The Money Mustache Community
General Discussion => Throw Down the Gauntlet => Topic started by: BPA on December 27, 2015, 09:55:09 AM
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I got Rosetta Stone French as a Christmas present, and so my plan for this year is to brush up on the French that I seem to have mostly lost.
My goal is to spend one hour a day starting January 5 working toward this goal.
Anyone who would like to join me regardless of the language, is very welcome. Just post your own goal(s).
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I'm in! I have Rosetta Stone with all of the languages as well (just not currently installed). I also have pimsleur mp3s, and am going to try out Duolingo too. I have a few things in flux before I can continue planning the time to spend on it, but I just recently talked to the SO. We are considering (later in the year probably - I'm starting with different languages) of doing a 30 day challenge of learning a language, and then only speak that language to each other for the following 30 days. She is working on Spanish right now. I am going to start with either German (took a few years of that and hopefully it will come back relatively quickly) or Russian. I'll update more later with specific goals and plans.
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I’m in! These challenges work pretty well to keep me motivated. I’ve been wanting to learn Spanish for years, but since I’m a master procrastinator, I just haven’t done it. Also want to learn Japanese, but probably not at the same time I’m learning Spanish – maybe another year.
Any recommendations for learning software other than Rosetta Stone? I'll take a look at Pimsleur and Doulingo - I want something cheap yet effective.
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I'm in! Spanish in DuoLingo.
Probably will do about 15-20 min day (3 of their little lessons, 30 "points").
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I'm in too! German on duolingo. My kids are in a dual immersion school German and English, and I need to keep up with my kindergartener!
I've actually already been doing duolingo for about three months now, I was actually up to a 97 day streak until I did it while offline the other night and it didn't count! Just about killed me. I would love to think I can do all year...
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I am planning on learning Spanish. I also want to brush up on my Greek. It had gotten terrible, not that it was ever that great. :)
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I’m in! These challenges work pretty well to keep me motivated. I’ve been wanting to learn Spanish for years, but since I’m a master procrastinator, I just haven’t done it. Also want to learn Japanese, but probably not at the same time I’m learning Spanish – maybe another year.
Any recommendations for learning software other than Rosetta Stone? I'll take a look at Pimsleur and Doulingo - I want something cheap yet effective.
Pimsleur is just audio (although an awesome method - IMHO it's the best audio-only option out there) so it focuses on listening and speaking/pronunciation. Duolingo is free though. I think they started with an android app, and now have a full web site. Haven't logged into the site in about a year, so I imagine it's changed. Just upgraded to Windows 10, and the Duolingo web app is automatically linked in the Start menu, which is why I even remembered it. :)
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Anyone try Mango languages? Not sure how it compares to Rosetta Stone, but it seems like Mango uses a similar method. Maybe? Anyway I recently found out it is free through our local library so I'm going to give Korean a try in January. I want to learn Korean so I can converse with my in-laws and help our daughter learn. Learning Pirate first though! Priorities.
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I got my Russian to a pretty decent point last year but ran out of instructional material and didn't know where to take it from there.
I've since discovered the Red Kalinka (http://redkalinka.com/) website, which sells high-quality material that I believe I can use to take me to the next level.
So although I'll have more important goals in 2016 (mostly related to writing books), I'd certainly like to become more fluent in Russian.
I always enjoy opportunities to use my Spanish or German, both of which I speak pretty well. But the only language I'll be actively trying to expand my vocabulary in will be Russian.
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If they ever finish Tagalog on Duolingo I'm down for that.
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I will commit to 3 Duolingo lessons per day.
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another +1 to duolingo
I think I'll also take a spanish class for a few weeks in Mexico in late 2016 or 2017
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I wish duolingo had Mandarin
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Another Spanish w\ DuoLingo here, aiming for 3 lessons per day.
I might also take a "Spanish for Healthcare Workers" continuing ed class if the community college offers it again and it works with my schedule.
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I've been doing German on Duolingo for about the past year, but not consistently enough. I'll commit to three lessons per day.
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Excellent idea. I'm planning to improve my Italian. The plan is that i'll spend my train commute2x30 mins plus 2 hours on thursdays to practice. Have the books, just need to find some online resources.
Thanks for starting this thread.
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I am in, always wanted to learn Spanish!
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One of my goals this year is to complete the French Duolingo pack, so count me in! I'm going on 30 days in a row already, which is a new record for me. Let's see how high that number can get :)
I'll note that I'm not spending a ton of time on it every day though. It probably averages out to around 15 minutes. Still, I think I've benefited from making a daily practice out of it.
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I'm in too! I go to in-person German classes already to keep my nearly fluent German in good shape but I'm going to France in about ~5 months and it would be nice to get around a little, thanks for the motivation! I'll give Duolingo a try for French!
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I'm in for Spanish!
Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk
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Anyone try Mango languages? Not sure how it compares to Rosetta Stone, but it seems like Mango uses a similar method. Maybe? Anyway I recently found out it is free through our local library so I'm going to give Korean a try in January. I want to learn Korean so I can converse with my in-laws and help our daughter learn. Learning Pirate first though! Priorities.
I use Mango! Free through my library, too. I used Duolingo for Spanish for a while, but then I found Mango which I much prefer. (I also have Rosetta Stone but it's on the PC that's boxed-up in my closet.) I don't know if Mango includes characters for ideographic languages like Korean and Japanese (I loved that my RS Japanese set included kana) so that may be something to consider.
I'm going to improve my Spanish and German in 2016. And I'm going to stop being a perfectionist re: my accent; I'm not a native speaker so an accent is excusable, if not expected.
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Nice, one of my libraries I use for eBooks has Mango access, and apparently you can do it online or via Android/iOS app with your library card number. I really like DuoLingo, but I'll check it out!
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For the Duolingo folks, I think it would be fun to add you as friends. A little healthy competition might help us out :)
Looks like if you go to friends you can add people by email address. Mine is: Kane.m.Sherlock@gmail.com
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another mango/library subscriber. Haven't used it much so would like to hear from others if it is worthwhile. we just got a bilingual(spanish/english) childs book for christmas and have been reading to the kids, I think my vocab is already getting better. It is by richard scarry, can't remember title.
Here is a link that my last spanish professor showed us. pretty handy with lots of different levels and they are all free, if i keep gettting better(motivated) i may try to get back into it.
https://www.laits.utexas.edu/spe/
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For the Duolingo folks, I think it would be fun to add you as friends. A little healthy competition might help us out :)
Looks like if you go to friends you can add people by email address. Mine is: Kane.m.Sherlock@gmail.com
I followed you, time for me to get a huge streak going.
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I use Mango! Free through my library, too. I used Duolingo for Spanish for a while, but then I found Mango which I much prefer. (I also have Rosetta Stone but it's on the PC that's boxed-up in my closet.) I don't know if Mango includes characters for ideographic languages like Korean and Japanese (I loved that my RS Japanese set included kana) so that may be something to consider.
I'm going to improve my Spanish and German in 2016. And I'm going to stop being a perfectionist re: my accent; I'm not a native speaker so an accent is excusable, if not expected.
Awesome! Duolingo doesn't have Korean yet, but I wasn't impressed with their Spanish.
Not sure exactly what you mean about the characters. So far Mango is exclusively using the phonetic Hangul alphabet, which is not ideographic. I doubt they would ever use Hanja. But yeah, typing could be an issue! Didn't think of that. I don't know if Mango ever requires me to type a response though? Only on lesson 1. We can install the Korean keyboard on the computer, but I could see that being a problem for others or when on my phone. But I'm not too worried about learning to write well, since my husband and in-laws will teach our daughter that (doubt I ever get that far). I'd just be impressed if I could carry on more than a two-word conversation without my SIL translating. Does Mango go beyond conversational lessons and into reading and writing?
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As a librarian, it warms my heart to see people using their public libraries' language resources. Yay!
I'd like to make using the Duolingo app a part of my morning routine to brush up on my French and Spanish. Apparently when you don't use a language for 20ish years you forget a lot.
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DW is Argentinian and we're planning what will be my sixth visit to her family. Spanish improvement happens every time (especially a 2-week immersion).
I'd really like to start learning Arabic or Mandarin though.
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I must see if I can get Duolingo on my phone and sign in with the account I've been using on my computer.
I'll be doing French.
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Oh shit, how did I miss this thread?
Serious efforts towards learning Spanish begins in 2016. Considering how much time I have spent in Mexico (Baja) in the past 20+ years and the fact that my time there will only increase now that I have FIRE'd, my scant competency in this language is an ABOMINATION. This needs to stop.
Lady Snow has left me in the dust in this matter...she has long since finished Rosetta Stone, taken many classroom courses, and is a Duolingo JUNKIE...she may have the longest streak going on the planet. ;)
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Found mango through my library, and Duolingo - will try both to decide which I like best. Also, the utexas link looks awesome.
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Awesome thread!
I'm in!
Learning Spanish. I did pretty well for 2015 using pimsleur and a 1 week course plus staying with a Spanish speaking family in Peru. At the end of this year I started going to spanish speaking meetup groups a couple times a week too. Highly recommended!
This year I'd like to continue my momentum, finish pimsleur, and commit to going to the meetup groups at least once per week. I'll have to check out mango too.
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Awesome! Duolingo doesn't have Korean yet, but I wasn't impressed with their Spanish.
Not sure exactly what you mean about the characters. So far Mango is exclusively using the phonetic Hangul alphabet, which is not ideographic. I doubt they would ever use Hanja. But yeah, typing could be an issue! Didn't think of that. I don't know if Mango ever requires me to type a response though? Only on lesson 1. We can install the Korean keyboard on the computer, but I could see that being a problem for others or when on my phone. But I'm not too worried about learning to write well, since my husband and in-laws will teach our daughter that (doubt I ever get that far). I'd just be impressed if I could carry on more than a two-word conversation without my SIL translating. Does Mango go beyond conversational lessons and into reading and writing?
No, I don't think Mango goes into reading and writing; Rosetta Stone is better for that. It's good for me as a supplement to RS and my workbooks since I don't have to unpack it (ha), I can take it anywhere, and the Auto Play lets me go through a lesson hands free (wish it could be a whole chapter, though).
For anyone wanting a comparison from my personal experience:
Rosetta Stone: (I have an old version) Good for all around learning though it can seem tedious at times. I like that it forces you to learn the language by making logical connections (they call it "dynamic immersion"), like in real life. Keeps track of what you get wrong so you can go back and review those sections. Exercises are multiple choice using pictures or a combination of pictures and words and matching. I never used the writing aspect or speech recognition feature. Can be expensive for a full set even with discounts.
Duolingo: I stopped using this awhile back after an update made the UI less sleek, though they may have fixed it by now or it could have just been an issue with my old phone/iOS. The game aspect of it is fun, you can track your progress against friends and it records your streaks. You get points for lessons you learn (points deducted with each wrong answer) and it shows you your progress toward your daily points goal. I like that it had "strength" bars to gauge lessons based on completion or how long it's been since your completion so you know to go back and review. Variety of activities (typing responses, multiple choice using words or pictures, correctly arranging words). The audio quality was not very good, however. Free to use.
Mango: I use this now and it's very straightforward -- lessons/chapters/units, no games. Audio is better than Duolingo (still not perfect). The only exercises are recalling a translation from memory and multiple choice; the multiple choice is ineffective as it's not challenging at all. As I mentioned, I like the hands-free Auto Play feature (which is just memory recall, no multiple choice) but it stops at the end of each lesson so it goes by pretty quickly. I like the notes on the language and culture that are included with the lessons. Does not keep track of what you get wrong like the other two. Free to use with your library card number if your public library is on their list.
Sorry if I left out or misremembered anything, I have a notoriously bad memory.
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Excellent idea. I'm planning to improve my Italian. The plan is that i'll spend my train commute2x30 mins plus 2 hours on thursdays to practice. Have the books, just need to find some online resources.
Thanks for starting this thread.
My goal is to become a fluent Italian speaker in 2016. Please do let me know what resources you find or decide to use.
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For those of you learning languages, i would not advise rosetta; i have seen the text in booklets from their CDs and it really doesnt teach you to learn the language, it teaches you to speak it.
by that i mean that it doesnt cover the genders of words, how they're used formal and informal, and on and on.
if it were me, i would find a textbook or site that covers it like you are taught anything in school and find and online tutor you can skype with that the language you are learning is their native language. what you really want to do is think in the language and a tutor or working thru a textbook does that best. rosetta/CDs are just repetition.
if you just want to be basically conservsational, rosetta is fine; but to get beyond that; like passing the the european union language certification tests- a1, a2, b1, etc(which are the gold standard on foreign language knowledge); you have to learn it like you did english.
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For those interested in learning German:
Deutsche Welle is a good resource. I've used it mostly for supplemental content, but there is also a full (free) course for A1 through B1 levels. It might be a good supplement to Rosetta Stone or similar.
http://www.dw.com/en/learn-german/s-2469
Deutsch Perfekt is a good magazine, but pricey if you're in the US. There's some free content online.
http://www.deutsch-perfekt.com/
The Goethe Institut New York hosts an eLibrary that anyone can join. There's a small yearly fee ($10). If you're in a larger city you likely have a physical Goethe Institute and library that you can also join.
https://www.goethe.de/ins/us/en/sta/ney/bib/onl.html
If you're at a more advanced level, don't forget about your normal library. My library has a pretty good selection of German language films....I'm sure this is the case for most languages.
"Verstehen Sie Spass" was one of the first German shows I enjoyed watching. It's a Candid Camera type show that is pretty easy to follow, even if you don't understand everything perfectly. There are lots of episodes on YouTube.
I actually really likely Rosetta Stone at the beginning levels, especially the part you subscribe to where you can sign up for a time to have a mini discussion lesson online with a teacher and a couple other students. It's not great for grammar, but I did find it effective. I think it depends on your personality...if you like to see everything laid out text book fashion, or you're ok learning and can accept not understanding the "why" right away.
It's worked best for me to just try to do "something" every day and use a wide variety of resources, rather than worry about following a specific course or program completely. I'm going to join you guys and continue that for 2016. Minimum of 10 minutes of "something" German related every day.
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For the Duolingo folks, I think it would be fun to add you as friends. A little healthy competition might help us out :)
Looks like if you go to friends you can add people by email address. Mine is: Kane.m.Sherlock@gmail.com
I followed you, time for me to get a huge streak going.
I added you too!
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For the Duolingo folks, I think it would be fun to add you as friends. A little healthy competition might help us out :)
Looks like if you go to friends you can add people by email address. Mine is: Kane.m.Sherlock@gmail.com
That's quite a big lead you got there. Will try to surpass you in Spanish 😊
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Goal: get back to 1st semester French by February. I'll be working in France then.
Also tourist level German, as the worksite is on the border.
2 years of U.S. high school and 1 semester of Geman 30 years ago mean my German is mostly for entertainment purposes only.
Using Duolingo.
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I just reset my Duolingo and Memrise passwords so I can get back into the Spanish lessons I keep repeating. Hopefully I can keep at it enough to actually speak it soon.
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I'm in. French and Spanish.
I'll be using Lingvist (better version of DuoLingo imo), Michel Thomas, Pimsleur and probably some lessons on iTalki . I've also subscribed to some French youtube channels (random topics that I'm interested in, just in French).
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Another Spanish w\ DuoLingo here, aiming for 3 lessons per day.
I might also take a "Spanish for Healthcare Workers" continuing ed class if the community college offers it again and it works with my schedule.
Look up Mango Languages through your local library's website. Mango is free through my local library. I think there is a Spanish for health care lesson on there. I'm like 70% sure. I know there's one for law enforcement. Just in case the class schedule doesn't work out or you'd rather work though free resources before paying for a course.
