling that years of school study never gave me. The repetitions that are at the heart of the Pimsleur approach (that drive some crazy or even bore them to death) allowed my unconscious mind to decode the way the language "works", it seems. I sometimes listen to the Pimsleur German units on my iPhone without headphones. This means that everyone else in our apartment can follow along. My wife must have picked up a thing or two because as she surfed the Internet for information on camping sites in Austria, she discovered that she had read German without thinking about it. (She has, of course, many years of school education with German like I have, but, like most people, never "learned it". This might have changed for the better now). She called me in, and I read over her shoulders. Most of it made sense to us, not as a word for word translation but as living communication. By the way, she also thinks How To Learn Any Language is an awesome site. Edited by Rikyu-san on 02 February 2010 at 6:02pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Rikyu-san Diglot Senior Member Denmark Joined 5339 days ago 213 posts - 413 votes Speaks: Danish*, English Studies: German, French | Message 5 of 9 09 February 2010 at 4:41pm | IP Logged |
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Status week 4 (up until Sunday February 7th 2009)
Sanskrit: Completed chapter four of Thomas Egenes "Introduction to Sanskrit vol. 1". Pimsleur German I: Once again completed nine units - ended at Level II lesson ll. In additation I did FSI German Basic Unit 1 and 2 (6 tapes). Pimsleur French I: Six units. Pimsleur Japanese I: One Unit (Unit 11). Pimsleur Mandarin I: Two units (Unit 3 + 4, for review). A new language: FSI Swedish: Unit 1, 2 and 3. The Ramayana (abridged, English): 1 out of 20 mp3 files. German: Overall, I progress nicely in German. The learnings are solidfying, and I feel even more so that German is now a language I can use. Going through the whole of Level I one more time has been a very wise investment. French:With the French course, I have now passed Unit 22, and like the German course, instructions are now more and more in French. That is challenging for me as my French is still not strong enough. I will complete Level I this week and will decide next week if I should go back and listen to them all over again. If this could build up muscle for me like it seemed to have done for my German, that might be well-worth it. A more solid foundation builds a stronger house. Swedish: I added another language this week, part out of curiosity, part out of changes in my plans as a professional. My curiosity for the Nordic languages overcame me, and I downloaded the complete FSI Swedish course, put it on my iPhone and couldn't prevent myself from listening to them. I plan to do one unit per day for a while, possibly running through the whole programme several times. It is about 40 minutes per day, sixteen units, and could, in theory, be completed in this way in a little more than two weeks. Swedish is similar to Danish, and I have several tonnes of exposure to Swedish through movies and TV as a child. Before I began this course I couldn't speak Swedish. It is now changing. I will get more professional relations with Swedes in the future, so this is careeer move that combines my passion for psychology and the Nordic countries. If I get to a good-enough-level of Swedish I might move on to Norwegian. But this Nordic journey is a journey of its own, so for now Swedish will be the only language I will concentrate on. Sanskrit: The Ramayana epic is one of the gems of world litterature. I bought a slightly abridged version of it in English from her: The Ramayana MP3 CD. The plan is to listen to one MP3 file per day which is the same as the old cassette tapes, each 45 minutes in length. I do this while my children are going through their own daily reading practice so it is very "hyggeligt". And as for the Sanskrit course I am following, I can now understand sentences like "putrah mrgan na smaratnti" and "kutra asvah ca gajah ca gacchanti" and translate sentences like "you go to the horse" and "the elephants do not remember." Japanese and Mandarin: They are both giving me a hard time. I am considering what to do - maybe I have to wait until later, but we'll see. I will consider to pause one of them, re-do them or wait until later. I know that I can learn them. Overall a very satisfying week even though the oriental languages are lagging behind. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Rikyu-san Diglot Senior Member Denmark Joined 5339 days ago 213 posts - 413 votes Speaks: Danish*, English Studies: German, French | Message 6 of 9 09 February 2010 at 9:38pm | IP Logged |
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I have found a solution to my "oriental languages problem".
