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Linguistic Exploration: TAC 2011 Team Ÿ | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| marrubizko Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5524 days ago 21 posts - 26 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Italian | Message 1 of 26 21 September 2010 at 2:19am | IP Logged | |||||
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EDIT: This post is very outdated. As I only had a few posts, however, I decided to use the same log for my TAC
2011. Please see farther down the page for where that starts. Hi! So, I've started language logs on here before but have never really stuck with it. I am trying again because my friend finally convinced me to start a new one. As usual, my big issue is going to be motivation. I generally start studying languages and, after a couple weeks, get bored or frustrated and quit. My languages may change in the next few weeks, but, as of now, I am studying French, Spanish, Italian, Greek, and Basque. FRENCH: I am mostly building on my previous knowledge of French, because I have taken five years of French and my mom is a French professor. I'm not taking French at school this year, though, so I have to do it all on my own. I am using Ultimate French, which I am borrowing from my friend, and I also have access to the textbooks my mom is using in her classes, so I might try using those a little. I am also using Anki, which I am sort of addicted to now. I try to practice my French whenever I can by journaling in French, watching movies in French, reading stories in French, or speaking in French with my mom. SPANISH: I took Spanish for 8 years at school, but I never actually learned much. After that, I was really sick of it, but now I think I want to learn it. I have a Teach Yourself Spanish book that I bought over the summer. I haven't actually used it much, but I will probably start using it more. I'm using Anki for vocabulary. Other than that, I don't really have any other materials at this point. ITALIAN: I started Italian about a year ago but stopped studying it after a couple weeks. This time I am really hoping to actually keep studying it, because I think it is a very pretty and interesting language. My mom also speaks Italian, so hopefully if/when I get to the point where I can have conversations in it, she can help me improve. I have "Italian: A Self-Teaching Guide," which I did a few lessons in when I tried to learn Italian before and plan to continue using now. I will be using Anki for vocabulary, as well. GREEK: I have always been interested in Greek, but I am mostly learning it because my friend is making me. He has converted our 30 minute lunch period into a Greek class, giving my friends and me homework, tests, and grades. The only real materials I have are the worksheets and packets that he gives us and a Greek dictionary. Like all my other languages, I will be using Anki for vocabulary. BASQUE: This is the language that is most likely to change in the coming weeks. I originally got interested in it because I spent some time at my friend's grandparents' house over the summer. Her grandfather is Basque, so I had a very limited exposure to the language while I was there and found it really interesting. Then, last week, my friend sent me a link to a website for learning Basque, and I kind of got hooked. I want to give it a try, but considering it is a difficult language and I already have four other languages to study (on top of school and college applications), I don't know how long I will continue with it. I don't really have any materials for it yet but will, once again, be using Anki for vocabulary. So, yeah. I think that's pretty much everything and if it's not, I will add more later. ~Megan EDIT: This post is very outdated. As I only had a few posts, however, I decided to use the same log for my TAC 2011. Please see farther down the page for where that starts. Edited by marrubizko on 27 December 2010 at 4:34am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6142 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 3 of 26 21 September 2010 at 2:46am | IP Logged | |||||
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Yay, I'm a cool friend! I can cook somewhat, when I have recipes to follow that is. My mother and grandmother are both amazing (Greek) chefs though. :)
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6142 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 5 of 26 21 September 2010 at 3:21am | IP Logged | |||||
I love grilled octopus. ΧΤΑΠΟΔΙ!!! In the little village where my family lives in Greece I always like taking pictures of the rows of tentacles hanging outside the restaurants. I'm always very tempted to steal a tentacle and take it home for my grandmother to cook. :) I don't really watch many movies or TV, foreign or otherwise, so I can't really help you in terms of your movie pursuits. I could ask my grandparents though, who live in Greece for half of the year. They *might* know of something, but from what I've seen while I'm there in the summer, Greek programming is not all that great. Yes, I have been wanting to get my friends to learn Greek for a while, so finally I've gotten three people to take me up on the offer under the premises of sharing my food and a potential trip with me to Greece next summer. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| marrubizko Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5524 days ago 21 posts - 26 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Italian | Message 6 of 26 22 September 2010 at 2:22am | IP Logged | |||||
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Hi again!
So, it's really only been two days of official studying, but so far my language studies are going really well. Yesterday I was supposed to do Basque and French. I never got around to doing Basque (I'm still figuring out what resources I'm using for that...), apart from doing Anki reviews for it. I did do two French lessons, though. Admittedly, they were pretty easy ones, but it's good review for me, especially considering I'm not in French at school this year. Today I am supposed to do Italian and Greek. During my free period I found an Italian lesson online and did that, and I did part of one from my Italian book when I got home. We had our little Greek class during lunch, so I got to practice some stuff with the alphabet and pronunciation. I plan to work on that more tonight. I also did lots of Anki reviews today and added a ton of words for Italian. Tomorrow will be Spanish and French. I'm not thrilled about having two very similar languages on the same day, but with my current study plan, it had to happen at some point during my schedule. Ciao! ~Megan 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| marrubizko Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5524 days ago 21 posts - 26 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Italian | Message 7 of 26 23 September 2010 at 5:31am | IP Logged | |||||
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Hola!
