What are some of the most helpful language logs?

[Valddu]

What are some of the more insightful language logs here? There’s a ton listed and I’m not sure how to parse through it. I’m learning Spanish so I think a few logs from people working their way through that would be helpful (I went through some of NoManches log and found it interesting and it pointed me to some new resources).

[lingua]

I find them all helpful. However, when time is limited I gravitate towards the Italian or other romance language ones. The logs here have given me lots of new study ideas and I do things much differently than I did in the past.

I recommend you just start reading them and eventually you will find your favorites.

[Valddu]

Can you make your question more specific? "Most helpful" is kind of a vague concept and any one of us forumers might very well have entirely different logs to recommend than any other forumer. So, in what way are you looking for the log to be helpful? Do you want logs that go into detail about the methods a person is using, or perhaps you want to read logs about specific methods? Do you want logs that discuss courses or logs that discuss native materials? Do you want to read logs of language learners at a specific stage in their learning, eg. beginners, or people more advanced? Are you looking for logs that are more personal or logs that are more clinical?

I read logs broadly (not a whole lot of Swedish learners who make frequent updates!), and I can never predict what gems of information will be shared in which logs. You just never know what kind of discussion a forumer's log updates are going to provoke, or which log writers themselves will be sharing incredible insights into various aspects of language learning.

Logs focused on Spanish, especially the climb to C1 and C2 would probably be the most helpful for me. They don’t need to be focused on a given learning methodology or anything of the sort.

I suppose I’d also be interested in any logs that are popular and well-known because of how interesting and insightful they are or because of the background of its creator.

[eido]

Just read.

I feel like this thread could unfairly point to picking favorites, so pick your own and don't disclose publicly who they are unless you do it in a nice, socially acceptable way.

I always have my foot in my mouth, but I hope you can imagine what that means.

Usually people just pick the logs that entertain them due to the wordsmithing of the log's owner, or the experience of said person and the wisdom they share within.

[David27]

http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/fo ... PN=1&TPN=1

http://foreignlanguageexpertise.com/about.html

My personal favorite and inspiration will always be the old posts Alexander Arguelles posted at the old site.

[Adrianslont]

What Morgana said and what eido said.

I read different logs for different reasons - I’ll list a few because you asked.

I used to read emk (he rarely posts now) because he was so damned enthusiastic and used subs2srs and was insightful and helpful. And he was learning French.

I read Axon because he was studying in Indonesia and I am learning Indonesian. And he is smart and interesting and clearly a gun language learner. Makes contributions. Now he often makes contributions that are of no immediate relevance to me eg technical discussions on various Chinese languages - but I still look at every post.

Smallwhite doesn’t have a log but I would always read her posts with great interest - she has hardly posted in recent months. She often comes at things from a different angle - thought provoking.

I used to enjoy sfuqua but he has not been posting much lately. He’s so enthusiastic about his learning and likes to experiment. His sense of humour really appeals to me too.

I sometimes read Expugnator because he is one of the few Indonesian learners atm. He is learning 167 languages at once and he posts regularly on them. They are long posts and I usually just skip to the Indonesian bit to see what he’s up to - it doesn’t vary much but occasionally piques my interest.

I will add that there are a number of other people whose great contributions to discussions I enjoy very much but I rarely or never read their logs - maybe because they are not studying the same languages or they have fairly mechanical logs - they just report what they did with not a lot of reflection (which is cool of course). Moral of the story - logs aren’t everything. But I’m sure you knew that already.

I would recommend you use the subscribe function if you don’t already.

And use the search function to find “stuff” of interest eg “telenovelas” “subs2srs” “LWT”, “YouTube” “resources”, whatever interests you - and maybe you will find logs to follow that way.

Oh, I actually follow rdearman too - he’s learning French, likes tech and experiments. I’m beginning to see some patterns here!

[StringerBell]

I've often found that it doesn't really matter what language a person is learning, what makes their logs interesting has more to do with their enthusiasm, their writing style, their drive to try new things or improve their abilities in their languages, no matter how frustrating it might seem at moments. I've learned a lot and have been given a much needed jolt of encouragement (or even understood that my struggles are not unique and are a necessary part of learning) from logs that have nothing to do with languages I'm learning.

So, my suggestion is to not restrict yourself to reading only those written by people learning Spanish. You might find yourself naturally gravitating toward those, but don't let it prevent you from taking a peek at what other people are doing.

You could try just reading the last few entries in a few logs here and there to get a taste of what that log has to offer; maybe by sampling a few at a time you'll be able to find the ones that are the most appealing to you.

[David1917]

DELE Study Group
https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =26&t=5375

Taking the DELE C2 - These 7 threads encompass a review of the C2 test. If your goal is a C2, then this is probably a great place to start.
Part 1 - https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =17&t=7288
Part 2 - https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =17&t=7291
Part 3 - https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =17&t=7292
Part 4 - https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =17&t=7295
Part 5 - https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =17&t=7297
Part 6 - https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =17&t=7309
Part 7 - https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =17&t=7642

The thing I enjoy about logs is not reading about what people are doing with a language, but rather what breakthroughs they are making and how they are using them, more like following a vlogger or something. I also prefer multi-language logs, with Iversen's being the biggest. I don't read these regularly, but with your interest in Spanish, the users Iguanamon and nooj both have detailed logs about their encounters with Spanish and geographically related languages (one Caribbean, the other Iberian).

The best log you'll ever read about how to reach your goals, though, is going to be your own. You could read 100 pages of logs about Anki or wordlists, but if those methods do not work for you, the log will not be "helpful" in as much as it might be "inspirational."

[Speakeasy]

Language Logs
@Valddu, I tried searching the Language Logs using “Spanish” as my sole criterion but found the results not very useful:
Topic titles only: 391 matches
Post subjects and message text: 13,362 matches

Title of this Discussion Thread
As you have refined your request and as you have begun to receive some specific replies, with a view to attracting additional comments, you might consider using the EDIT function to revise the title of this discussion thread to better reflect what you’re looking for.

[Cavesa]

"Spanish Group" is a good place to start. You'll even see the introductions of various people and can guess whose logs might be interesting to you (a warning: I personally haven't progressed much, it seems. Reading that post makes me painfully aware of that , but most people are not like me, there are lots of great learners in that team). And then, you'll just try people who appear in discussions with something interesting, or in the general threads

Just thinking: you might like to have a look at BrunUgle, Stelle, Tarvos, Garyb, Iguanamon, Spoonary, you already know NoManches, RandomReview,...