Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6083 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin
| Message 1 of 292 14 December 2011 at 9:50am | IP Logged |
It's time to start with a clean slate, welcome to my TAC log 2012! I'm going to try to improve on my learning mistakes from 2011 but first,
Where I am now and my goals for 2012:
TURKISH
This is my new language. I'm starting at zero. EDIT: this goal was dropped in 2012
FRENCH
I've been actively studying French on my own for 15 months. I don't have anyone to speak with so my speaking is slow and sometimes I can't even finish a sentence. EDIT: TAC 2013 starts on page 16.
JAPANESE
My Japanese has got so many holes it's a nice block of Swiss cheese. I've been studying on my own, off and on since 2002. There have been years in between where I haven't studied at all. It's about time for another booster! Goal: I'd like to revise basic kanji and basic speaking/writing skills, and basically have fun, as you'll soon see... EDIT: this goal was dropped in 2012
EDIT: MANDARIN
I started Mandarin Oct 20, 2013, Page 36.
GERMAN
German is my best language but I don't do enough advanced work and it tends to slip. My main goal is to finish the "Hueber" book. After that I'll be right as rain.
Edited by Sunja on 04 November 2013 at 9:53am
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Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6083 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin
| Message 2 of 292 14 December 2011 at 9:58am | IP Logged |
Here's a current list of links and materials that I've been dabbling in over the past month. I plan to get Assimil for Turkish -- hopefully in January-February.
TURKISH
Tae Kim'ji Japonca Grameri Sitesi (Japanese-Turkish)
"The Grooves" CD (a funny little CD where I can learn numbers and "how do you do" to pseudo-Turkish music)
Masaldinle.com (audio and scripts! Lots of material!)
Critical Language Series (Excellent introduction to word order -- but unfortunately only one lesson)
"Lernissimo"(touristy-Turkish)
Sprachkurs Türkisch: Schnell & Intensiv
Apprendre le Turc (French-Turkish with Turkish audio and quizes)
FRENCH
Using French (Assimil) (this is what I'm currently using to activate my speaking skills)
Tout est sous contrôle
(read by Jean-Luc Piningre von Sonatine and written by Hugh Laurie)
Bilbo le Hobbit
JAPANESE
インターラクティブ聴解クイズ レベル2の使い方 "interactive listening comprehension quiz"
Tatoeba (This is where I'm getting my sentence material for Anki)
日本語を話そう! シャドーイング 初-中級編 (Can still be found at Yesasia. This is what I'm using now as a review)
Reading Japanese with a Smile stories taken from "Shukan Asahi" - very amusing!
Edit: 27-DEc, added the Japanese Coscom link. I'm doing the worksheets again..
Edit: took out the coscom link. Worksheets are no longer free :( I can't find them.
edit: adding great link that I can't believe still works: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=12910&PN=0&TPN=18
Edited by Sunja on 09 April 2013 at 11:26am
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Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6083 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin
| Message 3 of 292 14 December 2011 at 10:30am | IP Logged |
We all make these mistakes and I normally don't give myself a hard time because I work and have a family, but if I want to get better it's time to face the music.
MISTAKE #1. I study less than I actually think I do.
Solution: keep track of hours, minutes
MISTAKE #2 I overrate myself and set goals too high.
yep. I've been doing this one for years. But I've made improvements so I'm not complaining too much.
Solution: keep setting those high goals, but keep better track of learning progress so the goals won't be so out-of-proportion
MISTAKE #3
too many materials, too much "switching". I quit too soon. This is the most noticable mistake of 2011. For every week I'd bought something new for French! This was a lot of fun and kept me super motivated, but my skills didn't improve much beyond reading.
MISTAKE#4
too much time spent reading in the forum -- and googling.
Solution: Keeping track of my hours should help. In 2011 I started logging in every day/every two days? Bad mistake. I may have to get a new egg-timer...
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fortheo Senior Member United States Joined 5034 days ago 187 posts - 222 votes Studies: French
| Message 4 of 292 16 December 2011 at 10:08am | IP Logged |
I wish you the best of luck with your studies!
That interactive listening website for Japanese is really neat, i might use that in the future.
