Aokoye's Journey Through German (and other languages?)

[LadyGrey1986]

Do you like satire? If so, I can recommend this podcast

https://www.ndr.de/fernsehen/sendungen/ ... o-podcast/

Good luck with all the paperwork! I wish you a lot of strenght to deal with it all.

[aokoye]

I'm re-remembering why I don't read as much as I used to when I was a kid. Being in quiet spaces where people aren't talking makes me anxious. This is actually also why I get the most work done at coffee shops followed not so closely by my university library's non quiet floors. I still am listening to my music but I'm also able to either hear ambient noise or see people walking around (or both). I was able to get one page of the vocab workbook done this evening. Mind you, I have spent most of this evening cooking, eating, and listening intently to a few podcasts both while doing the first two things and after doing them so I guess there hasn't been much time for language stuff. Saturdays are my really busy days with Torah study, Shabbat services (normally - I didn't go this morning), and guitar lessons. For the next 3 or 4 weeks (until my knee surgery basically) I'm also going to one of the people in my congregation's house between services and guitar lessons so she can teach me how to chant Torah. This is where the taking Hebrew totally comes in handy. She has been proficient in Biblical Hebrew for longer than I've been alive and is retaking Modern Hebrew right now from the same professor I am taking it from. She's a year ahead of me.

I started reorganizing my bookshelf this evening while waiting for crepe batter to rest (yeah - that was the cooking, crepes. Dinner was chicken shawarma from a store 5 min away that was surprisingly good). I have a terrifying amount of language books. We got new bookshelves so my mom put my books up haphazardly, though at least the general themes of craft related books (knitting, spinning, weaving, and quilting), language texts, and general books (books that aren't the above) were intact. So far All of the Germanic language books are organized and the rest of the language families are kind of meh. They're at least in their families. For German I organize them thusly: general textbooks, grammar books, vocab books, reading books (ie graded readers or anthologies aimed at learners), and native texts. Within those sections they're organized first by whether or not it was aimed at an English speaking learner and then by difficulty with the native texts being organized by whether or not they're aimed at children. I should note that books are my vice. I love books - I used to hang out at Powells when I was in high school and sit in the corner in the gender studies section so I could read books that I didn't have the money to buy. I also apparently just collect language texts at this point.

In my organizing I realized that I'm missing a few books (presumably they're somewhere in my room) one of which I found (sitting on a table under fabric - go figure). Ohne Geld bis ans Ende der Welt. I think I talked about it in this log but it's a book written by and about this guy who I think is an American living and working in Germany and his trip "around the world" without spending any money. It's so-so. If he had actually gone around the world I would like it more. He also seems really full of himself at times which is really frustrating. That said it's just enough like Bill Bryson's novels that I can easily sit down and read a chapter a time. It was also $6.95 used so I'm not exactly unhappy that I bought it. My goal is to finish it before my knee surgery on Dec 15th which I think is doable given that I'll have a week or two between school ending for winter break and my surgery. It would also count as almost 4 books in the Super Challenge and I'm pretty sure I have yet to count any of what I read in said book previously. I also found my copy of Anna Mitgutsch's Ausgrenzung which I read in English when I was in Austria and loved. I bought the original German edition when I got back to the states and I have the English translation somewhere - probably in a box. I'm going to try to start that after I finish Ohne Geld.

Do you like satire? If so, I can recommend this podcast

https://www.ndr.de/fernsehen/sendungen/ ... o-podcast/

I do like satire! I watched that last night before I went to bed and was very amused. Thanks for the recommendation

[LadyGrey1986]

Akoye, if you can enjoy Extra3 you are well on your way with German. Lots of slang, colloquialism and word jokes. Hut ab! I am glad you liked it.

Since you are also studying Hebrew, may I invite you to join Time Middle-East (shameless self-promotion here)?

[aokoye]

I'm somewhat seriously thinking about taking either the C1 or C2 Goethe Institute test in November of 2017. If I do it would be in Chicago in part because SF doesn't offer either test that late in the year and in part because I have a friend who really wants to show me parts of Chicago (she's trying to convince me to do a MA there) so with enough notice she could potentially fly out with me.

I just took one of the placement tests on the Goethe Institute test (that doesn't give you much info, by design) and I was reminded how bad I am at fill in the blank tests. I'm fine if I'm given a list of words that can fit in the blanks but if I'm not given any words it's just a joke. It's actually a skill I'm also pretty bad at in English. I also know that I need to work on my writing (which I kind of hate doing but such is life I suppose).

