Lilly's log - French, Russian, Spanish and Italian

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Snow
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Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby Snow » Wed Apr 12, 2017 12:22 pm

Your Spanish study plan looks solid. I'm saving this for when I get inspired to work on Spanish again.

I really enjoy reading your log! I got inspired by your LWT usage so I downloaded it to help with Korean reading. Unfortunately it can't identify and separate the particles from words :cry: and I still haven't found a solution for it. But I guess it's still helpful even if there will be double entries for some words.

Also looking forward to you starting Japanese (whenever that may be). Keep up the good work!
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blaurebell
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Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby blaurebell » Wed Apr 12, 2017 12:47 pm

Snow wrote:Your Spanish study plan looks solid. I'm saving this for when I get inspired to work on Spanish again.


Thank you Snow! The study plan is a bit Argentina heavy, but I think it can be easily adapted for whatever regional preferences you have! I haven't really focused much on Spanish for the last few years either, so I think it's about time to start working on it properly again!

Snow wrote:I really enjoy reading your log! I got inspired by your LWT usage so I downloaded it to help with Korean reading. Unfortunately it can't identify and separate the particles from words and I still haven't found a solution for it. But I guess it's still helpful even if there will be double entries for some words.


Yeah, LWT doesn't seem ideal for some languages. Have you looked at this thread: viewtopic.php?t=2089 Maybe some of the tips for Japanese could help with Korean too? In general, don't worry about more entires: Double entries mean double the practice!

Snow wrote:Also looking forward to you starting Japanese (whenever that may be). Keep up the good work!


It's really hard to say when I'll find the time for Japanese, but it's probably not going to happen for the next 3 years, since I'm still going to be super busy with my PhD. And after that it depends whether I enrol at university here in Spain or not. If not, then probably 2020, if yes 2021 or 2022 depending on the degree. After having Japanese on the list for more than 10 years, 5 years more really don't make that much of a difference! It always stays at the back of my mind though ...
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: 20 / 100 Дэвид Эддингс - В поисках камня
: 14325 / 35000 LWT Known

: 17 / 55 FSI Spanish Basic
: 100 / 116 GdUdE B
: 8 / 72 Duolingo reverse Spanish -> German

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blaurebell
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Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby blaurebell » Wed Apr 12, 2017 3:02 pm

Spanish

I actually spent lots of time on Spanish yesterday, because of tango. I may have mentioned before that I used to be a rather decent tango dancer. Argentinian tango used to be my life before I became a chronic pain patient. I still miss it every day, but try my very best to stay away from it most of the time, because it ultimately makes me sad not to be able to pursue it at my previous level anymore. My husband was listening to some tangos yesterday though, so we ended up re-watching a nice little tango movie - Fermin. It was partly filmed in my favourite tango place on this planet: Los Laureles. The bar has been around since 1890 or something like that and going there is always a bit like time travel. Whenever we travel to Buenos Aires we spend at least one evening there, meeting with friends, listening to a tango orchestra and so on. I totally love the place!

The movie is actually rather enjoyable not just as a tango movie. One of the characters speaks only in tango lyrics and that's the only bit where I struggle a little language-wise. Tango contains a whole lot of lunfardo slang, so some of the details tend to escape me. However, my husband doesn't understand much lunfardo either and he's Argentinian, so that's nothing to be ashamed of. The general meaning is always clear though - tangos usually are sad little stories with a lot of pathos and drama, usually about heartbreak. For example one of the tangos from yesterday starts with "I will kill myself in front of you ...", oh boy! I wish I could tell you which one it was exactly, but I can't remember. I actually know an awful lot of tangos almost by heart because I've heard them over and over in different versions from different orchestras with different singers for many years. This particular one isn't one of them though, because it's one of those that weren't meant for dancing. In the end we somehow ended up digging out the Argentinian - Spanish Dictionary and looking up random words to laugh a little. Learning more lunfardo is actually part of my Spanish mission and might help me with making tango more about the music rather than the dance. That way I might actually be able to get rid of that glum nostalgia that befalls me when I listen to too many tangos.

Spanish hours: 4.69h

Russian

I did Clozemaster and one audio file of Modern Russian, which was much easier while actually awake. I've now done 12 of 45 files, which are 27%. I'm definitely on my way! I also read for a while and I'm now almost 60% through the book. In general I'm definitely progressing, although it all seems somewhat too slow for my taste right now.

Russian hours: 2.5h

French

With all the Spanish and Russian I only managed to finish reading the Enki Bilal comic Mémoires d'outre-espace. It was rather enjoyable and extremely weird. I'm very much looking forward to the other Bilal comic that is waiting for me now!

