|
 |
Team Forza & Exploradores TAC 2014 | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| StarcrazyAngel Triglot Groupie China Joined 5997 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 5997 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 5997 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 5997 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 5997 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 5791 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 5997 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 5997 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 |
If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
