A language learners’ forum

kanewai wrote:It's these podcasts where the native language dominates that don't work for me. My brain never switches over into any type of 'active' language acquisition mode.

I ran into the same issue with films for the super challenge. I got so frustrated with those French movies that had one line of dialogue for every ten minutes of the hero staring wistfully out to sea. I never logged those.

I had similar issues during my initial steps with Czech and Cantonese during RDearman's challenge in 2017. A lot of teaching language in the podcasts (>50%), and very little dialogue in movies (<50%).

I am in!

I started German on January 1st and I'm doing 30 minutes every day. I want to start Generic: German + other languages.

I want to add other languages, but I saw this:

6. Those who choose generic and add another language during the year which was previously not on their list are penalised for it (see 'penalties' below). It's encouraged that you announce such changes here.

But then, I read this:

6. There is no penalty for adding or removing languages with the generic option of study either.

So, I'm a bit confused now. If I'm going to be penalised for adding languages, I will announce them soon. The thing is, I'm still trying to find some resources.

But from your response to Serpent's post, I don't need to write them now, right? I will announce soon to make your list more organized.

Iceberg wrote:I am in!

I started German on January 1st and I'm doing 30 minutes every day. I want to start Generic: German + other languages.

I want to add other languages, but I saw this:

6. Those who choose generic and add another language during the year which was previously not on their list are penalised for it (see 'penalties' below). It's encouraged that you announce such changes here.

But then, I read this:

6. There is no penalty for adding or removing languages with the generic option of study either.

So, I'm a bit confused now. If I'm going to be penalised for adding languages, I will announce them soon. The thing is, I'm still trying to find some resources.

But from your response to Serpent's post, I don't need to write them now, right? I will announce soon to make your list more organized.

There are no penalties for adding or removing languages to/from your generic group. Welcome and good luck!

FYI:
If you want to add or remove languages that aren’t in a generic group, there are no penalties either, but your score will reflect dropping a language if you drop it before the end of the challenge, and same goes for adding one late.

I'd like to participate! I've been doing 5-10 minute daily study sessions in Italian... I need to bump them up to 30 minutes.

Start date for learning Italian: January 4, 2019.

I'm dropping out of this challenge. Not because I haven't been able to do it, but simply because other studies suffer because I have to do Mandarin. Previously I was rotating between 5 studies doing 20 minutes each. Some days I only managed to do 2-3 study periods, but I could even it up over the next couple of days. But being forced to always keep one in the rotation permanently doesn't give me the flexibility to keep things going more or less consistently with the others. Plus the extra 10 minutes sucks away half the time which could have been used on something else. So, I'm dropping out with a score of 5.

Good luck everyone.

Well, I failed. I didn't do any studying on Saturday because I just didn't want to. According to the rules, I guess that takes me from a streak of 4 to -3 (after subtracting 7 points). For now I am going to continue, but I can see myself having other days like yesterday where I just don't feel like doing anything...

ロータス wrote:

Spoonary wrote:Well, I failed. I didn't do any studying on Saturday because I just didn't want to. According to the rules, I guess that takes me from a streak of 4 to -3 (after subtracting 7 points). For now I am going to continue, but I can see myself having other days like yesterday where I just don't feel like doing anything...

Would you had still done nothing if you knew your score would go down -20?

Yeah probably. I reckon my happiness is more important than an online language challenge

tomgosse wrote:Please add me to the list. I will be starting French on 1 jan 2019.

All the best,
Tom

EDIT:
I will be using French Demystified as my main text. I will also use this YouTube Channel, and Pimsleur French.

Finished day 7 out of 365. Only 358 to go! Yeah!

Good to see you online again, tomgosse.

I will do 1x on Japanese starting today.

tomgosse wrote:

tomgosse wrote:Please add me to the list. I will be starting French on 1 jan 2019.

All the best,
Tom

EDIT:
I will be using French Demystified as my main text. I will also use this YouTube Channel, and Pimsleur French.

Finished day 7 out of 365. Only 358 to go! Yeah!

Have you looked at the Step-by-Step series? I have the Demystified books for both Spanish and German, and for both of them the Spanish and German Step-by-Step books are much nicer, with clearer explanations and more exercises.