French hours: 0.5h

Total: 7.69h
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: 20 / 100 Дэвид Эддингс - В поисках камня
: 14325 / 35000 LWT Known

: 17 / 55 FSI Spanish Basic
: 100 / 116 GdUdE B
: 8 / 72 Duolingo reverse Spanish -> German

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blaurebell
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Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby blaurebell » Thu Apr 13, 2017 11:23 am

Spanish

Yesterday I spent some time making a detailed plan for my Spanish learning journey and I think it's looking pretty good now. I think it has evolved into a pretty solid plan that should finally get my Spanish to a point where it should have been already several years ago. I really did everything wrong with Spanish so far and it will now take a lot of effort to get it to a point where I'm going to be happy with it.

In Spanish torture I added an episode of El internado and another lesson of GdUdE. It was lesson 8 of the Level A book and there are a couple of mistakes in the solutions, grrr! I confirmed with my husband and I actually got everything right again. So far I'm just checking my knowledge to try and locate the gaps, rather than learning anything new with it. I suspect that the whole A level book will continue like this for me. I still think it will be helpful to make the rules more explicit rather than to just go by "what sounds right". During all my English immersion trips when I was still in school I spent my evenings sitting in front of the TV with my host family while reading my Oxford Grammar. GdUdE feels the same, which is a good sign, because I actually think those bouts of grammar study made a huge difference later on.

As for fun: We re-watched Relatos Salvajes, which is somewhere between hilarious and unbearably horrible. That wedding, OMG! Highly recommended! Also, I can now easily understand Ricardo Darín's mumbling which used to be *impossible* when I started watching Argentinian movies some years ago. Hooray! It also seems like I can get my husband to re-watch some Argentinian movies with me, which is great since there are many very good ones.

Spanish hours: 3.72h

Russian

I did one audio file of Modern Russian and read some more. Inching my way forward. I gave up reading for the day when I hit a page with 37% new words of mostly boat crap :? 180 pages done and I still hit pages of 37% new words, seriously! Oh Russian, why do you have so many words?!

Russian hours: 2.24h

French

I started reading La trilogie Nikopol by Enki Bilal. This will take me a few days at least. I just love that I can have so much fun with French.

French hours: 0.68h

Total: 6.64h

General

Just as I was thinking about how to proceed after my 3 months Russian challenge which ends tomorrow, I actually realised that I will probably have to get back to work. I'm a photographer and freelance writer/magazine editor for a photography magazine. I usually have some downtime between magazine issues and deadlines, but right now a bunch of deadlines for exhibitions seem to be coming up, my website migration is finally done and I have an article to write. I've also let a few things accumulate over the last few months while concentrating on Russian, especially rolls to develop. And since we travel to Germany at the end of the month, partly for photography purposes, I might want to get back into the swing of things shooting a few rolls of film. At least it's properly spring now, so taking pictures in the city should start to become less frustrating now. I better try to get a few months of work in before the tourists take over the town and make it impossible to work again! Basically since I moved here my photography has become seasonal. In winter it's too wet and cold to work and in summer it's too crowded. That said, last summer I worked on French and the last two winters on Russian, so it's not all bad!

This time I'll handle my transition back to work differently though: I won't take a break from language learning entirely since I haven't quite reached the right stage with with Russian yet. I will just continue at lower intensity while trying to integrate my languages as much as possible into my life. As study activities I will continue with GdUdE for Spanish as well as Modern Russian and at least an hour of intensive reading for Russian. I will also watch, read and listen as much as I feel like in French and Spanish, while largely trying to avoid any content in English apart from things I watch and read with my husband. I will also turn mostly to PhD relevant reading in French and Spanish (apart from bedtime reading), since I need to make some progress on content before I have my next meeting with my supervisor in June or July. Don't think for a moment though that this is actually proper "toil" for me, since I really enjoy my topic and the kind of stuff I read for the PhD is actually stuff I read out of interest. My supervisor will probably think that I'm totally nuts for learning French and Russian since we had our last proper meeting, but I'd like to make the WTF moment even funnier by also having made some progress with content too :lol:
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: 20 / 100 Дэвид Эддингс - В поисках камня
: 14325 / 35000 LWT Known

: 17 / 55 FSI Spanish Basic
: 100 / 116 GdUdE B
: 8 / 72 Duolingo reverse Spanish -> German

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Teango
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Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby Teango » Thu Apr 13, 2017 9:22 pm

blaurebell wrote:I did one audio file of Modern Russian and read some more. Inching my way forward. I gave up reading for the day when I hit a page with 37% new words of mostly boat crap :?

