Coldrainwater's Log

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coldrainwater
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Re: Coldrainwater's German Log

Postby coldrainwater » Sun May 09, 2021 2:22 am

Listening Update

WRINT
In recent weeks, I have been listening to a podcast collection by Holger Klein called Wer redet ist nicht tot (wrint). The underlying podcasts are all created in collaboration with Deutschlandfunk Nova. I listened to 50 hours worth, focusing almost entirely on episodes with Matthias von Hellfeld. Matthias has also authored a number of Bücher and has his own website with collected materials. Matthias and Holger have quite good chemistry when it comes to Gespräch and I found the content much easier than normal to understand. Deutschlandfunk Nova has so much varied material, I may listen to more at a later date.

Historia-Universalis
I took from Historia Univerasalis more than 160 combined hours of listening. I noticed somewhat improved comprehension starting around the 80-90 hour mark and enjoyed the variety offered, which included history lessons, Plauderstunden and quiz episodes. There is more humour than in my other podcast selections and it routinely has at least three speakers for group listening practice.

Grammatik-Update
The bulk of my study time this week was spent on a careful and complete reading of Deutsche Grammatik 2.0. The actual book link is here. The e-books and website are both authored by Uli Mattmüller and the amount of content offered free of charge is impressive. In total his e-book offerings elaborate across thousands of pages and from my reading of his primary grammar book, it is extremely thorough. I bought the book more than a year ago for about $6 USD and after reading the first, I now own all his others (which in sum cost me $20). I had to do a double-take when I saw this deutschlernen blog link and noticed that it alone had more than 2000 pages of web content.

At first, I couldn't put my finger on what it was I liked so much about Uli's work. I knew I was relieved and happy to see an all monolingual resource with such a wealth of info. I also liked the ordering of his grammar presentation. The text started with a thorough handling of verb conjugation and related topics and then moved to other areas, ending finally with complex sentences. The topic presentation order was much appreciated.

Then I saw the only English page on the site. What makes this so good is that it is written specifically for advanced students, so he cleanly skips a lot of the time-wasting format that is essentially copying from every other beginner textbook to every next beginner book ad infinitum. Uli's is unique and feels cohesive. His coverage is designed for students that want to progress to university study in Germany and that is what makes it so much more appealing than most other grammar resources that I have found to date. I definitely plan to read more of his works and spend substantial time on the website. The value-add for me is much higher than average.
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coldrainwater
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Re: Coldrainwater's German Log

Postby coldrainwater » Mon May 31, 2021 4:17 am

Life
Short and sweet, May has been an eventful month. I checked carefully and haven't shown any signs of maturing, so nothing to report there. I still have minimal social skills (a weakness, but one I am proud to maintain) and almost no social contact at all (a major advantage these days). Unfortunately, environmental factors rub off on me and I have actively worked on picking up some of the worst possible traits imaginable from the corporate world. Short of major advances in the field of life extension, I don't think maturity is something I need to be overly concerned about in the near term.

Change, on the other hand, is quite inevitable. Namely, earlier this month, we learned that our corporate branch office will break contract and shut down permanently, which allows us to work from home indefinitely, a decision that I definitely support. What it means for me is that in about six months my current apartment lease terminates and I move (I am not as bold as they are at breaking contract). The more interesting question is, where to? I am not sure yet, but the destination I imagined on the fly starts with little more than a DOS prompt and a blinking cursor. It is admittedly a good time to be a programmer and moreover a perfect time to write: "Hello World!". I have human and computer languages bouncing around upstairs. Will update.

Business
The adjacency/branch I work for has followed its own trajectory. After battling through several years of planning and integration followed more recently by a major strategic initiative that we had to pull the plug on, our corner of the world has ended up in almost the exact same spot we started. The integration was fully successful, it just took roughly three times as long as the most sceptical analyst, probably yours truly, predicted it would. With respect to the more recent project, there was no scope creep at all. Instead, the scope was blown completely out of proportion right from day one so we cleverly avoided that trap. We've reinitiated an almost identical process, this time with curt deadlines and we will base our next decision on current state plus the valuable yet costly experience from two years of brood time. So if you are wondering how I had time to learn a language with a full-time job, hopefully the explanation just offered will shed some additional light on the matter.

