Time to sum up the day! Today I didn't really too too much language "learning", so much as planning. I didn't have enough time to start a proper lesson because of university, however I did find enough time to take a peek at some new resources I have and think about a plan of action for each of my languages. So below I'm going to outline my thoughts. As always, any suggestions or comments are welcome. These are just general guidelines I think I will follow, however they are certainly malleable.
FrenchSo after looking through my lang-8 posts from the past 4 days, I have noticed and taken note of certain errors I consistently make. I seem to struggle with the tiny, yet incredibly important words such as; y, en, que/qui, etc. Basically, all of the words that replace parts of the sentence (I can't think of the proper term for them lol). I also guess too often whether my past participles need to accord or not. Since I have identified some of these weak points, I'll be able to study them, drill the living heck out of them, and make sure I don't see those mistakes pop up anymore on lang-8.
I have registered for my university's French discussion group workshop things, but I'm also going to try to talk to myself more often... or at least in my head. I need to make sure I don't have troubles naturally describing what I'm doing, what I see, etc. To be honest, I think I'm probably better at speaking about academic subjects than say, describing how to log onto a computer.
Finally, I'm going to continue listening and reading native French content, focusing specifically on argumentative words and conjunctions. The only way to get the hang of these is to see them over and over in context, as well as use them over and over on lang-8 too!
GermanHere is a quick rundown of my German resources that I am using/will use, not including TV shows and podcasts:
- Assimil German with Ease
- Michel Thomas (Beginning, Advanced and Language Builder)
- Memrise A1 + A2
- FSI German
- Übungsgrammatik Deutsch als Fremdsprache
- "Tintenherz" as well as the English translation, "Inkheart" and the German audiobook
- Almost 200 graded readers of various difficulties
Here is what I am currently doing; I have been doing an Assimil lesson a day, as well as A Michel Thomas lesson a day, because they are both review for me at this point in time. I have also been watching an episode of extr@ a day, writing a small lang-8 post daily, doing a couple levels of Memrise German A1 a day, and attempting to catch up with the German book club on "Tintenherz". Every Friday I have been going through a Slow German podcast, translating it and creating word lists and Anki cloze deletion cards with important vocabulary I don't know.
I plan to continue to do all of that. I'm going to go through one or two sections of the grammar textbook weekly, and I've also considered focusing on
one conjunction or common german word (mal, ja, etc.) in particular every week in order to get a fairly nuanced understanding of how to use them.
Once I finish Tintenherz I will start to look more closely at the graded readers I have, but for now that novel is more than enough. It takes me a long time to get through one chapter because I read it in English, then read it in German with the English version beside it, then listen to the German version while reading it. So all in all, I read each chapter 3 times.
I also don't want to do anything with FSI until I'm through with Michel Thomas. I think they would burn me out together, as they both seem very call and repeat heavy.
SwedishGood old Swedish! Unfortunately this awesome language is going to be the bridesmaid for the next month, until I don't need to focus so much on French. That being said, I feel like I can still establish a pretty decent base with the resources and time that I have, so that once I have more time to put work into it, I can get going nice and quickly. At the moment I have;
- Pimsleur
- Teach Yourself Swedish
- Assimil Suédois sans peine
- Colloquial Swedish
- FSI Swedish
- RivStart A1A2 book, audio and workbook
I'm going to continue doing 6 Pimsleur lessons a week followed by a review (there are only 30 in total and I've done 8), as well as a Teach Yourself unit with a review every week. Once I'm done with Pimsleur I'm going to begin the Assimil course. From there I haven't quite decided what I'm going to do, but I'll have a better idea once that day comes.
So, if anyone suffered through this long post and has any comments, concerns or suggestions, please feel free to share! I'm still trying to discover how I learn languages, so I won't take anything to heart if you think I'm wasting my time somewhere!
I know this may look like a lot to do, but I have so much time during the day to kill while I commute to school, work, etc. that it's not too bad, and I love feeling like I'm being productive every second of the day.
). Anyway, I've read that you are a frequent lang-8-user and therefore I wanted to ask if you're willing to tell me your lang-8-nickname, so that I can add you as a friend. I'd be glad to help you with your German studies if you want, as I'm a native (Austrian) German speaker.
