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Serbian: B1 in 7 months

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40 messages over 5 pages: 13 4 5  Next >>
basica
Senior Member
Australia
Joined 3342 days ago

157 posts - 269 votes 
Studies: Serbian

 
 Message 9 of 40
14 June 2015 at 1:56pm | IP Logged 
More ramblings..

Was meant to include this in my other post but I forgot. I came across a good post by Benny Lewis on his
Fi3M blog where he discusses people aiming for lower goals (i.e. almost everyone, myself included aim for B1
levels or above) and then discusses why aiming for an A2 level is actually a good idea and how useful it is. I
think he's sorta oversold what you can do in A1 and A2 to a small extent, but nevertheless I think he's made a
good point. A2 is quickly achievable and is helluva lot of useful than A0 :)

Another thought I had was that I think time for concepts to sink in is just as important as time spent on
learning a language. For example, I estimate I've spent < 100 hrs on Serbian, and I've had as good of an
understanding about most of the concepts I now know for a good deal now - grammar wise, I haven't learned
all too much recently (not to say I haven't at all as I've really improved in some key areas) - most of my
learning continues to be vocabulary. What has helped me understand the grammar and for it not to be such a
big deal is the time I've given it to sink in. I notice simply giving things time and moving on even when you
don't quite get something is quite fine as oftentimes it will quietly click into place in the background or at least
loosen up a bit the time time you attempt to tackle it.

Lastly, I think the pareto principle really has a lot to it. For example, according to the FSI estimates - it takes
about 1100 hours to get to a C1ish level in Serbian. I have spent less than a tenth of that to get to a A2 level. I
suppose it will take at least another 100 hours to be comfortably in the B1 range, which means that 4/5ths of
the time spent on getting to a C1 level is spent from an already conversational level. Pretty full on I think :)
Anyways, that's enough for now but we'll see how accurate this is by the end of the year! :)

Benny's Blog Post:

http://www.fluentin3months.com/a2-level/
3 persons have voted this message useful



basica
Senior Member
Australia
Joined 3342 days ago

157 posts - 269 votes 
Studies: Serbian

 
 Message 10 of 40
16 June 2015 at 2:01pm | IP Logged 
Same old same old so far. Finding it's taking a bit more effort to plug away though. Kinda getting to the point
where I wish I was B1 already and I can start enjoying the language a bit :P

In any case, on the spur of the moment I decided to record myself speaking without a script. You can find it
here on my soundcloud account:

https://soundcloud.com/basica1/zdravo-probam-da-govorim-srps ki-jezik

BCS speakers, feel free to comment here or there and provide feedback.

Edited by basica on 16 June 2015 at 2:34pm

2 persons have voted this message useful



nikolic993
Diglot
Senior Member
Yugoslavia
Joined 3586 days ago

106 posts - 205 votes 
Speaks: Serbian*, English
Studies: Italian, Mandarin, Romanian, Persian

 
 Message 11 of 40
16 June 2015 at 2:54pm | IP Logged 
Good job man, your pronunciation was great. Even though you made some small mistakes I understood everything that you wanted to say. I chuckled a bit when you said "'fala" at the end of the recording. :D

Here are some corrections.

00:07 - "blizu glavnog gradA"
00:31 - "ako želiš da voZiš od KanberE do"
00:39 - "TREBAĆE TI/ možda(oko) 3 sata (da stigneš)"
01:27 - "moja porodica je došla IZ Srbije i BoSNE"
01:56 - "uvek SMO pričaLI"
02:03 - "kad sam išao u školU"
02:19 - "su rekle MOJIM roditeljiMA"
02:55 - "VAŠ sin NEĆE MOĆI dobro da razume engleski"
03:14 - "sada samo PRIČAJTE engleski"    Imperative mood for 2nd person plural.
04:04 - "dugo vremena NISAM SMEO da pričam"


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basica
Senior Member
Australia
Joined 3342 days ago