You have my sympathies, B! I've recently started studying another extensive Hawaiian course called "Nā Kai ʻEwalu" which they use at the University of Hawaiʻi in Hilo (on Big Island). In the very first few pages, before they even introduce beginners to the wonders of saying a basic "hello", you're hit with the words for unicorn fish, louse egg, and dregs (to be learned as part of a wordlist). To add insult to injury, they use artificial linguistic jargon in Hawaiian to horrendously overcomplicate relatively simple grammar for beginners, without even explaining what several of these fabricated words mean (many of which donʻt even exist in the most comprehensive Hawaiian dictionaries). Since heading down this new masochistic Gässchen in my studies (mainly to fill in any gaps that may remain in my Hawaiian grammar before moving over to more extensive reading), I've been bombarded with wordlists and exercises containing the names of more exotic fish and sea creatures from the depths of Davy Jones' Locker than even Captain Birdseye could handle in a lifetime. :roll:
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blaurebell
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Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby blaurebell » Sun Apr 16, 2017 11:47 am

Teango wrote:I've been bombarded with wordlists and exercises containing the names of more exotic fish and sea creatures from the depths of Davy Jones' Locker than even Captain Birdseye could handle in a lifetime.


Oh dear! When I first attempted to learn Russian I had a very interesting discussion with my mum about which kind of wood is used to kill vampires according to myths in Germany and in Russia. It's a different kind and I decided not to learn any of those Russian words my mum was throwing at me :lol:

My "boat crap" vocabulary in German is actually smaller than my English "boat crap" vocabulary, because I once read half of Moby Dick before finally giving up. That book is like watching football without the ball, the whale only appears halfway into the book! Since I hardly ever read books about anything with boats in German I decided to ignore all that boat vocabulary entirely - the translations wouldn't tell me anything. I definitely shouldn't have picked a book in Russian which happens near boats at all! :roll:
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: 20 / 100 Дэвид Эддингс - В поисках камня
: 14325 / 35000 LWT Known

: 17 / 55 FSI Spanish Basic
: 100 / 116 GdUdE B
: 8 / 72 Duolingo reverse Spanish -> German

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blaurebell
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Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby blaurebell » Sun Apr 16, 2017 12:29 pm

Weekly update:

Spanish

: 11 / 107 GdUdE A
: 75 / 150 peninsular Spanish audio
: 12 / 150 Argentinian audio
: 4597 / 10000 Spanish pages

I spent a lot of time on Spanish this last week because I could motivate my husband to watch some Argentinian movies and series with me. We watched Fermin, Relatos Salvajes, Medianeras and Lugares comunes in movies and we're about halfway through a nice little entertaining series called Las huellas del secretario. It's just a short series and a little naive in places, but the acting isn't bad and it's definitely entertaining and interesting. It was one of those educational series on history produced with the support of the previous government, so the new government actually removed most of it from the youtube channel of tv pública. :evil: Luckily we downloaded it when it was still available. I also read a little book about a German graphic artist who went into exile in Argentina and continued reading El entenado by Saer intensively. I continued with my GdUdE exercises every day and I even spoke Spanish yesterday with the in-laws and my husband said that he didn't notice any mistakes 8-) I didn't say awfully complicated things though, so I can't really tell whether there was any real improvement.

Spanish hours: 29.11h

French

: 25 / 150 native French audio.
: 6484 / 10000 French pages

Of course, when I spend more time on Spanish I spend less time on French. I listened to quite a number of episodes of Transfert which is definitely a fascinating podcast and I finished a book - Les Rivières pourpres by Jean-Christophe Grangé - and a comic - Mémoires d'outre-espace by Enki Bilal. I'm also a bit more than halfway through the comic La trilogie Nikopol also by Bilal and a couple of chapters into Photographie et societé by Gisèle Freund, which is a scholarly book about the history of photography written by a photographer. I haven't read much scholarly stuff in French yet and I'm quite happy that I don't seem to be having any problems with it at all. It's really very enjoyable so far.

French hours: 11.53h

Russian

: 13 / 45 Modern Russian 1
: 61 / 100 Дэвид Эддингс - Обретение чуда
: 5639 / 35000 LWT Known

The week started off fairly well with Modern Russian and intensive reading every day and then finished off with a few days of bad health and therefore no more progress. It's still impossible for me to do Russian when I can't concentrate properly. Oh well. There was some progress at least though. By the way, my brother is starting to learn Russian too - he's taking a proper grammar heavy course with a teacher actually - and I gave him some tips how to make faster progress on his own with Assimil. He has a bit more prior knowledge of Russian because he went to visit my relatives a few times over the last few years and my parents spoke Russian to him until he was 10, so I'm curious to see what his progress will be like!

