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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| senor_smile Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6385 days ago 110 posts - 115 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Russian | Message 65 of 74 12 June 2007 at 9:59am | IP Logged | |||||
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So, I decided to start Hebrew, yesterday. (Sorry, I'm probably not following the rules exactly, but there are so many pages to read that I gave up. Too bad there wasn't a collaboration page with a summary of what's going on here) I have a little phrase book that I'm going to learn the heck out of, Pimsleur Hebrew 1, and i just got my hands on Assimil - Hébreu. I'm also going to the library to get colloquial hebrew, as I just saw it this weekend and was tempted. Does anyone know any good sites for vocabulary? I would like to take the first 500-1000 common words and put them in jmemorize to start getting familiar with the vocabulary.
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| Jerrod Senior Member United States Joined 6502 days ago 168 posts - 176 votes Studies: Russian, Spanish | Message 66 of 74 12 June 2007 at 12:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think I may have driven many people away, by trying to plan to much. I am a "scientist" and so I like to plan everything out so we get the best unbiased results. Now there is a 3 week challenge and an ultimate challenge of sorts. I assume quite a few people have gone over to the other side (I myself am thinking of going too :)
How about we just have fun and try to do as much as we can in 6 weeks time and end sometime in early September. I am doing two 6 week challenges, one with Spanish and one with German. For 6 years I have wanted to be a polyglot and I must get there. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6908 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 67 of 74 12 June 2007 at 1:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The avid student could probably participate in this 6WC, the 3WC AND the total annihilation. Who knows, maybe I will take part in one of them.
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| Zorndyke Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6957 days ago 374 posts - 382 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Czech | Message 68 of 74 13 June 2007 at 8:10am | IP Logged | |||||
How do you choose the words that you write into your word lists when you just have a grammar and don't read texts yet?
Does that mean you do either active or intensive reading, or does it mean active and intensive reading are actually the same thing? And what exactly is extensive reading? Edited by Zorndyke on 13 June 2007 at 8:14am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6438 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 69 of 74 13 June 2007 at 11:27am | IP Logged | |||||
Here are links to various descriptions of intensive and extensive reading. In short, extensive reading is reading large amounts of text for content/understanding, while intensive reading involves paying close attention to the details. The definitions I can find of active reading emphasize underlining and marking up the text. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6438 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 70 of 74 13 June 2007 at 11:28am | IP Logged | |||||
Out of curiosity, why did you choose this strategy? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jerrod Senior Member United States Joined 6502 days ago 168 posts - 176 votes Studies: Russian, Spanish | Message 71 of 74 15 June 2007 at 3:43am | IP Logged | |||||
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So who else is in? I am doing Spanish, German, and maybe French.
For those that are in, I say we follow this simple pattern: 1. Choose a method. 2. Work for 6 weeks with that method keeping detailed journals. 3. Create a small write up. 4. Finish by Sep 1. Begin! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6702 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 72 of 74 15 June 2007 at 4:43am | IP Logged | |||||
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Answers to Zorndyke:
The best place to start collecting words for word lists will probably be a pocketsize language guide (Berlitz or others of the same kind), where you get words for common ocurrencies such as clothing, furniture, food and greeting. Culling words from dictionaries is long term activity, where the perspective is the vocabulary that I will need to read genuine stuff about things that interest me. Most people might argue that it is a waste of time for a beginner to memorize rare words, but if they are central to something that I would like to read later then I can just as well start learning them now. Another factor that makes dictionary culling relevant is that I get all the words that I can wish for (and more!) plus their meanings from a competent source. I trust the definitions in a good dictionary more than I trust my own guesswork during reading. The third source for word lists is the corpus of texts that I read intensively. Which brings me to the second question: what is intensive reading. Extensive reading is the kind of reading where you just sit down in a armchair and read a book. Even if you look up a few words it is still extensive reading if that's all you do. And this kind of reading is only possible if you are already quite good at the language in question. Intensive reading takes much more time, but it can be done almost from day 1. I first select a source that is not too far above my level. In the case of Modern Greek I first tried one of these guide books in all kinds of languages that are sold at every streetcorner in Greece. It was too difficult, - I had to find something simpler, and the only thing that I could find was a standard text book. When I had finished that (and written a plethora of word lists!) I was ready to return to the guide book in Greek, and I still haven't finished that one. So rule nr. 1 is: choose a text that is above your level, but not too much. With Greek I also had to get accostumed to the writing, so it was quite logical to start out copying every single sentence to a sheet of paper, adding a translation in another colour below. In the beginning I wrote a normal correct translation in Danish, but since I have found that it is much more logical to write a hyperliteral translation because it makes me concentrate on the sentence structures in the original rather than on what is allowed in Danish. At the right side of the paper I leave space for one or two columns of unknown words with their translations. I normally collect the words from one sentence first, look them up and then return to the sentence and try to understand it. If I do then I write the translation, otherwise it's back to studying the words and maybe consult a grammar. The latest addition to this system of intensive reading is that I try to memorize the original phrase to the point where I can write it down corectly using only the mangled translation as a crutch. Of course I follow the same plan with Russian. Of course it takes a long time doing all these things, and I only do them as long as I feel that I am a total novice. As soon as I can start reading extensively I cut down on the intensive reading, typically by copying only sentences that I find interesting or obscure. Somewhere around intermediate fluency the two reading modes coalesce: I jot down a few words here and there and copy a few interesting sentences to a sheet or paper or a note book, but I stop copying the whole thing. At that point it is more relevant to start writing something on my own than to copy the work of others. Edited by Iversen on 15 June 2007 at 4:50am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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