CarlyD's 2018/2019 German log

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aravinda
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Re: CarlyD's 2018 German log

Postby aravinda » Thu Feb 01, 2018 10:53 pm

CarlyD wrote:...And a friend came over this morning to help me set up this amazing new photo scanner I got that will scan old negatives and slides as photos, as well as restore old photographs. I had to choose between scanning and German. :P German won, but I'll be scanning all evening.
I've have been looking for something like your scanner. Can you tell me a bit more about it? As I don't want to clutter your log with scanning technology stuff, you can PM me if you like.
And sorry I chose scanning over German this time. :D
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CarlyD
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Re: CarlyD's 2018 German log

Postby CarlyD » Fri Feb 02, 2018 1:07 am

It's an Epson Perfection V600 Photo Scanner. I got it online from Office Depot. There's I think 3 different models right now--I looked at them on Amazon and looked at all the reviews. This was the mid-price model and had very good reviews, plus a few people in my genealogy forums have this one and are very happy with it.
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CarlyD
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Re: CarlyD's 2018 German log

Postby CarlyD » Fri Feb 02, 2018 7:54 pm

I've always had a great respect for the Missionary Training Center (Language) in Provo. In the past I've read blogs written by missionaries that have gone through the program that ranged from painful (barely fluent and struggled every day) to amazing (came home totally fluent) and everything in between. I remember a series of YouTube videos done by a young woman who had gone through the program to learn Serbian, then during her mission was moved to Bosnia--learned Bosnian--then was moved to Macedonia I think. She ended up coming home speaking three languages.

Of course I can never find the blogs again, but was looking around and found a link to the Pre-MTC program where you can start at home getting used to the language. Even just looking at the home page, I seriously wish it were open to everyone. Their method is SYL ("Speak Your Language")--shades of Benny Lewis--and there was an interesting weekly progress sheet that I'm considering replicating in Excel.

For the week, you listed your main goal, then had categories to accomplish (Goal, Actual). The categories were:

Authentic Application
Role Play with Other Speakers
Practice in Personal Study
Hours of Personal Study
Attempted Conversations
And an extra that you could add of your own.

Huge difference between my shallow goals of Memrise every day, and someone setting a goal of 15 Attempted Conversations. Although I'm happy with the progress I made today with Memrise and Goldlist, yeah, I'm just treading water compared to their serious language learners.
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CarlyD
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Re: CarlyD's 2018 German log

Postby CarlyD » Tue Feb 06, 2018 8:54 pm

First week of 6 Week Challenge--Goldlist seems ok, textbook, Duolingo, Memrise. Not spending enough time on flashcards and every time I sit down to watch Youtube videos in German I seem to end up watching George Michael videos instead. :D

I did pretty much nothing (30 minutes) yesterday--had a depressing medical appointment about my old knee injury that ruined my day. Started out better today, plans to work with my textbook on the patio in the sunshine--and there's a chilly north wind going today. Oh, well. Today was also my first bad day with Goldlist. Of the 25 words I distilled today (to move 17 to the next list) I either failed or was slightly wrong on 15 of them--they transferred fine, but the number has never been that high before.

I got the two vocabulary books from Better World Books. One is the really small one from Barrons--ideal for my purse or in the car. The other is more like a workbook--vocabulary with lots of exercises and games.

Note to myself for Twitter: I'm not doing the numerous categories like in the past. I'm still doing that in my little day book, but for Twitter it is: Memrise--anything done online including Duolingo; textbook--any book; vocab--Goldlist, flashcards, or any vocabulary exercises; reading and listening.
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CarlyD
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Re: CarlyD's 2018 German log

Postby CarlyD » Sat Feb 10, 2018 12:26 am

So on the one hand, I put in a huge amount of time today with my textbooks. But instead of doing it in 30-minute bursts, I was stuck sitting there while the guy tried to fix my computer (my whole Microsoft Office Suite has crashed and I can't use or retrieve anything.)

On the other hand, he couldn't fix it and they're going to try again tomorrow, so more textbook time. Or maybe flashcards.

