weissnichtgenau's Journey

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weissnichtgenau
White Belt
Posts: 20
Joined: Wed Aug 03, 2022 10:37 am
Languages: German (mother tongue), English C2, Turkish C1, French C1, Spanish C1, Russian A2, Brazilian Portuguese A1, Albanian (new), Azerbaijani (new), Thai (new)
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weissnichtgenau's Journey

Postby weissnichtgenau » Wed Aug 03, 2022 11:04 am

Hey guys,

I'm new here 8-)
I honestly don't even know why I decided to register here and start a log because I don't really have the time with universities (yes, more than one), family and work but hey, here I am! :D

I'm a native German, born and raised in Germany. I started learning English when I was 4 as we have family in Canada who can't speak German. Later on followed French (up to B1) and Russian (up to B2), both in school, while I learned Turkish entirely by myself. No teachers, no help, just two books, a series on YouTube, Google translate, some poor Turkish people who had to deal with my Google-Turkish and me :lol: But it worked! After 6 months I was able to communicate without a problem in Turkish. Of course I still made grammar mistakes and didn't understand the slang, but with the help of the poor-Turkish-people-who-had-to-deal-with-my-Google-Turkish-who-then-became-friends I succeeded in that as well.

While living abroad for some years, I totally forgot about French and Russian which is very sad. One day, I decided to get a BA and studied French and Spanish from zero to C1. Well, I passed all my exams with distinction but I must admit, I don't feel I am at level C1, more like B1/B2. I definitely have to dive deeper into both languages.

In the meantime, I started to learn Thai (already two years now but I'm still not passed the basics as I kept stopping and restarting from scratch), Albanian, Ukrainian, Brazilian Portuguese (which I actually wanted to study instead of Spanish but I couldn't find any good university that offered that around here) and Azerbaijani. Did I forget something? Oh yeah, Swahili, which I started and stopped again. Not for good, though. I'll definitely restart again one time in the future but right now, my focus is on other languages.

Why Thai?
I have a Thai friend here, she's my neighbour :D and she has no idea I'm trying to learn Thai. I want to surprise her... one day... when my Thai is more than "hi, how are you" :D

Why Albanian?
Well, that actually was purely by chance. I was bored and looking for a cheap (yes, really cheap, not just affordable) online group class in whatever language and as I already know the basics of French, Spanish and Russian and am not interested in Japanese, Chinese and Korean, there was just Albanian. So the decision was made.

Why Ukrainian?
I think everybody knows that.

Why Brazilian Portuguese?
I'm in LOVE with the language. No other reason than that.

Why Azerbaijani?
Thanks to social media, I found two people from my past who are actually Azeri but spoke to me in Turkish back in the days when I was starting with Turkish. All these years, for whatever reason, I had no idea they spoke Azerbaijani (shame on me, I didn't even know there's a language called Azerbaijani :lol: I just wasn't ever thinking about it) but now that I know, I find the language very exciting and even nicer than Turkish, to be honest. And they are quite similar, so it's easy to learn it. I'm having my very first online class today after just learning with Memrise and watching some videos but I have a good feeling. I think I'll be able to have a conversation somehow, maybe with adding some Turkish but yeah... The teacher understand for sure :D

Have I forgotten to add anything? Not sure.
I'm trying to find some native Azerbaijani and Albanian people who'd like to learn German to chat regularly and make a language exchange but wherever I look, I can't find any *unbelievable* Please don't suggest Tandem or something, I'm a female and what I heard about these apps just make them a no-go for me.

Other than that... I'll try to post maybe once a week or so with some updates for you guys and for my future self.

Until then... See you!
10 x

weissnichtgenau
White Belt
Posts: 20
Joined: Wed Aug 03, 2022 10:37 am
Languages: German (mother tongue), English C2, Turkish C1, French C1, Spanish C1, Russian A2, Brazilian Portuguese A1, Albanian (new), Azerbaijani (new), Thai (new)
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Re: weissnichtgenau's Journey

Postby weissnichtgenau » Sun Aug 07, 2022 11:31 am

And here we go again :)

Hope you're all fine.

Azerbaijani:
My first Azerbaijani italki class was nice, even though I learned zero. Why? The girl decided she wanted to get to know me more first and we only spoke in Turkish the whole time. Well, that wasn't my plan but okay. It was nice to speak Turkish again. I hope our future classes will actually be in Azerbaijani or I'll have to look for another teacher, even though I really liked her and we seem to like the same things, so we'll have a lot to talk about. First, however, I decided to learn on my own. Grammar and everything is extremely easy as it's so much like Turkish but I need words. When I try to speak to myself in Azerbaijani, I use way too many Turkish words as I think they might be Azerbaijani but actually... aren't :D So I have to build a good vocabulary base first. I'm using Memrise for it. I use two courses, one is just words, the other is sentences. Current progress: 420/2423 (words) and 10/1955 (sentences). My goal is that I have to reach at least 1500 words and 500 sentences until I'm allowed to book another italki class. WHEN I reach this goal isn't important, the important thing is to actually reach it :)

Albanian:
Nothing new in the past days. But I have a goal for Memrise as well. Current progress: 141/1730. Have to reach 500 as quickly as possible to have a base to start speaking. Will book an italki class then.

