AroAro's log (languages, books, certificates)

[AroAro]

You are a machine!

I'll be following your prep for German C1 with interest. I've had two aborted attempts in the past to prepare for that exam, but always got overwhelmed by the apparent size of the task at hand. I have complete faith in you, though

I can relate to that because the C1 exam used to be unnecessarily complicated in my opinion, however it looks now much more "user friendly" (doesn't mean it's easier though!) so maybe you could give it a go

Romanian - I passed the C1 exam (I got 91/100 points), I will get the detailed results next week.

German – I did 5 chapters from “Wortschatzübungen für Fortgeschrittene”. The book is great, there are a lot of collocations with examples, something that I find useful and necessary for improving my German.

Czech – doing lesson 10 from “Čeština pro cizince”

Clozemaster/Memrise
#Hebrew from English (Fluency Fast Track) => playing 4775, mastered 4578 out of 19999 sentences
#Occitan from French => playing 1658, mastered 1473 out of 1658 sentences
#Czech from English (Fluency Fast Track) => playing 745, mastered 429 out of 8474 sentences
#Memrise Dutch Course – learned 78 words

Reading – I fnished “Rendezvous with Rama” / “Среща с Рама” and to my surprise reading Bulgarian was easier than reading books in Russian! I guess there are two reasons that may explain that - “Среща с Рама” was a translation and I think that the English original was not overly sophisticated in terms of vocabulary. And then, in Bulgarian there is basically no declension, and my brain didn’t have to stop to analyze (even unconsciously) the case and verb rection. I decided that my next Russian book will be a translation as well (Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code”). But now, I’m going to read to books in French – Leila Slimani’s “Le Pays des autres 1” and Tahar Ben Jelloun “La nuit sacrée”.

[AroAro]

German – I’ve done so far 2/3 of “Wortschatzübungen für Fortgeschrittene”, I should finish it by the end of the month. There are other books in the series (Wissenschaftsdeutsch, Wirtschaftsdeutsch, Hörverstehen) and I’m considering trying out the book for listening practice but probably closer to the date of the exam. I’ve been reading “Der Spiegel” as well (I’m at the page 52/122).

Czech – doing lesson 11 from “Čeština pro cizince”

Clozemaster/Memrise
#Hebrew from English (Fluency Fast Track) => playing 4820, mastered 4634 out of 19999 sentences
#Occitan from French => playing 1658, mastered 1551 out of 1658 sentences
#Czech from English (Fluency Fast Track) => playing 790, mastered 473 out of 8474 sentences
#Memrise Dutch Course – learned 111 words, at this point simple phrases are being incorporated so the course is getting more interesting

Reading – I read “Le Pays des autres and really liked it, I think it’s even better than Slimani’s Goncourt winning novel “Chanson douce”. I was supposed to read “La nuit sacrée” but I realized it’s the second volume in the duology so it’ll make more sense to read the first volume “L’enfant de sable” before - but I somehow lost interest in it, I will get to it later this year hopefully. I started reading instead “Код да Винчи” – so far so good!

I got my results of the Romanian exam – reading and grammar 20.5/25, writing 22.5/25, listening and speaking 48/50. Will I take the C2 level exam? Probably yes if they still offer it in online format in a couple of years. Preparing for the exam will be a nice opportunity to spend some time with Romanian again.

[AroAro]

German – I finished “Wortschatzübungen für Fortgeschrittene”, I think the book is very well conceived and will be helpful for my exam preparation. And now, I’m going to work with two graded readers for advanced learners – they contain lots of texts about topics that often come up in language exams and below each text there is a vocabulary list with Polish translation. The thing is that these readers tend to be boring so I will probably skip some pages (besides, I already read them a few years back). Moreover, I will try to tackle “Sprachbausteine” – I bought two exercice books on amazon for C1 level.

“Der Spiegel” – page 68/152.

Bulgarian – so in February, I listened every single day to Bulgarian podcasts or YT videos – mosty YT though. I think that on average, I spent around 45-60 minutes a day on Bulgarian but I can’t really say that my comprehension level skyrocketed but I guess it did improve a little bit - though it’s still not B2 level. I hoped to allocate more time to Bulgarian listening but with my sick kids staying at home most of the month it was the best I could do. However, I figured out how to get an official (or semi-official) certificate in Bulgarian so that will motivate me to spend more time on Bulgarian (maybe next year?) and reach that B2 level.

Yesterday, I listened to some news in Croatian and even understood some words/phrases – we’re planning to go to Croatia this summer so maybe I’ll learn some basic words and expressions before summer holiday Anyway, I’m now going to concentrate fully on German when it comes to listening skills. Here’s a real treasure trove of German podcasts offered by German public radio broadcasters. I shouldn’t run out of things to listen to for the next four months!

