Mista's new perpetual log (currently: Russian and Japanese))

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Mista
Blue Belt
Posts: 608
Joined: Wed May 11, 2016 11:03 pm
Location: Norway
Languages: Norwegian (N), English (QN). Studied Ancient Greek (MA), Linguistics (MA), Latin (BA), German (BA). Italian at A2/B1 level. Learning: French, Japanese, Russian (focus) and various others, like Polish, Spanish, Vietnamese, and anything that comes my way. Also know some Sanskrit (but not the script) and Coptic. Really want to learn Arabic and Amharic.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=7497
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Mista's new perpetual log (currently: Russian and Japanese))

Postby Mista » Tue Jul 09, 2019 6:11 pm

I've tried having an annual log a few times now, but it doesn't really suit me, so I decided to start a new one and do things a bit differently. I plan to update the log title according to which languages I'm focusing on, and plan ahead for a season at a time and keep track of that in this initial post.

Summer 2019: French, Russian, Icelandic and Arabic
August/September 2019: French, Russian, Icelandic, Arabic and Sami
October: French and Russian
November - mid-December: French,and Sami, a little Russian and maybe a little more Icelandic
Mid-December - mid-January: Old English, various reading for the Super Challenge
January-April 2020: French, Russian, Sami, Icelandic, Arabic
June-July 2020: French, Russian, Sami, Icelandic, Arabic + reading in Danish, Latin, Portuguese, Spanish & Italian
August-September 2020: French, Russian, Icelandic, Arabic, Sami
October-November 2020: French, Russian, German, Italian
December 2020: various SC languages
January 2021: Greek, Latin and Old Norse
February/March 2021: Arabic, Icelandic
March 2021: Russian
April 2021: Spanish and Arabic
May/June 2021: Icelandic
June/July 2021: Latin, Sami, Arabic
August/ September 2021: Russian, Latin
September-December 2021: Latin, German, Old French
December 2021-January 2022: Arabic, German
February-March 2022: Russian
March-April 2022: Arabic, Dutch, Icelandic
May-June 2022: Finnish
July 2022: Ukrainian
August-September 2022: Russian
September-December 2022: Ukrainian, Russian, Old English
December 2022-January 2023: German
Spring 2023: Russian
Fall 2023: Russian and Japanese
Last edited by Mista on Sat Sep 30, 2023 11:10 pm, edited 17 times in total.
2 x

Mista
Blue Belt
Posts: 608
Joined: Wed May 11, 2016 11:03 pm
Location: Norway
Languages: Norwegian (N), English (QN). Studied Ancient Greek (MA), Linguistics (MA), Latin (BA), German (BA). Italian at A2/B1 level. Learning: French, Japanese, Russian (focus) and various others, like Polish, Spanish, Vietnamese, and anything that comes my way. Also know some Sanskrit (but not the script) and Coptic. Really want to learn Arabic and Amharic.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=7497
x 1459

Re: Mista's new perpetual log (currently French, Russian, Icelandic, and Arabic)

Postby Mista » Tue Jul 09, 2019 7:04 pm

Icelandic
I just came home from Iceland, where I have attended a four weeks course in Icelandic for Nordic students. When learning Icelandic, it's obviously a bonus to have Norwegian as your native language, but mostly for understanding. You still have to go through all that work with pronunciation, case endings, verb forms (eventually, I came to realize that Icelandic has the same
conjugation groups as Norwegian, but that doesn't mean the verbs necessarily belong to the same group, even if they are etymologically the same). In this course, we were sent out to speak Icelandic with the locals from the first week :shock:, which is NOT the way I usually do things, but it was an interesting experience. One thing I discovered, was that I could understand what people were saying to me quite well, even if I found it very difficult to transcribe it from the sound file afterwards. No doubt, this is one of those nordic bonuses, which is probably one of teh reasons we were sent out to do this so early on.

