#as usual please feel free to correct my Spanish/Afrikaans

[asras-archive]

100 Happy Days Langblr Challenge (4/293) & March Productivity Challenge

Hoy estuvo bien. Complete todos que quiero hacer, y un poco mas. Finalmente comí mi sopa, era buenas. Tenemos pastel de chocolate ahora. Mi mama al horno, y yo hizo la guinda. Yo también tenía a mi siesta hoy!

17 de marzo: ¿Has viajado mucho? ¿Te gustaría en el futuro? Yo no he viajado mucho. Aparte de cuando fui a America con mis padres de bebe, yo no dejó el condado. Me gustaria a viajar en el futuro. Quiero ir a Espana y Japan, el Reino Unido, Ireland, muchos lugares.

Vandag was oukei. Ek het al my werk voltooi en 'n bietjie meer. Uiteindelik ek my sop geëet het, dit was baie goed. Ons ook het 'n sjokolade koek nou. My ma het dit gebak en ek het die versier gemaak. Ek ook het my middagslapie gehad.

17 Maart: Het jy al baie gereis? Wil jy graag in die toekoms? Ek nie gereis baie nie. Behalwe wanneer ek het na Amerika gegaan met my ouers as ek 'n baba was, ek het nie die land verlaat nie. Ek wil reis na ander plekke. Ek wil gaan na Spain, Japan, die UK, Ireland, en baie ander plekke.

17th March: Have you travelled a lot? Would you like to in the future?

I haven't travelled much. Besides going to America with my parents when I was baby (we did return to my country) I haven't left my country. I really do want to travel a lot in future. Right now I want to go to Spain or Japan the most. I would also love to visit the UK, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Korea (maybe) and maybe India and Nepal. Honestly, I want to go almost everywhere.

[fuckyeahjeanyvesmoreau]

tips for learning a language all by yourself

I am assuming you want to learn a new language by yourself and you want some tips? Well, read on then!

Hi! If you’ve read my previous post (check it here; it��s about my Italian resources) you’ll probably know that I started learning Italian by myself and it’s going great! So, I am writing this article to let you know why exactly it’s going great.

A.k.a, what do I do and how in order to learn successfully the language I want.

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Step one; Choosing a Language

First of all, like this article says, there’s a list, created by the Foreign Service Institute (F.S.I) in which they have sorted out languages into five categories; from the easiest to the most difficult to learn.

And here’s the list, in case you are interested;

First Category (23-24 weeks or 575-600 hours to learn); Afrikaans, Danish, Dutch, French, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Swedish

Second Category (30 weeks or 750 hours to learn); German

Third Category (36 weeks or 900 hours to learn); Indonesian, Malaysian, Swahili

Fourth Category (44 weeks or 1100 hours to learn); Albanian, Amharic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Bengali, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Burmese, Croatian, Czech, Estonian, Finnish, Georgian, Greek (that’s me!), Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Khmer, Lao, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Mongolian, Nepali, Pashto, Persian (Dari, Farsi, Tajik), Polish, Russian, Serbian, Sinhala, Slovak, Slovenian, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Xhosa, Zulu

Fifth Category (88 weeks or 2200 hours to learn); Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean

Note; keep in mind that this list sorts out the language difficulty for a native English speaker!

Fortunately for me, Italian is in the first category:)

Anyhow, let’s move on.

Have you decided on a language you want to learn? If so, think to yourself, why? Why did you choose this particular language? Your goal must be strong enough to encourage you to learn and to stop procrastination. If you haven’t choose a language yet, now’s the right time! Please consider, not only the “why” question above, but also the difficulty of the languages! Again, I recommend Italian. It’s such a beautiful language with an amazing pronunciation and it’s super easy.

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Step two; Finding Resources

Resources are so very important. But, be careful. It’s the quality that matters; not the quantity. In other words, it doesn’t matter how many books you bought or how many videos you’ve seen; if they are not helpful enough then you won’t be able to learn the language.

Like I mentioned in my previous post, I rely a lot on textbooks. They are pretty useful and also have exercises and quizzes that help me a lot. I download them from a site called pdfdrive. Just type “the language you want + for beginners “ in the search engine (feel free to erase the “for beginners” part for more results) and find the textbook that suits you! Keep in mind that this site has also textbooks for school subjects and other cool books that I haven’t check out yet.

Important; don’t download only one textbook! You might face a problem or have a question while reading it! I have downloaded around five textbooks for Italian and, even though I am learning the language from only on of them, I usually read the other ones too, in case they have more information on something.

Next, Quizlet. If you learn better through flashcards make Quizlet your best friend. It’s a site (and app!) where you can make your own flashcards for free (it also has a premium offer but I use the free version and it’s epic).

However, don’t use it if you are not a-flashcard-learner. Here’s a test I have found where you can find with only 20 questions your learning style AND things to do to learn better.

So yeah, find some textbooks and your learning type and you are done, right?

Nope.

I mentioned above that you need to make Quizlet your best friend. Well, I am correcting this.

Make Google Translate your soulmate.

Seriously.

And I don’t mean using it to translate articles e.t.c, we all know that it low-key sucks when it comes to translating long texts. You can use it, however, for hearing the pronunciation for words that may confuse you; after all the textbooks are books, they don’t have audios.

Also, you can use Youtube. Even though I don’t use it (I prefer the other resources I’ve mentioned), there are many playlists and channels with tips for the language you want.

Now, go and buy a notebook, or find an empty one from the school.

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Step 3; Begin

Now you are ready.

Open your textbook in a new tab, Google Translate in another and Quizlet (or whatever site you use) in another. Also, open your notebook.

However, you should be careful! Time management is very, very, very important.

Here’s my schedule when it comes to learning Italian;

The textbook I use has 20 chapter; each chapter has around 5-7 sections. Thus, my goal is to finish one chapter week which means one section per day. That’s super easy for me; I have the free time to do that. Also, each chapter has a quiz at the end, which I usually take on Sundays. I also repeatedly take these quizzes every time I finish a new chapter. For example, when I finished chapter 2, I made sure to not only take the quiz of that chapter but also the chapter 1 quiz to review what I’ve learnt.

And that’s it. I take notes, review them after I finish a section and the morning before I start a new section. In general, I try to review a lot my past notes and flashcards; it helps me a lot and makes me more confident and proud for my achievements.

Also, try not to take too many breaks! I personally don’t take any breaks because I don’t really need them; it takes me around 15 to 25 minutes to finish a section. But, if you want to finish more than a section per day, make sure to take small but often breaks. And, remember; don’t use your break on the internet! That will distract you and from 5 minutes the break will expand to hours and hours!

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Anyhow, I really hope I helped you! I tried to be as specific as possible but if you have any questions, my dm’s are always open! Also, feel free to reblog this post with your tips on how you learn a language!

Ciao, Marina♥