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Tristano’s log 2015 [EN|FR|NL|RU|ES]

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tristano
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Netherlands
Joined 3843 days ago

905 posts - 1262 votes 
Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English
Studies: Dutch

 
 Message 33 of 177
18 January 2015 at 3:02pm | IP Logged 
Hi! Thank you very much! Well, until now I cannot complain about AF of The Hague. It's just that the study plan is
incredibly long and thought to whom goes to the class, does the homework and stop. I was quite surprised when a
student that has studied in the AF of Rotterdam and introduced herself in the one of The Hague, even in presence of
the certificate they asked her to do the placement test and they made her repeat the last course, with the motivation
that the two study plans in the two schools were different.

But hey! Thank you very much for welcoming me in the Spanish team!
It will be an interesting year I'm quite sure! :)

1 person has voted this message useful



tristano
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Netherlands
Joined 3843 days ago

905 posts - 1262 votes 
Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English
Studies: Dutch

 
 Message 34 of 177
22 January 2015 at 9:19pm | IP Logged 
A week is missing to the month of January, the month which the main focus has been French. Another month is
approaching and next to it a different focus, this time on Spanish. I learnt that I tend not to see my progresses in a
linear fashion: they become more evident if I look behind. New ideas arise in my mind, new concepts will be tested.
1 person has voted this message useful



tristano
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Netherlands
Joined 3843 days ago

905 posts - 1262 votes 
Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English
Studies: Dutch

 
 Message 35 of 177
24 January 2015 at 12:42am | IP Logged 
Wow. This is kinda awesome.
I think there is a chain reaction in course.

A brief recap. Everything starts in November 2014, where I decided that studying two languages (French and Dutch)
was not enough, so I started studying Spanish. Due to similarity to Italian I started by simply listening to podcasts,
watching some tv series and films - you know, that kind of stuff. As a result of this, I started noticing this month
that I can understand almost everything of the native resources, even with very fast speech.

So this month I started doing the same in French, and I found that also my French comprehension has improved
quite a lot, and I started to wonder if this is somehow tied to my work with Spanish.

And now today. I listened my honest 90 minutes of French, until then I decided to listen to Spanish another good 90
minutes during my train ride and in the airport. Once in the airplane I decided that simply sleep as almost everyone
does is too boring and I therefore listened 45 minutes of a Dutch podcast (Dichtbij Nederland). The hosts were
talking very very fast (the male host was a machine) but I managed to understand most of it! I was shocked! Ok, I
was familiar with the argument and this really helps, but one month ago in the same conditions what I was able to
understand were an endless stream of alien sounds with some familiar word here and there, while now every word,
included the ones I don't know, are very delimited from my ears. I also read for another 30 minutes a Dutch novel
and I read without strain getting a lot out of it (very few phrases which I didn't get everything or just the gist).

Now you would probably think "you must have studied hours a day"; WRONG! Not even close! It's 3 weeks that I
don't touch Dutch. What is happening then? Well, I have a theory. My theory is that getting to understand and listen
very fast spoken Spanish trained my ears and my brain to process the meaning of the speech much faster, then also
trained with French which the spelling is much more opaque than the Spanish' and eventually boosted my
comprehension of Dutch too. I wonder if this makes a minimum sort of sense.
3 persons have voted this message useful



Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6393 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 36 of 177
24 January 2015 at 4:05am | IP Logged 
This makes perfect sense, yes :) I think football turned me into a better learner because I got used to the fast and emotional speaking.

Consider trying accelerated audio too.

...ho provato di dire tutto questo in itаliano e fa male com'è difficile :/ Penso che hai perfettamente ragione. Allora mi hai anche fatto pensare su come il calcio mi ha aiutato moltissimo; la velocità ed emozione della telecronaca sono diventate cose assolutamente normali per me, e poi è stato così anche in altri contesti.

