A language learners’ forum

Dear native or advanced speaker,

Please forgive me, as I'm going to murder your language. Nevertheless, I know that you have a beautiful soul and that you're willing to correct my mistakes. And for that, I'll be eternally grateful.

Aujourd'hui, maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pais. Attend... Je croix que maman est morte depuis le jeudi. Quand est-ce que maman est morte? Le lundi à la première heure je suis sorti avec mon chien. Le mardi j'ai peint mon maison...
J'ai reçu un télégramme d l'asile: "Mère décédée. Enterrement demain" et j'ai lui a demandé a mon maman: "Tu sais que c'est ça?" mais elle n'a pas répondu rien, parce que elle est en train de manger et mon maman est une personne très polie. "Non, mon fils, je n'ai sais pas". "Tu veux aller à l'enterrement, de toute façon?" "Oui, je croix que ça pourrait être amusant".

Você terá que me desculpar pelos muitos erros, mais eu tenho a intenção de começar a escrever em outras línguas. Eu não sei se poderei fazer isso, mais "é a intençao que conta".

Och vi måste försöka eller scriva lite på svenska också! Jaha, vad kan man säga? Kanske kan jag prata lite om min dag? Men mina dagar är samma som vanligt: jag gör Assimil på tyska, efter studerar jag italienska (Assimil också) och senare försöker jag att gör lite på svenksa eller på andra språk. Men det finns inte tid för alltid, eller hur?

Word of advice: write all your posts first in a .doc (or odt) offline document first, so if by any chance you don't press "submit" here, you'll have the material for later. This is the only thing that can save you from computer crashes, mysterious 404 errors and migrating to other forums, if it's really necessary. It's also an easy way of sharing your thoughts, to just copy paste it and send it to someone that might (or might not, but you send it nevertheless) be interested in what you have to say.

Traducción de "häftig" al español de Argentina (de acuerdo al Lexin): "monono". Mmm... creo que vamos a usar "increíble" mejor.

If you're learning a language for which there's a lack of resources, you can go to https://www.livelingua.com/dli-language-courses.php
You'll find high quality free resources for Iraqi, Syrian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Haitian, Maranao and Tausug, among other languages.

You have also there the complete FSI courses and the Peace Corps manuals.

Have you heard of "Direct Instruction" programs (Siegfried Engelmann)? Michel Thomas courses are based in this approach. Also, the courses from Paul Noble and the free and excellent http://www.languagetransfer.org/, which is and ongoing project and currently covers introduction to Turkish, Arabic and English; complete Spanish and Greek. I've only used the English-Spanish course (as I'm teaching English to my mother) and I've seen it's excellent.

More about Direct Instruction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_Instruction

I've used through the years the following methods: Assimil, Pimsleur, Michel Thomas, Teach Yourself, FSI, Glossika and language specific books, such as Rivstart B1/B2 for Swedish. The ones that have worked best for me are Assimil (+Anki) and Michel Thomas, although I've a great respect for FSI and although it's unlikely that I'll learn Chinese and/or Arabic someday, I'd probably go straight to FSI for those languages, as the modules are really, really complete. I've heard great reviews from Linguaphone, but I've never used it.

Great links! Thanks for them. You're a fountain of knowledge.

I'm going to start copying here the corrections that I receive from Lang8, as perhaps working with the texts here will help me to understand better my mistakes and to remember more.

PORTUGUESE

Original line: É a intençao que conta /
Correction: É a intenção que conta. That was just a typo, but nevertheless a mistake.

Você terá que me desculpar pelos muitos erros, mais eu tenho a intenção de começar a escrever em outras línguas.
Você terá que me desculpar pelos muitos erros, mas eu tenho a intenção de começar a escrever em outras línguas.

Mais (más): Em maior quantidade.
Mas (pero): Designativa de oposição

Eu não sei se poderei fazer isso, mas "é a intenção que conta". /Again I wrote "inteção" with "a" and not "ã". Ok, perhaps not a typo.

They also wrote "Vocês terão" instead of "você terá" but I just wanted to adress one person in particular, so I'll stick here to my original phrase.

Como a audiência do Lang-8 é grande, imagino que mais de uma pessoa vá ler o que você escreve... Não está errado, mas soa esquisito. Em geral, blogs escrevem para o plural (vocês).

"Esquisito" is "strange" in Portuguese. In Spanish exquisito means something completely different: delicious or too refined.

Another correction: they changed "poderei" for "conseguirei" and the order of the last phrase "o que vale é a intenção".
Eu não sei se poderei conseguirei fazer isso, mais "o que vale é a intenção".

Also, "pois" instead of "mas", but I think the corrector here's being too strict. Or perhaps I'm the denial phase of language learning and I just don't want to let go of my "mas".
Neste caso deves usar uma conjunção explicativa, o qual é, uma palavra que indica uma justificativa ou uma explicação referente ao fato expresso na declaração anterior. Deste tipo de conjunção temos: que, porque e pois.

