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Gary’s TAC 2012 - The Romantics | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5009 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 9 of 167 21 December 2011 at 9:23pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Tue 20, Wed 21 Dec
Italiano Yesterday I did two lessons from MT Advanced, then realised that the Language Builder is supposed to come before the Advanced... I think. Maybe. Today I did the Language Builder then another lesson from Advanced. All these conditional verb forms still aren't quite hammered into my brain, but they should come with usage. Français I'm starting to get more into the shadowing and see how it could be beneficial. I find that it takes a good 5-10 minutes to "warm up" with shadowing before you really get into the swing of it. The sore throat that was threatening to appear doesn't seem to be coming to anything now, touch wood, so I can get some decent sessions done. Meetup last night was just... bad. One of these evenings when you keep thinking that things just can't get any worse, then they somehow do. I seem to have made a couple of enemies, through no fault of my own as far as I can tell, and my attempts at hiding my bad mood can't have been very successful as nobody seemed to want to know me after that. Add the fact that there wasn't a whole lot of French being spoken and it really wasn't a productive night, but on the plus side the few times I did speak French it was coming quite easily, and the English conversations were all quite interesting even if my contributions did go ignored. If nothing else, experiences like that should help me grow a thicker skin, something essential for language learning or any other skill that requires dealing with a lot of people. It's a bit upsetting after most of the meetups in the last couple of months have gone so well and people were starting to take me seriously and have good conversations with me, but I'm staying positive and just saying it was an off night like we all have. Tonight will be better. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Lianne Senior Member Canada thetoweringpile.blog Joined 4917 days ago 284 posts - 410 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto, Toki Pona, German, French | Message 10 of 167 21 December 2011 at 10:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I've been trying to figure out what order Advanced, Language Builder, and Vocabulary Booster go in. Now that you've done some of Advanced and some of Language Builder, which do you think should come first? I'll be done Beginner in a few days and want to keep going!
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| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4691 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 11 of 167 22 December 2011 at 12:18am | IP Logged | |||||
For what it's worth, I think French must be the perfect language for making enemies and having a bad mood in! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5009 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 12 of 167 22 December 2011 at 5:03pm | IP Logged | |||||
I've finished both now, and I think Language Builder comes before Advanced. Language Builder seems to revise and build a bit upon the material in Foundation, then Advanced teaches a bunch of new stuff (particularly compound tenses - would have, should have, could have, etc. and the subjunctive) at a fairly fast pace. No idea where the Vocabulary Booster fits in, I didn't find a copy of that, but there were a few words here and there in the Advanced course that weren't taught in Beginner or Language Builder. It seems hard to find the info, since the courses seem to be sold in a different format now.
Haha, true, I've seen enough bits in French films and TV where someone gets angry and starts shouting and swearing that I could almost imagine myself doing it. Edited by garyb on 22 December 2011 at 5:04pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5009 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 13 of 167 24 December 2011 at 4:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
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22, 23, 24 Dec:
About an hour of Italian and an hour of French per day. I really don't have as much free time as I thought I would during the holidays... If I sleep until midday and go out in the evening, then by the time I've eaten and showered and done necessary things like Christmas shopping I only have a couple of hours to spare. So not really much more free time than when I'm working, but I'm definitely enjoying getting enough sleep and being more relaxed. Italiano Finished MT Advanced, now working through Pimsleur II. Français Just continuing with shadowing. The Wednesday meetup seemed to have been cancelled last minute, and no time for Skyping, so no more proper speaking unfortunately. Going home and seeing family for the next few days so won't be getting very much done, but I have got some of the good old French Harry Potter for reading material. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5009 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 14 of 167 29 December 2011 at 1:45am | IP Logged | |||||
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Back again!
