Do you enjoy everything in your routine?

General discussion about learning languages
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Finolia
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Re: Do you enjoy everything in your routine?

Postby Finolia » Wed Mar 22, 2017 10:38 pm

Hello :)
When I was still at school flashcards worked very well for me but as I got into self studying at home it always felt like a waste of time. It got more and more tiring, even though I felt some improvement, and at some point I couldn't force myself to review them anymore. So..I "dropped" it ^^

One thing I'm currently struggling with is Glossika. I kind of like it but I kind of don't, I don't know. I'm still trying and hoping that I'll find a better way of using it but when something doesn't feel helpful then I can't concentrate and I'm afraid I'll have to drop that, too.

I think it's fine to drop methods you don't like. If you get bored then you will lose focus and you won't be able to concentrate. The results will vanish and you end up wasting your time. I believe that you can find other methods or maybe just change a few details to get results and to have "fun" - or at least to get out of that boredom.

Easier said than done ^^ I don't really know why but I'm always uncomfortable with dropping something. I'm always hoping that it will get better or I don't know... it just feels like wasting my resources (even though I'm really just wasting time with it...sigh)
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Re: Do you enjoy everything in your routine?

Postby reineke » Wed Mar 22, 2017 11:30 pm

Ani wrote:Enjoy is a funny word. I enjoy the accomplishment of certain things and I enjoy the results. I enjoy the speed that improve with certain resources over simply "enjoying myself" watching tv or reading a book. Actually I like the brain stretch of good hard work more than mindless tv watching, except in cases of illness or fatigue, but if the specific activity isn't a net positive in process and result then I drop it.


Meanwhile, in my brain...
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Re: Do you enjoy everything in your routine?

Postby Ani » Wed Mar 22, 2017 11:38 pm

reineke wrote:
Ani wrote:Enjoy is a funny word. I enjoy the accomplishment of certain things and I enjoy the results. I enjoy the speed that improve with certain resources over simply "enjoying myself" watching tv or reading a book. Actually I like the brain stretch of good hard work more than mindless tv watching, except in cases of illness or fatigue, but if the specific activity isn't a net positive in process and result then I drop it.


Meanwhile, in my brain...



... lies the esoteric wisdom of all the world's cartoons?
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Re: Do you enjoy everything in your routine?

Postby smallwhite » Thu Mar 23, 2017 2:12 am

My answer to another question answers this question as well:

What's your biggest language learning problem?
smallwhite wrote:My biggest problem is I don't like the learning activities involved. I like reading grammars, I don't mind drilling grammar, I don't mind doing SRS reps, but that's about it. I don't like reading, can't bear TV drama, can never pick a movie because none interest me. I don't like intensive reading or listening because they're boring and clicking so much at the mouse makes my arm sore. At home I like it dead quiet and can't really stand radio or TY dialogues in the background. On the street I want it quiet and I want to hear the traffic. And if I'm further out, that's because I want to hear the birds and the waves.

I have enough time, but also a hard time dragging myself to study. Luckily, once I start, I can go on for quite a while.


Except for SRS which I do on the phone, I don't have a rountine - I just do whatever needs doing - so I don't really drop unpleasant activities - I just do them less often. And everything Ani said in her post applies to me as well (about evaluating an activity both by its process and by its results).

(Rainbow font to show off the new construction "need -ing" that other members have just taught me).
Last edited by smallwhite on Fri Jun 22, 2018 7:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Do you enjoy everything in your routine?

Postby solocricket » Thu Mar 23, 2017 2:42 am

I make sure I'm enjoying (to some degree) everything I'm doing regarding languages. I know from past experience that if something is boring or tedious, it will eat away at my motivation. First goes the motivation to use the language that particular day, or to do the particular boring thing. But if I push through, the entire project can go up in flames and I'll drop the whole language for an indeterminate period of time. I learn languages as a hobby, and I love doing it, but I know that each language is a long-term project. Therefore, I make sure I do things to raise the likelihood that I'll stick with the project and see it through to my goal.