Personal Business
What has changed personally this month is that I almost can't sense the generalized anxiety disorder that I was diagnosed with six years ago. It is running on fumes at the moment and is maybe 10% the monster it had once grown into. For the moment, the impact on my language learning has been pretty minimal, but outside of that sphere, my mindset is very different. Perhaps the most succinct way to put it is that the language learning piece is now much like a quiet oasis where strong currents run deep. Outside of it is like a pie that runneth over. Some of my habits have been crowded out by motivation which now makes up some component of the pie, maybe 20%. The motivation isn't oriented in any specific direction and I haven't much control over it, but it is a lot of fun. Call this exhibit 1A.

Training
The polyglot fitness challenge is going well. I have far more energy than I know what to do with at the moment and have been using a combination of running, lifting and stair climbing as outlets. This week I averaged just under 30k steps daily based on google fit tracking. I actually tried taking the notion of climbing the stairs literally today and it worked pretty well. I submit the feat formally in support of my claims to low maturity. Call it exhibit 1B. By climbing, I mean I used the sturdy and safe rails to physically climb from the ground floor up to the top of my 10-story building, without really using any of the steps to do so. The sign did say to hold on to the rails to avoid falling. I certainly did so. I may very well miss that old building when it is gone, but somehow I think it may not miss me. The workout felt good and offered a better than normal cardio experience. If you compare stairs to hiking, going up a stairwell is almost exactly like taking switchbacks. Going up the rails is a close proxy to actual climbing, but much safer since very little skill is needed.

In closing, I almost lost this entire post several times and intended it more as an exercise in thinking and reflecting than anything else. Unfortunately, my technology skills are rather strong and I was able to begrudgingly retrieve the lost text on at least three occasions, even despite network switches and forum logouts. So, unfortunately, the rambling stays. I wrote so much that I will have to update the actual language learning piece in a separate post on a different day.
8 x

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coldrainwater
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Re: Coldrainwater's German Log

Postby coldrainwater » Tue Jun 15, 2021 11:27 am

Podcast

True to habit, I kept up with my podcast listening and have now cleared 150 hours from Seitenwälzer - Ecke Hansaring. Even though my listening is passive/inattentive, a recurring pattern emerged. Namely, after about 90-100 hours of listening, voices tended to clarify noticeably. Of course, I couldn't exceed my overall mediocre language level, but hours 90-150 were much more rewarding and easier for me to follow. From a language perspective, the history podcast was helpful in that this one offers significantly more joking around from multiple parties. Many times over, they tended to toy with both the German language and certainly with place names from other countries. The episode I am listening to now is Kochen wie im Mittelalter, and you can very much hear the utensils and what must pass for smacking in the background. Topical variety certainly isn't lacking.

Grammar

In May, I read several grammar texts and need to confess having done so for study documentation purposes. Most notable was a second read through Hammer's Grammar since I feel the path is now open for Practicing German Grammar. Sometime around May 20, I stopped actively studying grammar and have slowly started picking up reading again. Even though I will need much more work on grammar, I felt at the time that my level and understanding of grammar had caught up with or even surpassed my reading and listening level (40+ days of intense study plus all the grammar stuff I had done prior). I think about a month or so of dedicated grammar study at a time may be a good repeatable technique for me. After a couple of months without vocabulary practice, I definitely feel vocabulary slipping, but after one month, the impact wasn't very noticeable. So that is the best I can do to explain why I chose one month rather than two or three for my current grammar binge (a name I can give it in retrospect).

Musings

Several possible paths to move forward are appealing. L2->L2 LR seems like an excellent idea as does continuing with my normal parallel text reading via Anki. Direct vocabulary study using a combination of monolingual and bilingual sources (dict.cc via Anki, Deutsch als Fremdsprach perhaps, dwds plus many more) are all very appealing options. My wanderlust tends to stay within the L2 I am currently studying, and with that in mind, I likely won't put too much effort into forecasting my next course of action and will stay with my normal technique of reporting after the event.
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Re: Coldrainwater's German Log

Postby coldrainwater » Tue Jun 29, 2021 10:18 am

Every day, do something foolish, something creative, and something generous. - Benjamin Graham

I finished one book in June titled Intelligent Investieren by Benjamin Graham. It was originally recommended to me for its value as a classic investment text. I am a false beginner of sorts in finance and decided to give it a go as a parallel text in German. Though it is written for laymen, the author uses fairly complex finance terminology and generally doesn't shy away from vocabulary at all. It ended up being plenty challenging to digest in German. I stuck with it due to the challenge level and since I believe it will complement several other areas of German reading that I am interested in down the road. In hindsight, I am glad that I read it and have gained a new appreciation for work in translation of this type (nice and hard and can also be pretty tricky to translate well). As a side note, Graham pulled several quotes from Blaise Pascal, enough for me to take note and I plan to read about his life later on. The tone of the text is definitely sarcastic and includes the occasional bout with humour:

In short, pro forma earnings enable companies to show how well they might have done if they hadn’t done as badly as they did. As an intelligent investor, the only thing you should do with pro forma earnings is ignore them.

