Egwene's log - Learning languages as an hotel entertainer

[Egwene]

I listen a lot to Domtendo, a Let's Play Youtuber, mostly Nintendo games. He speaks about lots of things while he plays his games. I can understand him very well.

[Egwene]

I'm back! My schedule got so crazy.. I hardly had time to do anything beside work. Yesterday I flew back home after six months working at Kos. I had an amazing time here and I look forward to return to this beautiful Island in half a year. Although I didn't write here, I actually did quite a lot. I will start with a few updates of the last period:

1. Smiling guests. You know you do your job well, when guests recognize you and they want to be with you and talk. Or if you just walk around and they all smile to you. The ultimate reward is when they mention your name on Tripadvisor, Holidaycheck etc.. Even at the very end of the season my name was mentioned and I am really happy with that.

2. I bought a small Greek book, of which I am sure all of you have read in at least 1 language: The Little Prince. I saw it in a bookshop and I had to buy it. I have read it in French already. This will make it easier for me to read it.

3. We had some weddings during the season. Some very small. Some very big. And then I am talking about 250 guests. A real Greek big wedding. It was also funny to see how they baptize babies there. In my country they only make the head wet. There you have a bathtub and the child goes with the whole body underwater! They also often combine this with weddings, because it is cheaper.


But how did the language learning go on with the crazy schedule I had?
Let's start with Greek. I focused on learning words instead of grammar. I wanted to be able to recognize words. I have put 98 new words on my Anki desk and I learned 164 new words on Memrise. This means that I learned around 250 new words in the last 2 months, which I think is quite a good accomplishment, keeping in mind that I hardly had any time for it. Duolingo was too difficult to continue, but I did learn 2 new skills. Maybe I will pick it up again, since I am home now with a lot of time.

Duolingo: 8/74
Memrise: 374/1500
Greek script: 29/75 (no change)
Anki: 98 new words

German has been going very well. I had to speak so much German! The learning progress went very fast. On my flight back home I fooled two girls. They thought I came from the south of Germany. They looked shocked when I told them I was from the Netherlands and complimented me on my German. That made me feel really proud. I watched 1600 minutes of German YouTube videos, which is around 26 hours. Most of it was in the background, just to hear the sounds.


Now that I am home I have to make new plans. Today will be all about unpacking, washing clothes and organzine my life at home again. I want to continue with Greek for sure, since I will be going back to Kos and I want to be able to communicate with the family of my boyfriend (yes, still going strong! The distance right now is not that nice though..). Next week I hope to have a real plan.

[Marais]

Just wanted to add that your written English is basically perfect. There are many, many, many millions of native speakers who don't write anywhere near as well as you do.

[Egwene]

One week has passed and this also means I am one week at home. It was quite funny to see that nothing has changed in the past six months. Maybe some small things, but overall the whole village and the house were still the same. As if I never went away. Luckily I have photos and lots of memories to help me remember that I was really away all this time. I have so much time now. It's crazy. All these months I never had time for myself and now I drown in it. It will take some time to get a new routine.

I continued to learn Greek. Most of the time I put into a challenge on Facebook. Together with around 30 people we read the Hunger Games in the language we are learning at the moment. This can be different for everyone. I read it in Greek and German. With another woman I discuss the chapter in German every Friday. I learn a lot from reading a real book in Greek. So many new words. I also continued to use Memrise. Yesterday or the day before I uploaded a text on Lang-8 to get corrections and I am happy with the result of it. Few mistakes, but that's good. This way I can learn.

Duolingo: 8/74 (no change)
Memrise: 413/1500 (+39)
Greek script: 29/75 (no change)
Hunger Games: 31/420
Anki: 81 new words

German is a language I keep learning passively. I keep listening to YouTube videos (604 minutes = 10 hours..) and I read the book I have mentioned before. I had a Skype meeting for 30 minutes, which was really nice. I noticed that I miss the ability to retell a story. I am very good with daily conversations and talking about life etc. But this was different. I look forward to improve this.

[Elenia]

I noticed that I miss the ability to retell a story. I am very good with daily conversations and talking about life etc. But this was different. I look forward to improve this.

This really is a separate skill. I do it quite a lot in English so I too miss being able to tell stories with ease in my TLs

[Egwene]

2 weeks passed by and a lot of things happened. I went to London for three days, because my mother had a conference there and she didn't want to go alone. When she had to go there, I had the possibility to discover the city. I had been in London before. I believe the last time was in 2011, but my memories of that trip were not so clear. This time was better, because I was a lot of times alone. I had to find my own way. The first day I went to Oxford Street (together with my mother) looking at the shops and the Christmas lights. In the end we only bought some earrings... We are not great shoppers. The second day I went alone to the London Zoo. I like to take photo's and now I had the whole day to try different things with my camera. Some highlights were the baby tigers, the room with the butterflies and, to my surprise, the lama's. There was one looking at me the whole time, which gave hilarious photo's. Lastly, on the third day, I went to Buckingham Palace, House of Parliament, Westminster Abby and then slowly made my way back next to the river. Overall I have really enjoyed it. The only thing I didn't like was using the Underground. Most of the time it was so crowded and I cannot handle that so well. This made me one time very ill, which wasn't so nice.