If I do decide to take the test (I'm giving myself until February to decide) I'll likely hire a tutor who has experience in tutoring people who are trying to pass proficiency tests. There's someone on italki who works as a tester for TELC who is on my list of people to potentially contact. There are a few other people who seem to have a lot of expierence as well.

Goal for tonight - Goldlist 50 words and do at least one page of the 5th chapter in the workbook. I finished the fourth chapter last night which means I'm a quarter of the way done!

[aokoye]

So I broke the whole, "don't start other courses" goal BUT I'm doing it well! I decided to read through the reading section of the Mittelpunkt B2 Lese- und Hörverstehen Intensivtrainer. I used the text and workbook for two of my classes last year and bought the intensivtrainer a year or two prior. I decided to go through it because I think that I need more practice with the words I'm goldlisting all of which are of estimated to be at the B2 level (I am aware of the issues that come with saying that X vocabulary is at Y level of proficiency). As of now I'm over a third of the way through and expect to finish it by the end of next week. I also managed to get the Studio die Mittelstufe B2 and am reading through the reading sections of it. It's from the same publisher as the vocab book and after I finish the vocab book the next textbook (that isn't vocab related) that I'm going to start is Studio Mittelstufe C1 (which I have waiting for me in my room).

I looked through two of the grammar books I have and at least one of them (one of the Hueber ones) has preposition stuff that I need to go over if I want to do well in the reading section of any of the Goethe Institut tests. I might force myself to start with that chapter in a few weeks or whenever I'm done with the vocab book.

Speaking of the vocab book, I gold listed 50 words yesterday and am a little under halfway through the chapters. I'm not yet convinced that this method will work but I'm willing to give it a try with this book. We'll see what I do with the words I don't know from the C1 textbook.

[aokoye]

Hebrew: I need to study more. It's frustrating because I just don't have a lot invested in the language. I mean I am invested in getting an A in the class (or at the very least an A-) but otherwise I feel very meh about it. It's really too bad but such is life I suppose. I did do a lot of studying yesterday though. I have my oral final on Monday afternoon and thus. My main issue right is remembering numbers. For the test I need to know how to tell time in Hebrew but I think I've got numbers 1-12 down and how to say half past, a quarter past, and a quarter till X hour.

German: German is going really well as of now. I finished the reading section of the Mittelpunkt B2 Lese- und Hörverstehen Intensivtrainer pm Friday which was a week before I expected. I'm still gold listing the Aufbauwortschatz, though I've been a little lax on the workbook perhaps because of how much I threw myself into the B2 intensivtrainer.

Because I've been feeling more energy than usual in terms of language learning (or at least German) I started Studio D C1 earlier than I expected. My plan was to start it after the wortschatz thing but I was feeling like I wasn't doing enough and thus. Today I started making Anki cards for the words I don't know - basically I skimmed the first three pages for words that I didn't know, wrote them down, and then created Anki cards with the German word, definition in German, and an example sentence in German on the front side and then the English translation of the word on the back side. I'm interested to see how having the definition in German on the front will help me remember the words in the long run. I also know that as long as I continuously use Anki it'll help. It's when I get tired of it or overwhelmed that it becomes unhelpful. I suppose this also means I need to limit how many "new" words I go over each day to 15 so I won't get overwhelmed by reviews early.

I'm also watching a lot of German shows. I mean I realize this has been the theme of this month post election but now I think the Super Challenge is also spurring me on. According to the Super Challenge website I've logged 882 minutes of movies/shows/audio (newscasts and podcasts) since Nov 10th. Excessive much? I mean ok the first six hours was total self care but still. I suppose it that works out to just under an hour a day which isn't actually all that much now that I think about it - or at the very least it isn't excessive. I've also read 123 pages since the 17th of November. I think the majority of that has been going through the wortschatz workbook and the intensivtrainer though some of it has been the book I'm reading off and on and some articles.

I'm also debating on whether or not I want to take the C1 or the TestDaF. After some more thorough looking the TestDaf would be easier for me and it the Chicago Goethe Institut offers it the day after the C1 test that I was planning on taking (11/16/17). It's $25 cheaper so price isn't really an issue. I'm leaning towards the TestDaF but I don't know. I still have a lot of time to decide. The Goethe would also probably look better of US grad school admissions stuff but I could easily write an explanation of what the TestDaF is and really neither test would make a huge deal of difference in the US in terms of the job market (though I'm not planning on getting a job straight out of my BA so really). On the other hand, if I got all 5s on the TestDaF then I wouldn't have to worry about doing another language test for grad school in Germany and even if I got 4s and 5s I probably wouldn't have to worry depending on the program.

