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Kerrie TAC 2015 Team Caesar SP BrPT ASL | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Emme Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 5137 days ago 980 posts - 1594 votes  Speaks: Italian*, English, German Studies: Russian, Swedish, French | Message 41 of 246 19 January 2013 at 2:33am | IP Logged | |||||
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I read in the MIR team thread that you have decided to leave the team. I’m sorry to hear that, but I understand you: the beginning of the TAC has been quite overwhelming, and being part of many teams must make it even harder.
I’ll try to keep up with your log anyway and for now I wish you the best of luck with TAC 2013 and your other languages. Maybe later in the year, when things settle down you’ll be able to come back. I’m sure we MIR-ers will be happy to welcome you back! 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5185 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 42 of 246 19 January 2013 at 9:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Rant ahead. Feel free to skip this one. :)
Ugh. I feel like such an idiot. I have a lot of stuff going on right now. I broke a tooth last week and I'm trying to figure out how to afford getting it fixed. (Yay for the US and their world-class health care system.) We adopted a new kitty from one of my friends who had to get rid of her because of her sons' allergies. (Yes, two sons. That's not a grammar error.) :) And the poor kitty is in heat. Which is probably worse for her than it is for us humans. So I have to get her into the vet and get her fixed ASAP. On top of the normal fun stuff life brings every day. Besides the tooth thing, none of it would normally make me bat an eye. I'm pretty good at handling stress from all sides. But it just dawned on me that next week is the "sadiversary" of when we lost my fiance seven years ago. And every year, I start getting super-stressed and can't figure out why. And once I figure it out, I'm okay. Doh. You'd think after this long, I'd figure it out already. Anyways, this has of course been wreaking havoc on my TAC plans, keeping up with everyone, keeping up with what *I* need to do. Hopefully now that I figured out what's been driving me crazy, I will be fine. I am still considering going solo for the TAC, just being on Team Pax (since my primary focus is going to be on Spanish and French), or just foregoing the TAC altogether. Which would really be stupid, when I think about it. I have no plans to stop studying languages, I still plan on annihilating the crap out of them (or at least a few of them). So for now, I am taking a two-week break from HTLAL duties (but I'll still be around). Once I get my head back on straight and figure out what I'm going to do, I will be back. :) Knowing me, I'll probably go back to masochist mode and go back to four crazy teams. LOL For now, I have Spanish vocab from my Super Challenge reading to enter into Anki. Lots and lots of it. :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Anya Pentaglot Senior Member France Joined 5583 days ago 636 posts - 708 votes Speaks: Russian*, FrenchC1, English, Italian, Spanish Studies: German, Japanese, Hungarian, Sanskrit, Portuguese, Turkish, Mandarin Studies: Ancient Greek, Hindi | Message 43 of 246 19 January 2013 at 9:46pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I hope after a break the things will go better for you...
Bon courage! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5124 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 44 of 246 19 January 2013 at 10:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
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We and the forum will still be here after the break, and you will always be welcome at team MIR :-) Good luck
with tooth and cat, and I know you'll get things sorted out. Big hug from Cristina 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5185 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 45 of 246 20 January 2013 at 9:10pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I spent all weekend (well, probably 6-8 hours between yesterday and today) getting all my new Spanish words ready to import into Anki. (I put them in a spreadsheet.) 750 words.
I am going to spend the rest of the month focusing on Spanish vocab (and reading). The more I read, the more I realize how many words I still don't know. Gives me a lot more respect for people who are truly fluent in multiple languages. :) Edited by Kerrie on 20 January 2013 at 9:31pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4478 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 46 of 246 20 January 2013 at 11:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
Estimates I've seen suggest that educated native (passive?) vocabularies are on the order of 20,000+ distinct "words" (dictionary "headwords" as @Iversen discusses). When you consider the amount of repetition needed to truly assimilate a word, it's no mean feat if you can learn (I mean REALLY learn) 10 or so new words a day in your TL, every single day. And logistically it gets harder and harder as you add more languages to your study routine, of course. Doing the math, we see that 10 net words every single day, all retained, is 3650 a year. Thus, by gross calculation we can estimate that it would take at least 5-6 years of non-stop work to learn that educated-native-like vocabulary. There are, of course, all sorts of complications to this analysis, but I think it suffices to make the point that there's a whole lot of vocabulary out there waiting to be learned in most TLs. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5185 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 47 of 246 21 January 2013 at 12:34am | IP Logged | |||||
Very true, but I think as you get to know a language better, and it becomes less "foreign" - it is easier to remember words. There is a shared (Spanish) deck on Anki with 20k+ words on it that is very well made. They have it set up for the cards to go both ways, so that's a solid 10k words. I'm working through 80-100 "new" words a day with this, and virtually all of them are review for me. Although I thought comida basura (junk food) was cute. :) I am also writing down words I don't actively know while I read. I don't look them up, but I write them in my notebook. Even when I can figure out what it means, if I couldn't give you an automatic translation for it, I write it down. Those I put into my "Super Challenge" deck, and I try to do 20-25 of those a day. It's definitely work, but the whole idea of SRS makes it /so/ much easier to remember stuff. So with all the fun stuff going on in life right now, I am focusing on Spanish vocab for the rest of this month. I'm also trying to do as much Spanish and French as I can for the film part of the Super Challenge. I want to finish (the film/audio part) for both of them by the end of March. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4478 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 48 of 246 21 January 2013 at 12:49am | IP Logged | |||||
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Yes, it's very true that linear math doesn't hold in the long run here; I'm just trying to find the big picture
perspective. It would be a big mistake in my opinion to approach vocabulary acquisition in such a simplistic fashion. Another complication is that not only do individual words have different meanings, but then there's the question of learning what is and is not an "accepted" way of using the word, which is formed by frequent exposure in context--hard to get for uncommon words. But further good news is that of course you really don't need to solidly know anywhere close to 20k+ unique words in your TL to become highly proficient and comfortable using the language in pretty much any context. Good luck with the Spanish vocab! Whatever your retention rate, closely reviewing that many words regularly should add up quickly to a very solid vocabulary if you keep it up. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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