So the corrected text would be (I'm rewritting here word for word):

Vocês terão que me desculpar pelos muitos erros, pois eu tenho a intenção de començar a escrever em outras línguas.
Eu não sei se poderei fazer isso, mais "o que vale é a intenção".

Just two lines provided all the previous commentaries. This took me 033 minutes to write and check.

Now let's go to French. I hope that I least the parts that I copied literally from Camus are ok.

FRENCH

Original

Aujourd'hui, maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pais. Attend... Je croix que maman est morte depuis le jeudi. Quand est-ce que maman est morte? Le lundi à la première heure je suis sorti avec mon chien. Le mardi j'ai peint mon maison... J'ai reçu un télégramme d l'asile: "Mère décédée. Enterrement demain" et j'ai lui a demandé a mon maman: "Tu sais que c'est ça?" mais elle n'a pas répondu rien, parce que elle est en train de manger et mon maman est une personne très polie. "Non, mon fils, je n'ai sais pas". "Tu veux aller à l'enterrement, de toute façon?" "Oui, je croix que ça pourrait être amusant".

What's wrong with the previous text?

1) Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas. /I wrote "pais" instead of "pas". I'm going to use my typo card here.
2) Attends instead of "attend".
3) Je crois que maman est morte depuis jeudi. /Crois is correct; "croix" is nothing. Also I wrote "depuis le jeudi" and it's just "depuis jeudi".
4) Le mardi j'ai peint ma maison... /I missed the femenine: "mon maison". To remember: it's the same as in Spanish "la casa", "la maison", "ma maison".
5) et j'ai demandé à ma maman: "Tu sais que c'est ça?" mais elle n'a rien répondu, parce qu'elle est en train de manger et ma maman est une personne très polie.
So we have
5.1 j'ai demandé à ma maman;
5.2 elle n'a rien répondu;
5.3 parce qu'elle
6) Non, mon fils, je ne sais pas.
7) Tu veux aller à l'enterrement, de toute façon?" "Oui, je crois que ça pourrait être amusant". /Crois again.

Corrected version (just the "original" parts):

Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas. Attends. Quand est-ce que maman est morte? Le lundi à la première heure je suis sorti avec mon chien. Je crois que maman est morte depuis jeudi. Le mardi j'ai peint ma maison. Et j'ai demandé à ma maman: Tu sais que c'est ça? mais elle n'a rien répondu, parce qu'elle est en train de manger et ma maman est une personne très polie.

The French correction took only 11 minutes, to check and rewrite.

I'm still waiting for the Swedish version, so if anyone sees this message, jag behöver dig.

Now I have to pay with three corrections in Spanish, just to be fair.

The corrections in Spanish at lang8 took me 016 minutes. I mostly see Japanese and Korean guys learning the language (not just now, but always). Do you know if there's a special interest for Spanish in that region of the world?

This is not strictly about language learning, but perhaps it can be useful to somebody here. It's the memory method that I developed during my Faculty years. Before that, a short article about interleaving: http://j2jenkins.com/2013/04/29/interle ... technique/

Word of advice: I studied Law and the method was designed to aim at memorize Law cases, so it might not work as well in other disciplines. Other disciplines that I've studies are from the Humanities and Social Sciences (History, Political Science, Economy, International Relations).

I'd go directly to the material, without doing separate synthesis (as typing an extract of the text that you need to memorize).

First, is there something that you can discard, that it's unlikely that you'll be tested on the exam? Then discard that, so you can focus in the matters that are certainly going to enter in the test. If you have older classmates, you could try asking them which are usual questions in those tests.

Use three colored markers to mark the text: blue, orange, green. Titles go in blue, subdivisions in orange and later subdivisions in green. That is going to help you to visuallize better the pages as you review them later, and to detect key concepts that you must know.

You need time, so cut all non-vital activities for two weeks, if you have a test in two weeks and that's the only time that you have to study.

Try to take notes as small as possible, to have a big picture of what the author(s) is discussing. For example, when I had to take a test on different Economist that were part of the same school, I draw this: https://imgur.com/sXzIfLE There is the economist face or a image that relates to him, for example, a saxophon for Emil Sax and just a few words to orientate myself.

Then, after reading, you'll need to repeat what you have read to yourself outloud, as if you were giving a class about it. That way you'll be sure that you know the material. Don't leave memorization for the last moment, try to interchange reading with memorization.

I usually started my study days memorizing, as it's more time and energy consuming than reading.

First I used to make sort of mindmaps, but they took a lot of time drawing and they weren't that effective: https://imgur.com/dREqL2s

What worked best for me, and until know I don't have a better technique, is to write down only the initials of the key concepts: http://imgur.com/meh28gG

For example, the first line [DC e RdlDP] stands for

Derecho Constitucional (DC) es rama del Derecho Público (DP)

Constitutional Law is a branch from Public Law

The third line, [lsN qsR a]

las normas que se refieren a

The norms that refer to

Then I write to what the norms are refered to.

Follow this routine:

-Start your day reading a chapter.

