Postby Mista » Sun Jan 31, 2021 9:39 pm
It's almost February, and time to change focus. I've registered with Arabic in the upcoming 6WC, and will also focus on Icelandic. But first, a few words on what I have been doing in January.
Latin
Latin has been my 365C-language, and my project has been to read and make a parallell text of Livius' Ab urbe condita. A week back I started using around 40-50 minutes a day instead of 30, because I saw that if I did, I would make it through the first book by the end of the month - which I also did today. My next step is to work through the text again and identify the most essential vocabulary and look it up. Not sure when I'll get back to this, but I'm not planning to do it while the 6WC is running.
Ancient Greek
I haven't been as consistent with this as with Latin, but at least I have read a bit several times a week throughout the month, and I have now reached page 46 (in Herodotus). I think I'll try to continue with this at approximately the same intensity as I have done until now, at least until I reach the end of the first book at page 119. I had hardly touched Greek for about five years when I started this, and I noticed than I have forgotten some things, especially meanings of words and some irregular verb forms, but I also remember quite a lot, and I'm especially happy to observe that I still mostly remember the most annoying quirks of the ionian dialect.
Old Norse
I made it through the grammar book a while back, but at that time classes had already started, and they are focusing on modern Icelandic in the beginning, so I never got started on reading original texts. I'm still considering this for later in the spring, alternatively I may just take that class in Old Norse in the fall (which I may do regardless of what I do this spring, really).
And now, over to my plans for February and the first half of March (the 6WC period):
Arabic
My main resource for Arabic is the Mastering Arabic course, which I'll be using for a minimum of 30 minutes every day intil the course or the 6WC is finished. I am currently on chapter 12, but since I haven't been studying Arabic at all for a few months, I may need to start with some repetition. In addition to that, I feel it's time to start working on pronunciation (now that I'm starting to get fairly decent at distinguishing the sounds), and for that, I'm planning to use mondly, where I can also aquire some basic conversational skills. Hopefully, I'll be able to do this on a daily basis too, at least five times a week.
Icelandic
My main focus here will be to do the work I need to do for my class, which currently is studying modern Icelandic grammar and intensive reading of a literary text. In addition to that, I'd like to do some SC stuff, and the first thing I have in mind is to read the first Harry Potter book. I may also get an audio book and listen to that.
Other languages
In my stronger languages, I hope to keep on reading and listening to audiobooks, and maybe also watch some movies and/or TV, but preferably according to the principle that I read one book at a time, and for audiobooks, one for walking (audible) and one for driving (CD). Apart from Herodotus and Harry Potter in Icelandic, I'm planning to read a book in French, Horrora Borealis by the Swiss writer Nicolas Feuz. Not sure if there will be time for more, but I have a list just in case (there's also the possibility that I'll start reading something else entirely). In audiobooks, I just started listening to Der Name der Rose (Umberto Eco in German) in the car, and on audible I bought Dom Quijote in Portuguese, which I expect to get started on tomorrow.
6 x
