doviende Diglot Senior Member Canada languagefixatio Joined 5797 days ago 533 posts - 1245 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Hindi, Swedish, Portuguese
| Message 1 of 5 27 October 2012 at 7:00am | IP Logged |
I've been absent from the site for a while due to other hobbies taking over, but I
recently wandered back after getting talked into joining the Nov 2012 6WC. I'll be
learning Portuguese over the next few weeks.
Background:
I took two Spanish courses at University many years ago (and failed one!), and then in
recent years I've spent a small amount of time on learning to read Spanish. This will
undoubtedly give me a leg up in Portuguese, but I've never actually studied Portuguese
itself.
Done so far:
I've started downloading various ebooks, audiobooks, and TV series. I've got some
partial copies of Harry Potter audiobooks to listen to, but I'm having trouble finding
places to get more. So far, when I listen to Portuguese I can occasionally hear words
that I recognize from Spanish, but it's very rare to understand a whole sentence. I
also can't really follow the story at all just from listening.
I'm searching through this list:
http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anexo:Lista_de_miniss%C3%A9ries _brasileiras#Rede_Globo to
find Brazilian TV miniseries to watch. I'm going to try to spend a couple hours per day
listening and reading over the next while. I'm considering going to Brazil early next
year, but haven't decided on anything yet.
So far I get the impression that Portuguese and Spanish are about the same distance
apart as Dutch and German. If that's the case, then I should be able to reach a fairly
decent level of understanding within maybe 200 hours, due to my reading ability in
Spanish. If I stretch out beyond the 6WC slightly, I should be able to hit that amount
by early 2013.
I'll be tracking my time and progress in a spreadsheet, with hours spent on each task
and an appropriate weight for each type of task. For instance, I'll write down my hours
spent listening to audio while I'm at work, but that time will count for much less than
concentrated L-R activity at home. So far I've got 4.5 adjusted hours written down.
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doviende Diglot Senior Member Canada languagefixatio Joined 5797 days ago 533 posts - 1245 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Hindi, Swedish, Portuguese
| Message 2 of 5 28 October 2012 at 5:31am | IP Logged |
Today:
- Did some L-R with an audiobook for Brave New World...didn't understand much, didn't
follow the story.
- Watched a ptbr-dubbed episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Understood a couple words
here and there, but really didn't get much.
It's weird being back at the beginning in a new language again. I know that my method
works, but it's still a bit daunting right now. My spreadsheet is set up in Google Docs,
and I'm finding it really helpful to use the "Conditional formatting" option. If I get to
at least 75% of my daily goal, then it colours a cell green. It seems silly, but it works
for me.
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doviende Diglot Senior Member Canada languagefixatio Joined 5797 days ago 533 posts - 1245 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Hindi, Swedish, Portuguese
| Message 3 of 5 31 October 2012 at 11:05pm | IP Logged |
First week summary
According to my weighting scheme for study hours, I've spent ~8 adjusted hours on
Portuguese this week (my time spent listening at work is heavily discounted because I
can't pay full attention to it, but I still find it valuable). This is well below my
goal of 2.5 adjusted hours per day.
I've downloaded a lot of new materials, so that's no longer my bottleneck. The place
where I can currently make up the most time is by getting up early and doing an hour of
quality study time before I go to work. I could also add a lot in by doing an hour
right away in the morning on both Saturday and Sunday. All of this would push me up by
7 hours per week, which would get me almost to my weekly goal. Adding another half hour
before bed would give me a guaranteed 10.5 per week, to which I could add my work
listening time and pretty easily beat my goal.
For the first week of 6WC, I'll be sticking with L-R (Harry Potter, and a book by Carl
Sagan). After that I'll add in some dubbed cartoons (Avatar) and some Brazilian tv
dramas (Cidade dos Humanos).
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Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5367 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona
| Message 4 of 5 01 November 2012 at 12:25am | IP Logged |
Great to see you back on the forum, Pete! I'm looking forward to following your progress in Portuguese, and hope you're not slacking down the gym with all this LR. ;)
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doviende Diglot Senior Member Canada languagefixatio Joined 5797 days ago 533 posts - 1245 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Hindi, Swedish, Portuguese
| Message 5 of 5 01 November 2012 at 1:05am | IP Logged |
Thanks! The goal is to be consistent in both my physical and mental training :)
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