It's currently 22:05 and I'm currently only 93 words away from reaching my '700' new word goal which I've set for Portuguese. So that leaves me with less than 2 hours to go through all my lessons on lingq and tick off all the words that I'm now confident I know to get my status from 87% up to 100%. Whilst Portuguese is almost at a full bar, French is dismally empty so I think I'm going to just remove it for July.
On other new, I completed the 19th lesson of FSI Portuguese which I've been neglecting as of late for many valid reasons but I would like to get the first unit finished so I'm going to stick to it until the 24th lesson and then I'll decide whether to continue from then.
Earlier this afternoon, I completed 3 exercises in Hugo's Portugese which focused on the passive voice, past participles and the pluprefect tense.
Update 23:19
Eu fiz isso!
I made it in time [with quite a wee bit left to spare] but I didn't copy any of the vocabulary into my anki deck so I'm off to do that now.
Wednesday, 30 June 2010
Tuesday, 29 June 2010
Progress 29/06/2010
Got my laptop back today but I couldn't find a way to transfer my new anki decks on my other computer onto my laptop so I had to make yet again make another new one. Found quite a few Brazilian rock songs that I like which I've been playing non-stop. I'm hoping to get quite deep into the Brazilian music scene. I've currently found a few samba and bossa-nova songs which I thought I wouldn't like but did indeed like. But for me, learning another language opens doors to different ideas and different styles of things such as music and discovering these different things makes language learning very enjoyable. I'm hoping that by getting into the music scene, it will really help my listening abilities as listening to Japanese music for the last 2-3 years has made my listening skills far exceed my reading, writing and speaking abilities [granted that I haven't been practicing these abilities much and have been neglecting them for months on end].
In other news, studied a chapter of Colloquial Chinese after a new package off ebay containing this arrived:
Despite still not being sure which university I'll be going to and hence which languages I'll be studying, I'm stocking up on language books so that as soon as exam day arrives on the 4th August, I can spend the whole month afterwards learning some of the language to prepare myself. The first chapter of Colloquial Chinese was much better than I'd expected. The introduction was also very helpful in guiding how to produce some of the awkward Chinese sounds so I think I'll be becoming very acquainted with this book.
Again, in other news, I just found out that iTunes has a section where universities can post podcasts and there's a language section so I might download a bit of Greek or some beginner's Spanish. Haven't came across any Portuguese material yet.
Update 23:53
I got round to reading a few other blogs that deal with language learning and it was nice to see the different points of views and methods out there. I remember reading a post, I'm pretty sure it was on Spanish-Only, about how advanced students should read books in their target languages for fun without preoccupying themselves with looking up every unknown word. Whilst I haven't tried it out [mainly due to the fact that I'm not yet at an advanced level in any language thus far] I do think that as soon as you have mastered the basics, you should get yourself into some literature. Not only does it give a nice insight into the different customs, culture and history of a country where your target language is spoken [assuming the book isn't set in an alternate world] but different authors have different styles. The same author might be fond of a certain expression, word, sentence structure and so you will continually be exposed to that certain expression, word, sentence structure and the more exposure you get to something, the easier and faster you'll learn it.
Then there was another blog that used to 'TV-method' which as the name suggests, revolves around learning languages through continuous exposure through tv. So I googled 'Portuguese Dramas', found a teenage drama series called 'Morangos com açucar' [Strawberries with sugar]. And watched 10 minutes of an episode. I would like to watch some more but I'm afraid to it would slow down my internet connection since I've already watched far too much television online this month. So I settled for finding a good radio show which plays high quality, predominantly Portuguese speaking music. Hopefully making good use of the radio will help me with my listening skills as well as giving me some enjoyment from finding new songs.
In other news, studied a chapter of Colloquial Chinese after a new package off ebay containing this arrived:
Despite still not being sure which university I'll be going to and hence which languages I'll be studying, I'm stocking up on language books so that as soon as exam day arrives on the 4th August, I can spend the whole month afterwards learning some of the language to prepare myself. The first chapter of Colloquial Chinese was much better than I'd expected. The introduction was also very helpful in guiding how to produce some of the awkward Chinese sounds so I think I'll be becoming very acquainted with this book.
Again, in other news, I just found out that iTunes has a section where universities can post podcasts and there's a language section so I might download a bit of Greek or some beginner's Spanish. Haven't came across any Portuguese material yet.
Update 23:53
I got round to reading a few other blogs that deal with language learning and it was nice to see the different points of views and methods out there. I remember reading a post, I'm pretty sure it was on Spanish-Only, about how advanced students should read books in their target languages for fun without preoccupying themselves with looking up every unknown word. Whilst I haven't tried it out [mainly due to the fact that I'm not yet at an advanced level in any language thus far] I do think that as soon as you have mastered the basics, you should get yourself into some literature. Not only does it give a nice insight into the different customs, culture and history of a country where your target language is spoken [assuming the book isn't set in an alternate world] but different authors have different styles. The same author might be fond of a certain expression, word, sentence structure and so you will continually be exposed to that certain expression, word, sentence structure and the more exposure you get to something, the easier and faster you'll learn it.