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I'm in! I want to re-gild my 2/3 done tree in Duolingo for Spanish, and learn at least 5 new lessons on there while keeping the tree golden. I have a lot of work to do re-gild it, and can only commit to 2-3 lessons/day, and I'm terrible at keeping my streak going. Also, once August hits I actually have Spanish coworkers I communicate with and my use of Duolingo drops off for those few months (which is how I end up needing to re-gild an entire tree). Because I use my Spanish for mostly talking and listening, I find it helpful to focus on keeping lessons gilded and in my concrete quick-recall memory. Learning lots of new lessons helps me get better at recognizing a lot of words if I'm reading, but it takes a while to be able to use most of those new words in conversation. So golden tree with 5 more lessons done! (I'm up through Sports, which was really handy to talk about the U.S. - Mexico soccer game where we got killed.)
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another +1 to duolingo
I think I'll also take a spanish class for a few weeks in Mexico in late 2016 or 2017
Where in Mexico? I'm looking for a 2-4 week immersion study experience, but haven't found one yet. It could be in Mexico or somewhere else in Latin America. I've done this approach in both Guatemala (not a good program) and Guanajuato (good program, but the school is now closed) so I know this is an excellent compliment to studying on your own, in the USA, etc.
Thanks for any recs that you may have!
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I'd like to learn a little bit of Chinese, going on a trip to China in June and while it's one of those guided tour deals where you're not going to do a whole lot of exploration, I'd like to know a little bit going in.
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I'm joining the Spanish cohort of:
- Lian
- arebelspy
- alleykat
- Jeremy E.
- tofuchampion
- nnls
- Frugalicious
- link_417
- hoping2retire35
- RamonaQ
- Jon_Snow
- Cookie78
- votu
- shadowmoss
- winning
- apples
Go team Spanish! (Now I'm off to check out Duolingo and my library to see what they have).
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I am in too - Italian. Started in the fall. Finished Italian For Beginners course with local Adult Community Education, signed up for the next course starting in 2 weeks. I also supplement with various books on my own in addition to class materials. I personally find that it's impossible to truly learn the language on your own without interaction with the language speakers and learners. That's why i signed up for the courses.
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Spanish for me!
Mi nombre es ChicagoGirl!
How is it that I took 4 years of highschool French and I don't remember any of it!
I am hoping my retention is better with Spanish...
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I just followed some of the guy above who put his Duolingo email on here. He had just friended/followed 3 other people within the last day, so I assumed they were from this board, so I followed/friended them too! My username on Duolingo is GoodApples (sense a theme? :p) if anyone on here wants to find me there. I'd love to have active friends on the leaderboard to keep me motivated each week.
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I'm in for improvement in 2016. Need more study time with Japanese. I am partway through the Mango course (love it!) and have finished the app on MindSnacks, but I still play it occasionally to refresh my skills. Currently trying to be consistent with learning vocab on Anki. So many language resources, so little time!
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I am on Duolingo too (Spanish). Please add me: Frugalicious16.
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I wish I could find a good source for Taiwanese, would make conversations with my in-laws much easier. Spanish may be interesting, but not sure how much I would use it, don't really get out much. I am planning a trip to Europe where we'll be going to Germany and France, might decide to brush up on my German, my wife majored in French, though can't speak too much of it currently.
Already fluent in Mandarin :-P If anyone wants some tips for that I'd be glad to give a few pointers, especially with reading/writing.
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I added a few people on Duolingo. I have the same username, Megma if anyone wants to add me.
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I'm on a 9 day Duolingo streak with Spanish though I'm sure that's about to come to end with my return to work this week.
I'm not normally very virtually participatory but I'll look into their privacy policy on friending and maybe join you all.
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I'm not normally very virtually participatory but I'll look into their privacy policy on friending and maybe join you all.
I just found you could change your username, so pick something anonymous and you should be good.
It doesn't look like there's any info shared on a person besides:
Their username
The language(s) they're studying
What level they're on/how many points they've earned overall and that week
How many days of a streak they're on
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Wife and I are going on a trip to Italy with a group of friends in October.
I want to learn Italian, at a basic level at least.
Is Duolingo recommended?
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Another Spanish w\ DuoLingo here, aiming for 3 lessons per day.
I might also take a "Spanish for Healthcare Workers" continuing ed class if the community college offers it again and it works with my schedule.
I went and checked on Mango-they have a "Medical Spanish" section, but it's only 2 chapters. The first is Diabetes and the second is medicine and dosage. So the course is probably better. About 3/4 down the "tree" on Duolingo there's a Medical lesson, but I haven't gotten there yet so I can't say how good or bad it is.
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I started duolingo for French this time last year and completed it all inlast night. This was averaging about five lessons per day for about five days a week, so about two hrs a week. I'm currently rated 50% fluent, which I very much doubt. I'd like to get this up to maybe 70% by "strengthening" what I've completed. On top of this I'll get some children's French books, browse the French national judo website and practice speaking with my wife who is pretty fluent after living in Nice for a year. And hopefully go camping in France a couple times for real practice.
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I am actually doing pretty well with Spanish.although I think I am moving too fast and feel I won't remember long term. However, I remember more Spanish than I thought my high schools days and I think that is making things quicker. Not a whole lot but it has helped. I hope I stick with it that would be so cool. I wish they had a program for Greek.
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I started duolingo for French this time last year and completed it all inlast night. This was averaging about five lessons per day for about five days a week, so about two hrs a week. I'm currently rated 50% fluent, which I very much doubt. I'd like to get this up to maybe 70% by "strengthening" what I've completed. On top of this I'll get some children's French books, browse the French national judo website and practice speaking with my wife who is pretty fluent after living in Nice for a year. And hopefully go camping in France a couple times for real practice.
I think French seems to have fewer chapters than they have for some other languages I looked at; which also made me wonder how fluent you could get with it. At some point, you will need to go beyond this little app to get real grasp of any language.
I speak German fairly well (have a Bachelor's in German Language) and did the test last night; I think it's helpful for review of vocabulary/constructions I know but don't use much so tend to forget but it's not as good as a week in Munich for sure.
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On the lawyer thread, someone gave me the idea of getting ACTFL certified.
So, my resolution for the first half of 2016 is to take the Reading Proficiency Test for German. If it's awesome, I could apply for certification as a translator, which would be a neat side hustle and diversify my skills.
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Slight reinterpretation of OP, but computer languages are languages too, right?
...I just started a new job in November, and I'll be learning VB.NET as part of the job. Another goal in 2016 is to master jQuery, javascript, and CSS. I think web development will make a good source of side income in post-RE, even though it's many years down the road!
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I am actually doing pretty well with Spanish.although I think I am moving too fast and feel I won't remember long term. However, I remember more Spanish than I thought my high schools days and I think that is making things quicker. Not a whole lot but it has helped. I hope I stick with it that would be so cool. I wish they had a program for Greek.
I'm waiting for Greek too. I did find a page to sign-up for an alert when it is ready. I saw two different dates of availability, one was late 2016 and the other in 2017.
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I'm a Latin and Ancient Greek guy so there is really limited learning material on the internet. Le sigh guess it's books for me :)
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I am actually doing pretty well with Spanish.although I think I am moving too fast and feel I won't remember long term. However, I remember more Spanish than I thought my high schools days and I think that is making things quicker. Not a whole lot but it has helped. I hope I stick with it that would be so cool. I wish they had a program for Greek.
I'm waiting for Greek too. I did find a page to sign-up for an alert when it is ready. I saw two different dates of availability, one was late 2016 and the other in 2017.
I didn't realize it was in the works. I will dig into duolingo a bit more and sign-up for the alert too. Thank you.
I have used youtube a bit before, maybe I will use it in the interim in wait for duolingo.
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I find computer languages and Spanish to be very similar. In each computer language it is a matter of learning how that language does a specific thing. The basics of what a program actually does is pretty universal. Same with a spoken language, the concept I want to get across is the same, I just need to use different words and sentence constructs to say it.
In both cases I find that the effort needed to reframe the concept into a different package makes me think more deeply about it.
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Great news everyone! GLOSS, or Global Language Online Support System, is open to public use. It is made by the Defense Language Institute, and is quite decent. I myself use it to maintain proficiency in my target language (Russian)
https://gloss.dliflc.edu/ (Support for almost every language needed by the DOD)
I am also quite biased, as DLI is where I learned Russian.
Want some legends, folktales, ect? https://fieldsupport.lingnet.org/folkTales/index.html
Want to listen in on real phone conversations to help with casual fluency? https://phone.lingnet.org/default_spanish.asp (Spanish and Arabic only)
This is all for open use on any computer. Hope this helps some of you.
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Thanks for the tip Migrator Soul!
For those working on German, DW also does slowly spoken news, which I've always liked. Here is the link: http://www.dw.com/de/deutsch-lernen/nachrichten/s-8030
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This year I'm trying to get better at Teochew. (Chinese dialect) That's the language my family speaks, and when I was like 2 years old, I was really good at it. I'm pretty awful at speaking it now though. I've actually found a couple of iphone apps for learning the language so hopefully that will help!
Slight reinterpretation of OP, but computer languages are languages too, right?
...I just started a new job in November, and I'll be learning VB.NET as part of the job. Another goal in 2016 is to master jQuery, javascript, and CSS. I think web development will make a good source of side income in post-RE, even though it's many years down the road!
Heh, maybe I'll learn a new computer language too. I've always wanted to learn ARM assembly.
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I'm joining the Spanish cohort of:
- Lian
- arebelspy
- alleykat
- Jeremy E.
- tofuchampion
- nnls
- Frugalicious
- link_417
- hoping2retire35
- RamonaQ
- Jon_Snow
- Cookie78
- votu
- shadowmoss
- winning
- apples
Go team Spanish! (Now I'm off to check out Duolingo and my library to see what they have).
hows everyone going with the Spanish? I am using duolingo and memrise.
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I'm joining the Spanish cohort of:
- Lian
- arebelspy
- alleykat
- Jeremy E.
- tofuchampion
- nnls
- Frugalicious
- link_417
- hoping2retire35
- RamonaQ
- Jon_Snow
- Cookie78
- votu
- shadowmoss
- winning
- apples
Go team Spanish! (Now I'm off to check out Duolingo and my library to see what they have).
hows everyone going with the Spanish? I am using duolingo and memrise.
I'm currently at lv. 8 and playing catch up since I skipped a day.
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I'm joining you all as part of the Italian contingent. I take 'in-person' classes but want to supplement with duolingo and rosetta stone. I just got some Berlitz CDs at the library book sale last week.
Liz
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I'm joining the Spanish cohort of:
- Lian
- arebelspy
- alleykat
- Jeremy E.
- tofuchampion
- nnls
- Frugalicious
- link_417
- hoping2retire35
- RamonaQ
- Jon_Snow
- Cookie78
- votu
- shadowmoss
- winning
- apples
Go team Spanish! (Now I'm off to check out Duolingo and my library to see what they have).
hows everyone going with the Spanish? I am using duolingo and memrise.
I'm doing good so far. I got started with the meetup group again. I knew I'd have lost a bit of momentum after not going for a month, but I sat down beside an ongoing conversation and understood at least 90% of it. :D Other conversations were so fast I didn't catch much at all. When someone talks to me my recollection is still slow so I often need to get them to repeat themselves before I'm sure what they are saying.
I have also been reading Fluent Forever which is about how to learn languages. So far it's quite interesting and hopefully I can apply the principles soon.
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I'm joining the Spanish cohort of:
- Lian
- arebelspy
- alleykat
- Jeremy E.
- tofuchampion
- nnls
- Frugalicious
- link_417
- hoping2retire35
- RamonaQ
- Jon_Snow
- Cookie78
- votu
- shadowmoss
- winning
- apples
Go team Spanish! (Now I'm off to check out Duolingo and my library to see what they have).
hows everyone going with the Spanish? I am using duolingo and memrise.
I'm doing good so far. I got started with the meetup group again. I knew I'd have lost a bit of momentum after not going for a month, but I sat down beside an ongoing conversation and understood at least 90% of it. :D Other conversations were so fast I didn't catch much at all. When someone talks to me my recollection is still slow so I often need to get them to repeat themselves before I'm sure what they are saying.
I have also been reading Fluent Forever which is about how to learn languages. So far it's quite interesting and hopefully I can apply the principles soon.
I hadnt even thought of meetup groups. I will have to see if there are any in my area
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So I started with DuoLingo German, but am finding more joy with the French. Hmmm... I really wanted to learn German. I took both in HS, so I have the accents down. Still at a level I can comprehend. But I can't learn 2 at once! Hmmm... okay, off to practice more. And come to think about it, there are two people at work who speak French that I could practice with.
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The ability to practice is a Big Deal. I took German classes and got to an intermediate level. Then I met DH, who worked for a German company, and spent time with his German coworkers. My conversational German got better, fast.
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Another Spanish w\ DuoLingo here, aiming for 3 lessons per day.
I might also take a "Spanish for Healthcare Workers" continuing ed class if the community college offers it again and it works with my schedule.
Look up Mango Languages through your local library's website. Mango is free through my local library. I think there is a Spanish for health care lesson on there. I'm like 70% sure. I know there's one for law enforcement. Just in case the class schedule doesn't work out or you'd rather work though free resources before paying for a course.
My library doesn't have Mango. :(
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I'm joining the Spanish cohort of:
- Lian
- arebelspy
- alleykat
- Jeremy E.
- tofuchampion
- nnls
- Frugalicious
- link_417
- hoping2retire35
- RamonaQ
- Jon_Snow
- Cookie78
- votu
- shadowmoss
- winning
- apples
Go team Spanish! (Now I'm off to check out Duolingo and my library to see what they have).
hows everyone going with the Spanish? I am using duolingo and memrise.
I'm doing good so far. I got started with the meetup group again. I knew I'd have lost a bit of momentum after not going for a month, but I sat down beside an ongoing conversation and understood at least 90% of it. :D Other conversations were so fast I didn't catch much at all. When someone talks to me my recollection is still slow so I often need to get them to repeat themselves before I'm sure what they are saying.
I have also been reading Fluent Forever which is about how to learn languages. So far it's quite interesting and hopefully I can apply the principles soon.
I hadnt even thought of meetup groups. I will have to see if there are any in my area
I highly recommend it for practicing, but I may also just be lucky with the quality and reliability of my groups. Good luck!
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The ability to practice is a Big Deal. I took German classes and got to an intermediate level. Then I met DH, who worked for a German company, and spent time with his German coworkers. My conversational German got better, fast.
Yeah, I lived in Taiwan for 6 years, before I first got there I had taken a crash course in Mandarin for about 2 months, but it didn't quite prepare me for it. I remember falling asleep a couple times while teaching lessons with a native partner as the student and my partner would just be speaking normally. After about a year of hard study and practice I got fairly conversational, memorized about 3,000 characters, and focused on my pronunciation after that.
When I moved back to the states and started working at my current job I called my wife (native Taiwanese) during lunch. Once I got off the phone my new coworker who is Chinese was looking around saying, "I could have sworn I heard someone with a Taiwanese accent." Best compliment I've ever had :-D
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Anyone try Mango languages? Not sure how it compares to Rosetta Stone, but it seems like Mango uses a similar method. Maybe? Anyway I recently found out it is free through our local library so I'm going to give Korean a try in January. I want to learn Korean so I can converse with my in-laws and help our daughter learn. Learning Pirate first though! Priorities.
I'm currently learning Japanese with Mango, and so far, I like it. I generally take a couple of days to go through a chapter repeatedly, and I try to review past chapters daily, or as much as possible.
The Mango app has a "dictation" mode that just reads through the lessons without waiting for you to swipe anything, so it's good for practicing while driving or in the shower or whatever. I've logged 16 hours or so, made it through chapter 4.
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I'm in. I've been half-assed learning Portuguese via Rosetta Stone for like 6 or 8 months now, and I can get reimbursed by my employer for the $200 I paid for it when I finish so I should really double down and get it done.
I used to be pretty much fluent in Spanish back when I graduated college (in 2008 or so...) but it's been on the decline ever since, so I'm hoping to get that going again, via duolingo and also a weekly Spanish chat group we're starting up at work. I also just picked up some Spanish versions of books I've already read on my Kindle (the Fellowship of the Rings and The Golden Compass, to start) to work on my reading comprehension.