Since people are mentioning Anki specifically, I've definitely felt the same way. I used Anki sentences (TL sentence on the front, L1 translation or TL definitions on the back) with both French and Spanish, and moved away from it when my level got high enough that Anki was no longer interesting. I didn't use Anki with Dutch, and I said I didn't like Anki at the time. But thinking about it now, it was because I didn't have good resources (mainly sentences with translations) to plug in. I stick with it longest if I have stuff to plug into Anki in a monotonous way :D With Polish, I think I've been keeping up with Anki because I have a really good course with lots of sentences and translations.

ETA: I think there are a thousand ways to learn a language (everyone here seems to do it differently :D), so if I don't like something I find a way to work around it!
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Re: Do you enjoy everything in your routine?

Postby Expugnator » Tue Mar 28, 2017 4:53 pm

There is so much I don't like from what I'm doing now, but I think it's safe to say I like at least 90% of my routine.

Some things I don't like:

- Watching comedy series without subtitles that are above my level, and worse, failing to pay attention to them, so they're basically a waste for training active listening, though they still do train unfocused listening skills and phonetic decyphering as a whole.
- Having to 'save' resources for less common languages - I'd find a book I'm dying to read in its English, Portuguese, French or Spanish edition but then I'd save it for reading it in Turkish when time comes.
- Having to go through long lessons in textbooks, and sticking to them even if they end up not so productive, because the alternative of splitting the lessons just means I'll stay longer with an unpleasant task.
- Consistently failing to insert output in my fixed schedule.
- When I do write output, most of the times it's boring paragraphs on lang-8/italki.
- When I do have cooler opportunities for practice, be they forums in my TLs on subjects I really want or just very active chatrooms/groups, I don't use them consistently at all.

Things I don't usually do and I really dislike:

- SRS/An app telling me what to do/overlearning a given resource (when it's something with a clear end, like Glossika, Clozemaster or Duolingo, then I absolutely like it. I treat those as just graded sentence-reading practice, usually with audio, which is a complement to text reading and video watching).

At one point in one of my old logs, I'd attribute a FUN or BORING label to each of the activities in my schedule. Almost all activities got a FUN label, and some of the BORING ones were momentary (like the book I was reading at a given moment was boring, but reading in that language wasn't at all).
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Re: Do you enjoy everything in your routine?

Postby coldrainwater » Sat Apr 01, 2017 5:07 am

Neo: Why do my eyes hurt?
Morpheus: You’ve never used them before.

In monolingual times, I plague-avoided listening and socializing for the most part. After a month of consistent listening practice, I feel like Neo.
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Re: Do you enjoy everything in your routine?

Postby Finny » Sun Apr 02, 2017 2:56 am

I used to watch TV in an attempt to provide French input. I got sick of watching TV; I don't like having my eyes tied to video, and prefer listening to something while reading something else. I stopped watching TV and went exclusively to the radio (aside from a movie now and then with the kids and a cooking show that we put on now and then - Les carnets de Julie). My French satisfaction soared.

It makes sense in retrospect; the only time I watch TV in English is when my wife and I watch HGTV episodes online or put on a movie for date nights. If I watch the equivalent of maybe 1h a week on average, and always with my wife, there's little reason to expect I'd suddenly turn into a TV learner in a foreign language. Back when learning Spanish, I did watch a few complete telenovelas, but that was also before having kids; these days, I don't have the attention span for TV. This also dovetails with Antimoon / AJATT advice of doing what you'd normally do, but in your target language.
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Re: Do you enjoy everything in your routine?

Postby Adrianslont » Sun Apr 02, 2017 4:18 am

Finny wrote:I used to watch TV in an attempt to provide French input. I got sick of watching TV; I don't like having my eyes tied to video, and prefer listening to something while reading something else. I stopped watching TV and went exclusively to the radio (aside from a movie now and then with the kids and a cooking show that we put on now and then - Les carnets de Julie). My French satisfaction soared.

