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jbadg76421’s TAC 2015 log(Rätsel) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| jbadg76421 Groupie United States Joined 4178 days ago 51 posts - 92 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, French, Esperanto | Message 1 of 28 15 December 2014 at 12:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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Given the amount of time I've been spending on language learning lately, I decided it
would be best to at least try to keep a log, if nothing else than for me to go back and see how much project I've made throughout the course of this little experiment. Of course, I hope if anyone is interested they'll follow along and offer advice! Background: I've been interested in learning languages for a long time, and I have quite a long "hit list", but I wasn't quite sure where to start. So I decided to make a compromise. I took the advice that Arguelles and others have given on this forum, and decided to start with French and German since a knowledge of these two plus English would give me access to the greatest number of quality learning materials (specifically Assimil courses which have not been translated into English). So I started off about nine months ago with French. I worked through Assimil New French With Ease. I should add that I never much cared for French, and while I have gained more respect for the language, it still isn't my favorite, although it's proven itself very useful. I'm also using Anki cards based off of Assimil. And I have a French tutor that I Skype with somewhat regularly. Since French is the most advanced of my languages, I've been "immersing" myself in it, watching and movie dubs and reading newspaper and magazine articles when I have time. I also want to keep a journal in a language I am learning, so I chose French. I finished New French With Ease, I decided to start German, so I again turned to Assimil, and bought German With Ease. Whereas I had to force myself to work on French, German is a labor of love. It is easily my favorite language. I love speaking it and I like the way it sounds, and I really think it's a lot of fun to study. German With Ease has proven to be a very good course, I'm currently on lesson 82 and I am very pleased with my progress. I can already understand good portions of written and spoken German, and I think that if I follow the same route I that I did with French, I will develop a very strong command of the language in another year or so. Goals: I should be done with FSI French Course by the end of this year. I will probably do the Advanced Course (Parts A and B), and then I'll stop with formal courses and stick to native materials. If I could finish both by June 2015 I'd be pleased. I'd like to put French in maintenance mode for the rest of 2015 and focus on German. If I could get French and German up to B2 in 2015, I'd be very happy. I'll try to update as often as possible! Edited by jbadg76421 on 10 March 2015 at 2:20pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| jbadg76421 Groupie United States Joined 4178 days ago 51 posts - 92 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, French, Esperanto | Message 2 of 28 23 December 2014 at 12:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have decided for now to focus all of my efforts on French and German, since these two require pretty much all the time I have to spare.
FR I am almost finished with Unit 12 of FSI. Up next is Unit 13, which marks the beginning of the "Advanced" course. If I'm being completely honest, I wasn't very impressed with the first 8 units of the course. I liked the fact that there was so much audio, but I really thought that the material covered was not as thorough as I would have expected from FSI. However, starting with unit 9 many of the drills began focusing on grammar points I've had difficulty keeping straight (especially the postioning of object pronouns), and now I feel like I'm making more progress. I noted yesterday and today with much satisfaction that I'm able to produce phrases more or less spontaneously, with the object pronouns in the correct order. Still, the first 12 units of FSI French don't go into very much detail...I think only the present tense and passé composé were covered. I hope that the last 12 units of the course manage to drill at least the rest of what Assimil covers (the conditional, imperfect, and future), but I guess I'll have to wait and see. At any rate, the audio drills are useful in and of themselves, and I'd like to review Unit 12 a second time before I move on. I have been wanting to start reading French in earnest for some time, and my first choice was the Harry Potter series. I'm a big fan of the books and films, and I think it will be easier to read things I am interested in, rather than work through graded readers that may or may not contain material I find enjoyable. So far I've really only been reading newspaper and magazine articles, and sometimes also French-language forums. I was originally going to buy the Harry Potter series in paper pack, but then I learned that with a Kindle and a subscription