Ryan's Language Learning Experiment

[ryanl321]

I started getting real interested in learning german in 2012, spanish in 2013 and french in 2014. I've had success primarily because I'm still interested but found it difficult to maintain consistency and develop any sort of fluency. Without going into all the failures I've struggled with, bottom line, I want to achieve a level of speaking in each of these languages with relative ease. Achieving B2 would be ideal. I believe that if in 2016 I can actively post in this log weekly and focus on the following goals I can achieve this by 2016:
1.) Duolingo - complete all sections in each language
2.) Anki - Do at least 5 new words/10 reviews daily in each language
3.) Pimsleur - Finish all 5 sections, with an emphasis to finish French 2-5
4.) Netflix - Watch all original series in with goal of language learning, with L2 in subtitles and L1 audio while working up to L2 in subtitles and audio, and eventually L2 with audio by the end of 2016. One movie per week should be sufficient.
5.) Reading - complete article in L2, translating to L1 and listening to podcasts weekly.
6.) Skype/Speaking - continue to find friends or tutors, through verbling, italki or others to practice speaking.

If I tackle each of these six weekly for the rest of 2016, while perhaps tracking hours by language I will call that a success. Will look into possible tests to determine where I'm at now and at the end of the year to measure progress.

[Ezy Ryder]

A word of advice: the general rule of thumb for estimating the daily number of Anki reviews is - expect the tenfold of the number of cards you add on a daily basis. Of course, at first there isn't much to be reviewed, but if you add 5 words a day, within a few weeks, it'll most likely get to 50 reviews a day. Not 10.

Good luck with your languages!

[ryanl321]

I appreciate the thoughts about Anki. I usually limit reviews to 10 and new cards to 1 or 5. I've had troubles even doing that. The way to go for me now is doing the following, this has been the limits to my studying this past week:
1.) Watching Narcos on netflix with spanish subtitles. When they speak english I can read the subs and catch words I didn't know or reinforce the ones I did. This has been a tremendous help. On the treadmill, I can easily watch 2 episodes of Narcos and feel like I put in significant study time.
2.) For German, I'm watching "Making a Murderer" and "Jessica Jones" with german subs. I'll move up to german in audio with english subs then eventually german audio and german subs. Perhaps I'll watch with german audio by the end of the year without any subs at all and understand fully?
3.) For french, my study has been limited to songs and I've done one lesson on Pimsleur. I'm just going to make this a slow process and when I'm motivated to study, I'll just do it. No need to rush. It's still January!!

[ryanl321]

I'm back at it. I've been informally learning even though I haven't posted to this log but figured it would help me stay consistent if I post daily. I've focused on French, since my youngest daughter is in an immersion program at school half the day. I want to learn French with her, now though that summer is here, I need to help her keep up her French while out of school.

[Xenops]

Welcome back! I need to be more consistent with my goals, too. Let's go tackle French!