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

Continue or start your personal language log here, including logs for challenge participants
User avatar
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
x 3589

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

Postby Expugnator » Thu May 18, 2017 9:01 pm

I was caught off-guard by Clozemaster's change on 'mastering' chriteria. Now if you have already seen a card and you get it wrong, it goes back to 0% mastered. This is annoying because I was satisfied with the previous system that would only point that I've seen that card 4 times until mastery. I don't need them to tell me whether I know a word or not. I might have mistapped or mistyped a word and end up losing my progress because of that.

Today is an even more atypical day, and I think it's already a victory that I went as far as the Russian series, with so much happening in the country.
3 x
Corrections welcome for any language.

User avatar
Elenia
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1888
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 1:22 am
Location: London
Languages: English (N), Swedish (C1), French (Massively Atrophied) German (lowly beginner, somehow learnt to read)


Finnish?!
Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=708
x 3280
Contact:

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

Postby Elenia » Thu May 18, 2017 11:14 pm

Expugnator wrote:I was caught off-guard by Clozemaster's change on 'mastering' chriteria. Now if you have already seen a card and you get it wrong, it goes back to 0% mastered. This is annoying because I was satisfied with the previous system that would only point that I've seen that card 4 times until mastery. I don't need them to tell me whether I know a word or not. I might have mistapped or mistyped a word and end up losing my progress because of that.


I agree with you on the clozemaster thing. I think it used to take off twenty five percent previously, but as it changed soon after I started properly using the website I'm not really sure how. There is a way around it on the browser, which is exiting and then reopening the tab. At any rate it works for me using chrome. It does mean you have to do the whole set of reviews again, though, so if you are on the tenth question, it might not really be worth it. I only do this when I've missed a letter on a word due to my keyboard - honest mistakes. If I get a question wrong when the answer is what I intended to write then I leave it. If I get something wrong too many times, or if I get a boring card with a very obvious, recurring bit of vocabulary wrong then I delete it.
1 x

User avatar
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
x 3589

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

Postby Expugnator » Fri May 19, 2017 8:16 pm

@Elenia, this way around seems to take much more time. I'll have to live with this change. :(


So, now it's really over, the Norwegian non-fiction audiobook. I'm much better than when I started it, fortunately. Now I can understand it as long as I pay attention. If I onl start browsing the internet, like when I arrive to my destination, I totally lose what is going on. Yet I'm glad I noticed some improvement, and I might be on the right track. In order to reach a comfortable level of fluency, though, I don't need just listening training, I also need to improve my vocabulary by finally learning words that keep coming and going.

Russian in Exercises - time for nailing down the plural of the prepositional case! Learning one ending at once was the right call for me to start both understanding and memorizing those declensions.

Yesterday I finished the film "La Gloire de Mon Père", which I liked quite a bit, and now I proceed to the second, "Le Château de Ma Mère".

In the past few days I could notice considerable improvement in my German reading skills. The content of the book 'Fremdsprachenlernen mit System' becomes more detailed and I have to pay more attention, but language-wise I can perceive the shape of the sentences and interpret nouns, verbs, adjectives accordingly. Maybe next time for a less important subject than language learning I could really try extensive reading.

Finally another day of completion, all the way to the Spansih textbook. This weekend has been particularly busy, then come the vacations and almost 1 month without studying.
1 x
Corrections welcome for any language.

User avatar
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
x 3589

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

Postby Expugnator » Mon May 22, 2017 6:49 pm

The weekend was just about Clozemaster. It is hard to find time for any extra TV series lately. I decided to give Latin a try on Clozemaster. It's great to feel the language is as alive and conversationable as any other. Having studied other languages with cases and with verbs at the end of sentence, Latin looks much less solemn. Unfortunately the Latin deck isn't graded, which reduces efficiency considerably, given that I'd be using Clozemaster as my sole resource.

I have a second, extra job now. Will put extra pressure on my daily life, but I hope I'll still make it to the gym early in the morning. It won't affect my studies at least not regarding time availability. Actually I'll have a new commute by bus where I'll be able to advance on reading, and then from this new job to the current one I'll keep my 1st listening slot.

My new job is teaching Portuguese to foreigners. I asked for it, so I should see it coming. Now it's a matter of adapting and trying to do my best. It's temporary, a couple of months I guess.

Speaking of which, I resumed the Argentinian podcast today. I'm starting to get used to the accent and its speed. The audio quality suffers, so I won't say it's transparent, which surely would in the written form. Yet I've chosen just the appropriate resource for improving, as it's enunciated, non-fiction audio. Going wildly with an Argentinian TV series right as my first native material in Spanish would be less optimal.

Hero Corps in resuming on May 25yth! Way to go! I'll have to make time for this one. I'm so lagging behind with my French series, Les Bleus, Fais pas ci fais pas ça, Marseille.

Got a fun, colorful and illustrated textbook for learning the Hebrew alphabet in Portuguese. Wanderlust is killing me. I have already studied the alphabet but forgot.

Today was probably the "parallelst" reading session for Georgian. An entire chapter is absent from the audiobook, so I just read it. I'm so much used to the Georgian sentence that I could look up and try to understand almost line by line, Georgian and original text. I remember when I reached this level in German, this means it is a matter of months to be able to read for the gist.

The more my Mandarin improves, the more I feel compelled to go to China. I know that a) China isn't that tidiness we see in contemporary drama shows and b) I probably won't be able to speak Mandarin everywhere even through the main cities. Even so, the idea of seeing an urban revolution plus some magical landscapes, all the while speaking an undecypherable language seems really motivating.

Today was a short study day, some overtime work credits to use, so I stopped at the Estonian reading. Still a very productive day. I'm happy about most languages.
4 x
Corrections welcome for any language.

