CarlyD's 2022/2023 400 Day Challenge--DE

Continue or start your personal language log here, including logs for challenge participants
User avatar
CarlyD
Blue Belt
Posts: 608
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 5:44 pm
Location: California, USA
Languages: English (N), Spanish--A2, German--now studying, A2
x 1323

Re: CarlyD's 2022/2023 400 Day Challenge

Postby CarlyD » Sun Jan 15, 2023 4:48 am

That's interesting. All my books still use ledig--I saw single for the first time in a Busuu lesson.

I've never looked up dachshund in the dictionary before--I thought I already knew the word--and it's not something that ever comes up in German textbooks or online learning. My last Lingoni lesson she just happened to have a dachshund on her lap so her Dackel was mentioned.
2 x
2024 15,000 pages Reading Challenge--pages: 1180 / 15000

User avatar
CarlyD
Blue Belt
Posts: 608
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 5:44 pm
Location: California, USA
Languages: English (N), Spanish--A2, German--now studying, A2
x 1323

Re: CarlyD's 2022/2023 400 Day Challenge

Postby CarlyD » Sat Jan 21, 2023 6:25 pm

344 days left in my 400 day challenge. :P

Lingoni--still love it. I did go back to A1, and did lessons 1-33 in 10 days. Her pronunciation videos were excellent, most of the rest you can just click on the lesson and go right to the test. I just started a 5-lesson section on the Accusative--not a problem and I was going to skip it, but in the exercises they're doing sentences that are harder than the A2 sentences I'm doing elsewhere, so I'm going back to 1 lesson a day and then doing all the exercises.

I was thinking I should finish the A1 before the 6 Week Challenge starts, so I won't be reviewing easy information, but the work I'm putting into the exercises qualifies as new work.

I'm still doing German cooking YouTube videos every night. They don't contain a ton of German, but since the point is the cooking, whatever the ingredient or instruction is flashes across the screen, so it keeps it interesting. Now YouTube is offering me American cooking videos--and they're all "recipes" of combining cans and packages of extremely high salt/low nutrition food. No wonder so many people here take high blood pressure medicine every day. I'll stick with the German videos. Odd that in just a few days I seem to automatically know all kinds of cooking/food terms and never actually tried.

I think next up is getting a German cookbook.
7 x
2024 15,000 pages Reading Challenge--pages: 1180 / 15000

User avatar
CarlyD
Blue Belt
Posts: 608
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 5:44 pm
Location: California, USA
Languages: English (N), Spanish--A2, German--now studying, A2
x 1323

Re: CarlyD's 2022/2023 400 Day Challenge

Postby CarlyD » Sat Jan 28, 2023 7:38 pm

Every January in the U.S. the weight-loss industry makes most of the money of their year (New Year's Resolutions.) They all tout that their program is guaranteed to work, and if you would just sign up (and pay the fees) it will be magical. Then when it doesn't work, you think--I didn't try hard enough, I should have stuck with it, it's my fault. And there's always next year--if you pay again.

The NHS did a huge study on every weight loss program out there--to see if it was worth them paying for--and found that there was generally a 5-15% success rate, no matter which program you used.

And then there's the language-learning industry. "If you sign up for our program, we guarantee that you'll be speaking ---- in 30/60/90 days!!!!" And when you don't, you think you didn't try hard enough, study long enough. But it's ok, you can always try again (and pay again.) I wonder what the success rate actually is. Not here, but in the general world of people that see the ads for Rosetta Stone or Duolingo or whatever the "in" program is.

What am I even talking about? Heck if I know. I've followed every thread here about how others learned languages, and followed numerous people's advice. I've read language blogs and books about the "best" way to learn. And yet here I still am. According to my old notebook, I started learning German in 2019. I trailed along after Adam (aoyeke?) that finished German, learned Swedish and is probably on something else now. I joined with Cavesa, who's finished German and is doing (Italian?) now. I'm tired of failing. Depending on the test, I'm between a mid-A1 and mid-A2. Still.

