Thursday, June 26, 2008

language-learning goodness

i think i've mentioned chinesepod on here before, yeah? the same folks recently launched frenchpod, and i'm using more of my time than i probably ought to be poking around there. but... if i can find a job where they like the fact that i speak french, it'd be better to have knocked some of the rust off my grammar and vocabulary before trying to interview. so yay for feeling a little productive while i'm having fun. they came out with their first upper intermediate lesson today, and i'm rather relieved to find that i can follow it, no problem.

also on language, chris p. (whose blog i think i wandered over to from chinesepod?) recently posted a video explaining his strategy for learning lots of vocabulary in a foreign language quickly. it's not too entirely different from what i do when i'm being serious about learning vocabulary anyhow, but it's more systematic and it's been a while since i've been serious about it. i'm giving his method a try with chinese, albeit using the pdf transcripts of my daily podcast dialogs instead of articles -- not up to article-reading level yet, but the pockets of "things i understand" are getting more frequent!

4 comments:

ChrisP said...

Thanks for the shout out, I'm glad someone found the video useful. Let me know how it works for you. How long have you been studying Chinese?

If stickam wasn't blocked here, I'd ask you to speak French with me on there....

Chris

kait said...

thanks for stopping by! i've only been studying chinese for a few months, mostly by pimsleur method + various podcasts -- one day my chinese-american boyfriend randomly announced he was going to learn french and started pestering me for pronunciations, so i promptly found some materials so i could start learning his other language, too. i got hooked! (he hasn't stuck with the french so much, but oh well. i'd forgotten how much i enjoy language-learning.)

Alex said...

Kait, this post inspired me to brush up on my Spanish so I went on Spanishpod... it actually works well on commutes as long as I wasn't trying to change lanes in heavy traffic (cambiar carriles)

kait said...

yeah, i've not been able to do as much car-time language-learning since moving -- as much as i like to think i'm a multitasker, driving in unfamiliar places and concentrating doesn't work! running, however -- it slows me down a little, but i'm less likely to get bored and notice that my legs are starting to hurt! hope spanishpod is useful for you... i love the casual, funny lessons.