Ok - now that I've spent way too much time on my "break" from studying in need to go back to reading about critical approaches to analyzing learner language. Yay critical theories!

[aokoye]

Hebrew: I did worse on my oral final than I wanted to - I didn't do horribly but I forgot a few words and it took me a little while to say the time correctly. The time part was a function of me being nervous were as the two words I forgot were a function of forgetting them (well and one of them I'd heard maybe twice). My written final is next Wednesday. My plan for the break is to learn at least a chapter's worth of new words which should be easy as long as I actually buckle down and do it.

German: The way I'm creating cards for Anki takes forever because it's more than just "word - translation" but I think it's a good way of doing it for me. It's also so nice recognizing words that I've gone over while reading articles or books. I'm still in the "add all of the words!" phase from Studio C1 but tomorrow (Thursday) I think I'll reread the article that most of them have come from. Note that all of the reading that I'm doing in the textbook is intensive. My goal is to understand every single word. That's the goal.

I read a few articles on the Deutsche Welle Android app this afternoon. One while I was on the street car going from therapy to choir and the other while I was waiting for choir to start. I also read two chapters in Ohne Geld bis ans Ende der Welt. I still am not a super big fan of the book but it's really small (and thus is easy to take with me wherever) and it's nonfiction. Yesterday I watched an episode of Mord mit Aussicht and the day prior an episode of Tatortreiniger. I liked them both but I think I like Mord mit Aussicht more. That said I'm going off of the first ep of both shows so really...what's good is that I like them both to watch the next episodes of both.

I messaged one person on iTalki this evening and will probably message another person tomorrow - I need to talk in German more! I also realized (yet again) that the reason I don't write in German very much is that I'm embarrassed by my writing. I need to do something about that like, oh I don't know, write! Easier said than done.

I have a pretty major knee surgery in a little over two weeks so we'll see how much of a dent that'll put into studying. It'll be the third surgery of this type that I've had which is a bit absurd so at least I know what I'm in for. The first two (one per knee) were performed shortly before a bunch of research was published about how best to do tibial tubercle osteotomies so while it was done well, it was a failed surgery because of the rather logical lack of knowledge on my surgeon's part. This surgery will be a revision of the first one and then my surgeon will be reconstructing a ligament which wasn't done in the first surgery because almost no one new that that was needed for a successful long term result.

And now I sleep (or try to) - I have a pre op appt early tomorrow morning and it's 12:35am.

[aokoye]

So the German textbook I'm using has a reading in it that has a word I can't find a ready definition for in Duden (nor dict.cc or dict.tu-chemnitz.de/). The word is Suchtbefund. Googling it brought up 190 results the first of which is the article from die Zeit that the excerpt in the textbook came from.

Needless to say I'm not going to worry about knowing that word. I mean based on context it sounds like they're using it to mean addiction (that's also based on some of the other hits on google).

[aokoye]

I'm done with school for the quarter! Hurrah! My Hebrew written final was today and I don't feel that great about it but I also was running late for really absurd reasons.

I was thoughtful today and brought the Studio C1 text and workbook with me to school with me because I knew I would have a lot of time between my final and hanging out with a friend (I think it worked out to something like four and a half or five hours). I ended up adding 21 cards to Anki (turns out they are much less tedious when my only distraction is watching people study physics), did Anki reviews and went over 15 new words, analyzed an article about the company Muzak (which I reread for the billionth time) from a number of angles, and did four or five exercises from the workbook, some of which involved analyzing the article. I also wrote a paragraph on Techno music which I posted to Lang-8 this evening and got corrections on almost immediately. Two of the three corrections? Case. I was careless with making sure I paid attention to what case nouns were in. I need to figure out how to best use the corrections. I know there have been at least a few threads about it here and I'm sure a ton on the old site so I'll do some searching.

Though it was a bit tedious I really appreciated all of the exercises in the text and workbook that involved analyzing the article. Some of them were geared towards various proficiency tests (the book indicates if an exercise is applicable to the Goethe C1, telc C1, TestDaF, and/or DSH tests) but most were clearly applicable for non test related language use. Things like being able to summarize an article, figuring out where in an article specific topics are (that is actually something you have to do for the Goethe C1 I think), categorize vocabulary, and determine whether or not someone is for, against, or neutral about a topic. Yes the vocab bit is language learning specific, but summarizing articles? I do that in English when talking to friends all the time. The article in the book was an excerpt from an article in die Zeit - the one that has the word "Suchtbefund" in it.

On the topic of Anki I was reminded that I do a lot better when I split my sessions up between reviewing words and going over new words. I have a tendency to get overwhelmed and/or tired if I do them both in one go and feel pretty relaxed if they're broken up, even if there's as little as 10 minutes between the sessions.