As usual, I came home with a suitcase full of books. I got some grammar books, Isländische Grammatik Schritt für Schritt by Stefan Drabek, book 1 and 2. Both have a textbook and a workbook. I started using the first one while in Iceland, and liked it a lot. It introduces grammar in such a way that you can start doing something useful with the language straight away, and it has a ton of exercices of increasing difficulty for each chapter. There is also a good pronunciation section with sound files. Then I got an Asterix book, which I have already read, a book by Astrid Lindgren, Bróðir minn Ljónshjarta, which I also have on audio and which I plan to use for pronunciation exercice, Harry Potter, books by the Icelandic novelists Sjón and Jón Kalman Stefánsson, a short story collection (Kláði by Fríða Ísberg, which was recommended to me by several people), and a poetry book, Gangverk by Þorvaldur Sigurbjörn Helgason, which I saw in the bookshop and bought mainly because I could understand most of the first poem right then and there (it was worthwhile reading, too). Now that I'm back, I'd like to start working with the Lindgren book, and continue with the grammar book.

French
I haven't done much French while on Iceland, although I did watch some videos now and then. Shortly before leaving, I started substribing to National Geographic France's YouTube channel, so I have been getting emails at regular intervals about newly published videos. There are just 3-4 minutes long, so there's really no excuse to ignore them (if the content is of interest, at least). As a bonus, I've found that there's often interesting stuff in the associated suggestions, and those are often 20-40 minutes long, which I usually think is better if I actually have some time.

I'm now back in Norway for two weeks, but after that, I'll be leaving for France. A while back, I had the idea that joining an organized hike would be the perfect way to get some language practice while on vacation. It must have been in February, when I did this here in Norway, that I first got the idea. So I looked around for a French company offering these kind of trips, and eventually booked a 6 day hike in the Alps, around the area of Mount Blanc. In connection with that, I'll have 3 days in Paris on my way down, and 2 days in Geneva on my way back.

Meanwhile, I've started finding my way back to my French habits. I have an audio book in the car, another one on my phone, which I listen to while doing housework, and I started reading Britannicus by Racine, which I have tickets for at the theatre on my first day in Paris. I've also changed the language settings on my sports watch, and will do so on my cell phone as well. I'm planning to go all French during those two weeks, including posting in French on Facebook. It will be interesting to see what kind of responses I get! It's very common to learn French in school in Norway, but not so usual to use it with confidence ...

Russian
I haven't done much Russian the past year, but it is now decided that I will be going to Moscow in October, on a week's vacation with a couple of relatives. That means it's time to get going again. I've conciously left it alone while on Iceland, because I've observed that I tend to get a lot of interference between a new language I'm learning and the last language I started learning. But now it's time to get to work. I'm a little reluctant to start anything big, since I have to take a break in two weeks, but I've started with some repetition on Duolingo. To my utter amazement, I'm still typing as well as I did before I took the break (which admittedly is not very fast), and other things, too, are coming back easily. I think I'll stick with Duolingo and reading Bulgakov (for the book club) for now, and when I get back from France, I'll start doing something more focused on speaking. I started thinking about it, and I'm considering reading practice (using Harry Potter, for instance), busuu (I already have a paid subscription), getting back to some abandoned text books I have lying around, and russianpod.

Arabic
This wasn't exactly what I had planned, but when Duolingo finally releases its long-awaited Arabic course, what can you do? I've made it to 21 crown levels in 7 days so far, but I have no plans outside of Duolingo just now (well, of course I have plans, but I hope they can wait until October, after Moscow).
11 x

Mista
Blue Belt
Posts: 608
Joined: Wed May 11, 2016 11:03 pm
Location: Norway
Languages: Norwegian (N), English (QN). Studied Ancient Greek (MA), Linguistics (MA), Latin (BA), German (BA). Italian at A2/B1 level. Learning: French, Japanese, Russian (focus) and various others, like Polish, Spanish, Vietnamese, and anything that comes my way. Also know some Sanskrit (but not the script) and Coptic. Really want to learn Arabic and Amharic.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=7497
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Re: Mista's new perpetual log (currently French, Russian, Icelandic, and Arabic)

Postby Mista » Mon Jul 22, 2019 12:20 am

I'm leaving for France in about 28 hours, so this will be my last update for at least three weeks.

