TAC 2014 - dEhiN

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dEhiN
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Re: TAC 2014 - dEhiN

Postby dEhiN » 2014-12-10, 8:33

I suppose I should give an update since I said expect one in a day or two and it's now been 6 days. I'm still debating about which languages to focus on going into next year. In fact, lately I've started thinking about whether I should even do a TAC for 2015.

I realize that my approach for the past few months of trying to seriously and actively juggle many languages wasn't the right approach. I guess back in August/September it had the benefit of getting me started in several languages. But most of the languages I'm learning (and would like to add to my roster) I prefer to just learn a little bit at a time. Pick up a new word or two, or maybe study a grammar concept or two, every few weeks or so. I think even setting a goal of learn something new every week is too much for me. Because I'm happy just dabbling in many of these languages.

But there are a few languages that I do want to concentrate on. I think. Sometimes, especially when I'm interacting with native speakers in a language exchange environment, I feel like I want to concentrate more on that language, and that I probably even should focus on it so at the next language exchange I will have improvements to show. But then other times I feel like with all my languages, I would rather just keep dabbling. That includes my top 4 - French, Portuguese, Spanish, and Tamil.

Well I guess I have the rest of the month to decide on whether I'm going to do a TAC, and if so, for which languages. The four that I was thinking of with the last update were in fact the four I just mentioned - français, português, espãnol, and தமிழ்.
Native: (en-ca)
Active: (fr)(es)(pt-br)(ta-lk)(mi)(sq)(tl)
Inactive: (de)(ja)(yue)(oj)(id)(hu)(pl)(tr)(hi)(zh)(sv)(ko)(no)(it)(haw)(fy)(nl)(nah)(gl)(ro)(cy)(oc)(an)(sr)(en_old)(got)(sux)(grc)(la)(sgn-us)

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Re: TAC 2014 - dEhiN

Postby Meera » 2014-12-10, 18:25

Hey Dvaid! I think it is great you are going to concentrate on four of them, I think it will help get you more organized and you will be able to do more resources for each language and probably make more progress.
अहिंसा/เจ
Learning: (hi) (ja) (ko) (fr)

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Re: TAC 2014 - dEhiN

Postby dEhiN » 2014-12-10, 19:23

Thanks Meera! I think the trick will be sticking to that plan. The more I think about it, the more I feel that I will do a 2015 TAC where I focus on the 4 languages I mentioned. Along the way I will continue to learn other languages bit by bit, or rather words and phrases, phonology and morphology/syntax. And since the idea of sticking with this plan for a whole year seems to much for someone like me, I'm going to stick to this approach for 6 months from January to the end of June.

I guess the next step will be to decide which resource(s) I will use for each language. I'm going to try and list them all in another update, at least all the resources I have available to me for each language. I'm also going to try and come up with a 6-month goal for each language by the end of the year.

As for my 2014 TAC, I suppose I might as well keep studying the myriad of languages I've been doing. At this point I'm not really following my own list anymore. I've actually been trying to get back into regular, daily language study. I fell away from that for the past few weeks or so due to focusing on my health and recovery-related things. I would love to get back to what I had going for about a month back in August/September, which was 2 hours of daily, regimented language study. That may not be feasible right now, so I want to develop the habit of at least doing 10 or 15 minutes of study every day. Consistency is very hard for me; in almost all areas of my life I very much prefer to go at something intensely from the beginning but only for a short period of time and then move on. I guess kind of like a sparkler that shines very brightly at first and then quickly dies out. So I figure a habit of a little bit of study every day is better in the long run than a huge amount for the first several days and then nothing.
Native: (en-ca)
Active: (fr)(es)(pt-br)(ta-lk)(mi)(sq)(tl)
Inactive: (de)(ja)(yue)(oj)(id)(hu)(pl)(tr)(hi)(zh)(sv)(ko)(no)(it)(haw)(fy)(nl)(nah)(gl)(ro)(cy)(oc)(an)(sr)(en_old)(got)(sux)(grc)(la)(sgn-us)

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Meera
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Re: TAC 2014 - dEhiN

Postby Meera » 2014-12-10, 21:53

For resources you need to try to use a lot for one language. For example, in my class for Arabic. We would alternate from the book and Rosetta Stone and we'd also use stuff like the Maha videos on youtube and things like that. I didn't even like the Rosetta Stone for Arabic that much but I still liked doing it because it gave a break from the book.For Hindi if I'm reading an article and a new grammar concept comes up I will have the Routledge grammar by my side. Try to get some dictionaries too if you can there are extremely helpful and useful. This is probably redundant information but I hope it is helpful. :wink:
अहिंसा/เจ
Learning: (hi) (ja) (ko) (fr)

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dEhiN
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Re: TAC 2014 - dEhiN