I am going to try to supplement the textbook with some grammar because it's so easy for me to not study it and then have my grammar knowledge slip as a result. I am going to try to work through Routledge's Intermediate German Grammar Workbook. I also am probably going to get to talk to my friend from Vienna on Friday which makes me very happy. She's been really busy over the past month and I had missed talking to her. My goal will be to speak more German with her than I usually do but I'll probably have to tell her this so she holds me to it. It's hard because I get nervous about speaking to her in German in part because most of our friendship has been in English, though once we get to talking in German I tend to relax.

Yesterday I watched four TV shows over the course of the afternoon and evening. I finished the Terra X mini series that I had been watching (Deutschland - Wie wir leben), watched an episode of WISO, the news, and the second episode of Mord mit Aussicht. I am likely going to watch all three of the seasons of Mord mit Aussicht over the break. I think the one thing that's hard for me in terms of watching TV in German is that I want to be as attentive as possible and not distracted with things like the internet or knitting that involves paying attention (there are things that I knit that don't involve paying much attention). While it obviously doesn't totally stop me from watching stuff in German, I do think I would watch more things if I was ok with not paying massive amounts of attention to what I'm watching.

Goals for tomorrow (Thursday) and/or Friday:
Anki
Do more exercises in Studio C1 - both the textbook and workbook
Finish the first chapter in the Routledge grammar book.


edit: I also decided earlier this evening to put my pronouns in my signature. I don't think anyone here has misgendered me but I find them useful so many reasons both obvious and not depending on how much you know about me.

[aokoye]

Hebrew: I got an A on the final and an A in the class! the final was harder than I was expecting it to be and I thought I would end up with a B on the final but instead it was a solid A. I also got an A in second language acquisition!

Other school stuff: So I ended up "winning" my claim of discrimination from the disability resource center (DRC) which is to say my uni's DRC discriminated against me years ago, I finally was able to make a rather serious complaint, and it was found that the DRC was in the wrong. What will happen now is the seven quarters (twoish years) of poor grades when I wasn't getting reasonable accommodations will be removed from my transcript (which I expect will take all of winter term and potentially into spring term) and I'll be refunded tuition. This means that I'm going to be able to do a lot more in terms of my university studies. I can take more classes, the likelihood of getting into a MA program that I want to get into either in the US or in Germany has skyrocketed, I'll be able to submit a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship application that actually looks good, etc.
I'm also probably going to try to get a TESOL certificate. It requires four more classes than I was originally going to take and one of them, curriculum design, I've been wanting to take for a while. I'll also leave with a portfolio showing my tutoring and teaching expierence which is good (the program at my uni requires a minimum of 15 hours each of tutoring, teaching, and observing. There are also a lot of volunteer tutoring opportunities that get emailed out on my university's applied linguistics listserv.

German: So because of the fantastic news about school, I am potentially going to be studying German at the Freie Universität Berlin this Summer! I would be doing intensive language track of this program. I'm hoping to test into the C1 but we'll see. It's quite a lot of impetus to improve my vocab and refresh my grammar. I'm also going to go to Austria for at least a week if not more after the language program. I'll be staying with one of my friends who lives there.

Vocab wise I've gotten reattached to Anki and I'm finding it helpful. There have been a number of times when I've listened to podcasts and thought "oh hey I know that word!" referring to a word that's in the Anki deck. I've scaled down the new words per day to 5 taking into account general stress and the fact that I'm having knee surgery tomorrow. I feel like I'm kind of flailing with the vocab piece which means two things: 1. I need to stick with it because nothing I'm doing is "wrong" and 2. I need to cut back the new vocab words that I'm learning each day (or most days). Note that my recall on Anki is actually quite good I just get intimidated but the amount of words I'm wanting/needing to learn.

I managed to misplace the book that I was reading (about the guy traveling around the world) in my room and while I assume that it's somewhere under my bed, I'm going to take this opportunity to start to start Ausgrenzung by Anna Mitgutsch. I read the English translation when I was in vienna and loved it and I bought the German version shortly after I came back to the states.

So even though I'm a bit overwhelmed with vocab right now I'm not exactly overwhelmed with Anki itself. I think I'm going to start working on grammar via cloze deletion cards. I'll start with prepositions and then go to adjective endings and then likely specific verb forms that I'm not exactly good at. I might through conjunctions in there as well. I looked through both German in Review and one of my Hueber grammar books and German in review has convenient example sentences with translations so I'll use those for my Anki stuff.