User avatar
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
x 3589

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

Postby Expugnator » Tue May 23, 2017 9:39 pm

Second day of the new routine. Today my three girls gave me a ride to the new job. I got there early and could read until the class started, so that made up for the time I didn't have commuting. Then on the way to work I listened to the Argentinian podcast. My comprehension has already reached an up. It's great when you notice you are making progress in your languages.

While arriving home yesterday, I accidentally switched my earphones language to Chinese. It's fun but annoying a bit. So I learned today that I just have to press the power button twice while the earphone isn't connected to my smartphone.

With today's lesson at Russian in Exercises, I can finally talk about previous and next years in Russian with a little more confidence. I can even feel safe about saying the years, as only the final digit is declined.

Today was particularly difficult for German. I don't know, maybe the chapter I was reading was too boring, it was about evaluating language classes. I felt it to be too repetitive.

On the other hand, today was the best day with following Anzhelika. I understood most of the scenes.

Estonian reading is becoming so straightforward that I seldom have to look up individual words with the mouse-hover GT add-on. Usually just comparing the sentences in Estonian and L1 is enough.

Back to Greek after yesterday. I'm not able to study Greek everyday, of all languages. I feel like starting native materials slowly, but times is a constraint now.
1 x
Corrections welcome for any language.

User avatar
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
x 3589

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

Postby Expugnator » Wed May 24, 2017 9:29 pm

After a couple of days, the Argentinian podcast is now transparent. Almost like listening to native language. Much of the fun is gone now, at least regarding learning (I love the podcast, it's the one PM would listen to if he ever learned Spanish).

As for Russian in Exercises, I moved on to the accusative. That doesn't mean I've mastered the prepositional, but I have a foundation to work on now.

Current Yabla videos are songs. Good ones.

After a long chapter totally absent from the audiobook, I'm glad to resume listening-reading in Georgian. It already works way better than parallel reading alone.

Another day of full schedule, but not much beyond.
0 x
Corrections welcome for any language.

User avatar
arthaey
Brown Belt
Posts: 1080
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 9:11 pm
Location: Seattle, WA, USA
Languages: :
EN (native);
ES (adv receptive, int productive);
FR (false beginner);
DE (lapsed beg);
ASL (lapsed beg);
HU (tourist)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3864&view=unread#unread
x 1675
Contact:

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

Postby arthaey » Thu May 25, 2017 1:18 am

Expugnator wrote:I love the podcast, it's the one PM would listen to if he ever learned Spanish).

Which podcast?
0 x
Posts in: FrenchGermanHungarianSpanish
NaNoWriMo: 10,000 words
Corrections welcome in any language; I prefer an informal register.

User avatar
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
x 3589

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

Postby Expugnator » Thu May 25, 2017 8:34 pm

arthaey wrote:
Expugnator wrote:I love the podcast, it's the one PM would listen to if he ever learned Spanish).

Which podcast?


It's called Al filo de la realidad, and it's available on ivoox .

--------------------------------------------------------------
Today I finally noticed some progress in Mandarin Narnia. I don't know if it was due to there being mostly dialogues, mostly using familiar words, but it was good to be able to follow most of the story and almost in time. I could even understand two long sentences without text/Pera-pera.

I finished Levi Henriksen's book Like østenfor regnet. The book is a bit too slow for my taste, but given how hard I found to understand most of it I would call it a sort of 'middlebrow literature'. It's definitely harder and more complex than the average crime novel. Now I'm picking Dronningen sover, by Ingvar Ambjørnsen, of which I've read the Elling tetralogy (actually the 4th one is missing, I want to watch the movie instead). Just by having a glance at chapter one, I notice it's considerably easier with more familiar vocabulary than Lefi Henriksen's style. I do plan to keep reading alongside with the machine-translated audio, in order to optimize vocabulary acquisition at the B2ish level. I want to go back to Henriksen's books later, and overall I'm happy that I found my way out of crime (wow, that sounds compromising) and into more demanding and more enriching texts.

Fremdsprachenlernen mit System finally moved on from regular class and is now discussing self-learning again. Much more interesting and much easier to follow now.

Today I surprisingly finished tasks a bit earlier, but still much later than the weeks before. I should try doing Clozemaster little by little along the day, because going through all 7 languages at once can be a bit tiresome.
0 x
Corrections welcome for any language.

User avatar
zenmonkey
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2528
Joined: Sun Jul 26, 2015 7:21 pm
Location: California, Germany and France
Languages: Spanish, English, French trilingual - German (B2/C1) on/off study: Persian, Hebrew, Tibetan, Setswana.
Some knowledge of Italian, Portuguese, Ladino, Yiddish ...
Want to tackle Tzotzil, Nahuatl
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=859
x 7030
Contact:

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

Postby zenmonkey » Thu May 25, 2017 11:47 pm

Expugnator wrote:Fremdsprachenlernen mit System finally moved on from regular class and is now discussing self-learning again. Much more interesting and much easier to follow now.


I am also reading this currently - and finding it both interesting and not too difficult a read. Nice to see someone else is using the same material.
1 x
I am a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar

User avatar
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
x 3589

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

Postby Expugnator » Fri Jun 02, 2017 11:23 am

It's a good read but I'm still looking forward to reading actual innovative content from it. It's doing well to my German and it's useful for systematizing my own ideas, so it's good so far.

==============
This log is currently on hold as I'm currently on holidays from my main job. I never thought it would be so impracticable to do even some reading. At least I'm keeping my Clozemaster streak.

I'll probably be back in June 19th.
0 x
Corrections welcome for any language.


Return to “Language logs”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests