Bjorn TAC 2014 backup

I'm tired of HTLA going down now and then. So I start a backuplog here.

17 December 2013 at 4:16pm | IP Logged [MICROTAG]
Edit:
German: Member of Team Spaß
French: Member of Team Triomphe
Spanish: Observer in Team Lobo
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Edit 2:

Bjorn’s TAC 2012 Team Freutsch

Bjorn’s TAC 2013 Team Schnitzel, French

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This year was not great regarding language learning. Basically I have only been doing Skype-session in German with a German who wants to learn Norwegian. This has been a succcess and I will do the same for French when the time is right.

My main focus will be German and French. I'm also thinking about learning Spanish since it is a big chance that I will visit Spain this year. But I'm afraid that I will mix French and Spanish.

And English also needs to be improved.

Already member of the French Team and waiting for the German Team to appear.

Edited by Bjorn on 01 January 2014 at 2:41pm

18 December 2013 at 12:11am | IP Logged [MICROTAG]
Since I restarted an old hobby, hiking, I will try to have a mobile solution using mp3-player, Kindle ebookreader, iPhone and a mini iPad with cellular data.

So my main resources will be subscribing to Babbel and Busuu which have apps for iPad/iPhone. I will also be using Anki as my main flashcard software. I also have Assimil for German and French (and Spanish)

By another member at HTLAL:

18 December 2013 at 9:13am | IP Logged by another member at HTLAL
Great listening to languages while walking. Good luck

By another member at HTLAL:

18 December 2013 at 9:57am | IP Logged Hei Bjørn. Nice to see another Norwegian on the forum.

I don't know what level your French is at, but once you're passed the beginner stage you should not worry to much about mixing French and Spanish. I had had two years of French at school when I started studying Spanish, and I did not have any particular issue with mixing. Although they have a lot in common, they are sufficiently different to be easy to keep apart, both with regard to grammar, spelling and pronunciation.

20 December 2013 at 8:19am | IP Logged [MICROTAG]
.....: Thanks, Greece is a beautiful country, been there several times.

.....: Hei ja, hyggelig.
I had 2 year with French in school, so I think I will go for Spanish. Thanks for the advice.

By another member at HTLAL:
31 December 2013 at 8:14pm | IP Logged
Jeg vil onske deg godt nytt ar og de beste til fransk ditt! Jeg kan hjelpe deg hvis du vil!

31 December 2013 at 10:30pm | IP Logged [MICROTAG]
Merci!

Takk for det, ........ Trenger du hjelp med norsk så bare gi et ord.

Godt nytt år !

01 January 2014 at 3:03pm | IP Logged [MICROTAG]
Wasn't so happy with my iPhone 4, mostly because of a terrible bad battery time. But also the small screen. My eyes is to old for this small screen.
Now I have bought a used Samsung Note 2, what a big and beatiful screen. My eyes say thank you

So now I'm exploring the Andriod apps. Already found Babbel and Busuu. Also found supermemo.net apps, but I had to pay for it again, so I will just continue using supermemo.net app on my mini iPad.

05 January 2014 at 7:57am | IP Logged [MICROTAG]
Strategies for TAC 2014

I have been thinking how I will approach this year regarding learning languages. Something that will suit my personality. And I think I will do following this year:

1. Daily routines
I'm not good at that, but I will need it if I'm going to to some Assimil courses. So I think a sort of "flexible routines" will do the job. By that I mean to be "flexible" in my head so a "method" will not bug me down.

2. Drills
Then I'm stressed and/or tired I find drills to be relaxing. Like repeating thing like vocabulary and so on. Drills are also fine to utilize dead moments during the day.

3. Projects
I like projects. For example to just study German grammar for weekend or so. Projects are the best way for me to learn new thing like grammar.

4. Review
I will try to review my methods and each language every month


Plan for January:

German:
Review Babbel, course and vocabulary
Review Assimil German
Skype session once a week

French:
Babbel, review learned items, learn new one
Assimil French, restart the course

Spanish:
Babbel, learn some vocabulary then time permits

By another member at HTLAL:

06 January 2014 at 3:46pm | IP Logged
Salut, Bjorn!

Happy belated New Year!

Though you may not be fan of daily routines, Duolingo is a gamifying way of learning a language. All three of your languages are available to study. There's a very active discussion forum, helpful natives and an incredible receptive set of staff. They have an android app and it's free and some lessons are available offline, which you could attempt to do whilst hiking (I'd probably walk into a tree). Unlike busuu and babbel, they teach more than vocab drills; you translate whole sentences in the target language and in English and you're also asked to use the learned vocabulary in various types of sentences, so they do stick. I learn better from context, so it's been very productive for me. Hope you try it out.

Meilleurs voeux pour le TAC 2014 et bonne chance!

07 January 2014 at 2:59am | IP Logged [MICROTAG]
........; thanks for the tip about Duolingo, I will try it out.

12 January 2014 at 6:32am | IP Logged [MICROTAG]
My first weekly rapport:
Not so very productive I'm afraid.

First I got sidetracked by starting to watch the serie Games Of Thrones, all 3 seasons
And secondly my iTunes library is broken. Missing a lot of files, so I have to fix it. And that means I will have to dig out my Assimil cd's and import it again to iTunes. And a lot of other files, including Audible-files.