Then there was another blog that used to 'TV-method' which as the name suggests, revolves around learning languages through continuous exposure through tv. So I googled 'Portuguese Dramas', found a teenage drama series called 'Morangos com açucar' [Strawberries with sugar]. And watched 10 minutes of an episode. I would like to watch some more but I'm afraid to it would slow down my internet connection since I've already watched far too much television online this month. So I settled for finding a good radio show which plays high quality, predominantly Portuguese speaking music. Hopefully making good use of the radio will help me with my listening skills as well as giving me some enjoyment from finding new songs.
Saturday, 26 June 2010
Progress 26/06/2010
After my laptop charger failed to work, I've been forced to use another old computer in it's place. I used to use this one all the time but then it broke and everything had to be wiped off it. However, I've decided to start a new anki on this computer which I will transfer onto my laptop to replace the old muddled up one. Taking advantage of books.google.com, I'm looking through the book 'A frequency dictionary of Portuguese' to increase my vocabulary which I think is the main thing slowing down my progress. I'm picking up vocabulary by topics and I'm currently finishing 'animais'. Anytime I look at a new word, I search that word into the searchbar on tatoeba which is a sentence database that I found and which currently contains about 5000 sentences. Currently my anki vocabulary stands at 193 and sentences at 81. Any additional vocabulary in the sentences are added to the vocabulary anki. Now just off to read a story in portuguese over the idiom ' lobo em pele de cordeiro' or 'a wolf in sheep's clothing'.
Update
After reading the story about the 'lobo em pele de cordeiro' I realised I only knew half the story. I knew about the wolf adopting the sheep's skin to deceive his prey but I didn't know about the ending where the shepherd went to the barn to get some meat for the next day and pulled out the wolf in sheep's clothing, the moral of the story being 'Sempre que nós enganamos os outros, pagamos pelo nosso erro logo em seguida' - Whenever we deceive others, we immediately pay for our error'. Anyway, I'm glad that I came across that story because I learnt something new due to being able to read a little in a foreign language. I gained some results of my language learning and it feels good ☺.
Update
After reading the story about the 'lobo em pele de cordeiro' I realised I only knew half the story. I knew about the wolf adopting the sheep's skin to deceive his prey but I didn't know about the ending where the shepherd went to the barn to get some meat for the next day and pulled out the wolf in sheep's clothing, the moral of the story being 'Sempre que nós enganamos os outros, pagamos pelo nosso erro logo em seguida' - Whenever we deceive others, we immediately pay for our error'. Anyway, I'm glad that I came across that story because I learnt something new due to being able to read a little in a foreign language. I gained some results of my language learning and it feels good ☺.
Tuesday, 22 June 2010
Progress 22/06/2010
Did quite a bit of chapter 7 of Portuguese in 3 months which is mainly focused on nem...nem and ou...ou and other negatives. I glanced over the future tense and the conditional tense which look easy enough but after taking a lot of new things in yesterday I'm going to postpone learning these two tenses for a couple of days. Submitted both a writing and a speaking exercise on livemocha and have noticed a slight improvement in my writing but still making silly little mistakes such as saying 'o televisão' rather than 'a televisão'
After searching through my dvd collections for subtitles last night, I noticed the majority of them had subtitles for scandinavian languages. I've always wanted to learn one of them but due to lack of resources, never really got round to it. So I'm going to do some lessons on livemocha for Swedish [of which according to Lingq I already now 50 words =)]. I thought against it at first because I'm meant to be focusing on just Portuguese but learning languages should be fun and even on a whim, if I think it would be fun to learn some Swedish then I'm going to learn some. I think I have a fear of neglecting my Portuguese because I've never advanced in a language so quickly, without having become fed-up with it, but as long as I review words and acquire some new vocabulary then I'll still see improvements.
After searching through my dvd collections for subtitles last night, I noticed the majority of them had subtitles for scandinavian languages. I've always wanted to learn one of them but due to lack of resources, never really got round to it. So I'm going to do some lessons on livemocha for Swedish [of which according to Lingq I already now 50 words =)]. I thought against it at first because I'm meant to be focusing on just Portuguese but learning languages should be fun and even on a whim, if I think it would be fun to learn some Swedish then I'm going to learn some. I think I have a fear of neglecting my Portuguese because I've never advanced in a language so quickly, without having become fed-up with it, but as long as I review words and acquire some new vocabulary then I'll still see improvements.
Monday, 21 June 2010
21/06/2010
Completed the rest of lesson 5 and all of lesson 6 of Portuguese in 3 months. Went over the imperfect tense, the imperative and pronouns. Did 5 exercises composed of translating sentence to and from Portuguese to English, each exercise consisting of 12-16 sentences which gave me a good amount of practice. Also did chapters 5 and 6 of TY Portuguese [which really isn't too helpful without the accompaning cds]. Found a nice song in Portuguese from a singer from Lisbon and it was good to hear the European accent opposed to the Brazilian. Translated the song into English.