-A you come across key concepts, write them down to your sheet of paper with their initials.

After a short break, review the letters and see if you remember what they stand for. Do you remember each category well? I used to use a pen without ink just to mark the letters and the lines when I'm reading, as they recommend in the courses of speed reading, to increase your focus. It's as if you were underlining everything that you read without ink, that way your attention will stay in the page, at least for half an hour. Keep doing constant reviews as you move forward with your material.

If I had to divide my learning stages in three, I'd say:

1) Assimil+Anki.
2) Incorporation of passive vocabulary, watching TV-series and reading books/audiobooks.
3) Speaking and writting.

With Portuguese and French I think that I'm still on stage 2, so perhaps it would be best to see more series and read more books before trying to write. Besides, for those two languages I lack formal training (altough I took one year of French classes, I didn't do an Assimil/FSI French).

With Swedish, on the contrary, I'd be on stage 3: I might make mistakes, but I least I have the words floating around on my mind, the "doesn't sound right" feel.

I'm still struggling to find a good strategy for keep learning/maintaining around six languages: French, Portuguese, Swedish, Italian, German, Russian.

Another Argentinian Polyglot from HTLAL, Guido, divided his time in blocks of 10 days. Each day he studied/reviewed two languages from a different family, let's say Germanic/Romance. Before he tried assigning one fixed day for each language, example: Monday Portuguese/French; Tuesday Romanian/Norwegian, etc., but he found out that became boring after a brief period of time.

Right now I don't have a fixed schedule, but I do have my language priorities: Swedish, Italian and German. With the last two I'm still learning the basics with Assimil. With Swedish I'm working mostly with Rivstart B2+Anki and reading/listening the novel "Eld". The rest of the time, I try to watch "Porta dos fundos" or "Magnifica 70" in Portuguese with Spanish subtitles. With French I'm slowly reading L'Étranger, first in Spanish (one chapter) and then in French (the same chapter).

Russian: I did 10 lessons of Pimsleur Ukrainian a few months ago and then I decided that it was best to switch to Russian. So I began dedicating myself fully to the language: I use to do one lesson of Assimil Russian 1971, some pages of the Penguin course and Pimsleur Russian. But then I saw that Russian was eating up all of the time, so I stopped for two months. A few days ago, I began doing Michel Thomas Russian Foundation and I'm quite frankly delighted by it.

But I don't know how long am I going to be able to follow this routine. In the past, besides all the Russian, I used to do two lessons of Glossika Portuguese and two lessons of Glossika French per day, but that was just too much for me. Eventually, I burned-out.

Nowadays I'm trying to keep a manageable routine, one that doesn't become too stressful. When learning languages stops being fun and begins being a daily burden, it's time to change something.

In conclusion, I don't know how to keep/deepen 6 languages; I'm just in the process of trial and error. But I know this sabbatical year is only going to last... well, one year, so I'm trying to make the best out of it.

astromule wrote:Men jag är lite osäker också! Var snäll och korrigera mina misstag, tack! (Om du vill, du är inte tvungen att göra det, förstås!)
"Generad" är en ny ord för mig! En español sería un "sinvergüenza".

Jag tror inte att jag kan korrigera dig. Jag vill göra det, men jag kan inte korrigera mig! And I had to look 'generad' up with google translate, so it could be wrong >>

Also, if you are looking for a way to maintain and improve several languages at once, you should check out Expugnator's log, if you haven't already. Lycka till!

Ja, tack! Jag ska titta på Expugnator. Var skriver du svenska? Lang-8? Italki? Någon annanstans?

Elenia wrote:

astromule wrote:Men jag är lite osäker också! Var snäll och korrigera mina misstag, tack! (Om du vill, du är inte tvungen att göra det, förstås!)
"Generad" är en ny ord för mig! En español sería un "sinvergüenza".

Jag tror inte att jag kan korrigera dig. Jag vill göra det, men jag kan inte korrigera mig! And I had to look 'generad' up with google translate, so it could be wrong >>

Also, if you are looking for a way to maintain and improve several languages at once, you should check out Expugnator's log, if you haven't already. Lycka till!

astromule wrote:Ja, tack! Jag ska titta på Expugnator. Var skriver du svenska? Lang-8? Italki? Någon annanstans?

Elenia wrote:

astromule wrote:Men jag är lite osäker också! Var snäll och korrigera mina misstag, tack! (Om du vill, du är inte tvungen att göra det, förstås!)
"Generad" är en ny ord för mig! En español sería un "sinvergüenza".

Jag tror inte att jag kan korrigera dig. Jag vill göra det, men jag kan inte korrigera mig! And I had to look 'generad' up with google translate, so it could be wrong >>

Also, if you are looking for a way to maintain and improve several languages at once, you should check out Expugnator's log, if you haven't already. Lycka till!

Jag skriver mest på Lang-8, men inte ofta. När jag började med svenska, jag hade velat förstår, jag hade inte trott att jag skulle vilja prata också. Så jag har inte skrivit mycket.