CarlyD's 2018/2019 German log

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zjones
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Re: CarlyD's 2018 German log

Postby zjones » Sun Dec 16, 2018 9:25 pm

CarlyD wrote:Bootcamp this morning at 8 a.m. Theoretically ok, but he talked a lot about mnemonics that I'm not a fan of. And apparently, I'm too old for Bootcamp. When it started, I had to open up a Youtube channel so I could post during the class. Ok, not a fan of that, but did that.

This morning, I went to the class site, switched to my Youtube channel so I could post--and found, at 7:59 a.m. that he'd changed it to a Discord-only class. So I had to rush to set up a Discord account. Which apparently only works (class and chat on the same screen) if you're doing it on your phone. Meh. So I ended up toggling back and forth between the class and the chat page, with all its game symbols that looked like it was designed for kids.

Yep, too old.

Next class is this Thursday. At 5 a.m. In the morning. :(


Hi CarlyD. Sorry to hear your Bootcamp didn't go as expected. YouTube, Discord and all those other social media programs can be very frustrating no matter your age. I dislike most group classes for that reason. :( Discord in particular is a very strange chat software to be used for courses, I feel like that was a very bad move on the part of the teacher. I also don't think class videos can be viewed later when they're on Discord? Are you getting the ability to watch class videos again after they have finished?

If it doesn't work out, is there any chance you could get a refund? Don't be afraid to complain about the difficulty of use. Course-creators need to hear feedback.
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Re: CarlyD's 2018 German log

Postby CarlyD » Mon Dec 17, 2018 4:08 am

zjones wrote:Hi CarlyD. Sorry to hear your Bootcamp didn't go as expected. YouTube, Discord and all those other social media programs can be very frustrating no matter your age. I dislike most group classes for that reason. :( Discord in particular is a very strange chat software to be used for courses, I feel like that was a very bad move on the part of the teacher. I also don't think class videos can be viewed later when they're on Discord? Are you getting the ability to watch class videos again after they have finished?

If it doesn't work out, is there any chance you could get a refund? Don't be afraid to complain about the difficulty of use. Course-creators need to hear feedback.


The classes are still being held on Youtube streaming, so they're available to everyone. It's just the chat part that he moved from Youtube chat to Discord. Maybe it was easier for him, I don't know.

Hopefully Thursday's class will be more interesting. Assuming I'm awake.
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Re: CarlyD's 2018 German log

Postby CarlyD » Sat Dec 22, 2018 7:46 pm

Note on Thursday's Bootcamp, to be held at 5 a.m. I got up, awake, dressed and ready to give it my all. At 4:57 a.m. they posted the announcement that it had been cancelled. Next Bootcamp will be in January.

Ok, this is the final post for my 175-Day Challenge. Although it does go until the end of the year, I'm on "vacation" now for the holidays and I'm only doing Memrise and Clozemaster every day (so 45 minutes to 1 hour a day) and that's it.

What I accomplished for 2018 and the Challenge:

Memrise. 7 courses, total of 6924 words. I started the year knowing 327 words, ended with 3393 words. I finished the Memrise German 1 and 2 courses and am 53 words into German 3. I do all reviews every day, learning new words two or three times a week. Current streak is 194 days.
Closemaster. This is new. Currently a 32-day streak. I've finished all the sentences for 1-100 Most Common Words and recently started the 101-500 Most Common Words sentences. I'm finding that words in the sentences are the same words I'm learning on Memrise.
Duolingo. Plugging along. Still semi-hate, but I refuse to quit. Mostly I do one section (10xp) a day, so I'll continue.
Glossika Also new. And really hard, even though I'm supposedly in A1 Low. I'm shadowing, working on listening comprehension. I'll stay with this for 2019 even though it seems too hard.

What I didn't accomplish:

Reading. I have a ton of books, many at my current level, a good number a bit above. Just not taking the time to sit and read.
Watching. This goes with comprehension and I should have done a ton more than what I did.

What I discovered:

1. I can meet a goal that's truly precise (i.e. "15 minutes of ___") and I can stick with it.
2. I can read (get the gist of) posts and news articles in German on Facebook. I can understand cartoons about half the time. I can understand the posts of people in my German Language group the majority of the time.
3. I still can't speak worth cr@p. Totally my fault.

All in all, 2018 was a momentous year for progress in German and I expect 2019 to be twice as good.
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Re: CarlyD's 2018 German log

Postby PeterMollenburg » Fri Dec 28, 2018 2:33 am

It seems like I've stolen your idea!

The 2019 365 Day Challenge

Happy for you to start a new thread with you as 'captain' of the ship. My apologies, CarlyD, I honestly had no idea. I'd be happy for a new thread with your rules, don't want to start a challenge war, and it seems you were definitely before me. Lemme know what you'd like to do, and the other guys who have joined you! If you'd prefer to join this one, either way I don't mind, but it could be better for someone else to 'captain' the challenge (although I don't mind), since I could potentially be MIA for large periods of time next year.

Edit: Uncanny! (sorry) :oops:
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Re: CarlyD's 2018 German log

Postby CarlyD » Mon Dec 31, 2018 12:43 am

Ok, I've set up my goal sheet for my 365-Day Challenge. Of course my primary goal is Every. Day. Possible exception if I'm in a coma. :shock: Basic schedule is: Bad Day (allergies, whatever) 30 minutes. Good Day 90 minutes. Great Day 150 minutes.

