Language log

Continue or start your personal language log here, including logs for challenge participants
David1917
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Language log

Postby David1917 » Fri Nov 10, 2017 8:52 pm

Here we go:

Russian: I'd say I'm "fluent" to a normal person, as I lived in Moscow this summer and have spent extensive time in Russia/Ukraine over the last couple years. I still make a lot of errors and have some issues with listening comprehension. So for these problem areas I will be doing extensive pattern drills and then just extensive listening, and some watching with subs. I got Assimil Perfectionment en Russe, which I will just use the Russian side for, since I don't know French that well - as graded input.

Chinese: 2nd priority - most of my academic focus is Russian/Chinese relations, plus I really enjoy Chinese history/culture. Right now my focus is on reading comprehension. I'm doing John DeFrancis' reader series in traditional and currently the New Practical series for simplified. DeFrancis I just read extensively, so I keep some traditional recognition, and with NPCR I'm going back through Book 2 now and extracting what doesn't come to me right away into Anki and moving on. I think eventually I'll hire a tutor so I can get back into conversation practice, but right now accumulating vocab/reading skills is the goal.

French: New journey. Somewhere between being an aspiring "polyglot", my favorite band being from Paris and my strong desire to vacation in Morocco, I figured I need to unlock this language. Right now I'm doing some passive stuff while the semester is still in session - Rosetta Stone on campus, Michel Thomas when I'm on my bike, and if I have time at my desk I'll go through some stuff in the new Hugo book. After the semester ends, I'll turn up the heat - I have some of the materials Dr Arguelles recommended in his four language challenge video - Berlitz, Linguaphone, Practice n Improve. I might pick up the Made Simple, but I also have Cortina and one of the classic Hugo books as well. I'm finding French to be really easy since I am already fluent in Spanish and a native English speaker, so I don't even know if I'll *need* to go through all these, but I might just to really hammer it home. I'll see how I feel after doing a few of them.

Spanish: Maintenance. I haven't spoken in a few years, but I was a call-center rep for a long time, so I know it's all in there somewhere! I've started to listen/read news articles just to get the language back in my head. From there I might L-R some novels by Borges or Bolaño, just to keep it fresh (and finally read some truly great works of literature.)

Swedish/German/Farsi: Currently just perusing, since everyone speaks English at a high level in Scandinavia it's hard to convince myself to put in a ton of effort, but I'd like to be able to read/understand Swedish lyrics and get around at a basic level. This will eventually branch into Norwegian and/or Danish. German I'm in a very passive review/prep stage - just occasionally doing some graded readings and putting what I've forgotten into Anki. After the semester I might double down. Farsi is so exciting, but I just don't know how much I can put into it on top of everything else. Then there's Sanskrit...

I keep a written log but since I re-discovered this forum I might as well post it up here each night as well.
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David1917
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Re: Language log

Postby David1917 » Sat Nov 11, 2017 6:29 am

10 November 2017

French - 20m of Michel Thomas Advanced while biking to the gym
Russian - 15m of aspect pattern drills from "Russian in Exercises"; daily Anki; annotating some articles about development of Russia's far east
Chinese - 15m of reading/Anki construction - I do not review Anki in Chinese as of yet as I'm still slowly building a deck through reviewing reading material.

Я вижу, что часто люди пишут в своих логах на языках которые изучают. Ну вот, я напишу немножко на русском здесь. Теперь мое учения очень интенсивное, так как я уже жил в Москве на 3 месяца, я знаю какие у меня проблемы. Самая главная грамматическая проблема это аспект глаголов. Я каждый день пишу упражнения из этой книги "русский в упражнениях." Столько упражнении есть! Когда сделаю все из этих, я думаю посмотреть на курс FSI. Кроме этого у меня тоже одна книга "Современный Русский" написано Дерек Оффорд. Наверное, это слишком много, но по моему это что мне нужно делать!

Je veut dire que la langue française pour moi et très facile, parce-que parle espagnol et anglaise. Je sais et comprends les constructions, et j'ai une grande vocabulaire de les deux langues. J'ai besoin de apprendre plus de la langue, parce-que ce-que j'ai écrie ici est trop simple.

哈哈哈, 写一点儿事用中文? 为我比容易看,我很多看的懂,可是, 我想说话或者写字的时候就太难啊!我好久跟另一个人没说汉语。不好!我需要联系谈话。。。
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Sylarv
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Re: Language log

Postby Sylarv » Sat Nov 11, 2017 8:26 am

David1917 wrote:10 November 2017

French - 20m of Michel Thomas Advanced while biking to the gym
Russian - 15m of aspect pattern drills from "Russian in Exercises"; daily Anki; annotating some articles about development of Russia's far east
Chinese - 15m of reading/Anki construction - I do not review Anki in Chinese as of yet as I'm still slowly building a deck through reviewing reading material.

