zenmonkey's multilingual adventures of a traveller

[rdearman]

It's time to actively take German to C1 and stop this dabbling about.

How long have you been studying German? You figure you'll be C1 in 4-5 months? Can you please explain where I'm going wrong?

[Brun Ugle]

It's time to actively take German to C1 and stop this dabbling about.

How long have you been studying German? You figure you'll be C1 in 4-5 months? Can you please explain where I'm going wrong?

You need to stop using the Way of the Lazy Fist and start using the Way of the Effective Fist. I was a C1 in Norwegian after about three years.

[rdearman]

So immersion then?

[Brun Ugle]

So immersion then?

I was far from immersed since I lived with an English speaker and we mostly watched English TV. I did work through some textbooks though and I did a lot of reading and writing. I think forcing myself to write a lot really made the difference. I need to do that with Spanish. My speaking is getting pretty good and my writing is better, but it’s still slow.

[zenmonkey]

Yesterday, with new objectives:

German
Three-monkeyed:
1) the Sexual Freedom audio - https://www.dw.com/de/seit-50-jahren-ka ... l-45540542
20 min, 3x (Listening; Listen & Reading; Listen, Read & Repeat)
Noted difficult words and reviewed before LRR
Questions and Exercises - No Anki
2) Mammutzahn audio - https://www.dw.com/de/mammutzahn-am-rhe ... l-45438611
20 min - No Anki

Video: Breaking Bad - 2 episodes with subtitles (100 min)

Conversation: About 30 minutes dealing with people on the theft of a steering wheel.

Total: 170 min - (listening, grammar, vocab, speaking)

[zenmonkey]

The rest of the week has gone well, focused mostly on German (and some Setswana)
My activities have been:

19.9.18
3 monkey - https://www.dw.com/de/wenn-maschinen-se ... l-45383810
20 min (listening, grammar, vocab)
Breaking Bad - 3 episodes in German. 50 min x 3.
Reading Intensively - 24 min -chap 3
anki - 30 min
Total: 204 min

20.9.18
German
15 min Anki
30 min 3 monkey - https://www.dw.com/de/das-ende-der-deut ... l-45194533
Total: 45 min
(+ 30 min memrise Setswana)

21.09.18
Anki, Clozemaster DW
Total : at least 160 min
(+ 30 min memrise Setswana)

22.09.08
70 min Anki
3 monkey - https://www.dw.com/de/otto-der-klassike ... l-44829520
20 min
Total : 90 min
(+ 20 min memrise Setswana)

So I'm feeling pretty good about the German focus (11+ hrs!) this week. I need to add some other languages...

All the words that I don't know from the dw exercises or my reading are being added to my Anki deck. I'm finding that the Clozemaster sentences are excellent but I'm still trying to find the right level of challenge.

On the other hand, I haven't done my writing exercise this week (yet) and I need do some grammar exercises, the dw.net section has some a few questions for each audio section and I bombed on the Relativpronomen. I should really work on that.

[zenmonkey]

A quick update. Mostly German.
I think that the Setswana group is losing it's momentum? Hope not.
I watched one of Iversen's videos (on memory) and came away with a good pointer to visualise words away from the screen (looking off into space ) to attempt to see the word as it is written. That's very effective, adding it to my learning actions for new words.

I also found that DeepL provides full example sentences for translated words. I'm using those or variants in my Anki card building, especially useful for words where I really have a hard time visualising without a good sample sentence. For example for "quake" I now have a card with:

Code: Select all

Front: Beben : Das Beben in der Stimme des Jungen verriet seine wahren Gefühle.
Back: Tremor / quake: The tremor in the boy's voice gave away his true feelings.


I could build 3-4 cards out of this (for beben, verriet and as cloze cards) but I'm still not a huge fan of cloze cards with English hints. It does my head in to translate a word in the middle of a sentence. So I'm sticking to 1 or 2 cards only, in this example.

With old Anki cards that I just can't seem to learn - rather than set them to leeches or delete them - I'm replacing the one word cards with a sentence.

I really need to finish my tracking app!

Time spent
23.09.18
90 minutes anki

24.09.18
20 min looked into gloss and completed one unit https://gloss.dliflc.edu
30 min Anki

25.09.18
reading 30 min
some anki

27.09.18
41 min anki

28.09.18
20 min 3 monkey on an article on Bangladesh workers
66 min anki - mostly caught up with my German deck!
30 min Setswana.

[tags: #tagLangDE, #tagLangTSN, #tagMethodAnki, #tagMethodMemory, #tagResourceDeepL]

[zenmonkey]

I am behind on everything. Stressed, Jet-lagged and half awake.

Just getting back from a trip to the US to visit my father and attend a friend's wedding. Language relevant!
My friend married into a family with strong Nigerian roots and part of the evening ceremony was in Igbo. At my table was another friend with a Nigerian ex and she knew some Yoruba. So languages were a topic. Neither of the persons being married really spoke any Igbo, so it's sort of a heritage language thing.

Yesterday, at the airport a Nigerian man (identified by his red fez) asked me for help getting to a gate, he was also on my flight and we had many hours of waiting - we started talking, later switched to German as he was a student here and is now well retired. He was a previously a nuclear physicist and studied an area I was somewhat versed in. We both struggled to remember science terms in German - from nucleus to ... He told me that he found Igbo and Yoruba hard, and suggested, half-serious that I should learn Hausa.

So, now back in Germany, I need to get on the wagon again. My Hebrew teacher has sent me an "are you ok?" email. Time to get back on top of things.

I did do language exchanges while I was in the US (although I skipped/missed a Setswana session because of travel. Sorry.) And I got to speak German (tourists in Yosemite), Spanish (everywhere, my father), French (taxi driver from Africa, my daughter) and Portuguese (haltingly, a store owner).

Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa are not in the least bit pulling on my wanderlust strings. I didn't spend an hour at the airport looking up the Igbo history and culture and structure. Promise.

[MattNeilsen]

If you don't mind me asking, at what point in your Hebrew journey did you find it useful to start working with a tutor? I was thinking of starting around the A2/B1 level so that I actually have something to say; however, I'm also open to the idea that starting earlier could help avoid the formation of bad habits/pronunciation.

It's also hard for me to keep up with reading right now, so I wasn't sure how much I'd get out of text feedback during the exchange.

[Ani]

... He told me that he found Igbo and Yoruba hard, and suggested, half-serious that I should learn Hausa.

I've got a really nice Skype contact who speaks Hausa.. just throwing that out there