Systematiker's attempt at a log

[Systematiker]

One more question for the people whose opinions matter (i.e. Those who read the log):

I was provided today with a whole bunch of Assimil stuff ("you like this language stuff right? It's not all in English..."), much of which is very tempting. Among the courses was Le Finnois sans peine.
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Is your pain train worth getting on, or are y'all super far along already? (I'd have to get the audio somewhere, but...)

[Cavesa]

One more question for the people whose opinions matter (i.e. Those who read the log):

I was provided today with a whole bunch of Assimil stuff ("you like this language stuff right? It's not all in English..."), much of which is very tempting. Among the courses was Le Finnois sans peine.
...
...
...
Is your pain train worth getting on, or are y'all super far along already? (I'd have to get the audio somewhere, but...)

Wow! you're lucky!
Yes, it is surely worth it, I would definitely get back on, if only I didn't have over 20 cm pile of textbooks to get through at least once till the end of the week.

[Xenops]

One more question for the people whose opinions matter (i.e. Those who read the log):

I was provided today with a whole bunch of Assimil stuff ("you like this language stuff right? It's not all in English..."), much of which is very tempting. Among the courses was Le Finnois sans peine.
...
...
...
Is your pain train worth getting on, or are y'all super far along already? (I'd have to get the audio somewhere, but...)

They would look lovely on your "to do at a future time" bookshelf.

[Elenia]

One more question for the people whose opinions matter (i.e. Those who read the log):

I was provided today with a whole bunch of Assimil stuff ("you like this language stuff right? It's not all in English..."), much of which is very tempting. Among the courses was Le Finnois sans peine.
...
...
...
Is your pain train worth getting on, or are y'all super far along already? (I'd have to get the audio somewhere, but...)

I just reached lesson four for FoM. Jump on, the vowels are like nothing you've seen before!

(Seriously, it'll be a break after trying to read Hebrew. You'd be able to add Czech as well, and you'd still have a pronounceable amount of vowels spread out across your languages. Also, I think I know where that ellipsis is pointing, and you'd be right.)

[Systematiker]

All right, I'm in.

I'm going to have to restructure what I'm doing and how - but that's ok, the last plan wasn't working anyway, I was taking all the "just a few times or once a week" stuff and doing it every day.

I'm not changing anything I'm doing for Spanish, French, Swedish, Danish, Catalan, Scots or Dutch. Those are working just fine (insofar as they're working).

Here's my first thought on changes - I may or may not keep to this, depends on how it works.

Finnish avec peine, of course.

Basque - Gorka course, drop the English-vector SRS, and add daily Assimil iniciación al euskara

Latin - I've got a text by Augustine divided up into sections, I'll do one or two daily. I'll look up stuff I'm not sure about.

Ancient Greek - I'm going to start reading through an epistle, even if I don't manage a whole chapter daily.

Hebrew - drop pimsleur, continue SRS and the text for Biblical Hebrew, add Hebreu sans peine for Modern Hebrew. I won't try to do more than one chapter of the text every week, and I won't add more than 5-10 new words into SRS daily.

Arabic - I'll finish the MT foundation, because I'm almost halfway, but then I'll try assimil. I've got it both sans peine and sin esfuerzo, so if they match, I'll do everything twice, maybe on the same day, maybe as a next-day repetition (optimistically, I've got the next one in French as well). I may or may not retain SRS here, and I may or may not finish LT. I definitely won't do pimsleur.

Korean - slow down on pimsleur, and try assimil coreen (mais aussi avec peine, versteht sich). I'll keep the SRS, but only add a few new words when I have everything else for the day done.

Welsh - I will do only SSiW and its limited vocab in SRS. I will not do SSiW lessons daily, but will review SRS daily.

Scottish Gaelic - one unit of CSG and one unit of TY Scottish Gaelic weekly (which works out to about 15 minutes a day, with reviewing)

Russian - I'm doing assimil daily already, so it's just the plan now. Nothing outside of the pure assimil method.

