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Team Forza & Exploradores TAC 2014

 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
StarcrazyAngel
Triglot
Groupie
China
Joined 5758 days ago

47 posts - 61 votes 
Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish
Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin

 
 Message 1 of 8
01 January 2014 at 11:41am | IP Logged 
Welcome to my language log for TAC 2014. I will be improving my Italian and Spanish and
time permitting, I may dabble in a bit of Portuguese.

This is the first time that I will be taking part in a TAC and I am hoping that being
part of a team and documenting my progress will encourage me to give 100% to my
language learning over the coming year as I feel that last year I have been stuck in a
rut, got a bit lazy and not really made any significant improvement.

BACKGROUNDS
I started learning Spanish in high school in 1996 and then went on to study it
alongside Italian at university. I have always been fairly comfortable with the
language as I have been visiting Spain and doing language exchanges with native
speakers since I started learning.

I traded French for Italian when I started university in 2002. I spent a year studying
at the university of Bologna and this was when I really became comfortable with the
language as I had to fend for myself. I hardly visit Italy now but I am in contact with
friends that live there and Italians who live in my city. However, I think my level of
written and spoken Italian is worse than when I was at university and I haven’t seen
much of a change for the better in the last 4 years.


Edited by StarcrazyAngel on 01 January 2014 at 11:52am

1 person has voted this message useful



StarcrazyAngel
Triglot
Groupie
China
Joined 5758 days ago

47 posts - 61 votes 
Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish
Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin

 
 Message 2 of 8
01 January 2014 at 11:17pm | IP Logged 
My Goals

Italian: Currently B2 (sometimes B1) aiming for C1
Spanish: Currently B2 aiming for C1 and DELE C1 in November 2014

I don't have any specific goals at the moment as I stopped actively studying in
December and need to review what I need to work on. I'll add these shortly.

Schedule

I'm aiming to dedicate 30 minutes per day to each language, broken down into 2 x 10
minute sessions and 2 x 20 minute sessions. I'm going to start waking up half an hour
earlier so I can fit some language study in before work as I find I tend to learn and
retain more first thing in the day. If I change job and have more free time then I will
increase this to one hour per language each day.

1 person has voted this message useful



StarcrazyAngel
Triglot
Groupie
China
Joined 5758 days ago

47 posts - 61 votes 
Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish
Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin

 
 Message 3 of 8
11 January 2014 at 10:36pm | IP Logged 
Method

Each day my study sessions for each language focus on one of the following skills:
speaking, reading, writing and listening. I have a list of activities for each skill
and I rotate these so that I don't get bored and I'm exposed to different topics and
styles of language. I'll add my materials here as I use each one for the first time
this year.

Italian

Speaking

*Skype language exchange (30 minute session)
*Face-to-face language exchange (1 hour+)
*Reading an article out loud and recording myself to analyse my speech

Reading

*Newspaper articles from corriere.it or repubblica.it
*A couple of chapters from a novel
*A magazine

Writing

*Translation of an Italian text into English (I'm training to work as a translator)
*Writing a text and getting feedback from users at Lang 8
*Translation of an English text into Italy (mainly to increase my vocabulary)

Listening

*Watching programmes on mediaset.it
*Listening to radio podcasts/live shows
*Watching a film (preferably not a dubbed one)
*Watching programmes on rai.it


Edited by StarcrazyAngel on 19 January 2014 at 5:06pm

1 person has voted this message useful



StarcrazyAngel
Triglot
Groupie
China
Joined 5758 days ago

47 posts - 61 votes 
Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish
Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin

 
 Message 4 of 8
12 January 2014 at 12:44pm | IP Logged 
Spanish

Speaking

*Skype language exchange (30 minute session)
*Face-to-face language exchange (1 hour+)
*Reading an article out loud and recording myself to analyse my speech

Reading

*Blog posts from Palabras por Madrid, a blog written by a Spanish teacher
*Articles from a magazine. I like Clara, Conde Nast Traveler, Cuerpomente and       
Psychologies, etc
*Listen and read cultural articles from Veinte Mundos.

Writing

*Translation of a Spanish text into English (I'm training to work as a translator)
*Writing a text and getting feedback from users at Lang 8
*Translation of an English text into Spanish (to learn new vocabulary)

Listening

*Podcasts from notesinspanish.com
*TV programmes for RTVE. Currently watching "Gran Reserva"

Edited by StarcrazyAngel on 19 January 2014 at 5:10pm

1 person has voted this message useful



StarcrazyAngel
Triglot
Groupie
China
Joined 5758 days ago

47 posts - 61 votes 
Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish
Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin

 
 Message 5 of 8
19 January 2014 at 5:00pm | IP Logged 
It's been just over two weeks since I started TAC 2014 and I'm please with the progress
I've made so far. I can feel my levels in each language picking up as I've got myself
back into a routine of studying after a very bad December.

My first week went well and I managed to stick to my goal of 30 minutes per language
per day. Also time that I would have usually wasted doing useless things, I used for
language study and felt much better for it.
After that, however, things went a bit downhill as I had other commitments and became
very busy with work. I found that because I hadn't planned my language study activities
for the following day, that I wasted a precious hour at lunch and other free moments
because I hadn't planned what I wanted to do in advance.

Starting from today I pledge to plan my activities the night before, especially for
days when things will be a bit hectic. I've also noticed that I've been spending a lot
of time on some skills and as little as 10 minutes on others. This week I also plan to
balance this out.

1 person has voted this message useful



Anya
Pentaglot
Senior Member
France
Joined 5552 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 6 of 8
19 January 2014 at 6:58pm | IP Logged 
Very interesting plan! Good luck with your studies!
I think it's natural one spend more times on passive skills like Listening or Reading.
1 person has voted this message useful



StarcrazyAngel
Triglot
Groupie
China
Joined 5758 days ago

47 posts - 61 votes 
Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish
Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin

 
 Message 7 of 8
20 January 2014 at 3:32pm | IP Logged 
Thanks. It's going to be a challenge but the results at the end of the year will be worth the hard work.
I find I read and listen more as I find it easier and they require less effort from me than writing and
speaking. Good luck with your studies this year as well!
1 person has voted this message useful



StarcrazyAngel
Triglot
Groupie
China
Joined 5758 days ago

47 posts - 61 votes 
Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish
Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin

 
 Message 8 of 8
20 January 2014 at 3:51pm | IP Logged 
Spanish - speaking
Today I split my speaking into two activities. Firstly I recorded myself reading a chapter of a book and then
an article from a cooking magazine. I did this for 20 minutes and then as I was getting tired of reading
texts I decided to record myself, giving answers on the spot to questions designed to help you reconnect
with yourself.

The best thing to come out of me reading the texts was that I focused really hard on correctly pronouncing
words that I have difficulty with. What I found difficult was keeping a good flow while speaking.; not
stumbling over words which in turn would slow my reading speed down.

I really enjoyed my second activity, which I also recorded. I felt more comfortable and natural speaking
and I tried to use more complex language because unlike having a face-to-face conversation I didn't have
to feel embarrassed and I could take my time without boring the listener. One difficulty I found was
conjugating my verbs correctly, something that has been happening since last year, and using Italian
vocabulary by mistake.

Next time I record myself speaking I will spend more time answering the questions as I felt it was more
beneficial to prepare me for speaking in real life conversations. In preparation I'll work on the tenses that
I'm getting wrong.


1 person has voted this message useful



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