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Anyone try Mango languages? Not sure how it compares to Rosetta Stone, but it seems like Mango uses a similar method. Maybe? Anyway I recently found out it is free through our local library so I'm going to give Korean a try in January. I want to learn Korean so I can converse with my in-laws and help our daughter learn. Learning Pirate first though! Priorities.
I'm currently learning Japanese with Mango, and so far, I like it. I generally take a couple of days to go through a chapter repeatedly, and I try to review past chapters daily, or as much as possible.
The Mango app has a "dictation" mode that just reads through the lessons without waiting for you to swipe anything, so it's good for practicing while driving or in the shower or whatever. I've logged 16 hours or so, made it through chapter 4.
Do you have to buy Mango in order to get the app? If I'm using it through my library, can I get the app? I would love to use Mango in diction mode while out in the orchard this winter.
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Do you have to buy Mango in order to get the app? If I'm using it through my library, can I get the app? I would love to use Mango in diction mode while out in the orchard this winter.
Nope, the app (for Android) is free. Once you log in through your library and create an account, you can use it whenever.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mango.android
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I'm in for improvement in 2016. Need more study time with Japanese. I am partway through the Mango course (love it!) and have finished the app on MindSnacks, but I still play it occasionally to refresh my skills. Currently trying to be consistent with learning vocab on Anki. So many language resources, so little time!
What other resources have you found for Japanese? I'm only on chapter 4 in Mango, looking for more stuff!
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Do you have to buy Mango in order to get the app? If I'm using it through my library, can I get the app? I would love to use Mango in diction mode while out in the orchard this winter.
Yes. I was able to sign in to the app with my same browser login (created through the library link) without paying anything. I find it hard to do while driving, but good for household work.
I like the method so far! I feel like it is a bit slow because you learn phrases in their order (hard to jump around) but it seems to be working. My husband is impressed anyway. Funny thing is, he is learning from it too! He left Korea at 10 so he never got a lot of the grammar and language analysis that they teach later. So he has been interested in the cultural notes and literal translations.
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One of my new year's goals was to brush up on my German using Duolingo. I'm hoping to get through the whole "tree", currently aiming for at least 30 points/day, sometimes more if I am feeling extra germanic. I am CatherineAName on duolingo if anyone wants to be friends!
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I'm in for improvement in 2016. Need more study time with Japanese. I am partway through the Mango course (love it!) and have finished the app on MindSnacks, but I still play it occasionally to refresh my skills. Currently trying to be consistent with learning vocab on Anki. So many language resources, so little time!
What other resources have you found for Japanese? I'm only on chapter 4 in Mango, looking for more stuff!
https://www.mindsnacks.com/subjects/japanese iPhone app with 800+ words and phrases, good for polishing your kana skills and for basic vocab
https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks/japanese I am using the Core 2K/6K Optimized deck right now, and the KanjiDamage desk (a little rude sometimes, but Anki is always editable). These are good for expanded vocab
http://www.openculture.com/2014/09/lets-learn-japanese.html video series
Some more resources http://www.fluentu.com/japanese/blog/japanese-refresher/?utm_source=FluentU+Language+Learning+Tips+and+Updates&utm_campaign=0f1b3f1b8b-Japanese_Learner_Weekly_4_26_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_ee7f81dbad-0f1b3f1b8b-90131813
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I'm in as well! It's not quite a foreign language I want to learn, but Python for programming.
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Challenge accepted. As I am now on my third consecutive 'one semester off' working on my Spanish degree (thanks, life!), I really need to make sure I'm practicing before I (hopefully) start classes back up in the Fall.
Also want to practice my German and Arabic more.
Thanks for all the resources tips everyone!
(oh, and I might as well learn Python while I'm at it)
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Alright, I am in for spanish. Add me on Duolingo: kpd9051
I tested in at level 5, no idea what that means. I had 6 years of spanish but feel like I have forgotten 90% of it.
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I am working on Japanese with Memrise, Genki, and a Practice Makes Perfect kana workbook.
One goal is to write a total of 10,000 characters (any) by the end of April.
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Grrr, I missed a couple of days and I have fading strength bars all over the place! Time to get back on the horse...or das Pferd, I guess.
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I had been working on Italian last year, but now the travel plans have changed and I've switched to French instead. I'm actually finding it SO much easier, which I'm a bit surprised by as although I spent some time there I've barely spoken in in 15 years or so. Apparently I'm at 44% fluency, but I've just made it to the top of the tree that I tested into, and had to turn golden (duolingo). I have to do about 70 points per day to keep everything at full strength and advance a little bit, then some days (like tonight) I have time and do 130 or so. I want to get to the top of the tree with all at full strength by the end of the year, so I have some confidence when / if I manage to get there this time next year.
I'm quite pleased that having started on the 1st, I'm up to 25 days streak.
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I'm in for Spanish as well. Again. I made this a goal for 2015 and did learn a lot but didn't keep up with it for the whole year. I really like www.memrise.com for learning vocabulary. Memrise has Level A1 and A2 courses and there are many, many other ones posted. I'm also using Duolingo.
Other resources: Spanish National TV/Radio, www.rtve.es for comprehension
Fluent in 3 Months, www.fluentin3months.com/spanish-reading-practice/ for beginner/intermediate readers
!Buena suerte a todos!
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I'm in for Spanish as well. Again. I made this a goal for 2015 and did learn a lot but didn't keep up with it for the whole year. I really like www.memrise.com for learning vocabulary. Memrise has Level A1 and A2 courses and there are many, many other ones posted. I'm also using Duolingo.
Other resources: Spanish National TV/Radio, www.rtve.es for comprehension
Fluent in 3 Months, www.fluentin3months.com/spanish-reading-practice/ for beginner/intermediate readers
!Buena suerte a todos!
I like memrise more than duolingo, but I am also using both.
thanks for the other links
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I'm in. I am using Michel Thomas to learn french, then moving on to Pimsleur/Assimil. I am supplementing with duolingo and lingvist. My time budget is 1.5 hours/day.
I am also learning Esperanto right now, but will put that one hold for French.
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So I have been learning Thai for 2 years, this month I decided to go hard core. Taking 2-3hours a day of classes in the morning before work. Making a big difference. Using Anki like 30 min a day also to practice vocab. Who else wants to speak fluently their language by end of the year?
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One of my new year's goals was to brush up on my German using Duolingo. I'm hoping to get through the whole "tree", currently aiming for at least 30 points/day, sometimes more if I am feeling extra germanic. I am CatherineAName on duolingo if anyone wants to be friends!
I added you Cats!
Viel Glueck mit Deutsch!
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I'm late to the party but I'm in! Spanish here :)
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I'm in! I want to re-gild my 2/3 done tree in Duolingo for Spanish, and learn at least 5 new lessons on there while keeping the tree golden. I have a lot of work to do re-gild it, and can only commit to 2-3 lessons/day, and I'm terrible at keeping my streak going. Also, once August hits I actually have Spanish coworkers I communicate with and my use of Duolingo drops off for those few months (which is how I end up needing to re-gild an entire tree). Because I use my Spanish for mostly talking and listening, I find it helpful to focus on keeping lessons gilded and in my concrete quick-recall memory. Learning lots of new lessons helps me get better at recognizing a lot of words if I'm reading, but it takes a while to be able to use most of those new words in conversation. So golden tree with 5 more lessons done! (I'm up through Sports, which was really handy to talk about the U.S. - Mexico soccer game where we got killed.)
End of January update: I managed to re-gild my tree! There were some big days over over 100 xp that led to this haha. I've also learned 1/5 new lessons-the Christmas one! I knew almost all the words and was able to test out of it by the skin of my teeth. On to learning new lessons!
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Things I learned today: My fluency is nowhere near good enough to explain in Spanish why I want to retire early and why I think there is more to life than work. Lucky for me someone else sitting beside me understood completely and argued on my behalf.
Ahhhh the things that come up after the simple question of why are you studying Spanish....
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Saw this thread a couple of days ago and now have a 2 day streak going on Memrise. Doing both Duolingo and Memrise. I do prefer Memrise.
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Saw this thread a couple of days ago and now have a 2 day streak going on Memrise. Doing both Duolingo and Memrise. I do prefer Memrise.
I also prefer Memrise, I find what it teaches me more useful than duolingo
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3 day streak. I was happy to tell Francisco (Hispanic co-worker who is attempting to help me learn Spanish) that I can now say 'can I reserve a room for one night for one person' in somewhat mangled Spainsh. He didn't try to tell me what I said, now that I remember...
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Have y'all been keeping up with this?
I'm working on French. I'm taking a French II class but need all the motivation I can get.
Can anyone recommend any interesting (and simple) French podcasts, websites or literature? I am listening to a lot of French music via Spotify. Trying to inundate myself.
http://conjuguemos.com has been more useful than duolingo in my small experience. No good mobile interface but good ways to practice conjugation in many languages.
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My wife and I are going to Argentina in April (she's native; it's my 6th time). I'm sure I'll improve my Spanish, since I've pretty much permanently improved with every immersion and two weeks will be a record-long stay for me. But that won't take much work, just showing up and doing my best.
I have a shit-ton of professional continuing ed this year, but I hope to knock it all out by September, at which point the two of us have talked about studying a new language together. My top 3 would be Japanese, Mandarin and Arabic. TBH I can't recall what she's said about hers, but we both love the idea of collaborating so we can practice at home together.
Things I learned today: My fluency is nowhere near good enough to explain in Spanish why I want to retire early and why I think there is more to life than work. Lucky for me someone else sitting beside me understood completely and argued on my behalf.
Ahhhh the things that come up after the simple question of why are you studying Spanish....
Solo hay que practicar. Si quieras decir que no te gusta trabajar solamente por dinero, y has cosas mas importantes que sentarte en una oficina hasta que mueras... asi se dice. ;)
Tambien es posible decir que la libertad te importa mas que todo, y quieres ahorrar plata para comprarla prontisimo!
I fantasize about taking a long (6-12 months) vacation in my wife's hometown, staying with her mom in the house she grew up in, and really hitting fluency sometime after FIRE. She's less excited about the idea than I am, but I think she'd do it just to indulge me.
He didn't try to tell me what I said, now that I remember...
"I would like to reserve a person and a room for one night", maybe? Trololol
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Saw this thread a couple of days ago and now have a 2 day streak going on Memrise. Doing both Duolingo and Memrise. I do prefer Memrise.
I also prefer Memrise, I find what it teaches me more useful than duolingo
Interesting. I tried memrise for about a week and thought Duo was better? What lesson do you do on memrise?
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Have y'all been keeping up with this?
I'm working on French. I'm taking a French II class but need all the motivation I can get.
Can anyone recommend any interesting (and simple) French podcasts, websites or literature? I am listening to a lot of French music via Spotify. Trying to inundate myself.
http://conjuguemos.com has been more useful than duolingo in my small experience. No good mobile interface but good ways to practice conjugation in many languages.
Thank you so much for sharing that website! The stories on it are a huge help...I feel bad checking out spanish kid's books at the library b/c we have a large Hispapnic population using them. Instead I can read those! Also, it's fun to do the timed conjugation tests! Yes, I am really cool, how did you know? :p
ETA: Dang it, those are actually textbooks. Boo. The website is still really cool though.
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Have y'all been keeping up with this?
I'm working on French. I'm taking a French II class but need all the motivation I can get.
Can anyone recommend any interesting (and simple) French podcasts, websites or literature? I am listening to a lot of French music via Spotify. Trying to inundate myself.
http://conjuguemos.com has been more useful than duolingo in my small experience. No good mobile interface but good ways to practice conjugation in many languages.
I use podbean for listening to podcasts you can find a good set there. For French I've been listening to Coffee Break French which is helpful for practicing pronunciation. And it's taught by a couple of Scots so they're easy to listen to.
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I'm learning ASL, using Lifeprint online. Hoping to also get into a class at the local community college. My goal is to get through 3 lessons per week (1 hr a day), and both year 1 & year 2 by the end of the year. I'm also teaching my kids and husband 1 ASL word every night at dinner, so by the end of the year they should have a pretty basic vocabulary.
So... does anyone have suggestions for learning French that don't rely on listening skills? We're traveling to France later this year and I'd like to brush up my 20+ years ago high school French, at least reading skills. I'm following along in my daughter's high school text book right now. My pronunciation is terrible but hopefully when we're there, I can simply say "Je suis sourde" and folks will understand, or at least not laugh. :)
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So... does anyone have suggestions for learning French that don't rely on listening skills? We're traveling to France later this year and I'd like to brush up my 20+ years ago high school French, at least reading skills. I'm following along in my daughter's high school text book right now. My pronunciation is terrible but hopefully when we're there, I can simply say "Je suis sourde" and folks will understand, or at least not laugh. :)
Spoken and written French are quite different. Written French is far more formal - sentence structure, syntax and grammar are not the same as when spoken. Add to that all of the regional slang and expressions and you're in for a challenge if you're going to learn from the written words only.
For a good base in written French, try getting through some of the shorter stories from Le Monde online - cutting and pasting into google translate to give yourself an idea what they're on about when you get stumped.
Bonne chance!
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I switched my phone to French a few days ago.
It's certainly helping me learn weather and calendar vocabulary!
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For those interested in learning German:
As a little reading exercise I can recommend "Nachrichten Leicht". It's a news recap in easy german, updated weekly (Satudays, I believe):
http://www.nachrichtenleicht.de/
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For those interested in learning German:
As a little reading exercise I can recommend "Nachrichten Leicht". It's a news recap in easy german, updated weekly (Satudays, I believe):
http://www.nachrichtenleicht.de/
Thanks! I'll check that out!
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For those that have a working knowledge of a language, check and see if there are movies/shows in the language on YouTube. I have looked up Greek shows on YouTube and it is so helpful. While I don't understand everything, it is perfect for practice. You are able to pick things up and learn just from the context. I am loving it.
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I've been learning Spanish for the last 3 weeks now. I've been using Anki to learn vocab.
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I've been learning Spanish for the last 3 weeks now. I've been using Anki to learn vocab.
Do you make your own or download already made decks? If you d/l pre made decks, how is the selection of them?
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I'm in! Spanish for me. I'll commit to an hour a day with duolingo, mango, free weekly Spanish class at the library, and cheap resources I find at garage sales/thrift stores. Plus, as I progress maybe a weekly meetup group. Adios!
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I've been learning Spanish for the last 3 weeks now. I've been using Anki to learn vocab.
Do you make your own or download already made decks? If you d/l pre made decks, how is the selection of them?
I make my own. I'm hoping the the effort of making the cards and looking for kind of memorable pictures will help me remember words a bit easier.
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I'm in. I've been half-assed learning Portuguese via Rosetta Stone for like 6 or 8 months now, and I can get reimbursed by my employer for the $200 I paid for it when I finish so I should really double down and get it done.
I used to be pretty much fluent in Spanish back when I graduated college (in 2008 or so...) but it's been on the decline ever since, so I'm hoping to get that going again, via duolingo and also a weekly Spanish chat group we're starting up at work. I also just picked up some Spanish versions of books I've already read on my Kindle (the Fellowship of the Rings and The Golden Compass, to start) to work on my reading comprehension.
So I've actually followed through with this! In another post in my journal I set specific goals for myself and I've been kicking ass so far: http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/journals/turketron's-financial-ramblings/msg942460/#msg942460
As I'm nearing the end of what Rosetta Stone offers I'm trying to ramp up my Duolingo usage to help maintain the knowledge I have. I used Duolingo prior to RS and just dove back in today, and they've really polished it up since I last used it. They now offer a spoken portion for Portuguese, which seems to work equally as well as Rosetta Stone's does. Also it involves more writing questions which I like better than the "matching" part of RS, as it forces you to remember the accents and tildes and whatnot.
My name is Turketron on there as well if anyone wants to add me!
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I have started Spanish lessons I go once a week for 10 weeks for a $75 fee, I am hoping it will give me someone to practice with.