It makes sense in retrospect; the only time I watch TV in English is when my wife and I watch HGTV episodes online or put on a movie for date nights. If I watch the equivalent of maybe 1h a week on average, and always with my wife, there's little reason to expect I'd suddenly turn into a TV learner in a foreign language. Back when learning Spanish, I did watch a few complete telenovelas, but that was also before having kids; these days, I don't have the attention span for TV. This also dovetails with Antimoon / AJATT advice of doing what you'd normally do, but in your target language.


I identify with much of this. In English I pretty much just watch rugby and occasionally some British comedy to be sociable with my wife - on average less than two hours per week. I am so out of touch with all of the hit tv dramas from the US. I'm not sure if this is an effect of the Internet or children - probably a combination.

For language learning I have been watching cartoons, talk shows and a soap opera - I have really had to force myself to sit still and watch. It's not that I hate it - I just prefer listening and reading stuff on the web. Meanwhile, I have become somewhat addicted to listening to material in my target languages in the car (course material, podcasts) and I quietly resent the presence of other people in the car as it stops me from listening to Indonesian and French content!

Anyway, I have found a way to satisfy my preference for listening as opposed to watching video and it also overcomes the relative lack of course material and podcasts in Indonesian - I rip the audio track from YouTube videos or DVDs. There are episodes I have never actually seen - just heard. It works very well for talk shows and okay for some cartoons - though I try to watch the cartoon once before listening to it several times in the car.

BTW your post prompted me to try Les Carnets de Julie - I just enjoyed half an episode - I wish they were shorter! Haha. It's a bit difficult for me but I could still find it useful and I'm interested in food. I really need to watch before ripping though or it wouldn't work out. :(
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Re: Do you enjoy everything in your routine?

Postby blaurebell » Sun Apr 02, 2017 10:27 am

Finny wrote:these days, I don't have the attention span for TV. This also dovetails with Antimoon / AJATT advice of doing what you'd normally do, but in your target language.


To be honest what I enjoy and don't enjoy depends very much on the language. I pretty much never listen to radio in German, English or Spanish. In fact when I visit my dad in Germany I tend to beg him to turn off the radio, even if he's listening to a culture channel! However, I just *love* France culture! Who would have thought?

I don't really watch TV, I only watch series. And after watching way too many very good American and British series I get infuriated with target language series sometimes. Right now I'm torturing myself with continental Spanish series for listening practice, but they are just so bad! I also can't bear German TV in general, haven't watched any besides Arte (which is actually French-German) in 10 years! I can't bear daytime TV, talk shows, low-brow comedy programs, singing competitions and other crap like that in any language. In my family nobody has a TV anymore. We only watch things online.

I think I actually watched the occasional German high production value series - but that happens maybe once every 5 years. Most German series are simply atrociously bad and the same goes for German dubs which are completely unbearable in my ears! The exception are cartoons - here sometimes the German voices are better than the original. I enjoy all sorts of Spanish language cinema from different countries, but always found German cinema somewhat ... mediocre in general with the exception of very very old pre-war movies.

In German I also used to read a lot of comics when I was younger, mostly translations from Japanese. I find Spanish translations of comics really weird though and only like comics that were originally written in Spanish. Reading comics in French is also great, especially original titles.

Basically I like Spanish language cinema and literature, Argentinian tango, German 1900-1945 literature, German and French philosophy, American cinema, American and British series and contemporary literature, English language university lectures and MOOCs, French comics and radio, and right now I'm also getting into French literature and cinema. The main reason why I learn languages is to be able to enjoy things I wouldn't be able to enjoy in translation. For example, I like Russian story telling, but I find most translations from Russian simply unreadable. And most content in Russian that interests me hasn't been translated at all.

So, I can't really do what I normally do in my target languages, because I enjoy different things in different languages. Figuring out what I like and don't like is always the first step with a new language to try and integrate it properly in my life.
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