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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5319 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes  Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 1169 of 1317 06 November 2014 at 3:06am | IP Logged | ||
Nope, I've never tried Memrise. I'm a huge fan of AnkiDroid, and I make all my own decks in any case. I really don't enjoy using other people's decks, except for things like learning alphabets. I once spent three months with an L1<->L2 vocabulary deck, and it was the single most unpleasant language learning technique I've ever tried—and it wasn't even very effective for me. Later, I tried using an "Intermediate French Idioms" deck, and once again, it was mostly a depressing waste of time. This doesn't seem to be true for everybody, but that's how it works for me. :-/ My preferred technique goes something like this: 1. Track down awesome native media that I could happily read/watch a dozen times. 2. Pull out useful bits that I don't understand, and make easy-to-answer cards. 3. Delete aggressively. This way, when I see a strange idiomatic expression in my deck (for example), I already know what context it occurred in, the age and social status of the character who used it, and why I care about knowing it (because it appeared in awesome media). And if a card annoys or bores me, it's gone. Memrise doesn't really cater to this market, as far as I can tell. And Anki really works quite amazingly well for me in any case, so I'm quite happy to stick with it. Edited by emk on 06 November 2014 at 4:14am 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| liam.pike1 Groupie Australia Joined 3541 days ago 84 posts - 122 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto, French | Message 1170 of 1317 16 November 2014 at 12:37am | IP Logged | ||
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Hey! I just came across this 'log', and I'm sure glad that I did :D Very inspirational... and since French is my target
language at the moment, I'll follow along. Thank you :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5319 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 1171 of 1317 18 November 2014 at 5:37pm | IP Logged | ||
Thank you for your kind words! You may find the first 20 pages or so the most useful; that's when I was making it from A2 to B2. For zero to A2, you might get a kick out of my Spanish log. Spanish. I've been putting most of my effort into Spanish lately, as you can see in my other log, and things are going quite well. Spanish verbs are the biggest difference: verb endings take the place of pronouns, and Spanish has a lot more verb tenses than French. Gotta grow some new neural tissue to deal with all this. :-) But for the hours invested, I'm really happy with the results. Using subs2srs feels a lot like using Assimil, but with a much more intensive focus on listening comprehension. In fact, I suspect that first-time language learners with an hour per day would really benefit from multitracking Assimil and subs2srs. Of course, the most important thing is to just get started with whatever you have on hand. Egyptian. Taking it easy, mostly. I have a stack of new Anki cards to learn, and existing cards to review, and in a few weeks I'll need to make more cards. Just chilling, basically. French. I'm taking it easy in French right now. I'm seeing a tiny bit of interference from Spanish—mostly because my brain is like, "Hey, wait, you're using 4 languages every day, which one do you want now?", and one or two instances when a Spanish word has blocked a French one (I kept getting espinaca when I wanted epinard). But I've also been finding more time for long conversations in French with fewer distractions than usual, and it's really pleasant. Even on days when I'm tired and busy with other stuff, once I get into the groove, I can just talk. I have access to a very wide range of subjects. Oh, it's nice to be able to compare my French to my Spanish. My French is still well below the level of my English (for obvious reasons), but it's absolutely amazing compared to my Spanish. I can do so many things in French, and so much of that automatically, without thinking. An interesting fact. Even with all these languages, I'm still not the household polyglot. Edited by emk on 18 November 2014 at 5:52pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5023 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 1172 of 1317 18 November 2014 at 8:45pm | IP Logged | ||
You live with Iverson? 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5319 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 1173 of 1317 29 January 2015 at 12:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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Rebooting
January has been very rough: I had a consulting project that ate my life, then the entire family came down with a nasty strain of the flu (despite being fully vaccinated—there's a nasty H2N3 strain which isn't in the vaccine), and I'm still trying to piece the essentials back together (work, taxes, etc.) So my language studies have suffered. Here's where I stand: French. Anki backlog: 149 cards. I've continued using French at home, and I spent some time reading a few chapters of Zola's Germinal a few weeks ago. As usual, when I'm not pushing my French hard, I can handle day-to-day tasks, but I lose much of the professional/intellectual register unless I have a long time to warm up and my brain decides to cooperate. For me, being able to intelligently discuss books in French is a bit like being in very good cardiovascular shape—if I take a few weeks off, I lose a lot. Also, "flu brain" is really hard on my French. I can still communicate, but I make a lot more mistakes and babble more. Egyptian. Anki backlog: 218 cards. This is a painful backlog, because Egyptian cards are slow. Fortunately, my Egyptian progress has always been slow and steady, and I've dug out from under bigger backlogs in the past. It's unlikely that I've forgotten anything, though it make take a day or three of Anki reviews to drag Egyptian kicking and screaming to the forefront of my brain. Spanish. Anki backlog: 437 cards. This is going to be really interesting, because my Spanish is very recent, and I learned it very quickly, so I'm theoretically like to lose it quickly. OTOH, the ear-worm power of subs2srs is terrifying, and I had several entire Avatar episodes which were fully mature, so it's possible I haven't lost as much as I might otherwise. Given that I'm still overloaded and trying to reassemble the essentials of life, I'm going to have to ease back in gently. More details as my efforts progress. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 3886 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 1174 of 1317 29 January 2015 at 12:25pm | IP Logged | ||
How are you finding it? I picked up a copy at the annual village flea market, but I haven't touched it yet since I decided to approach my "read the French classics" project by working my way backwards through the centuries, and I have yet to leave the comfort of the 20th century. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tommus Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5653 days ago 979 posts - 1688 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish | Message 1175 of 1317 29 January 2015 at 1:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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Great to have you back emk. I missed your innovation and inspiration. All the best for a
speedy "recovery". 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5343 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 1176 of 1317 30 January 2015 at 12:31am | IP Logged | ||
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Good luck with that daunting deluge of backlogs, emk. I have a few Egyptian reviews of my own knocking impatiently on their sarcophagi and demanding attention. By Thoth's teeth, they'll wait their turn... ;)
What's your lexical coverage for Zola's Germinal, by the way? I'd love to be at the level where I could understand 98% or above of the words in advanced texts. French is certainly more transparent than other languages due its similarity to English, but I find false friends have a habit of popping up every now and again and leading me astray. Wishing you a much smoother transition into February, and I hope you and your family shake the tail end of this flu soon! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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