[Brun Ugle]

Welcome aboard the pain train. I didn't see your question early enough to give my opinion before you had decided, but I think you know what my opinion would have been anyway.

Don't worry about starting a bit late. The original plan was to all start at the same time using the same materials and move at a similar pace, but that didn't happen at all.

I'm a little envious of your being "provided" with piles of language stuff. That never happens to me. I must not know the right people.

[Systematiker]

Brun Ugle, I pretty much knew what everyone would vote, I think...oh, and some of this is scans and MP3 files, so if it wouldn't contribute to your wanderlust too much I'd be happy to share...

The schedule seems to work for me - I found time to hit every language today (and the whole afternoon was busy with work, and the evening with guests), though with doing pimsleur for Korean instead of starting assimil. I did re-do the first three lessons of Russian in Assimil now that I have audio (actually, I have the English-vector audio, but it only was off by one word in three lessons, so it's probably fine). I've also managed nearly an entire TY Scottish Gaelic today, which sounds better than it is - the early stages of courses often duplicate, so there wasn't much new.

Finnish needs the audio - I've read through the first lesson, but I don't want to push it without that resource, so tomorrow I'll probably just repeat the first lesson. I'm kind of lucky that one, I got it in my weaker option so as to fit the pain train rules and two, that the weaker of the two for me is pretty much zero impediment for learning.

In other news:
I had a conversation in Basque today! Ok, it was SMS, and it was only like three exchanges before my interlocutor lost me, but I'm actually learning some Basque, y'all!

News item number two: wow, laddering is making my active ability in Spanish take a jump up. There's really something to this theory.

I'm now going to go read something, instead of sleeping as I should.


Edit: no, wait, I have to talk about Arabic. So a while back I borrowed Arabisch ohne Mühe from the library, and the CDs ended up in my iTunes. I now have Spanish-vector Arabic, which matches that audio, and French-vector Arabic, the new course, which came with its audio. So I can't double up (boo) but I have two viable courses (yay). The content for the older course is super hard, though, at my present ability, and the newer one is just a hair easy (it won't be for long, I'm sure). So probably I'll use sans peine, then sin esfuerzo to solidify, then perfectionment if I make it that far.

Also, I guess I'm ready to do Polish with y'all later this year, even if I'd rather do Swahili. Assimil, right guys?

Things I'm totally not going to do right now (some perhaps ever) despite new resources: Occitan, Breton, Hungarian, Serbo-Croatian, Esperanto, Turkish, Armenian, Persian, Portuguese, modern Greek, Romanian.

[Elenia]

Things I'm totally not going to do right now (some perhaps ever) despite new resources: Occitan, Breton, Hungarian, Serbo-Croatian, Esperanto, Turkish, Armenian, Persian, Portuguese, modern Greek, Romanian.

Turkish, Portuguese and Romanian? Be still my beating heart!

[Ogrim]

Things I'm totally not going to do right now (some perhaps ever) despite new resources: Occitan, Breton, Hungarian, Serbo-Croatian, Esperanto, Turkish, Armenian, Persian, Portuguese, modern Greek, Romanian.

Go for Armenian! I am sure you want to learn that intriguing script they are using.

[Systematiker]

Things I'm totally not going to do right now (some perhaps ever) despite new resources: Occitan, Breton, Hungarian, Serbo-Croatian, Esperanto, Turkish, Armenian, Persian, Portuguese, modern Greek, Romanian.

Go for Armenian! I am sure you want to learn that intriguing script they are using.

Ah, that script is a part of the secret plot to take over the world, after all, so many historical figures were secretly Armenian...


OK, so that's a bad joke that needs context. Many theology students, helped by spellcheck but often all on their own, confuse "Arminian", related to the theological position of Iacobus Arminius, with "Armenian", the nationality - and not seldom anachronistically, so that it doesn't matter when the person in question lived, if one of their doctrinal positions somewhat sort of lines up with the one that Arminius is known for, well, they must be an "Armenian". For many theology professors, term-paper-time is "The Return of the Armenians".

Well, I laughed. Even if it was my own joke.