I think we have all made those same mistakes that you noted. The fact that you recognize them is good, now you can advance onwards :)
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g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5980 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German
| Message 5 of 292 16 December 2011 at 9:10pm | IP Logged |
I'm not sure if I can relate to mistake #1 but I am definitely guilty as charged on the others. I am planning to pick one or two key texts and stick with them for an extended period of time to kick off my TAC 2012. The dilemma I have now though is which ones to go for!
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Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6083 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin
| Message 6 of 292 16 December 2011 at 11:02pm | IP Logged |
fortheo wrote:
The fact that you recognize them is good, now you can advance onwards :) |
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Thank you and yes, I agree completely. I almost wish I hadn't made that post, though. Now I have "MISTAKES" hanging over my head for the whole year (lol)
g-bod wrote:
I am planning to pick one or two key texts and stick with them for an extended period of time to kick off my TAC 2012. The dilemma I have now though is which ones to go for! |
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I also had a hard time choosing! I picked, 日本語を話そう! シャドーイング 初-中級編, because it's the closest thing I have to Assimil. There's 10 sections in 1-9 (I think) Units. The mini-dialogues start out short and I can follow them easily.
That said, here's what I did this past week. I have to work tomorrow so I probably won't study again until Sunday.
listen and/or repeat Japanese "Let's Speak Japanese..." - 3,10
copy/write from Unit 1 ユニット「-」セクッション「-~ 十」 - 4,2
listen and/or repeat Using French, "Aujourd'hui en France" - 1,10
copy/write French - 0
outdoor walking, shadowing French - 1,0
ANKI, adding new entries, French, Japanese, Turkish sentences - 2,34
So about 12 hours since Monday isn't much, but it's a start. I'll shoot for 14 hours next week. That's about all I can manage for now.
I haven't calculated the time spent -reviewing- the 709 Anki entries. That's the only thing I'm doing for Turkish right now. I start with a Japanese sentence (usually an example sentence of a kanji I need to memorize) and I find the turkish and French translations through Tatoeba. I don't know if this helps but it's fun.
Speaking of fun, I made my first batch of 納豆 today. I carefully followed a tutorial in the internet and viola! I managed to make it myself. (hmm, the picture is a bit big, I'll try to reduce it ..)
Edited by Sunja on 16 December 2011 at 11:06pm
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Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6618 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish
| Message 7 of 292 17 December 2011 at 12:01am | IP Logged |
What tutorial? Can you give us a link? I LOVE natto, but it's impossible to get here. There are lots of things that are impossible to get here....
As for your "mistakes," I make them all too. Now, I have started using a stopwatch for studying, and I've noticed a new mistake. Sometimes, I forget to start it. I was also, for a while, doing a lot of things that I wasn't timing and therefore wasn't counting. For example, I timed my reviews in Anki, but not the time it took to make new cards. So, I think I've been studying more than I thought earlier.
Also, how is that Japanese for shadowing? I've tried shadowing a little, but I can't seem to get the hang of it. Maybe it doesn't work on Harry Potter. When, I'm listening, I don't feel like he speaks too fast, but I can't shadow it at all. I just can't make my mouth move that fast. I was thinking of downloading audacity, which I saw recommended somewhere here. Then I could maybe slow it down a little and try again. Maybe if I sped it up gradually, I could get up to his speed eventually.
And thanks for the link of listening quizzes. Those were great.
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Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6083 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin
| Message 8 of 292 17 December 2011 at 4:54pm | IP Logged |
Brun Ugle wrote:
What tutorial? Can you give us a link? .... |
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Sure! The hard part is getting the special natto-kin bacteria for fermenting the soybeans and since bacillus subtilis is really hard to find I had to use a package of store-bought natto from dae-yang.de. (The natto itself is cheap but the refridgerated shipping costs 10 €!) After that I found Making Natto in North America. I followed these sterilizing procedures and the rest was easy. I also followed these other helpful links: Natto King and Making Natto at Home.
wrote:
Also, how is that Japanese for shadowing? I've tried shadowing a little, but I can't seem to get the hang of it. Maybe it doesn't work on Harry Potter. |
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Harry Potter would be too fast for me. The book I'm using has these dialogues which start out as just simple questions with short answers - there's only about 10 words per dialogue so it's pretty easy. When I think I've mastered one section I move on to the next. each section takes on more words, I loop/repeat the dialogues so that I hear them over and over.
oh yeah, the listening quizes are great! I'm working my way towards shadowing those dialogues. It'll take some time!
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