Postby dEhiN » 2014-12-11, 5:38

It's actually not redundant; I have several resources in each language, but I've always thought it was better to go through one resource fully and then another, so sequentially. For example, now that I've started using Duolingo again for French and Portuguese, I was thinking of just trying to go through Duo's tree for my goals for French, Spanish and Portuguese. I feel like with multiple resources I never progress far in any one resource since I'm constantly juggling all of them. But then again, I'm more the "start at chapter 1 and read through until the end" kind of person.
Native: (en-ca)
Active: (fr)(es)(pt-br)(ta-lk)(mi)(sq)(tl)
Inactive: (de)(ja)(yue)(oj)(id)(hu)(pl)(tr)(hi)(zh)(sv)(ko)(no)(it)(haw)(fy)(nl)(nah)(gl)(ro)(cy)(oc)(an)(sr)(en_old)(got)(sux)(grc)(la)(sgn-us)

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Meera
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Re: TAC 2014 - dEhiN

Postby Meera » 2014-12-11, 21:27

Yeah I understand what you mean. I meant like sometimes another resource can help explain things you don't understand will give you more information about something. For example when I was using duolingo for French I would check out a textbook if a verb confused me or something like that. Or if you use a teach yourself book you can get conversational phrases while with duo you get more grammatical drills. :) You should try to finish the tree though, I'm not sure if it will work as well for you because everyone is different but it helped my French a lot. I really don't know how I would have gotten through this semester in French without it.
अहिंसा/เจ
Learning: (hi) (ja) (ko) (fr)

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dEhiN
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Re: TAC 2014 - dEhiN

Postby dEhiN » 2014-12-12, 2:11

Actually your experience with duo is really what's pushing me and making me stick with it. As for conversational phrases, I guess I've never been big on learning them. I feel like I would rather learn what I consider the foundational building blocks of the language - vocabulary and grammar - and then I can build up every phrase I need. And I've generally viewed learning/memorising conversational phrases as not really worth my time, and not beneficial to actually learning a language. But perhaps it's time to reevaluate that!
Native: (en-ca)
Active: (fr)(es)(pt-br)(ta-lk)(mi)(sq)(tl)
Inactive: (de)(ja)(yue)(oj)(id)(hu)(pl)(tr)(hi)(zh)(sv)(ko)(no)(it)(haw)(fy)(nl)(nah)(gl)(ro)(cy)(oc)(an)(sr)(en_old)(got)(sux)(grc)(la)(sgn-us)

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Meera
Posts:8782
Joined:2008-05-27, 22:01
Real Name:Meera
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Country:USUnited States (United States)

Re: TAC 2014 - dEhiN

Postby Meera » 2014-12-12, 3:47

I think duo is really good for that, it helped improve my French grammar and reading so much. it took me almost a year to get through the tree but it was really worth it. I also wrote down the phrases/words in a notebook and went over them often. Try to stick with it even if you don't feel it is worth it you will still have retained a lot of vocabulary, I don't think it will hurt anything. :mrgreen: Oh and take advantage of the immersion feature too it will help you read articles! Before I started duo I could maybe only understand maybe 10 percent of a French article, now I can understand at least 60-88 percent which I think is a huge improvement. If you were doing French for a while though by the time you are done you can probably understand more. oh and if it encourages you more I have seen lots of posts about people completing their tree and skipping some college courses. Here's also a report on the effectiveness of duo if you are interested:
http://static.duolingo.com/s3/DuolingoReport_Final.pdf
अहिंसा/เจ
Learning: (hi) (ja) (ko) (fr)

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dEhiN
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Re: TAC 2014 - dEhiN

Postby dEhiN » 2014-12-26, 17:44

So it's probably time I update my 2014 TAC one last time before I start my 2015 one. I was going to talk about my TAC 2015 plans, but that probably should go as the first post in my new TAC. As I mentioned I will be concentrating on four languages. My attempts these past 4-5 months to learn many languages at once has taught me something. I enjoy doing that! But I think in order to keep my sanity and actually see progress, for a challenge like the TAC I need to focus on only a few languages. So I'm sure that throughout next year I will keep learning other languages - either progressing in the languages I've started already, or starting new ones. But the four TAC languages will be the ones I try and study with consistency, to achieve specific communication goals.

And with that my 2014 TAC is closed.
Native: (en-ca)
Active: (fr)(es)(pt-br)(ta-lk)(mi)(sq)(tl)
Inactive: (de)(ja)(yue)(oj)(id)(hu)(pl)(tr)(hi)(zh)(sv)(ko)(no)(it)(haw)(fy)(nl)(nah)(gl)(ro)(cy)(oc)(an)(sr)(en_old)(got)(sux)(grc)(la)(sgn-us)


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