Judith's language learning blog

I just realized that I never posted my summary of 2011… sorry for that.
This is a personal report, no language-learning wisdom I’m afraid.

I just spent some thought on what my goals for 2012 should be, and how I want to go about them. Here’s what I came up with, also noting my current level:

Mandarin Chinese
Currently, I can read a modern Chinese book if the style isn’t too literary and I’d understand what’s going on, but it’s not enjoyable for me. I can also have a 45-minute conversation in Chinese, but I’m often missing words, I stumble over words and make too many mistakes. By the end of 2012, I want to be able to do both in a more enjoyable manner.
Method:
* Reading “Confessions of a Shopaholic” in Chinese-English parallel and entering colloquial expressions from there into Anki
* Listening-Reading “Mr Ma and Son”, which I have already read but for which I now found an audiobook
* Reading or Listening-Reading the modern Chinese novels which I brought back from the USA
* Reading the Chinese-only novels I found in Berlin
* Watching episodes from the new Romance of the Three Kingdoms TV series and from 家有儿女
* Mastering the song 中国话 by S.H.E, which is fast and full of tongue twisters
* Hopefully lots of talking!

Finnish
Due to a challenge I couldn’t resist, I will spend 45 hours on Finnish in February, despite it being nowhere on my hit list. Right now, I have zero knowledge of Finnish and it will be interesting to see where I’ll be at the end of the month… and where the others will be.
Method: mostly Assimil in conjunction with Anki, occasionally talking to a tutor for confirmation, possibly looking over other courses, children’s books or videos in order to keep up interest.

French
I can read any piece of French literature, including really old stuff, and my listening comprehension is also really good, but I feel that my active usage of French is lagging behind. I would also really love to exchange my German accent for a Québécois one. So my goal is to develop a good accent in 2012 and to reach a mistake quotient of less than 1/100 words. I shall also keep reading French classics.
Method:
* Talking to any Québécois who doesn’t run away fast enough
* Writing texts on lang-8 where they can be corrected
* Learning to imitate at least one recording of fast Québécois French
* Reading at least one French book per month

Indonesian & Korean
These were actually next on my list of languages to learn (I only know the Korean alphabet, and did a few lessons of Indonesian some years ago), but for now they’re taking a back seat to Finnish and Japanese. We shall see if there’s time, maybe in the second half of the year. For Indonesian I wanted to try out a translation-based course I have, and for Korean I just got Assimil Korean as a Christmas present.

Italian / Dutch / Spanish
I can read all of these with ease and make myself understood in conversations, but it’s more a case of make-believe than actual ability at this point (my Italian is full of Spanish and vice versa). I’d like to find time to work on one of these languages in particular and acquire real fluency in it. For that, I first have to find a language partner though.

Modern Greek
I’m happy with my ability to read Greek novels, but my speaking ability used to be better. Hopefully I shall have the chance to re-activate it at some point in 2012.

Japanese
I know zero Japanese at the moment, and I would love to be able to understand enough spoken Japanese in order to follow along in “Hikaru no Go” without the subtitles. Apart from that, it would be awesome to be able to watch Japanese Go lectures or Go TV. I am not interested in learning the written language because it would probably interfere with my knowledge of Chinese characters, which were difficult enough to acquire.
Method:
* Studying a quick course called “Le japonais tout de suite”
* Memorizing 600 of the most useful words
* Watching anime
* Whatever else I can come up with

Swahili
To my greatest regret, I stopped studying Swahili after completing 100 lessons of Assimil’s passive wave and 50 lessons of the active wave. In 2012, I intend to complete the rest of the active wave, assess my abilities then for the purpose of the experiment, and then start wildly using any materials I can get my hands on. My goal is to be able to comfortable read my collection of Swahili poems as well as understand Swahili audio news.
Method:
* Completing Assimil
* Scanning “Essential Swahili” and other courses I have lying around
* Creating & using Listening-Reading materials on the basis of Deutsche Welle’s “Learning By Ear”
* Reading the “Little Prince”, some children’s books and my advanced reader in Swahili
* Listening to news broadcasts

My goals for the year – and a handy tool for you.

A personal blog post – no language-learning wisdom, just a report of what I did and where I stand now.

Developing your foreign language vocabulary has to be the most critical part of learning any foreign language. Without vocabulary, grammar is absolutely useless, and practice impossible. Also, very often vocabulary is the biggest hurdle when trying to understand fun authentic materials in your target language, and vocabulary is the biggest issue going from intermediate to advanced level (and beyond).

Well, I’m addicted to learning vocabulary. Yes, addicted is the right word. I can’t go a day without. It’s too much fun. How? I will tell you, but I want you to first promise that you’ll give it a try. I suggested this tip to many people, and most were skeptical at first, but those who tried it still randomly come up and thank me for it. It changed the way they learn languages.

… a continuation from part 1.

Here I will cover how to improve your pronunciation, reading comprehension, listening comprehension, writing, speaking and anything else.

Are you interested in language learning? If you’re reading this blog, then probably yes. However, I’m sure that you’re not aware just how much the internet can help you in learning languages. My favorite resources below – this is going to be a lengthy post…

A personal blog post – no language-learning wisdom, just a report of what I did and where I stand now.

I handed in my last two university essays (minus the final thesis) during this time and celebrated my birthday, both of which took away some of my traditional study time. Most notably, I had left my mp3 player in Berlin and was prevented from doing much Assimil. On the bright side, I read a lot of Greek Harry Potter, found a Greek reader for Greek kids, and had quite a few Chinese lessons with my online tutor.

Chinese: 16 hours!!! This was totally not my plan, considering Chinese is not a focus language. However, I’m not complaining, because I was enjoying myself. I’m using a different Anki deck now, a huge, well-designed one kindly provided by forum member irrationale. I suspended a lot of easy words of course and I’m prioritizing or adding words to the deck based on my Boya Chinese lessons and the Skype classes. In this time I’ve studied 1636 new words in that deck (and 232 leftover ones in my old HSK words deck, which I’m abandoning).

French: 6 hours. Not good, but I DID write one of my essays completely in French.

Greek: 11 hours, mostly reading. Only 2 new Assimil Greek lessons, so I’m now on Assimil lesson 79.

Swahili: 1 hour. Really awful. Only 1 new Assimil Swahili lesson, so I’m on Assimil lesson 52 now. I found that Assimil really isn’t very useful if you’re not using the recordings.

I’m now debating what to do after June, as normally I should be switching focus languages then. I might do Swahili intensively if Assimil can be done intensively. Arabic would also be an alternative, since for Arabic I’m not planning to use Assimil. I’m also interested in doing a Listening-Reading experiment with Russian, but only for two weeks or so.

I’m unhappy with my progress in weeks 20 and 21 of my quest, except for what I did for Greek and Swahili.

Chinese: 3 hours; learned 212 new HSK words in Anki. On the bright side, I now have Anki on my boyfriend’s iPhone, so that reviewing while lounging on the couch or while commuting is an awesome prospect. I’m tempted to get an iPhone or iPod Touch for myself just because of this.

French: 3 hours.

Greek: 10 hours; 4 new lessons, so now on Assimil lesson 77. My Myngle flat rate for Greek lessons is over, so I will be able to focus more on other materials, but I’m afraid of my conversation skill deteriorating too quickly.

Swahili: 4 hours; 5 new lessons, now I’m on Assimil lesson 51. Active wave, yay!

Esperanto and Spanish: Almost nothing, since that trip to Argentina is not looking so likely now.