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

Postby Expugnator » Sun Jan 08, 2017 1:03 am

Greetings into a New Year!

First the title, a wordplay on the idiom "it's now or never". In the past years, I've been using titles that would motivate me to work on specific aspects of the language learning or that would reflect my needs and interests. This year I won't be setting any explicit guideline on my log. From what you can see at my previous log, I believe I've already reached my goal of becoming a polyglot. That is to say, I no longer see what I'm doing as a race. I don't feel I need to prove to myself that I can do it, at least not anymore. So this year will be a much less stressful one, with my own pressure being taken from my shoulders. Do I still need to improve my learning methods, in order to learn more efficiently? Sure I do! It's not a matter of goals and deadlines anymore, though. I may have deadlines for specific accomplishments at individual languages, like Russian, but I don't have a 'main deadline' to decide whether I will have become a successful learner or whether I'll have failed. It is time now to enjoy and acknowledge what has been achieved and to enjoy the trip even more than I have been doing in the past months.

Some things didn't change: I still need to push my active skills, but that tends to become easier now that most of my languages are within the B range. So, rather than goals for achieving this or that level in a language, I will put goals in terms of what I want to do with the language, i.e. usage goals. In German, for example, I want to enjoy the native materials I learned the language for, like novels and native TV series. I learn a language mostly for culture and I want to know even more about life in Germany. For Mandarin, I want to read more native novels, as I've been reading mostly translations.

As for the next incursions, like I briefly said in one of my previous 2016 posts, the main tie-breaking chriterium for new languages will be the presence of a thriving coomunity of learners. I have joined several groups for Indonesian and Malay, met friendly people including native speakers, and so this language ranks higher in my list of priorities. Tetum, too, happens to have a busy Whatsapp group and maybe I should take the chance. Same goes for Guarani.

My plans for working in the tourism industry have also helped me define some priorities. I have to learn Spanish properly this year. My Russian needs to reach a solid conversational level, as well as my Mandarin. I will probably have to shift the focus in those two languages from understanding native materials to consolidating tourist conversation.

It is still early to tell when I will be able to start a new language, be it from scratch (among Indonesian/Malay, Tetum, Guarani, Swahili or another one that might catch up my attention, though I might admit most of my thirst for wanderlust for the mere sake of linguistical curiosity has been under control) or a second or further language within a group (an idea which I like better because I can delve into native materials soon - options are either Spanish, Esperanto or Romanian for Slavic, Czech or BCMS for Slavic and Swedish or Finnish as lower priorities). It all comes down to how satisfied I will be with my progress in languages that are not tied to any material objectives, like Georgian, Norwegian, Italian and, up to this moment, Greek.

Now for individual languages:

French. (C1ish) I keep telling I should apply for certification. Now things have changed a bit, and it's not a priority, but who knows? I want to keep improving my listening through watching cool French TV series, and I want to write more. Last year I wrote very few essays, though I did chat a bit.

Papiamento. (C1ish) It takes care of itself. I will keep using the news, the only resource I have offhand. I want to work on materials for teaching the language, but there's some online redtape involved.

Italian. (B2ish) I have only usage goals: I want to enjoy cool native novels and TV series. I want to chat more often in the language, even if not explicitly aiming for corrections in the first place.

Norwegian. (B2-) Another language for which I don't need any goals anymore. I just want to find cool stuff to watch on NRK, keep enjoying my audiobooks, keep chatting as often as I've been doing or even more. I will try to only watch and read material I'd really want to, regardless of language learning.

Georgian. (B1+) I want to resume writing so I can reach a comfortable active B1, while working on the newly added audiobooks for bordering a C1 passive. I will keep watching dubbed series which have been working really well, but I will also try to get more out of the native ones.

German. Yet another goalless language. I don't need German for any immediate professional activities, so I will keep enjoying the native materials I want, keep improving my passive skills which are bordering fluency and try to enjoy more native series.

Russian. (B1ish) I should shift my focus to more tourism-related language and activating it, while keeping working on reading comprehension. Listening will be less of a focus and I will have to include dubbed series, given the scarcity of transcripts for native series.

Mandarin Chinese. (B1ish) Here I will have to clearly reformulate my goals. Should I focus on material for tourists, through sentence drilling? Should I write and post both written and spoken samples for feedback? I should definitely find more time for it on a day. Reading and watching TV series will be less of a priority.

Estonian. (B1-) No pressure for this one either. I want to keep working slowly and surprise myself with reaching basic reading fluency. Reading subtitles will be the skill that will prepare me for watching native series next year.

