Hello, a question for you all since I am quite fascinated in different methods concerning language learning, including routines, activities etc. What is your daily routine concerning the main language you are learning and the ones you are not studying, but are practicing regardless?
Myself, I am studying German between 1.5-2 hours a day, 1 hour LingQing and the rest listening or reading to random things to get the brain more used to the language in a less intensive way. I have also studied Russian and I aim to simply freshen it up for 20-30 minutes a day by listening, just so I do not become completely rusty at it.
I try to make it a point to read about 1000 words a day (at least) with a half hour of reading (I used to do 1 hour, but I’m having a difficult time finding interesting material).
I read out loud sometimes, but only after I understand most of the lesson, because I don’t want to fight myself while reading.
I’m trying to start writing/typing more, so I’ve been submitting things to Lang-8 and having them corrected. I found it easy to be complacent by just reading and listening, but after a while, I think it’s important to receive feedback and start to activate one’s passive vocabulary.
My main language which I am learning is Italian. Every day I listen and read about half an hour on lingq. I also watch RAI 24 NEWS so that I can hear more Italian. And I go to the Italian chat to write with people. As for other languages, at present I listen and read Spanish on lingq for about 20 min to half an hour and similar time I spend with English.
10 minutes of reading on LingQ in the morning.
15 minutes of listening while walking to work.
Write a few sentences of output to get corrected when I arrive at work, and put on the Exchange at LingQ.
Then sometime during the day I do 5 minutes of unpreprared talking which I record and save as a record of progress.
I walk home listening to Korean, and often do a bit of reading before bed.
Most days I’ll do some Korean during my lunch hour, but it might only be 10 minutes or so. I often write sentences using vocabulary and employ grammar I want practice with.
Last year I was in the habit of a weekly iTalki conversation, but have yet to start doing that this year. I want to get into the habit of 1:1 practice again.
On the overall I try to make sure I get 7 hours worth of Korean done per week.
That sounds very solid. I am one who does a solid hour - hour and a half of studying in one large chunk (with smaller chunks of listening dispersed through the day if possible). How do you feel your progress is going using this routine?
Well the routine I mention is a new routine I’m doing in 2017.
For 2016 I was still doing 7 hours a day, still broken up in smaller chunks, but it was mostly just reading and listening (with some 15 hours of Skype and bits of writing here and there).
So I can only speak to how that went. At the end of 2016 I did as comprehensive a review as I could of my progress to highlight my shortcomings and work out a plan to address them.
For time allotment, my opinion is that two solid blocks of time per day would be ideal. For an hour a day, I’d rather do 30 minutes in the morning and then 30 minutes in the evening if I could. Should I have more time, I’d do an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening.
I am unable to do this, but I feel it would be something I’d make better progress with.
Having said that, I don’t think my progress was hurt as much by my time allotment as I had expected at the beginning of last year. For listening and reading comprehension, I think my progress is very acceptable.
However I believe I was in error to be focusing so much on input at the exclusion of output. This is what I am fixing for this year’s routine. Its no longer input-input-input as I believe input-input-output (in approximately this proportion) to be a better approach.
In July I plan on doing another review of my progress to see whether changes I have made to how I study are working.
At the moment, yes. I’m a bit self-conscious to speak, but I should start doing it. I have made it a point to go to the local European grocery store to speak Russian with the clerks and I’ve been told I speak very well, but the problem with that is they have high expectations, sometimes confuse me for a native, and speak at normal speed and I get lost very easily.
Wake up 7 a.m , start my job at 8 a.m, in this moment I run my favorite Italian Radio and start to listen all day long.
I go to corriere.it to read the daily news, copy and past to read at Lingq, I just past to lingq the news that I have some interest, sports, politics and so forth.
I’ll still passive for at least 3,4 months, learning vocabulary, then I’ll start to write and speak.
Very simple method but very powerfull and effective.
Wake up, do the lingq’s of the day (about 10 minutes). On the subway, do some german anki cards - only complete sentences, not words. Then, either listen to podcasts, lingo’s lesson audio or glossika audio (sentences as well only). The focus on sentences is because I noticed that it really helps my fluency, most of these I use sooner or later in chats. The subway ride is about 40 minutes so if I still have time, start to work on some lingq lesson. Mid-afternoon take a small break from work and spend some 10/15 minutes in a lingq lesson. On the ride back from work I normally focus on reading a lingq lesson - this makes it so that I tend to get the red apple symbol for the day which helps measure how much time I put in. Then, once per week I have an italki Skype video/audio chat. I only started this after learning for 2/3 months and felt sufficiently confident.
I also subscribe to some youtube channels, like Easy German, and when they have new episodes, I find the time to watch them, and sometimes grab the mp3 and include it in the morning listen. A few days ago also started using a chat app called HelloTalk to train my writing so sometimes there’s a few small chats interweaved throughout the day. That’s my basic routine Pretty happy with it actually, been studying german for 4 months now and it’s been really good seeing how far I’ve progressed.
I don’t have a set routine as such - the minimum is to contact each language I know (even if that is just little bit) for 30 minutes daily. My routine for today - this morning I woke up and practiced Irish sentences and their word order for 45 minutes. Flicked on the German radio to get ready (about half an hour). Then had a German audio book on the half hour walk to the bus station. It is a book I’ve heard plenty of times and know pretty much inside and out so wasn’t really challenging myself. Still at least I contacted it. Now I’m done with uni for the day I’ve got a few hours to myself in the library. It is going to be French first reading BBC Afrique and Radio Okapi articles. I want to find out what is happening with that president from Gambia who wasn’t willing to step down! Then Turkish - this might be a combination of Duolingo and painfully attempting to read something (probably off NTV). Then Swedish news - again mix of Duo and Lingq. Both Turkish and Swedish are going to be about half an hour - I’ll spend longer with my French. Then I’ll head home from the library - take a nice long warm bath and listen to Radio Cymraeg while I’m at it. Then I’ll settle down and play clozemaster & memrise with my Italian. I’ll also add that the radio stations I listen to have to be mainly speaking stations - although with my Irish and Welsh it isn’t too much of an issue since there isn’t that much choice!
Thank you I do try. The only language out of all of them I’d say I actually speak is German. However, I just think that even if you can manage to understand one or two words in that language treasure your ability to understand them. Invest time in that ability. Then by tomorrow you’ll be speaking 5 or 6 words. It doesn’t seem incredible but the point is it is growing, your growing! For ages I’d be doing my Irish sentences and listening to the Irish radio and all I managed to understand on the radio was AGUS (it means and). So I’d get blah blah blah AGUS blah blah blah for ages. This week however I’ve managed to pick out some personal pronouns siad, se, si etc. and I was so crazy excited about it. I think with language learning we get too hung about fluency or being able to understand everything. Fluency is a journey - enjoy it !
Pretty happy with it actually, been studying german for 4 months now and it’s been really good seeing how far I’ve progressed.