So today is Spanish and French, which is exciting. I haven't gotten a chance to do it yet, though, because I haven't been feeling very well and I also have a two hour long online SAT class on Wednesdays and Sundays. I think I am going to do both of them as soon as I finish posting this, though. I actually did both my Italian and my Greek yesterday! It was exciting, because a lot of times when I've studied languages in the past, I was already slacking off and losing motivation at this point, which I realize is really pathetic. I finished them both early, so I did some French. Here is basically what I did: ITALIAN: I did a lesson on some website that I found on my phone while I was at school, because I didn't have my book with me. When I got home I did a lesson in my book, and added a bunch of vocabulary into Anki. GREEK: I mostly just studied the alphabet. I made flashcards in Anki for the letters, their names, and their English equivalents. It was a little different from just normal vocabulary, but it's helping. We have a test on it tomorrow so I need to make sure I know it well by lunch. FRENCH: I did one lesson in Ultimate French and put the vocabulary into Anki. I also did the first unit in Espaces, the text book that is being used in one of my mom's French classes. This particular class is a beginning college level French course, so it wasn't much of a challenge, but, like the stuff I'm doing in Ultimate French, it's good review. The exercises were really unhelpful because it's the teacher's edition and has all the answers in it. I did find it somewhat useful, though. There was also some interesting vocabulary that I hadn't heard before. Oh, and my friend suggested that I put my language schedule in here, so here it is: Monday: French, Basque, Anki Reviews Tuesday: Italian, Greek, Anki Reviews Wednesday: Spanish, French, Anki Reviews Thursday: Greek, Italian, Anki Reviews Friday: ; Optional study of any language, Anki Reviews Saturday: Basque, Spanish, Anki Reviews Sunday: ; Optional study of any language, Anki Reviews The first language is the one I am focusing on that day. The second is the one that I will work on a little but more for practice and expanding my vocabulary than trying to learn a bunch of grammar or other things like that. Friday evenings are when I finally get to relax after a stressful week of school and Sundays are usually when I do most of my homework for the weekend, so I have left those days as optional study days for any of my languages. So, I think that's everything. I'm off to do my Spanish! ~Megan 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| marrubizko Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5524 days ago 21 posts - 26 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Italian | Message 8 of 26 27 December 2010 at 5:08am | IP Logged | |||||
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Note: TAC 2011 Log starts here.
So, I have always been extremely interested in languages, but almost every time I start studying them on my own I lose motivation quickly and eventually just give up completely. I also see so many interesting languages that I really want to study and end up trying to do too much. I am hoping that participating in TAC 2011 will help keep me motivated and interested. I will, however, have several obstacles: in January and February I have about ten college applications due, in May I will be graduating, in the fall I will be starting college, and, on top of all of this, there is a small possibility that my family will be moving to a currently unknown state at some point during the next year. Hopefully being in TAC will help me stay focused and motivated through all of this, though. To avoid my problem of trying to learn too many languages at once and only sticking with them for very short bursts, I have decided to stick with two main languages - French and Italian. FRENCH French will be my main focus language. I have taken five years of French in school and my mother is a French professor, so I already have a pretty solid foundation in this. I am not currently taking it in school, and I don't feel I am near the level where I would like to be, though, so I have chosen to focus on this. I am also considering taking the AP exam in May, even though I haven't taken the AP class, so I want to do a lot of practice to prepare for that. Right now I am at around level B2 on the CEFR scale, and I guess I would like to reach around C1. Materials: More details on this will be provided later, as I am not currently at home and therefore am unable to look at precise book titles and all of that. I have a few books, though. I'll also be using Anki for vocabulary. In addition, my French teacher from last year may be starting a small study group for a few of the students who took French 4 last year but did not continue on to AP French this year. ITALIAN I will not be focusing as much on Italian as I will be on French, but I would still like to make a lot of progress in this language in 2011. I love the language and have begun studying it several times but have always lost motivation and ended up quitting. I am at a very beginning level at the moment, but would like to make as much progress as I can in the coming year. I will probably come up with more specific goals in the near future, but at the moment I am unsure. I am thinking I would like to be somewhere around B1 or B2 on the CEFR scale. Materials: As with French, more details on this will come later. I have a book, though. As of right now, that's about it. I plan on getting some more, though. OTHERS There are a LOT of other languages I would like to work on, so there is a chance that I will add another at a later date, after I have seen what I can handle along with all the other stuff that will be going on this year. For now, though, I am sticking to these two with the hope that limiting myself will prevent me from getting burned out and losing motivation quickly, as I have often done in the past. ~Megan 1 person has voted this message useful |
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