Outside of class I have been using duolingo and memrise. I am liking memrise a lot more than duolingo
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I am coming in to this challenge late. I've been working sporadically on Spanish for about 2 years. I've finished 3 semesters at the local community college, so I've got a good understanding of the grammar. Other than that, I use Duolingo (currently level 15), Memrise (which I really prefer over Duolingo because it's more practice with useful phrases), and Pimsleur CDs in the car. My husband is fluent in Spanish so I know plenty of useful household phrases like "tráeme un café"
I scrolled back through and followed a bunch of you on Duolingo, if I missed anyone my username is spanishalli.
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I finally put the Duolingo app on my phone. Makes it much easier to sneak in an exercise here and there throughout the day!
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Late to this challenge as well!
I'm a complete Spanish newbie and have started on Duolingo as well. I also signed up for Benny Lewis's Fluent in 3 months free emails.
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My trip back to Taiwan got me wanting to brush up on my hand writing more. Once I learned to type I really let the Chinese writing slide, I was embarrassed that I could barely write my own name. I broke out my 3000 character dictionary and have started writing every character about 18 times across a graph composition book. I fill in a column from the list and then work on it whenever I have the chance.
Also started reading some Taiwan news and noting down new vocabulary. I need to look into a good flashcard system for iOS, and think about managing my own cards, or finding sets. I believe there are sets available for Taiwan's school system requirements. Problem I've had at this point is finding things that a) I don't know yet, and b) I'll use so I don't forget.
Thanks for the suggestion of Anki, not sure which app people are using on iOS, a little confused by the different ones available, but AnkiApp is free and seems to do the job. Look forward to getting some good sets of words in there, might even break out my English-Chinese by category dictionary and see if I can prime it a bit.
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So I have been learning Thai for 2 years, this month I decided to go hard core. Taking 2-3hours a day of classes in the morning before work. Making a big difference. Using Anki like 30 min a day also to practice vocab. Who else wants to speak fluently their language by end of the year?
เก่งมาก! ขอให้โชคดี :)
I've been living in Thailand for about 1.5 years now and it's a neat language. Good luck. I really don't want to forget it, and want to keep improving, when I move back to the US next fall. Something to keep in mind for the eventual "Goals of 2017" thread! Where do you live by the way? Apparently LA has a massive Thai population, which is a big reason I'd like to head there.
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Ooh, just saw this thread!
In for Spanish. Just recently picked it up again on DuoLingo (sylly) after neglecting it for a few months.
Thank you also for pointing out Mango! Just tried a lesson and it seems to be more practical. I'm also excited to see that it has an Indonesian course. Been looking for a good one of that..
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Going back in to Memrise. I do well for awhile, then slack off. What I'm learning seems to be staying with me, though.
LOL at the idea I may have said I want to reserve a room AND A PERSON for the night. :) Might have made him wonder what place I'm using to learn Spanish. Come to think of it, 'for one person' and 'and a person' are similar. Have to watch that. There are a few phrases that can get one in trouble. One time a co-worker in Honduras asked me a question around noon. I thought he was asking me if I had a man (while looking at his watch). He was asking if I was hungry, urging me to go to lunch so I would get back so he could go.
¿tiene un hombre? Man
tienes hambre? Hungry
Apologies if I've told this here before, one of my favorite stories from that time.
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For Italian, per gli amatore di bici, watching bike races online in Italian is great.
Naturally this also works for French, German, Dutch . . .
http://www.steephill.tv tells you what's on and a VPN can help you defeat geo-blocking.
And of course people post long excerpts on youtube with original-language commentary.
An easy lazy way to pick up a bit while chilling out.
In general, finding video of something you already know a bit about, so you can follow, then watching it in your target language is a handy resource. As is watching DVD films you've already seen, but with the language switched. You don't get lost and you can focus on the verbal part.
E poi posso vedere sempre "I Simpson!" Ou bien "Les Simpson" en francais.
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E poi posso vedere sempre "I Simpson!" Ou bien "Les Simpson" en francais.
The voices in French though, Bart in particular, yuk!
Welsh on duolingo for me, supplemented by the BBC website which has some good resources for a wide range of languages.
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I'm still working on Japanese with Mango Languages. I've logged somewhere around 50 hours. I started doing flashcards with writing in Anki, but it was extremely time consuming, so I will pick that up again later when things aren't so hectic.
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I'm in for Spanish. I've got Rosetta Stone and just signed up for DuoLingo. I'm hoping to get a solid streak going and practicing at my second job, a Mexican restaurant!
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I'm on a 42 day streak with Duolingo Spanish. Still plugging along and redoing many of the exercises regularly.
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I'm in! Spanish in DuoLingo.
Probably will do about 15-20 min day (3 of their little lessons, 30 "points").
Thanks for bringing up duolingo, I just signed up :)
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I'm in! I've been using Duolingo sporadically for a while now, and I'd like to actually finish off the French lessons sometime this year!
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Thanks. I'm in too.
Just started takng a formal class 2h/week but I need more.
Duolingo did not have my language but Mango does.
I'm so excited!
Quiz this Saturday and a trip later this year.
I already have about a 100 word noun vocabulary but I can't string together any verbs or pronouns etc.
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Hi!
I speak Spanish and Portuguese and I just started making videos every day half in each language about random topics to get more spontaneous speaking fluency with both. It's really quite embarrassing as they're full of basic errors and lots of dopey "uhhh", but oh well, that's life. Even after a few days I've found it's easier for me to separate the languages better so I'm stoked about continuing this idea.
Does anyone want to join me and make videos as well, and we can watch each other's videos now and again and encourage/correct each other? No matter what level you are -- a thirty second video where you force yourself to use what you know on your feet is a great way to reinforce your duolingo/memrise learning. Duolingo and memrise are good for getting good at duolingo and memrise but I think there's a big gap in what those systems are like and what it's like to apply language in the real world. Feel free to message me if you're interested or post here of course!
No shame, we're all just a bunch of internet strangers. Here is my channel, pretty sure I'll naturally talk about mustachian topics all the time...
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4kAX9ONfJ1h4FjQfgVxZTA
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My flash card review has been going well, found a treasure trove of 7k+ words well tagged with topics. I wish the program I was using allowed for me to select multiple tags at a time, seems like I have the choice of all vocab or a single tag. I also might be starting some side work as an interpreter for gestational surrogate customers, which will really force me to get some more vocabulary down and into my active vocabulary.
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Hi!
I speak Spanish and Portuguese and I just started making videos every day half in each language about random topics to get more spontaneous speaking fluency with both. It's really quite embarrassing as they're full of basic errors and lots of dopey "uhhh", but oh well, that's life. Even after a few days I've found it's easier for me to separate the languages better so I'm stoked about continuing this idea.
Does anyone want to join me and make videos as well, and we can watch each other's videos now and again and encourage/correct each other? No matter what level you are -- a thirty second video where you force yourself to use what you know on your feet is a great way to reinforce your duolingo/memrise learning. Duolingo and memrise are good for getting good at duolingo and memrise but I think there's a big gap in what those systems are like and what it's like to apply language in the real world. Feel free to message me if you're interested or post here of course!
No shame, we're all just a bunch of internet strangers. Here is my channel, pretty sure I'll naturally talk about mustachian topics all the time...
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4kAX9ONfJ1h4FjQfgVxZTA
I really like that idea. I was going to watch your videos, but I don't speak the language. :) Also, your speaking was good enough to auto generate portuguese subtitles (unless you specifically selected that).
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Hi!
I speak Spanish and Portuguese and I just started making videos every day half in each language about random topics to get more spontaneous speaking fluency with both. It's really quite embarrassing as they're full of basic errors and lots of dopey "uhhh", but oh well, that's life. Even after a few days I've found it's easier for me to separate the languages better so I'm stoked about continuing this idea.
Does anyone want to join me and make videos as well, and we can watch each other's videos now and again and encourage/correct each other? No matter what level you are -- a thirty second video where you force yourself to use what you know on your feet is a great way to reinforce your duolingo/memrise learning. Duolingo and memrise are good for getting good at duolingo and memrise but I think there's a big gap in what those systems are like and what it's like to apply language in the real world. Feel free to message me if you're interested or post here of course!
No shame, we're all just a bunch of internet strangers. Here is my channel, pretty sure I'll naturally talk about mustachian topics all the time...
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4kAX9ONfJ1h4FjQfgVxZTA
I really like that idea. I was going to watch your videos, but I don't speak the language. :) Also, your speaking was good enough to auto generate portuguese subtitles (unless you specifically selected that).
Haha, awesome! I didn't select that! What languages do you speak? Have you made any vids too? I'd love to watch them.
I did a video in French today (yikes) and have made a goal to do at least one in Italian and one in German soon, as both of these languages I need for my future travel/living plans. I'm really enjoying the process of making vids, and they're working!
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Hi!
I speak Spanish and Portuguese and I just started making videos every day half in each language about random topics to get more spontaneous speaking fluency with both. It's really quite embarrassing as they're full of basic errors and lots of dopey "uhhh", but oh well, that's life. Even after a few days I've found it's easier for me to separate the languages better so I'm stoked about continuing this idea.
Does anyone want to join me and make videos as well, and we can watch each other's videos now and again and encourage/correct each other? No matter what level you are -- a thirty second video where you force yourself to use what you know on your feet is a great way to reinforce your duolingo/memrise learning. Duolingo and memrise are good for getting good at duolingo and memrise but I think there's a big gap in what those systems are like and what it's like to apply language in the real world. Feel free to message me if you're interested or post here of course!
No shame, we're all just a bunch of internet strangers. Here is my channel, pretty sure I'll naturally talk about mustachian topics all the time...
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4kAX9ONfJ1h4FjQfgVxZTA
I really like that idea. I was going to watch your videos, but I don't speak the language. :) Also, your speaking was good enough to auto generate portuguese subtitles (unless you specifically selected that).
Haha, awesome! I didn't select that! What languages do you speak? Have you made any vids too? I'd love to watch them.
I did a video in French today (yikes) and have made a goal to do at least one in Italian and one in German soon, as both of these languages I need for my future travel/living plans. I'm really enjoying the process of making vids, and they're working!
I've got 1 phrase in french, I can stumble through a conversation in spanish and german, and can almost speak and read at a russian kindergartener level (probably preschool level with less vomiting). Fortunately for me, I have a relatively good grasp on the linguistics part of latin, so I can occasionally suss out what people are trying to say in any latin based language. I have only made videos in english, and unrelated to language, but I like that approach. Normally I'll find someone who speaks the language, and wants to learn english and do video calls with them. It's a bit more helpful, but I haven't done it in a while.
Actually thinking about it, it would be interesting to find a solid speaker of something, and then do a group hangout to discuss and practice. Also, my neighbor is spanish, and his kids love my dogs, so I practice my spanish on them. They laugh at me, but it's all good.
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I dropped the ball on learning Spanish big time the last 2 months. Got distracted by warm weather, gardening, and yard work. Still listening to Spanish music and practicing a bit with co-workers, but I haven't been reading books, doing lessons, or practicing flashcards in way too long. Now that the garden is completely planted I hope to get back at it, even just a tiny bit each day.
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Try to keep it up Cookie.
So that quiz I took the other day. The instructor was nice enough to just put a bunch of red all over it and not give me any grade. They gave me a generous "good".
I did get about 90% on the translating section but I can't even conjugate "I am" never mind the other verbs we should know.
They nicely warned me to practice over the summer or I would be placed in the beginner class again.
I think I will do some mango before bed tonight & every night.
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I am learning French on Duolingo. One of my kids started French immersion last year, and the other will start in September. I want to be able to understand their homework and set a good example of lifelong learning. I am a big fan of Duolingo and would recommend it.
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I am learning French on Duolingo. One of my kids started French immersion last year, and the other will start in September. I want to be able to understand their homework and set a good example of lifelong learning. I am a big fan of Duolingo and would recommend it.
Blech, way to remind me that I am really sucking at this. I need to make this a higher priority. You said you are a big fan of Duolingo, and I've enjoyed it. Have you learned any other languages with it?
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I'm in! I want to re-gild my 2/3 done tree in Duolingo for Spanish, and learn at least 5 new lessons on there while keeping the tree golden. I have a lot of work to do re-gild it, and can only commit to 2-3 lessons/day, and I'm terrible at keeping my streak going. Also, once August hits I actually have Spanish coworkers I communicate with and my use of Duolingo drops off for those few months (which is how I end up needing to re-gild an entire tree). Because I use my Spanish for mostly talking and listening, I find it helpful to focus on keeping lessons gilded and in my concrete quick-recall memory. Learning lots of new lessons helps me get better at recognizing a lot of words if I'm reading, but it takes a while to be able to use most of those new words in conversation. So golden tree with 5 more lessons done! (I'm up through Sports, which was really handy to talk about the U.S. - Mexico soccer game where we got killed.)
I have exceeded my 2016 goal thus far! I have now down 6 new lessons, gotten the tree gold, and I can tell in my daily conversations that the new vocab is slowly sinking in. Again, I'm marathoning this, not sprinting through it. I'll probably be on level 19 or 20 for points by the time I get the tree done, which is pretty slow by Duolingo standards. And most of the people I friended*there have significantly slowed down their progress! Come on people, get back on the horse! You can still do a quick lesson on your commute or before the cool band you're going to see starts playing :p
Also, Mexico lost 0-7 to Chile in the Copa America Centenario this weekend. I'm so glad I know enough Spanish to fairly easily discuss the basics of the game with all my employees. Great fun (for me, not them haha).
*or whatever the correct term is for connecting with people on duolingo
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Apples, I keep forgetting! I finally did a lesson yesterday. It took me way too long to figure out I was in portugese, not spanish. The connecting sounds like it's useful. Anyone is free to add me and give me shit if I don't keep up on this.
https://www.duolingo.com/JordanRead3
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I have a 179 day streak going on Duolingo. I completed the French tree and have kept it gold. Huzzah! I'm starting to learn Portuguese now, and it's loads if fun. I suspect it will take me longer since I'll also be practicing French. I keep my tree gold before I move on to the next lesson, which helps me remember. I'm not in a rush since I know that learning these languages will be a lifelong pursuit.
I need speaking practice so I'm hopefully going to attend some local language meetups.
how do you practice speaking? With people you know/meetups/apps?
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Can I join this challenge now? I am studying Italian on my own. I took one Adult Learners class three years ago. After that I used a self study with a CD's and workbook. I travelled to Sicily last year and plan to go again next year. I also have used Duolongo and like it a lot. Ma, posso provarlo? È buon idea :) What i really need is a talking partner.
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This is probably an unhelpful reply, but I practice with my coworkers/employees. We have a Hispanic crew for most of the manual labor on our fruit farm. Many of them only know basic English. They enjoy when I mess up in a funny way :p Native speakers still have to speak slowly for me, and it's been two years. But it helps me get better at conjugating verbs in past and future tense in the moment and figure out where exactly to use por and para.
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Ugh! Still waiting for Greek to "hatch"...
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I am in on this one. I have been in sort of an advanced-intermediate stage for years. I can communicate on a decent level, but I have never pushed myself to truly advance my fluency.
With the our little girl turning one, my motivation to pick back up Spanish has grown exponentially. My wife's family speaks Spanish (from Peru) and its our desire that our daughter speak the language. It will be a tag team approach with my wife and I, and I want to relieve some of the burden from my wife.
Good luck to all!
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I took a Chinese Fluency test today, well a mock test. So far I'm passing them with highest scores. Apparently I've taken a 72 day break from my flash cards. Tend to binge too much, get worn out, then restart after a couple months cool down.
I've also had three sets of Chinese speaking guests come through my house for a one month stay, one of which is still here, and we may have a fourth set coming at the end of the month. The hardest part I've had is accents and colloquialisms, each guest has come from a different Chinese speaking region, Beijing, Hanzhou, and Taiwan. Think sort of like American vs. British, you could mostly understand what they're talking about, but sometimes a word may throw you off, especially from a non-native speaker point of view. It's been a great time being nearly fully immersed in the language though, everyone has been having a great time. They were also curious to hear me speak English, which I hadn't realized we'd only spoken Chinese with each other, the need for English just had never come up.