I will do only two units of Pimsleur Japanese and Pimsleur Mandarin per week, letting it flow gently in the background while I focus on German and French and have fun with the Swedish language. My one-lesson-of-Sanskrit-per-week schedule with Sanskrit works very well. One week is plenty of time and I progress nicely. My guess is that a similar approach will work for Japanese and Mandarin. It will give me time to become familiar with the languages. Two units per week may not sound like much but it will allow me to complete Level I in both languages at a leisurely pace. Once all 30 units are completed in this way I will have quite a good grasp of both Japanese and Mandarin. At that point I could choose to do all 30 units in both languages one more time, solidifying what I have learned even more. Depending on my schedule and how far I have come with French, German and Swedish, I could just continue with my two-lessons-a-week schedule all the way through Level II and do the 30 units of Level II of both languages in 30 days afterwards, solidifying everything even further. And perhaps do the same for Level III. In this way I would have satisfied my wish to reach "solid intermediate" in German, French and Swedish, and having built a powerful foundation in Mandarin and Japanese. Lots og quantity but without sacrificing quality. Giving up is not an option. Edited by Rikyu-san on 09 February 2010 at 9:46pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Rikyu-san Diglot Senior Member Denmark Joined 5339 days ago 213 posts - 413 votes Speaks: Danish*, English Studies: German, French | Message 7 of 9 15 February 2010 at 9:53pm | IP Logged |
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Sanskrit: Completed chapter five of Thomas Egenes "Introduction to Sanskrit vol. 1". Learned about the Instrumental and Dative cases, among other things. Read a little bit of chapter six simply out of curiosity.
German: Completed 12 units. Ended at German II unit 23. Listened to "Die Prinzessin auf der Erbse" from a free German audiobook site (great fun). French: Seven units. Ended at French I unit 29. Japanese: Went back to basics with a huge sigh of relief. Two units. Mandarin: Went back to basics, with another huge sigh of relief. One unit. FSI Swedish: Unit 4-9. The Ramayana (abridged, English): 10 mp3 files (45 minutes each). Ended at "tape" 11, with nine to go. The highlight of the week came last Monday when I imagined having a conversation with two German owners of a camping site. We talked about various subjects, even strange ones like the value of getting electrical power while being off-grid(!), and I noticed that the sentences I produced came out sometimes relatively fluently, sometimes not, but clear signs of how far I have progressed allready. 50 lessons of Pimsleur and 2 units of FSI German have done what four years of German classes in school never did. I am not sure that the sentences I produced were 100 % correct, but I am quite sure that real conversational partners would have understood me perfectly. Experiences like that gives me "blood on the tooth", as we say in Denmark. And I will need that in order to deal with my lagging target languages - Mandarin, Japanese and now also French... During the week I found a solution to my "Asian language problem" and decided to start all over again. With Mandarin and Japanase on very slow speed, I had more time to concentrate on the other four languages. However, I discovered a basic fault in the way I used the Pimsleurs, as well as basic strengths, that others might find useful, so here is what I found: A note on how to use the Pimsleurs more effectively: I have noticed that the way I know that I have truly learned a part of the Pimsleur program is my ability to produce the required sentences in a certain way. The sentence arrives without effort in my consciousness ready to be spoken - without translation from Danish or English to, say, German, without any conscious thinking, and without any hesitation or delay. I guess this is what is meant by having the sentences "at the tip of one's tongue". Most German sentences are like that, but not all. In French, that degree of readiness or unconscious competence is markedly lower, and in Japanese and Mandarin lower still. However, it is an uneven affair, like a Tour de France mountain stage graph. Some sentences are easier than others, some slightly harder, and some either incomprenhensible or too hard to produce. In some cases this results in mild doubt, in others mild confusion, in others strong confusion and in the rest nothing emerges. To nuance this even further, I may experience complete clarity - at-the-tip-of-my-tongueness - with parts of the sentence and any of the others (mild to strong confusion etc.) for the rest of it. This, I guess, is key for me in order to know to what extent I am on the right track. I am only one lesson from having completed French I but I have decided that my competence, based on a careful observation of the way I respond to the prompts during the units, that I will start all over again, beginning with unit 1, once I have completed Unit 30. If I experience too much confusion or lack of ability to produce the required sentences I will choose among the following options: Move on to the next unit (because I judge that the problem will be solved through more practice), go back and listen to the unit once again, isolate the difficult parts and throw them into an SRS, get help to see the difficult sentence written or whatever else will get me past the impasse. I had a lot of fun with FSI Swedish Basic Course. There will be plenty for me to study in depth when I go through the course a couple of more times this spring, and I need extensive conversational practice in order to "hammer in" the various important differences between Danish and Swedish. The FSI Swedish is detailed enough to make me see the many similarities between our languages as