Greek
In London I visited a bookshop, one that most of you will know: Foyles. I absolutely loved it. The language department was so big! I was looking for something Greek. Sadly this was only a small corner, but I did by the Colloquial Modern Greek book. I prefer this above reading it from screen. I concentrate better when I have the book in front of me.

I continued to read the Hunger Games, Αγώνες Πείνας. This week I will start with chapter 4. I am already noticing that it gets easier. I start to recognize words and phrases. I slowly see grammar. I wouldn't say I could reproduce it, but I can see when a verb is in the past of present tense.

The first Greek song has made its way to my laptop. It is Γιώργος Παπαδόπουλος (Giorgos Papadopoulos) - Na Na Na. It's a nice catchy song. If you want to listen to it, here is a link for YouTube: https://youtu.be/wHQKMW9U8g8

Duolingo: 8/74 (no change)
Memrise: 425/1500 (+12)
Greek script: 29/75 (no change)
Hunger Games: 60/420 (+29 PDF pages)
Anki: 60 new words

German
On Friday I had a Skype call again to discuss chapter 2 and 3 of the Hunger Games book. We talked for around 40 minutes in German. She also has a good level, so it is very nice to talk with her. This way I can keep practising my spoken skills. This time I prepared myself a bit better and I had less dificulties to retell the story.
I listened to 803 minutes of German audio, which is around 13 hours. Not bad.

French & Italian
For French I discovered a CD of Lara Fabian: Ma vie dans la tienne. I enjoy the songs a lot. She has a nice voice.
I wrote some messages in Italian and I was surprised that it went quite well. It's been such a long time ago that I wrote Italian. But it came back to me quickly. It's still one of my favorite languages in sound.

[Egwene]

Another two weeks have passed. This time it was more quiet. No trips, nothing really exciting. I enjoy having time at home and nothing serious to do. My body is healing from the six months hard work at Kos and I am starting to do fitness again. I tried different classes and for the moment I like Les Mills' BodyCombat. Maybe some of you are familiar with this class. It gives me lots of muscle pain and that's how I know it is good for me. It trains my weaker muscles, mostly in the back. Apart from this class, I enjoy running, yoga/BodyBalance and strength training. But I take it easy for now. Slow, slow.. I still have around 5 months to be totally fit and strong.

About languages: I focus mainly on Greek. There are some courses I do and keep up every day. I am a big fan of doing every day a little bit. I notice that I start to understand more, I recognize words, I see grammar. The language is starting to live. There are moments I am thinking in my head how I would say certain things in Greek. No idea if my idea is good or bad, but at least I am actively working wih the language. It feels good..

Greek
On the first of December I started two new courses: Assimil and Colloquial Greek. I tried Assimil when I was starting the language and at that point it wasn't working for me. Now that I know many words and am more familiar with the language it is much easier. Now I enjoy the course. I use Colloquial to get a grip on grammar. I continued to read my Greek book (Hunger Games), which is also going a bit faster now. And at last, a second Greek song made its way to my laptop: Κωνσταντίνος Αργυρός - Στη Δική Μου Αγκαλιά (https://youtu.be/yXmjN83c8Ms)

Memrise: 486/1500 (+61)
Greek script: 35/75 (+5)
Colloquial: 16/276 (+16)
Assimil - Le nouveau Grec sans peine: 4/92 (+4)
Hunger Games: 94/420 (+34)
Anki: 110 new words

Italian & French
Since I have more time now, I listened to some Italian and French again (around 6 hours). I still love these lanuage a lot, but they are not a main priority right now. I have put some words into Anki (32 new words). There will come a time that I will focus on these languages.. Someday.

German
Next to Greek high on my list of languages I want to be fluent in. It is going really well and I am only maintaining the language at the moment. Only 16 new words in Anki, but I listened to around 17 hours of audio. It is important for me to keep hearing the language.

[Egwene]

Time for an update again. Nothing really exciting happened in these two weeks. We decorated the Christmas tree at home and went to a market nearby. I focused on some Greek words around Christmas:
Καλά Χριστούγεννα (Merry Christmas),
Άγιος Βασίλες (Santa Claus),
χριστουγεννιάτικο δέντρο (Christmas tree)

I continued to work with Assimil and Collquial. It introduced me to some new things:
- Everything about masculine and feminine nouns with their classes (nom, gen, acc, voc)
- European countries are all feminine, except Belgium (το Βέλγιο) and Luxembourg (το Λουξεμβούργο)
- Πόσο κάνει/κάνουν; = How much is it/are they?
- Counting from 1 till 20
- Time: easier than expected. και is after the hour, παρά before. Τέταρτο = .15 or .45, Μισή is used for half hours.
- Months of the year
- Future tense uses θα. The easiest one keeps the verb how it is. The 'simple future tense' is actually a bit complicated, because the verb changes.

I like the tempo I am working right now. I do small bits every day to keep it manageable. With Assimil I do one lesson per day and with Colloquial around 4 pages per day. It works for me and I will continue to keep going like this. In these two weeks I had only 2 days without opening the books, because the day was too busy and my mind was too tired to focus on Greek. A good score for me. I hope that one of the courses will introduce the past tense soon, because I am curious about that.

With Memrise I learned 41 new words and Anki got 100 new words in its desk. I managed to do 47 pages of Colloquial and 12 lessons of Assimil. These weeks I read only 6 pages of the Hunger Games, because I am behind on putting new words in Anki. I will catch up with that first and then start reading again.

: 527 / 1730 Memrise
: 35 / 75 Greek Script
: 63 / 276 Colloquial Greek
: 16 / 92 Assimil - Le nouveau Grec sans peine
: 100 / 420 Hunger Games (Αγώνες Πείνας)

[Egwene]

Another two weeks gone and 2017 has started! However, that doesn't mean I will do anything new. I will keep on following the plan I have for now, because it still goes very well. It is manageable and even if I miss a day it isn't immediately a disaster. I have enough time to finish both Colloquial and Assimil before I leave for Kos at the end of April.

Both books introduced the past tense and I still struggle with it. This is normal, because it is something new and the verb changes a lot. The accent moves, different letters, different endings. But slowly I see the logic behind it and I think in a month it will already feel much easier than it is now. My boyfriend is still helping me when I am confused between two words. Last week I found two words for 'ceiling'. Turns out they were both correct, but it depends on your parents which word is taught first. There are more like this. Luckily, sometimes I can throw words away, because they are old or very formal.

On Memrise I learned 18 new words. I mainly focused on reviewing these two weeks there. I managed to do 53 pages of Colloquial Greek and 13 lessons of Assimil Grec. I read 9 pages of the Hunger Games and I put 130 new words in Anki! Yes, I know it is a lot. It was 10 new words every day (I missed one day because of Christmas).

What did I learn for Greek?
- When to use a capital letter
- Days of the week and all the four seasons
- Numbers: I can count all the numbers now, but also 'first', 'second' etc.
- Neutral nouns in all its possible ways
- Difference between Future Simple and Future continuous
- Simple Past and Imperfect
- How to use μήπως (example: Μήπως μπορώ να σας βοηθήσω;)

: 545 / 2000 Memrise
: 35 / 75 Greek Script
: 116 / 276 Colloquial Greek
: 29 / 92 Assimil - Le nouveau Grec sans peine
: 107 / 420 Hunger Games (Αγώνες Πείνας)

A few days ago I watched an Italian Disney movie: Trilli e il segreto delle ali. It was on the television and it surprised me that I could follow along. Of course not all of it, but I understood the story line. It was 75 minutes.

[Egwene]

In the last two weeks I continued mostly with Assimil, because I have the feeling I learn the most when I use this. It continued using the past tense and in the lesson I did today we moved on to the future. I noticed that my listening skills are sometimes very good and sometimes very bad. It depends on how I am that day and how difficult the text is. When they use a lot of past tense I don't recognize the verb anymore, because the accent moves and some letters change. This will take me a while to get familiar with. This time there are no specific subjects I want to point out. I have put down Colloquial since a few days, because I felt overwhelmed with new information. I had to slow it down. In a few days I will pick up the book again.

I learned 22 new words on Memrise. There are 60 new works on Anki. I read 29 pages in my Colloquial Greek book and I did 14 lessons from Assimil Grec.

Apart from Greek I am still learning German. Although I wouldn't call it really learning.. it's more using the language. I listen to a lot of audio. These two weeks I listened to 16 hours of YouTube material and next to that I saw 2 times the show 'Wir weiß denn sowas' and a docu about Greece islands. This was three times 45 minutes extra.

: 567 / 2000 Memrise
: 35 / 75 Greek Script
: 145 / 276 Colloquial Greek
: 43 / 92 Assimil - Le nouveau Grec sans peine
: 107 / 420 Hunger Games (Αγώνες Πείνας)

Beside learning languages I have active days. Per day I sport around 1,5 hours: 30 minutes cardio/strength training followed by a 30 minutes 'cooling down' combined with stretching to get more flexible. In the afternoon I do 30 minutes yoga, which is sometimes a relaxing class and other days quite exhausting. Everything to prepare me for the summer, when I move back to Kos to be a fitness entertainer again. I look forward to it. Little more than 3 months to go!