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Well for proving our ability in Spanish the wife and I are cramming for the Spanish CLEP to put on our Peace Corps resume in 2 weeks. We've both lightly dabbled in volunteering in the local Hispanic communities, but it has been a while. I think things are going well. We've both been reading an easy novel, listening to what we can, going through a grammar reminder book, and of course duolingo-ing. We're hoping it increases our odds of being accepted.
I was in the middle of reading Plato's Symposium in the original Greek, but it's kind of difficult to switch back and forth. Especially so when I need to do well on this test.
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I'm just joining this thread because while I've been doing duolingo every day (nearly to a 800-day streak!) I really need a kick in my pants to get back my spoken German. I'd like to pass the C1 level German exam by next July as a personal milestone.
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I'd like to suggest watching Chris Lonsdale's TED talk on learning a language. I think he has a point that you need to hear it and use it even if you're not good yet. Watching YouTube and listening to music in Spanish and Russian has helped immensely.
Para los otros que quieren aprender español, tenemos que utilizarlo. No hablemos en inglés aunque hablamos mal o sea difícil. Tenemos todo el internet para ayudarnos.
Y por favor, añadanme a lista de los que quieren aprender español y ruso también.
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I'd like to suggest watching Chris Lonsdale's TED talk on learning a language. I think he has a point that you need to hear it and use it even if you're not good yet. Watching YouTube and listening to music in Spanish and Russian has helped immensely.
Para los otros que quieren aprender español, tenemos que utilizarlo. No hablemos en inglés aunque hablamos mal o sea difícil. Tenemos todo el internet para ayudarnos.
Y por favor, añadanme a lista de los que quieren aprender español y ruso también.
I started making some improvements with my German back in the day by watching Harry Potter with German voice overs and German subtitles. I was also reading the book in German. This seemed to give me plenty of exposure, the hardest part would be to start writing my own sentences to really solidify it. I recall having read at the time that adults go about language all wrong by starting with reading and speaking before moving onto listening as the last skill; whereas children start with a lot of listening before moving on to speech, then reading and writing.
I've started trying to pick up Taiwanese, something I've been meaning to do for 10 years. I can practice with my wife once I get some basics down. As is common in Asia all TV in Taiwan is subtitled, including the Taiwanese soap operas. I've met many foreign wives in Taiwan from other SE Asian countries who speak fluent Taiwanese by watching soap operas. I think one spot it excels at is sorting out family relations as you'll run into just about every variant you could think of, like older brothers wife's sister's husband's mother's younger uncle.
我每天都有機會練習我的中文,我不會怕我的中文退步太多.但是,我太太的家人習慣用台語,常常在岳父的家時大家開始講話慢慢變成講台語,我就聽不懂.我太太常說,我翻譯類了,請大家用中文吧.上列寫的都是我打ㄅㄆㄇㄈ(新注音).很好笑的是我打的中文比我太太打得好.
謝謝大家
再見
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Took out a foreign language DVD from the library yesterday.
I enjoyed the last one I rented. I just wish they had more selection.
There are English subtitles of course but it is good to watch & be able to pick out words.
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Hi guys, I'm new to the forums! It's October, but I've just renewed my resolve to improve my Chinese. I used to be pretty good - I could carry on an intermediate-level conversation without too many issues - but fell out of practice last year and want to get back to where I was, and one day maybe become fluent. I spent so many years studying it, and with just a little regular practice I'm confident I can gain my vocab and speaking skills back. (Plus my SO is a native speaker and I have plenty of friends I can practice with if I commit to it.)
Any other Chinese learners have recommendations for podcasts or Youtube series/shows where I can just listen to people talking? I just started using the 听故事学中文 podcast, which is pretty basic but I find it useful, and I use the Bigrams app to practice vocab flashcards on my train commute and at random moments of free time.
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I have cLlen off the wagon of learning Spanish. I will start back today, assuming I can get back into dither Memrise or Duolingo. Typing those sites on my phone with its spell check was an exercise in futility. I hate Android spell check...
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I'm on a 27 day streak!! Haven't pulled that off since I wore briefs. I'm digging DuoLingo. My goal is to kick MXT's ass, and the rock both the XP and language count of ARS's wife. I'm not even normally that competitive.
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Ok, ok, I'll extend my streak on both sites to 2 days... :) Both sites because I prefer Memrise, but y'all seem to like Duolingo. Anyone seen the new flash cards on Duolingo yet? I got an email saying they were going to be available. Wondering if they will be easier than making my own with anki.
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Ok, ok, I'll extend my streak on both sites to 2 days... :) Both sites because I prefer Memrise, but y'all seem to like Duolingo. Anyone seen the new flash cards on Duolingo yet? I got an email saying they were going to be available. Wondering if they will be easier than making my own with anki.
I'm excited for the duolingo flashcards, but I'm on android so I'll have to wait... Right now there is a series of flashcard apps on android that I use. I've started up on Portuguese since we're considering moving next year. The app is called "Learn Portuguese - 6,000 Words" that I enjoy for vocab building. I know they at least also have a Spanish version as well and many others.
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I went down a rabbit hole on Memrise and found Easy University on Memrise. Ok, I how have multiple courses lined up.
On Memrise I've already done one intro Spanish course, Level 1 Survival Spanish. I'm working my way through Minimum Viable Spanish, and have Hacking Spanish queued up. This, as well as Spanish on Duolingo. I get so far and falter. I'm pushing on, though.
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I've made it to episode 60 of a Taiwanese soap opera. I find it funny now that I can listen to my wife talking to her family and actually pick out some of what she's talking about. Starting to rely a little less on subtitles while watching. Only another 240 episodes left to go...
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That feeling when you realize you don't really need the subtitles anymore is so rewarding! I admit I can't make it through more than 1-2 episodes most Chinese/Taiwanese dramas...
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Up to a 3 day streak in both Memrise and Duolingo. I find that they work well together, as they tend to use different words on a given day and that keeps me from just learning the mechanics of the course and not the actual language, if that makes sense. Next week I'll find some Spanish language music and or videos online to watch. I don't have a tv to watch the Spanish language soap operas.
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I went down a rabbit hole on Memrise and found Easy University on Memrise. Ok, I how have multiple courses lined up.
On Memrise I've already done one intro Spanish course, Level 1 Survival Spanish. I'm working my way through Minimum Viable Spanish, and have Hacking Spanish queued up. This, as well as Spanish on Duolingo. I get so far and falter. I'm pushing on, though.
I had never heard of memrise, thanks for the rec!
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I went down a rabbit hole on Memrise and found Easy University on Memrise. Ok, I how have multiple courses lined up.
On Memrise I've already done one intro Spanish course, Level 1 Survival Spanish. I'm working my way through Minimum Viable Spanish, and have Hacking Spanish queued up. This, as well as Spanish on Duolingo. I get so far and falter. I'm pushing on, though.
I had never heard of memrise, thanks for the rec!
I like memrise a lot better than duolingo, I find it teaches me more useful things and the info I learn on there seems to stick better than duo
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Just can't do any more French on babbel.com, although it helped me hugely in Quebec last year. I really, really need an immersion course with real people and really speaking the language, and really not being able to use one word of English...preferably for six weeks or so. Anyway, I'm missing my foreign language fix, and since I've hit the wall with French for now, I went back on babbel and am reviewing my Swedish (a language I used to speak pretty well, years ago as a student in Sverige) for $3.73 per month. It is easy and fun, and if I ever get back there, it will come in handy.
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Just can't do any more French on babbel.com, although it helped me hugely in Quebec last year. I really, really need an immersion course with real people and really speaking the language, and really not being able to use one word of English...preferably for six weeks or so. Anyway, I'm missing my foreign language fix, and since I've hit the wall with French for now, I went back on babbel and am reviewing my Swedish (a language I used to speak pretty well, years ago as a student in Sverige) for $3.73 per month. It is easy and fun, and if I ever get back there, it will come in handy.
I'm also at a wall with French and they say you should keep practicing but finding that hard to do. I still go to the French meetup but I'm at the stage where just listening to French has me gritting my teeth. Might also be because in the past 30 days, I went on vacation and had too much language exposure. My mother tongue, tribal languages, English and a surprising French where I met a French family and was able to converse in French. I can talk to native speakers and that was never my problem but the lack of immersion (never been to France or any French speaking country) has taken its toll.
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Greek is now available on Duolingo so I need to get into gear! I need to setup my keyboard for the alphabet first but I know how to do that.
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Hi, just popping into this thread.
It's been a couple years since I've used much Spanish and I'd like to brush up on it. I use DuoLingo occasionally, but I'm not good about being consistent and I find it's not challenging enough.
Does anyone have (free!) suggestions for advanced Spanish? I'm bad at sticking with anything that requires me to sit in front of a screen so Podcasts in particular would be great because I can listen on the go. I enjoy Radio Ambulante and I'd recommend it to anyone looking for listening practice, but I'm running out of episodes.
I just finished re-reading Harry Potter. I never think about going to the library when I have the time, but I may go over tomorrow and see if they have any books in Spanish. I'll watch TV shows sometimes if I can find them, but telenovelas tend to make me want to gauge my brains out.
I'd never heard of memrise before but I just downloaded the app. I'd like to learn some Korean and I'm excited to see they have that!
Edit: I see Memrise has Quechua too! That's awesome!
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Since French was kicking my a**
I started Spanish. I actually find, it weirdly motivates me to keep on with French. Went out with French friend on Saturday and we spoke French through out the night.
It's motivated me to grit my teeth and keep at it. Going to order a kindle charger so I can get back to my grammar books.
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Well I'm switching to Portuguese. I need to be pretty conversational by the end of the year. Something closer to European Portuguese over Brazilian. If anyone here wants to have a pen pal thing going on, I'd appreciate it. I could use something to get me using and looking up new vocabulary.
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I survived a couple months in France, and I am still practicing a little, very little. Playing around with Italian some, too. I thought studying multiple languages would get confusing but so far it's almost helpful.
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If you want to learn it, you should use it. If you're learning a language, why don't you try writing as much of your posts as you can here in your target language?
Donc, si vous voulez apprendre le français, écrivez ici en français. Se tu queres aprender o português, escreva aqui em português.
It doesn't have to be perfect.
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Had an opportunity to spend a night in Osaka, Japan last week. Took a day the weekend before and learned Hiragana and Katakana. This has helped with being able to read many of the sites that aren't into putting up any romaji. I actually prefer to not see the romaji, and really, once you know the two kana's romaji is sort of redundant.
The funny thing, though, was once I learned both I realize that I have basically learned the alphabet twice without knowing any words. Having already learned Chinese, I am familiar with reading Kanji, but this leads to the opposite effect of learning the Kana's, in that I know all the words, but have no idea how to say them!
I was able to pick up a newspaper and get the gist of what's on the page, but lacking grammatical construction limits that understanding. Using AnkiApp and some flashcards which include audio I find that my listening ability has improved. As I continue to grow my vocabulary I am able to listen to a sentence, repeat it in my head, and start to deconstruct the composition.
I really enjoyed a couple articles by Tim Ferris on learning multiple languages, and it is inspiring me to continue with learning Japanese. Once get a good vocabulary base I'll be able to start talking with my sister inlaw who is fluent in Japanese, and also one of my coworkers who is Japanese.
Now, to learn to type on a computer in Japanese. The phone was way easy to learn.
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Hello everyone! I have been slacking on my Spanish but am ready to get back on it. I plan on trying to do both memrise and duolingo daily for a while to see if I like one better than the other. I wondered if any of you had any suggestions for kids and language learning. My kids are 7 and 10. Also, sorry if this has already been discussed but I didn't read back through all the pages of this thread, but has anyone used italki consistently? If so, what were your thoughts? I was thinking that we could spend the summer getting down the basics, then do an italki hour maybe weekly or every other week as a family.
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Hello All, I have been attempting to learn french , first with Coffee Break french (podcast) and then with Rosetta stone. Technically difficulties with both prevented me from getting too far. I just downloaded Doulingo so I will give that a shot.
My goal is 10 mins a day everyday. Once I get a little further along I will try writing my posts in French for practice. Also, if anyone is interested in practicing with me I would be interested in having a french pen pal to write back and forth with.
Merci
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Je vais essayer d'ecrire en Francais. Je suis alle a Le "French Meeteup" Jeudi dernier et Il y a beaucoup de Francophones. J'ai compris tout mais j'ai eu pas le vocabulaire d'expliquer ce que je voulais dire. . C'a me frustre beaucoup. Je pense que je doit commencer au debut.
Maintenant, je lis Le Petit Nicolas et c'est tellement genial.
In other language news. Spanish is on hold for me. I just need to find a way to balance my language learning. I think I'll have to plan a travel gap year specifically for language learning. I can't write this portion in Spanish as I am a complete beginner in comparison to French.
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Just letting you all know that through my library & OneClickDigital I am now listening & working on my second language with Pimsleur eaudio "books".
This may be another free option for many of you.
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Hello All, I have been attempting to learn french , first with Coffee Break french (podcast) and then with Rosetta stone. Technically difficulties with both prevented me from getting too far. I just downloaded Doulingo so I will give that a shot.
My goal is 10 mins a day everyday. Once I get a little further along I will try writing my posts in French for practice. Also, if anyone is interested in practicing with me I would be interested in having a french pen pal to write back and forth with.
Merci
Bienvenu
I recommend French youtubers. Cyprien has subtitles in English, Norman fait des videos also sometimes has subtitles. I also like Squeezie but I'm at an advanced level of French and he has no subtitles yet he's hard to follow cause he speaks SOO FAST. However, he has some hilarious videos.
Even without subtitles, Cyprien and Norman are easier to follow and they have some really creative content!
There was a great French show called Kaamelott that is like Monthy Python in a way that is HILARIOUS but sadly, the channel that was subbing this on youtube had to remove the videos. A tragedy as this is the best French show.
I've had people who shun youtube yet also ask me why my pronunciation and French skills are good because I have no problems understanding native speakers, but it's all these shows I watch. I also speak to any French person I meet in French. A lot of people I notice are very conscious that they may make horrendous mistakes, but not I. Since I was in College if someone said they were French, I'd immediately go with French and I didn't even realize how absolutely essential this is until I started going to the advanced French meetup. Have I made mistakes that now make me cringe?! Absolutely! However, the goal is to be genuinely interested and curious, not to use someone as a guinea pig.
Bonne chance.
PS. Also, Check youtube for French lessons, there is French with Vincent which is really good.
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Je vais essayer d'ecrire en Francais. Je suis alle a Le "French Meeteup" Jeudi dernier et Il y a beaucoup de Francophones. J'ai compris tout mais j'ai eu pas le vocabulaire d'expliquer ce que je voulais dire. . C'a me frustre beaucoup. Je pense que je doit commencer au debut.
Maintenant, je lis Le Petit Nicolas et c'est tellement genial.
In other language news. Spanish is on hold for me. I just need to find a way to balance my language learning. I think I'll have to plan a travel gap year specifically for language learning. I can't write this portion in Spanish as I am a complete beginner in comparison to French.
Ne t'occupe pas de ton vocabulaire. Si tu l'utilises comme ça, tu vas l'apprendre vite. En plus de lire, tu peux regarder des videos en français.
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Bonjour! J'apprends le Francais avec Duolingo.
I am at 3% Fluency :) I love the app I sometimes can't put it down. I'll do one lesson right after the other then after maybe 5 lessons in a row I force myself to put it down otherwise I'll be looking at my phone screen all night. I joined a club so that helps keep me going, I like to hit the top 3 in the leaders board.
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I am learning Spanish! Signed up for an 8 week course at my local community center for only $45 (student discount woohoo) and have almost completed it. It's a bit slower than I would like, but I am also planning on joining a meetup group to converse in person, since I've found that to be the best way to learn. I tried duolingo but I don't like it that much, so maybe another app is better or I just need that face-to-face discussion. I understand a lot more than I can speak for now, it kinda helps that I already know french and italian, but it also makes it more confusing since many things are similar but different.
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I'm back learning (catching back up) with my Spanish on Memrise.com. Also the math class on there I started a few months ago. I went to youtube.com and did a search for Easy Spanish and guess what? There is a series called Easy Spanish that has English subtitles. Native speakers being interviewed in the one I watched on what do you think about love? Again, I'm up to a two (maybe 3?) day streak.