Non so perché nunca te avevo scritto in itаliano prima ;)

Edited by Serpent on 24 January 2015 at 4:08am

1 person has voted this message useful



tristano
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Netherlands
Joined 3843 days ago

905 posts - 1262 votes 
Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English
Studies: Dutch

 
 Message 37 of 177
24 January 2015 at 10:11am | IP Logged 
Fantastico! Questa è una scoperta meravigliosa per me. Cambia completamente la prospettiva che ho di imparare le
lingue. In effetti, considerando che sono interessato soprattutto a comprendere le lingue e in misura minore e per
un ristretto gruppo di lingue anche a parlarle, pare che io possa acquisire comprensione in poco tempo con lingue
correlate e guadagnare, grazie a questo lavoro, comprensione persino in lingue la cui correlazione è molto più
debole (vedi l'esempio dell'olandese avendo lavorato con francese e spagnolo) aumentando la velocità a cui sono
abituato a fruire dell'audio.

Fantastic! This is a wonderful discover for me. It changes completely the perspective I have about language learning.
Indeed, considering that I'm principally interested in understanding languages and in a lesser extent and for a
limited amount of languages also speaking them, it seems that I could acquire comprehension in little time with
related languages and gain, through this work, comprehension even in languages which the correlation is weaker
(see the example of Dutch, having worked with French and Spanish) increasing the speed which I'm used to listening
the audio.

On a side note, translating from Italian to English is very painful for me :D

E devo ammettere che Volte ci ha lasciati delle vere e proprie gemme in questo forum :)
1 person has voted this message useful



PeterMollenburg
Senior Member
AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5272 days ago

821 posts - 1273 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: FrenchB1

 
 Message 38 of 177
24 January 2015 at 3:14pm | IP Logged 
tristano wrote:
Wow. This is kinda awesome.
I think there is a chain reaction in course.

A brief recap. Everything starts in November 2014, where I decided that studying two
languages (French and Dutch)
was not enough, so I started studying Spanish. Due to similarity to Italian I started
by simply listening to podcasts,
watching some tv series and films - you know, that kind of stuff. As a result of this,
I started noticing this month
that I can understand almost everything of the native resources, even with very fast
speech.

So this month I started doing the same in French, and I found that also my French
comprehension has improved
quite a lot, and I started to wonder if this is somehow tied to my work with Spanish.

And now today. I listened my honest 90 minutes of French, until then I decided to
listen to Spanish another good 90
minutes during my train ride and in the airport. Once in the airplane I decided that
simply sleep as almost everyone
does is too boring and I therefore listened 45 minutes of a Dutch podcast (Dichtbij
Nederland). The hosts were
talking very very fast (the male host was a machine) but I managed to understand most
of it! I was shocked! Ok, I
was familiar with the argument and this really helps, but one month ago in the same
conditions what I was able to
understand were an endless stream of alien sounds with some familiar word here and
there, while now every word,
included the ones I don't know, are very delimited from my ears. I also read for
another 30 minutes a Dutch novel
and I read without strain getting a lot out of it (very few phrases which I didn't get
everything or just the gist).

Now you would probably think "you must have studied hours a day"; WRONG! Not even
close! It's 3 weeks that I
don't touch Dutch. What is happening then? Well, I have a theory. My theory is that
getting to understand and listen
very fast spoken Spanish trained my ears and my brain to process the meaning of the
speech much faster, then also
trained with French which the spelling is much more opaque than the Spanish' and
eventually boosted my
comprehension of Dutch too. I wonder if this makes a minimum sort of sense.


Félicitations avec tes améliorations Tristiano ! J'ai trouvé ça en fait passionant de
le lire. Ça me montre que la façon avec laquelle que tu étudies tes langues choisies a
l'air très efficace.

Congratulations with your improvements Tristiano! I found that in fact exciting to
read. It shows me that the manner in which you study your chosen languages appears to
be very effective.