Я вижу, что часто люди пишут в своих логах на языках которые изучают. Ну вот, я напишу немножко на русском здесь. Теперь мое учения очень интенсивное, так как я уже жил в Москве на 3 месяца, я знаю какие у меня проблемы. Самая главная грамматическая проблема это аспект глаголов. Я каждый день пишу упражнения из этой книги "русский в упражнениях." Столько упражнении есть! Когда сделаю все из этих, я думаю посмотреть на курс FSI. Кроме этого у меня тоже одна книга "Современный Русский" написано Дерек Оффорд. Наверное, это слишком много, но по моему это что мне нужно делать!

Je veut dire que la langue française pour moi et très facile, parce-que parle espagnol et anglaise. Je sais et comprends les constructions, et j'ai une grande vocabulaire de les deux langues. J'ai besoin de apprendre plus de la langue, parce-que ce-que j'ai écrie ici est trop simple.

哈哈哈, 写一点儿事用中文? 为我比容易看,我很多看的懂,可是, 我想说话或者写字的时候就太难啊!我好久跟另一个人没说汉语。不好!我需要联系谈话。。。


Would you welcome corrections to your French? :)
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David1917
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Re: Language log

Postby David1917 » Sat Nov 11, 2017 4:24 pm

Sure, I'm in the very early stages of learning so I know there are a lot of mistakes!
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David1917
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Re: Language log

Postby David1917 » Sun Nov 12, 2017 6:05 am

11/11/17

Chinese - 2x15m sessions of reading NPCR & Anki creation
Russian - 2x15m sessions of grammar - aspect drills
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David1917
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Re: Language log

Postby David1917 » Sat Nov 18, 2017 4:24 am

11/17/17 - Week in Review

I figured posting just a myriad of 15m sessions daily would get dull so I'll take some time to reflect on the week.

Russian - I've got maybe one more day of "Russian in Exercises" in the chapter on aspect. There are a LOT of exercises... I think I might skip the FSI on this for now, since I've spent a good 2 weeks plugging away at these drills. What I'll do is read the next section in Cortina and see if anything trips me up - if it's a small thing I'll just make an Anki card for it (Going to the store for bread = за хлебом = за + instr). If it's something bigger, I'll seek it out in the Exercise manual and drill the hell out of it. That's my main focus right now, just really cleaning up my grammar so when I'm back in Russia I'm making less mistakes.

Chinese - On Lesson 16 in NPCR Book 2, and Lesson 39 in the DeFrancis reader. Got a bunch of cards building up from NPCR, still feeling like mostly review. I think I'm going to trim up the audio files into shorter mp3s so I can get more listening in, as of right now it's a lot of English and each lesson is on one track, so it's pretty obnoxious to work with. I think I'll dig back into Assimil for this purpose as well. Reading is still the focus.

French - About halfway through disc four of Michel Thomas Advanced, somewhere in Week four of Hugo. Still casual, but very good. I foresee some drilling of verb tenses in my future - but I think the plan after the semester ends is to do Linguaphone - Berlitz - Made Simple - Practice & Improve as outlined by Dr Arguelles in the "Big Four" challenge video. After the Practice & Improve I hope to move into some LR stuff.

German - Just reading short graded passages, building cards with words I've forgotten. I might do the same sequence from the challenge on this, too, but it's not really a priority.

Spanish - I've listened to some NHK broadcasts, feels good to be dealing with Spanish again. I don't have any real goal in mind, but I need to come up with something. I think LR is going to be the ticket, and getting some Spanish language podcasts for when I'm on my bike.

Farsi, Sanskrit - Gathering materials, thinking about how much nicer a 36 hour day would be...
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David1917
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Re: Language log

Postby David1917 » Sat Nov 25, 2017 6:10 pm

11/25/17 Week in Review

Russian - So, I had a lot more than one day left of Russian In Exercises. I saw on the next page it was "Revision" which I thought might be just one to two more sets of exercises, but is in fact several pages of narrative in which you change the aspect of certain verbs. So we're still rockin' the aspect, and it's honestly great because now there are verbs I haven't really dealt with in perfective form enough. I've been doing some GLOSS work as well. Even the Level 1 readings have truckloads of very useful vocabulary in them, especially in the notes. They've done a fantastic job of illuminating the roots of certain words and how others are related (who knew that соревнование and ревный [competition & jealous] would share a root!) Once the semester winds down in a couple weeks I'm going to commit to doing one of these lessons per day.

Chinese - I'm on either Lesson 16 or 17 in NPCR, and starting to slow down. I'll do the pattern drills now, and re-read the dialogues a couple of times. I'm going to add writing back in soon, too, doing Scriptorium of the Assimil series first, then maybe working through Linguaphone. Edging ever closer to completion on the DeFrancis Beginner's series - a truly fantastic work. I want to start doing some Classical Chinese soon, coupled with my interest in learning Sanskrit. Since the DeFrancis book deals with traditional I am used to reading it as well as simplified, so at least that hurdle is diminished.

French - Finished Michel Thomas advanced + advanced review. Moving into Language Builder. I think done with around Week 5 of Hugo. Excited to delve deeper with Assimil + Linguaphone when my time frees up a bit more.