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Recently back to learning Japanese. Duolingo just added it and getting to my level has been a fun review of earlier concepts and vocab. Also found 'Learn Japanese from Zero' on YouTube. I happened to click Lesson 26 first - and although I knew most of the info there were just enough gems of insight to make me want to go back and watch the earlier/easy episodes so I can get more of that.
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Depending on the language, Netflix is pretty good for getting some practice, at least on the listening side. I'm working mostly on Spanish and French so there are a fair number of options for movies and shows (although I'd appreciate a better way to sort them), but the Netflix-produced shows generally have German and Italian audio too, and some of the animes have more than that.
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Can I join?
I've been working on learning Spanish on and off for years and I have the basics and some vocabulary. When I drive, I listen to Pimsleur, Learn in Your Car, or Spanish language radio.
I've been studying French on and off since high school and I'm fairly fluent/proficient. I listen to French music at Chante France (https://www.chantefrance.com/player/?freq=Chante_France#) while I work.
And these look fun for comprehension:
News in Slow Spanish (https://www.newsinslowspanish.com/)
News in Slow French (https://www.newsinslowfrench.com/)
Love foreign language movies but don't have time to watch them.
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I have been totally slacking. I got up to 8% fluent in French (according to Duolingo) and then pretty much stopped using it. It's so easy to get out of the habit.
How is everyone else doing?
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I have been totally slacking. I got up to 8% fluent in French (according to Duolingo) and then pretty much stopped using it. It's so easy to get out of the habit.
How is everyone else doing?
I got Duolingo a few months ago, and I've been doing it every day. It's kind of annoying for the languages I've already got some background in because it's mostly stuff I already know with a few nuggets of new info here and there. I hope I eventually get into the heart of really learning. Spanish doesn't go all the way, though. I maxed it out at 57% fluent.
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Can I slink in here and say I'm going to start again? Getting my attention span back is one reason I want to learn Spanish, the discipline to do the lessons, which I suck at now. Starting again...
A funny thing for me, from high school French (ummm, 40 years ago?) and my Spanish study, I can read a lot of the French in the posts here. It just went in better back then, I guess.
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I just noticed that my local library has rosetta stone through Hoopla. Many libraries have Hoopla so this may be something to check out.
EDIT: I think this was actually Pimsleur. I could not later find Rosetta Stone so I think I had a brain fart.
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Currently on a 151 day streak with Norwegian on Duolingo. Before that I was a learner for a few years. Nothing crazy, just little by little. Takes 10-15 minutes a day and I enjoy it.
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Je vais essayer d'ecrire en Francais. Je suis alle a Le "French Meeteup" Jeudi dernier et Il y a beaucoup de Francophones. J'ai compris tout mais j'ai eu pas le vocabulaire d'expliquer ce que je voulais dire. . C'a me frustre beaucoup. Je pense que je doit commencer au debut.
Maintenant, je lis Le Petit Nicolas et c'est tellement genial.
In other language news. Spanish is on hold for me. I just need to find a way to balance my language learning. I think I'll have to plan a travel gap year specifically for language learning. I can't write this portion in Spanish as I am a complete beginner in comparison to French.
Ne t'occupe pas de ton vocabulaire. Si tu l'utilises comme ça, tu vas l'apprendre vite. En plus de lire, tu peux regarder des videos en français.
Toutfois, Il y a un probleme avec les videos. J'ecoute les podcasts et Je regarde des videos mais c'est la raison que je comprend plus que je parle. Je n'ai pas les problemes avec le comprehension mais je souhaite que mon niveau de parle etait pareille que mon niveau de comprendre.
Yikes, I need to get back to reading and grammar exercises...
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Toutfois, Il y a un probleme avec les videos. J'ecoute les podcasts et Je regarde des videos mais c'est la raison que je comprend plus que je parle. Je n'ai pas les problemes avec le comprehension mais je souhaite que mon niveau de parle etait pareille que mon niveau de comprendre.
That's pretty much true for any language learner, I would think? Provided you're learning a language where the alphabet etc. is familiar, almost everyone is likely to be better at reading than listening. Pretty much any language you'd expect to understand more than you can say yourself. (I can generally read a French newspaper without any problem, but I am nowhere near being able to translate a news story into correct French, or have more than a fairly basic conversation on a news topic.) That's not due to lack of opportunity to speak, it's because my "passive" vocabulary (words I recognise) is much larger than my "active." I guess language exchange things like busuu which force you to speak or write are good for this.
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Jumping in to this. Considering I'm half Greek it'd make sense to learn a bit more than 'enough to get by'.
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Je vais essayer d'ecrire en Francais. Je suis alle a Le "French Meeteup" Jeudi dernier et Il y a beaucoup de Francophones. J'ai compris tout mais j'ai eu pas le vocabulaire d'expliquer ce que je voulais dire. . C'a me frustre beaucoup. Je pense que je doit commencer au debut.
Maintenant, je lis Le Petit Nicolas et c'est tellement genial.
In other language news. Spanish is on hold for me. I just need to find a way to balance my language learning. I think I'll have to plan a travel gap year specifically for language learning. I can't write this portion in Spanish as I am a complete beginner in comparison to French.
Ne t'occupe pas de ton vocabulaire. Si tu l'utilises comme ça, tu vas l'apprendre vite. En plus de lire, tu peux regarder des videos en français.
Toutfois, Il y a un probleme avec les videos. J'ecoute les podcasts et Je regarde des videos mais c'est la raison que je comprend plus que je parle. Je n'ai pas les problemes avec le comprehension mais je souhaite que mon niveau de parle etait pareille que mon niveau de comprendre.
Yikes, I need to get back to reading and grammar exercises...
Il vaut mieux comprendre que savoir parler. Un enfant apprendre à comprendre bien avant de parler. Le meilleur façon d'apprendre est comme un bebé. Donc ce n'est pas un problème que tu ne sais pas encore parler. Tu vas l'apprendre.
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Jumping in to this. Considering I'm half Greek it'd make sense to learn a bit more than 'enough to get by'.
I'm on a 12 day streak on duolingo. Listening to a few podcasts and so on. Really enjoying it so far.
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I've got a 39 day streak on Duolingo. I'm doing a few different languages.
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Jumping in to this. Considering I'm half Greek it'd make sense to learn a bit more than 'enough to get by'.
I'm on a 12 day streak on duolingo. Listening to a few podcasts and so on. Really enjoying it so far.
Would you mind sharing some of your resources? I am trying to learn Greek as well.
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Jumping in to this. Considering I'm half Greek it'd make sense to learn a bit more than 'enough to get by'.
I'm on a 12 day streak on duolingo. Listening to a few podcasts and so on. Really enjoying it so far.
Would you mind sharing some of your resources? I am trying to learn Greek as well.
I'm not learning Greek specifically, but Duolingo has Greek. Just download the app.
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Well I've been living in a foreign country now for about 3 months, and I've just about hit a functional fluency. How did I manage this? Well one I'm part of an organization that knows how to get people fluent fast for service work. There methodology is:
1. Live with a local for 3 months.
2. Private teacher for much of this time 2-4 per day (cheaper than you think especially for some countries)
3. A good set of grammar books (I'm doing Portuguese with Gramática Ativa 1 & 2)
4. Teach others and work with others to force vocab learning and more complex uses of language.
Following these steps, I have seen no one fail yet. (There's 1 out of 55 still struggling a little) But in 3 months we've surpassed many of the expats living here, and most of us can communicate at a high level.
For people living in the states I would suggest finding a local group to practice with. Or a fluent person that you can trade English time with.
See if you can find a private teacher. You might be surprised to find one for a $1 or 2 per hour. So you can have a French teacher from the Congo teach you online very affordablely. I can't stress the teacher enough. A good teacher should be able to get you to a speakable level relatively quickly.
Third step, find a good grammar book to supplement. I usually make the mistake of trying to learn only from a book because I'm nervous to talk, but especially when you get to more advanced topics you'll need this to help delineate the particular meanings of certain things.
Teach someone something in your new language. Prepare a lesson for the Mexican migrants to learn Spanish, share a bit of American culture with Refugees. Or maybe just share a story with your language group. This is a bit harder to do, but probably the best thing to try and start speaking fluently. Usually just being an American helps. I've had people here want me to explain Excel to them. It made me look up a ton of words and push myself in a new direction
Anyway those are my thoughts.
Boa sorte!!
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I've got a 39 day streak on Duolingo. I'm doing a few different languages.
Does doing different languages work for you? I find you end up mastering very little because of spreading yourself thin. Unless of course, you have full free days to yourself then you can allocate time to many. One thing, I notice though about a lot of polyglots is that they speak many languages but many are at a basic intermediate level. Now if your goal in languages is just to communicate with natives then that's not a problem.
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I've got a 39 day streak on Duolingo. I'm doing a few different languages.
Does doing different languages work for you? I find you end up mastering very little because of spreading yourself thin. Unless of course, you have full free days to yourself then you can allocate time to many. One thing, I notice though about a lot of polyglots is that they speak many languages but many are at a basic intermediate level. Now if your goal in languages is just to communicate with natives then that's not a problem.
It does spread my time kind of thin. It's true you only have so much time so you can either learn some of all or refine one or two. I'm kind of going somewhere in between. I'm learning a smidge of a whole lot of languages but trying to really shave off the rough edges of my Spanish. It all just depends on what you want to do with it.
You can also spend more time total. I do Duolingo for a full hour some days. It's a hobby for me.
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So I'm half way done with the French Module in Duolingo and according to the app I'm at 53% fluency. I can recognize words that I've seen before but I don't think I'd be able to have much of a conversation with someone. I'm really hoping that as I get closer to the end that will change. Maybe I need to just start trying to talk to people in French that's probably going to be the best way.
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Maybe I need to just start trying to talk to people in French that's probably going to be the best way.
This. You only get better with real practice conversations. You can't be afraid of making mistakes, you will make lots and that's how you get better.
Are there any French language meetups in your area?
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Maybe I need to just start trying to talk to people in French that's probably going to be the best way.
This. You only get better with real practice conversations. You can't be afraid of making mistakes, you will make lots and that's how you get better.
Are there any French language meetups in your area?
Hmm speaking a foreign language that I'm not too comfortable with to complete stranger that may be my worst nightmare ;) but it also sounds like a good idea. Thanks for the advice.
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Maybe I need to just start trying to talk to people in French that's probably going to be the best way.
This. You only get better with real practice conversations. You can't be afraid of making mistakes, you will make lots and that's how you get better.
Are there any French language meetups in your area?
Hmm speaking a foreign language that I'm not too comfortable with to complete stranger that may be my worst nightmare ;) but it also sounds like a good idea. Thanks for the advice.
It was/is hard for me to get started speaking to native speakers too. When I went to Peru I spoke Spanish to a few people who didn't speak English. I find that easiest. It was pretty basic, but very fun and exciting to be at least a little bit understood. The easiest time was when I was translating between my family and the cab driver, because then I didn't have to worry about the actual conversation flow, just translating the words. I did finally get stumped when my dad wanted to ask how deep the topsoil was...
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Joining in on this challenge. I spent the last few years casually studying French. For awhile, I actually felt fairly confident but unfortunately life got busy and I slacked. Last visit to France I was like a deer in the headlights. Seriously, it felt like I had forgotten it all. Every. Single. Word.
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Maybe I need to just start trying to talk to people in French that's probably going to be the best way.
This. You only get better with real practice conversations. You can't be afraid of making mistakes, you will make lots and that's how you get better.
Are there any French language meetups in your area?
Hmm speaking a foreign language that I'm not too comfortable with to complete stranger that may be my worst nightmare ;) but it also sounds like a good idea. Thanks for the advice.
This is great advice! I found a tutor on Craigslist for practice and made much more progress with her than in classes or self guided studying. You just have to GNF and make mistakes. It helped me to find someone my age or younger so it wasn't as intimidating.
Also, Tandem and Italki are two great sites that let you Skype with native speakers.
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So I'm half way done with the French Module in Duolingo and according to the app I'm at 53% fluency. I can recognize words that I've seen before but I don't think I'd be able to have much of a conversation with someone. I'm really hoping that as I get closer to the end that will change. Maybe I need to just start trying to talk to people in French that's probably going to be the best way.
Definitely speak to people even if your French sucks. I did and I remain one of the few people who has not forgotten the French they learned in Highschool. I have somewhat lazily maintained it, but I used to speak to strangers with no reservations. Now I just have a friend who's French.
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So I'm half way done with the French Module in Duolingo and according to the app I'm at 53% fluency. I can recognize words that I've seen before but I don't think I'd be able to have much of a conversation with someone. I'm really hoping that as I get closer to the end that will change. Maybe I need to just start trying to talk to people in French that's probably going to be the best way.
Definitely speak to people even if your French sucks. I did and I remain one of the few people who has not forgotten the French they learned in Highschool. I have somewhat lazily maintained it, but I used to speak to strangers with no reservations. Now I just have a friend who's French.
There's an app called Tandem I just recently came across. It connects people that want to learn each other's languages. It's generally easy to find somebody since everybody wants to learn English.
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I have a 179 day streak going on Duolingo. I completed the French tree and have kept it gold. Huzzah! I'm starting to learn Portuguese now, and it's loads if fun. I suspect it will take me longer since I'll also be practicing French. I keep my tree gold before I move on to the next lesson, which helps me remember. I'm not in a rush since I know that learning these languages will be a lifelong pursuit.
I need speaking practice so I'm hopefully going to attend some local language meetups.
how do you practice speaking? With people you know/meetups/apps?
How fun! I forgot about this thread. I'm still rocking my golden French and Portuguese trees. I've been practicing daily for two years. To improve my French, I started listening to the French news, and watching films in French with French subtitles. I also started going to French meetups. I'm rubbish at speaking. I get so nervous that I blank out. Funnily enough, I have an easier time fumbling my way through Portuguese. I'm not as embarrassed even though I make just as many mistakes.
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Wow, old thread! I'd forgotten about it too. Anyone want to make a 2018 thread?
Spanish -- has basically languished. I can still manage pretty well but I visited some of my Spanish speaking friends last fall and felt myself grasping for words and expressions too often, and my pronunciation and grammar have suffered. I may end up going to Chile this fall, so I'd like to brush up before then. If anyone has recommendations for apps that go to a higher level than DuoLingo, I'm all ears. Also recs for podcasts, books that aren't magical realism, and Netflix shows would be awesome. My podcast recommendation is Radio Ambulante from NPR. I'm so-so on CoffeeBreak, some of their stuff is good, but there's too much astrophysics for me. I've been watching some Narcos - it's ok. And trying to read Cien Anios de Soledad but it's a slog.
Korean - ha. I still know the alphabet decently well, pretty much everything else is gone. I've been trying to do 10 minutes or so a day between DuoLingo and Memrise.
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Wow, old thread! I'd forgotten about it too. Anyone want to make a 2018 thread?
Spanish -- has basically languished. I can still manage pretty well but I visited some of my Spanish speaking friends last fall and felt myself grasping for words and expressions too often, and my pronunciation and grammar have suffered. I may end up going to Chile this fall, so I'd like to brush up before then. If anyone has recommendations for apps that go to a higher level than DuoLingo, I'm all ears. Also recs for podcasts, books that aren't magical realism, and Netflix shows would be awesome. My podcast recommendation is Radio Ambulante from NPR. I'm so-so on CoffeeBreak, some of their stuff is good, but there's too much astrophysics for me. I've been watching some Narcos - it's ok. And trying to read Cien Anios de Soledad but it's a slog.
Korean - ha. I still know the alphabet decently well, pretty much everything else is gone. I've been trying to do 10 minutes or so a day between DuoLingo and Memrise.
I watched La Niña and El Barco on Netflix for awhile. I liked them both for learning Spanish and both stories were entertaining, until they weren't (dramalama). I should start watching them again, but there's little time for TV watching post-FIRE!
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Wow, old thread! I'd forgotten about it too. Anyone want to make a 2018 thread?
