The ultimate language challenge

I have been learning German for over a year and a half now and I decided that I should start picking up the pace a little, I talked to my German teacher at school and I asked her what the best way would be to motivate myself to learn 4 languages at once (they are all at different levels) and she set me a challenge, to write a 200 page book, 50 pages in each language, my languages are German (intermediate), Spanish (beginner but quite a confident beginner), Chinese (very low beginner) and Czech (no knowledge), I figured that I need the same level in the other three as my German to do it, so I started my task, I have already wrote a few pages of the German one after some extensive planning and I decided that I would write about how I learnt those languages in each section, if I work on it for 15-60 minutes a day then I figured that in 2 weeks the German section will be done, then it will probably take me a month or two to do the Spanish section, by this time I hope that my Czech level will be a little better and I will be able to get through those 50 pages in under 3 months (with the help of a dictionary) and then finally I will start Chinese which will probably take around 6-12 months because I want to use the dictionary as little as possible, so I want to get to an intermediate level in them all before I start their section of the book, by the time I finish each section I hope that the next language will be ready, I know that I can do the Spanish and Czech sections as in 6 months time they will both be at a high beginner level, then its just Chinese which will take a lot longer.

Holiday learning

Hey everyone, I am going on holiday in 8 days time and therefore decided to start planning my daily routine in order to improve my Spanish.

It is as follows:

Up at 8am and start listening straight away for 1 hour

15 minute break

9am new vocabulary learning, study a few pages of teach yourself and note down the new vocabulary

9 30am write something using the new vocabulary

30 minute break

10 15 am whilst I am out looking at the sights or going somewhere I will have my Ipod or Mp3 player in and I will be listening for the full time

3 pm when I get back I will review the pages of teach yourself and read the next few

3 30pm write something using the new words

15 minute break

4pm test myself

4 15pm Start listening to some German

5 15pm read some German and then write some German

listen wherever possible for the rest of the day

9pm read a few more pages of teach yourself for Spanish

You will notice that I allowed myself some time for German as I still want to maintain my standard in German, however my main focus for the holiday will be Spanish.

Teach yourself

Today my teach yourself Spanish book arrived and I can now begin to catch up with my Spanish, I really can't wait to improve my Spanish and with this course it shouldn't be a problem, I am still figuring out exactly how I plan to use it, but I know that its going to be fun, I imagine that I will study a chapter of it every day (the same few chapters), I think I will study the first three chapters first until I am comfortable with it all and then I will move on to the next few chapters, I really need to move at a fast pace so I will be trying to go through it very rapidly and at the same time I will be writing, reading, listening and even trying to speak it. I haven't yet decided what I want to do with my Chinese, I know that I won't drop it, but perhaps I will just study it until I know 100 characters and then maintain that level until my Spanish is good enough, then I may decide to improve my Chinese. I really enjoy my German and had another conversation with a native today, its really fun because I can test out my understanding skills (passive) and my speaking skills (active) and that helps me see my progress.

German and Spanish progress

Hello, today I wanted to write about my progress in Spanish, I have only been learning Spanish for a few weeks, but because of the hard work, learning from tutors, submitting writing on lingq and trying out what I have learnt in conversations (still basic). I am now able to express my thoughts about myself, hobbies and I know quite a lot of the beginner grammar and I know a lot of verbs and I am able to put together simple questions and sentences and I am able to speak quite fluidly about basic things, overall I am very happy with my progress.

My German has also improved over the last few weeks, I have been learning German for nearly two years, but only intensely for the last few months, I am able to express my ideas about most topics and I can say a few things about advanced topics, but I really can't express everything yet. I am working my way through a German book and can understand 50% of it at the moment and I am also learning from 'improve your German' its a book by teach yourself, I am really happy with my German and hopefully soon I will be able to talk about anything!!!

At the moment I am focusing on Spanish as my major language in order to catch it up to my German and that way I can study similar texts in both languages and have some real fun with learning!!!!

