#Add1Challenge update

Today is day 18 of the challenge. So far it has been quite an experience, and I'm so glad that I decided to do it. There will be another Add1Challenge starting soon, so take a look at the website - http://apolyglotworld.com/

Lessons Learnt so Far

Having a group of people around you (even though it's a virtual group) also learning languages, is so motivating. The facebook group is amazing, and I have gotten so much support and advice from it. There's a real sense of achievement when a member does something they've struggled with for the first time, so much kindness and resource sharing, and a feeling that we're all in it together. I think when we're all sat at home on our own learning our languages, it's easy to undervalue how important it is to have a little network of like minded people around you. To an extent I try and get that through posting here, being on twitter and reading and commenting on other language learners blogs or forums, but it's not quite the same.

http://uwsslec.libguides.com/mascot

A significant number of us (myself included) finally managed to get over the fear of having online lessons with a native speaker. This topic alone has produced lots of great posts, and I think it was probably the no.1 concern for a lot of us! It was so great to see all the 'yay, I did it' posts, and to realise that even when you have a session that perhaps you feel didn't go well, you will survive it! 

I found that booking my next online tutoring session, the moment the one I was having finished works well for me (I picked that tip up on the fb group as well!). Otherwise I start procrastinating, and over-thinking..."Well that didn't go so well so I'll give myself a break and then I might book another one or I might wait until I've studied a bit more..." Yeah, don't go there. Just book the session!  

It's also ok to be picky. I've tried out several different tutors, and while I'd say only one was really not great, some just didn't suit me. I tried to make my messages to the tutors as specific as possible, but I think some tutors just like to do things certain ways! There are a couple that will be great for later on when I'm a bit further along in Russian. I also had to try out some tutors a couple of times, as I just couldn't tell from the trial session.

 

Of course if there's only a few people offering the language you're learning it makes it harder. As well as Italki, there is also My Language Exchange and probably a lot more. I also found that by joining specific groups on facebook (e.g. Learners of Russian, Learn Dutch now, Easy German, etc) I could contact tutors who advertised there (if that group allows it). However, some of these groups are nothing but spam, so you have to spend sometime checking them out. 

 clipartpanda

Accountability has also been a huge motivator. Having a set amount of time to study each day, and recording it for all to see on the fb group really makes you focus on what you're actually doing. So, although I may think I'm studying Russian, if I take a closer look at what I've spent my time doing it may look like this - memrise (15 mins), check facebook (10 mins), watch russian youtube video (10 mins), check emails (10 mins), check twitter (5 mins), read blog posts on language learning (10 mins),  etc... The I turn off the computer, feeling exhausted and thinking I've been studying Russian for an hour, but actually I've either been procrastinating or distracted! Definitely something I needed to realise to keep my learning in check!

Onwards and Upwards

I still have a long way to go in the challenge, and plenty more to figure out and discover. I still have days when I question why I'm doing this, when I feel as if I'm not making any progress and I can't remember the simplest things. But I also have days when I finally understand something that I've struggled with, or I say a whole sentence in Russian to my family without thinking about it, or I have a really motivating skype session.  I recommend the Add1Challenge to anyone learning a language. It's been a great journey so far...

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/88523948899695901/

New Year ramblings

Happy (belated) New Year! 

I've been meaning to write a blog post for a while, but Christmas and New Year holidays have taken up a lot of my time. I have been enjoying reading other blogs and all the New Year posts though, especially with all the language challenges and resolutions being made.

I thought I'd list the challenges here that I'm aware of. Please let me know if I've missed any!

The Add1Challenge is running again, but I couldn't find a sign up link...Here it is!

Italki are running a language challenge, which you can read about here.

LindseydoesLanguages has an instagram challenge, which I think is running for the whole year.

Memrise are offering $1,000 (plus runner up prizes) to the person who learns the most words in the January mem-athon.

I've never made New Year resolutions before, but after being inspired by some interesting blog posts I do have a list! Several of the items are health/diet related as I do have issues I need to keep on top of, and I haven't been very good lately. I'm not going to post them all on here, but avoiding gluten as much as possible is one of my goals for this year. I have only succumbed once so far! :)

Language Learning in 2015

I've really struggled the past month to get anything much done with my Russian. After the Toki Pona event I spent a week doing lots and feeling excited about Russian again, but that momentum faded away in the run up to Christmas.  I've studied a bit of grammar here and there, reviewed my memrise courses and a few other random things which haven't added up to much. Christmas is part of the reason, but I'm also struggling with maintaining motivation. I'm not sure where to go with this at the moment, and feel like I'm treading water. I know if I don't push on now I will quickly lose what I've learnt over the past months, but it's a bit hard and a bit boring and I'm not sure what I'm doing right now!