Icelandic
I have been reading Bróðir minn Ljónshjarta, one chapter at a time, first l/r (monolingual), then reading the chapter aloud. I'm about halfway through the book now, and I'll continue when I'm back from France. I think it has been very useful, and also a very motivating way to work, as I understand a good deal the first time and evcen more the second, so it doesn't get boring. Ok, so it's a book for children, but it's still a book worth reading for adults too. As for the grammar books, I've put them aside for now, I felt more motivated for the reading.

French
I haven't done any proper study, just the nice stuff :D . Finished reading Britannicus, finished Madame Bovary and En finir avec Eddy Bellegueule on audio. I also started reading a book by Alain Mabanckou called Le monde est mon langage, which I bumped into at the public library a while back and which is an absolutely fantastic read. It's a sort of essay collection, each chapter takes place in a different part of the world and can be a meeting with a person, a letter, or simply a discussion of another writer. Everything is somehow connected to the French language, apart from that there's a lot of different stuff, but especially a lot about francophone African litterature, which comes as no surprise considering who wrote it. I have read one of his novels before, which I also liked a lot, it's called Demain j'aurai vingt ans, and I have another, Black Bazaar, which I'm planning to start reading on the plane Tuesday morning. Le monde est mon langage also reveals, here and there, where the author has takes some of his characters and book titles from. And to judge from Goodreads, this book has never been translated to any other language, which gives me a deeply satisfactory feeling of reaping the rewards of my French studies.

Apart from that, I started French on Drops yesterday. I only do this because you can remove unwanted words, otherwise it would be worthless. Maybe it will be fairly worthless anyway, but I'm willing to give it a try. So far, I've only used it for Icelandic, which however, has given me an impression of what vocabulary it has, and it seems to range, in level, from complete beginner to upper intermediate. The question with French is, how much time will I use sifting out the words I already know well?

Russian
As planned, I have been doing Duolingo and reading Bulgakov. On Duoliongo my typing speed is almost reaching a level where it doesn't drive me nuts, and I have now reached crown level 207. Reading Bulgakov involves looking up at least 90% of the words, so it's a good thing I'm doing it on kindle. Unfortunately, the kindle dictionary isn't amazing at recognizing words, so I'm relying a lot on the instant translation funcion, which isn't perfect either. Fortunately, the difficult parts are when he is talking about the medical procedures, while the actual story is a lot simpler. Somehow, I seem to always pick up those little ironic comments, which is what saves the day. I finished the first story, and hope to finish the second before I leave.

Arabic
I've been a little crazy on Duolingo the last two weeks, racking up at least 500 xp per day. Pretty early on, I decided to switch from computer to tablet, in order to start learning to type the easy way (with a visible keyboard layout), using the web version, since the course wasn't released yet on android. A few days later, I noticed that my phone had updated the Duolingo app, which now had the Arabic course, but when I checked my tablet, there was no Arabic course, nor any available update. In the end I found out that my tablet is simply too old (it wasn't the newest version when it was bought in 2013) and doesn't update Duolingo any more. After raging about this for a while, I decided to f*k it and learn to type Arabic on the computer anyway. Fortunately, typing Arabic is, for some reason, a lot easier to learn than typing Russian. When motivation is high, it can get you anywhere. I now have 57 crowns in Arabic, and I'm around halfway through the tree. I started out working on each skill up to level 3, then moving on. Once passing the first checkpoint, I started from the beginning working up to level four, while at the same time continuing with new lessons. Once at level four up to the first checkpoint, I did them up to level 5. I finished that around the same time as I reached the second checkpoint with level 3, so I continued working the same way at two different places in the tree. I won't be doing Duolingo while in France, but in case I can't stay away from Arabic completely, I set my base language in Mondly to French, so I can do a daily lesson there with a good conscience.
9 x