Spanish -- has basically languished. I can still manage pretty well but I visited some of my Spanish speaking friends last fall and felt myself grasping for words and expressions too often, and my pronunciation and grammar have suffered. I may end up going to Chile this fall, so I'd like to brush up before then. If anyone has recommendations for apps that go to a higher level than DuoLingo, I'm all ears. Also recs for podcasts, books that aren't magical realism, and Netflix shows would be awesome. My podcast recommendation is Radio Ambulante from NPR. I'm so-so on CoffeeBreak, some of their stuff is good, but there's too much astrophysics for me. I've been watching some Narcos - it's ok. And trying to read Cien Anios de Soledad but it's a slog.
Korean - ha. I still know the alphabet decently well, pretty much everything else is gone. I've been trying to do 10 minutes or so a day between DuoLingo and Memrise.
I paused on Spanish but in terms of shows. Every Spanish speaker I know has recommended El Patron Del Mal. I use coffee break Spanish for podcast. I like their French version too a lot. I personally do News in Slow French although I do the advanced on that one, but I am pretty sure there is news in slow Italian and other languages.
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So after using Duolingo for a million years, I've just learned about completing the reverse tree. Has anyone heard of this or done it? In a nutshell, you finish the French tree (if that's you're language), and then you create an account where your native language is French and complete the tree as if you are learning English.
Since I'm trying to learn French and Portuguese, and I'm further along in French, I actually started my French reverse tree with my native language as French and the language I'm learning as Portuguese. After trying it for no more than 10 minutes, I'd say it's a good challenge.
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So after using Duolingo for a million years, I've just learned about completing the reverse tree. Has anyone heard of this or done it? In a nutshell, you finish the French tree (if that's you're language), and then you create an account where your native language is French and complete the tree as if you are learning English.
Since I'm trying to learn French and Portuguese, and I'm further along in French, I actually started my French reverse tree with my native language as French and the language I'm learning as Portuguese. After trying it for no more than 10 minutes, I'd say it's a good challenge.
I'll have to try that. It sounds like it might be a good way to keep moving. Duolingo seems to be much better at teaching at a beginner or intermediate level than rounding off the rough edges at an advanced level.
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@dougules I agree. I'm at the point where I don't feel like I'm learning much keeping my French tree golden. I think I've memorized most of the answers.
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My podcast recommendation is Radio Ambulante from NPR. ....
I paused on Spanish but in terms of shows. Every Spanish speaker I know has recommended El Patron Del Mal. I use coffee break Spanish for podcast. I like their French version too a lot. I personally do News in Slow French although I do the advanced on that one, but I am pretty sure there is news in slow Italian and other languages.
I started formal Spanish lesson recently and need lots of practice with listening. Thanks for these tips!
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Woo! Just hit 1 year on DuoLingo (for Norwegian).
I've also been speaking more and more to my son, so I'm slowly getting better at it. I'm in no rush to be fluent or anything, and when I go to Norway I'll ramp up the learning in the 3-4 weeks beforehand.
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Woo! Just hit 1 year on DuoLingo (for Norwegian).
I've also been speaking more and more to my son, so I'm slowly getting better at it. I'm in no rush to be fluent or anything, and when I go to Norway I'll ramp up the learning in the 3-4 weeks beforehand.
Congrats. I'm getting there myself.
I'm curious as to how far you think you've gotten.
So after using Duolingo for a million years, I've just learned about completing the reverse tree. Has anyone heard of this or done it? In a nutshell, you finish the French tree (if that's you're language), and then you create an account where your native language is French and complete the tree as if you are learning English.
Since I'm trying to learn French and Portuguese, and I'm further along in French, I actually started my French reverse tree with my native language as French and the language I'm learning as Portuguese. After trying it for no more than 10 minutes, I'd say it's a good challenge.
I'll have to try that. It sounds like it might be a good way to keep moving. Duolingo seems to be much better at teaching at a beginner or intermediate level than rounding off the rough edges at an advanced level.
This was a good idea. It didn't seem effective at first, but I just had to get through the more basic lessons. Another idea based on this is to learn a third language through your more advanced language. I'm doing French for Spanish speakers so I get both at one time. It takes a little while to wrap your head around, but it's definitely good exercise for your brain.
I've got a 39 day streak on Duolingo. I'm doing a few different languages.
Does doing different languages work for you? I find you end up mastering very little because of spreading yourself thin. Unless of course, you have full free days to yourself then you can allocate time to many. One thing, I notice though about a lot of polyglots is that they speak many languages but many are at a basic intermediate level. Now if your goal in languages is just to communicate with natives then that's not a problem.
I have definitely scaled back now. I've really started to focus in on Spanish and Chinese with the other ones only occasionally or learned from Spanish.
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I haven't stuck with anything so far. I did have one of my friends visit from overseas and I realized how much my Spanish has suffered from neglect over the last few years. My vocabulary is strong in the topics we usually discuss, but I found myself struggling to describe some of my planned projects. It was still good enough to yell at her for getting shitfaced and causing a scene though.
I haven't even touched Korean. I need to get back into things.
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I'm currently visiting family and I'm so so happy I put in the effort to learn Italian. Last time I came was 5 years ago and I had taken 1 course, in the meantime I've taken another. Unfortunately I never really practice, so I'm rusty, but hardly anybody here speaks any English, so it has really come in handy. I'm not fluent by any means, and I don't even speak as well as the children, but I can understand most of what they say and they can understand me, so it's completely worth it.
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Woo! Just hit 1 year on DuoLingo (for Norwegian).
I've also been speaking more and more to my son, so I'm slowly getting better at it. I'm in no rush to be fluent or anything, and when I go to Norway I'll ramp up the learning in the 3-4 weeks beforehand.
Congrats. I'm getting there myself.
I'm curious as to how far you think you've gotten.
I think pretty far. I am not finished with the Duolingo "Tree", but I don't really care. For me it's more of a mental exercise and to keep me thinking in this language daily. I think it makes a big difference!
Although I do not have many people to speak with besides my 4-year old son, so my listening and speaking skills are not amazing. Writing and reading is pretty good, though.
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Finishing the tree in Duolingo is really fun! You get a tiny duo with a graduation cap at the end.
I'm considering joining a german class that meets close to my house every saturday, it's $650 for the year which works out to a pretty reasonable per-week rate. I'm not excited about spending the money but I really need to have the accountability and time to talk to other humans again, especially if I am following through with my plan to move back to Berlin for a few months next year.
Update: I started following a bunch of German instagram stars and watching their insta-stories has been really helpful for listening comprehension.
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I'm currently visiting family and I'm so so happy I put in the effort to learn Italian. Last time I came was 5 years ago and I had taken 1 course, in the meantime I've taken another. Unfortunately I never really practice, so I'm rusty, but hardly anybody here speaks any English, so it has really come in handy. I'm not fluent by any means, and I don't even speak as well as the children, but I can understand most of what they say and they can understand me, so it's completely worth it.
Auguri Poutinelover! Benvenuto/a in Italia! Spero che non sia troppo caldo dove sei.
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I'm currently visiting family and I'm so so happy I put in the effort to learn Italian. Last time I came was 5 years ago and I had taken 1 course, in the meantime I've taken another. Unfortunately I never really practice, so I'm rusty, but hardly anybody here speaks any English, so it has really come in handy. I'm not fluent by any means, and I don't even speak as well as the children, but I can understand most of what they say and they can understand me, so it's completely worth it.
Auguri Poutinelover! Benvenuto/a in Italia! Spero che non sia troppo caldo dove sei.
Grazie! E caldo ma vado spesso alla spiaggia allora va bene :)
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Hey check this out.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jul/27/english-language-global-dominance
Long and interesting article.
"Following these are the 12 “supercentral languages”: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Hindi, Japanese, Malay, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swahili – each of which (except for Swahili) boast 100 million speakers or more. These are languages you can travel with. They connect people across nations. They are commonly spoken as second languages, often (but not exclusively) as a result of their parent nation’s colonial past."
I have English, One more of the above, and I'm working on a third not on the list.
I've always wanted to learn Spanish and German.
It would be great to speak a handful of those. Who here speaks the most?
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Hey check this out.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jul/27/english-language-global-dominance
Long and interesting article.
"Following these are the 12 “supercentral languages”: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Hindi, Japanese, Malay, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swahili – each of which (except for Swahili) boast 100 million speakers or more. These are languages you can travel with. They connect people across nations. They are commonly spoken as second languages, often (but not exclusively) as a result of their parent nation’s colonial past."
I have English, One more of the above, and I'm working on a third not on the list.
I've always wanted to learn Spanish and German.
It would be great to speak a handful of those. Who here speaks the most?
That is really interesting. However, I always cringe when people tell me they want to learn Chinese or Spanish because, "then I can speak to more people". I know this is not a popular opinion and I am sure to get some disagreement (especially in this thread)... But nowadays we have the internet, so you can speak to almost anyone in any language, at any time. There's even fake languages like Esperanto. I live in Texas, so, sure you could indeed utilize Spanish somewhat frequently, but I don't know a single person who set out to learn Spanish who actually utilizes it to network and speak to Spanish speakers locally.
After studying various languages for the last 13 years, I never fully grasped this concept until a few years ago. My current view on this is... make sure you're learning a language due to 1. short or long term travel to that country (which in this case, you only need to prepare for a few months before hand, max, at a high intensity), and 2. you have a very, very strong draw to that culture. Perhaps it is part of your heritage or you plan to be a life long student of that culture, or maybe you feel "drawn" to it. These mostly ensure that you're not wasting your time into a huge sunk cost.
I would never recommend anyone learn a language based off of how many other speakers there are. It's a pretty useless statistic that gets thrown around a lot because it's easy to write articles about. When people tell me my Norwegian is useless, I shrug it off and remind them that 1. I had originally planned to move to Norway for 2 years so I learned it intensely for a while, and 2. I am very, very interested in the culture. Now I can speak it with my son, people online, and utilize it when I travel there. The time I spend each day "learning" is minimal, for the return I get by knowing more about the culture and being able to speak a second language to my son.
Also, don't discount the ability to better yourself at your native language, including English! Just my $0.02. Learn with intention.
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Has anyone here tried LingQ? I was taken in by the click bait but it was a lot of fun. I like how you check off the words you know and it keeps track. Unfortunately, I hit my "free" 20 LingQ limit very quickly. Not sure if it is worth getting premium for 6 months for $60.
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Hey check this out.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jul/27/english-language-global-dominance
Long and interesting article.
"Following these are the 12 “supercentral languages”: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Hindi, Japanese, Malay, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swahili – each of which (except for Swahili) boast 100 million speakers or more. These are languages you can travel with. They connect people across nations. They are commonly spoken as second languages, often (but not exclusively) as a result of their parent nation’s colonial past."
I have English, One more of the above, and I'm working on a third not on the list.
I've always wanted to learn Spanish and German.
It would be great to speak a handful of those. Who here speaks the most?
That is really interesting. However, I always cringe when people tell me they want to learn Chinese or Spanish because, "then I can speak to more people". I know this is not a popular opinion and I am sure to get some disagreement (especially in this thread)... But nowadays we have the internet, so you can speak to almost anyone in any language, at any time. There's even fake languages like Esperanto. I live in Texas, so, sure you could indeed utilize Spanish somewhat frequently, but I don't know a single person who set out to learn Spanish who actually utilizes it to network and speak to Spanish speakers locally.
After studying various languages for the last 13 years, I never fully grasped this concept until a few years ago. My current view on this is... make sure you're learning a language due to 1. short or long term travel to that country (which in this case, you only need to prepare for a few months before hand, max, at a high intensity), and 2. you have a very, very strong draw to that culture. Perhaps it is part of your heritage or you plan to be a life long student of that culture, or maybe you feel "drawn" to it. These mostly ensure that you're not wasting your time into a huge sunk cost.
I would never recommend anyone learn a language based off of how many other speakers there are. It's a pretty useless statistic that gets thrown around a lot because it's easy to write articles about. When people tell me my Norwegian is useless, I shrug it off and remind them that 1. I had originally planned to move to Norway for 2 years so I learned it intensely for a while, and 2. I am very, very interested in the culture. Now I can speak it with my son, people online, and utilize it when I travel there. The time I spend each day "learning" is minimal, for the return I get by knowing more about the culture and being able to speak a second language to my son.
Also, don't discount the ability to better yourself at your native language, including English! Just my $0.02. Learn with intention.
Honestly I think learning another language is the best way to "better yourself"* at English. You don't know what you know until you have a point of comparison. Also, related languages help you with vocabulary as you may have seen with Norwegian. All the big words in modern English came from the Norman nobility speaking French and using Latin and Greek for education. If you learn a romance language, the latinate vocabulary comes a lot easier than just rote memorization from the dictionary. What does "defenestration" mean? If you speak French or Italian it's easy.
*By "better yourself" you mean improve your ability to speak formal English. In some ways it's like a different language than colloquial English. It's a perpetuation of the dichotomy between nobility speaking Anglo-Norman French, and Germanic English being viewed as a lower class language.
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I didn't know this thread was here, this is fun. I've been working on learning Spanish for a year (had the super-basics beforehand from childhood, but that's about it). I attend a formal class for 75 minutes each week with a really good teacher who is very good at both English and Spanish grammar. I am on/off about Duolingo, but have been better since they updated the app with more modules and levels, which is way better than it was before. I also am glad they removed the fluency "percentage," which was so obviously bogus to anybody who knows what the word "fluent" means. I try to go to a weekly conversation meetup in my area, which includes a couple of native speakers and a Spanish teacher who can accurately correct me. I feel like after a year, I am ready to call myself "conversational" -- depending on the topic :)
Some podcasts I like:
- Doorway to Mexico (really great if you are good at the school-version of Spanish but don't follow things like regional slang and colloquialisms. There are a lot of good usage tips and explanations.
- Radio ambulante (played at 3/4 speed)
- Spanish audiobooks of children's novels I know well (like the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe)
I've also been watching a lot of Spanish-language TV on Netflix (with Spanish captions on - English subtitles won't get me anywhere). La Casa de Papel, La Casa de Las Flores, Elite, Las Chicas de Cable, etc. Once I'm caught up on them I'll start one of the related shows, like the Grand Hotel.
I'm going to Mexico on vacation in a couple of months, and while there will spend 3 hours each morning at a local Spanish language school.
Hey check this out.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jul/27/english-language-global-dominance
Long and interesting article.
"Following these are the 12 “supercentral languages”: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Hindi, Japanese, Malay, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swahili – each of which (except for Swahili) boast 100 million speakers or more. These are languages you can travel with. They connect people across nations. They are commonly spoken as second languages, often (but not exclusively) as a result of their parent nation’s colonial past."
I have English, One more of the above, and I'm working on a third not on the list.
I've always wanted to learn Spanish and German.
It would be great to speak a handful of those. Who here speaks the most?
That is really interesting. However, I always cringe when people tell me they want to learn Chinese or Spanish because, "then I can speak to more people". I know this is not a popular opinion and I am sure to get some disagreement (especially in this thread)... But nowadays we have the internet, so you can speak to almost anyone in any language, at any time. There's even fake languages like Esperanto. I live in Texas, so, sure you could indeed utilize Spanish somewhat frequently, but I don't know a single person who set out to learn Spanish who actually utilizes it to network and speak to Spanish speakers locally.
After studying various languages for the last 13 years, I never fully grasped this concept until a few years ago. My current view on this is... make sure you're learning a language due to 1. short or long term travel to that country (which in this case, you only need to prepare for a few months before hand, max, at a high intensity), and 2. you have a very, very strong draw to that culture. Perhaps it is part of your heritage or you plan to be a life long student of that culture, or maybe you feel "drawn" to it. These mostly ensure that you're not wasting your time into a huge sunk cost.
I would never recommend anyone learn a language based off of how many other speakers there are. It's a pretty useless statistic that gets thrown around a lot because it's easy to write articles about. When people tell me my Norwegian is useless, I shrug it off and remind them that 1. I had originally planned to move to Norway for 2 years so I learned it intensely for a while, and 2. I am very, very interested in the culture. Now I can speak it with my son, people online, and utilize it when I travel there. The time I spend each day "learning" is minimal, for the return I get by knowing more about the culture and being able to speak a second language to my son.
