CarlyD's 2018/2019 German log

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CarlyD
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Re: CarlyD's 2018 German log

Postby CarlyD » Tue Jan 16, 2018 8:37 pm

I had fence work and barking dogs this morning, so I decided to make an Excel spreadsheet of all the Duolingo German modules (not just the groups) so I could track the repetitions that I do. After the first time, it just says Re-Do and I had an odd goal of doing each section a set number of times.

To answer the burning question, there's 457 modules. If I'd known there were that many, I probably wouldn't have even started. It ended up as 14 pages, printed in landscape.

And I spent the whole time before I fell asleep last night trying to re-do Iversen's wordlist in my head so I could do 3 or 4 spaced recall repetitions instead of just the one in his example. I'm thinking if I put the English word on the far right, then I could cover up each recall attempt from the left and that would work.

I have been working on actually learning German, but I do tend to get into the weeds sometimes.
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Re: CarlyD's 2018 German log

Postby hedgehog.chess » Thu Jan 18, 2018 7:44 am

CarlyD wrote:
Xenops wrote:Welcome the Log Inadequacy club. :lol: A comment on someone else's log made me question myself.

I'm not sure if you had heard of it, but are you familiar with Deutche Welle? They have *free* German resources (when I move to German, I'll make liberal use of it).

http://www.dw.com/en/learn-german/s-2469

Thank you--I saw that site a long time ago and had forgotten about it.


Concerning DW you could try German Listening app for Android-The materials from Deutsche Welle from 2010 up to now gathered in one app(all with transcripts).
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CarlyD
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Re: CarlyD's 2018 German log

Postby CarlyD » Sat Jan 20, 2018 11:58 pm

This is a copy of a post that I did in 2016 in my old log, because it took me forever to find it. I want to use the same methods now for German.

I like to read "how to learn a language" type books for entertainment. I like the anecdotes of different techniques that have worked for different people and when they give their favorite tips. One of my favorites (don't remember the book or who was being interviewed)--name your world. When you're walking down the street or waiting in line, describe everything you see. "That man in the blue shirt is walking behind the woman in the green dress." Everything. I've tried it and it is hard--and exactly what I need to strive towards.

The book I'm reading right now "Language Logic" is very interesting and although only part way through, I've seen two things that I want to incorporate.


1. A "day" book--a notebook (or any way you like to make notes) where you just write down anything. A word you haven't heard before, a phrase that you're not totally sure of--no rules, no neatness. But note the date and the place where you heard them, to help with context--was this a formal speech, an informal chat, something heard on the street that could be local slang--all help to "place" how that new word/phrase fits in. She goes on to say that after you've looked up the word, verified the spelling, meaning, etc. then transfer it to your vocabulary notebook--for me, a regular notebook and Anki.

2. Using your dictionary. For Spanish/English--when you look up a word in English, place a mark next to the word to tell yourself later that you've looked it up. If you look it up again, that's a clue that it's necessary to you and should be in your Anki or wherever to thoroughly learn. I know I've looked up certain words several times so this will be good for me.
For the Spanish side of the dictionary she gets totally involved and showed a sample page of her dictionary with most of the words underlined, circled, highlighted. She talked about using a different color for each part of speech and how it has helped her.

I like the theory of this, but I know I won't be looking for where I left the green pen or the red pen every time I look up a word, so I'm going to think about how I can make this work for me. I've already checked and my regular highlighters don't bleed through the page, so maybe I will work with underlining and highlighting and see how that works.


I tried her method during Spanish and how it works best for me is a checkmark in pencil when I look up the word, and any word that gets transferred to a flashcard is underlined in orange. Any word that needs a 2nd or 3rd checkmark obviously needs to be on a flashcard.
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2024 15,000 pages Reading Challenge--pages: 1180 / 15000

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CarlyD
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Re: CarlyD's 2018 German log

Postby CarlyD » Tue Jan 23, 2018 9:36 pm

Why am I so anxious for the 6 Week Challenge to start? It's not like I'd really be doing anything different--I already log what I do in a little date book, so I'd just also be logging the start and stop times. But I'm checking the calendar to see how many more days. Apparently I have no excitement in my life......

So far I'm liking the Goldlist Challenge. When I make the day's list I put the page number in my date book to remind me to distill it on that day. And those weeds again--I had to go to Office Depot and get some metallic markers so I could write the page number from the Bronze book--in bronze. Although I have to say it looks good. :D

I've given up my switching back and forth between languages, because I'm finally admitting it doesn't work for me. I have huge respect when I see people's logs where they've worked on more than one language in a day--maybe I'll get there one day, but no time soon. So I spent the morning packing up all my Spanish books--how did I end up with that many fiction books?--and they're all going out to the bookcase in the garage. Now the German books that are jammed every which way can be sorted out so all the categories--fiction, vocabulary, readers, etc.--can be grouped together. Maybe I'll actually get through them this time.
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CarlyD
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Re: CarlyD's 2018 German log

Postby CarlyD » Wed Jan 24, 2018 10:37 pm

I've been looking at all the options to watch stuff in German--and I've pretty much only got Youtube unless I pay $30 a month more for the International package (I think it's 2 German channels).

