We’re three weeks into this year now and that means three-quarters of the way through the uTalk challenge… and there is the slightest possibility that I am not doing as well as I had hoped.
I’m perhaps a quarter of the way through the lessons on the app – and I’ve not been super diligent about using it, either, which means that I’m losing all progress I’m making.
However, I am enjoying using the app in and of itself. The speaking game gets neglected, because I’m not willing to utter mangled Slovak to my phone on the train to and from school, but the memory game in particular is a fun one. So yes, the app is cute and user-friendly and useful – but there are some things I’m going to need to do in the next week to make sure that it’s useful to me as a whole.
For one, I’m going to have to find a guide to Slovak pronunciation somewhere and practice it. Most letters seem to have the same or similar sounds as English (or German), but there are some that just don’t make any sense to me; and this means that even if I slow the speaker speed to half of normal, I don’t quite catch how they’re saying it.
Second, I’m going to have to dedicate some time to doing the speaking game – and just pronouncing the words in general. Speaking is my weakest skill in any language (even, I dare say, in English), but it isn’t helped by the fact that Slovak is the first Slavic language I’ve tried in any depth and getting my mouth around those consonants is kind of difficult. Practice will get me there, but I need to remember to do that.
Finally, I have to make sure I spend time on the app in general. I’m going to set myself a target of 10 minutes a day from tomorrow until Friday 29th (I’m going to Rome the final weekend of January, so I don’t know if I’ll have time to use the app much) – which is only 80 minutes total, but it’s really getting myself onto the app that’s the important thing. After that, I tend to play on it for a while.
So yeah, that’s where I’m at. Oh, and here’s a screenshot of my (low) score, for those of you interested:
How’s everyone else getting on with the challenge? I know one of the EuroTalk staff has finished the whole app already, wooh! How’s everything else going this January? Let me know! 🙂