New Year's pledges about language learning

[Lietmotiv]

Improve my English; it is a 'must';the problem with English is that the more I learn,the more I figure how little do I know

Resuscitate my French;used to speak French quite good,the thing is that I haven't said a word in French for more than 9 months,therefore I believe that my 'advanced' level vanished

I must learn (for my work)a lot of technical and economical words and structures in Russian (aluminium industry,metalugrics,genetics)-

I want to study Polish everyday,I abandoned this activity,but I hope to find time for it. I have 2 books ,one for vocabulary,one for grammar.

[Æren]

Funny, I have forgotten the thread about 2008

Ahm... I thought for long before I decoded to write this post. I can't exactly tell what my plans are for the coming year, probably because I know they never come to reality ^^ But, let's say I may like it if:
I could pass through my book of Hebrew {I reached the middle}
I find and play with a nice book {and recording!} of Irish {Still not =/ }
I can subscribe for Old Bulgarian in the university in the next autumn. {Check!}
A group for "Bulgarian for foreigners" course is gathered in the language agency I work for. {I quitted it }
I can build over some of the languages I have dealt with. {Check- Portuguese and surprisingly Czech in the last month}

So, this year's are:
Improve my reading of Latin and Cl. Greek.
Go on with Hebrew.
Finally finish the Czech book.
Gather a group for Sanskrit so that the course starts in the summer semester =)
Build over in Norwegian.
Take the exam of French
Subscribe Czech or Portuguese as a second subject
Be open for surpirses

[jaybee]

hmm.. maybe my resolution this year should be to follow through with past and future ones.
yeah..

ok. so by the end of this year I want to:
- freely and expressively speak french without worrying about how I might sound
- listen to, read, and watch more french stuff
- find someone to converse with in french who won't stop me in the middle of a sentence saying "why are you speaking in french?"
- stop being lazy with languages & be more organized
- learn hebrew script + pick up on some spoken hebrew
- learn some ASL

[CoBB]

I’m not aiming high at all. Keeping my Finnish and Russian alive will be just enough.

I managed to keep this one! Currently I’m reading a book in Finnish and I watched several movies in Russian plus attended the course at the university. So I’m reusing last year’s resolution for simplicity.

Ezt sikerült megtartanom! Most éppen finnül olvasok egy könyvet, és jópár filmet néztem meg oroszul, meg jártam az egyetemi tanfolyamra. Úgyhogy az egyszerűség kedvéért újrahasznosítom a múlt évi fogadalmat.

[Rémy LeBeau]

I am only really focusing on 2 languages this year, French and Persian.

- Keep on top of Persian and keep getting 1sts in all my exams
- Learn all about the Arabic root system so I can recognize and understand related words.
- Learn enough spoken Persian to get by in Iran when I go in September.

- Keep going with my 2 days a week of French learning.
- Be able to read news articles in French by August.
- Be able to post in French discussions by May/June.

[nighean-neonach]

I've only just realised that I also wrote something in that 2008 topic *yikes*

Take my Norwegian to a good conversational level that will allow me to participate in a Saami summer school in Norway. ---> Well, my Norwegian has improved, if only due to necessity, because I've been attending some literature classes

Finally take my Icelandic beyond basic level after all those years, maybe testing it in Iceland. ---> I'd say I've managed that, I have not only read a few novels, but also found a tandem partner and I'm beginning to feel comfortable with Icelandic conversation. It's not very sophisticated yet, but it's a start

Study more Old Norse (especially language history stuff). ---> Haha, well...

Take up Old Irish again, more in-depth, especially poetry and law texts. ---> That's the thing I regret most about last year, I suppose, that I sort of totally forgot about Old Irish, although it's the coolest language in the world for me

Take my Saami to a satisfying basic conversational level, hopefully attending a summer school. ---> Well, when I realised there was no chance of attending the summer school because of money reasons, I lost my motivation for a while, I suppose, and then it looked so boring to repeat all the stuff to get into it again.

Study Greenlandic more systematically and persistently. ---> Another thing I gave up, although I had even found some tandem partners for mail / chat practice

Get back to my French and brush it up, probably with a tandem partner at my university. ---> Did that for a while, then my tandem partner left, then I found someone else, she also went back to France... well

Same with Lithuanian, and test it on another visit to lovely Lithuania. ---> Yeah, we spent two weeks in Lithuania and I was soooo nervous about every time I spoke to someone in Lithuanian - but it worked! And I've found two lovely friends who are helping me with the language now.

Attend a Finnish course to make a bit of language comparison with Saami. ---> Started that in the autumn semester, but have to admit that I've attended poorly since early December or so

Get back to Irish and Welsh (including Medieval Welsh), mostly for academic reasons. ---> But I've just found all my stuff about these languages again, while re-organising our flat, so well...

Sit my Ancient Greek exam in spring, and read more texts after that, maybe also teaching at beginner level. ---> I sat the exam (even got a top result, hehe), I've been tutoring some beginners, but haven't read anything apart from the things I had to read

Brushing up my knowledge on Latin poetry and some linguistic details, to be able to teach more. --->

Hmm, not that bad, all in all... I'm surprised myself. I managed about half of what I planned, and that's an amazing quota for me I'm definitely satisfied with my Icelandic, Lithuanian, and Ancient Greek, I'm happy that I did not lose my French completely, I'm unhappy about Old Irish and Saami, but determined on improving there, and the rest, well...