Memrise: I'm doing 7 courses, and 4 should finish during the year. I'll replace Memrise German 3 with German 4, but not sure about the others. I have monthly goals on how many words learned, and will adjust them if need be (words super easy or super hard). I'll be starting the year with a streak of 204 days, but that's totally dependent on the phone company not crashing my lines for several days, which happens once or twice a year.

Duolingo: I've set it up to do 4 sections a month, whether that's every item for all 5 crowns or just one crown will depend on what it is. That doesn't finish the tree (it takes me to Future 2) so maybe I can get some done faster and adjust it. I'm going to skip tomorrow and start on the 1st so I have an accurate streak.

Clozemaster: 1500 points a day, whether that's new or review. I'm doing the lower level now, 30 at a time and adding just 5 from the upper level each day.

GermanPod101: I set it up to do 5 sections a month, which is only 1 section a week (Beginner Season 1 and 2). This is probably way too low, but I'm also doing other series there that I'm not officially counting, so we'll see.

Textbooks: I'm working on 2 textbooks and have a serious schedule to finish both in 2019. That would be a review of earlier chapters in Jan and Feb and then 1 chapter a month for the rest of the year. There's no way I can't do one chapter in a whole month, so this has to be doable. I'm not sure what books I could use after this--the Spanish versions from these publishers both have intermediate and advanced, but the German is just the first book. I'll have to look around.

Glossika: I'm not sure how to set goals with Glossika, other than tracking my time, so I'm just planning on doing it at least 4 or 5 times a week and counting the time. I'm not getting as much out of this as I had hoped, but will stick with it for the full year (until next Black Friday.)

I haven't listed on my Goal Sheet anything about: Goldlist, vocabulary flashcards, reading or watching videos. I think I'll just plan them monthly or maybe weekly depending on where I'm at, how much extra time I have, and what I feel I need right then.

I will have achieved my goal if I meet my Every Day. I hope to also complete the above goals, but won't be counting it as a failure if I don't. I know I spent probably four times as long on Datives as other people probably did before they "clicked" and I don't know if that will happen with other grammar concepts or not, so I'll just let it flow.
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Re: CarlyD's 2018 German log

Postby Brun Ugle » Mon Dec 31, 2018 8:46 am

I find Glossika great to do on my phone while cleaning. Then it doesn’t really take up any of the time I have for sit-down-and-study tasks and I can use that time for grammar books and suchlike.
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Re: CarlyD's 2018 German log

Postby CarlyD » Mon Dec 31, 2018 6:58 pm

Brun Ugle wrote:I find Glossika great to do on my phone while cleaning. Then it doesn’t really take up any of the time I have for sit-down-and-study tasks and I can use that time for grammar books and suchlike.

I thought about something like that, but when I tried it on my desktop computer, with me just sorting papers, it quickly turned into "background noise" and I don't think I got anything out of it.

For now, I'm going to just sit and knit on my blanket while I read/listen to the sentences. At least that way I'll be getting something done.
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Re: CarlyD's 2018 German log

Postby Brun Ugle » Mon Dec 31, 2018 7:08 pm

CarlyD wrote:
Brun Ugle wrote:I find Glossika great to do on my phone while cleaning. Then it doesn’t really take up any of the time I have for sit-down-and-study tasks and I can use that time for grammar books and suchlike.

I thought about something like that, but when I tried it on my desktop computer, with me just sorting papers, it quickly turned into "background noise" and I don't think I got anything out of it.

For now, I'm going to just sit and knit on my blanket while I read/listen to the sentences. At least that way I'll be getting something done.

I wouldn’t do it while sorting papers because you have to look at the papers and think about where they belong. It has to be something really mindless like washing dishes or cleaning the bathroom. I also listen while knitting, but I don’t know that I could do it while turning a heel or doing lace, but if the task is straightforward enough, it works fine. I have the pauses between sentences set up so I can usually say the sentence after the English and before the voice on the recording. Then I shadow along with the German audio when he says the sentence. That’s enough to keep my mind on Glossika.
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Re: CarlyD's 2018 German log

Postby SGP » Mon Dec 31, 2018 9:19 pm

What would be the next step of learning German that you couldn't do yet?
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CarlyD
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Re: CarlyD's 2018 German log

Postby CarlyD » Thu Jan 03, 2019 12:45 am

I was asked to provide a copy of the spreadsheet that I'm using for my 365-day challenge, but couldn't figure out how to attach it to a private message, so I'm hopefully going to be putting it here. Although I'd rather do something like this in Excel, I use a 5x8 grid notebook for my language stuff, so handwritten seemed to work better. I list all my activities down the left side--Memrise, textbook, etc. and they can change from month to month so I leave it blank until I start that page.

Also, for my own purposes, I marked the checkpoints to use during the 365 days. Hopefully they're correct.

January 30th--30 days
March 1st--60 days
March 30th--90 days
April 30th--120 days
May 30th--150 days
June 29th--180 days
July 29th--210 days
August 29th--240 days
September 27th--270 days
October 27th--300 days
November 26th--330 days
December 31st--365 days

On the language front, I'm currently in a war with Duolingo over their Dative section, in which I'm determined to get my 5 crowns and they're determined to make me crazy. At the moment, they're winning.

Ok, this site says a picture of a piece of paper is "file too large." I give up. :P

If you go to Flickr and look for "365-Day Challenge" it should come up.
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