En ce qui concerne ta théorie que puisque tu écoutais beaucoup de ces langues à une
vitesse rapide ou pas exactement une vitesse facile et que ça alors t'aide à comprendre
maintenant beaucoup plus en les écoutant même se les personnes parlent très
rapidement... Eh bien, je crois que c'est possible en effet. Pour moi j'ai remarqué une
autre chose. Quelque fois quand je n'ai pas voulu étudier beaucoup ou quand j'ai été en
vacances ou trop occupé pour étudier mais j'ai quand même regardé un peu de télévision
en français (peut-être parce que j'en ai eu marre de mes cours) j'ai réalisé que je
pouvais comprendre plus que quand j'étudiais beaucoup. Alors, je crois que c'est
possible que quand nous sommes en train d'étudier une langue intensivement qu'on veut
analyser tous les mots qu'on entend, et puis après qu'on s'arrête de l'étudier on se
relaxe et voilà ! Puis on peut comprendre les phrases beaucoup plus facilment puisque
on n'analyse pas intensivement chaque mot qu'on entend, mais en fait on écoute les
phrases et les sons comme un ensemble, pas chaque mot. Qu'est-ce que tu en penses? Je
suis désolé, je devais composer les phrases plus courtes.

With regards to your theory that since you have listened a lot to these languages at a
fast speed or not exactly an easy speed and that that is now helping you tu understand
a lot more while listening to them even if the people speak fast... Well, I believe
that it's indeed possible. For me I have noticed something else. Sometimes when I
haven't wanted to study much or when I have been on holidays or too busy to study but I
have still watched some television in French (probably because I was sick of my
courses) I realised that I was able to understand more than when I was studying a lot.
So, I believe that it's possible that when we are busy studying a language intensively
that we want to analyse all the words that we hear, and after we stop studying it we
relax and there you have it! Then we can understand the sentences a lot more easily
since we don't intensively analyse each word that we hear, but we in fact listen to the
sentences and the sounds as a whole, not each word. What do you think. Sorry the
grammar isn't fantastic I should have written shorter sentences.

Edited by PeterMollenburg on 24 January 2015 at 3:17pm

1 person has voted this message useful



tristano
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Netherlands
Joined 3843 days ago

905 posts - 1262 votes 
Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English
Studies: Dutch

 
 Message 39 of 177
24 January 2015 at 4:48pm | IP Logged 
Bonjour @PeterMollenburg!
   Je pense que c'est en fait possible mais que n'est pas le même pour tous. Je suis sûr d'être un
global learner et je trouve que ça marche
bien pour mois. En étudiant des langues corrélées je gagne plus de context aussi. Un petit example:
- les mots être et même. Un des mes professeurs m'a dit que l'accent circumflex est utilisé en français pour
substituer la 's' dans des mots latins. Grace à l'espagnol ça est plus évident: être -> estar, même -> mismo/misma.

À la fin c'est comme apprendre une seule langue composée de plusieurs langues!


Hi @PeterMollenburg!
   I think that it's indeed possible but it is not the same for everyone I'm sure to be a
global learner and I find that it works well
for me. Studying correlated language I gain also more context. A small example:
- the words être and même. One of my professors told me that the circumflex accent is used in French to substitute
the 's' inside some latin words. Thanks to Spanish this has became more evident to me: être -> estar, même ->
mismo/misma.

In the end it's like to learn one unique language composed by many languages!

(speaking about grammar, I'm generally bad with it in any language - Italian included!)

Edited by tristano on 24 January 2015 at 4:48pm

1 person has voted this message useful



tristano
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Netherlands
Joined 3843 days ago

905 posts - 1262 votes 
Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English
Studies: Dutch

 
 Message 40 of 177
25 January 2015 at 8:03pm | IP Logged 
I tried to speed up the audio like recommended by @Serpent - my podcast player allows that - up to 2X.
The level of comprehension stays more or less the same than with the normal speed - with some exception. I think I
can go on listening everyday the accelerated audio: it allows me to get much more input maintaining the listening
time constant.


1 person has voted this message useful



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