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Completing stuff chaotically | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6390 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 1 of 21 11 December 2013 at 9:58pm | IP Logged |
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If I were learning Japanese, I'd get a Kanji poster. Shiny and you can mark your progress on it.
But oops, even these have the kanji in the "right" sequence. I'm almost surprised that Khatzumoto the king of chaos promotes them. Anyway, this is mostly a question to global learners I suppose: how do you keep track of your progress when going through any kind of materials chaotically? Because I think the main perceived advantage of the sequential approach is that you cover everything (unless you get bored and give up), but it's also possible to cover everything chaotically! (or in groups of sequences, e.g. doing 5 Assimil lessons at a time) I've tried/thought of the following so far: 0. Remembering what I've done and what I haven't. Needless to say, it works well if you have a book with 10 short stories and you read it in a random order, but the smaller the chunks, the harder they are to keep in mind. 1. Marking the things you've done. Optionally making a photocopy of the contents (etc) and marking it there. Involves some slight damage to the book. 2. Creating a list, either as you go or, better, in advance (and crossing stuff off the list). That's tedious for long stuff, of course. 3. Filling out a simple grid in Excel and then colour-coding the things you finish. That's what I plan to do with Assimil next year. to minimize the clicks needed, I'll assign a meaning both to the foreground and background colour. (something like: to do - yellow background, completed - blue text, giving me the option to colour-code "I've done this part and I loved it and I'm going to revise it later). 4. Any other ideas? Edited by Serpent on 12 December 2013 at 3:24pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 5944 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 2 of 21 12 December 2013 at 9:42am | IP Logged |
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I’m curious to see how others manage this, as I’ve a similar challenge when it comes to hopping between multiple resources. I used to use a spreadsheet to track what I’d covered, but I find bookmarking the simplest way now. The problem grows when you use multiple courses for multiple languages. Since it’s hard to get a clear picture of progress with numerous courses, I use time as my main metric. I might start tracking time on a select few courses next year to see how long they take to complete. Edited by DaraghM on 12 December 2013 at 9:43am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6998 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 3 of 21 12 December 2013 at 10:20am | IP Logged |
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It depends :) How is that for someone who does things chaotically at times?
For a long course, like FSI Spanish, which I reviewed many times, I backed up and went to lesson 1 many times, each time pushing into further and further lessons. That wasn't because I lost my place, but rather when things were so difficult it was discouraging, or I was missing my mark (expecting too much). I often use that go back to the beginning approach. I read about 1/2 of Don Quixote 5-6 years ago. When I picked it up again, I started over. Way back then, I started back at chapter 1 a few times with the goal of increasing my comprehension. More lately, I have used strategies like writing the chapter or recording number on an envelope I keep where I study. Sometimes I update my log here. I should do that more, as I often remember things I did which, as far as goals, I actually completed, but may remember it at random some time later. Once I tried using grid paper for tracking my way through FSI and several others. It's still on my refrigerator from years ago. I seldom look at it. Other than creating it, I found it more de-motivational than anything. The challenge I've had at some points is tracking and planning for the future, and not doing the now. Coming back to language learning after taking a few years off, the world has changed, both inside and out. These days, my bilingual text of Don Quixote remembers what chapter I last read. My iBooks can be bookmarked in more than one place, like what the translator says about his/her work, and where I am in the the book. I can also highlight tough words and look back at them if I want. With recordings from Librivox, I tend to make an edit to the file with Audacity, this puts a timestamp on it, and even if I come back a long time later, I still know where I was based on timestamps. If I decided to skip a chapter, it isn't timestamped. On my memory stick, which I use while driving in the car, I have several folders (directories), one for each "learning track". By that I mean I may have 4 directories with various Assimil courses in it, a couple of audiobooks, and a couple of podcasts which come out in a series (could be a half dozen or 500 podcasts from the same source). With a memory stick, I delete what I've listened to when I get to my destination. That shows progress in several ways (less mp3s in a folder, eventually a folder is deleted if it's finished, I don't have to search for the next chapter or podcast or lesson in one a track, I just select that folder, and the next chapter, podcast, or lesson plays automatically. For memory sticks, there is a free program called "drivesort" that will sort the files in ascii order. I name files such that when they are sorted, they are in the proper order. Many sources do this automatically, but some don't. Regardless, when copying files to a memory stick, they may not end up in order. Drivesort fixes that. Of course Assimil courses have the handy bookmark, which I definitely use. Another tactic, I don't beat myself up if I drop a book after one chapter or several. There's plenty of stuff out there. Finishing a particular book isn't as important as continuing to do something productive towards my goals. It may not look or sound quite as impressive from the outside, but "beauty is only skin deep", "you can't judge a book by its cover", and "still waters run deep". Edited by luke on 12 December 2013 at 10:37am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6998 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 4 of 21 12 December 2013 at 10:24am | IP Logged |
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Embrace the chaos.