Also, don't discount the ability to better yourself at your native language, including English! Just my $0.02. Learn with intention.
With all due respect, it sounds like your social circle of Texans could stand to incorporate a little diversity. In LA, the people I know who speak Spanish use it all the time, because they're willing to get out into communities other than theirs. In certain parts of the city, you need to order food in Spanish, not English (especially for street vendors). 80% of the job postings I look at in my area list Spanish proficiency as either required or strongly preferred. A large number of the service workers one comes into contact with here (cleaning people, uber drivers, what have you) are more comfortable chatting in Spanish than English.
I'd also argue that in places like Southern California and Texas, you are already engaged in long-term travel to a location where a lot of the population speaks Spanish and comes from a that culture. You're living parallel to it, and just have to engage. You'll have a richer knowledge of your city and your neighbors if you do.
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Question for Spanish Learners: What helped you with practicing when to use preterite vs imperfect? I need lots of practice with these. Thanks!
I'm going to Mexico on vacation in a couple of months, and while there will spend 3 hours each morning at a local Spanish language school.
would you be willing to PM which school you will be attending? I am looking for a school for myself and my kids to practice our Spanish during an upcoming vacation. Thanks!
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Wow. Your question just reminded me how much Spanish grammar I have forgotten!
This was informative:
https://studyspanish.com/grammar/lessons/pretimp1
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I've also been watching a lot of Spanish-language TV on Netflix (with Spanish captions on - English subtitles won't get me anywhere). La Casa de Papel, La Casa de Las Flores, Elite, Las Chicas de Cable, etc. Once I'm caught up on them I'll start one of the related shows, like the Grand Hotel.
I am not at the stage yet where I can watch without English subtitles, but I REALLY liked 'El Ministerio del Tiempo' if you are looking for something new on netflix.
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Croatian anyone? I had been using Duolinguo for German and French, but they don't have Croatian or Serbo-Croatian ( which would be OK except for a few key words).
Just looking for tourist version for a one week trip next month.
edit to add Duolinguo.
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I've also been watching a lot of Spanish-language TV on Netflix (with Spanish captions on - English subtitles won't get me anywhere). La Casa de Papel, La Casa de Las Flores, Elite, Las Chicas de Cable, etc. Once I'm caught up on them I'll start one of the related shows, like the Grand Hotel.
I am not at the stage yet where I can watch without English subtitles, but I REALLY liked 'El Ministerio del Tiempo' if you are looking for something new on netflix.
Thanks. I fear Canadian Netflix has much less to offer in terms of Spanish content so I am happy for the recommendation.
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I've also been watching a lot of Spanish-language TV on Netflix (with Spanish captions on - English subtitles won't get me anywhere). La Casa de Papel, La Casa de Las Flores, Elite, Las Chicas de Cable, etc. Once I'm caught up on them I'll start one of the related shows, like the Grand Hotel.
I am not at the stage yet where I can watch without English subtitles, but I REALLY liked 'El Ministerio del Tiempo' if you are looking for something new on netflix.
Thanks. I fear Canadian Netflix has much less to offer in terms of Spanish content so I am happy for the recommendation.
I have noticed quite a few Spanish shows in Canada Netflix lately. Another one I watched is called 'La Catedral del Mar', though be warned it's pretty graphic right from episode 1.
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Has anyone here tried LingQ?
I downloaded it because of your post, but I don't really understand how it works. It seems like you have to select words you don't know in order to advance? But if you know everything it just gets stuck? Does it adjust to your level and make suggestions for new lessons, or do you just keep going through them?
I took the DuoLingo placement test for Spanish again. I wanted to like it after the update, but the lessons are so boring I can't stick with it. I may restart Korean though. I feel like I'm learning something when I do that one.
I also got inspired to dig out my old Quechua textbook. I found pages of stuff I wrote that I can't read at all anymore!
I'm not making much progress toward my language goals this year!
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Hey check this out.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jul/27/english-language-global-dominance
Long and interesting article.
"Following these are the 12 “supercentral languages”: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Hindi, Japanese, Malay, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swahili – each of which (except for Swahili) boast 100 million speakers or more. These are languages you can travel with. They connect people across nations. They are commonly spoken as second languages, often (but not exclusively) as a result of their parent nation’s colonial past."
I have English, One more of the above, and I'm working on a third not on the list.
I've always wanted to learn Spanish and German.
It would be great to speak a handful of those. Who here speaks the most?
I've got English, French and Swahili.
Swahili, I am pretty sure has more than 100 million speakers, but it is not spoken as a mother tongue by most in the way French, English, Mandarin are spoken. Often, speakers of French or English speak it natively with no added languages (often). However, in Kenya, Tanzania, DRC and Uganda, swahili is spoken as a second or third language as most people are bilingual or trilingual. Most people speak a tribal language as their mother tongue and then swahili and English are part of our official languages so everyone ends up speaking those too.
It is more standardized in Tanzania and Kenya though than other countries. I have to say the DRC swahili is particularly interesting and strange to our ears. Still understandable but it the closest comparison is like quebecois French.
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Has anyone here tried LingQ?
I downloaded it because of your post, but I don't really understand how it works. It seems like you have to select words you don't know in order to advance? But if you know everything it just gets stuck? Does it adjust to your level and make suggestions for new lessons, or do you just keep going through them?
I took the DuoLingo placement test for Spanish again. I wanted to like it after the update, but the lessons are so boring I can't stick with it. I may restart Korean though. I feel like I'm learning something when I do that one.
I also got inspired to dig out my old Quechua textbook. I found pages of stuff I wrote that I can't read at all anymore!
I'm not making much progress toward my language goals this year!
I splurged for the 6 month $60 membership with no auto renewal.
I know very little of the language I am learning. But I think you can start with an intermediate lesson and build from there. If you know all the words on a page just turn the page and they will all turn white.
I find it very useful to change the unknown words to yellow. You only get to do this 20 times with the free version. I wish I had known this and I might not have clicked on so many and tried to string along the free version a bit longer.
It keeps track of your unknown words. And you can do flash card type reviews of them.
As for the lessons, there are many to select from. It looks like the content is kind of an open source community created so you will find some good and some bad as you move along. You may even be able to get paid to create new material &/or be a tutor but I am not interested in that at this time.
For the moment I am having fun and I am on an 8 day streak.
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I took a few months off my focused daily language learning, and I feel as though I forgot a lot rather quickly.
I started reading books in French, while simultaneously listening to the audiobook in French. The practice has been really helpful for vocab building and listening comprehension.
I still struggle with speaking, which is the skill I practice the least. I guess there's no surprise there then.
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Wow. Your question just reminded me how much Spanish grammar I have forgotten!
This was informative:
https://studyspanish.com/grammar/lessons/pretimp1
Thanks! The quiz was a good starting point for practice.
I also found this fun link--
https://personal.colby.edu/~bknelson/SLC/superhombre2.html
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Hey check this out.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jul/27/english-language-global-dominance
Long and interesting article.
"Following these are the 12 “supercentral languages”: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Hindi, Japanese, Malay, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swahili – each of which (except for Swahili) boast 100 million speakers or more. These are languages you can travel with. They connect people across nations. They are commonly spoken as second languages, often (but not exclusively) as a result of their parent nation’s colonial past."
I have English, One more of the above, and I'm working on a third not on the list.
I've always wanted to learn Spanish and German.
It would be great to speak a handful of those. Who here speaks the most?
I've got English, French and Swahili.
Swahili, I am pretty sure has more than 100 million speakers, but it is not spoken as a mother tongue by most in the way French, English, Mandarin are spoken. Often, speakers of French or English speak it natively with no added languages (often). However, in Kenya, Tanzania, DRC and Uganda, swahili is spoken as a second or third language as most people are bilingual or trilingual. Most people speak a tribal language as their mother tongue and then swahili and English are part of our official languages so everyone ends up speaking those too.
It is more standardized in Tanzania and Kenya though than other countries. I have to say the DRC swahili is particularly interesting and strange to our ears. Still understandable but it the closest comparison is like quebecois French.
English and French actually both have significantly more second language speakers than native speakers, too.
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I am getting back on track with Spanish
I am currently using duolingo, memrise and michel thomas (mps3 on my phone) I am considering signing up for a course so I have some people to practice with if I can find something reasonably priced.
I just came back from travelling around South America for 10 weeks which kinda helped with my Spanish but not as much as I had hoped.
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I am getting back on track with Spanish
I am currently using duolingo, memrise and michel thomas (mps3 on my phone) I am considering signing up for a course so I have some people to practice with if I can find something reasonably priced.
I just came back from travelling around South America for 10 weeks which kinda helped with my Spanish but not as much as I had hoped.
Dónde fuiste? Qué lugares te gustaron más?
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I'm learning Python, does that count?
I've also been watching a lot of Spanish-language TV on Netflix (with Spanish captions on - English subtitles won't get me anywhere). La Casa de Papel, La Casa de Las Flores, Elite, Las Chicas de Cable, etc. Once I'm caught up on them I'll start one of the related shows, like the Grand Hotel.
I am not at the stage yet where I can watch without English subtitles, but I REALLY liked 'El Ministerio del Tiempo' if you are looking for something new on netflix.
Thanks. I fear Canadian Netflix has much less to offer in terms of Spanish content so I am happy for the recommendation.
I have noticed quite a few Spanish shows in Canada Netflix lately. Another one I watched is called 'La Catedral del Mar', though be warned it's pretty graphic right from episode 1.
For a while I watched Extra on YouTube, it's designed for language learners. I should do some of these Netflix shows in my downtime, since I'm not actively studying Spanish anymore.
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I am bilingual in French (was born in France and lived there 25 years) and English (have lived in the US for the last 12 years). In my spare time, I study Spanish (advanced, learned it since middle school), Russian (intermediate, learned it on my own in college) and Swedish (beginner, learned it on my own this year). I guess it is a passion. It feels good when I use my brain to memorize and understand a different language. I also love discovering how people live in different cultures. I should mention I am on a 158 day streak on Duolingo (it could have been more but sometimes the changes they do to their app are so annoying that I stop using it for a while).
Every week, I set aside at least 1h30 per language. During that time, I warm up with a few lessons on Duolingo (15mn). Then I move on to Memrise (15mn). After that, I read a book in the language I am studying (30mn) and I finish with watching part of a movie or a tv show on Netflix (30mn). When I am done, I plan a half hour review a few days later to refresh my memory in between sessions. I am aware that I am missing the conversation part and it is in my plan to pay someone to converse with me. However, I agree with the previous posts in this thread, the best is to travel to a foreign country and talk to people (which is why I'll go to Sweden in a few months).
Everybody learns differently and to improve in a language, I believe it is necessary to figure out what works for you. I have some students (I am a French tutor) that have an exceptional memory and will remember everything we went over during the previous session. Others will only memorize what they hear, so we focus on songs, videos, talking, not so much reading and writing. The most important is to keep doing it on regular basis.
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I am getting back on track with Spanish
I am currently using duolingo, memrise and michel thomas (mps3 on my phone) I am considering signing up for a course so I have some people to practice with if I can find something reasonably priced.
I just came back from travelling around South America for 10 weeks which kinda helped with my Spanish but not as much as I had hoped.
Dónde fuiste? Qué lugares te gustaron más?
Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Uruguay.
Favourite was probably Patagonia :)
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I'm fluent in French but have been plateauing a bit, I think, spending about 7 hrs a week on French activities (grammar, conversation, reading, listening, writing) so I'm challenging my self to double that to 15 hours/week.
Inspired by "Learn French Fast" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt3ZjUfnzks . Techniques would work for any language and the 15 hour/week goal is great.
Kiwi Rosie also has an excellent "starter pack" for French https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt3ZjUfnzks. Too easy for me at this point but the concepts and multi pronged approach are great.
Ultra inspired and amused by 'Victor Hugo becomes a sex god in my mind' – how to get better at French
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/jan/01/how-to-get-better-at-french-victor-hugo-becomes-a-sex-god-in-my-mind
Background:
I've been working on regaining my French fluency for the past two years through immersion courses, weekly conversation group, daily book/magazine reading, podcast listening, etc. This year I've added 2 hours of weekly in-school volunteering working with French immersion students on reading and conversation. This activity has really challenged me to super charge my efforts. Yeah I'm very fluent and can keep ahead of grade 4's working in their second language (they have excellent accents and good comprehension but are still building their vocabulary) but the responsibility to be a good role model of (mostly) correct speaking is very motivating!
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Feb 4-10 results. I actually reached over 13h of French activities. Closer to 15h so yay! But it was really hard and I counted quite a bit of pretty passive TV watching (news, lightweight tele series). Some days I had over 3 hours and my lowest day was...15 minutes.
Breakdown:
Grammar study: 2h
Reading: 1h 30m
Tutoring kids: 2h 30m
Conversation group: 1h 30m
Podcast: 1h
TV: 5h
Music: 30m
Note to self - up the grammar and reading and lower the TV watching! Or at least be more intentional about the TV choices...
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Feb 4-10 results. I actually reached over 13h of French activities. Closer to 15h so yay! But it was really hard and I counted quite a bit of pretty passive TV watching (news, lightweight tele series). Some days I had over 3 hours and my lowest day was...15 minutes.
Breakdown:
Grammar study: 2h
Reading: 1h 30m
Tutoring kids: 2h 30m
Conversation group: 1h 30m
Podcast: 1h
TV: 5h
Music: 30m
Note to self - up the grammar and reading and lower the TV watching! Or at least be more intentional about the TV choices...
Geez, that’s a part time job in French!
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Haha! Yep, it is enough to be a part-time job but considering that I'm just diverting the time from low value activities, mostly screen scrolling, that I've been whining about on other threads, it's a good gig. And when you think many (most?) people, myself included if I'm not careful, easily watch 2+ hours of TV per day, there's a lot of time waiting to be redirected.
In fact, it just might help me reduce my screen scrolling if I described it as a part-time job. Who would be proud to say they had a part-time job mindlessly scrolling through the inter webs for what, 15-20 hours a week? Even if it were paid!
Feb 4-10 results. I actually reached over 13h of French activities. Closer to 15h so yay! But it was really hard and I counted quite a bit of pretty passive TV watching (news, lightweight tele series). Some days I had over 3 hours and my lowest day was...15 minutes.
Breakdown:
Grammar study: 2h
Reading: 1h 30m
Tutoring kids: 2h 30m
Conversation group: 1h 30m
Podcast: 1h
TV: 5h
Music: 30m
Note to self - up the grammar and reading and lower the TV watching! Or at least be more intentional about the TV choices...
Geez, that’s a part time job in French!
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11 hours and 30 minutes of French activities this week. Not 15 but I feel OK about that as both the tutoring session and the conversation group were cancelled taking about 4 hours out of the regular mix.
As well as grammar study and other activities, I listened to a high quality podcast on Vieille Branche, watched/listened to 2 lectures from the College-de-France series (one on Greek mythology and one on Proust/Ruskin) which balanced the very lightweight Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez film I watched and the many articles I read about the asshats of the Ligue de LOL and their beauferie and worse.
What's happening with other language learners?
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11 hours and 30 minutes of French activities this week. Not 15 but I feel OK about that as both the tutoring session and the conversation group were cancelled taking about 4 hours out of the regular mix.
As well as grammar study and other activities, I listened to a high quality podcast on Vieille Branche, watched/listened to 2 lectures from the College-de-France series (one on Greek mythology and one on Proust/Ruskin) which balanced the very lightweight Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez film I watched and the many articles I read about the asshats of the Ligue de LOL and their beauferie and worse.
What's happening with other language learners?
I've been going to French meetup. Watching some French shows (Terrible, but what can you do?). I had my friend recommend some stand up so I am weaving into that now. I won't lie. Some of the humor slips past me, but some is easier to understand.
I wish I was consistent as my level is pretty high for how mediocre I've been.
Also, my friend who is French is moving south so I don't have anyone fluent to converse with anymore.