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TAC’12: Español (Žá) + Deutsch (German) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| kyknos Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5291 days ago 103 posts - 140 votes  Speaks: Slovak, Czech*, English Studies: German, Spanish | Message 1 of 17 24 December 2011 at 3:13am | IP Logged |
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This is my first language log and my first participation in TAC (Total Annihilation Challenge). My goals are simple - I want to learn Spanish and I want to learn German.
Spanish (as a member of the Žá team): GOAL: Learn Spanish! WHY: I already know Slavic and Germanic languages, now I want to learn a Romance language. Spanish sounds beautiful (while I do not like the sound of French), it has the reputation of not being too difficult (I cannot say the same about French) and it seems like the best choice for traveling (my great passion). NOW: Zero knowledge. I only have some limited experience with medical Latin. HOW: I will start with Pimsleur and then I will see. German (as a member of the German team): GOAL: I want to read and understand German ichthyology and fishkeeping books and magazines fluently by the end of 2012. Ability to chat over a German beer in the local language would be a great bonus. WHY: The best fishkeeping literature is available in German (not in English or my native Czech). I want to read it. Also, it would be nice to speak German when in Germany, although in my experience almost everybody there speaks English (and sometimes even some Czech or Sorbian). NOW: It is all Greek to me. I admit that I had four years of German in high school, but I ignored the subject and was ignored by the teacher in return. It was in the early nineties, just after the Velvet Revolution, and we were still using the old textbooks with Marxist-Leninist vocabulary. I can say "Genosse" (comrade), "Landwirtschaftliche Produktionsgenossenschaft" (agricultural production comradeship) and "Ich habe keine Hausaufgabe, Ich fehlte letzte Stunde". The German vocabulary is frightening. There are some cognates between German and Czech (and of course English), but it seems that Germans have their own words for most technical and scientific terms, which are otherwise usually mutually intelligible between various European languages (commonly based on Greek, Latin or English). HOW: I have the complete Pimsleur German course and I want to complete one lesson every day. I have already completed the first four lessons. My employer agreed to pay for one weekly hour with a native speaker (I will share this lessons with my colleague who is also a beginner). After I get some familiarity with the language, I will start reading fishkeeping magazines with a dictionary. Edited by kyknos on 04 January 2012 at 1:27am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6392 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 2 of 17 25 December 2011 at 8:01pm | IP Logged |
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lol at the German phrases you know! what about Sehenswürdigkeiten? :)
Good luck! please put Team Žá in the log title btw:) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4804 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 3 of 17 26 December 2011 at 12:42am | IP Logged |
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Hi Kyknos,
always nice to see another Czech around here, the more with the same languages. (Strange I haven't noticed you earlier but you seem to be less talkative than I am) I'm looking forward to reading you. About your "how". There are some good Czech based courses for both of your languages. Those I use are combination of the traditional and "communicative" approach and I really like them. For Spanish it is Učebnice současné Španělštiny and Fiesta. Both are suitable for self-study, even though Fiesta is originally meant for highschool courses. For German, I am still buried in (or rather slowly crawling through) my other resources but I am looking forward to Němčina pro samouky by Academia which looks really good and is similar to Assimil in the structure left page-German or exercise, right page-translation to Czech or solution. Of course the Czech-based books are nothing you couldn't do without. But I think it's quite helpful to use a good resource in my native language, the more when it is of better quality than most foreign ones of the similar kind. Of course, those are just notes by a "false beginner" but I couldn't resist to share the little of my experience. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| kyknos Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5291 days ago 103 posts - 140 votes Speaks: Slovak, Czech*, English Studies: German, Spanish | Message 4 of 17 27 December 2011 at 11:37am | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the tips :) Now I am in a situation where listening is much easier that reading but I will definitely look into the books later. I have just completed the 5th German and the 1st Spanish lesson.
No entiendo. Ich verstehe ein bisschen. The log title updated :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5190 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 5 of 17 28 December 2011 at 2:20am | IP Logged |
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Hello, Kyknos. Welcome to TAC 2012! I look forward to watching your progress over the next year. I'm studying Spanish (and German, to a lesser extent), too.
I'll be happy to help with your Spanish, as much as I can. German is my fifth or sixth focus language for 2012, so I am not anticipating leaps and bounds with it, although I'd like to have a solid A2/B1 foundation by the end of the year. =) Buena suerte este año con tus estudios! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| kyknos Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5291 days ago 103 posts - 140 votes Speaks: Slovak, Czech*, English Studies: German, Spanish | Message 6 of 17 02 January 2012 at 2:49am | IP Logged |
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Gracias. Danke. Děkuji. Ďakujem. I had not much time lately. I have to solve other important problems. Spanish: lesson 3, German: lesson 8. I will try to keep the pace roughly at 1 lesson per day (each language) and finish both Pimsleur courses (100 lessons each) by the end of April.
UPDATE: I just had an interesting talk with a guy from Nicaragua. We were using mostly Czech (!), but I put the three Pimsleur lessons of Spanish to good use. Ain't it fun? Edited by kyknos on 02 January 2012 at 5:40am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Mepisevaerg Newbie United States Joined 4506 days ago 15 posts - 16 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Mandarin | Message 7 of 17 02 January 2012 at 11:07pm | IP Logged |
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Hi kyknos! I took classes in Spanish in college and have decided to start studying it again on my own. This year I'm also studying French, German and Mandarin. I hope that (maybe) we can have conversations in Spanish and German! I look forward to reading about your progress.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| kyknos Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5291 days ago 103 posts - 140 votes Speaks: Slovak, Czech*, English Studies: German, Spanish | Message 8 of 17 02 January 2012 at 11:45pm | IP Logged |
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I am listening to music, reading lyrics and trying to understand something - some German songs by Einstürzende Neubauten and Spanish songs by Shakira. Shakira does not do the kind of music I usually listen to, but I really enjoy the language now. I can easily recognize words and sometimes even understand them. It is no rocket science to understand lyrics like this:
Si es cuestion de confesar No se preparar cafe Y no entiendo de futbol Creo que alguna vez fui infiel or Porque uno y uno No siempre son dos I really love the language. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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