Swedish - Did one chapter in the 2nd gen Colloquial book (1996.) It's very phrase-book, not very rigorous, but simple enough to hack away at. I might try to track down something more substantive, like an older TYS or Colloquial to work through.

What's next:
As I've alluded to a few times, once the semester ends in a couple weeks I hope to convert what was university related time into language study. I'm an obsessive planner, and I've been re-reading some of Prof Aruguelles's posts on the old forum. I have a long list of languages I'd like to "know" at some basic level, but need to prioritize, as I don't live in the mountains of Korea with minimal commitments and a high income...

My thinking is this: Russian, Chinese, French, and Persian I want to dedicate 1 hour every day to. I think a 2 hour morning session (cycling through in 15m chunks) and a 2 hour evening session is the most ideal layout.

As time/energy permits throughout the day, my next goal will be adding in Sanskrit, probably as a daily exercise. I've also seen posts describing an A/B rotation of languages which I may adopt myself, on top of the four (or five) listed as daily above. I think my A day might be "Germanic" where I look at Old English, German, Swedish, and B would be "Romance" looking at Latin, Portuguese, Italian. I want/need to branch out in the Slavic family as well - probably Serbian and Czech as the first representatives from each branch. Other fun stuff like Greek/Irish/Arabic will all have to wait for now. I'll also probably change this plan 20 more times before the semester actually ends :lol:
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James29
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Re: Language log

Postby James29 » Sat Nov 25, 2017 7:18 pm

David1917 wrote:Spanish: Maintenance. I haven't spoken in a few years, but I was a call-center rep for a long time, so I know it's all in there somewhere! I've started to listen/read news articles just to get the language back in my head. From there I might L-R some novels by Borges or Bolaño, just to keep it fresh (and finally read some truly great works of literature.)


I am curious to hear how you did working in a call center in Spanish. One of my biggest challenges with my Spanish is getting telephone calls in Spanish at work. That is also what I want to improve the most too. Did you find it difficult because you were always speaking to someone new and not used to their accent and mannerisms or did you find it easy because the conversations were always very similar? Any suggestions on how to improve a language for use in call center type setting?
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David1917
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Re: Language log

Postby David1917 » Mon Dec 11, 2017 2:35 am

I missed out on a post last week, and hesitate to even post this week because my studying has been minimal. It's finals week and I have two large papers due, and they consume a great deal of my time. And if I'm not working on them I'm procrastinating by watching Star Trek.

French - I finished Michel Thomas Language Builder last week, I will begin the Vocabulary course this week on bike rides, which I should finish shortly after turning in my last paper, thereby perfectly transitioning into Assimil and/or Linguaphone as my listening programs with corollary book work.

Russian - I've been doing Anki every day, but that's about it. I actually just today reached the point were I have no more new cards, so I need to get back on the GLOSS game. Haven't done any book work.

Old English - Not really study by any means, but I spent some time a couple weeks ago trimming the modern English lines out of the audio from the TYS course (which entailed reading along with the text to cut at the right places), and just doing that made some of the Old English used in the Vikings TV series (OK, so I procrastinate with more than just Star Trek) comprehensible. Of course it helps that the word "king" is used a lot in the TYS course :lol: I assume when they have the Vikings speak in the show they are using Icelandic/Old Norse, but either way with a novice understanding of Swedish some of that was easy to follow as well. I'm pretty excited to dive into Old English and Scandinavian at large.
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David1917
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Re: Language log

Postby David1917 » Mon Dec 11, 2017 2:45 am

James29 wrote:I am curious to hear how you did working in a call center in Spanish. One of my biggest challenges with my Spanish is getting telephone calls in Spanish at work. That is also what I want to improve the most too. Did you find it difficult because you were always speaking to someone new and not used to their accent and mannerisms or did you find it easy because the conversations were always very similar? Any suggestions on how to improve a language for use in call center type setting?


As you guessed, it became pretty easy because the conversations all followed the same pattern. I was in social work, so I just had to be able to ask about an array of income sources and expenditures, though getting used to different accents (particularly Puerto Rican) was somewhat challenging. I had already spoken Spanish for quite awhile at that point, so transitioning to phone calls wasn't very difficult.

What I can describe is what I had to do to prepare for taking Russian calls, since I wasn't at as high of a level then. I basically translated every field in our computer system as well as a few generic scripts for the calls to get a baseline of necessary vocabulary, which I printed out and kept on my desk. I then did some practice calls with a native speaker in the office, so we could imitate our basic process, but he would go off on tangents and everything to make sure I had focused listening. Finally, I would sort of force calls into very simplistic terms to get through them. Ask yes/no questions. If someone would ramble on, I'd try to pick out a key word they said that I needed to follow up on, even if I didn't understand the whole sentence, and ask them about that in particular ("You said something about property taxes this year?" "Yes, they were xxx dollars.")

I've been really enamored with the GLOSS site as seen in previous posts, and I think that would be a great tool to use, as the dialogues are at a good speed and the activities have you focus on parsing meaning from longer speeches. They can also be sorted by topic, so scroll through and you might even find some related to the field you deal in!
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