I feel that a lot of what is holding me back from having a higher level of Portuguese is my lack of experience and exposure with the language. So I've raided my dvd collection and have singled out those which have Portuguese subtitles and so now I'm off to watch happy Gilmore
I feel that a lot of what is holding me back from having a higher level of Portuguese is my lack of experience and exposure with the language. So I've raided my dvd collection and have singled out those which have Portuguese subtitles and so now I'm off to watch happy Gilmore
Saturday, 19 June 2010
Progress 19/06/2010
Got a new Japanese book in today called みんなの日本語 「Everyone's Japanese」 which is one of the three main series for having a good base for Japanese since I started semi-learning it in 2007. The drawback is that in my version, everything is in Japanese but I got it for £1.50 off ebay so I can't complain, it just means that my Japanese dictionary will be one of my new best friends for a while.
Also started learning bit of Spanish from my Living Language course but it's a tad too slow for my tastes. For quite a wee while now, I've been focusing mainly on one language [Português] which has brought me great results but it's started turning something that should be a hobby into a chore so I might start to dip into other languages too whilst improving my Portuguese. I don't want to take a break from Portuguese or start to become really burnt out from it since it's exciting to see results from a language plus I might have to stop it in August. If I go to Stirling University then I'll be doing a degree in Spanish [and French] and I don't want to study both Portuguese and Spanish at the same time as I feel I would confuse myself easily over the two languages. That being said, I feel that my Portuguese has improved the little Spanish I know due to their similarities.
In regards to Portuguese, I've almost completed FSI Portuguese unit 17 which focused on the preterite form of -ir verbs and some time expressions such as ontem de noite etc.
I also listened to a couple of podcasts from Brazilianpodclass.com which is great as it not only provides phrases of which I would otherwise find hard to find a translation but everything in the lesson is said in English and then in Portuguese and not just the dialog.
In addition to this, I also translated another song from Portuguese into English [making three in total]. I intend to translate them now and make any modifications as I progress.
Also started learning bit of Spanish from my Living Language course but it's a tad too slow for my tastes. For quite a wee while now, I've been focusing mainly on one language [Português] which has brought me great results but it's started turning something that should be a hobby into a chore so I might start to dip into other languages too whilst improving my Portuguese. I don't want to take a break from Portuguese or start to become really burnt out from it since it's exciting to see results from a language plus I might have to stop it in August. If I go to Stirling University then I'll be doing a degree in Spanish [and French] and I don't want to study both Portuguese and Spanish at the same time as I feel I would confuse myself easily over the two languages. That being said, I feel that my Portuguese has improved the little Spanish I know due to their similarities.
In regards to Portuguese, I've almost completed FSI Portuguese unit 17 which focused on the preterite form of -ir verbs and some time expressions such as ontem de noite etc.
I also listened to a couple of podcasts from Brazilianpodclass.com which is great as it not only provides phrases of which I would otherwise find hard to find a translation but everything in the lesson is said in English and then in Portuguese and not just the dialog.
In addition to this, I also translated another song from Portuguese into English [making three in total]. I intend to translate them now and make any modifications as I progress.
Thursday, 17 June 2010
Progress 17/06/2010
Not did much for the last few days until today. Did another unit on the A1 Busuu course about jobs. Completed a writing exercise on what I wanted to do. It was very similar to an entry in my [currently abandoned] journal on lang-8 just after I finished my exams at the start of this month except this time it was much easier to construct it and I didn't make any mistakes =]. I like it when you can see proof if yourself advancing and I had one of they moments after completing that exercise. Spent a large part of the day listening to songs in English whilst reading the Portuguese translations of the lyrics and copied down around 100 new words into my anki deck.
Progress 18/06/2010 [Since I forgot to add it in]
Read Jack and the beanstalk in Portuguese which was really nice as I don't think I'd even read it before in English. Found a few good songs in Portuguese and started translating them into English. Also found my first Korean Rock song [which I have been looking for for a good 2 years now] which makes me tempted to start learning Korean when it comes up on LingQ. However I'm trying to dissuade myself since I tried to learn Korean way back in 2007/2008 and failed miserably plus materials for learning Korean are very scarse, more so than Portuguese which frustrates me to no end.
Progress 18/06/2010 [Since I forgot to add it in]
Read Jack and the beanstalk in Portuguese which was really nice as I don't think I'd even read it before in English. Found a few good songs in Portuguese and started translating them into English. Also found my first Korean Rock song [which I have been looking for for a good 2 years now] which makes me tempted to start learning Korean when it comes up on LingQ. However I'm trying to dissuade myself since I tried to learn Korean way back in 2007/2008 and failed miserably plus materials for learning Korean are very scarse, more so than Portuguese which frustrates me to no end.
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