Language learning

[watervole]

 I'm still having fun with Clozemaster - 62 day streak - haven't missed a day since I discovered it.

Today, I've been trying out the option to listen to a phrase before I see it written down - seems to work pretty well, and forces me a lot more on the pronunciation and trying to work out the meaning before I see the English translation.

I'm taking the easy option, using the slow, clear speech from the normal collections of words that I'm using.

 

There is also the option of a much harder group of spoken sentences, recorded by native speakers with varying accents and some degree of potential background noise. (They're taken from a common voice project)  I'll save that one for much later...

 

 

Comments

[vera_j]

I found Clozemaster - thank you for the link on FB. However my vocabulary is really too limited to enjoy this new thing. I have returned back to Duolingo...I am struggling with the growing amount of new words...

[watervole]

Did you try it on the '100 most common words' setting?

It does throw a lot of new words at you, but after a while, you get a lot more that you have already seen.

But it does help a lot if you have a basic vocabulary to start with.

I was going to suggest that you might like to look at the Dreamwidth page of someone who occasionally posts in Welsh, but I think that would probably be way too hard (I'm certainly not planning to read anyone in German for a long time yet!)

[vera_j]

Thank you for your kind care. Well, I am just a beginning beginner and I confess that I haven´t mastered all the grammar yet, let alone the vocabulary. I need lots of practising and repeating - and still I keep forgetting. It is just that I like learning this language for myself, to keep my brain on toes (hahahaha). I know that I will never be able to really use it but hey! I do loke it!

[watervole]

I know exactly what you mean! I will never use my German, but I still enjoy learning it.

It will be a long time before I manage do decline all the pronouns and adjectives correctly! If ever...

Given how good your English has become, I am sure you will progress with Welsh :)

[vera_j]

Oh my, I am blushing... But after all, I have been learning English for soooo many years...IF I had devoted more time and effort to my studies from the begining, I would have reached the proficiency level...But you know. Still, I am extremely happy with what I have and I owe you for making me communicate and learn from mistakes. With English, my "horizons" became so wide...and I earned lots of lovely friends.

[watervole]

You underestimate yourself. You're getting close to the point where your written English is indistinguishable from a native speaker.

[vera_j]

*Grins happily*

[galadhir]

Oh, thanks for the link! I have spent an interesting 20 minutes trying to pick the right Mandarin word in a sentence I can't read at all. I think it's a bit too advanced for me, though I should probably try it again in German.

[galadhir]

Yeah, that's a lot more doable in German!

[watervole]

Yes, it's definitely not suitable for total beginners. But it's really good for colloquial German.

I tend to start with a short session of the '100 most common words', then a second session of '500 most common words', then, if I'm feeling positive, go for the 'fast fluency'.

[word_geek]

That sounds really interesting and I might try it out.

Personally, I'm finding Bluesky surprisingly useful for picking up German again. When Elon decided to say something supportive of AfD, a large chunk of German Twitter pulled the escape cord. The Bluesky equivalent to Tweetdeck had more German users than American, the following week.

when I got on the site, I followed a German to English translator that I had got to know a little bit on Twitter and interacted with her a bit on Bluesky. Now, if I look in the more-algorithmic Discover feed, I get both languages. It's linked to Google translate (no native translation function yet) so I can check things I'm not certain of based on my own rusty language skills.

Once I started interacting with other posts in German, the 'you must be bilingual' effect accelerated. The posts are short, which helps, and I can respond in English (although I am careful with the words *I* pick), because the Internet is weighted toward folk who can at least read in English. It's surprising how often I read something through a few times and a word I had no idea I had ever learned comes floating to the surface again.

[watervole]

I had to look up AfD...

Nasty bunch and deniers of Human Caused Climate Change to boot.

Must admit that I haven't tried Bluesky. I'm a dinosaur with physical limitations on how much I can type. So I mostly stay here...