So this year? This year, I'm ruthless. Not seeing progress using a website? Dump it and get a refund. Not going anywhere with a textbook? Put it in the charity box. No more trying to fit into other people's programs. They need to fit into mine. My current plan--that's working right now:

1. Clozemaster, 20 to 30 sentences every day. Helping with word order.
2. Lingoni, doing the A1 series, on lesson 49 of 76. Excellent very short videos, explains single points in each one. Extensive worksheets for every video. Finish, and return to the A2 series I'd already started.
3. Rocket German--conversation, explanation and test. No more headphones repeating words I already know 6 times, flashcards, etc. I can if I want to, but the lessons were way too long (up to 2 hours each) for what little I was learning.
4. German Uncovered. I have learned a lot from the lectures and the worksheets. The stories--not so much.

I'm going to leave this for February, then see if they're getting me where I want to go.
7 x
2024 15,000 pages Reading Challenge--pages: 1180 / 15000

User avatar
CarlyD
Blue Belt
Posts: 608
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 5:44 pm
Location: California, USA
Languages: English (N), Spanish--A2, German--now studying, A2
x 1323

Re: CarlyD's 2022/2023 400 Day Challenge

Postby CarlyD » Fri Feb 03, 2023 6:56 pm

I'm working through the lessons on dative on Lingoni. It's split into 7 sections with a ton of practice for each one and I wish it had been there when I first struggled to learn dative. I just finished section 6 and at the end of the worksheets was an exercise to complete the sentences with the correct word endings using various prepositions. Some were dative-only and some were accusative-only.

And that's when I discovered that in order to finally learn everything about dative, my brain had made room by throwing out everything it knew about the accusative. :P So I guess I'm doing some reviewing today.

The 6 week challenge is going good, but today's news that the bot might be gone by next week isn't good. I hope something gets worked out.
5 x
2024 15,000 pages Reading Challenge--pages: 1180 / 15000

User avatar
CarlyD
Blue Belt
Posts: 608
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 5:44 pm
Location: California, USA
Languages: English (N), Spanish--A2, German--now studying, A2
x 1323

Re: CarlyD's 2022/2023 400 Day Challenge

Postby CarlyD » Sun Feb 05, 2023 7:23 pm

I just read a post elsewhere by a person that had decided to learn German because of all the "learn in 3 months" stuff. They (screen name only given) threw everything into it and have now achieved a level that seems to be around B1. After 12 years.

While it's heartwarming that the person didn't give up, the 12 years part is kind of disheartening. They said that hopefully "just another 5 years" and they'll be where they want to be.

329 days left in my challenge. Time to step it up. :lol:
7 x
2024 15,000 pages Reading Challenge--pages: 1180 / 15000

DaveAgain
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1968
Joined: Mon Aug 27, 2018 11:26 am
Languages: English (native), French & German (learning).
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... &start=200
x 4050

Re: CarlyD's 2022/2023 400 Day Challenge

Postby DaveAgain » Sun Feb 05, 2023 10:42 pm

CarlyD wrote:I just read a post elsewhere by a person that had decided to learn German because of all the "learn in 3 months" stuff. They (screen name only given) threw everything into it and have now achieved a level that seems to be around B1. After 12 years.

While it's heartwarming that the person didn't give up, the 12 years part is kind of disheartening. They said that hopefully "just another 5 years" and they'll be where they want to be.
Did the person say what they'd been doing to learn a language?
1 x

User avatar
CarlyD
Blue Belt
Posts: 608
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 5:44 pm
Location: California, USA
Languages: English (N), Spanish--A2, German--now studying, A2
x 1323

Re: CarlyD's 2022/2023 400 Day Challenge

Postby CarlyD » Mon Feb 06, 2023 7:30 pm

DaveAgain wrote:
CarlyD wrote:I just read a post elsewhere by a person that had decided to learn German because of all the "learn in 3 months" stuff. They (screen name only given) threw everything into it and have now achieved a level that seems to be around B1. After 12 years.

While it's heartwarming that the person didn't give up, the 12 years part is kind of disheartening. They said that hopefully "just another 5 years" and they'll be where they want to be.
Did the person say what they'd been doing to learn a language?


Private tutor, Anki, Duolingo and possibly some other stuff. After the person posted, and got a lot of responses, they came back and said that they'd walked away for periods of time and their study time wasn't consistent. So the 12 years was calendar time, not study time.