I have done some reviewing of the Babbel German course. Had a Skype session in German. Bought some German bilingual books. I really want to start to read in German.

And also all my mediafiles in Anki is missing.

OK, I have learned the lesson now, today I bought a portable harddisk so I can make a backup of all my language files

Edited by Bjorn on 12 January 2014 at 6:34am

By another member at HTLAL:
12 January 2014 at 5:16pm | IP Logged

I assume you mean "report" in the first line there? Rapport has a very different meaning.

The majority of files on my (currently 8TB capacity) unRAID file server (which I recently
backed up to some external drives so I can keep an offsite backup as well) are technically
language-related since most of it is foreign language media (TV shows, movies, etc. in
Korean, Spanish, Japanese, etc.) as well as actual language learning data (rips of my
Assimil CDs, Pimsleur CDs, Michel Thomas CDs, etc.). I started with just an external HDD to
backup my data (which was stored on my PC), but my collection quickly grew beyond that.

12 January 2014 at 5:58pm | IP Logged [MICROTAG]
Yes, I ment report, "rapport" is Norwegian for report

I was a bit tired then I was writing it.

8 TB is an impressive language collection. I hope my 1 TB ext backup hard disk is good enough for a long time.

By another member at HTLAL:
It feels good to know I am not the only one hoarding treasures on HDDs :-D

Bjorn, I hope you watched the series in a TL ;-)

13 January 2014 at 2:46pm | IP Logged [MICROTAG]
It was in English, it seems to be only English in HBO Nordic.

Last night I read a bit in "Es", German edition of Stephen King "It". I think it's doable for me to read this book. I will read this book every night in bed. I have read the book in Englisch twice and also watched the movie twice, that will help in reading the book in German.

Like I did for English over thirty years ago, I will do the same for German.
I will just read to get in the flow and not locking up words I don't understand. I will only lock up a word if it pops up several times in the text and I get real annoyed about it.

I think I will name it the "Flood-method"
And of course free for everyone to use it

20 January 2014 at 2:44am | IP Logged [MICROTAG]
Weekly report:

German
Read some of the book "Es" by Stephen King on my Kindle Paperwhite.
Some reviewing of Babbel's German course.
Got the Lingq app for the mobile, I really like the GeoAudio travel letters in German. The Lingq app seems a bit buggy, let's hope it will work out ok.

Assimil project is delayed since I will be in the mountains for a week. Haven't had time to restore the iTunes library.

Startup for French and Spanish is delayed until February.

28 January 2014 at 4:28am | IP Logged [MICROTAG]
German:
Still reviewing Babbel German course, reduced my backlog of flashcards with about 1500.
Started to review Busuu German course. Flashcards system at Busuu not so good so I put it in Anki. Had my weekly session on Skype.

I needed some inspiration so I bought this book The Telenovela Method: How to Learn Spanish Online for Free Using Spanish TV, Music, Movies, Comics, Books, and More [Kindle Edition">
Of course it can be used for other language too. Not finished reading it yet, but it seems quite good.

Wanderlust:
OK, so I bought a one year subscription for learning Greek:
I learn Greek

Stupid, I know, but is was only 12 USD

Edit: The website has mobile friendly pages.

Edited by Bjorn on 28 January 2014 at 1:39pm


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01 February 2014 at 7:53pm | IP Logged [MICROTAG]
January Report:
I hadn't studied any language for a year. I had only a weekly session with German through 2013. Even my English skill are weaker now.
This was due to my new revitalized hobby: trekking. I had to read about all the new stuff in this area. And to buy new stuff. I have rented a small cabin (with internet of course)where I will test out the new winter equipment and will try some skiing. It is at least 20 years ago I have been skiing.

The book The Telenovela Method was quite good, gave refreshed view of different learning style. I found it inspired me.

German:
Babbel: Then I started in January the flashcards backlog was 4692, it's now down to 1234. Still not finished reviewing the Babbel course.

Busuu: Started to review the Busuu German course. Also written some German and got it corrected at Busuu. This function of Busuu I really like. Also tested where you speak some German and get some response on it. Seems to work and the feedback was not so bad.

"Es", German edition of It by Stephen King, according to my Kindle, I have read 3 % of the book. Sometimes I'm in the "flow", sometimes not in the "flow". That is ok.
I like the option to look up unknown word in Kindle, I have the Collins Concise German-English Dictionary.

3SAT TV: Started to watch this channel again. I like this TV channel. Often I just let it sound in the background while I'm doing flashcards. I have found it more easy to do flashcards this way, don't know why.

LingQ: Subscribed because I really like those GEO Audio.

French:
Will start with Babbel French Course then there is no flashcards backlog in German.

Spanish: Postponed until Mars

Learning style:
I like to swift between different courses, so I don't get bored. For example in German
I have Babbel, Busuu, LingQ and Assimil.

Thinking of Assimil, my iTunes library is not fixed yet. Have to fix it soon.

Due to my subscription to LingQ, I have a giveaway of 1 month premium LingQ.
The first to post in this log and stating that they want the free premium month, I will send a message with the link

Thanks for reading my log.

Edit: Forgot to say that I archived all the old stuff and therefore I will have a fresh start. I think this is the best way since I hadn't done a review for a hole year.

Edited by Bjorn on 01 February 2014 at 8:19pm