Bjorn TAC 2014 backup

By another member at HTLAL:
Thanks for the recommendation of the Telenovela Method book. Its principles could undoubtedly be applied to any language. Maybe you want to post about it in the general area? Although there are a lot of people on here who could probably have written it themselves...

02 February 2014 at 12:14am | IP Logged [MICROTAG]
Sorry, not today, I got a hangover from going out last two days. I'm really to old for this kind of activities. Reviewing flashcards goes really slow today.

Here is a free Kindle book for learning German:


How to Speak German in 90 Days: A Comprehensive Guide for Beginners [Kindle Edition">
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06 February 2014 at 3:25am | IP Logged [MICROTAG]
My iTunes is up and running now. Still adding files to it.

German:
Babbel German vocabulary down to 1100 now, I have taken a break, only reviewing the new one that comes every day. The rest of those flashcards consists of sentences, I will wait with the rest until I'm finished with reviewing Babbel course.

Also started with reviewing Busuu German course.

"Es" by Stephen King, I'm close to 4 % read now. Hey, it's a long book.

Started to write in German. I'm really bad at this, so I thought it was time for some grammar. And I don't like grammar.
I'm using this book, found it quite easy to understand, but of course I need to read it several times and work with it.
Easy Learning German Grammar (Collins Easy Learning German) (German Edition) [Kindle Edition">

Besides writing at Busuu, I have made a new contact with another German who want to learn Norwegian. We send small text to each other via email to be corrected.

French:
Started to review Babbel French flashcards, the backlog was 1567 flashcards then I started.
Assimil French soon to be started

12 February 2014 at 8:45am | IP Logged [MICROTAG]
German
My backlog of 4692 flashcards at Babbel is now zero, null, nada, nothing, ingenting, borte vekk, puh....
I expect to use 1-2 hour each day reviewing theme for a week or two.
Hadn't done a review for over a year.

Most of the reviewing of the Babbel courses done.
Some reviewing at Busuu.

LingQ app on my Samsung mobile did'nt work, but seems to work ok on my mini iPad.
Started to listen to GEOaudio, I really loves those travel letters.

Since I'm done with the backlog of German flashcards, I rewarded myself by watching the film The King's Speech, German: Die rede des königs with German subtitles.
I found it quite interesting using German subtitles, audio and subtitles are not always the same, but in this way you get "synonyms" for what is happening in the film.

Skype and email exchange as usual.

Next will be more German grammar, I really need to learn it.

French
After the work of reviewing German flashcards, I decided to delete all my 1600 or something French flashcards and make a new fresh start with Babbel.
I'm a bit tired of hardcore flashcard reviewing now.

Assimil French course postphoned until further notice since I will travel.
It's a pity that Assimil don't make apps of their courses. That would be nice.

Started to watch TV5 Monde, they have French and English subtitles.
This time, for French I will only use French subtitles. Even if I don't understand everything of it, I think it can be useful for connecting sound and word together.
It's just en experiment.

22 February 2014 at 2:14am | IP Logged [MICROTAG]
It has been a hard week, Netflix released season 2 of House of Cards. Of course I had to see it, all at once
But still I'm quite happy with my efforts regarding language study.

German
Babbel German, vocabulary of nearly 4700 word and sentence, the backlog is zero, in spite of a longer break because of House of cards.

Started to use iTalki.com and have now more Germans to speak with via Skype.

I'm so bad with German grammar that i now take lessons from a teacher at iTalki. My mind like to "überfliegen" what ever topic it reads, my mind is not so found of all the little details in this world. I got homework and that force me to read Collins German grammar book, that is good.

As an award I saw the movie Gladiator with German audio and subtitles.

French
I found out that Assimil sell a digital version of New French With Ease, the so called E-method. So I bought it, and now have this course on my Mac and in a book.
So I have changed my mind, I will now use New French With Ease book/E-method and Babbel French from now on.
I will start the Assimil course on Monday, Babbel is good then I travel, the hole course is on my mobile.

I think that Mars/April will be mostly German Grammar. I want to nail this down.

26 February 2014 at 10:23pm | IP Logged [MICROTAG]
German
Getting a bit tired of German now
Babbel German vocabulary, about 300 words/sentence to review each day.
Trying to read German grammar, quite boring really. Men luckily I have lessons with a good teacher at iTalki.

Have been looking for a German verb trainer and settled for this:
Verben - German Verb Trainer
I will use it on my mini iPad, since I didn't find any for my android mobile that I liked.

A good thing is that I now chat with three nice Germans on Skype.