Then someone posted a link to a woman's blog where she said she never studied at all and hit B2 in two years, just by listening to content while she was doing other things.

It's a roller coaster out there.
6 x
2024 15,000 pages Reading Challenge--pages: 1180 / 15000

User avatar
CarlyD
Blue Belt
Posts: 608
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 5:44 pm
Location: California, USA
Languages: English (N), Spanish--A2, German--now studying, A2
x 1323

Re: CarlyD's 2022/2023 400 Day Challenge

Postby CarlyD » Wed Feb 08, 2023 8:07 pm

I just finished my first big test on Lingoni. 87 questions, and covered everything accusative and dative. Took forever--it was a video and she read the English sentence, and then I paused the video to write down the German sentence, then she gave the German answer.

I'm actually a bit shocked. Of course I misspelled a few words, got a few noun genders wrong (still!!) but overall--I got 85 out of 87 sentences correct as far as word choice and case. A lot of them I didn't even think--of course that word is in dative case--or of course the word order was totally different.

Who is this person that took the test? Not the forever-in-A1 person that I've long thought I was. Even when I started passing A2 tests, I mostly thought the tests were too easy just so you'd pay for another program.

Ok, I did have some struggles with the test. Mostly in the "which preposition to use" part. Some of them seem a bit too interchangeable and I choose the wrong one. I do have the Practice Makes Perfect Pronouns and Prepositions book, so I'm going to sit this afternoon and go through that. Or Using German or Pitfalls in German--both might help.

I'm going to keep up the schedule I have going for another month and see where I am then. After all this time, this is finally getting magical.
8 x
2024 15,000 pages Reading Challenge--pages: 1180 / 15000

User avatar
CarlyD
Blue Belt
Posts: 608
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 5:44 pm
Location: California, USA
Languages: English (N), Spanish--A2, German--now studying, A2
x 1323

Re: CarlyD's 2022/2023 400 Day Challenge

Postby CarlyD » Sun Feb 19, 2023 6:05 am

Came across another "how I did it" story. Not sure why they fascinate me so much. This person went from A1 to B2 (Goethe exam) in 7 months. I was skeptical, but he combined time--4 to 6 hours every day for the full 7 months, and motivation/time limit--had to pass by a certain date to qualify for university in Germany.

He did the A1 to B1 with the usual--websites, Anki, etc. But B1 to B2 was almost totally "content"--movies, tv shows, books, podcasts, conversations with native speakers, etc. I wonder if B2 is actually enough to handle lectures and textbooks? I hope so.

I've started Wonderbla again. They sent me an email offering me 30 days free--I had done the original 7 day preview and didn't stay due to the price. We'll see. I do love the story, the mix of conversations, grammar, mini exercises. Enough to pay serious money? Hmm....

Still doing a good 2 to 3 hours a day at Lingoni. And still seeing huge improvement, so definitely staying there. They have a huge amount of lessons for A2, but a somewhat smaller amount for B1 and B2. Maybe by the time I get there, there will be more.
5 x
2024 15,000 pages Reading Challenge--pages: 1180 / 15000

User avatar
CarlyD
Blue Belt
Posts: 608
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 5:44 pm
Location: California, USA
Languages: English (N), Spanish--A2, German--now studying, A2
x 1323

Re: CarlyD's 2022/2023 400 Day Challenge

Postby CarlyD » Wed Feb 22, 2023 10:03 pm

Got a bit of a shock this morning. I received my assessment from Wunderbla after completing their assessment period. They rated me as B1. At first I was thrilled, then I thought--what?? I just barely passed the A2 somewhere else (that I trusted.)

Then Wunderbla gave me this morning's lesson (you only get a max of 5 short lessons a week, emailed to you.) It was clearly marked B1 and I struggled so bad I wanted to give up. So I'm not B1. I sent them a request--if they can move me back to A2 I would be willing to subscribe for at least 6 months. I do love their process and the lessons. But not if they're going to just dump me into the deep end like today.
4 x
2024 15,000 pages Reading Challenge--pages: 1180 / 15000


Return to “Language logs”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: galaxyrocker, guyome and 2 guests