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Dagane&Schnitzel: TAC 2013 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Dagane Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4293 days ago 259 posts - 324 votes  Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishB2, Galician Studies: German Studies: Czech | Message 1 of 60 26 December 2012 at 2:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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Aim of this log
The purpose of this log is to record my progress during 2013, which will be mainly focused on my TAC for 2013 within the Team Schnitzel. It's my first TAC, so... I'm scared! I expect to grow on it, though :). My languages of study In order of competence and regardless my native tongue, which is Spanish, my languages are listed below: English: (~C1) I'll be living in English for several months next year, so my aim is to gain fluency. Also, I'd like to take the Cambridge's CAE if I had enough time and money. Galician: (~B1+ or B2) My level in Galician is sort of strange, since I've developed strong passive skills, though my output and my study is not as much yet. It'll be fine to maintain my level and clear up some rules, as well as correcting simple mistakes I have got. German: (~A1) I aim to boost German to a high A2 or low B1. It'll be difficult, but it doesn't matter as long as my routine and my willpower are strong enough. If I'm in Spain by September, I'll take the A1 exam of the EOI, which doesn't scare me by now. Dutch: (A0: beginner) I'll study Dutch from scratch. I don't look for a particular level in it. Since I'll spend some time in the Netherlands, my purpose is to understand simple conversations and writings such as forms and the like. Probably this means a B1, but it's too soon to fix a concrete objective yet, because I'll start Dutch in February-March. Goals As I expect my life to change next year, I can't set a whole goal for the year clearer than all I said above. For this reason I'll make it simpler and I'll set goals monthly for every language. Hopefully, they'll drive me to the desired levels. Expectedly, German and Dutch routines will be stricter than the English one, and much more strong than the Galician one. However, due to my level in those languages, it could be that my English workload is higher, because the time I'll spend doing it will be less. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5867 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 2 of 60 26 December 2012 at 3:58pm | IP Logged | ||
I think it's wise to be flexible. I personally have never achieved any of my TAC goals and so I think I need to take smaller bites. Do you have a monthly goal yet? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Dagane Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4293 days ago 259 posts - 324 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishB2, Galician Studies: German Studies: Czech | Message 3 of 60 26 December 2012 at 6:52pm | IP Logged | ||
I haven't decided what goals will be appropiate yet. I hope to write them down here by next weekend. Allegedly, they should vary the first three or four months because of the lifestyle changes I expect. Conversely, they should be quite similar for the rest of the year. I have something clear though. I prefer to think in goals highly achievable during the first months. Otherwise it'd be a bit unwise, since I'd be tempted to quit (I know myself!). Also, if my first goals were easily attained, it would mean I'm doing good and the borderline of my effort is far from what I initially thought. I'll can see how far it is because I aim to record every hour/page/lesson or whatever I use to study, so I'll see if my number of stuff is much more than the number I was expected. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Dagane Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4293 days ago 259 posts - 324 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishB2, Galician Studies: German Studies: Czech | Message 4 of 60 28 December 2012 at 1:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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JANUARY
Here my goals for January are. As it's the first month of my TAC, they're modest instead of lofty. Ideally, I'll go over them before the month comes to its end. The idea of this post beyond setting the goals is updating it daily or almost daily for the proper record of my achievements. By the way, no Dutch yet. German Listening: 3/4 FSI lessons done. Calculus: 1 lesson a week x 4 weeks = 4 lessons. Reading: 1/12 pages read. Calculus: 0.5 pages x 23 working days = 11.5 ~ 12 pages. Speaking: 0/1 conversation. Calculus: No real calculus. Just I'm fairly shy and I'm beginning, so I want to be realistc. Most people don't want to speak about very simple questions, what's your name and the like, so_ Since I can't hold deep conversations in German, it's a disadvantage. Besides, I'm kind of shy, as I said. Vocabulary & grammar: 246/310 words learnt. Calculus: 10 words x 31 days = 310 words. Actually, I hope to study more. Nowadays I'm studying 12-15 per day. I don't care about grammar now because I'm taught at class. Writing: 4/4 Lang-8 entries. Calculus: 1 writing a week x 4 weeks = 4 writings. English Listening: 842/930 minutes watched. Calculus: 30 minutes a day of any TV series, movie or radio podcast x 31 days = 930 minutes. Reading: 398/310 pages read. Calculus: 10 pages x 31 days = 310 pages. Vocabulary: 103/93 words-expressions learnt. Calculus: 3 words x 31 days = 93 words. Writing: 2/2 articles for my blog. Calculus: 0.5 articles a week x 4 weeks = 2 articles. Galician Grammar 1/2 Aula de galego 2 lessons. Calculus: No calculus really. I think it's reasonable. The book is B1, under my level, but I prefer to review all the grammar issues before going ahead. This goal refers just to the grammar explanations of the lessons. Reading 27/62 poems read. Calculus: 2 poems per day x 31 days = 62 poems. I've got two books of poetry written in Galician and both display a different vocab (a cultivated one) from what I could hear in the street, so I think that reading them will be a good experience. I don't think I'm going to read 2 poems everyday, though. It's more likely I'll read several one or two days each week. Further study I'm not counting on many things I do and actually are essential in my learning. I prefer to keep them freer. Nonetheless, here they are:
Edited by Dagane on 31 January 2013 at 5:25pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Dagane Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4293 days ago 259 posts - 324 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishB2, Galician Studies: German Studies: Czech | Message 5 of 60 01 January 2013 at 9:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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The new year is here and TAC has begun. I hope we all TACers succeed in achieving our goals or being happy with our own attainments at least. Above all, I hope we all have lots of fun.