[Dragonwing]

I'll focus solely on Russian.

[neoni]

i'm going to be pretty modest this year

Conversational Finnish
Spend some time in Finland for that
Improve my German - be able to understand 90% of what I read/hear, as opposed to the 75/80 I am at now, that 10% is a huge leap though.
Start learning Norwegian
Try not to give up completely on Spanish
Find a Gaelic speaking flatmate
...or a German/Finnish one

[sa wulfs]

Okay, I've decided I will always post both in English and in German. I predict this means I'll stop coming here around February.

Okay, ich habe entschieden, dass ich immer sowohl auf Englisch als auch auf Deutsch posten werde. Ich sage voraus, dass das bezeichnet, dass ich um Februar hier zu kommen aufhören werde.

Now that was clumsy.

Das war ganz plump.

[Mutusen]

Oui, écrire en plusieurs langue est une bonne manière de pratiquer, mais le problème est qu'avoir le même message en plusieurs exemplaires peut être ennuyeux.

Yes, writing in several languages is a good way to practise, but the problem is that having the same message several times can be boring.

Jes, skribi plurlingve estas bona metodo praktiki, sed la problemo estas, ke havi la saman mesaĝon plurfoje povas tedi.

Ja, schreiben auf mehrere(n?) Sprache(n?) ist ein gutes Mittel, um zu üben, aber das Problem ist, dass die selbe Nachricht mehrmals haben langweilig sein kann.

Sí, escribir en varios idiomas es un buen método para practicar, pero tener el mismo mensaje varias veces puede ser (¿estar?) aburrido.

[Mikael]

Sí, escribir en varios idiomas es un buen método para practicar, pero tener el mismo mensaje varias veces puede ser (¿estar?) aburrido.

ser aburrido - to be boring
estar aburrido - to be bored

'ser' es la palabra que quieres.

[Sean of the Dead]

Let's see, I want to:

Learn some more German words and grammar; some of the time I'm not sure which case to use, and the damn word order is hard.

Reach a basic or higher conversational level in Norwegian. Should be much easier than in German, since everything about Norwegian is easier.

STUDY every day (or two); I tell myself I'm going to study, and about 30% of the time I actually do, so I only study a language 2 or 3 times a week.

Maybe continue learning Icelandic. I really like it, but learning 4 languages at once (learning French in school,, and I hate it) isn't all that easy. I want to learn the languages of my ancestors (except French), and since none of them were Icelandic, German and Norwegian come first.

Try not to start learning any more languages, even though I love so many.

Post messages bilingually, in English and Norwegian.

Start posting monolingually in the Norwegian forum.

Create my own conlang this summer. I figured since I usually sit on my ass all summer, I should at least do something semi-productive.

And finally, learn C++ in school and start coding on a Source mod. Hey, C++ is a language, a programming language.

I started learning German about 8 months ago, but I have not learned much recently, only practicing what I already know. I may switch Norwegian to my main focus, and German to my second.

[Peeves]

I don't have as many goals for the new year as most people here, but I do have a few:

1. Improve my Swedish for the next five months (hopefully to the point where I could call myself fluent) and not start another language during that time.

2. Once school ends in June and I have more time, start learning Finnish again and focus for the most part only on Finnish so I can learn as much as possible.

[Johanna]

To read a lot of books in Norwegian.

[Trapy]

goals:
FRENCH: Stop it from deteriorating even more. It's rusty, but I don't want it to rot.
GERMAN: Improve vastly and concentrate on tenses. I have trouble with Articles, which I admit are low on priorities.
SPANISH: Maintain, low focus
CHINESE: Self-Learning, get help from former teacher, focus on vocabulary and characters.
HUNGARIAN: Start Self- Learning, get to basic-Intermediate level and ~150-200 words by summer.
ROMANIAN: Start Self-Learning, get to basic level and ~100 words by Summer
SERBIAN: Self-Improve to Basic level and ~150 words, focus more on tenses cases, less on vocabulary.
AINU: Restart self-Learning. As a fun-language, Lowest priority as a Study, but as it's also Entertainment, It'll be a good between-language-learning learning language. Ku=mina Ku=mina

[JackFrost]

French: Stop hating it so goddamn much. Read more and stop feeling like I have to learn it because I take it at school. Also pass into the university courses for the same reason as Spanish. Gold or Silver medal on the National French Exam.

BEN LÀ!!! Je suis donc désolé que j'aie écrit en français dans ma carte de Noël.

[Mikael]

BEN LÀ!!! Je suis donc désolé que j'aie écrit en français dans ma carte de Noël.

Non! J'aimais la carte vraiment! Je déteste étudier la langue. À l'école secondaire, de toute façon.

[JackFrost]

BEN LÀ!!! Je suis donc désolé que j'aie écrit en français dans ma carte de Noël.

Non! J'aimais la carte vraiment! Je déteste étudier la langue. À l'école secondaire, de toute façon.

Je te niaisais seulement.
I was only teasing you.

[Diogenes]

My goals:

Not to add any more languages! Three is enough .

Finish my current book in Norwegian

Read a book in Romanian, if I can find one at all

Read a book in Russian.

Find enough courage to write in these languages on Unilang

[Alejo]

Hmmm....

• Achieve a reasonably basic level of Hebrew
• Try to remember SOME basic French
• Read a few books in Spanish

I'd be so happy if I commit myself to just that.