Russian:
Not my focus at all, but I found a language partner for it, and we chat a bit in Russian. It's helpful to remember some words and phrases I thought I already forgot.

English:
Before I start with my modules for English C1 and C2 in university beginning of next year, I decided to brush up on what I already know. So I bought the Assimil books for beginners, intermediate and advanced. I don't really think I need the beginners one but I wanted to see if there are words that I just missed to learn them now. Will start with that as soon as the books are here (Tuesday, I guess).

French:
As already mentioned, my French is C1, at least according to my bachelors degree. I sometimes feel it's way lower than that. I read how people here love Assimil and yes, I have many Assimil books here but haven't used them EVER. That's how I am, buying but not using them then... So, yeah, I'll start with Assimil for French as well. Not really too actively, I'll just read one or two chapters a day. We'll see how it goes.

Spanish:
Same as with French.

Brazilian Portuguese:
Haven't done ANYTHING for this language. I have the Assimil one for it as well, maybe I'll use it. No idea. I feel it's getting too many languages at the same time but I'm not really focusing on most of them, I just want to get some "automated knowledge", if that's even a word. Just picking up some words and phrases, if you know, what I mean, without really sitting down and actively learning.

Thai:
I've been trying to learn Thai for around 2 years or so but never really sat down and said: Okay, let's do this. Just some classes here and there, some YouTube videos, nothing really important. I learned how to read and write but the tones... That's a whole other story *laugh* But finally now I found a great course on Memrise that I'm using now and as it forces me to spell the words, I really improve. Can't believe it! After all this time. I'm extremely happy. I've learned 20/1206 words and will continue with maybe 5 words daily. We'll see.

Ukrainian:
I've seen Assimil published the first 7 (if I'm not wrong) chapters for Assimil Ukrainian for free on their website. I'll start with them and hope they'll publish more soon. I also have a great book in German for Ukrainian but... Maybe I really try to learn too much in too little time. I feel overwhelmed *sigh* We'll see. Ukrainian is a beautiful language and I really want to master it asap but it's not my top priority. That's Albanian und Azerbaijani.

I think that's all for now. If you have any tips, I'd be glad to hear them :)

Bye for now!
7 x

weissnichtgenau
White Belt
Posts: 20
Joined: Wed Aug 03, 2022 10:37 am
Languages: German (mother tongue), English C2, Turkish C1, French C1, Spanish C1, Russian A2, Brazilian Portuguese A1, Albanian (new), Azerbaijani (new), Thai (new)
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Re: weissnichtgenau's Journey

Postby weissnichtgenau » Mon Aug 15, 2022 11:44 am

Hello again,

Just a short update regarding Albanian. I'm really proud, I must admit, that I reached 500 words in Memrise yesterday and, therefore, directly booked a class on italki for this week. Just a few weeks ago, Albanian was a big question mark for me. I had no idea how it sounds, how it's written, if there's any language it's similar to. I knew completely nothing. Some time around last week or two weeks ago, I don't even remember, it made "click" in my head -- and Albanian seems to be a piece of cake now! I'm extremely happy.
I'll only concentrate on Albanian for the next few days as we'll have visitors that are originally from Kosovo in two weeks and I'd love to speak with them in Albanian as much as possible.

I remember I did the same for Turkish many years ago, when I came from zero to around B1 within just six months. I think I've already mentioned that somewhere. We'll see how it will go with Albanian from now on but I'm very positive. :)

Have a great day, all!
4 x

weissnichtgenau
White Belt
Posts: 20
Joined: Wed Aug 03, 2022 10:37 am
Languages: German (mother tongue), English C2, Turkish C1, French C1, Spanish C1, Russian A2, Brazilian Portuguese A1, Albanian (new), Azerbaijani (new), Thai (new)
x 44

Re: weissnichtgenau's Journey

Postby weissnichtgenau » Mon Sep 05, 2022 11:04 am

My journey with Albanian is going really well. My italki teacher is doing a great job and I study a lot by myself as well.

Started (again) using LingQ to improve my French vocabulary, and will also use it for Turkish.

And, oh my, I don't know why I can't stick to my plans but I have a new idea that I can't postpone as I'm just too excited :D

I'll do a little experiment. I bought the Superpack for Assimil Swahili some time ago and decided to give it a go, finally. Here's the thing: I will study all sentences in the book and write them into Anki (together with the audios). I will NOT use any other app, website, software, or even teacher. I will only use the Assimil book and we'll see how far I can actually come with it. If I wouldn't be such anti-showing-my-face-in-the-internet, I'd love to make videos showing my progress but I don't think anybody in the world would watch a video with just sound *laugh* So I better just write my experiences down. I'm really excited. 8-)
4 x


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