Expug's 2017 Log - It's now and forever

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Expugnator
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Languages: Native Brazilian Portuguese#advanced fluency English, French, Papiamento#basic fluency Italian, Norwegian#intermediate Spanish, German, Georgian and Chinese (Mandarin)#basic Russian, Estonian, Greek (Modern)#just started Indonesian, Hebrew (Modern), Guarani
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9931
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Re: Expug's 2017 Log - It's now and forever

Postby Expugnator » Wed May 10, 2017 9:29 pm

@Elenia : glad you like it! Looks like a growing scene, you should check the related videos as well.

@jeff and MamaPata: yes, that's the book! Glad to know you guys are using it as well. It's finally helping me solve some issues and leave the comfort zone for mastering grammar.

==========================================================================================
Nothing beats a good night of sleep. I feel sharp again, and I hope my studies can get back on track today.

Life's happening in Georgian. The audiobook revolution. Listening and reading is already helping me consolidate some troublesome words. I'm a bit annoyed that the book is so abridged, but I can easily have a glance at the page and find where the audiobook resumes, then I read the paragraphs in between in parallel with no audio. I'm looking forward to other books, really. I'm doing 3% of the book each day so that won't take much long (I hope). I even switched the Portuguese original to one with a more friendly orthography.

Back on track. Greek started on verbs, and the distinct nomenclature for the subjunctive can be a little puzzling. I finally did another lesson of La pratique courante de l'espagnol. I don't want to spend much time on that book, although I have already allowed myself to enjoy native materials whenever possible (time remains an issue). I am looking forward to picking some business Spanish textbooks and maybe later the advanced grammar book, if really necessary.

Life of Tom

Estonian

Tom ei rääkinud kellelegi teisele. Sellepärast ma ei taha sulle seda öelda.
Sina ja Tom olete vist õnnelikud. Teil on ilus maja, uus auto ja suurepärene lapsed.
Tom laulab. Meie kuulume. Kui halb see on!
Tom pean koju minema. Kohe hakkab vihma sadama, ja tal ei ole vihmavari.
Ma unustasin Tomile öelda, aga pole viga. Me kohtume õhtul.

Norwegian

Jeg vil ikke at Tom skal bli opprørt.
Han har en hjertesykdom.
Tom hadde en kniv, Mary hadde en gaffel og jeg hadde n skje. Vi måtte være kreativ og samarbeidende for at alle kunne spise middag.

German

Tom trank eine Tasse Tee.
Mary hatte weder Durst noch Hunger.
Tom hörte mit allem auf. Er musste sich auf die Prüfung konzentrieren.
Die Gastgeberin sollte aufhören, immer mehr Speisen auf den Tisch zu bringen.Tom sagt, er könnte nichts mehr essen.
Tom hielt plötzlich inne.
Vielleicht ist ihm übel?
Tom bremste ab, bevor er in den Polizeiwagen stürzte.
Tom hat Mary aus der Kneipe geschmissen. Sie war besoffen, und hatte kein Geld mehr.
Die Zauberin verwandelte Tom zur Strafe für sein ungebührliches Verhalten in einen Bären. Es hat ihm wirklich gefallen. Er liebt Honig und zu überwintern.
Ich dachte, Tom wäre zu beschäftigt, um uns zu helfen. Zum Glück kam er gleich nach der Arbeit auf.

Russian

Том обвинил его в краже велосипеда
, но в конце концов он был невиновен
Том третий в ряду.Попробуй отстрелить его отсюда.
Я никак не могу раскусить Тома. Какой сумасшедший парень!
Думаю, Тому это понравится. Он собирает брелки.
Мы думаем, что Том честный человек. Вы согласны?
[b]Том спал на надувном матрасе
. Это было довольно неудобно, но он так устал, что быстро заснул.
В пылу спора Том ударил Джона. К счастью, их друзья разделили их.
Это Тому решать, а не мне. Это его жена, на самом деле.

Modern Greek

Ο Τομ ήταν εδώ μια ώρα νωρίτερα από τη Μαρία
, και όλοι ήταν έκπληκτοι.
Ο Τομ συνέθεσε ένα σονέτο, αλλά αυτό δεν του άρεσε στη Μαρία.

So, here you are, Russian and Greek in the life of Tom. It didn't hurt that much. The German and Russian decks are especially keen on Tom sentences, so I spent a lot of time on them, more on the German one where I tried to write more complex follow-ups. As for Estonian, I have the feeling I'm already repeating myself and I don't have much feedback. Even Googling to check for a sentence's accuracy doesn't help much overall, as the corpus is rather small.

