Aokoye's Journey Through German (and other languages?)

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Re: Aokoye's Journey Through German (and other languages?)

Postby aokoye » Tue Feb 14, 2017 6:12 am

Hebrew: Meh. Still just want to pass the class with an A.

German: I got caught up with Memrise which is great. I still haven't made forward progress but being caught up is good. I sat in on my university's German diction class and it was fantastic. Note that in the context of music (which is how I'm using it) diction refers to how you pronounce words when you're singing. Note that when you're singing you pronounce things differently than when you're speaking. It's a lot like phonetics from what I can tell. I have been wanting to audit this class for about a year and a friend from choir invited me. From what I can tell students are given a piece of music with text or just the text and they then have to put it into IPA and also mark the stress. I was able to keep up with most of it (yay knowing IPA), contributed a bit, and generally had massive amounts of fun. I spoke with the professor afterwards and he invited me to sit in on the rest of the classes (the next class is a midterm so I'm not going to that one) and also talked to me about how he wants to expand the scope of the class to translation (al la a German for reading knowledge class) and also collaborate with the world languages and lit department and the applied linguistics department. It's going to be really hard to expand the scope because it's a two credit class - two hours once a week - but I am probably going to try to work with him next year.

I also chatted with one of the German professors last Friday and he gave me an old edition of the dtv-Atlas: Deutsche Sprache! I was telling him about the diction class I sat in on and asked if he had any phonology books after he told me that he studied phonology at Freie Universität Berlin (where he studied for 5 years). I am going to start reading it this week hopefully. I swear taschenbücker from DVT have the smallest font ever.

Dutch: This shouldn't be so easy but it makes total sense given my background in English and German. I decided to pay for a subscription to Quizlet as someone from the University of Groningen uploaded the vocabulary for Nederlands in gang and I want to see how their SRS is. I've currently gone through the first two chapters worth of vocab, the first series of exercises on the publisher's website, and need to start on the second chapter of thee book. My goal of 8 chapters by the end of March with the goal of testing into the A1-A2 class online seems attainable.
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Re: Aokoye's Journey Through German (and other languages?)

Postby aokoye » Mon Feb 20, 2017 2:20 am

I ended up with an 80% on my last Hebrew test. Both my teacher and I were unimpressed. I also made some really careless mistakes. That said yesterday I got through my entire backlog of Hebrew reviews on Anki and this morning I learned a new chapters worth of words. I'm going to try to do a second chapter this evening.

Today is the yearly 30% off sale at Powell's and it wasn't as bad crowd wise as it could have been. I also got very lucky with what time I went to check out. When I got to Powell's there was a 50 plus person line and when I got in line to check out there was only one person ahead of me. I ended up buying a memoir about a German family's escape from the DDR which is written in German and a copy 9f the newest edition of Assimil Dutch with Ease which was $20 with the discount. I also bought a weaving book but that's less exciting. I had two gift cards so I only ended up paying $8 and change.

I also flipped through Assimil's German grammar book and, while it is in color, it doesn't appear to add much to the pool of German grammar books. It's very clearly aimed at beginners/low intermediates (which they are transparent about) but really it doesn't look like anything new. The Practice Makes Perfect series would be a better investment of time, money, and shelf space for someone looking for a book(s) for a similar audience.

So I have three language learning related goals it seems:
1. I need to get a get least a high B in my Hebrew class. Technically I only need a C but I can do better than that. I should be able to achieve that by keeping g up with the vocab and doing my homework. It would also be useful to do more textbook exercises while I'm at it.

2. I want to test into the C1 class at FUBiS. They have an online placement test that is a few weeks before the program starts and then when you get there they interview you one on one. I think I should prepare for this in a hand full of ways. I want to work through Mittelpunkt C1.1 through the end of the school term and then go back to the B2 book in when spring break hits. Mainly for vocab but also for grammar. I also need to chat more with my friend in Vienna via Skype but that's dependent on our schedules.

3. I want to test into the second level of the University of Groningen's online Dutch course. This should be doable. I need to work through the first 8 chapters by the end of March. The issue is going to be finding the time to do it.

I'm going to be using Quizlet for Dutch and potentially for the B2 German stuff. Anki for Hebrew and then memrise for the C1 German (because the cards are already there).
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Re: Aokoye's Journey Through German (and other languages?)

Postby aokoye » Sat Mar 25, 2017 6:16 am

Spring break! Finally! One week of freedom (or of slightly less stress in relation to school).