Some days ago I stumbled across my first problem with German. I hardly recall big amounts of Germanic vocabulary. That means thematic lists don't work well, because they are suspicious to have too many strange words. Rather than studying by topics, as classes teach commonly, I decided to use my recently acquired German dictionary. Every day I look up several words, having care of choosing half of them from a romantic or English background. That means I'm building a vocabulary which lacks of some common terms while has got a number of uncommon ones, but I find this way easier. So for instance, I include in my to study lists words such as schrill, harsch and konkret along with others such as schlau, Gicht or Himmel. I know this drives to an initially unbalanced vocabulary. However, this method seems to work, and I think it's more likely to do so. Apart from it, I uploaded the January goals post and I'm going to keep uploading it. Comments, advices and recommendations are welcomed! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Dagane Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4293 days ago 259 posts - 324 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishB2, Galician Studies: German Studies: Czech | Message 6 of 60 02 January 2013 at 9:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yesterday I finished Deadhouse Gates, which is the longest and more difficult book I've read in English. It has got almost 1,000 pages and tons of unknown words. Today I've begun The Prague Cemetery and I like it. The last time I read an Eco's book was when I was 18, and somehow I was afraid of being dissapointed due to both reading in English and a idealised picture of Eco's writing. Despite it all, I started to enjoy the book from the first page, and actually I think I'm hooked! It is way easier in comparison to Deadhouse Gates, and I like the story more.
I think I'm slacking a bit in German in spite of fulfilling the goals I fixed, because I am surpassing my English benchmarks, whereas I scarcely reach the German ones. As I said post ago, I am at a point in which I find easy to get myself involved in many activities in English, while I must pay a sharpened attencion in all the German I go through. Anyway, My holidays last until next Tuesday. I'll see if then I need to slow pace in English. If not, perhaps I should think through my routine. Also, I've been thinking in a problem I'll have in a near future. Time ago I realised that writing down in a notebook is the way which works best to learn new words. However, I will have to carry away with me as less weight as possible because of the plane and prospective moves. I should get used to some desk such as Anki in order not to need a physical log. But I didn't find Anki fine enough in the past. Any recommendation? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| BAnna Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4404 days ago 409 posts - 616 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Turkish | Message 7 of 60 03 January 2013 at 3:44am | IP Logged | ||
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Very nice log and your goals are great: well organized and they seem quite achievable.
I'm curious to see what recommendations you get regarding vocabulary study. Your vocabulary categorization method is quite interesting. How do you use the notebook? I have tried many different methods and formats: anki, notecards, notebooks, lists, spreadsheets, Goldlist, Iversen method, etc. Maybe I am lazy (es kann sein), but I end up giving up because I get bored. The only thing that seems to consistently work for me is repetition: I look up a word and see it enough times and eventually I recognize what it means. Very frustrating! I am currently trying something inspired by a tutoring experience: I volunteer working with a schoolchild, and each week she must write 20 new words (from her native language) in a variety of ways. She must alphabetize the list, look up the definitions, simultaneously say out loud and write them out by hand multiple times, use them in sentences, etc. I am doing something similar using a small erasable white board (no paper), and then I keep a record of the words on an Excel spreadsheet. I just started doing this a few weeks ago, and no, it is not particularly efficient. I'm not sure if I recommend this, but it does not use paper and it seems to be working fairly well for me so far: at least the words seem to stick well in my old, tired brain. Viel Spaß beim lernen! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Dagane Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4293 days ago 259 posts - 324 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishB2, Galician Studies: German Studies: Czech | Message 8 of 60 03 January 2013 at 3:05pm | IP Logged | ||
Thanks, BAnna!
I tried several methods, including some which were taught in class by teachers whose method I esteem. In the end, though, repetition is the way I'm more constant at. After multiple attempts, what I found more suitable to me is to write down dayly a number of words in my notebook. The exact number depends on my mood and my workload, but I pull myself to study at least 2 or 3, and never more than 30 or 35 in my best moments. The reason is that repetition requires actually lots of repetition. I review the words the next day, and after three days plus that day. Then, I wait one week and, when that week passes, I repeat the process after two weeks twice. So that recording the proper dates, I have them writing with pencil at the margin beside the row of words I'm studying, and they are blotted out when the date of reviewing comes. German words are more complicated. Apart from writing the meaning, I've got a colour system. Red means the word is feminine, blue is masculine and black is neuter. Verbs are green and I write down the participle, the present and the past tenses when the verb is strong. Also, I fill the margins with the endings of the noums' plurals, written in red all of them. Other methods are initially less boring, but I simply failed at them. Also, my method is not boring once you are used to it, and it takes no more than 15 minutes to review all the words each day. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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