Progress 08/07/2011

Japanese total: 20 minutes
Japanese lingq =20m

German total: 13 minutes
German lingq =13m

Russian total: 11 minutes
Busuu introduction =11m

I've just recently realised how much I like the sound of Russian. Already quite familiar with the alphabet but not enough to be able to read a word and know for sure how it sound be pronounced. Will need to work on that.

Chinese Total: 83.5 minutes
Confidence Chinese lesson 13 = 8m
Watching 妖精的尾巴 in Chinese= 20m
Anki = 2m
Lingq = 18.5m
Writing composition about Chinese listening levels = 15m
Reading news and making relevant anki cards = 20m

I've roughly calculated all the drama shows and such I've watched in Chinese which amounts to around 38 hours. I've kept track of the amount I've watched over the last few years of Japanese shows which amounts to 17 days worth of watching shows, or 408 hours. There's quite a difference between them but I noticed a few months back how much easier it has become to understand Japanese shows so I'm hoping a large amount of exposure this year will improve my listening skills in time for China next year.

Progress 07/07/2011

Chinese Total: 63 minutes
Anki review = 8m
Writing composition about hearing chainsaws during the night = 18m
Confidence Chinese lesson 19 = 10m
Listening to the news = 7m
Wrote a message to someone on Livemocha - 20m


German Total: 59 minutes
German<-> English cognates = 12m
German Genders = 5m
German present tense verbs = 19m
German Anki input = 3m
Busuu German A1 Willkommen =10m

Only started dipping my toes into German a few days ago. Some part seem quite daunting such as the case system, verb second rules and 'hugewordsthislong' but that should get easier with more exposure.

好久不见

好久不见 - Long time no see. Unfortunately, I think I have quite a few posts with that title but hopefully it'll be the last time I need to say that for a while. First year of university is over and the summer holidays have arrived! This means I have two and a half months on my beloved languages and I want to start keeping track of my progress with them so I've came back here to report.

This summer I've added quite a few more languages that I'd like to learn. I'm not going to feel guilty about wanderlust at all, in fact, I'm going to embrace it! For the last nine months, I've been focused on Chinese and Japanese for uni and my other languages have been neglected. For the next three years, in particularly the middle one, I'm going to be heavily focused on learning Chinese for China/ using Chinese in China/ learning Chinese for my final degree exams so I won't have a lot of time to devote to other languages so why not take time now? I've become really interested in Classical languages, Greek and Latin and also Egyptian and Assyrian as well as German, Italian and Russian so I may start talking about them a bit more often.

I've started using stop-clocks when I study to try to encourage me to study. An hour spent looking at a Chinese textbook with long intervals procrastinating on facebook isn't a complete spent studying. Hopefully by being strict and recording minutes that has solely been dedicated to study will help me to see how much [or little] I've actually done so I can say that I've actually spent a certain amount of time studying and not just some of that time studying with long facebook breaks.