Mareile's Log on French, Dutch, Spanish...

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Mareile
White Belt
Posts: 10
Joined: Sun Sep 11, 2016 10:20 pm
Location: Brussels
Languages: German (N), English (C2), French (C1), Dutch (B2), Spanish (B1) Dabbled with and used for traveling: Russian, Georgian, Turkish, Italian
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Mareile's Log on French, Dutch, Spanish...

Postby Mareile » Tue Mar 21, 2017 10:25 pm

So it is time for me to get started on a log as well.
Situation as of now:

German:
Native
English is my day to day language and on a very high level for the past eight years since I spent a year in the US at 16

January 2015
French: With 22 (2 years ago) I suddenly found the motivation to get serious. 60 to 90 minutes of self study for 6 months, mostly with Assimil and Anki. I spent a long time on exploring methods and playing with habits. This was my first experience with self-study and I loved it! I managed to be passable during an interview for a paid volunteer position and off I went after the 6 months of self-study to live and work in Marseille in France for 5 months. 15 months after starting French, I passed the C1 DALF exam.

May 2016
Dutch: At this point I was living in Brussels where free Dutch courses are available. I signed up on a whim because I was bored, loved it and stuck with it. It was a completely different learning experience, as I did not have to study vocabulary at all, no Anki etc, and could just take everything in on the go. I was able to use native material, read books and watch TV without subtitles after 3 months. Since then, I don't feel like I have improved very much, but could have passed a B2 exam by now. I still have an awful German accent I fear.

February 2017
Spanish: I tackled Spanish with the old approach, Anki/Assimil/Destinos, spending about 1 hour on it for 4 weeks in fall 2016 before dropping it again. I spontaneously booked a trip to Guatemala in February and had 2 weeks in January to get myself back on track with the 400 or so words I supposedly knew. The time there was amazing! I had 2 weeks in a language school and then 2 weeks to travel. The Spanish improved immensely and made the traveling an amazing experience. Yet Spanish is not the language of my heart, I don't really see myself enjoying Spanish/Latin American TV etc., so motivation is a bit limited.

When I came back from Guatemala 3 weeks ago, my languages were mess, in French and Dutch I sound like a beginner and seem to have lost any sort of proper accent. I am of course mixing up Spanish and French... After loosing the immersive environment, my Spanish capacities have also dropped again by a lot...

So it is time to get back on track towards stabilizing all these on a high level before venturing out further. To be honest, I would also be curious and ready for something new.

I once at a time had an A1 level in Turkish and Italian.
My wishlist would be (in this order): Swedish/Danish/Norwegian, Russian, Italian, Portuguese


Action Plan:
I will have about 60 minutes a day for language study + 30-60 minutes of watching TL videos.
On top of that, I have 2 x 3 hrs of Dutch Class a week.
I have not done substantial self study at home in a long time.

My first goal is to establish one habit for each language:

- 1 page (15 min) of Grammaire progressive du Francais intermédiaire each day
- 15 minutes in Anki for Spanish
- I am looking for a 15 min daily Dutch pronunciation training excersise, but don't know yet exactly what. Suggestions? For now I have started a Dutch MOOC where I am shadowing the lecturer and aim to do this 2x week for 30 min.

Other activities I would like to add to the routine later:
Spanish: Destinos 30 min (although this is very frustrating because the page does often not load in Europe)
Spanish: Assimil 20min

French: Serious Study Book "L'expression Francaise écrite et orale" 30 min
French: Writing exercise 10 min

Dutch: Writing exercise 10 min
Dutch: Reading through Learning with Texts (to enlarge my vocabulary)

Go ahead and comment, criticize etc. I would love to hear your opinion and suggestions!
6 x

Tomás
Blue Belt
Posts: 554
Joined: Sat Oct 10, 2015 9:48 pm
Languages: English (N). Currently studying Spanish (intermediate), French (false beginner).
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Re: Mareile's Log on French, Dutch, Spanish...

