Chove's Log

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chove
Green Belt
Posts: 374
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 10:42 pm
Location: Scotland
Languages: English (N), Spanish (intermediate), German (intermediate), Polish (some).
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9355
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Re: Chove's Log

Postby chove » Fri Feb 08, 2019 7:25 pm

A non-update: I've given myself an official week off from any studying because I've had a cold or something and I just don't have the ability to focus. This way I don't have to beat myself up for not doing anything productive. All I've done since the weekend is a bit of light reading in Spanish and my usual listening to podcasts when I'm trying to get to sleep.
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chove
Green Belt
Posts: 374
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 10:42 pm
Location: Scotland
Languages: English (N), Spanish (intermediate), German (intermediate), Polish (some).
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9355
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Re: Chove's Log

Postby chove » Tue Feb 19, 2019 7:24 pm

So I've gone from being scared of iTalki to considering using it for German as well. Gonna have to juggle my budget a bit but it might be helpful even if just to help me work out what my level in German actually *is*. I did it in school, then a beginner's course for "easy" credits at my brick & mortar university almost 20 years ago, and now I'm studying it as part of an Open University degree but I've only done as far as the "lower intermediate" level before switching my focus to Spanish (because it being a part-time degree you can't do both languages at the same time at the higher levels). I can't read much in it without hitting words I don't know, and I keep forgetting how to do the future tense, but I *think* I know most of the important grammar at least in theory, and if my casual Polish has done one thing it's make me much more aware of case when forming sentences, which helps.

I'm going to focus on German a bit more before this holiday in June, though I don't know how much I will use there since my dad has very little German and my stepmum is a native speaker so she'll probably do most of the talking. I don't have a heritage language but I have German relatives now and I feel like I should know it better in case I ever meet any of them. Which does make it feel a bit like something I *have* to do and therefore less fun, but I can probably get past that if I try.

Word order keeps tripping me up, so I'm using DuoLingo for the practice at forming sentences. It keeps throwing me a bit to read a sentence and then suddenly at the end the entire thing is negated, though! :lol:
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chove
Green Belt
Posts: 374
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 10:42 pm
Location: Scotland
Languages: English (N), Spanish (intermediate), German (intermediate), Polish (some).
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9355
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Re: Chove's Log

Postby chove » Fri Mar 08, 2019 8:46 pm

I've just booked a trial lesson with an iTalki German teacher, and my plan is to do that weekly if possible and reduced my Spanish and Polish lessons to once a fortnight. My German is pretty poor, alas, and I need to improve a lot for visiting Germany because I want to make the most of the chance to interact with native speakers. (My stepmother has made it known that she expects me and my dad to speak as much German as possible while we're there. :lol: He is doing evening classes and I don't want him to shame me as the worst German speaker. :D )

Otherwise I've not done much the past two weeks because I went on holiday to visit a friend in the north of England. I have a fairly big Anki backlog to work through because of that. Is there a reason some words seem to stick immediately and other words just won't go in no matter how many times I review them?
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chove
Green Belt
Posts: 374
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 10:42 pm
Location: Scotland
Languages: English (N), Spanish (intermediate), German (intermediate), Polish (some).
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9355
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Re: Chove's Log

Postby chove » Tue Mar 12, 2019 8:23 pm

I've been getting a bit frustrated about my level in German, mostly about how I can't read much in it without immediately hitting words I don't know. I *know* it's that I've spent less time on German than on Spanish in the past couple of years, but it still feels annoying. Oh well.

Anyway, I just did a trial lesson on iTalki with a German tutor who seems nice and I am planning to try to do a German session with her every week so I can practice what I already know and what I am learning. It turns out if the listener is patient enough I can usually get my point across in German, though I get stuck for vocabulary quite often. So now I'm a bit more confident that I am *not* the worst German speaker in the world, though I know I still have a lot to learn.
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chove
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Posts: 374
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 10:42 pm
Location: Scotland
Languages: English (N), Spanish (intermediate), German (intermediate), Polish (some).
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9355
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Re: Chove's Log

Postby chove » Thu Mar 14, 2019 6:11 am

Today I got a weirdly unbranded "German CD Intensive Language Course" for £3 in a charity shop. It has a book as well but I have plenty of German books I really just wanted it for the CDs and it was only £3 so why not. The first CD ripped as "Italian Course" and the 4th one is called "geerman course" (sic). :lol: But I just wanted some German to listen to at night on mp3 player (my anxiety stops me getting to sleep easily so I have a lot of time for listening and it seems to help me get to sleep eventually). It was still sealed in the original plastic wrapping, so I assume it was an unwanted gift or maybe it sat on a shelf for years because what even is it.
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chove
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Posts: 374
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 10:42 pm
Location: Scotland
Languages: English (N), Spanish (intermediate), German (intermediate), Polish (some).
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9355
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Re: Chove's Log

Postby chove » Fri Mar 15, 2019 6:11 am

Update: the CDs are entirely in German -- I thought "fraulein" had fallen out of use and was only for little girls these days and if you use it for a grown woman it's considered offensive, but someone on the first CD calls the waitress "Fraulein"?
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chove
Green Belt
Posts: 374
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 10:42 pm
Location: Scotland
Languages: English (N), Spanish (intermediate), German (intermediate), Polish (some).
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9355
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Re: Chove's Log

Postby chove » Fri Apr 05, 2019 5:11 am

I had a few weeks of low mood and just started back on meds for that, so I haven't done much the past couple of weeks apart from iTalki lessons and the homework for those. Really need to get back into it somehow, I'll be in Germany in a couple of months!
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chove
Green Belt
Posts: 374
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 10:42 pm
Location: Scotland
Languages: English (N), Spanish (intermediate), German (intermediate), Polish (some).
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9355
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Re: Chove's Log

Postby chove » Thu May 23, 2019 1:41 am

I've registered for the next year of my university course, which is "Advanced Spanish" so after the Germany trip my focus will be back to Spanish. Hopefully I can maintain that basic German with DuoLingo etc, because the *next* two years of the course will be intermediate and advanced German.
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Brun Ugle
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2273
Joined: Mon Jul 27, 2015 12:48 pm
Location: Steinkjer, Norway
Languages: English (N), Norwegian (~C1/C2), Spanish (B1/B2), German (A2/B1?), Japanese (very rusty)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=11484
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Re: Chove's Log

Postby Brun Ugle » Thu May 23, 2019 7:32 am

Hi! I somehow lost track of your log for a while, but now I’ve read through and caught up. Good luck on your trip!

I get frustrated with German too. My active and passive skills are so uneven. Apparently, I can make myself understood, but speaking is very uncomfortable and I never know if I’m actually speaking German or if I’m just making words up based on Norwegian.
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MorkTheFiddle
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2113
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 8:59 pm
Location: North Texas USA
Languages: English (N). Read (only) French and Spanish. Studying Ancient Greek. Studying a bit of Latin. Once studied Old Norse. Dabbled in Catalan, Provençal and Italian.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 11#p133911
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Re: Chove's Log

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Mon May 27, 2019 11:41 pm

chove wrote:Update: the CDs are entirely in German -- I thought "fraulein" had fallen out of use and was only for little girls these days and if you use it for a grown woman it's considered offensive, but someone on the first CD calls the waitress "Fraulein"?
I don't know this stuff for certain, but when I went to Germany a few years ago, I didn't use the word Fraulein at all. I think the use of it on the CD reflects the age of the CD and not the current status of Fraulein . But as I say, I'm no expert in these matters.
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