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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Mat81 Tetraglot Newbie Germany Joined 4264 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes Speaks: German*, English, Dutch, Swedish Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, Hindi | Message 1 of 1 20 October 2012 at 7:02pm | IP Logged |
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Hi. I am new to the forum and I am forcing myself to write a language log as a kind of self-motivation. I just love learning languages and I think in the past 10 years there hasn’t been a time that I did not learn a language. At university I took courses Spanish and Swedish which I (try to) keep active by reading and listening, I also took an intro courses to Georgian, Irish, Finnish, Latvian, Armenian and Icelandic out of linguistic curiosity, but I forgot already most of it. Nonetheless, it was lot of fun and I definitely gained a better understanding of how languages can work. My friends probably think I am crazy, but who cares ;)
The languages I am learning actively at the moment are Hindi, Arabic and Chinese, partly by self-study (books, internet, Anki), partly by attending courses in a local language club (pay club fee each month – visit as many language classes as you like ;) ). As I work full time and I am often sent on business trips, it’s difficult for me to study regularly, especially as I also have a hard time limiting myself to these three languages. There are just too many interesting languages and too little time. At the moment, I am learning Hindi with Assimil (right now: Lesson 19) and the Teach Yourself (lesson 7) course. Both are pretty good materials to start with although the texts in the Assimil book are a bit weird sometimes. Once a week I meet a tandem-partner which is a lot of fun and a good driver to study continuously. Right now, Hindi is a bit of my favourite, maybe that’s also because of the tandem. I usually manage to set some time aside each day for doing some Hindi. My current goal for Hindi is to finish the Assimil and the TY course. Since 4 years I am also struggling to learn Arabic and it is really hard although I consider it a beautiful language and I usually do not like to call a language “hard”. In my opinion it’s just a matter of how much time you can spend to study and practice and how much motivation you have. However, with Arabic, the words just won’t stick. Even after 4 years, many words sound so similar… The first three years were basically self-study and some work with a tutor but since one year I am attending an Arabic course once a week which is in B2/C1 level. We work with the 2nd volume of Al-Kitab Al-Asasi, which I do not like too much - quite complicated, rather boring political and philosophical texts but the vocabulary is still quite useful. And as this is my only chance to practice, I’ll keep on going there. Besides that, the teacher and other course participants are nice, so it’s kind of an additional incentive. I also do some self-study with a couple of books that I have. Some languages tend to get easier once you’ve mastered the basics, but with Arabic it seems to be a never-ending stream of new roots, words and strange sentence constructions… On the one hand I am proud how much I have managed to learn and be able to read after 4 years, on the other hand it is still embarrassing how little I can actually understand, say or write. So Arabic is definitely the most challenging language for me. My goal at the moment: “Survive” the Arabic course and retain some of the vocabulary And then there is Chinese. I’ve really started to study Chinese a year ago, but already before that I had fallen in love with the language and just could not resist browsing through Chinese textbooks. I started with a beginner's course at the local language club, but this was way too slow for me, so now I have jumped to the 2nd and 3rd course-level (around A2 to B1) this year which is much better and a bit more challenging. We are working through Experiencing Chinese 1 and 2. There are better books out there but we speak a lot in class which is much better anyway than just working through boring exercises. In parallel I am working on my own through Assimil Chinese – vol 1. I am approximately halfway through and I like it a lot. My goal at the moment: Continue language classes and finish Assimil 1. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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