By that I mean, I don't worry as much about tracking my progress per se as I once did. Now, the main thing is consistency and finding things that are interesting and fit in my day. With that combination, chaos doesn't matter (much). :) Oh, and the title of your thread includes the word "completing", oops. LOL. Edited by luke on 12 December 2013 at 10:34am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5559 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 5 of 21 12 December 2013 at 1:02pm | IP Logged |
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5. Keeping track is for lo... other people. I am glad when I manage to shut off the stove, not lose my keys, finish my assignments in time etc.
The thing is, even when I finish a lesson or course and should be able to tick it off that doesn't necessarily mean I know it well enough to move on, or, more frequently, I might've picked up so much from other sources that I find the next steps tedious but can't apply them well enough to skip the next chapter. Boredom ensues, and I drop the course. so rather than keeping track of whether I should know something already, I would like to be able to test myself if I actually can apply it. haven't figured out that one yet. Oh, despite being forgetful when it comes to where I put my items I tend to remember where I was in a book. Or ten, or twenty, for all that matters. I also use smart playlists and audiobook options, but even without I still would be able to find the moment when I stopped last, it's just more tedious. As for kanji posters ... I wouldn't know when to mark a kanji as known. As in, I can write it. When I read a lot of japanese, I can write better. When I write by hand a lot, I suddenly can write more kanji I haven't even practiced recently. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4661 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 6 of 21 12 December 2013 at 2:27pm | IP Logged |
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I'm a fairly chaotic learner and find using multiple source to be the best strategy. I keep track of most things I do either in my language log or by marking the thing I'm working with, or by making Anki cards from it and tagging them with the source, or even by using bots like the Super Challenge Bot. It really depends.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6390 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 7 of 21 12 December 2013 at 2:33pm | IP Logged |
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Yeah, I normally don't care about completing everything in a coursebook. But for example Assimil is fun, and I want to at least listen to all the lessons in Spanish, Italian and Polish. But I'd get bored if I tried to go from lesson 1 to 100, and also from 100 to 1 (tried with Polish). So I think it will be best to keep an Excel grid unless I come up with another idea. (hm, there are add-ons for adding your custom notes to web pages. maybe there's also a program for doing that in your folders without renaming the files and without editing a separate file?)
If anything, I don't want to miss out on any joke in Assimil :P Also for example I'm reading some poetry in Polish... with poems it's especially easy to forget whether you've only looked at it or also read it. A couple of days ago I went through the contents and marked everything I was confident of, and now I'm choosing from the list rather than thumbing through the book. (by now there's more stuff I've read than what I haven't) Basically, for me it's kinda like completing a challenge table, hehe. Edited by Serpent on 12 December 2013 at 2:37pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| osoymar Tetraglot Pro Member United States Joined 4529 days ago 190 posts - 344 votes Speaks: English*, German, Portuguese, Japanese Studies: Spanish, French Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 21 12 December 2013 at 7:24pm | IP Logged |
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Put me down in the camp that says you're taking all the fun out of the chaotic approach!
But seriously, it seems like the point of checking off a box in your spreadsheet or marking the page in the textbook would be a notion that you've "completed" that lesson. But I always find that when I go back to older lessons there's something left to learn. So what's the harm in accidentally repeating a lesson or two? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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