Mista
Blue Belt
Posts: 608
Joined: Wed May 11, 2016 11:03 pm
Location: Norway
Languages: Norwegian (N), English (QN). Studied Ancient Greek (MA), Linguistics (MA), Latin (BA), German (BA). Italian at A2/B1 level. Learning: French, Japanese, Russian (focus) and various others, like Polish, Spanish, Vietnamese, and anything that comes my way. Also know some Sanskrit (but not the script) and Coptic. Really want to learn Arabic and Amharic.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=7497
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Re: Mista's new perpetual log (currently French, Russian, Icelandic, and Arabic)

Postby Mista » Wed Aug 07, 2019 10:37 am

I came home at 1 AM last night, and I'm leaving again at 1 PM today, so I won't have time to do the update I really want to do on my learning experiences during two weeks in France and Switzerland. Instead, I'll use this short coffee break to comment on what I brought home. Books, books, and books! And a dress, because I'm going to a wedding this weekend.

At the bookshop at the Arabic Cultural Institute in Paris, I bought:
1. Boualem Sansal: 2084: La fin du monde
2. Protéines vertes: La bible (a cooking book)
3. Les Mille et Une Nuits (first book)
4. An Asterix album in arabic

At the bookshop of the Musée d'Orsay, I bought (in addition to an umbrella):
5. Pourquoi c'est connu? Le fabuleux destin des icônes du XIXe siècle

On my first day in Chamonix, before the hike, I bought:
6. Le guide nature à la montagne
7. Marc Giraud: La vie extraordinaire des animaux qui nous entourent

On my last evening in Chamonix, I bought:
8. Gaël Faye: Petit Pays (which will now get an extra vote if it is suggested for the book club again)
9. Michel Bussi: Sang famille
10. Douglas Kennedy: Au pays de Dieu
11. Tintin: Le crabe aux pinces d'or

And the morning after, while waiting for the bus:
12. Adrian/Humm: Le tour de la France par deux enfants d'aujourd'hui

In Geneva:
13. Nicolas Feuz: Horrora Borealis (I was specifically looking for a book by a francophone swiss author)
14. Levy: Yoga du soir
15. Levy: Yoga du matin
16. Bottéro: Mésopotamie. L'écriture, la raison et les dieux

And finally, at the airport in Frankfurt:
17. Tim Marshall: Prisoners of Geography. Ten maps that tell you everything you need to know about global politics
18. Klaus-Peter Wolf: Ostfriesen Nacht
19. Landluft (500 pages of Donald Duck)

So, I'm currently at home to repack my luggage. The most essential part of this process is obviously to pack out all the books. At least I had the sense to bring only two books from home.

My goals for book shopping were to 1) show some moderation, and 2) try to focus on books which are difficult to get hold of in Norway. Generally speaking, fiction originally written in French are the easiest to find, both in bookshops and in the library. I think I've been relatively successful with the second goal, though maybe to a lesser degree with the first ...

Also, since my kindle clearly knows if I am in France or not, I have hoarded electronic books as well. They are:
1. Virginie Subias Konofal: Histoire incorrecte de l'école de l'ancien régime à aujourd'hui
2. Jules Verne: Les enfants du capitaine Grant
3. Jules Verne: Voyage au centre de la terre
4. Pushkin: Евгений Онегин
5. Amin Maalouf: Un fauteuil sur la Seine
6. Antonio Manzini: Pista Nera
7. Ludmila Oulitskaia: Le chapiteau vert
8. Andreï Makine: Le testament francais
9. Victor Hugo: Han d'Islande
7 x