Hebrew: I'm 99% sure that I got an A - mission accomplished. I am not taking it next term which makes me happy. I'm probably going to switch my focus to Biblical Hebrew which I think will be good. I will be able to go at my own pace and, if I don't want to study it I don't have to.

German: I'm using Quizlet and I really like it. I'm working through the series of lists that were created for the grund und aufbau wortschatz textbook that I have. I did a bit of editing of them though so that I'm only being tested on the singular version of nouns and the infinitives of verbs. I'm also trying out their new version of "learn" which allows the user to set a date for when they want to have the words "learned" by and Quizlet will claim to help you learn the words by that point. By learn what they appear to mean is getting them right in various categories of testing (your choices are testing the writing of L1, testing the writing of the L2, multiple choice, true false, and flashcards for L1 and L2 - you get to chose which metrics you're tested with) at least four times in a row. At the moment the lowest number I have in my list is four and the highest is seven. Right now it's only available on iOS which makes me glad I have a keyboard for my iPad. You're told that you know X percentage of the words and it appears that the percentage goes down over time if you haven't studied it (including over the course of 24 hours).

My major complaint is that they don't actually tell you how many words you should be studying/what percentage you should reach each day. Yes you can figure the percentage bit out by doing some simple math, but it's still very annoying especially if you don't remember what day you started "learning" the list. I did give them this feedback and got a fairly quick reply. Who knows if they'll change that but I have a feeling they will, especially if a bunch of teachers start asking them to.

The pro(s)? It's pretty addictive and rather painless. I kept wanting to keep doing the sessions (each session is 7ish cards maybe?) I went through my list of 319 words from the first chapter of the book in the span of 12 days. For what it's worth I knew most of the words before hand, but it was still enjoyable. The real test will be how I fair with a list with more words that are unknown or at least not well known to me.

I also renewed my Goethe Institut elibrary account today. I thought I would have to pay a fee like I did a year and a half ago but I didn't and the NYC Goethe Institut got back to me with my code within four or five hours of me submitting the form (they manually go through and verify account details).

Other stuff: I went to the American Association of Applied Linguistics (AAAL) conference last weekend (through Tuesday) and it was absolutely amazing. I thought I was going to be really overwhelmed but I really wasn't. I definitely sought out some of my professors/professors who are in my uni's dept but who I haven't had yet at times but that was also partially because there were so many people there. I think the count was 1,663 participants from around the world.

For now I'm probably going to really focus on German and then spend a tiny amount of time on Hebrew. As much as I want to work on Dutch and/or Swedish I don't have the energy.
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Re: Aokoye's Journey Through German (and other languages?)

Postby aokoye » Tue Mar 28, 2017 11:06 pm

I downloaded the ebook of Lehr- und Übungsbuch der deutschen Grammatik, Neubearbeitung from the Goethe Institut's elibrary a few days ago and am working through it bit by bit. My ability to use (as opposed to understand) anything outside of really basic grammar tends to slip out of my mind really quickly unless I'm working on it on a regular basis.

I also found a copy of Assimil Perfectionnement allemand which I'm going to try to read through and translate into English. As mentioned elsewhere, a professor at my university told me about a previous student of hers who passed the Goethe C1 exam with flying colors and the majority of his preparation appeared to be translating things out of and into German. Having skimmed through the book I won't need the French translation given that I know a good chunk of the words, but I still think it'll be a good exercise (as long as I actually do it - as we know that's always the real issue for me).

I finished the first chapter of Grund und Aufbauwortschatz last Friday I want to say. I think Quizlet's new version of "learn" (which is only for iOS at the moment) will work well for me as long as I set realistic goals. I started chapter two earlier this afternoon and am giving myself 10 days to learn the 152 words. While it's half the words than were in the first chapter (note that I gave myself 2 weeks to learn the 319 words in ch 1), I know fewer words in this chapter than I did the first chapter. 10 days also makes it easier to manage the limitations of Quizlet as I just have to make sure that I increase my "mastery" by 10% each day. I also like that I don't have to worry about typos like I have to with Memrise. I have enough self discipline to not click "I made a typo" when I actually entered the wrong word, though I recognize that not everyone will (Wanikani doesn't have that feature and a lack of that specific type of self discipline was one of the arguments some made). I'm also going to finish reading the first chapter of the Aufbauwortschatz workbook this week - likely Wednesday or Thursday.