Postby Tomás » Tue Mar 21, 2017 10:43 pm

Mareile wrote:Spanish: Destinos 30 min (although this is very frustrating because the page does often not load in Europe)


Destinos is on Youtube as well as learner.org.
1 x

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iguanamon
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Posts: 2352
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 11:14 am
Location: Virgin Islands
Languages: Speaks: English (Native); Spanish (C2); Portuguese (C2); Haitian Creole (C1); Ladino/Djudeo-espanyol (C1); Lesser Antilles French Creole (B2)
Studies: Catalan
Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=797
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Re: Mareile's Log on French, Dutch, Spanish...

Postby iguanamon » Tue Mar 21, 2017 11:00 pm

Welcome to the forum Mareile! I wish you you best of luck with your studies. I'll be following along.
Last edited by iguanamon on Wed Mar 22, 2017 11:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Rebecca
Yellow Belt
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Joined: Fri Aug 14, 2015 11:08 am
Location: UK
Languages: English (N), French (Beginner)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1821
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Re: Mareile's Log on French, Dutch, Spanish...

Postby Rebecca » Wed Mar 22, 2017 10:49 am

Hello and welcome, Mareile! :)

I'm a French learner too, (although much less advanced than you) so I'll be following your log with interest.
1 x
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Carmody
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1747
Joined: Fri Jan 01, 2016 4:00 am
Location: NYC, NY
Languages: English (N)
French (B1)
Language Log: http://tinyurl.com/zot7wrs
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Re: Mareile's Log on French, Dutch, Spanish...

Postby Carmody » Wed Mar 22, 2017 1:54 pm

Bienvenu!
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Mareile
White Belt
Posts: 10
Joined: Sun Sep 11, 2016 10:20 pm
Location: Brussels
Languages: German (N), English (C2), French (C1), Dutch (B2), Spanish (B1) Dabbled with and used for traveling: Russian, Georgian, Turkish, Italian
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Re: Mareile's Log on French, Dutch, Spanish...

Postby Mareile » Wed Mar 22, 2017 7:22 pm

NL: Ik heb het vorig weekend de eerste keer van het Polyglot Gathering in Bratislava gelezen. En nu ben ik erbij me in te schrijven :)
Dat zou gewoon interessant zijn om nieuwe menschen te ontmoeten en motivatie en passion voor talen te delen ;)

FR: Il y a quelques jour, j'ai entendu le premier fois du Polyglot Gathering à Bratislava plus tard ce printemps! J'aimerais bien venir et je suis en train de m'inscrire ce soir :) On verra, je pense que c'est une occasion pour rencontrer des autres avec du passion pour les languages et ca va me motiver aussi :)

Looks like I will be coming to the Polyglot Gathering in Bratislava!

How my studies have been going.
On average, I have been spending an hour each day on languages for the past 3 weeks, but without a very structured approach to it. Usually I do not try to force myself but I will cherrypick whatever I feel motivated for in a particular moment. I am definitely not the habit type but the type that has sudden bursts of interest that come with a force but leave similarly fast.
So we will see how long I can stick to giving myself a study plan daily...

I have a 9-5 job (85% English, 10% German, 3% French, 2% other languages) but apart from that, I have all my time for whatever I want to do. Yet what is a healthy amount to spend on languages? When it is more than an hour of desk study, I feel like other things start to suffer. Currently I am also spending time on: lots of cooking and cake baking, preparing for a Half Marathon in 2 months time, learning the DVORAK Keyboard (makes everything painfully slow), gaming...

What is frustrating is that I have these two wonderful flatmates, one Dutch, one French, who, once I start speaking in their mother tongue, stick to it as well and do not regress back to English by themselves. So usually it is me who regresses back to English...
In the past i had whole weeks where I did not speak English with them but since the intensive Spanish trip my active production is so down and hearing myself speak Dutch or French sounds so unnatural that I end up speaking only English... I guess I have to find a way to keep myself from doing that!
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