Mista
Blue Belt
Posts: 608
Joined: Wed May 11, 2016 11:03 pm
Location: Norway
Languages: Norwegian (N), English (QN). Studied Ancient Greek (MA), Linguistics (MA), Latin (BA), German (BA). Italian at A2/B1 level. Learning: French, Japanese, Russian (focus) and various others, like Polish, Spanish, Vietnamese, and anything that comes my way. Also know some Sanskrit (but not the script) and Coptic. Really want to learn Arabic and Amharic.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=7497
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Re: Mista's new perpetual log (currently French, Russian, Icelandic, and Arabic)

Postby Mista » Tue Aug 20, 2019 9:56 pm

I've been home for over a week now, but struggling with back pains, so I have therefore been focusing on trying to reestablish a good exerecise routine, and let language learning just happen according to whim. Also, the start of the new semester was yesterday, so I have to get going with that as well.

I started up with Sami again yesterday, and originally I had planned to cut either Icelandic or Arabic, or both, at this point, so I could focus more on Russian up until my trip to Moscow. Unfortunately, making that choice is very difficult, so I'll go for the easy option and avoid it altogether. For now, anyway. Presumably, it will just happen at some point when I simply have too much to do.

And then there's Italian ...

Intermezzo: Italian
The book club book of August is Italian, and since Italian is a language I have learned in school, I find it natural to use this chance to read it in Italian. I've been at it for almost two weeks now, and I'm about 2/3 through, so it looks like I might finally finish a book club book on time! Last week, as I came home, I decided I would make that week an Italian week, while waiting for the new semester to start, so I also read around 60 pages of another book (that I read the first 60 pages of in January), and added Italian to my daily Duolingo routine. Duo is nice for some repetition, and I was making a lot of silly mistakes in the beginning, especially things like writing "a" instead of "ha", which is simply an orthographic difference between Italian and French. My plan with Italian now is to finish Pista nera and finally log something for my SC in Italian. Hopefully, I'll find the time to finish the other book before the SC is finished.

French
I had originally planned to to some writing in French, and now that I've been in France and Switzerland for two weeks, I have plenty to write about. But I need some determination to get going with that, so it hasn't happened yet. In fact, I haven't done much with French at all the last couple of weeks. What I have done, true to my resolution to focus on exercise, is that I've started reading and using the youga books I bought in Geneva. I've also started thinking about an essay I have to write for a French class at the university (15 minutes of initioal wikipedia research), and I've messaged the two other participants in my little French conversation group, to make an appointment for this Thursday.

Russian
I started up on Duolingo again once I was back at my computer last Monday. My typing is improving both in speed and accuracy - fairly slowly, admittedly, but enough that I notice. I'm currently at crown level 209. I also started doing Russian on Drops. Although I'm getting a little tired of the food vocabulary after going through it all in Icelandic, I decided to stick with it, as I think it is something I will find useful as a tourist. I've also started listening to the Russianpod intermediate course in the car. They started out with a really weird conversation where a tourist goes to a bank to open a bank account. I have to say, I really can't see the point in doing that. Furthermore, it would never have occured to me that it would be possible. Maybe it is in Russia, but in Norway, you need a social security number to open a bank account, and I have known (through work) people who got a working permit and started working in our company, but had to have their payment check sent (and lost) in the mail, because it took months before they were finally granted a social security number and could open a bank account. Anyway, I could really use some listening practice, and that course is one way of getting some. Although the conversations are a little strange sometimes, their weird sense of humor is cute. I also have a course book with sound track, which I have been thinking abouty using for listening and reading practice. But I'm leaving that for after I finish my listening and reading project in Icelandic. Finally, I'd like to get going with some SC stuff, and the stuff I have in mind isn Harry Potter (first book) and The MAster and Margarita (where I have both the book and the TV series).

