A language learners’ forum

Adrianslont wrote:If you develop a game plan for travelling, I’d love to hear about it. I’m worried about next month when I will be travelling - I’ll be travelling with friends so it will be harder to find time.

I don't participate in the challenge, but I am starting a new job this year with a long commute. My game plan is to bring my listening skills up to where I can comfortably listen to native audio (podcasts and audiobooks) during my commute, without needing visual support or help as I currently do. This would work well for a trip as well, since there's always some kind of downtime while getting from one place to another, waiting in line or at the end of the day to listen to something or perhaps even read a bit. Of course, it's not as easy when travelling with people, as putting in your headphones is closing you to conversation but you should still have at least half an hour a day when you aren't interacting with others.

Chupito wrote:

Adrianslont wrote:If you develop a game plan for travelling, I’d love to hear about it. I’m worried about next month when I will be travelling - I’ll be travelling with friends so it will be harder to find time.

I don't participate in the challenge, but I am starting a new job this year with a long commute. My game plan is to bring my listening skills up to where I can comfortably listen to native audio (podcasts and audiobooks) during my commute, without needing visual support or help as I currently do. This would work well for a trip as well, since there's always some kind of downtime while getting from one place to another, waiting in line or at the end of the day to listen to something or perhaps even read a bit. Of course, it's not as easy when travelling with people, as putting in your headphones is closing you to conversation but you should still have at least half an hour a day when you aren't interacting with others.

Thanks Chupito and Coldrainwater. I probably shouldn’t fret - it’s just that I anticipate a busy holiday. Apart from when travelling I see this challenge being very doable - really I have signed on to make sure that I give BOTH my TLs sufficient attention. Sometimes I can neglect one or the other.

Bluetooth headphones and plenty of audio resources are a big part of my approach at all times. And more recently a loaded kindle. I guess I just need to take care to have a big bunch of appetising stuff loaded before I go so that “study” appeals even when tired.

Cheers

haven't posted in this thread yet since saying i'm joining;

so far have averaged 30-40 min a day with my french. I have moved away from Duolingo and have been focusing more on lingvist, memrise, and flash academy. today I did two lessons with coffee break french.

For personal goals, I have already failed; I wanted to make a video of me speaking French every day this year and I haven't for two reasons: 1) because I am not confident in my speaking ability and 2) I live with my parents and would feel weird doing it with them in the house. Now, there are plenty of times I'm alone in the house so this is a terrible excuse.

The other goal was to have a french lesson on the 1st week and 3rd week of the month and i have yet to find a tutor. this is mostly due to $$ constraints so hopefully when I get paid Friday I use my money for a tutor!

Hi! I'm joining the challenge. I'm currently learning Portuguese. (Currently at a B1 level.) At the end of 2018, I told myself I wanted to use Portuguese for at least an hour everyday. Luckily, I came across this challenge and thread for support.

Here are my daily goals for 2019
1. Use LingQ everyday until I achieve 150 known words. (I plan on reading newspaper articles, magazine articles, podcasts, and books.)
2. Listen to at least 30 minutes of some type of audio. (I plan on using podcasts, tv shows, audiobooks, and music.)

I would like to take the CELPE-Bras in October of 2018. I hope to be at a comfortable C1 level by then. If you all have any recommendations for comprehensible audio input, I would really appreciate it.

SDPhil wrote:Hi! I'm joining the challenge. I'm currently learning Portuguese. (Currently at a B1 level.) At the end of 2018, I told myself I wanted to use Portuguese for at least an hour everyday. Luckily, I came across this challenge and thread for support.

Here are my daily goals for 2019
1. Use LingQ everyday until I achieve 150 known words. (I plan on reading newspaper articles, magazine articles, podcasts, and books.)
2. Listen to at least 30 minutes of some type of audio. (I plan on using podcasts, tv shows, audiobooks, and music.)

I would like to take the CELPE-Bras in October of 2018. I hope to be at a comfortable C1 level by then. If you all have any recommendations for comprehensible audio input, I would really appreciate it.

Hi SDPhil,

Good luck and welcome!

What is your start date for the challenge, please?

rdearman wrote: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.

couldn't you convert to a generic challenge? Any of your languages counts...

zenmonkey wrote:

rdearman wrote: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.

couldn't you convert to a generic challenge? Any of your languages counts...

Perhaps. But my target at the moment is to do 7 hours a week and that goal lets me skip one day or two days at the weekend and play catch up later if I need to. so I think the main thing really is just booking in the time for me at the moment.

PeterMollenburg wrote:

SDPhil wrote:Hi! I'm joining the challenge. I'm currently learning Portuguese. (Currently at a B1 level.) At the end of 2018, I told myself I wanted to use Portuguese for at least an hour everyday. Luckily, I came across this challenge and thread for support.

Here are my daily goals for 2019
1. Use LingQ everyday until I achieve 150 known words. (I plan on reading newspaper articles, magazine articles, podcasts, and books.)
2. Listen to at least 30 minutes of some type of audio. (I plan on using podcasts, tv shows, audiobooks, and music.)

I would like to take the CELPE-Bras in October of 2018. I hope to be at a comfortable C1 level by then. If you all have any recommendations for comprehensible audio input, I would really appreciate it.

Hi SDPhil,

Good luck and welcome!

What is your start date for the challenge, please?

January 10, 2019 - January 10, 2020

PeterMollenburg wrote:...

Sorry PM, it looks like my post was missed: I started on the 7th, running until January 7th, 2020.

SDPhil wrote:
January 10, 2019 - January 10, 2020

End date = Jan 9th

Xenops wrote:

PeterMollenburg wrote:...

Sorry PM, it looks like my post was missed: I started on the 7th, running until January 7th, 2020.

Indeed, I did miss you! Sorry, Xenops.

Your end date will be Jan 6th, 2020.

I’ll edit the competitors list tomorrow