One of my thoughts was to switch to Dutch for this month. I have played around with Dutch a little bit, but in the end realised that it was too hard for me to try and learn both Russian and Dutch. I simply don't have enough time, and decided to just concentrate on Russian. However, I'm still really interested in learning Dutch, and wondering if taking on a Dutch challenge for a month will be helpful in keeping my language learning going while giving me a break from Russian (and maybe coming back with a renewed enthusiasm for it in February?!). It will also be the first time I have ever attempted to learn a language (not including Toki Pona!) without attending a class first, and I am just a bit curious to see how that goes.

Of course it could also be beneficial for me to stick to Russian, and work through my struggles by pushing on with it rather than running off with an attractive and shiny looking new language! Maybe that would be worth doing to prove to myself that I can get over these humps and bumps in the (language learning) road?

I'm at the point where in the past where I would stop and tell you it's too hard, I can't do it, I haven't got the language learning 'gene', and so on. If you've read my post about being a scanner, then you'll know that staying focused on one thing for a prolonged period of time is really difficult for me. (If you're interested Jana Fadness writes much more eloquently than me about scanners here.)

I know I'm not the only one who finds this hard. For me the problem is never getting very far with one thing. I may know about lots of things, but nothing that goes beyond the surface. This used to feel ok, but not so much anymore.

I really want to keep digging with languages, and Russian. I want to keep going, stay focused and get back some of that motivation. I just need to figure how to achieve this, and what would work best for me right now.

Update: 21 day Language Blast complete!

I'm now officially done! :) I think it was quite a successful mission. I've learnt so much about studying, and how I learn best. I would say that it became easier to fit in my language learning once I had, not so much a goal, but a framework to go by. I did end up tweaking it quite a bit. The times I've written are the minimum. Often once I started I went on for much longer. My routine ended up (mostly) like this...

AM: (Ideally this would be early, however most days I didn't manage to get up as early as I would like! After years of staying up late to study this is a hard habit to break, so still a work in progress).
- 20 minutes of  a Michel Thomas lesson
- 10/15 minutes of flash cards (I have to admit I ditched Anki. I know most people love it, but it just wasn't working for me. So I've gone back to making my own handwritten flashcards. I just find this easier as I can write down words/phrases immediately, and it's so much quicker. Might be showing my age there ;) )

Afternoon: (usually while making dinner)
- Listen to Russian radio/podcast (I try to aim for 30 mins).

PM: I've either been working through a Russian course book (Russian step by step as mentioned in a post below) or doing a listening and transcribing activity (I aim for at least 20 minutes).

I also do at least 15 minutes of memrise here and there throughout the day. Plus I'm re-doing the Michel Thomas lessons over (and over!), so I might listen to the same lesson 3 days running. I appreciate that while self-studying I can take as long as I like, and re-do activities/lessons as much as I need.

Sometimes I do something different. I have a couple of beginner Russian books, so I might read those in the evening instead, or I'll watch a Russian movie (usually a children's film/cartoon) on youtube. Fridays are my catch up days so I try to get to things I've been slacking in. 

Apart from Anki the other thing that didn't work for me was exercising/walking while doing/listening to a Russian lesson or podcast. For some reason I didn't seem to take it in. I kept catching myself day dreaming or zoning out, and I'd missed what was being said for the past 5 minutes! So, I ditched that idea quite quickly!

What I discovered from this is that listening is huge, and something that isn't emphasized enough. I missed listening to Russian for just a couple of days, and when I did listen to some Russian radio again it sounded like someone had sped it up!  It's amazing how fast you get used to the speed of it, but also how quickly you can find yourself back at the start...

The writing and transcribing was also incredibly helpful as you have to listen very carefully, and you start to be able to pick out words and letters you don't hear when listening through just once. My 'ear' for Russian has definitely improved, and while I still don't particularly enjoy writing in Russian it is getting better!