After he left, I remembered a weird error message I'd gotten before it crashed with some odd name in it. I looked it up--and it's part of the software for my brand-new Epson Photo Scanner.

I probably should have mentioned to him about uploading the software for the scanner right before Office crashed. My bad. :oops:

I guess I deserve sitting for another 3 hours straight working on flashcards tomorrow.

Maybe they'll send someone that speaks German this time. :D
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CarlyD
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Re: CarlyD's 2018 German log

Postby CarlyD » Wed Feb 14, 2018 6:23 pm

2 weeks into the 6 Week Challenge update.

In the past, I've pushed myself to do All The Hours, and learn All The Things. And then promptly forgot mostly everything. I'm really working on the concepts of long-term memory now--learn a bit, review a bunch.

And it wouldn't be a 6 Week Challenge if I didn't complain about Duolingo. Seriously. Where do they get those sentences? Most of them don't make all that much sense--and wouldn't be a sentence I would probably ever need or use. I keep doing it every day, but every day I question the value.

Memrise--I love Memrise. I'm doing 6 courses right now, doing well in all. I don't remember there being so many options before--or I was in courses that didn't have them. Listening Skills, Learn with Locals, Grammarbot, Speed Review (that one's hard), regular Review and learning new words. The listening and learn with locals are probably my favorite. One of the courses would give a list of nouns as choices, then the person would read a whole sentence, with one of the nouns somewhere in the sentence. Much more emphasis on comprehension than just repeating the same word over and over.

I was watching knitting videos in German last night--I picked out a lot more words than I was expecting to. My only problem is that I searched for them under Stricken, which unfortunately is also the name of some heavy-metal (is that still a thing?) band that has gross pictures on their videos. I need to find some more search words. And about something other than socks. So far all the ones I've found have been from Regia or Opal, so lots of socks.
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CarlyD
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Re: CarlyD's 2018 German log

Postby CarlyD » Wed Feb 14, 2018 8:53 pm

Leaving this for posterity:

2/14/18 12:51pm

I am #1 in the 6 Week Challenge. :D :lol: :P

I am 2 minutes ahead of Ryan, and 30 minutes ahead of Petr.

It won't last. It could already be gone.

But this moment is mine.
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CarlyD
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Re: CarlyD's 2018 German log

Postby CarlyD » Sun Feb 18, 2018 8:52 pm

Thank you Duolingo for helping me to achieve fluency with sentences like:

Cows do not wear hats.
No, I am no banana.

Because I could have used one of those sentences just last week. :P
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CarlyD
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Re: CarlyD's 2018 German log

Postby CarlyD » Tue Feb 27, 2018 8:47 pm

Lost my Memrise streak on most of my courses yesterday. :( Weird storm, and broadband kept crashing. It took me as long to do Duolingo and just a bit of my Memrise as it normally took to do it all--frustrating.

Almost 4 weeks into the 6 week challenge. I feel like I'm learning a ton--I'm going to take another placement test after the challenge is done. I'm doing textbook, Goldlist, Duolingo, Memrise, flashcards and reading/listening. I can really feel the difference in understanding native speech as opposed to the last time I tackled German.
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CarlyD
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Re: CarlyD's 2018 German log

Postby CarlyD » Sun Mar 04, 2018 7:27 am

I got an email from Benny Lewis taking about a research study that Duolingo had done--that it's best to learn a language before bedtime, not at any other time.

I thought this seemed odd. Generally before bedtime I'm so tired I knit and watch tv--and don't even knit difficult things. Concentrating on a language?

He says that "learning and then sleeping on it" gives you better retention than learning earlier in the day.

I wonder if anyone else has done research on the best study times.

The article in Quartz by Duolingo's research person: https://qz.com/1215361/the-best-time-of ... ingo-data/

Edit to add: Based on 6 placement tests, none official, I've finally reached the bare bottom of A1. One place put me at A1.1 implying I've got 9 more slots to go before reaching A2. Whatever. I'm taking it. :D
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