Modern Greek. (A2) It's a language where I progressed quickly. I want to get the basic tourist conversation down while keeping working on reading. Listening still isn't my main focus. I need to enlarge my vocabulary first. I will keep working on textbooks for this one.

Prospects

Indonesian/Malay, Tetun, Guarani, Swahili, Spanish, Esperanto, Romanian....Which one(s) is(are) going to be part of the list above? Time and availability of cool resources, such as Duolingo, will tell.
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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 » Sun Jan 08, 2017 12:07 pm

Resources

This is a post to be constantly updated. I will be listing the resources I'll be using next, whether they are textbooks or native materials, in no particular order or review/analysis. I keep resources scattered through bookmarks in several devices/browsers, email drafts and my logs, and it often happens that I may have already found, months before, the exact resource I need at a given point but I can't recall it and thus I spend extra time on searching. I don't want to get lost on what I'm doing next.

This list is for self-reference, but if you need further explanations on a specific resource, feel free to ask!

French
Audiobooks by Kathérine Pancol; books by Jeremy Rifkin and other non-fiction; FSI Pronunciation

Norwegian
Non-fiction TV shows at NRK: Folkopplysningen, Schrödingers katt; Podcasts Saltklypa, Vitendate; Audiobooks; Odinsbarn's sequels, Fiction series Okkupert, SKAM, Unge Lovende, Kampen for tilværelsen, Mysteriet på Sommerbåten, Valkyrien, Singelklubben ; Forum diskusjon.no .

Italian
Novels by Niccolò Ammaniti and Fabio Gennovesi; audiobooks; dubbed series Futurama, Once Upon a Time; native series.

German
Sequels to Tintenherz; Audiobooks already available; books by Jeremy Rifkin and other non-fiction; book on language learning as suggested here; dubbed series Once Upon a Time, Black Mirror; native series TFA, Tatortreiniger, Pastewka and others; Slow German podcast.

Mandarin
Audiobooks by Yu Hua; Narnia's books; TV Shows featured on Viki, for double subtitles; Yabla's videos, animated movie A Jewish Girl in Shanghai.

Georgian
Native series other than Shua Qalaqshi; reviewing Aronson's grammar; dubbed series Arrow, Flash; fiction, translated audiobooks.

Russian
Native series other than Kuxnya; Барбоскины cartoons; dubbed series Once Upon a Time and others; Братья Стругацкие (sci-fi), Сергей Васильевич Лукьяненко (fantasy) and Людмила Улицкая (romance), Евгений Гришковец, Борис Акунин, Давлатов, Зощенко.

Estonian
Jänku-juss and other cartoons; subtitles for series I want to watch; finding newer translated novels.

Modern Greek
Audiobooks by Dan Brown and other translated novels; Mond.ly; Duolingo, Assimil old edition; subtitled series Westworld.

Spanish
Assimil beginner and intermediate; Duolingo; Latin American novels; El ministerio del tiempo; other series suggested on logs. Podcasts: La rosa de los vientos, Economía Directa, Epicentro, Al Filo de la Realidade, Un idioma sin fronteras, Dame tu voz (also in Catalan).

Papiamento
Blogs comprendiendobida amd papiamentuliteraturdl , news section from the site papiamentu.aw .
Last edited by Expugnator on Fri Mar 31, 2017 1:36 pm, edited 9 times in total.
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outcast
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Posts: 585
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FLUENCY
Native: ENglish, ESpañol
Advanced: -
High Basic: DEutsch (rust), FRançais (rust), ZH中文
Basic: -
~
ACQUIRING
Formally: KO한국말, ITaliano, HI हिन्दी
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Re: Expug's 2017 Log - It's now and forever

Postby outcast » Sun Jan 08, 2017 6:41 pm

Have fun and more breakthroughs this year!
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"I can speak wonderfully and clearly in zero languages, and can also fluently embarrass myself in half a dozen others."

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Expugnator
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1728
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 9:45 pm
Location: Belo Horizonte
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 Jan 09, 2017 8:43 pm

@outcast: thank you! Your success story with Chinese is definitely my source of inspiration, even though I can't afford to go live in China, and should try to achieve as much as possible from here.

===================

My first day of studies this year was on Friday. I didn't post anything as this log didn't exist yet. I managed to go up to Russian plus a few more readings. It felt normal to be back after two weeks, not tiresome or anything.

Today I had to go downtown and so started the study day a bit late, but I caught up for most of the tasks.

I've watched episode 80 of Kuxnya, the last one I had with transcripts. I'm too fond of the show to watch it without subtitles at all and miss on too much. So I'm replacing it with dubbed series. I got the first two episodes of The OA and will give it a try. I'm mostly into sci-fi when it comes to series (not so much with novels).

