I had my first lesson in quite a while this past Friday with Jean-Ronald LaFond. My lesson this time around was one of discovery and great advancement for my part. During the course of the lesson I felt myself singing in a way I never had before and I liked it. It was a great experience for me and we even talked about me doing auditions in the fall if I can get a few more things to line up vocally. Since I've been home, I have continued to work with the new concepts I was given and can employ them fairly well in my vocalises (at least I think I do), however I am struggling to put these things through into my repertoire work. This is especially frustrating since I was singing so well at my lesson. I chalk up my difficulties to the fact that I am not in front of JRL receiving guidance as I am singing. I will ultimately figure out how to incorporate and synthesize these concepts into my singing and know that if I continue with the work ethic I have been developping that I will be fine.
Linguistically, however, is a different story. I have had a rough couple of weeks with my language learning time. This is mainly due to a largely increased workload at my actual job which results in less time for study. I am hoping that things will slow back down to normal at work next week and that I will be able to get back to my normal routine, otherwise I am going to have to find a new time to study. This is very frustrating to me because I was on such a good pace with German and now I feel as though I have skidded to a stop. Luckily I still do manage to get in at least a little time with the language, mostly my Michel Thomas recordings. Again my mantra is, as always: Slow and steady wins the race.
Friday, February 24, 2012
Monday, February 6, 2012
Back from the abyss
I had a rough week last week in German. I was very busy at work and very tired when I wasn't busy, so I was not able to do much. Life is a little bit easier this week though and I have got back into my routine, thankfully. The advantage with French was that I had a base in the language prior to my intensive work. While I am not progress at the same rate in German, I do still have somewhat of a base in the language due to being a native English speaker. There are a vast number of German words which change pronunciation from English very predictably, which makes learning those words vastly easier than a language that doesn't share common roots.
In general, it is said that the more languages you know the easier it is to learn more. I see this more and more as I progress through languages. Not only do your methods of learning become more efficient, but the shared vocabulary among the world's languages provides a wonderful base to springboard off of.
I just barely crossed over the 1,000 word mark on LingQ and hope to add about 500 words to that total this week. The difficult thing about LingQ at this point in my learning is that there are so many words I don't know that I get easily frustrated at how long it takes to get through one story, so I end up only doing one story a day, which does not help my word count.
In other news, I am finally going to get down for a lesson on the 17th of this month. It has been a long while since my last lesson and I am anxious to see how my progress measures up. I find myself often frustrated that I am not progressing at a faster pace, but constantly have to remind myself that quality takes time and that if I trust the process it will work for me. There have been great steps forward in the last few weeks with certain "problem" arias falling into place and feeling comfortable as well as new arias beginning to show signs of growth as well. Hopefully this will continue into my lesson and I can continue to grow towards being YAP audition ready in the fall, which is my goal.
In general, it is said that the more languages you know the easier it is to learn more. I see this more and more as I progress through languages. Not only do your methods of learning become more efficient, but the shared vocabulary among the world's languages provides a wonderful base to springboard off of.
I just barely crossed over the 1,000 word mark on LingQ and hope to add about 500 words to that total this week. The difficult thing about LingQ at this point in my learning is that there are so many words I don't know that I get easily frustrated at how long it takes to get through one story, so I end up only doing one story a day, which does not help my word count.
In other news, I am finally going to get down for a lesson on the 17th of this month. It has been a long while since my last lesson and I am anxious to see how my progress measures up. I find myself often frustrated that I am not progressing at a faster pace, but constantly have to remind myself that quality takes time and that if I trust the process it will work for me. There have been great steps forward in the last few weeks with certain "problem" arias falling into place and feeling comfortable as well as new arias beginning to show signs of growth as well. Hopefully this will continue into my lesson and I can continue to grow towards being YAP audition ready in the fall, which is my goal.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Two weeks in... Impatience
I am just over two weeks in to my German studies, and thus far am pretty much on track. I am a little behind on my LingQ work, about 300 words, but I am not terribly worried about it, I figure it will all come out in the wash at the end. As I mentioned before this is the first language I am learning on my own, completely from scratch. I have noticed that I have the tendency to get slightly impatient with my learning curve, chastising myself for not being able to say more. Then I remind myself that I am only two weeks in and have another eleven and a half months to go, thusly I should not worry. I can already have some basic conversations and text messages with my German speaking friends.
One thing I have discovered about going at this completely on my own is that it is a little overwhelming at first knowing absolutely nothing and just throwing yourself in the deep end. I am slowly picking up more and more things every day and I am near 1,000 known words on LingQ. Overall I am comfortable with where I am and feel like I am on a good pace at this point.
I have not written anything about my vocal journey in a while. The fact is that I do not have much to report. I continue to progress towards my goal of being able to sing tenor repertoire comfortably and convincingly. I was supposed to have a lesson yesterday, however those plans fell through, so I now am looking forward to February and my next potential lesson. There have been some important milestones in my singing though in my time between lessons. The most important one being that more of my top notes have begun to show glimpses of themselves to me when singing. I am still struggling with endurance however. I sense that this will be a very important year for my singing career, one way or the other.
One thing I have discovered about going at this completely on my own is that it is a little overwhelming at first knowing absolutely nothing and just throwing yourself in the deep end. I am slowly picking up more and more things every day and I am near 1,000 known words on LingQ. Overall I am comfortable with where I am and feel like I am on a good pace at this point.
