A language learners’ forum

Last 2 weeks.. argh!

Lots of work and other distractions.

Not much done.

One evening out mostly simple cebuano.

Tonight 5th March 2017

Cebuano.. did some Memrise. Little bit of talk. Haven't been enthused. Been looking forward to starting Spanish so I will do. I will have to consider how to maintain cebuano and improve it.

Spanish...

Watched some avatar cartoons on YouTube but messed up. Still, I appreciate the quality and I think it could be engrossing.

Tried to use rtve website. Bit dodgy. More success with the app but it does lose connection with Chromecast.

Still, an hour of history on the Romans at a comfortable pace. Interesting. Learnt something new and being about the Roman legacy in Spain it had lots I hadn't seen.

Then mark chapter 1

English for story

Spanish read and listen for word demarcation.

Then read English and listen Spanish for vocab.

I need to get 50 rep Spanish pronounciation audio. Either create or get.

Monday 6th March 2017

Cebuano

Few words spoken at home.


Spanish

Little bit of Thinking Spanish but not able to hear / concentrate.

First 100 sentences of 10,000 sentences Android App (someone on here created?).

30 minutes of "Fábulas de Esopo" in car. 2nd CD, starting around 50+?

Didn't understand much! A few bits and pieces. Noticed repetition of words which hopefully will feed into vocab learning by brain being more receptive to those frequent words. Also good as a variety of voices, mostly male on this CD so far. Bit more variety would be nice. One person sounded like English was L1 - so skipped her.

I need to download and burn Trafalgar (Librivox/Guttenberg).

Need to get Spanish pronunciation audio clips (50 reps).

Afternoon

40 minutes of Trafalgar. Didn't understand much. Just getting used to the prosody, priming brain with high frequency words. Picked up a few words.


2 hours of stuff

50 languages app. Games etc.

20 minutes of thinking Spanish.

40 minutes of rtve Roman aquaduct history.

50 sentences from 10000 sentences. 150 done.

Tuesday 7 the march

Trafalgar 60 minutes in car.

100 sentences from 10000 sentences. 250 complete.

3 of the thinking Spanish audio. 4-6 done.

30 pts Duolingo. One gold level.

Some Memrise

Before sleep 95 minutes Trafalgar read and listen in L2 spanish. Not much understood but seemed to improve towards end.

Weds 8th March 2017

A few words of cebuano.

Spanish.

Some Memrise.

2.5 lessons from thinking Spanish. Half way through lesson 9.

30 minutes of Trafalgar in car.

Printed out first chapter of Trafalgar in 2 columns in excel lined up.

8 pages landscape. Probably 250 odd lines in chapter 1. 17 chapters 5000 odd lines. Audio is around 5 hours.

2 plus hours of "Spanish rock". Whole mix of stuff. Covers of english songs and not so much rock.

Too tired to do much tonight.

And then I watched Junior masterchef Spain on Youtube. Not normally my cup of tea but actually pretty engaging and useful. I'll watch a few more I think.

Thursday 9th March 2017

Cebuano

Nothing


Spanish

30 minutes Trafalgar in car. Words more clearly split / understandable. Some understanding of words - wasn't actively listening, but got the gist (main points) of some audio passages.

Been reading up on this blog - (random article) http://www.speechinaction.org/listening ... -plethora/ - loads more - mainly talking about speech shapes or something. Very interesting and useful to someone trying to listen to a L2.

Duolingo / various apps, I have been playing around with different apps etc

I've decided to restart duolingo spanish. Originally I tested out in 5 days and took some more time to golden it.

It's enjoyable and appropriate at times when I can't give it much concentration.

I'm starting at the hardest and working backwards so that
1) I learn something new (grammar, tenses)
2) The earlier bits get golden up as a by-product.
3) More challenging (only the listening is challenging)

Duolingo Spanish is VERY easy for me though. Possibly partly through the phone's android app, the limited choices, English having many latin roots to words.

But I can't speak or listen to the language well. I can read bits and get the gist but the apps make it really easy. I am learning (relearning) bits and pieces - so it is useful as part of a combo of techniques/lessons.

I think I have 5 gold levels after less than 2 days and a few near gold. The rest are zeros!

Friday 10 MArch 2017

Cebuano

Some speaking expected tomorrow. No prep though!


Spanish

30 mins of Trafalgar track 2 - need to print off text (parallel). Printed done.

Duolingo now has 11 gold levels.

Several hours of Masterchef Junior Spain. Series 3 or 4. Ok for whole family to watch. Variety, fast paced, funny, cute, kid friendly.

Saturday 11th March 2017

Spanish

Duolingo 20 levels gold now

Cebuano

5 hours of mixed cebuano and English with a non native polyglot used to teaching people and 2 natives.

He was able to give me some pointers many of which were non obvious but made sense.

Hopefully some more in future.

Monday 13th March 2017

Spanish

30 minutes Trafalgar in car

Duolingo now 31 gold or former gold just needing one session to regold. That's probably half of them in a week. Previously 10 days to golden all 60? Levels

Registered for a part time course sponsored by work. It can lead to a language degree in 6 plus years!

Cebuano

Nothing apart from a few words in the house.

Tuesday 14th March 2017

cebuano - few words at home

Spanish

Probably some in car, can't remember.

Printed off parallel text from http://learn-french-free-with-stories.w ... cuten.html

Tried Trafalgar parallel text but translation not literal enough (so far).

Duolingo - something like 40+/64 done taken back up to gold. 15+ down from gold, but back up via 1 or 2 sessions.

I want to do prosody MP3 tracks for bits from Nation's survival Spanish.

http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/about/st ... panish.pdf


Weds 15th march

nada

16 to 18th March.

Mostly just Duolingo.

Now all gold after maybe 12 days. Hadn't touched Duolingo in months.

63 or 64 levels.

Have to think what next.

Prosody, parallel texts, 10000 sentences etc.

Signed up for part time uni courses in basic Spanish and compulsory about Language module for October.

Dual language degree. Definitely Spanish. Probably French. Other main option is German with basic Chinese, intermediate Italian as options