TraineePolyglot Newbie Australia Joined 6507 days ago 13 posts - 13 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian
| Message 9 of 40 12 December 2007 at 11:02pm | IP Logged |
Having just come back to this forum and my language studies, I would also like to add my appreciation for the time management thread. I noticed that there were no replies and I was worried the posts might stop, but I could think of nothing intelligent to say.
On the topic of appreciation, I must say that I wholeheartedly appreciate your posts, Professor. They are very informative, and it is a rare pleasure to read such well-written posts on the internet!
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Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6398 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese
| Message 10 of 40 15 December 2007 at 10:41pm | IP Logged |
ProfArguelles wrote:
Now I understand why there has been so little feedback to the much-requested time management thread: I have launched into a tedious theoretical monologue when you all just want to see my charts. |
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I have been reading your time management thread, and wouldn't describe it as tedious. I merely have not had anything intelligent to say or ask in response to it, and have thus remained silent.
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ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7215 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes
| Message 11 of 40 16 December 2007 at 8:15pm | IP Logged |
If my thoughts on the principles of time management are indeed of interest, then perhaps I will write some more there should we run out of steam in describing the ideal academy.
As for showing you all some charts, since a very straightforward three-step procedure was offered, I will endeavor to follow it. If I succeed, you will get some charts next week as a slightly early Christmas present. I will try my best, but I make no promises because, although I know I should, I do not have a website, and I have never uploaded an image, used an image hosting service, or posted a link before. Please have another solution on hand should I be defeated.
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gidler Senior Member Finland Joined 6582 days ago 109 posts - 118 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Finnish*
| Message 12 of 40 23 December 2007 at 1:29pm | IP Logged |
Greetings everyone,
Professor Arguelles has provided this interesting Excel chart. If anyone has trouble accessing it, feel free to contact me.
Update 1: I made a PDF of the chart in case someone has no access to suitable Excel viewer software
Update 2: a PNG image file of the chart, with "hidden" rows visible (not made by me)
Edited by gidler on 04 January 2008 at 4:17am
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ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7215 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes
| Message 13 of 40 23 December 2007 at 5:28pm | IP Logged |
I have sent copies of my study chart for 2007 to Mr. Määttä, who kindly offered to find a way to let the rest of you view them as well.
After so much expectation and wait, almost anything is bound to be rather disappointing, but I hope these are indeed of some use to somebody. For me, keeping such charts is a real way to keep my balance, direction, and perspective. The even numbers are due to the fact that I have placed certain languages in alternating cycles so that they receive equal attention. By updating such a record daily, I know exactly what I have done, and what I need to do, to evenly distribute my mental energies in order to attain specific goals.
My current main goal is to maintain a steady rate of progress across the board in the “scriptorium.” This is the term I use to describe the activity of transcribing classic texts by hand while simultaneously reading them aloud. I measure this in “pages,” (each page being 25 lines in a bound book whose pages measure 15.5 cm by 21.5 cm), which I convert to “hours” at a rate of 15 minutes/page. My other activities I measure directly in time. I make the entries at the level of the individual languages, but as I am much more concerned with the level of the family, the most important lines to me are rows 123-138.
My second most important activity falls under the heading of “narrative” and includes reading and listening to recorded books.
“Analysis” covers the comparative study of grammar, pattern drill practice, dictionary work, etc.
I keep the “shadowing” column out of habit, but I could and probably should subsume this under the former column as “phonetic analysis” for simplicity’s sake. I stand by shadowing as the most efficacious means of study in the earlier stages of developing a relationship with a language, but I am simply now at a different stage of the game.
Noting that I am hovering around 9 hours of total study time per day, I also have to note that that number comes up so often as to seem to be of some significance. However, I am not satisfied with it, and in order to do justice to all that I would like to do justice to, I would really need 12 hours a day—or at least 10.5. As it is, I do get that on some lucky days, while even on the busiest I generally get at least 6 (5 in the dawn hours to myself from 0300 to 0800, and another 1 or 1.5 while commuting), and thus it balances out to the aforementioned 9.
If you are one of those who were so interested in seeing these charts and you would care to adapt them and use them to monitor your own progress, then please feel free to do so. I think this would be a good New Year’s resolution for any apprentice polyglot who wishes to work more systematically.
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jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6868 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map
| Message 14 of 40 23 December 2007 at 5:51pm | IP Logged |
I want to thank Professor Arguelles for sharing the chart (and Gilder for hosting it and making it public). Indeed, this could be a good New Year’s resolution. I have recently started to keep record of my studies, and seeing this chart... this is what I needed. Thanks again.
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Nephilim Diglot Senior Member Poland Joined 7104 days ago 363 posts - 368 votes Speaks: English*, Polish
| Message 15 of 40 24 December 2007 at 6:23am | IP Logged |
A picture, as they say, is worth a thousand words. Great to see the professor's chart - very inspiring. Also, thanks to Gilder for making it possible for us to share. Gilder, are those colours your own or are they the original ones in the professors chart? They are very striking. ;-)
Anyway, having seen the chart I think it's time to start considering New Year's Resolutions. Hopefully this time they will extend beyond January.
Merry Xmas to everybody in this forum.
Nephilim
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24karrot Diglot Groupie United States speakingboricua.blog Joined 6343 days ago 72 posts - 74 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Russian
| Message 16 of 40 24 December 2007 at 10:02am | IP Logged |
That chart is quite frankly... astonishing. Thank you so much for sharing!
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