Vocabulary

I've re-engaged minimally with direct vocabulary study after taking time off to study grammar. Right now, I am using the freely available data from dict.cc that I prepared and journaled about a year or more ago and I am still very impressed with it for several reasons. Bilingual and user-generated makes the content very practical. I would say what shows up is at least 80% useful, if not more. Random ordering and presentation via Anki gives me a very good range of words and includes bonus practice with gender. When I encounter oddities like overly technical scientific terms, I can often still benefit from it since breaking the words apart still leads to a good and interesting review experience. Some of them are even interesting enough to be added to my normal/dwindling Anki deck for longer-term retention. The main downside is that I suspect reviewing a few hundred words per day like this may not be high enough volume, so I plan to pair it with at least one other complementary vocabulary study technique [that unfortunately hasn't been identified just yet].

I will add a listening update at a later date, but for now, I am still plugging along. I am considering welding my headset to my ears as a permanent add-on, but I am not sure what to classify it as medically. I broke the power button somewhat on my current pair, apparently by pushing it with a bit too much enthusiasm.
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Re: Coldrainwater's German Log

Postby coldrainwater » Fri Jul 30, 2021 5:00 am

Listening
Instead of listening to one or two longer podcasts, I split this month's effort into five shorter picks. My favourite was Das geheime Kabinett by Der Buddler, telling mini-stories and sharing secrets from history. It was also the toughest to follow. Rätsel des Unbewußten was also very helpful as I had not approached a podcast on psychoanalysis before.

That effort (finally) exhausted my current inventory of downloaded podcast listening material. Going forward, the plan is to switch to audiobooks for a bit, which in language learning jargon translates to hundreds of hours. For now, I will use the same passive (in)attentive approach that I use for podcasts but applied to audiobooks and enjoy the [rare] portions where I am adequately tuned in and can follow. I am long overdue for starting an L2->L2 LR with audiobooks to develop at least minimal eye/ear coordination. Nonetheless, I put all my current desk study time toward vocabulary acquisition (see below).

Vocabulary

I had a better month than expected delving into vocabulary study. Instead of branching out, I stuck with my bilingual dict.cc download viewed using Anki. In total thus far, I have seen just over 100k entries. With a volume of ~3k entries seen per day, I feel able to build up enough exposure hours to make a modest difference in overall vocabulary readiness. The set has well over 1MM entries (the entire dictionary via text file), so I don't have to worry about running out. Even when viewing each entry only once, I come out with decent natural repetition since the list is randomly ordered but not lemmatized. On average, I may get through 1000 entries per hour and with maximal focus, could do so in about 45 minutes.

Vocabulary study like this seems to pair well with an active lifestyle, but I do miss reading books this month. Overall, going all in and betting all the intensive/desk study time on one area seems to be a decent approach for me. I essentially study by balancing two components: one active - currently vocabulary learning/review and one passive - which almost always listening to podcasts/audiobooks. Doing that seems to play nice with a full-time job.
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Re: Coldrainwater's German Log

Postby coldrainwater » Mon Aug 09, 2021 5:30 am

I am a couple of hours shy of finishing my first Listen+Reading (L2->L2) audiobook, The Stand - Das letzte Gefecht.

I chose it for a variety of reasons:
  • Over 50 hours of continuous audio with professional narration.
  • Cheap from audible, less than seven dollars if memory serves.
  • Steven King's writing isn't overly complex, hence vocab wouldn't be a hurdle.
  • Already owned the book on Kindle.
  • Set in the US, in translation, familiar idioms right out of the gate.
  • Known author, known/visited cities.
I budgeted that this would likely take a full month. It would have...if I had been the narrator. Instead, David Nathan narrated and made fine work of it. The audible rating is reasonably low (3.8/5), mainly because numerous people purchased it without first noting that it was in German. Oops.