Today I dedicated time to the Tom challenge, but tomorrow I'll probably go back to my post-schedule series.
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Expugnator
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Languages: Native Brazilian Portuguese#advanced fluency English, French, Papiamento#basic fluency Italian, Norwegian#intermediate Spanish, German, Georgian and Chinese (Mandarin)#basic Russian, Estonian, Greek (Modern)#just started Indonesian, Hebrew (Modern), Guarani
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9931
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Re: Expug's 2017 Log - It's now and forever

Postby Expugnator » Thu May 11, 2017 10:32 pm

I keep being distracted during the first period of my studies. It's also the most dependant on a desktop, translations, multiple texts opened at the same time - I'm now doing Mandarin, Norwegian and Georgian listening-reading all right before and around noon. Fortunately I'm happy with my progress overall (except for non-enunciated Norwegian listening).

Georgian has particularly been quite productive. I'm used to the jumps in the audiofile, to pausing at the phone while reading the missing excerpt on the Windows screen (the audiobooks from that Georgian store only play on mobile OS) and the original text I'm using as of today is also much more readable. I'm experiencing a similar joy I felt about Estonian and the soap opera with subtitles: I'm finally working on a resource that's helping me build up my vocabulary and overall comprehension in an organic way.

Has anyone read anything from Erich Maria Remarque? There's a Georgian audiobook of The Three Comrades, and I thought of giving it a try next.

So it is, it is over, I've watched episode 120 of Кухня. A good series that helped me improve my Russian, especially in the last two seasons where I got subtitles I could translate and thus generate comprehensible input. There's a film coming to DVD, but meanwhile I have to move on. To Hotel Eleon?! No, i'll take a break. Back to Interny? No, not in the mood. And yet I'd like to stay in the familiar comedy range. So, as there aren't any other options left with subtitles, I'll resume watching Анжелика. This way, Norwegian, Georgian and Russian will be aligned: my main schedule activity will be native series without subtitles; then later on I'll try to alternately watch series with subtitles, dubbed or not. I'm not sure this is ideal to progress because I tend to wander during the Norwegian and Georgian ones, but in the case of Russian if I at least manage to decode sounds well, it will turn to a matter of vocabulary which I'm already working on through other means. besides, I'm really looking forward to all other fun series in Russian I will then be able to watch once I manage to watch freely without subs.

Today was plain Clozemaster with no life of Tom, but I still managed 20 minutes from Mr.Robot in Russian. Working overtime.
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neofight78
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Re: Expug's 2017 Log - It's now and forever

Postby neofight78 » Fri May 12, 2017 2:12 am

Expugnator wrote:There's a film coming to DVD, but meanwhile I have to move on. To Hotel Eleon?!


Do not do this under any circumstances, I fear you may die of boredom! This series is positively awful! Have you watched "Как я стал русским"?
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Re: Expug's 2017 Log - It's now and forever

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Fri May 12, 2017 5:28 pm

Expugnator wrote:Has anyone read anything from Erich Maria Remarque? There's a Georgian audiobook of The Three Comrades, and I thought of giving it a try next.


I struggled with his Im Westen nichts Neues/All Quiet on the Western Front some years ago (autumn of 2011, I think). I can read German alright, but sometimes my reading comprehension is lower than expected. This was such a book.
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Expugnator
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Languages: Native Brazilian Portuguese#advanced fluency English, French, Papiamento#basic fluency Italian, Norwegian#intermediate Spanish, German, Georgian and Chinese (Mandarin)#basic Russian, Estonian, Greek (Modern)#just started Indonesian, Hebrew (Modern), Guarani
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9931
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Re: Expug's 2017 Log - It's now and forever

Postby Expugnator » Fri May 12, 2017 8:58 pm

@neofight78 , thanks for the insistence on your point! I admit I might give it a try later, though the remaining characters aren't even my favorite ones from Кухня.

@jeff_lindqvist , sounds like a book I'd have trouble following even in L1 translation :lol: At one point i'll have to resort to it though, as there aren't many translated audiobook to choose from in Georgian (yet).

==================================
Increase of tolerance is also a sign of improvement on a language. I have noticed I can take longer sessions of Norwgeian and I can take more Norwegian on a day. I've listened to the audiobook-only (over 20 minutes) then to the one I'm listening-reading (around the same time) and it didn't feel like an alien language or a language I'm mostly learning, but rather like one that starts to feel natural. It's not like I'm making an effort to understand every sentence like I was doing a few months later (and still do with German, for example). I tend to lose focus less often, though I still do. The ultimate stage is understanding even if your mind wander for a few seconds, and being able to resume the flownearly instantly (both for visual text and audiobooks). This is native level, but my French, for instance, comes quite close.