So, altogether it has been a really helpful process. I intend to stick to my above schedule as much as I can, although I have also been dabbling a little with Dutch (but that's another post!). I'd really recommend taking a look at Ron's website/book if you want to do your own 21 day language blast.

The Language Surfer

Language Master Key


:)

16 days of Russian

This post on languagesurfer.com gives an insight into what I've been attempting. I was very excited to see the post, and to be able to chat in the comments with my own thoughts. It gave me a bit of a boost! I've also been listening to some of the podcasts over at actualfluency.com, and have loved finding Ellen Jovin's blog. The more I delve into language learning, the more I understand that it's not just about the language(s), but is a real journey into how we learn, motivation, communication, education, fun, cultures, and so much more. It's also a bit of a roller-coaster ride, from 'yay, I can understand and translate a whole paragraph' to 'why can't I remember this word I've seen on memrise 50 times before?!'.

It's sometimes difficult to forget it's a real journey and we don't have to rush to try to get to the end, to reach fluency, or whatever the goal may be. It's about the process.

So,all that being said how have I been doing? Well, I've taken on board little bits from blog posts I've read and podcasts I've listened to. I've been working on getting up early (still a work in progress!), using exercise in so much that I've been taking walks while listening to Michel Thomas (yes, my 'not buying any more Russian materials promise' hasn't been going very well!). It's probably a bit unnerving for anyone who gets too close...they can hear me muttering in Russian and still 'trying' to do a rolled r! I usually listen for 20-30 minutes, and do the same lesson twice a day. I find this works better for me as I'm quite a slow learner (I'll blame that on my ageing brain!). I've really been enjoying the MT course so far. I then spend some time adding the any new words to my anki flashcards, and doing a review. I also do memrise daily, will listen to some Russian radio (although I'm probably only fitting 20 minutes in at the moment) and do a 10-15 minute transcribing exercise (I really enjoy doing these). So I've kind of tweaked the 21 day language blast a little, but it's really given me the motivation to carry on. My Russian is still very much at a very basic level, as I'm  missing a lot of the connecting words (or rather finding it tough to remember), and the speed to put it all together. I've also done my best to avoid much grammar! I'll be addressing this when my 21 days are up, and I  have a Russian grammar book ready to go!

How is your language learning journey going?

Ten days in...

And it's going ok. I have slacked a bit. I managed to get my listening done at the weekend, and my Anki flashcards but that was all. We had a very busy two days, with all three children needing to be here, there and everywhere so by the evening I was too tired to do much else. 

I have almost finished a Russian workbook, just a beginner one, but it did cover a few things I didn't know. If nothing else it's a bit of revision. I actually really like the way these books are set out, the audio files are available online and they are easy to do in little chunks. I took the book with me to my daughter's gym class, and spent the hour working through it. I've ordered the next book now. The website is http://russianstepbystep.com/ for anyone interested.

Products from Russian Step by Step/Photo taken from their website

The past few days I have been keeping up with listening, reading, writing, a bit of Memrise, Anki, a bit of Babbel...Yesterday evening I realised I'm doing that thing again of being all over the place, but not really moving forward. So, I need to focus a bit more, and read through the notes I took from the Language Master Key book. I also need to start studying in the mornings, evenings are my usual time, but I'm aware that I make so many more mistakes in the evening as I'm too tired to concentrate properly. Being a night owl this is going to take some very real effort!

Language Blast - Days 2-5

Day 2 - Did not go to plan. I did my free listening (yeah!), but fell asleep in the evening putting my youngest daughter to bed. So I didn't get around to doing the other tasks (was planning on getting them done in the evening), as I didn't wake up again until the morning!

Day 3 - Did my free listening. A mixture of listening to the radio and youtube videos. When first listening to Russian radio it seemed that the presenters were speaking incredibly fast, actually I couldn't figure out where one word ended and the next began. I've found that I'm already getting used to this - although it's still fast it's making more sense as I became accustomed to the speed. Obviously on most language courses and CDs speech is much slower, so listening to Russian at 'real speed' wasn't going to be easy at first.  I'm able to pick out words I know more and more as well. Also listening to songs really helps as a lot of words are repeated, plus some of it is really quite good! I found a Russian children's radio station where they do speak slower, but some of the music isn't great. I listened to about an hour today. I've found the more I listen to the more I want to listen. Instead of turning on my favourite radio station when cooking for instance, I'm putting on the Russian one instead. I also did my active reading/writing, went through my flashcards and spent some time on memrise. So all in all a good day - hopefully making up for my lack of Russian yesterday.