Russian hours: 9.87h

Total: 50.51h
2 x
: 20 / 100 Дэвид Эддингс - В поисках камня
: 14325 / 35000 LWT Known

: 17 / 55 FSI Spanish Basic
: 100 / 116 GdUdE B
: 8 / 72 Duolingo reverse Spanish -> German

DaveBee
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Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby DaveBee » Sun Apr 16, 2017 1:14 pm

blaurebell wrote:
French

: 25 / 150 native French audio.
: 6484 / 10000 French pages

Of course, when I spend more time on Spanish I spend less time on French. I listened to quite a number of episodes of Transfert which is definitely a fascinating podcast and I finished a book - Les Rivières pourpres by Jean-Christophe Grangé -
I came across a mention of Les Rivières Pourpres, in a customer review of a book by a spanish author, The Shadow of the Wind. It's set in Barcelona, so it might be one for you to consider in your spanish reading challenge.
Si vous avez aimé, dans le désordre, "Les indes noires" (Jules Verne), "Les rivières pourpres" (Jean-Christophe Grangé), "Les mystères de Paris" (Eugène Sue) ou bien encore "Les trois mousquetaires" (Alexandre Dumas), alors vous adorerez "L'ombre du vent". Roman gothique, polar noir, très noir, récit fantastique, mélodrame, thriller, roman à énigmes, tous les genres propres à vous faire frémir ou pleurer sont au rendez-vous dans ce récit où passé et présent se mêlent inextricablement au long de cinquante ans d'histoire de Barcelone la grande. Tout part de la visite faite par un enfant de dix ans, Daniel Sempere, dans le "Cimetière des Livres Oubliés", un lieu magique où l'on peut acquérir gratuitement un livre, mais un seul, que l'on se devra de conserver toute sa vie et auquel on consacrera celle-ci. On comprend dès la première page que l'écriture et la lecture, les livres donc, seront au centre de l'histoire. Un stylo rarissime, censé avoir appartenu à Victor Hugo, va servir de lien entre passé et présent. Le reste est action, suspense, amour et... perdition, autour d'une énigme qui va s'enrichir au fil des souvenirs des divers personnages rencontrés par notre détective en herbe. Au cours de la dizaine d'années que va durer son enquête, le lecteur va se promener dans une Barcelone étrange, aux quartiers oubliés, lourds d'histoire et de mystère. Un plaisir constant tient le lecteur en haleine au long de ces 600 et quelques pages, dont on ne ressort pas indemne. De la belle, très belle littérature populaire, ou littérature tout court pour ceux et celles que ce mot effraie...
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MorkTheFiddle
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Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Sun Apr 16, 2017 7:40 pm

blaurebell wrote:
Rebecca wrote:I would appreciate any tips you may have for me to get the best out of LWT.


I wanted to write a post for the forum about the details of this method after finishing with Russian


Agreeing with Iguanaman and Rebecca (and whomever else might have written a response to this solid post further down the thread), I encourage LLORG to post this as a sticky note, at the very least (if it has not already done so). A user of LWT for 3 or 4 years, I can "testify" for its utility and usefulness. My LWT languages have been Old English, Old Norse, Latin, Ancient Greek, Modern Greek, Spanish and French. Quickly I must add that my use of LWT for Old English, Old Norse and Modern Greek was minuscule, but "majuscule" (?!) for the other four.

For Rebecca's sake, my current known words are French 42204, Latin 20635, Ancient Greek 2128, Spanish 26393. Except for Latin, the numbers are underestimates, but more on that in a bit.

LWT has worked for me on desktops running Windows (including Windows 10), Linux (Mint), and the Apple OS (the Mac bit the dust, and the OS version of it is forgotten). I never have used LWT on anything other than a desktop.

Other similar software I have used is Lingq, but 3 or 4 years have passed since then, so I have no more comments about it. And Readlang. Readlang is a nice app, but I could not find a way to upload vocabulary that I already knew into it, so I let it languish.

The numbers of words that I know that are given above are underestimates because some fell off the moving truck when I switched from Lingq to LWT, and some in Ancient Greek got mutilated in an embarrassing attempt to fill in definitions by programming methods and databases (but this episode will not make it to my autobiography and you didn't hear it from me :D ). This is by way of saying that I don't use LWT much anymore for French or Spanish, but from time to time, especially with poetry, I go back to it. Poetry sometimes lives in its own little world with a sometimes rarely used lexicon, so it's easier for me just to get it into LWT. Just this morning, having found audio for some Neruda poems, I typed in a short, 16-liner into LWT.

Again, Lilly, you have written a much better guide to LWT than I could ever do. I'm just standing on the sidelines yelling go, team, go.
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Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson

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Teango
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Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby Teango » Sun Apr 16, 2017 8:10 pm

blaurebell wrote:Oh dear! When I first attempted to learn Russian I had a very interesting discussion with my mum about which kind of wood is used to kill vampires according to myths in Germany and in Russia. It's a different kind and I decided not to learn any of those Russian words my mum was throwing at me :lol:

Haha...ach, du lieber Himmel...where would you be without your "осиновый кол" (aspen stake) on a Friday night?! :o
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