French
Haven't done anything in French.
Due to much hard work with German.
I needed more fun in language learning and found out, after some search on internet I found this interactive software:
Ouino French

I like the way they built this French course. It's just like playing a game and having some fun and learning a language at the same time.

So I bought it, sadly they have no apps for ios or android. Only desktop, PC and MAC.
A least I have some fun while at home.

09 March 2014 at 12:15pm | IP Logged [MICROTAG]
German
Still busy with German grammar.

French
Had some fun with Ouino French

Spanish
Okei, I also bought Ouino Spanish. It's on offer now.

Hiking
I've been thinking about what I should be taking with me.
Not sure yet, Assimil?
Learn in Your Car series seems to be nice.

16 March 2014 at 8:03am | IP Logged [MICROTAG]
German
Up to date with Babbel German Review, it's under 100 reviews now per day. Thank You!
Still struggling with German Grammar, so many little details to remember. I'm using flashcards software to solve this problem. Still taking internett lessons in German Grammar. I got homeworks and that force me to read the grammar book
Had Skype conversations
Watching 3SAT tv.

Been thinking about how I should activate speaking German. I forget things. Maybe using a mindmap then I am on Skype? Had a look at Learn in Your Car German. Seems nice and I will try it out for activating speaking German then I'm walking.


French
Up to date with Babbel French Review.
I'm taking Babbel French Course slowly, I don't want so many reviews these days
Watching tv5 Monde Europe
I have now one potential contact for Skype conversisation
Ouino French still fun to use.

Spanish
Ouino Spanish are ready for me then I got some time

Interference
I tend to write with German style in English:
"contackt" in stead of "contact"
"schall" in stead of "shall"
and so on..

Then I got time, I will brush up English a bit.

Wandering
Greek: I have been a bad boy, 30 minutes with Greek.

Edited by Bjorn on 16 March 2014 at 8:05am

21 March 2014 at 4:10pm | IP Logged [MICROTAG]
Bought the movie Kundun, comes with audio in English, German, French and Spanish. Waiting for it to arrive in the mail.
I really love this film.

Still trying to find the best solutions for a mobile learning with a mobile, ipad and an ipod. Since I'm not using a iphone any longer, but a Samsung, i miss some options to synchronize between the units.

Rediscovered Memrise. It is much nicer now and the website is not so slow that is was some years ago. And the android app is working fine.

German
Up to date with Babbel German Review, it's under 50 reviews now per day.
Still working with German grammar
Watching 3SAT tv.

French
Up to date with Babbel French Review.
Watching some tv5 Monde Europe
Playing with Ouino French

31 March 2014 at 2:42pm | IP Logged [MICROTAG]
Almost finish with my mobile solution. Not easy to find a pdf-reader that reflow text like with an Epub reader. But
Polaris pdf-reader do. So my mobile solution will be with the pdf and mp3 files then I don't have an internet
connection.

I really like Readlang, seems to be working fine on my mobile. So now I'm
a lifetime member. Combined with my mp3 files, it will do the trick. Since I have given up the Lingq app. This will
only work then I have acccess to internet. But that will do for now.

GERMAN
This has been a movie week.
I have seen the following movies/series all with German audio and German subtitles:
Kundun
Rome, complete collection
Last Samurai

German grammar: 2 more lesson with a teacher and I will take a break. In April I will practice German grammar
and trying to remember all the rules.

Speaking: I have weekly Skype sessions, speaking German. And leicht-
deutsch-lernen.com/, practicing speaking German when walking. He is funny and making me laugh.

I have been thinking about how to organize my Skype sessions better. I'm trying out this software
Scapple. It seems easy to use, and most important, it is
quick to enter some text. You can also connect different text snippets together like you do in a mindmap app.

FRENCH
I'm a bit tired of the way I have been learning German. So I will take an another approach with French.
Inspired by this log
Bootstrapping
Turkish by Bakunin
I will use Francais Authentique with pdf files. He has a voice I
can listen to for hours without getting a headache.
As a backup I will have Assimil Easy French. In case I'm not so good with the immersion. I was planning to OCR
the book, but I found a pdf file of it on internet.

Edited by Bjorn on 31 March 2014 at 2:53pm
1 person has voted this message useful

07 April 2014 at 5:13pm | IP Logged [MICROTAG]
Have done some study in German and French. But not so much as I wanted.

Had to buy a new Mac, the old one started to be real slow now, and often hanging. I don't complain, the old one
is over 3 years old.
Transferring software, and while I'm at it, looking for new software that can be helpful for me regarding language
learning. The work is done now. Thank you!

