4/7/13
1. Bought an updated version of a great textbook.
2. Downloaded pronunciation guide.
3. Learned several rules (order of words in sentence; ikke; verb kunnen; jeg-mig, han-ham, hun-hende.
I’ll need an experienced tutor for pronunciation, so I left a request for a good teacher. I have already attempted to start learning in January but could not find any teachers. Hopefully, in an hour I’ll get a positive answer.
Update. Success! (first she agreed, then changed her mind, then I managed to talk her into trying once a week. The tutor sounds very knowledgeable and dedicated…
4/12/2013
had my first lesson – she is good and we work on pronunciation. I was reasonably prepared. But she does not give a lot to study or a coherent homework, so I need to work on it myself.
4/19/13
2nd lesson. I was entirely unprepared in terms of pronunciation – need to work on it. we worked on direct form of pronouncements *sp? is this a right name (I, we, she/he, they), word order in the sentence and got some vocabulary. It’s not THAT difficult so far.
4/25/13
spent 3 hrs working on lesson 2 and really liked it. Listened to Danish radio. I need to buy a dictionary and a workbook.
5/10/13
Had a 2 weeks interruption in lessons due to local holidays, and my instructor went on a business-trip to Copenhagen. So, I forgot that I was supposed to have a lesson yesterday. Though we still had it. And it went really well.
Spent 2 hrs in the evening listening to audio of a dialogue. It’s getting less scary and more clear once you listen to it a bunch of times.
5/11/13
Was capable to repeat a dialogue on my own. So far, spent 3 hours listening to an audio version of the same dialogue and repeating phrases. For the record and to demonstrate how cumbersome this task is – there are mere 14 sentences in this dialogue. Anyway, it has some very useful lexicon. The most frustrating part is that I managed to forget all grammar during this two week hiatus…
5/14/13
- 2.5 hrs – homework. worked on pronouns and structures. Searched for a workbook.
5/15/13- ordered a workbook.
- 30 min @ 4:20 am listening to dialogue from lesson 3 (next lesson)
- 30 min working on pronunciation (refreshed rules on r, d, av)
5/16/13 – bought a workbook and an engelsk-dansk dictionary. (so funny – they gave me a wrong workbook, and said they don’t have that dictionary, then ran around looking for it…anyway all is well that ends well.)
listened to dialogues – 10 min. worked on exerceses in Intensivt – 10 min.
5/17/13 – had a lesson. She mostly tested 2 lessons that we are done with. It turned out that y pronunciation is not particularly good (as expected + I did not really work on it.) And unfortunately she was not expected that I now lexicon pretty well. Oh well, I’ll keep working.
5/22/13 Learned couple of rules in pronunciation (long i; diftong ig; eg; av). – 20 min.
5/23/13 spent about 2 hrs looking for a book on Danish phonetics. Nothing.
5/24/13 Realized that I did already downloaded a good old book n Phonetics. Studied about 30-40 min and got depressed because there is still so much to do. Oh well, I just need to keep in mind that I should try to comprehend a BIG goal. Just focus on what you need to do today. It’s not a lot. So, on 5/25 I’ll learn 10 rules.
5/29/13 worked on the difference of sounds [i:] and [e:]. The difference is very subtle to my ear, and the Danish sound [e:] does not exist in any other languages that I know.
5/31/13 1.5 hrs lesson. went very productive and I got a long homework. Hopefully, she’ll find time to have two lessons per week instead one. 2 months ago