157 posts - 269 votes 
Studies: Serbian

 
 Message 12 of 40
16 June 2015 at 3:03pm | IP Logged 
Thanks for the corrections, much appreciated :) Haha, sounds like I need to work a bit more on my
pronunciation of hvala then, oh dear :P
1 person has voted this message useful



nikolic993
Diglot
Senior Member
Yugoslavia
Joined 3586 days ago

106 posts - 205 votes 
Speaks: Serbian*, English
Studies: Italian, Mandarin, Romanian, Persian

 
 Message 13 of 40
16 June 2015 at 3:33pm | IP Logged 
basica wrote:
Thanks for the corrections, much appreciated :) Haha, sounds like I need to work a bit more on my
pronunciation of hvala then, oh dear :P
No you don't. It's just funny to hear it from someone that started learning the language. :D I say it like that all the time. I only say hvala when I speak with my professors at the faculty, but I sometimes also jokingly say 'fala. :D
2 persons have voted this message useful



basica
Senior Member
Australia
Joined 3342 days ago

157 posts - 269 votes 
Studies: Serbian

 
 Message 14 of 40
19 June 2015 at 4:44pm | IP Logged 
So, I have a lesson tomorrow and I'm looking forward to that. I'm also going to visit a zoo nearby *yay* I hope
I get to see some meerkats. They're cute :) Afterwards I think I might high the books a bit and try ramp up my
Serbian. The last couple days I've been feeling a wave of motivation that I've been missing for a while so I
guess I feel like I want to strike while the iron is hot.

I have also decided that the movie aspect of things is just not going to work out. What I've learned from my
experience with trying to force myself to study my textbook was that is that it's not going to happen if I am not
already able to fit it in. The 100 words a day thing is fine and I've been doing that consistently, I need to find
out something else to do like that. Per advice from nikolic, I think I might start going through Serbian wikipedia
and attempt to read articles. I'll print them to pdf files and attach virtual notes to them. If anyone comes
across any free e-books in Serbian I would much appreciate it!

With regards to the video side of things, though I am dropping it from my list of goals (with something to
replace it at some point) I have found that it was easier for me to watch Glas Amerike (Voice of America).
Since it's the news and about topics I am generally familiar with, I find it a bit easier to understand. I notice
they have a daily show on for 30mins - I will have a trial run of watching them - we'll see how it goes and my
movie challenge might get updated to this.
2 persons have voted this message useful



Radioclare
Triglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
timeofftakeoff.com
Joined 4389 days ago

689 posts - 1119 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto
Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian

 
 Message 15 of 40
19 June 2015 at 11:54pm | IP Logged 
basica wrote:
If anyone comes across any free e-books in Serbian I would much appreciate it!


I have devoted hours to trying to find a good legal source of Serbian/Croatian e-books and failed miserably.

I do, however, have a collection of over 100 pdfs of novels (mainly translations from English) which I have been fortunate enough to
find. Some of them are in Serbian, some of them are in Croatian, some of them I've given up trying to figure out which language it
is!

PM me if you want some recommendations :)
1 person has voted this message useful



Jinx
Triglot
Senior Member
Germany
reverbnation.co
Joined 5499 days ago

1085 posts - 1879 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, French
Studies: Catalan, Dutch, Esperanto, Croatian, Serbian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish, Yiddish

 
 Message 16 of 40
21 June 2015 at 12:08am | IP Logged 
I will definitely be following this log – I enjoy reading about your progress, basica! I have been in love with the BCSM
languages (especially Croatian, but all of them really) ever since I first "met" them, although the tiny amount of
knowledge I once had has now faded drastically since I don't have the time to actively study it. For the time being,
I'll just live vicariously through reading your log, I guess. ;)

Also a big thanks to Serpent and Radioclare for the resource recommendations! I bookmarked a bunch of things.


1 person has voted this message useful



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