Day 4 - Did everything I should do today and a bit more. Also went on memrise for about 15 minutes, and started working through one of the many Russian course books I have. This was just a basic one with stuff I already know, but it's always good to revise! 

Day 5 - Mixed day. I did lots of listening, but mixed it around. Listened to audio from here, and some songs from here. I also listened to some Russian podcasts from this site - especially the stories and poetry.  I went on memrise for about 20 minutes. I didn't do any writing though :/

So far the language blast has made my realise a few things. I need variety in what I listen to and the materials I use daily. Doing the same thing everyday is hard, but just setting aside the time or knowing I need to make the time has created a space where Russian has happened everyday. Even if I haven't done exactly as outlined in the book, I have done something. Once I start I also tend to go on longer than I anticipated. I think I'll study for 15 minutes and next thing I know an hour has passed. The more I do the more I want to do. I also realised how little I know, but try not to dwell on it. I have my whole life to improve! I will be carrying on the challenge over the weekend as well and will update on Monday. 

21 Day Language Blast - Day 1

Day 1 - Today was the first day of my 21 day language blast. I don't want to say exactly what this involves as it is an idea/technique I've taken from the book mentioned in the post below. However, it does involve spending lots of time listening to the language you are studying. I fell a bit short of this today. I didn't get all my free listening done (only about 15 mins). To be honest it's hard to fit this in as I have my children around me for most of the day, and they do not enjoy listening to Russian! So, I'm going to have to think about that. I did get my listening/reading activity done. I was actually quite proud of this one, and amazed myself by being able to translate some Russian sentences so they made perfect sense by putting together the words I knew, and having a sensible guess at the ones I didn't. I'm now going to spend sometime on my language journal and flashcards. 

If anyone else is having a go at this challenge then please leave a comment below. 

And just in-case there is someone else who is doing this with Russian some websites that I found useful today are -
Russian radio - http://station.ru/stations/rusradio
Russian audio with Russian and English translations - http://www.russianforfree.com/dialogues.php
Anki - http://ankisrs.net/

Language Master Key

I recently discovered the book Language Master Key on my wanderings around the internet. I found it such a helpful read. I actually went through it twice, the second time I spent a while taking notes and looking at the resources suggested. It's different from most of the books I've read as it focuses very much on learning through listening, something that made so much sense once I thought about it! I think this (along with the other instructions and advice given) is a technique that will really work for me. The book also gives advice on how to embark on a '21 day language blast' which I'm going to have a go at. I will be updating here with my plans in the next few days. Very excited about this! :D

Learning Russian (again)

I've recently began re-learning Russian. Although I was nowhere near fluent I did manage to make myself understood probably about 75% of the time when I was in Russia. I have several books and CDs, and am also making use of the many internet resources - youtube and the like.  I recently discovered fluent in 3 months, plus a few other helpful websites. I especially like Adventures of the Directionally Challenged
Unfortunately, I tend to spend my time reading blogs about languages, rather than learning the language!

I'm listing some blogs/website/articles here on learning Russian. I haven't looked at them all so they may be a bit hit and miss. Some are aimed at children, but I find that they can be just as useful for adult learners!

http://therussianblog.wordpress.com/
http://sandymillin.wordpress.com/2014/05/03/how-im-learning-russian/
http://www.fluentin3months.com/learn-russian/
http://ikindalikelanguages.com/blog/how-to-learn-russian/
http://actualfluency.com/russian-one-month-new-independent-language-learner/
http://learnrussian.rt.com/lessons/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8YSL97Xi8o - there's lots more on youtube.
There are disney songs in Russian which is helpful if you know the English versions. Although of course the translations aren't always perfect. Here's Let it Go https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkGn_oMIn9Y
http://dinolingo.com/languages/russian.html
http://www.russianforfree.com/lessons-russian-language-01.php
http://www.funrussian.com/
http://masterrussian.com/

I'm also learning roll my Rrrrrrs...kind of! I have been practising daily, and driving my family a bit mad. I have randomly managed to roll my rs a few times, but not on demand and it is very frustrating. There are several websites/youtube videos demonstrating how to do it (and lots of discussions about whether there is a rolling r gene or not!).  Here's one website.  I can't say that I've found one particular technique more effective than another. Will keep practising though!