Other stuff: I am setting a goal of learning 10 new Japanese words from Japanese for Everyone (which is a different book from Minna no Nihongo) a day via Renshu. We'll see how long this lasts and/or what this turns into.
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Re: Aokoye's Journey Through German (and other languages?)

Postby aokoye » Sat Apr 01, 2017 8:19 am

German: Chapter one workbook is finished and I'm still doing well with my vocab project via Quizlet. I should finish chapter 2 in six days if I keep up with my current schedule. I am pretty sure there's no way I'm going to easily be able to keep up with the yellow Huber grammar book come next week when school starts but we'll see. What is good is that I know my main weaknesses are adjective declensions and the use of Subjunctive I and II as well as passive. It'll be a matter of making sure to spend time working on these things as opposed to spinning my wheels on other things that are easier.

Japanese: I'm still working on learning 10 words a day from Japanese for Everyone. So far I'm at 51 words (how that "1" came into play I don't know). I'm using Renshuu which has been nice. The website is aimed at learning Japanese, adding words is easy, they have audio for a lot of words, and they deal with kanji vs kana (or romanji if the user sees fit), both in terms of input and study, in a useful way.
I'm really happy with my 10 word limit. I need to do this slowly and even if I stick to 10 words a day, that means I'd get through the 2,500 words in Japanese for Everyone in less than a year. That said who knows what'll happen this summer when I go to Europe or even what will happen when things get harder for me emotionally (I'm on a small upswing, lower than most people's "normal" but better than my normal). If things keep going will with Japanese I'll start adding in kanji in mid to late April, after I finish the all of the words from chapter 2.
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Re: Aokoye's Journey Through German (and other languages?)

Postby blaurebell » Sat Apr 01, 2017 3:42 pm

aokoye wrote:Subjunctive I and II


Frankly, I know only very few Germans who can use Subjunctive 2 correctly. Besides, the only person I know who actually uses them, does so as a joke and half the time he uses wrong forms on purpose to test people. It makes me chuckle, but most Germans won't even notice any mistakes in Subjunctive 2 usage ...! Not sure why they still torture students with this.
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Re: Aokoye's Journey Through German (and other languages?)

Postby aokoye » Sun Apr 02, 2017 12:52 am

blaurebell wrote:
aokoye wrote:Subjunctive I and II


Frankly, I know only very few Germans who can use Subjunctive 2 correctly. Besides, the only person I know who actually uses them, does so as a joke and half the time he uses wrong forms on purpose to test people. It makes me chuckle, but most Germans won't even notice any mistakes in Subjunctive 2 usage ...! Not sure why they still torture students with this.

That's really good to know! I wonder if the, "you must learn this" attitude is coming from the idea that learners need to strive for perfect language usage as opposed to looking at it from a more descriptivism approach.
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Re: Aokoye's Journey Through German (and other languages?)

Postby blaurebell » Sun Apr 02, 2017 8:47 am

aokoye wrote:That's really good to know! I wonder if the, "you must learn this" attitude is coming from the idea that learners need to strive for perfect language usage as opposed to looking at it from a more descriptivism approach.


I guess it's also the typical German perfectionism in combination with a wish to preserve the language in a less corrupted form than it is spoken now. I tend to shake my head over the kind of German I hear on the street sometimes - a lot of simply wrong things have been creeping into German lately because German teenagers adopt speaking patterns of migrants. I'm actually one of the few who still use Genitiv in spoken language, because the Dativ construct that replaces it just sounds so clumsy to me - you will pretty much only hear those in educated circles though. Präteritum is also well out of usage in spoken language these days. I only know one person who uses a lot of Präteritum when speaking and he's a novelist. The other guy who uses subjunctive 2 is a teacher and a real snob. I abandoned those subjunctives many moons ago, since those are really perceived as overly stilted. And that's although I always had a soft spot for doomed grammatical constructs :D

Basically, if you speak overly correct German you will sound like a snob. That's fine in educated company, but you'll get strange looks from everyone else. In extreme cases someone might even think that you're making fun of their level of education. I tend to use different grammatical constructs depending on who's with me actually. Interestingly I also have one friend who speaks like a book - he uses overly long sentences with a million subclauses and a verb hanging at the very end. By the time he reaches the verb I tend to have forgotten who he was talking about. Super confusing! Everyone seems to think that he's a bit of a strange bird, since he doesn't really modulate his language according to context and speaks like that even with his working class parents! His dad tends to find his way of speaking infuriating and condescending. In the wild you're actually more likely to hear a subjunctive 2 than such a sentence!