Czech – I finished “Čeština pro cizince” and it’s one of the rare course books that deliver on their promise as this one can really take the learner to A2 level. I’m glad I started learning Czech with it. Next, I will work with “Mluvíte česky”, a course book for Polish speakers published in 1972 (I will do 20 lessons out 37, I don’t want to jump into more complex stuff too soon).

Clozemaster/Memrise
#Hebrew from English (Fluency Fast Track) => playing 4865, mastered 4692 out of 19999 sentences
#Occitan from French => playing 1658, mastered 1643 out of 1658 sentences – this collection is mostly in the Gascon dialect which is a quite different from Langudocien. Having almost finished it, I’m thinking about starting European Portuguese course on Memrise (via Italian) just for fun and because I bought their subscription anyway.
#Czech from English (Fluency Fast Track) => playing 835, mastered 516 out of 8474 sentences
#Memrise Dutch Course – learned 146 words

Reading – reading “Код да Винчи” was a really good decision – it was entertaining, even unintentionally funny at some points, and it kept me interested so it didn’t feel like a slog. I can work my way thruough a slog in Polish, English or French but a bad book in my other languages does feel like a waste of time so I have to be careful about my reading choices. I’m going to read two books in English now – “The Crimson Petal and The White” by Michel Faber (I expect good things from that, the two books I’ve read by him were stunning) and J.M.Coetzee’s “Waiting for barbarians”.

[Axon]

Hi AroAro, I always recommend Die Frage as an incredible German podcast: https://plus.rtl.de/podcast/die-frage-4c4452vhzch3u
I listened to a lot of the episodes in 2019, when they were taking a few years off. There are now quite a lot more episodes available on this particular site, while other sites either don't have the older or the newer ones.

[tastyonions]

Hi AroAro, I always recommend Die Frage as an incredible German podcast: https://plus.rtl.de/podcast/die-frage-4c4452vhzch3u
I listened to a lot of the episodes in 2019, when they were taking a few years off. There are now quite a lot more episodes available on this particular site, while other sites either don't have the older or the newer ones.

Neat, I didn't know it was a podcast as well. I've watched a number of their YouTube episodes.

[lichtrausch]

I can work my way thruough a slog in Polish, English or French but a bad book in my other languages does feel like a waste of time so I have to be careful about my reading choices.

Interesting, I'm somewhat the opposite. Reading a bad book in one of my weaker languages, my mind is still stimulated by the relative novelty of the language, i.e. more unknown words and expressions. But with stronger languages, that novelty is not there, so the badness of the book just stares back at me in all its unsightliness.

[AroAro]

Hi AroAro, I always recommend Die Frage as an incredible German podcast: https://plus.rtl.de/podcast/die-frage-4c4452vhzch3u
I listened to a lot of the episodes in 2019, when they were taking a few years off. There are now quite a lot more episodes available on this particular site, while other sites either don't have the older or the newer ones.

Thank you, I'm adding it to my list of podcasts!

I can work my way thruough a slog in Polish, English or French but a bad book in my other languages does feel like a waste of time so I have to be careful about my reading choices.

Interesting, I'm somewhat the opposite. Reading a bad book in one of my weaker languages, my mind is still stimulated by the relative novelty of the language, i.e. more unknown words and expressions. But with stronger languages, that novelty is not there, so the badness of the book just stares back at me in all its unsightliness.

I guess that in my case the reading speed plays the crucial role - I can finish a bad book in Polish or English relatively quickly but it takes forever in Russian or Romanian, and even upon finishing it I'm left with a sense of frustration rather than fulfillment

[AroAro]

German – I finished reading the first collection of texts for advanced learners and will work with “Sprachbausteine Deutsch C1” by Sasha Schmidt. I think that I will have to focus on the “Nomen-Verb-Verbindungen” as well, I guess they expect a C1 candidate to use them freely at this level.

Czech – lesson 8 from “Mluvíte česky”

Clozemaster/Memrise
#Hebrew from English (Fluency Fast Track) => playing 4915, mastered 4748 out of 19999 sentences
#Czech from English (Fluency Fast Track) => playing 885, mastered 566 out of 8474 sentences
#Memrise Dutch Course – learned 179 words
#Memrise Corso di Portoghese (Portogallo) – learned 31 words

Reading – I’m haflway through of “The Crimson Petal and The White”

[AroAro]

German – “Sprachbausteine Deutsch C1” contains 11 tests (each with 16 multiple choice questions testing grammar and vocabulary) – my average score is 78.4% which is not great, I hope to improve before the exam. However, I checked this task in C1 preparation books and it seems this part should not be so difficult in the real exam. I’m now busy reading that second graded reader for C1 level I mentioned earlier (and then will do another book that focuses on “Sprachbausteine”).