I'm just unable to keep my usual rhythm. The first hours of study keep being invaded by the most varied small tasks I have to take care of. Today I couldn't even listen-read Narnia before having lunch. Formerly I'd be as further own in my schedule as the French film before having lunch (after Mandarin L-R I still do non-fiction 20 pages, when I haven't done it early in the morning, then Norwwegian reading - currently listening-reading - then Norwegian series for 13 minutes then French film for 10 minutes).

If I notice I'm unable to keep this rhythm I'll then have to lower my expectations. It's early to come to a conclusion though, because I might see myself in a calmer situation or even spend less time on Norwegian reading if I pick only text, no reading for my next slot.

Best Georgian reading day ever. Listening-reading is doing wonders (I should do it for Estonian one day, if they start producing audiobooks). The audiobook was much less abridged today and I could easily pause and catch up again. I'm reaching a high percentage of word cover which allows me to focus on the few unknown ones. I'm also used to the Georgian word order well enough that with just a glance at the Portuguese text I can then refer back to the Georgian and recognize what the unknown word means, all this having to pause very seldom and for a very short time. It took me way longer to reach the same level in Russian, even if I tend to read more in Russian daily than in German.

So I resumed watching Anzhelika, from the episode where there are no transcripts. I clearly understand more than before. Enough to follow the plot? The next episodes will tell.

I'm happy with my Estonian progress so far. One page from a novel by Agatha Christie is a walk in the park, in the sense that I can get the gist and resort to the translation for learning vocabulary consistently.

Today I thought I'd leave something behind, but it's all done, main schedule and post-schedule, including La Pratique Courante de L'espagnol. Only have to keep my Clozemaster streak. No extra series, though.
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Expugnator
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Languages: Native Brazilian Portuguese#advanced fluency English, French, Papiamento#basic fluency Italian, Norwegian#intermediate Spanish, German, Georgian and Chinese (Mandarin)#basic Russian, Estonian, Greek (Modern)#just started Indonesian, Hebrew (Modern), Guarani
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9931
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Re: Expug's 2017 Log - It's now and forever

Postby Expugnator » Mon May 15, 2017 8:33 pm

There's not much to say about the weekend. I just took care of my Clozemaster streak. I decided to add Esperanto to my deck. I think I'm going to learn a lot, slowly, until I take the language seriously. I'm already at at least an A2 level overall and it would be good to improve my passive skills so I can start reading as soon as possible, at least with Spanish. I had to restrain myself from adding Latin and Catalan, which I could work on the same way as with Esperanto. That would be spreading myself too thin.

I think Clozemaster isn't much effective for languages in the C-range (even if just passively). The sentences still have a bookish/translated flavor, so it's pointless to drill Spanish and French sentences that don't sound that natural, out of a context, while I can enjoy native materials anytime, any format.

Today I finished the Norwegian non-fiction audiobook, so it was time for a change. I could go for more Italian or start Spanish. I chose the latter, a podcast. It seems Argentinian so it's extra accent training, and it's not as immediately transparent as a podcast is supposed to be, also due to sound quality. That's extra practice!

The drawback is that I've lowered my daily Norwegian, which is a language I've been focusing on lately. But then when I went for the Norwegian comedy series it turned out I could understand way more than usual. Maybe coming to it with a fresh mind for the day is going to be useful.

This site seems to be useful for those who want to find podcasts sorted by theme and by country.

I have yet to post a thread where I'm going to discuss the chriteria for choosing what to listen to during my 3 listening-only slots. It will be helpful even it just for myself.

At Papiamento, I'm reading the pdf of a newspaper, instead of just online news. I'm also reading the ads and therefore being introduced to a different register of the language.

