Rdearman 2016-24 You Can't Have Your Kate and Edith Too.

[rdearman]

My plan for the Christmas holidays of doing tons of reading and watching films were killed by a flu. I spend most of the holiday period laying in bed sick as a dog. I watched some TV, but couldn't read because of a massive headache. Once again Murphy and Burns have ganged up on me.

Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong, at the worst possible time.

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men,
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

The upshot of course was I didn't manage to do anything which required any long periods of mental or physical effort. I'm hoping to get something done in the couple of days which I have at New Year, but then ...

[rdearman]

Everyone is starting new logs, with exciting new plans for the new shiny year. I added 17 to the title of my log... (master of the lazy fist!)

I'm going to try to do a year without any set goals. This is pretty much the first year I've not made a New Years resolution in about 10 or 15 years, so it is kinda scary because I've accomplished a lot with fixed goals and set targets, but it is also liberating too because I can just wander around aimlessly and see what happens.

I have some vague directions in mind, but they aren't really measurable or if they are, like the super challenge, it is because I already started them. I've decided I'm going to watch my weigh, but this year I plan to watch it go down instead of up, so as long as I end 2017 lighter than when I started it I'll be happy. I plan to know more French & Italian and maybe even know more Mandarin. How will I measure "know more"? Well... I won't measure it, just want to end the year with the feeling I know more than when I started it. I may set off in a couple of different directions, I've been thumbing through a couple of books on Dutch which I have on my shelf, or Japanese, or something else. But I have no intention of "learning" another language this year. I might flirt with them, but I'm not taking them home with me.

So I'm starting the year more chilled out than normally, hopefully it will stay that way. The only problem is. Mijn luchtkussenboot zit vol paling

[rdearman]

I have found a place to watch TV in Italian, which everyone else probably already knows about. But it allows me to watch in the UK without any proxy server. http://www.raiplay.it/ At least for the Italian shows, most of the UK & US stuff is IP restricted.

The TV shows don't seem to be the latest, the one I choose to watch is from about 2011, but still more than sufficient. Italian TV seems to be getting better, so I'm not going to rant like I did the last Super Challenge. http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/fo ... N=0&TPN=16

I decided to watch "Un passo dal cielo" which has 4 seasons and is a light sort of police soap opera. I hesitate to call it a drama, because it isn't very dramatic. Gotta say though the scenery is really impressive with lots of mountains, lakes and forests. There are 4 seasons, and it is easy to follow and entertaining, although if you're looking for plot twists you've come to the wrong TV series.

[Brun Ugle]

Brilliant rant though!

[rdearman]

I haven't posted for awhile now. Had a family emergency and had to fly back to the states for a week. I didn't get much done other than reading a couple of chapters of a French paperback I took with me. 2017 really seems to be a struggle for me with language learning. I haven't really even managed to keep up with the anki reps, although I had my phone with me the entire time. I have used HelloTalk, but as always it is mostly chit-chat in English with the occasional Italian or French thrown in, but this is probably less than 20% of the time. People on HelloTalk always say they will help you with your TL, but rarely do and the ones who do try find it difficult to do corrections for voice.

It is annoying that when I have the money to pay someone to work with me in a TL that I don't have time, but when I have the time I don't have the money. I need to do something more regularly, but don't really know what at the moment.

[MamaPata]

Give yourself a break! You're only three weeks into 2017 and you've had a family emergency - if you were managing to tick off loads of stuff, we might all have to gang up and beat you up. It wouldn't be fair on anyone else! I think it's very impressive that you've been trying with HelloTalk and you've managed to do some reading.

[rdearman]

Thanks.

[rdearman]

Yesterday evening I finally had delivered: Les aventures de Tintin - Le Lotus Bleu. Someone recommended a French bookseller who would ship overseas (decitre.fr) and when I looked at their sight this was one of the first books I saw. I had to buy it because as regular readers will know I've been listening to a load of French audio in the car while driving around the country at the end of last year. This was a few dozen times of Le Lotus Bleu on repeat, which I got from this site. Now I did manage to piece together what was happening, and I was understanding more and more each iteration, but I eventually got sick of it and stopped listening. When I saw the book however I thought it would be brilliant to read the story and fill in the gaps and some of my misunderstandings. So I haven't read it yet, but will sit down with my lovely hardcopy book this weekend.

I have completed another French book written for YA and not doing to badly on the SC, but really need to ramp up the workload if I'm going to hit a double in French & Italian.

Hammering away at Anki, which I disregarded for a couple of weeks. At one point I had 2000+ cards to review. So I've turned off all new cards and I'm whittling away the backlog of cards. Most of the remaining cards, about 750, are the Finnish ones I did for the pain train. But because I parked Finnish I have concentrated on getting all the other cards done. I did do a few cards in the Finnish deck yesterday and was a little amazed that I still understood the cards. I do have the Assmil book and I really should get working on it... however someone has thrown me another spanner to gum up the works.

My old colleague after being told I was going to Bratislava has insisted on giving me a Slovakian book. She is from Bratislava, and bought the book for her BF, who has zero interest in learning Slovakian. She has decided to make me her pet project but to be honest I'm not really interested either beyond minor politeness of please, thank you, etc.

[reineke]

I liked the old town. I felt like the oldest guy in town. Everyone seemed to be in their early twenties. The modern part of the city has fallen into disrepair.

[rdearman]

OK, well seems I couldn't wait for the weekend to read my new book.

So, I read Tintin and happily it aligned with what I understood from the audio book. There was only one section of the audiobook which I had misunderstood but didn't realise it until I'd completed the written form of the book. One segment of the audio book has Tintin telling this woman he'd return to Shanghai to rescue her son. I'd thought it odd he'd travelled back to India, and then had to travel back yet again to China. What I'd not understood was that after escaping the clutches of one of the villains, he'd not left China, but rather escaped Shanghai out into a different Chinese city and would return to Shanghai from there. Duh... They did say name of the city in China he'd gone to, but it sounded like a couple of French words I didn't know.

I had to take a trip this week for work and so I listened to the audio book again in full after having read the book and now I could see the panels of the cartoon in my head as I listened, I could pick out where they were saying the name of this Chinese town with a French accent. Regardless I feel very happy I managed to understand the entire plot of the book without actually reading it. Listening comprehension is a big problem for me.

I got a recommendation for a linguists channel on YouTube the other day for a fellow and I watched it, he seems to be a very angry man. I've also been watching all the newly released Polygot Gathering videos online. Once again, I should have followed my instincts and sat at the back of the room and should never have listened to Brun Ugle, who convinced me to sit at the front.

So far this "year without goals" seems to be going OK. I'm less stressed about the fact I have 800+ Finnish anki cards I haven't looked at, or not really touched on my Italian for a couple of weeks. It hasn't been a conscious plan to focus on French, it just happened. I have been working more on the "Polymath" aspect and I've taken out a couple of history books in French to read. Learning something new in a different language is kinda fun, and probably a better reason to learn it than the ability to order food in restaurants.

The fact I only live 75 miles from France has me thinking I really should be making more of an effort to get to France and practice. The fact it would cost me £250 for a train or plane to go 75 miles seems ridiculous however. The ferry is more reasonable at only £80, and I would get the use of my car, and bring home a ton of wine and other miscellaneous tourist crap.