Tag 426

Posted on | May 18, 2012 | No Comments

I’m almost done with RTK3 & I’ve started to do add sentences, which I add from here, to my flashcards. I currently have 42 sentences! What’s working for me is having sentences where there’s one term that I don’t understand.

Back to learning!

Jahr 1

Posted on | March 19, 2012 | No Comments

One year completed. About a hundred kanji left to finish RTK1. I’m thinking about just going directly to RTK 3. I’m eager, however, to begin with sentences!

Beta testers needed

Posted on | March 8, 2012 | No Comments

Remember my idea about an online database of language learning resources? I’ve been working on it. It’s still far from being done, but it’s reached a state where it’s usable.

If you are interested and willing to provide feedback, drop me a note.

Beliefs are opinions that you refuse to change

Posted on | February 28, 2012 | 2 Comments

Believing that you have to finish a book out of some sense of duty.
Believing that the methods you choose are the only good ones.
Believing that learning is associated with suffering.
Believing in listening to the same material over and over.

Beliefs can be dangerous. Experiment, mix, be irrational, do what you feel like doing and most importantly, keep changing .

Tag 330

Posted on | February 12, 2012 | No Comments

What have I been doing lately?

– I spent more than two hours on Saturday speaking to a girl who, while not a native German speaker, has lived in Berlin for 15 years. That was fun!
– Watched “Ziemlich beste Freunde” in German.
– Watched lots of episodes of “Eine schrecklich nette Familie”.
– I’ve been listening to the Harry Potter audiobooks and I’ve recently acquired the Harry Potter movies in German.

In the 330 days I’ve been studying German I’ve only talked the language in two different occasions. My level of understanding in these kind of interactions has been very high. While I’m not too much of a social person, I do like knowing that I can carry out a conversation in German without difficulty. I do make grammar mistakes due to my brain not having enough time to formulate perfect sentences, but I notice most if not all of them.

I’m using the book “Using German Synonyms” to get new sentences. By the way, I lost many of my old ones on my flashcards, so my count went down a bit ^_^. No biggie!

Thinking in German becomes so much easier after having spoken in German for a while!

Tag 321

Posted on | February 3, 2012 | No Comments

Listening to Harry Potter in German. I’m loving the voice of Rufus Beck!

The Game

Posted on | January 28, 2012 | No Comments

Imagine, if you will, a game (I’ve always wanted to use that phrase ). There’s only one rule.

1. Always think in your target language.

If you start thinking in a language that you are not learning, then you lose. Luckily for you there’s infinite continues .

And now let’s play!

Tag 310

Posted on | January 23, 2012 | No Comments

So I’ve been getting things done as usual. Also, I’ve started watching this new series called “Sherlock”, based on the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, but based on the 21st century. It’s really cool and the first season (3 episodes of 90 minutes) can be found in German!

I also wrote a bunch of short stories on lang-8. I just LOVE putting the corrected sentences on my flashcards and learning from them. Also, I feel like my German writing ability has increased considerably .

I ran out of Animorphs books . There’s two reasons why I will probably not order more:

1. It’s only translated until the 30th, so I won’t be able to read the whole series (in German anyway).
2. Some of the books are considered rare, and therefore are quite expensive.

I’ve managed to get some German books on my iPhone about the adventures of a barbarian called Conan. I’ve read a little bit and the level might be slightly higher than what I’m used to, but it’s not that high . So that’s what I’m planning to read next unless I find something else (I’m also thinking about reading Kafka).

By the way, I’ve gotten the first review on my LangUp app. It’s a 5-star review from a russian person, who says he would recommend (at least according to google translate… ^_^). So cool!

To finalize this post, I want to share an extensive list of resources to learn German & Japanese that I found today. LOTS of stuff there:

German -> link
Japanese -> link

Time

Posted on | January 21, 2012 | No Comments

To learn a language (whatever “learning a language” means to you) you need to spend a specific amount of seconds in that language. Every day we get 86400 seconds. We spend about 28800 sleeping, so that leaves us with 57600 seconds (16 hours). IF it takes a year to learn a language (and I mean a TOTAL of one year of learning, not 365 days in which you sleep and eat and learn), you’ll have achieved your particular flavor of fluency in 1 year, 6 months, 15 days, 15 hours and 25 minutes if you spend every waking hour exposed to your target language. Now here’s some nicely formatted data:

[Assuming a year of learning/exposure to acquire fluency in a language]
16 hours a day exposed to your target language:: Takes 1 year and 6 months to learn it.
15 hours a day exposed to your target language: Takes 1 year, 7 months and 6 days to learn it.
14 hours a day exposed to your target language: Takes 1 year, 8 months and 17 days to learn it.
13 hours a day exposed to your target language: Takes 1 year, 10 months and 4 days to learn it.
12 hours a day exposed to your target language: Takes 2 years.

So one hour of learning less every day can increase the time until we learn our language for a bit more than a month. I can’t stress the importance of daily exposure enough! Dust off your headphones and get that sweet tune into your head. Make sure you’ve always got some foreign language exposure going on. If you’re reading English stuff, listen to your target language. If you’re listening to English stuff, read in your target language! Preferably listen and read your target language at the same time . And if you can’t live without that English-speaking tv show, do flashcards reviews while you watch it!

Das Ende

The different phases of learning a language

Posted on | January 20, 2012 | No Comments

I have experienced these phases during my 305 days of language learning. Once I start focusing on Japanese I want to do them again with some improvements .

0. Phase minus one:

You haven’t started learning your language yet; you’re looking for resources and materials to learn.

1. Phase zero:

You’ve found something that works and you are using it. There’s a lot to learn and your vocabulary is increasing rapidly. You do great progress at this phase, since there’s so much you don’t know. Grammar is a pain in the ass.

2. Phase one:

You’ve acquainted yourself with the basic vocabulary. Now you’re learning more advanced vocabulary, but slower than in phase zero.

You listen to your target language, but you miss most of what’s said. You can read, but you miss many things.

. In this phase you start to notice patterns. You start getting interested in word endings and conjugations and you look at grammar explanations.

3. Phase two:

Still slowly learning new vocabulary. Listening to your target language becomes a natural process (aka: your brain doesn’t think it’s weird anymore and you can understand quite a lot). Also, you can read entire books in your target language seamlessly (you might not understand every word, but you get the story just fine).

4. Phase three:
I’m still working to get here ^_^. You can understand most of the language, written and spoken and you can formulate complex sentences fluently.

5. Phase four
Fluency. You’re almost as good as like a native.

6. Phase five
Mastery (My goal). You can speak and write better than a native.

For when I learn Japanese I want to use LWT (for phase one and thereafter) and make sure I use Japanese to Japanese flashcards from day one!