28 Dec Italiano Finished up to lesson 8 on Pimsleur II. I'm starting to find it boring and a bit too easy so I'm wondering whether it's the most efficient use of my time when, say, an Assimil lesson would give me exposure to more language in less time. However, while Pimsleur doesn't give a ton of language, the material it does teach is drilled in pretty well. Which is great for people completely new to the language, but for someone who already knows a fairly similar language it could be overkill. The fact that I can easily work my way through several lessons per day without it feeling like too much does suggest that it's not efficient. I may just be getting impatient though. I might as well finish II but I'm not sure if I'll bother with III or just go onto Assimil at that point. Interestingly I'm still getting a bit of interference with Russian - while doing Pimsleur I occasionally find myself about to answer in Russian rather than Italian. I even caught myself saying "u menya mashina" instead of "ho una macchina" earlier today. I suppose working through Pimsleur Russian last year and hearing the same voice asking the same questions has trained a Pavlovian response to answer in Russian. An interesting unwanted side effect of the repetitiveness of Pimsleur... I'm thinking it might be time to start speaking soon. My opinion on this subject is much closer to Benny's "speak from day one" attitude than the "silent period" theory, but at the same time I just can't help but think that the best way to learn the basics is by using material designed for that purpose rather than a random and unguided attempt at communication. I think I have enough knowledge now to try a simple conversation, so I shall try to do so sometime in the next few days. Français The shadowing continues, and I'm taking the opportunity to revise Using French while I'm at it. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5009 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 15 of 167 01 January 2012 at 6:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Last few days: the usual Pimsleur Italian and shadowing French. 8 more Pimsleur lessons to go.
During my New Year celebrations last night I was talking to some Italians in Italian, or trying to at least. I don't remember the details but I'm told I was having a somewhat animated conversation about the mouse who sometimes comes uninvited to visit our kitchen. Later on I had some half-English half-French conversation with some Swiss guys. It was great to get some opportunity to speak my languages in a natural context, that's why I learn them after all. Only one more day off work (let's face it, nothing productive is going to happen today) then it'll be back to the good old constant busyness. Overall my holiday wasn't as productive as I thought it would be, most days I've only managed 3 or 4 hours of work on my interests which isn't much more than when I'm working. I managed to just about keep pace with Italian and I'm happy with my progress, but didn't do as much French as I had hoped, and spent nowhere near as much time on music as I wanted to. I definitely needed some relaxation, sleep, and time with friends and family, and it was great to get all that, so I'm not too bothered about the low productivity. If anything it was a good learning experience and gave me a more realistic idea of how much I can get done in a given amount of time. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5009 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 16 of 167 02 January 2012 at 8:46pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Italiano
I've been trying to think about my study plans for when I go back to work. I've been watching and reading some of Luca's material, which is interesting because his study methods seem quite similar to mine so I can get ideas on how to improve mine. In particular he's an Assimil fan and I'm keen to try out his method of using it - I think the content of Assimil is great but it's difficult to actually learn and internalise it all. Also he makes a big point of the conventional wisdom that it's better to consistently study for a short time every day than to have one or two marathon study sessions per week. Which sounds great in theory but my weekdays are already so packed that I don't think the idea of doing one Assimil lesson per day is realistic. I guess I'll have to try my best, try to do at least something involving Italian every day even if it's just reading or listening, and catch up at the weekend. I can make time for "passive" study or even writing on the way to work and during lunch hour and that sort of thing, but speaking or focused study isn't really possible. Getting out of bed half an hour earlier might be a plan; active learning will probably be more effective then than in the evening after a long day. Also his point about "quality" study is important - I'm certainly guilty of rushing through courses quickly just to get them done with, which is probably part of why I didn't internalise as much of the French Assimils as I would have liked. So the plan for the near future is to finish off the last few Pimsleur II lessons then move onto Assimil and hopefully start having some short conversations. I really can't be bothered working through Pimsleur III; the first two have definitely been useful but I've had enough for now. Any important language that I miss will come up elsewhere sooner or later, and between Assimil and real speaking I should have enough pronunciation and production practice. Français For the same reasons as above I don't think continuing the daily shadowing is realistic. Unfortunately I haven't had much chance to actually speak French in the last few weeks, but I should have a chance by Wednesday at the latest now that the meetups are starting again, and that should give me a good feeling for how much the shadowing has helped my real speech. Hopefully it will confirm my theory that shadowing is an effective way of "training in" good pronunciation, but we shall see. The meetup should help me decide whether it's my pronunciation or my production that needs focus. As I said at the start I'm going to start writing more frequently, which is something I can do during my lunch hour. Edited by garyb on 02 January 2012 at 8:48pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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