So, learning all of it makes sense, receptively ... you can definitely meet people who speak in weird snobbish ways. No need to use these constructs yourself though, unless you want to impress educated people. That said, using Dativ instead of Genitiv in a university context might seem somewhat low-brow, but even there subjunctive 2 and paragraph long sentences go too far.
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Re: Aokoye's Journey Through German (and other languages?)

Postby aokoye » Wed Apr 05, 2017 2:41 pm

German:
I finished the vocab from the second chapter of the Grund und Aufbauwortschatz book two days early. The list was at a point where I knew all but a small handful of words so on Monday I pushed up 5% more than I intended and yesterday I finished it. I'll probably start on chapter 3 on Friday. For the needs of the vocab challenge: I learned 15 new words from chapter two in April and chapter three has 37 new words. Would it be more efficient to just cherry pick the words I don't know or have trouble with? Yes. Am I going to? Not at this point. Going through the whole list the way I am actually ends up helping me internalize the gender of the words I already know. In the future, May or June perhaps, I might switch to cherry picking but for now I'm ok with what I'm doing.

I'm probably going to wait until Thursday or Friday to start chapter three. It looks like Quizlet updated their new learn function again taking into account feedback from people. We'll see if they took what I said (you need to tell me how many words I need to learn a day/to what percentage I need to reach a day) into account. They also "brought back the old learn." It had never gone away but there was the threat that this new one would replace it and with the update that brought the "new learn" you had to chose between the new one and the old one. Now it looks like the old learn has been renamed to "write" on the iOS app which is pretty accurate. I also wonder if I'm just not using it the way they intended. I'm going with a, "ok get to this percentage by this day" but it could be that their idea is that people would get to 100% the first day and then have to maintain it until their test date. That isn't actually realistic for me given that each of my lists has at least 77 words and most have well over 150. I might use it that way this summer though.

Japanese: I'm still trucking on with 10 words a day. I need to do more review in the textbook though and listen to the textbook's audio more. Next week I'm going to try to start structuring my days a bit more logically so we'll see what that means for studying Japanese, among other things.

Other: school is back in full swing. I'm pretty sure syntax is going to be easier than I expected which is good but it's still going to be a lot of work. The online class will be an exercise in time management in a more intense way than the last online class I took was. I'm not exactly pleased about this, but it looks like it'll be an interesting class.
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Re: Aokoye's Journey Through German (and other languages?)

Postby aokoye » Sat Apr 15, 2017 5:24 pm

Turns out I'm not going to have time for Japanese. A very very good friend of mine is very sick and thus I'm really not going to have time because supporting she and her family is far more important. German and school are definitely still in the cards.

German: My flight has been booked to Berlin! I'll get there on July 20th and come back on September 22nd. My goal while I'm there is to only use German unless there are situations that involve large sums of money (flight stuff and hotel stuff) or emergencies. I suppose the one other situation is if I'm talking to someone whose English is far better than their German (and they're not in the FUBIS program), but I can't imagine that will happen with any frequency. I'll also probably skype with the aforementioned friend once a week or so. FUBIS is from the 22nd of July through the 19th of August and then I'll be flying to Vienna to stay with a good friend of mine before flying back to Berlin to take the TestDaF. I think my "German Only" policy will also seriously help with the TestDaF as I will have been in German speaking mode for two months before the test (it's Sept 20th). I was thinking about enrolling for a prep course but a. I won't actually have time as I'll be in Vienna for the first week of all of the courses b. do I really want to spend the money on one? and c. given that I'll be functioning nearly 100% in German for two months beforehand AND the housemates of my friend in Vienna teach German as a second language I'll probably manage fine. We're also going to be spending time with her parents and her step dad is apparently very self conscious about his English so, German it is! I will definitely study for the test while I'm in Europe, but a four week test prep course is not in the cards.

I finished the 3rd chapter of Grund und Aufbau today, somehow. If my week hadn't been so crazy I wouldn't be surprised, but I pushed through yesterday and this morning to get it done. I will need to at the very least skim the workbook later today to make sure I don't forget the words. I know they'll want to start seeping out of my brain. For the sake of the Vocab Challenge (if that's still happening...) I learned a total of 85 new/hard words this week. I'm going to start chapter 4 tomorrow or Monday.
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