Almost comfortable with Georgian listening-reading. The audio forces me to pay attention to the text and process grammar and meaning more quickly, otherwise I lose track.It works better with Georgian than with Chinese, as I have a much larger vocabulary in Georgian. Today the audio nearly always matched text, with only some 3 or 4 short paragraphs being abridged in the 4 pages I read.
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Expugnator
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Languages: Native Brazilian Portuguese#advanced fluency English, French, Papiamento#basic fluency Italian, Norwegian#intermediate Spanish, German, Georgian and Chinese (Mandarin)#basic Russian, Estonian, Greek (Modern)#just started Indonesian, Hebrew (Modern), Guarani
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9931
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Re: Expug's 2017 Log - It's now and forever

Postby Expugnator » Tue May 16, 2017 9:34 pm

Turns out I had overlooked two of my audiobooks. I thought I had download all the final files to my phone and that they were over once I listened to them yesterday, but there were 6 chapters left for the Norwegian audiobook and 1 disc for Micho Kaku's (to my defense the folders were named 1, 2...10 instead of 01, 02, 10, so I totally overlooked disc 10). No big deal, it just gives me a few more days to choose, even though I already started briefly the Argentinian podcast to replace the Norwegian non-fiction audiobook and the book Nudge to replace Michio Kaku's Physics of the Impossible.

The good news: today was the best Norwegian-listening morning commute ever. I'm almost at that stage when the L2 finally "slows down" and you can process and understand many more words within the same timeframe. This means I'm close to the pursued listening fluency and should worry more about the 5% of vocabulary that separates me from transparency, because phoneme decyphering has been taken care of and real-time meaning processing is on its way.

I think of listening in an L2 as dependant on those three variables: you can decode the phonemes being uttered; you know the meaning of the words-> collocations-> sentences being uttered; you can process them fast enough to keep up with real-time conversation or a very quickly read audiobook. In the case of non-enunciated talk, it's the decoding that poses the greater challenge as there is a lot of mumbling; in the case of the audiobook, I was mostly trapped at keeping up with the amount of info per minute.

In some languages, like standard Italian or even standard German, sound decoding is no issue at all (my Italian listening skills are better than Spanish, I think), but in Norwegian I have to go through all aspects simultaneously, and they evolve little by little until there are some breakthroughs and I raise momentum.

I acknowledge this is a rather reducionist approach to listening and those skills are intertwined as well as with the overall competence in the L2, but this model of reasoning will help me until reineke posts a dozen of articles that contradict all this.

Russian in Exercises is for real now. Today I studied adjectiva declension in the prepositional case. Adjectival declension is the most confusing topic of the Russian grammar for me, because the adjectives have endings in one case that correspond to the endings of nouns in other cases. For example, prepositional endings for adjectives remind me of the instrumental for nouns. Why can't it be aligned as in Modern Greek?!

Today was also the best day for the Norwegian soap opera i watch without subs. I could actually follow most of the dialogues.

An atypical day, lots to discuss. Just saying that finally my language skills are being valued also professionally. I stopped at the native Russian series, but even that one was a partial success. I'm actually following the story now, and understanding full sentences sometimes.
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smallwhite
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Re: Expug's 2017 Log - It's now and forever

Postby smallwhite » Wed May 17, 2017 3:16 pm

Expugnator wrote:Tom hadde en kniv, Mary hadde en gaffel og jeg hadde n skje. Vi måtte være kreativ og samarbeidende for at alle kunne spise middag.

All that conspiracy going on around Tom, and you manage to come up with a sentence like that :lol:
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Expugnator
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Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9931
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Re: Expug's 2017 Log - It's now and forever

Postby Expugnator » Wed May 17, 2017 9:40 pm

@smallwhite: Tom er uskyldig :lol: :D

===========================
Situation with Norwegian non-fiction: I can follow more than the gist if I pay attention; when I get distracted I tend to get lost.

Russian in Exercises is really fun. It's great fo feel I'm making progress again. I'm almost internalizing adjectival declension for the prepositional case.

I've switched to my old audio for Narnia and it's actually clearer, slower, and all the parenteses are read. Today I was starting to go on the flow before realizing I had reached my daily quota.

According to Fremdsprachenlernen mit System, Instituto Cervantes is supposed to offer also Catalan and Basque courses in some venues. Really?

Back to Greek after not having time yesterday (apart from Clozemaster which I kept at pace). The lessons on Kypros are getting long and the dialogues are tricky. They're almost like doing plain listening-reading.

Also back to Spanish. The book is insightful but it still fees boring. 22 lessons to go.
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blaurebell
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Re: Expug's 2017 Log - It's now and forever

Postby blaurebell » Thu May 18, 2017 9:21 am

Expugnator wrote:According to Fremdsprachenlernen mit System, Instituto Cervantes is supposed to offer also Catalan and Basque courses in some venues. Really?


This is actually true, but usually only A1 and only in big cities. Even a relatively big city like Frankfurt can't find enough students for those languages. So basically only in capital cities - Berlin for example.
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