Fluent in a language for under £50

I have spent at least £300 pounds on learning material for German and imaginably more in the future, but I have been looking at the resources and combining them together I know think that I have a way of becoming fluent in a language for under £50. First of all I buy a teach yourself book know as 'complete .......' the ......... is the name of the language, first of all I buy this book and after spending a month or so going through it I find myself at a high beginner level or low intermediate level, I then go through it again for another few weeks picking out every single word. Then after being able to express my ideas about all the topics in the book I buy another teach yourself book, known as 'improve your ......' this book is a lot more detailed and really helps me to take my language to a intermediate level. I also buy a dictionary at the start, a berlitz one for about £5 on amazon. After doing all this I buy a book in the foreign language and spend a week going through a few chapters, every week I do a few more chapters, at first though I read through the whole book without stopping to look anything up and I see how much I can understand, then I take a few pages a day and go through and pick up all the words I don't know and after I finish this book I generally feel that I am at a high intermediate level/low advanced and I class this as being fluent. If bought on amazon this costs about £40 in total, however I may also buy 'perfect your .......' and study it at the same time as 'improve your .........' and overall that costs around £50. This technique is what I will be trying in Spanish and I will update you on my progress over the next few months. I also use www.lingq.com and this website offers tutors, but you have to pay, but don't worry because you can tutor in your own language and this way you don't actually have to pay any money, however the site is a lot better if you pay a monthly fee.

Setting my goals high

I have to get my Spanish to the same point that my German is now (low intermediate) and I have a year to do it, I have my own tutor who is helping me to reach my goals and I am buying the teach yourself book to work on over the Summer, but I think that I can exceed my goals by using a few methods that I have personalised, its mainly Steve's idea's about immersion, however I will be slightly editing these methods to something that I feel more comfortable with, here's how its going to work:

I will be taking a lesson in lingQ (intermediate 1 lesson) even though I am only a beginner

I will look through it and copy it all by hand into my Spanish notebook

I will read through it and see what I can understand

I will take 10-20 new words out of it and use those words in an original writing piece

Then I will go back to the lesson and take another 10-20 words

I will repeat this process and then I will go to the English section of lingQ and find the same lesson in English

I will read it and then try to translate it into Spanish as best as I can

I will then listen to the Spanish lesson several times and hopefully the new words will be left in my head

I really hope that through this method I will be able to take myself to the intermediate level and with hard work I think I could be at the intermediate one level in 6-12 months

My current levels and targets

I am currently at a low intermediate level in German, I am at the beginner level in Spanish and I am at a very low beginner in Chinese. I intend to improve my Spanish and Chinese over the summer as well as take my German to a low intermediate level. Over the summer I will be studying the teach yourself books in all three languages, I am already about three quarters of the way through the book in German, by the end of the summer I intend to finish the book in German and get about three quarters of the way through it in Spanish, I also intend to get half way through it in Chinese, but after the summer holiday I am signing up for a 1 month intensive Chinese course with a really great tutor who speaks between 40 and 50 languages. After that one month of intensive Chinese I will probably know about 400 of the most common characters and about 100 of the uncommon ones. Hopefully by the end of this year I will have my German and Spanish at the same level.

My language learning adventure

This blog is going to help show people how my language learning is progressing and how I am doing in my three languages, for those of you who don't know me my name is Harry and I am pretty young to say that I am interested in languages. I learn German, Spanish and Chinese. My German is ok, I am able to express myself well and can talk about most common topics, I am still not able to talk about advanced topics yet. I have been learning Spanish for about 3 weeks and its great. I can talk about myself and my hobbies and have been able to learn at an extremely fast pace, due to my tutor Maria, she has been excellent and I am really happy with my progress. I have been learning Chinese for about 1 week properly and I haven't made too much progress, but in the near future I will be signing up for a Chinese course for one month and after that I imagine I will start to find Chinese a little easier.