I have not written anything about my vocal journey in a while. The fact is that I do not have much to report. I continue to progress towards my goal of being able to sing tenor repertoire comfortably and convincingly. I was supposed to have a lesson yesterday, however those plans fell through, so I now am looking forward to February and my next potential lesson. There have been some important milestones in my singing though in my time between lessons. The most important one being that more of my top notes have begun to show glimpses of themselves to me when singing. I am still struggling with endurance however. I sense that this will be a very important year for my singing career, one way or the other.
Monday, January 2, 2012
Der Plan
As we have started a new year, I have already put in two days of study on my new language for the year, German. I figure I would outline my basic plan for the year with regards to my acquisition of German.
Resources:
German with Michel Thomas
German with Ease by Assimil
German on LingQ
In general, my goal is to spend ten hours a week studying German over the course of the next year. As I do not study on my days off from work, that equates to 2 hours a day, 5 days a week. I will go through one lesson/track per working day with MT and Assimil. On LingQ, I plan to add approximately 100 known words to my vocabulary every working day. This is a little bit slower of a pace than I would like on LingQ, but I think it is the best plan for the amount of time I have available to devote to this study. As I go along I will have to read more and more material to acquire 100 new known words, so ultimately my exposure will grow exponentially as I become more accustomed to the language.
On the side, I plan to watch a German movie every month and listen to some German radio programming every week. Also, I am going to start praying the Rosary in German and hopefully I will get to the point where I can spontaneously pray in German by the end of the year. I also have a number of friends and acquaintances who speak German, so I will be practicing my spoken German from a very early stage, as soon as I start to know some more relevant material than: Der Tee ist kalt.
Based on my previous work in French, I anticipate that I will get to a pretty comfortable place with German by the summer, at which point I will have finished both MT and Assimil. The rest of my year in German will be spent focusing on listening comprehension and vocabulary building through LingQ.
German does present me with some challenges, the most striking one being that I have practically no previous coursework or study of the language outside of the one month I studied it last year. With both French and Italian I had taken actual classes prior to my self-study, so I had a little bit of a head-start. I am excited to see how I do with my first completely self-taught language and hope to be able to use this working plan as model for my future languages.
Resources:
German with Michel Thomas
German with Ease by Assimil
German on LingQ
In general, my goal is to spend ten hours a week studying German over the course of the next year. As I do not study on my days off from work, that equates to 2 hours a day, 5 days a week. I will go through one lesson/track per working day with MT and Assimil. On LingQ, I plan to add approximately 100 known words to my vocabulary every working day. This is a little bit slower of a pace than I would like on LingQ, but I think it is the best plan for the amount of time I have available to devote to this study. As I go along I will have to read more and more material to acquire 100 new known words, so ultimately my exposure will grow exponentially as I become more accustomed to the language.
On the side, I plan to watch a German movie every month and listen to some German radio programming every week. Also, I am going to start praying the Rosary in German and hopefully I will get to the point where I can spontaneously pray in German by the end of the year. I also have a number of friends and acquaintances who speak German, so I will be practicing my spoken German from a very early stage, as soon as I start to know some more relevant material than: Der Tee ist kalt.
Based on my previous work in French, I anticipate that I will get to a pretty comfortable place with German by the summer, at which point I will have finished both MT and Assimil. The rest of my year in German will be spent focusing on listening comprehension and vocabulary building through LingQ.
German does present me with some challenges, the most striking one being that I have practically no previous coursework or study of the language outside of the one month I studied it last year. With both French and Italian I had taken actual classes prior to my self-study, so I had a little bit of a head-start. I am excited to see how I do with my first completely self-taught language and hope to be able to use this working plan as model for my future languages.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Linguaphile - Lover of language
This is a rather impromptu post, however I said something in an early conversation today that I wanted to discuss here.
"In becoming a linguaphile I have become a lover of language."
This statement seems redundant I'm sure. However let me explain what I mean. One of the things that I am striving for in my journey of learning languages is to be able to have musical moments in which I find myself transcending language and music and finding a deeper connection. I had this occur on Christmas eve while singing "Oh Holy Night" in the original French text. While everyone thinks that the song is beautiful in English, it was only through my knowledge of French that I found the true beauty of the song hidden in the real text of the song. My French is at a level where I no longer need to translate what I am reading or saying, I just intuitively know what I am saying or reading. This enables one to experience the culture of thinking in the language you are using. I have found it to be true that people who speak different languages see the world differently. Let us take a look at the text of Oh Holy Night to see what I mean. The order will be French (original), then a literal translation and then the sung English version.
Minuit, chretiens, c'est l'heure solenelle, ou l'Homme-Dieu descendit jusqu'a nous.
Midnight, Christians, is the solemn hour, where the God-Man descends among us.
Oh holy night, the star is brightly shining, it is the night of our dear Savior's birth.
Pour effacer la tache originelle, et de son Pere arreter le courroux.
To erase the original stain, and to stop the wrath of his Father.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining, till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.
Le monde entier tresaille d'esperance, a cette nuit qui lui donne un Sauveur.
The whole world trembles in hope, on this night which he gives a Savior.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Peuple a genoux, attends ta delivrance, Noel, Noel voici le Redempteur.
People on your knees, await your deliverance, Noel, Noel, here is the Redemptor.
Fall on your knees, oh hear the angel voices, oh night divine, oh night when Christ is born, oh holy night.
For me, in performing the French version of this song I finally felt the true emotion of the piece and was free to perform it with the integrity it deserves. I found the real text to be considerably more moving and inspiring and that was channeled through me as I was singing. This is the real reason I learn languages, so that my performances may be truly genuine. Because I know French at an intimate level, I was able to connect to the music. My love of language grew tenfold that night, because I learned experientially that speaking a different language really does give one a new way of thinking about a topic. Only through a thorough knowledge of the language one sings in can one truly give an informed and accurate performance.
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