I have looked at a bunch on Youtube and.....meh.

Today I discovered German knitting videos. :D

Here's a cute-as-a-bug guy talking about socks made with Regia Perfekt yarn.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhvCqNooKEo
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2024 15,000 pages Reading Challenge--pages: 1180 / 15000

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CarlyD
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Re: CarlyD's 2018 German log

Postby CarlyD » Fri Jan 26, 2018 4:29 am

I was going to talk about the mess today with Duolingo on Facebook, but I don't even want to go there. I'm just going to either back off until it resolves itself or just stay with Memrise.

But Goldlist and my regular vocabulary are going good.

And I complained so much about Herzlichen Glückwunsch that somewhere along the way I learned it. :D
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Re: CarlyD's 2018 German log

Postby Brun Ugle » Fri Jan 26, 2018 7:12 am

CarlyD wrote:I've been looking at all the options to watch stuff in German--and I've pretty much only got Youtube unless I pay $30 a month more for the International package (I think it's 2 German channels).

I have looked at a bunch on Youtube and.....meh.

Today I discovered German knitting videos. :D

Here's a cute-as-a-bug guy talking about socks made with Regia Perfekt yarn.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhvCqNooKEo

He’s adorable and the video was fascinating. I only had time to watch the first few minutes right now, but I marked it so I can watch it later. Who would have thought that knitting videos would be fun, or even be a thing at all?
Some of the German channels have apps where you can watch at least some of their content even if you live outside of the country. You might want to try those when you’re ready for something new.
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CarlyD
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Re: CarlyD's 2018 German log

Postby CarlyD » Mon Jan 29, 2018 12:54 am

Yay--finally getting ready to start the 6 Week Challenge--probably Tuesday. I need to go through my resources and make a plan of what I want to accomplish for the 6 weeks and what kind of time goals I want to set. They'll start out 12 hours a day, of course. :D Then I'll return to reality and run anywhere from 1 to 4 hours a day, depending on what else is going on.

I've been reading the experiment with Goldlist vs. other methods. I just started Goldlist and just yesterday distilled my first list. My retention was 68%. I didn't think that was too bad. So I had plenty of room on my list of 17 to repeat words I was ok with, but could stand to be reviewed again. My biggest problem at the moment is coming up with the 25 words without repeating words as I'm getting them from different sources. But so far it seems to be working. I did order a German frequency book from Amazon but in their quest to make the world Prime members, they don't ship their 5-8 day free shipping orders until the 8th business day, so I still don't have it yet.

I still do my flashcards--yes, real, actual flashcards in a box. I started out with the Leitner method, but it's evolved into something I read in a blog. Today--new cards, plus review yesterday's cards. Then they either stay for another day or get moved ahead a week. As I get more comfortable with a card, I might move it ahead 2 weeks, a month, or more. Or I might amend the card--a card that started out as "the towel" might have "hand towel" "bath towel" etc. added to it and then start it again from the beginning. It seems to work well, and making out the cards and looking up words for variations is kind of like the "slow and steady" that the Goldlist method talks about.
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2024 15,000 pages Reading Challenge--pages: 1180 / 15000

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CarlyD
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Re: CarlyD's 2018 German log

Postby CarlyD » Tue Jan 30, 2018 11:23 pm

I gave up on Amazon and cancelled the order for the German frequency book. At day 14, they still hadn't even shipped it yet, and given that the price wasn't really even discounted, I cancelled.

Last night I looked around and found several sites and blogs that had "first 500 words" lists that I printed out and there's two Memrise courses of the first 2000 words, so I'll be using them instead. I'd still like the frequency book if I find it used somewhere. Also I went to Better World Books that was recommended and found a couple of vocabulary books for $3.98, so that should work too.

I'm considering taking a good nap tomorrow afternoon and starting the 6WC at midnight. :D
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CarlyD
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Re: CarlyD's 2018 German log

Postby CarlyD » Thu Feb 01, 2018 9:50 pm

First day of 6 Week Challenge!!

....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.

That list I made of all the Duolingo German modules? It seemed like overkill at the time, but it's turning out fabulous. I go and do new sections, then glance at my list--I did those sections twice already, but these other ones, only once, so I'll re-do these. Now I'm doing new and evenly reviewing the old without re-doing the same ones over and over and ignoring others.

I probably won't be putting my weekly goals here anymore since I started my new Language Journal and track everything there.
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2024 15,000 pages Reading Challenge--pages: 1180 / 15000


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