Overall, I fared better than expected with the L2->L2. Having eyes-on-text required a much higher degree of attention than I normally afford my listening. In my eyes that made each study hour far more valuable. Where listening would have failed me, mostly due to vocab that I didn't recognize when spoken, reading did not and where the reading would have been sluggish, listening maintained pace. The voice added the usual colour to the story along with intonation and other comprehension helpers. It was a very good marriage.

I alternately used several different ideas with listening. Sometimes I led slightly with reading, keeping my eyes just ahead of the narration. Other times, as attention waned I focused intently on the listening, shifting what focus I had to the earlobes and finding my place again in the text, after a few moments. Mindfully following word for word was subjectively what worked best for me. I could even clip a few vocabulary words on the fly, all of which ended up in the usual personal Kindle vault (read.amazon.com/notebook).

As a bonus, I found I can use the technique decently while training indoors, so it works in conjunction with the Polyglot Fitness Challenge. Provided I am careful, I can also wander about a bit inside my apartment, so I am not totally immobile. That is important for me, as I would rather this technique not gobble up all of my limited desk study time. The audible reading app leaves quite a lot to be desired and I very much prefer my Smart Audiobook Player. Tactically, this cell phone holder likely makes much of this reading while moving possible and has been instrumental.

Comprehension was high, but not perfect. Intentional and periodic alterations in the speed of narration made some sections a bit tougher but others too easy. Every once in a while, I would miss an entire paragraph, but did not happen often. Short English sentences helped no doubt. I know I would not have been ready for interminable 100+ word native German sentences using this method. As with Spanish, I will likely have two piles of books, one destined for audiobook territory and mass listening exposure and another for more intensive reading without audio. The two piles mix like oil and water and it is usually easy for me to tell in which pile a given book belongs.
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Re: Coldrainwater's German Log

Postby coldrainwater » Thu Aug 12, 2021 12:06 am

Next up is Die Schatzinsel von Robert Louis Stevenson.

Reading technique: (L2->L2 LR). I knew and liked the story since I had listened to it in Spanish on a previous learning adventure. Good pace, great characters. I managed to read this in .epub format rather than transferring it to the Kindle app and just highlighted vocabulary words on the fly as I came across them. I ended up with about a dozen or so words, almost all nautical terms. I used my usual Android Smart Audiobook Player, which was a major improvement over audible's listening app. Audible has a nasty tendency to backtrack at intervals that are difficult to predict and can even jump back numerous chapters if the interface hasn't been the center of attention.

I noticed roughly the same elevated comprehension as when I was reading The Stand a few days ago with a level of ease/pace/comprehension that seems hard to rival. Matching text to audio took a few tries, but I managed. It is nice when the narrator and reader are in the same book and on the same page. The audio was 8+ hours. I toyed with the playback rate a little this time and I noticed that subjectively it seems much easier to speed up German than it did Spanish. Listening at 1.2-1.3x speeds should not pose any problem as far as I can tell and I expect to be able to go higher once my language level increases. As a side note, I would like to try text to speech again for some of the books where I lack professional narration. For now, I am going with high quality authentic native voice narrations. Speaking of which, for Die Schatzinsel, I used a recording freely available from EAP productions (Edgar Allen Poe). Best I can tell at a glance, nearly all the work of his that I have seen has been against classics. Counting out at 300 words per page, Die Schatzinsel was about 245 pages compared to the mammoth 1520 pages offered by The Stand.
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Re: Coldrainwater's German Log

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Thu Aug 12, 2021 6:07 pm

coldrainwater wrote: Instead, David Nathan narrated and made fine work of it.

Beating my head against the wall fails to help me remember what I have heard Nathan narrate. Youtube fetches up Die Anbetung, but I have never heard it.
At any rate, he has a mellifluous voice that belies the stereotype about the harshness of the sound of German, and he is very pleasant to listen to for long stretches.
1 x
Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson

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Re: Coldrainwater's German Log

Postby coldrainwater » Fri Aug 13, 2021 8:40 pm

Definitely agreed with respect to Nathan. He made the experience much better than it otherwise might have been. The voice behind EAP productions sounds appropriately gruff like a sailor, but I wouldn't have called it harsh.

Auf der Jagd
I rounded out the week listen-reading Moby Dick: oder der weiße Wal. According to Wikipedia, the translation by Wilhelm Strüver that I purchased for $3 was first published in 1927. I chose this translation in compromise since it matched the audio I have from EA Productions. I certainly didn't choose it for the completeness of the content. In fact, about two-thirds of it was censored prior to publication.

