Ogrim's Krambu - a plethora of languages, mostly European, both old and new

[AlexM]

Hello Ogrim, Sorry to hear about the death of your father, parents are irreplaceable. You certainly are a language enthusiast. I'm replying to you on the topic of LINGQ. It's a very good site and I use it every day for Russian. However, I should spend more time on it and should supplement it with other things, especially conversation. My tip on this: try it out on a monthly basis for a month or two. If you like it, contact them for a lifelong subscription. They do not advertise this (at least it's not easy to find on the site), so you need to email them. That costs about $210/language. It's equivalent to maybe two years of subs, but worth doing if you are determined to concentrate on one language and are not far into your ninth decade. My little tip! Good luck.

[Ogrim]

I mentioned LingQ in my previous post, and after having checked it out for a few days I've decided to sing up for Premium membership. I find it a lot better than most of the app-based solutions I've tried in the past, like Duolingo for example. It is very much based on listening-reading in the language, and as a grammar geek I still prefer the more traditional approach of Langenscheidt's course book, but it is a great supplement and has the advantage that I can use it on my computer, my tablet and my phone, so it is always available. I also like that if you pay for LingQ, you have access to all their language courses and can do two or more at a time, so I've also checked out what they have for intermediate learners of Russian, and I am certainly going to play around with some others, like Arabic and Romanian, which have been "on hold" for a very long time now. I realise that for someone who easily get tempted by wanderlust, this may be a bit "dangerous", but I am enjoying Greek more and more, so there is no risk I will give it up in the short or medium term at least.

I listen to a lot of Dutch these days. Apart from the videos on Easy Dutch, I also watch a short news programme on the NPO app every day (NPO stands for Nederlandse Publieke Omrop, the Dutch public broadcaster) and I continue with the novel Onder professoren, which is the story about a Dutch university professor who receives the Nobel prize in Chemistry for some work he did many years in the past, something that leads to a lot of jealousy and trouble for the ageing professor. The book is absolutely worth the read.

I will probably spend a few days in the Netherlands at the beginning of July, because if all goes well, my son will graduate from university in The Hague then and there will be a graduation ceremony which we of course want to attend. As I don't really get to practise spoken Dutch, it will be interesting to see to what extent I can keep a conversation going in Dutch before they switch to English.

[Ogrim]

I am back from five days in the Netherlands, but first a quick update on my activities in June. I've tried to put in as much time as possible studying Greek. I've found a routine using LingQ which seems to work quite well, but I've come to the conclusion that LingQ is not enough on its own. As a grammar geek I need a book with declination tables and clear explanations of morphology and syntax, so I keep going with Langenscheidt and my Greek grammar book. LingQ is great for buidling vocabulary though, and also for listening to Greek "on the go".

When I did not do Greek I focused on Dutch in preparation for my trip there. I've watched a few more videos from Easy Dutch but also the news and a few programmes on NPO. My listening skills have improved a lot compared to how it was a year ago when I went there - and although I am not at a level where I am confident speaking fluently, I can express myself with a little more ease than before. The more work with Dutch, the more I enjoy it.

My son graduated from The Hague university last Friday, and it was a nice graduation ceremony, but everything was in English, as this is the study language. We stayed in Leiden for a couple of days, as my son now lives there, and then we went to Groningen, where a very good friend of my son is studying. Finally we visited the island of Texel, which has beautiful long sandy beaches, and the city of Alkmaar, famous for its cheese market and cheese museum.

Now it is back to work for a couple of weeks, and then we're off to Greece for a week. So from now on until then it will be Greek all the time.

[Ogrim]

The summer is basically over, I am back at work but trying to find as much time as possible for languages.

The last week of July, my wife and I went to Greece. We decided to avoid the most touristy islands, so we flew to Preveza, a small town on the northwestern coast of the mainland. It is a calm and charming little town. There are some tourism there of course, at it is “the gateway” to the Ionian islands, but there are no big resorts or mass tourism of the kind you can find on Kos, Rhodos or Mykonos.
A short drive from Preveza you will find the ruins of Nikopolis, an ancient city founded by Octavian, aka emperor Augustus, to celebrate his victory over Anthony and Cleopatra in the naval battle of Actium. Nikopolis is one of the largest archaeological sites of Greece, and it was a very important city right up until the early Middle Ages, when it fell into decadence and was gradually replaced by the new settlement Preveza. A not very expensive ticket gives you access to visit the archaeological sites, including the great amphitheatre, and the Nikopolis museum which is just outside Preveza centre.

From Preveza we went to the island of Lefkada, which is connected by road to the mainland. Lefkada has some nice villages and towns and great beaches. We went on a boat trip around the island which gave us the opportunity to visit some secluded beaches and creeks which can only be reached by sea. Finally, we spent a couple of days on the island of Zakynthos. The Laganas beach area is the nesting place of the Caretta caretta turtles, and we managed to see a couple of turtles in the water when we went on a boat trip. Local volunteers do a great job in protecting the nesting spots at the beach to ensure that visitors don’t disturb them – and the beach is closed for humans between sunset and sunrise.

My Greek is still far from being at the level where I can engage in meaningful conversations, but at least people working in shops and restaurants seemed to appreciate my attempts at speaking a few sentences in Greek. We will probably visit Greece again next year, and by then I want to be much more proficient. I am extremely motivated to learn this language well.

In August we went to Valencia, as usual, and stayed at our summer place just south of the city. I spent a lot of time on Greek, but also took up Russian again. This happened thanks to a lady who runs a restaurant at the place. She is from Armenia, and one day she started speaking to me in Russian as she heard that I have studied the language. It motivated me to go back to the language, as I felt a bit “rusty” and struggled to find the right words on some occasions. I will certainly try to refresh my Russian knowledge over the next months.

Finally, for those interested, here is a video I found on YouTube with a good presentation of Nikopolis.