3 Months Challenge

Started by Ezy Ryder, March 31, 2013, 08:26:04 AM

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Ezy Ryder

OK, recently I've had an idea, about taking a 3-months-long challenge to learn a language. The next 3 months have exactly 91 days (or exactly 13 weeks), and learning 55 words a day (for example, by using Anki, real-life flashcards, SuperMemo, MnemoSyne or Memrise) gives just over 5000 words after finishing. You just need to supplement that with some additional grammar study, and the results may get quite interesting.
I'm going to start tomorrow, so it's a bit of a short notice, but would anybody else be interested in taking such challenge, for mutual support and motivation?
My plan is to wake up every day at 8:00 AM (my regional time), and do 10-minutes-long study sessions, separated with 5-minutes-long breaks. I've been learning Kanji in January, and learning 50 new characters+reviews of older ones was taking about 1:45, giving tempo of 2,1 minutes per character, last month I've been studying vocabulary, and going through 30 new words+reviews of older ones was taking about 1:05, giving a similar tempo of ~2.1(6) minutes per word. So I guess that learning of 55 new words+reviews of older ones will take only about two hours a day, and keeping in mind that there will be breaks too, I should be finished around 11:xx AM.
As You can guess by the number of words I'm going to tackle, I'm not going to be learning Na'vi (although I plan doing a similar thing for Na'vi this December). The language I'm going to attempt to learn is Mandarin Chinese, but of course if You're interested in joining me, there's absolutely no problem if You're learning any other language (including Na'vi, though You're going to run out of new words a bit before me :) ).
PS.: I'm sorry if I've chosen the wrong sub-forum for this thread, and/or if it's overall too off-topic for this forum.

Stranger Come Knocking

I like it. :) I admit, since Easter and the Promise and everything, I've really been wanting to get back into Hebrew.  I think I'll be focusing a bit more on the grammar as it relates to the words (masculine and feminine and special endings and *bleh*).  I do have two jobs to work, however, so I don't know that I can quite do the full fifty-five words.

But I will try! *fist pump*
I will not die for less
I dug my grave in this
Will I go before I fall
Or live to slight the odds?

These are my books.  You should check it out.  Speculative sci-fi murder mystery historical fiction.

Ezy Ryder

Week 1:

OK, so the first week of the challenge is nearing its end. For the first five days I managed to keep the tempo, but yesterday I found a new mnemonic method for memorizing the syllables of which the words consist, and it differs utterly from what I've been using before. Today I started considering dropping Anki, and just using this method by itself... It is quite the opposite of Anki. It makes the bond stronger, but slower. In Anki it's just prompting You the words and expecting You to recall them, the bond is weaker, but faster (some people can recall a word, check whether they were correct and rate how well did the do in less than 10 seconds per card on average. With this method, at the beginning at least, I need more like a minute and a half, but I get it correct more often).
Total time spent: 10:18

Stranger Come Knocking

My week 1 report:

Well, the site I'm using is very thorough, but only on the basic points ad doesn't actually get into detail.  I learn more just from the charts.  I think I need to find something different...

As far as vocab, still using the given words from each lesson on the site, but there are few per lesson (good for me as I can't do mass-memorization), but I can handle more than four or five at a time.
I will not die for less
I dug my grave in this
Will I go before I fall
Or live to slight the odds?

These are my books.  You should check it out.  Speculative sci-fi murder mystery historical fiction.

Ezy Ryder

Tìnusumeri, oeyä hama kintrr ke lamu swey. Oel fpamìl futa san oel narmume tsaholpxayit aylì'uä nìftxan, ulte oe mi ke tsun fpivìl, fu pivängkxo nìtsalì'fya sìk. Hufwa holpxay aylì'uä le中文 fu le日本語 a tsat oel omum lu le'ul to holpxay aylì'uä leNa'vi, oe li tsun sivar fìlì'fyat. Ha fpolìl oel futa san kxawm tìngäzìk ke lu fwa oel ke omum letama holpxayit aylì'uä, slä fwa oel ke omum sìltsana aylì'ut? sìk. Trramta fwew oel aylì'ut leNa'vi a tsat oel omum, fte ralpiveng tsat fa Wiktionary, ulte nivume. Oel li tse'a futa oel ke omum pxaya aylì'ut nìtsaylì'fya, a tsat omum oel nìNa'vi.

Ps.: I wrote the update in Na'vi just to prove my point, but You can access the translation by putting Your mouse over each sentence.
Ps2.: I know about 1000 words in Japanese, 500 words in Chinese and 400 in Na'vi.