well as the differences. I need to know where we express the same ideas in the same way and where we don't. Being able to speak it is now within reach, and my respect for the language and its people are growing daily. With Japanese I had the delightful experience of listening to the first two units, and that gave me a nice aha erlebnis. I simply understood in a more intuitive way how even the most basic sentences are constructed, for example how "desu" or "jaarimasen" works - a sign that hopefully leads to the kind of clarity and tip-of-the-tongueness I aim for and have achieved in German. With Mandarin I didn't register anything unusual. The problems with Japanese and Mandarin er different, though. With Japanese it is the unusual sentence construction. With Mandarin it is simply hearing what is being said. So I decided to listen through the pronounciation and romanization modules of FSI Chinese in order to up the ante. This week I will reach four milestones: Complete Pimsleur German II, complete FSI Swedish, begin to read Sanskrit written in Devanagari and translate English sentences into Sanskrit by using the Devanagari script, and complete the Ramayana. I will move slowly with Japanese and Mandarin and hope to increase the speed later on, except for speeding through the pronounciation modules of FSI Chinese. French will be reviewed one or two units per day and in order to make room for that I will restrain myself and simply log one Pimsleur German unit per day. Edited by Rikyu-san on 15 February 2010 at 9:59pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Rikyu-san Diglot Senior Member Denmark Joined 5339 days ago 213 posts - 413 votes Speaks: Danish*, English Studies: German, French | Message 8 of 9 13 January 2011 at 2:41am | IP Logged |
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I think I'll have to finish the TAC for 2010 so here we go:
Things did not turn out as I had planned. Too many distractions came along, and my daugther became seriously ill twice. Not good for language learning (and anything else for that matter), but we survived. I did complete the Pimsleur German I, II and III but only parts of the others. Got stuck with the Devanagari script (and did not find the time to cross this hurdle) but had some very powerful, deeply resonating experiences with Sanskrit along the way, nonetheless. My mind opened itself up to Japanese and Mandarin, and French became a language I could relate to, for the first time in my life. I fared even better with Swedish and even had my first full-blown Swedish conversation at a reasonably rapid conversational speed. Thus, I didn't achieve all of my end goals but I did achieve some of the sub-goals, which, when things were as they were, is somewhat gratifying. During the year I discovered the Trivium - or what was once known as the "liberal arts education", liberal in the sense "liberating" and not in the modern politically loaded sense. For various reasons I decided to make mastery of the Trivium the key priority of my studies. I feel a need to master the Trivium and as I progress my ability to learn languages also seems to go up. Grammar, in the Trivium, is more than just the grammar of languages. The grammar of languages is called Specific Grammar, and this is contrasted with General Grammer which is about the structure of all knowledge. Cloesely related to both are the key terms subject and predicate (what is this subject and what characteristics does it have and what does it not have). I experience a great deal of increased precision in my thinking as a result of this and since I have not completed this journey I can expect that more good stuff will happen in the months and years to come. With both the Trivium and both ancient and modern languages, and with the intention to learn how to learn any subject and any language, I feel I am establishing a small-scale advanced academy for higher learning at home for myself and my family. For 2011 I will have to create a different TAC. I have to expect that I will be interrupted time and time and time again so I should tackle only a few languages - enough to satisfy my curiosity but no more than I can handle when interruptions occur. I will decide on what languages to focus on and how I will go about it: * I will have to reduce the number of languages I focus on * One of my goals will be to try out different approaches (Fluent in 3 months, FLR, the sentence method, word lists etc.) to find out how I learn languages in the most efficient way * I will need to study English as well, on occasion, in order to remove uncertainties and embarrising mistakes, in my writing as well as in speaking. * I will also have to find out when I can add Ancient Greek and Old Norse to the mix. My wife may decide to study at the University of Copenhagen, and if she decides to do it, Ancient Greek, Old Norse and Sanskrit will be part of her studies, and this will of course tempt me to follow her. If only time could slow down... All in all I could only spend a couple of months on serious language studies and feel neither disgruntled nor exuberant about my achievements. I accept my ambitious and impatient nature, my priorities (family, work, languages, in this order), and that when the going gets tough (one of the side effects of my daughter's medication is... death) I have to get going, tough or not, love deeply, and do what I have to do. TACs, then, just have to wait until another day. I will end this post with a nice Latin sentence adapted from my (Danish) Latin book, Via Latina: In villa Terentiae multae ancillae operosae sunt. Where I once felt Latin was absolutely useless and so dustfilled that I could not breathe in its vicinity, I know find it absolutely priceless and remarkably easy to understand. This is a good sign for things to come. This completes my TAC 2010. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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