Also finish with my project : Learning languages while mountain hiking
It will be a combination of: cellular phone, iPod nano, mini iPad and a Kindle.
If I want to hike real light I will only take with me a cell phone and the iPod nano.
And of course I got weather protection for them all.

I have already lost one iPod so now I have a Griffin Courier Clip2 for iPod nano, should to the trick.

I have a Kindle Paperwhite 1st generation and I discovered that it was an update for it, so now the Kindle has a
Vocabulary Builder

I have finished my German grammar Skype lessons with a teacher. It was a good teacher.
The main reason to take lesson was to force me to read German grammar since I got homework to do.
Now I'm actually enjoying reading grammar, believe it or not. I even bought a grammar book for Norwegian, my
native language.

This course I find really helpful, comes with video and pdf files. It covers A1-B1. I got inspired by this course then
I was really struggling with the German grammar.
Smarter German

Wandering
Vietnamese 1 hour

Okay, English also needs some maintenance, seeing the new episode in Game of Thrones, episode 1, season 4.

Edited by Bjorn on 07 April 2014 at 5:22pm

13 April 2014 at 2:53pm | IP Logged [MICROTAG]
Had to slow down a bit this week because of headache.

German
Usual stuff like Skype sessions, reviviewing German vocabulary etc

French
Immersion phase now, mostly at bedtime.

16 April 2014 at 8:24pm | IP Logged [MICROTAG]
In May I'm going to Spain.

Thinking about if I should do German and French at a bare minimum, and do a crash course in Spanish, either by some audio course or a Spanish teacher at iTalki.com.

Also been thinking about improving my spoken English. I'm bit torn between American English and British English pronunciation. Of course I could just continue with my nice Norwegian English

Lingq has a new update for their app for ios. It's now working again and it is much nicer now. So now I will be using it again.

Ok. Your Bergen roots do show. Good work I am impressed by your use of technology. I am a total dinosaur, I do not even know how I am on these forums

Your flood method should fit in nicely with the Super Challenge by the way, have you considered joining? It starts in just a few days now.

OK, I'm over the spring fatigue now, or whatever it was. I'm ready for new adventure now.

Lingq app for ios seems to be working now. But I hadn't had a chance to explore its feature yet.

Thanks for Solfrid Christina's explanation about the Superchallenge on this forum, I decided to join. Basically I will do LR with a german edition of Stephen Kings book It (german: Es) . The audio is about 50 hours if I remember correctly. I have read the book in english before og have seen the movie.

I discovered a place for learning difference tings, also some languages courses. The place is https://www.udemy.com
Since they now have a discount of 75 % of nearly all the courses. I bought some
Recently I have found out it is nice and quite relaxing to watch video, streaming it to my TV, learning something instead of watching a dumb TV show.
They also have apps for ios and android.

I have read Big_Dog's articles about Synenergy and have found out I need more knowledge and training in pronunciation, both German, French and English. I have neglected it for too long.

The Cloze bug in Anki has been fixed now, so I will be using it again. It's the only flash card app that has Cloze that I know about.

I have decided to update my log here and just put a link on HTLAL forum.
There is a lot talk about the future of HTLAL there. I will just wait and see what emk/Iversen will do.

I changed my mind a bit. I will write german only at my log at HTLAL. I really need some practice in writing german.

Ok, I am in holiday mood now. Not much studying now. I think I am only taking with me a mp3 player and the Kindle. And of course my mobile.
If I got the time I will convert some pdf files to mobi format so I can read it on my Kindle.

Today I bought the complete series of Friends. It has audio in English. German, French and Spanish.

I like this serie, never get tired of it.

It will be 3-4 weeks for next update of this log.

Ah.. Ferie, ferie, ferie.....
Sol, varme... og øl

Back from holiday.

German
Super Challenge: Done 70 % LR of Stephen King "Es" (English "It"), the audiobook is almost 50 hours and the book is 1536 pages.
Time to start some german grammar reading again. Still confused about the different cases.
Make a plan to be better in speaking the language.
And a plan for writing better in German.

French
Have done a lot semi active/semi passive listening to different sources of French, the purpose was to soften the start of learning french.
Have to decide which course I will use and how. I don't like daily routine.

In your German-language log, I put some suggestions for correction. Please take them with a giant grain of salt since I'm not a native speaker. You are being an excellent example by writing your log in German. Lang-8 is a good place to get corrections from native speakers, though it has a lot of people who are speakers of Asian languages.