to Kindle Unlimited, I can read the entire series in both French and German for free. I also realized that there were many books in German available only for Kindle, so I ordered a new Kindle, which should arrive tomorrow. In the meantime, I started reading Harry Potter à l'école des sorciers last night. There was quite a bit of vocabulary I wasn't familiar with, but that didn't really stop me from reading rather easily, so I'm pleased that I will be able to enjoy this series in French. I've also been watching a lot of French-dubbed series, including Les Simpsons and Dexter, as well as speaking French via Skype with my tutor somewhat regularly. DE It's official: I am completely in love with German, and I intend to give her the bulk of my attention from now on. It's refereshing to find so much pleasure in studying a language. I am on lesson 90 of Assimil, and I also picked up a copy of Schaum's Outlines German Grammar to work through. I'd really like to continue with both FSI German and Assimil Perfectionnement Allemand. And I started reading: I noticed that Amazon has a lot of German language-edition Star Trek books available for Kindle. I am a huge Trek fan, and I decided to have some fun and I downloaded a junior novel I read in English when I was maybe 9 or 10 years old. It's sufficiently difficult, but not too much so. I can probably understand a good 50 percent of what I read, so I intend to continue. I also have been watching and listening to more native materials, especially TV news and the radio, rather than constantly reviewing the Assimil dialogues. That's all for now...Fortsetzung folgt! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5322 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 28 23 December 2014 at 1:57pm | IP Logged | ||
Reading with 50% comprehension is pretty hard-core, but if you're enjoying yourself, it's all good. :-) And as much as I appreciate Assimil's courses, I agree that it's a lot of fun to get away from them and start diving into native materials. Interestingly, Dr. Krashen, the man who has spent decades promoting the benefits of "comprehensible input", is also a huge fan of reading Star Trek novels in translation. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| jbadg76421 Groupie United States Joined 4178 days ago 51 posts - 92 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, French, Esperanto | Message 4 of 28 24 December 2014 at 12:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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FR
I started FSI: Basic French Advanced Level A this morning, and I'm hoping that this program will really delve into some "advanced" topics not covered in Assimil New French With Ease. I did see a glimmer of hope - the first grammar point in Unit 13 covers the imparfait, so maybe things will begin to pick up. I'd really like to drill the various tenses until I have them down pat. Recognizing them when I'm reading is one thing, but producing them without hesitation...that'll be a real miracle. I read more of Harry Potter à l'école des sorciers last night before bed. I'm really pleased that I can read so much more easily than I initially thought. There is still a good chunk vocabulary that is unfamiliar, but I can usually work out the meaning. I'm not going to stop to look up every word, only the ones that reoccur often. I'll have to re-watch the films in French after I finish reading the series, it's been a long time since I've seen them. I am also enjoying re-watching Dexter in French. Much of the show is narrated by the protagonist, which I find very helpful. Also, I'm learning lots of fun French swear words..not that I'd ever use them in polite company, mind you :-)... DE I'm on lesson 90 of Assimil, and so the countdown to the end begins. I'm happy that the speech on the recordings is beginning to match the same speed as the speakers I hear on TV. I had a listen to the first lesson of Perfectionnement Allemand and I could understand most of it, so I'd really like to continue on with Assimil before moving to anything else. Maybe Perfectionnement and FSI combined, I'm not sure. I downloaded the sample version of Assimil's e-méthode for Perfectionnement Allemand and I'm still not sure what I think about it. I like that you can type in the answers to the exercises, and that you can record your voice to compare to the recordings, but I'm just not sure...part of me would miss that little booklet. We'll see...at any rate, I am truly in love with this language and I hope to continue my studies all the way to an advanced level, whatever the medium. @emk that's very interesting...I guess there's bound to be a few language lovers amongst us obsessive nerd types :-) Fortsetzung folg! Edited by jbadg76421 on 24 December 2014 at 12:49pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jbadg76421 Groupie United States Joined 4178 days ago 51 posts - 92 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, French, Esperanto | Message 5 of 28 25 December 2014 at 1:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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Merry Christmas! Frohe Weihnachten! Joyeux Noël!