Today I managed to read Italian intensively again. I looked up several words, not so frequent ones, but which are slowly being added to my vocabulary.

I also read intensively in Estonian again. It's reaching a level that was familiar with Russian: I can get the gist of the dialogues and I get lost on descriptive passages.

Resuming Living Language/Spoken World Greek as well. It's old-school textbook, boring. But it's a good, efficient one.

Watched the second half of Normal galskap's first episode. Intensive watching, looking words up. The presenter's accent is the most difficult one, which means once I get used to that I will have broadened my understanding of spoken Norwegian.

Enough time for finishing the main and the extended schedules, but nothing else. Better luck tomorrow.
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Brun Ugle
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Re: Expug's 2017 Log - It's now and forever

Postby Brun Ugle » Tue Jan 10, 2017 8:31 am

Expugnator wrote:Watched the second half of Normal galskap's first episode. Intensive watching, looking words up. The presenter's accent is the most difficult one, which means once I get used to that I will have broadened my understanding of spoken Norwegian.


No. No. No. That's the easiest accent of all. He's a Trønder. That's how we talk around here.

When I moved here, it was to an area with a much thicker accent even than he has. I'd been studying Norwegian on my own for about a year and when I got here, I wondered if I'd even studied the right language. It didn't sound anything like what I'd learn from my books and tapes.
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Re: Expug's 2017 Log - It's now and forever

Postby Tillumadoguenirurm » Tue Jan 10, 2017 3:34 pm

Brun Ugle wrote:
Expugnator wrote:Watched the second half of Normal galskap's first episode. Intensive watching, looking words up. The presenter's accent is the most difficult one, which means once I get used to that I will have broadened my understanding of spoken Norwegian.


No. No. No. That's the easiest accent of all. He's a Trønder. That's how we talk around here.

When I moved here, it was to an area with a much thicker accent even than he has. I'd been studying Norwegian on my own for about a year and when I got here, I wondered if I'd even studied the right language. It didn't sound anything like what I'd learn from my books and tapes.


:D

If you speak trøndersk BrunUgle, call me impressed. It can be quite tricky at times, even to some Norwegians.


To Mr.Pug - In sincerity, have a nice journey. I have no idea where you find the motivation for all of those languages, but your log is damned interesting. Keep moving.
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Re: Expug's 2017 Log - It's now and forever

Postby embici » Tue Jan 10, 2017 6:39 pm

I am so impressed by your list of languages and progress in all of them. I take my hat off to you. But I have to ask... do you sleep?
:D
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Expugnator
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Posts: 1728
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 9:45 pm
Location: Belo Horizonte
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 Jan 10, 2017 7:54 pm

So far any Norwegian is difficult, @Brun Ugle and @Tillumadoguenirurm, but some are more difficult than others. I wouldn't say this trøndersk is the hardest one, but it definitely is above-average. Whoever this guy meets in the show speaks more clearly than he does.

embici wrote:I am so impressed by your list of languages and progress in all of them. I take my hat off to you. But I have to ask... do you sleep?
:D

Languages take up my day, thanks to a special work routine, so when I'm home there are no languages involved, which doesn't mean I'm any less busy...

There is nothing to be impressed though. I'm a slow learner, anyone with my availability would be fluent in more languages after all those years. But I like what I do, I'm reading cool books, watching good TV series, discovering new cultures and that is why I study languages, after all.
==============================
It turns out I will be able to keep watching Kuxnya withthe help of YT-generated subtitles which I will then translate. I found accurate Bulgarian subtitles but I can't download them, so it's better to have not-so-accurate ones that allow me to get the gist than having to pause for looking words up in Bulgarian.

Living Language Greek remains comprehensive, despite the time wasted with skipping the native English-learner explanations of what a noun, a verb or a conjugation is. Same happens at the Greekpod101's lessons, so it turns out half these lessons are spent on this.

Another level from Greekpod101 is ove,r now heading to Upper Beginner. I find the language used very genuine, though the amount of English explanations still annoys me.
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Re: Expug's 2017 Log - It's now and forever

Postby Systematiker » Wed Jan 11, 2017 12:44 am

Please say that we can all call you "Mr. Pug" now :D :D

oder gar "Herr Mops" :lol: :lol:


(I hope this comes across funny!)
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Brun Ugle
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Re: Expug's 2017 Log - It's now and forever

Postby Brun Ugle » Wed Jan 11, 2017 9:06 am

Systematiker wrote:Please say that we can all call you "Mr. Pug" now :D :D

oder gar "Herr Mops" :lol: :lol:


(I hope this comes across funny!)


Does the golden retriever need a friend to share his tennis balls with?
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