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Polyliteracy - Ten Year Reading Plan | ||
Tags: Polyliteracy | Catalan | Listening-Reading (L-R) | Esperanto | Reading | FSI | Assimil | English | French | Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 6797 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes  Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 49 of 77 07 October 2007 at 3:46am | IP Logged | |||||
How come? Would you forget your own native language? ;-) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6987 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 50 of 77 07 October 2007 at 7:01am | IP Logged | |||||
Shakespeare uses language beautifully and in an unusual manner. To understand him requires some effort on my part. The Federalist Papers, a set of letters to the citizens of New York exhorting acceptance of the U.S. Constitution employ a writing style that takes some effort to understand. I'm comprehending them pretty well now, and continue to listen to them to develop a better foundation in that important body of works. 17th Century philosophers have been easier to understand, but took a few hours to get used to. So, if I am reading any difficult literature, that requires a dictionary, I might consider that "studying English". I'd imagine the experience is somewhat like a Spanish speaker reading Don Quijote de la Mancha. For the beginning hobbyist language learner, my recommendation would be to start with the classical works in your native tongue. They may be challenging, but if you give up after 100 hours, your life will be enriched by your study. Getting up to speed on language that is a few hundred years old isn't that difficult, but will introduce some words that are no longer in common use, some that have changed meaning, and archaic grammatical structures that can get one into the whole "language learning" mode. Second recommendation would be then to learn Esperanto if one has any interest in it at all. It's as easy as they come, and speakers perhaps tend to be more open and forgiving than a random speaker of a national language. This will give one an idea of what it takes to develop fluency in a foreign language. With those two items under your belt, move on to whatever language interests you the most. I'm assuming that the hobbyist wants a high level of fluency, but doesn't have a specific need such as a family member who speaks a language they need to know, or they've moved to a country where they need a foreign language. For instance, in the U.S. learning Spanish because it seems fun or useful is not uncommon. However, the challenges of language learning may cause fledgling students to abort the project once they realize that it isn't easy, and that many immigrants would rather practice their English. Or maybe for some, just having Pimsleur I under their belt makes them happier. There you have it. Edited by luke on 30 May 2008 at 3:59pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6987 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 51 of 77 12 October 2007 at 10:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm ready to officially start Assimil New French with Ease. Although I've listened up to about lesson at my one a day rate, I'm ready to start talking and follow the instructions a bit closer. The instructions do say to be creative, and I'll continue to do that, but I'll follow the listen, understand, and repeat method. Should I write out the lesson? The instructions never say to do that, but I could see that being helpful for focusing on the details. Right now I'm tired and think today isn't the day to start writing the lesson.
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| Sim Diglot Groupie Canada thehelper.net/forums Joined 6072 days ago 45 posts - 48 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Spanish | Message 52 of 77 15 October 2007 at 8:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Learning Spanish through Assimil as well as German taught me that it was a very good learning tool indeed ;)
Well, even if you're at only one lesson a day, if you have time to invest you could write them down. Otherwise, you might want, if you are dedicated enough, to do 2 lessons a day. If you write them down though, you might want to write down the vocabulary words and such, even if it's written that you should not. Edited by Sim on 15 October 2007 at 8:03pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6987 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 53 of 77 15 October 2007 at 8:46pm | IP Logged | |||||
Did you use French as the base for learning Spanish? I think the Assimil French courses for English speakers (New French with Ease and Using French) are well done. Today I am on lesson 4. Perhaps I should take the time right now to write out the first 4 lessons. ... later I wrote out lesson 1. That was good for focusing on details such as gender and accents. I also repeated each sentence while looking away from the book, which has been mentioned as an Assimil technique. That seems helpful too. Edited by luke on 15 October 2007 at 9:28pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| moisa Triglot Newbie Brazil Joined 6457 days ago 23 posts - 23 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishC1, Spanish Studies: French | Message 54 of 77 19 October 2007 at 9:52am | IP Logged | |||||
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Hi everyone. I would like some advice for where to go now. I finished Pimsleur French course and have been using BBC´s Ma France for while, but I need something to learn writing and grammar as well. I feel like something more complete.
thanks. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6987 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 55 of 77 30 May 2008 at 3:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
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It has been a while since I've updated this log, and I did let French languish for
several months. I began picking it up again about 2 weeks ago. My current approach: 1) Listen to and read 7 Assimil French with Ease lessons. Highlight important points, etc in the book. This study day may take an hour or so. I haven't timed it. Basically I am preparing for the upcoming week with this step. As I do the highlighting, I have the audio for the lesson I am working in a continual loop so I can begin to understand it. 2) Using the highlighting and marks in step 1 makes a micro review (1 minute or less) of the 7 lessons possible. I do that micro review a few times a week. 3) I had already edited the audio and I have recordings that are just the dialog. I.E. there are no "lesson onze" nor exercises in the recordings I am using. This makes a weeks worth of audio only about 7 minutes long, which is perfect. The first week, I listened to these twice a day. This second week, I listened to lessons 1-13. My plan here is to review the last two weeks audio each day in my car. I repeat with the audio, trying to pronounce correctly, etc. This takes only about 12 -15 minutes of commute time per day. That's it for Assimil technique right now. During another loop through the lessons I may focus more on individual lessons, rather than doing about 14 per day. At the rate I'm going, the book will take about 4 months. I imagine looping through it at several times. I may slip in the Using French book first using this high level approach. At some point I'll need to focus on details, but that time is not now. I bought DVDs of the 52 episodes for French in Action for $80 from http://completeseries.tv. I like them a lot better than the free stuff on learner.org. I also picked up the textbook, study guide, and workbook for part 1. The study guide appears helpful, as it has an episode guide and cultural information that are meant to be read before watching the video. The problem with FiA is dedicating 1/2 hour per day to it. That may be difficult going forward. For a couple days though, I've used a schedule like this, but my loved one is out of town: AM:episode 2, PM episode 3 AM episode 3, PM episode 4 That's actually an hour per day. I also have been listening to the text workup portion of the audio lessons, which are designed to be used after watching the video and don't need support from a book. This makes them good for commute time. This is about 1/2 of the audio per lesson. The other 1/2 of the audio apparently is highly dependent upon the workbook, which I've barely cracked. Reading some Farley postings on FiA got me to thinking about supporting the above with Learn French In Your Car, which I have on tape. I was thinking of doing a couple minutes a day of these to break up the pace. The challenge is dedicating this much time to French. If I drop some portions of my study, and I think that is likely, the FiA seems most likely to go, since it requires dedicated TV time, for which I seldom have time. I'm coming to believe in Professor A.'s notion of letting the language take root over a number of years. That seems doable with an Assimil type course. If life changes and I can give more time to the TV, then FiA may get a bigger role. Then again, I could target one episode a week for the time being. Clearly I plan to repeat the course over and over, learning more over time, rather than perfecting a lesson before moving on. I very much prefer a global to learning and I think paying to much attention to details slows me down in getting the foundation which I find so helpful. Edited by luke on 30 May 2008 at 3:57pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6229 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes Studies: German | Message 56 of 77 03 June 2008 at 9:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Hey, luke, have a little fun with the language however fossilized it may be. You must have some DVDs lying around with a French language track. No I don't mean "French in action" :) Pop them in and wake the monster. Most people nowadays want to skip all the courses and just have fun. You're sort of the opposite. Don't overdo it with that assimil course of yours :)
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