I read the 285 pages across three days and the audio offered just over 10 hours of content. I needed to keep the playback rate closer to normal speed (1-1.1x) due to more advanced language usage but was able to follow otherwise provided that I remained alert and mindful. Something I ate on day two didn't agree with me and I felt like I was in a fog for a few hours, yielding a sharp turn from comprehension to misty fog. Language ability can very much just evaporate at my level. That is hardly out of line considering the storyline of Moby Dick. From what I recall, I missed a fair amount of blubber and evisceration. I will have to refocus on that section some other time.

I reckon that I listened in three days to what might have taken me ten days to read sans audio. With effort and hours, I definitely should be able to muster 30+ pages per day if purely reading without listening. I remember thinking that with the audiobook pace, there wouldn't have been time for boredom to set in, even if the content of the story wasn't gripping. I was happy having chosen to lock in an abridged version since I am not sure it would be of sufficient incremental benefit to tackle 900 pages versus 300. After all, I now know the storyline well enough that I can later listen to an unabridged translation (which I have audio for but no text) and cash in on a familiarity factor as a minor comprehension boost.

Between the last two novels I have read, I ran across some very familiar names. Starbuck, Long John Silver, Flint, Ahab, just to name a few. I definitely don't begrudge having learned a good handful of nautical terms along the way. They come in handy in many language learning ventures that cross centuries.
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Re: Coldrainwater's German Log

Postby coldrainwater » Thu Aug 19, 2021 6:34 pm

This little mini-update turned into a novel. TLDR; Whispersync works well and I like it.

How I am using Whispersync to implement L2-L2 listening and reading

Currently, I feel comfortable recommending the Whispersync setup to other learners that may be interested in doing L2->L2 Listen-Reading. I think it is worth the post to elaborate since Whispersync feels like a major upgrade and I found a way to do it in a price-considerate manner. Price consideration is what had held me back in the past. I just couldn't justify spending $20-$40 per audiobook + the cost of eBooks.

The overall experience plus having actually used it directly (Kindle via Android App on my smartphone) is what sold me on it. With Whispersync in Kindle, I get text highlighting that perfectly matches the professional voice narration and accurately follows word for word in real-time. No half-baked solutions. For me, that means I never lose my place visually, even if I am abruptly distracted. Also, I never need to bother with page-turning. Kindle takes you through the entire book, so it is a hands-free reading experience. It allows for speeding up the narration as well as rewinding, both of which I have used. If you decide to look up words in flight, Kindle just pauses the narration and shows you the definition. Click play afterwards and you are back at it. That is pretty smooth given that you intentionally chose to interrupt playback like that.

Whispersync also makes it easier to read/listen while moving, enhancing my personal Polyglot Fitness Challenge experience and freeing up desk study time for other language activities (since LR can be done in motion). While reading, due to the highlighting feature, it is also much easier to keep my eyes in the right place and thus easier to map ear to eye (a major goal of this approach). You get to preview the narration using Audible before purchase, so there won't be any surprises or bad narrators. I have purchased upwards of 10 titles so far and haven't found any case where the narration doesn't match the text extremely well (Deutsch audio). You have to be on a knife-edge to expect that from many other audiobook sources. The cumbersome process of matching all that is what prevents many people from getting started with this idea. Whispersync solves for that at a reasonable price point.

It is all managed from within Kindle and not from Audible:

I purchase a cheap or free Kindle eBook (hint: older books tend to be cheaper) and be sure to click 'add audible narration' before you smash the buy button (use audible to find the ones that have Whispersync, then go grab that from Amazon, which is the trick to doing it without paying an arm and a leg). If you pick decently, you can get more than 20 hours of audio for less than 10 dollars in total (ebook + narration). You can do much better than that if you are not so picky about exactly which book you want. It is not dirt cheap, but it is a pretty good deal and strikes a decent thrift balance given that you are getting what I consider to be a near-optimal experience.

After purchasing, open the Kindle App, click to download the Whispersync audio in the eBook at the bottom left. Then click play. You never need to leave the Kindle App and never have to coordinate between a reader on the one hand and a separate player on the other for audio. Kindle keeps your place. For picking German books, I like to go directly to audible.de and filter first on Whispersync, then on Deutsch and finally on 10-20 hours playback (or 20+ even), to get rid of the shorter books (they would be fine to own/use for this technique but are the lowest bang for your buck in my experience). Past a certain point/LR level, I doubt I would need such a powerful crutch. However, as a stepping stone (a few hundred hours of LR for example), it seems ideal.
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