Listening to a lot of German podcasts and reading “Der Spiegel” – page 110/122

Czech – lesson 18 from “Mluvíte česky”. I didn’t expect much from a book published some 50 years ago, even though some of the language courses by this publisher are really good – sadly it’s not the case for Czech. By lesson 7, you’ve learned names of trees but not how to say hello or goodbye… Language learning just looks differently nowadays! Two more lessons to go and then I will dabble a little bit in Dutch – I know it’s crazy but I think it would be nice to complement my Memrise course with something more serious (I will use a course for Polish learners, its title translates as “Dutch step by step”). There is also an external motivation that plays a role here – my company offers free language courses in a couple of languages with the caveat that you have to be at least at A2 level. I planned to study Dutch more in-depth after my German exam but doing some basics now shouldn’t hurt? And it would be interesting to see if I can reach A2 level by September – that’s when a tutor will evaluate my level via telephone and assign me to a group (that is, provided I’m at least A2!). Well, there are my variables here but it’s kind of liberating to do just what I want to do, focusing on any language I want to. Anyway, I’m not putting Czech on hold, my intention is to rotate between the two languages in my study plan.

Clozemaster/Memrise
#Hebrew from English (Fluency Fast Track) => playing 4960, mastered 4804 out of 19999 sentences
#Czech from English (Fluency Fast Track) => playing 930, mastered 612 out of 8474 sentences
#Memrise Dutch Course – learned 201 words
#Memrise Corso di Portoghese (Portogallo) – learned 62 words

Reading – so I read “The Crimson Petal and The White” and yes, it was really good, or to put in other words – the first 200 pages were not so good but I’m glad I continued reading because then the book became better and the last 200 pages or so were excellent. The book is 833 pages long, though in reality it’s even longer because the pages were densely filled with small font letters but it was worth reading, even though the editor or the publisher could have trimmed the book a little bit! This victorian tale is quite different from Faber’s other books about aliens and it just proves his talent, sadly he announced 10 years ago he won’t ever publish any new book. What’s next? Coeztee’s “Waiting For The Barbarians” and a book in Romanian – after reading “Rendezvous with Rama” in Bulgarian, I thought it might be a good idea to read bestsellers in my other languages such as Russian, Bulgarian or Romanian, whose literary traditions I don’t find that much exciting. That’s why I will read Liu Cixin’s “The Three-Body Problem” in Romanian (“Problema celor trei corpuri”). I think I’m also hooked by that “first contact with aliens” subgenre after all.

[AroAro]

German – I did the exercises from “Sprachbausteine C1” by Sinisa Lukic and my overall score is 87.92%. I think that this book concentrates more on prepositions usage rather than on collocations (like the one I worked with before) but still it’s good to practice this part of German grammar as well. I’ve been working with “200 Fragen zu Nomen-Verb-Verbindungen” by Sascha Schmidt and it’s not only a great collection of such phrases (one could probably find something for free in Internet) but there are also exercises to practice them. Once finished, I will finally start working with a preparation book for the new C1 exam – “Klett Mit Erfolg zum Goethe C1. Ubungsbuch”.

And in the meantime, I started working on my speaking skills. I have that book for Polish learners called “Argumentieren ohne Probleme” that has a list of around 60 topics with pro- and contra- arguments. I read a topic and then I try to summarize it aloud and I add my personal thoughts on a given subject. The topics are rather B2-ish but that’s fine, there will be time for C1 topics later on. What’s most important for me at the moment is to get over the fear of speaking German. In April, I’m going to contact some tutors that focus on exam preparation and sign up for some lessons.

I also finished reading “Der Spiegel” and will make my way through “Der Spiegel. Wissen” – the issue I bought is all about “Selbstfürsorge, Seele, Stress” so not so much about hard science sadly.

Dutch – I did 4 first lessons from “Dutch step by step” – if I hadn’t learned German before, I would find the learning curve very steep. I remember being very frustrated when I started learning German because it was so different from any other language I knew (not that there were many of those back then!) but fortunately things start making sense in Dutch much faster.

Clozemaster/Memrise
#Hebrew from English (Fluency Fast Track) => playing 5000, mastered 4864 out of 19999 sentences – so I’ve played exactly 25% of phrases in the Hebrew collection and after 604 days streak I’m going to put it on hold. First, I just can’t give so much attention to this language at this moment and anyway, I tended to mark as mastered many phrases that seemed too difficult or of no use for me, so these stats don’t really reflect my level in Hebrew. I hope to do something in the language once a week for example but I realize I won’t make any spectacular progress, and that’s fine, I’m just drawn to other languages right now.
#Czech from English (Fluency Fast Track) => playing 975, mastered 656 out of 8474 sentences
#Memrise Dutch Course – learned 229 words
#Memrise Corso di Portoghese (Portogallo) – learned 97 words

Reading – still reading “Problema celor trei corpuri” – I was afraid I would get lost in all the scientific descriptions (and surely, that’s the case sometimes) but the book is quite engaging and not overly difficult.