My new Kindle arrived yesterday, and I'm super excited about it...with Kindle Unlimited, all of the Harry Potter series are available for free (in English and also Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Japanese!). It's $9.99 per month, and I since I cancelled my Netflix account, it's a pretty sweet deal. I'm loving the built-in dictionary and the fact that you can save vocabulary you look up for later review. FR Finally finished the dialogue portion of Unit 13 of FSI. The dialogues are always my least favorite part, although I have learned a few useful words and expressions. I really just want to get to the drilling. I got about 45 minutes in this morning, and I'm going to try to do more this afternoon. I'm on chapter 3 of Harry Potter and I am so happy that my reading has improved. I don't seem to have the same innate ability to deduce the meaning of an unfamiliar word in French that I do in German, but so far my modest vocabulary has not precluded me from enjoying the book. I may not especially like speaking French, but reading it is quite a pleasure. I reviewed two Anki decks yesterday, one covering Assimil French With Ease (with audio...very cool!) and another that reviews the grammar points covered in FSI unit 9. DE Lessons 91 and 42 were review (without audio), so I spent most of my morning working on Schaum's German Grammar. This book is incredible...I feel like all of the grammar points that I have a somewhat nebulous understanding of (as is usually the case with Assimil) are finally beginning to make sense. I worked on the nominative and accusative case today, and luckily the weak nouns were covered as well. I think that this book is one of those titles I'll be coming back to over and over throughout my studies. I'm still reading my Star Trek junior novel. It's slow going...there are times when I can barely make head or tails of a sentence, and then suddenly I can understand and entire paragraph. I think that because I have such an affinity for German, it's easy for me to work out the meaning of words even if they're unfamiliar...maybe it's because I have German ancestors, or maybe it's because my mother language is also Germanic, but I feel like I have an instinctive grip on this language...it just feels right to speak it. I've also been watching some German soap operas, in particular Sturm der Liebe. They are incredibly lame, but good for listening practice, and most of the episodes have German subtitles. Again, sometimes I can understand entire sentences, sometimes not, but at least I can see daily progress. That's all for now! I hope everyone has a happy and safe holiday! Fortsetzung folgt... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jbadg76421 Groupie United States Joined 4178 days ago 51 posts - 92 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, French, Esperanto | Message 6 of 28 08 January 2015 at 12:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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Okay, new year, new goals...I'm going to participate in the 2015 TAC for German. I'm going to make it official and marry this language ;-). At least, I'm going to take it as far as possible without actually living in Germany.
DE I'm done with the passive phase of Assimil, and am currently on lesson 56. Since I only have to do the active phase for the remaining 40 or so lessons, each lesson only takes me between 15-30 minutes, depending on how difficult it is for me to translate to German from English. Honestly, I am shocked...I really thought that New French With Ease was so easy because I had already spent 10 years learning Spanish in school and had thus picked up French much more quickly than I would have without knowing another Romance language. I was certain that German would be much more difficult, but I don't really find the active phase all that bad...really it's just some of the vocabulary that I didn't "assimilate" the first time around that trips me up, and only occasionally. Maybe it's easier because I have an affinity for the language? I don't know...I remember the last few lessons of New French With Ease were kind of rough going, but I think any difficulty I had was because I was so tired of the book and just wanted to be done with it. I don't feel that way about German...I only have a little more than a month left, and I'm going to really miss my daily lessons! (Of course I'll be re-reading it from time to time!) I think that FSI will be my next step. Since Assimil doesn't take all that much time, I've been working on Schaum's Outline of German Grammar. I really love this book...it's the perfect way (for me) to consolidate all the nebulous grammar explanations scattered throughout Assimil. And I've been working harder on my listening and reading practice...I try to read German newspapers as often as possible (sometimes I can understand almost entire articles, other times I'm totally lost), and I've been watching German dubs of The Simpsons, Family Guy, etc...again, sometimes I understand almost everything, other times not so much. I also watched a wonderful film called Alice in den Städte. I cheated because I had the English subtitles on, but I picked up a few sentences here and there, and I really enjoyed my first German film. FR I'm on Unit 15 of FSI. I think this program is very useful, especially since I don't get to talk to my Skype partner every day, but I will be glad when it's over. At any rate, I have learned more vocabulart that pops up from time to time. I also gave up on Harry Potter, and switched to reading Dune in French. I think I'm going to save Harry Potter for German, it's just to easy and doesn't really capture my attention the way Dune does. I've been trying to read every night, and hopefully I can get some reading in during my days off. And because I found the German version so useful, I also downloaded Schaum's Outlines French Grammar for my Kindle. I hope that it will help me out with some of the more advanced grammar points that weren't covered in Assimil. I also watch French TV from time to time, although I've been devoting more of my time to German, so French sort of gets the short end of the stick. Fortsetzung folgt! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ramblurr Newbie United States binaryelysium.com Joined 4130 days ago 30 posts - 34 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Egyptian), German | Message 7 of 28 08 January 2015 at 2:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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Enjoyed reading your logs, keep 'em up!
I'm on Assimil lesson 4, so it's nice to see what the future looks like. Did you use anything aside from Assimil's German With Ease? When did you start using Schaum's Outline of German Grammar? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jbadg76421 Groupie United States Joined 4178 days ago 51 posts - 92 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, French, Esperanto | Message 8 of 28 08 January 2015 at 2:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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No, I haven't used anything outside of Assimil yet...I think once I'm done it would be worthwhile to use FSI.
I didn't start with Schaum's until I was on lesson 90, and I think that's for the best. It would be very hard to use the book without some foundation in German, because a lot of the examples require you to have a basic vocabulary and a somewhat-solid understanding of grammar. But it's great for when you're almost done with the course! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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