Icelandic
I started before my trip to France with a listening and reading aloud project using an Astrid Lindgren book. I've continued with that after I came back, and I have now finished 8 of 16 chapters. Once I'm done, I'll switch to Russian, as mentioned, and I also plan to do a similar switching with Harry Potter, where I read first one chapter in Icelandic and then the same chapter in Russian. I think that's enough for Icelandic, if I'm going to find time for all the rest. I have also suggested a couple of Icelandic books for the book club, which I will read in Icelandic if they are chosen (but right now it looks like it will be French).

Arabic
Doing Duolingo at the moment. For now, I've decided on four rounds per language, but that is of course something I can adjust according to how much time I have. I'm now at crown level 61 in Arabic. Since I came back from a two week break and at the same time reduced the daily dose, I have now only been doing repetition, working all skills up to level 4. I'm also doing the daily lesson in the Mondly app. That's it for now, but since I was visiting my parents last week, I made sure to check out my mother's collection of Arabic learning materials, and borrowed Mastering Arabic 1 book + CDs, and a syrian course book all in Arabic which my mother recommended (although she did say it could be difficult to figure out what exactly you are meant to do in the exercises).

Sami
I met my Sami study buddy yesterday, and we worked through all the four first chapters of the book (Davvin 2) as repetition. For various reasons, it's been 3 months since we did anything in this book. For next week, we decided to do chapter 17 (which is the 5th chapter), and do any repetition from the previous chapters we individually feel we need. For me, the most important thing is to learn the vocabulary in chapter 15 and 16. I used to put all the sentences into anki, which I think has been quite efficient, so I should start doing that again.

A wanderlust moment
We all have them now and then, I guess. For me, they can be a bit scary, because I often find it hard to let go of a language once I've started with it. However, I still have them, and I had one on Sunday. All of a sudden, three languages on Duolingo wasn't enough for me, and I started on the Chinese course. And unfortunately, it was more interesting than I had expected, because I recognize things from Japanese. After the "ni hao" of the first skill (sorry, don't know the tones yet ...), the next one starts with numbers. Those are the exact same kanjis as I started learning in Japanese, and then I realized that with a little effort you can recognize the words as well. I don't know when exactly they were borrowed into Japanese - 1000 years ago, maybe? So now I want to learn more Chinese, and more Japanese, and learn more about the history of both countries. I'm going to ignore that as well as I can for now, but I haven't been able to quit the Duolingo Chinese course yet.
3 x

Mista
Blue Belt
Posts: 608
Joined: Wed May 11, 2016 11:03 pm
Location: Norway
Languages: Norwegian (N), English (QN). Studied Ancient Greek (MA), Linguistics (MA), Latin (BA), German (BA). Italian at A2/B1 level. Learning: French, Japanese, Russian (focus) and various others, like Polish, Spanish, Vietnamese, and anything that comes my way. Also know some Sanskrit (but not the script) and Coptic. Really want to learn Arabic and Amharic.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=7497
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Re: Mista's new perpetual log (currently French, Russian, Icelandic, Arabic and Sami))

Postby Mista » Wed Aug 28, 2019 7:51 am

I managed to lose Chinese on Duolingo. And Italian, because I'm not finished with the Italian book I was reading. So I got a couple of days with just my two focus languages - and then the new Latin course was launched. There's no way I can ignore that.
1 x

Mista
Blue Belt
Posts: 608
Joined: Wed May 11, 2016 11:03 pm
Location: Norway
Languages: Norwegian (N), English (QN). Studied Ancient Greek (MA), Linguistics (MA), Latin (BA), German (BA). Italian at A2/B1 level. Learning: French, Japanese, Russian (focus) and various others, like Polish, Spanish, Vietnamese, and anything that comes my way. Also know some Sanskrit (but not the script) and Coptic. Really want to learn Arabic and Amharic.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=7497
x 1459

Re: Mista's new perpetual log (currently French, Russian, Icelandic, Arabic and Sami))

Postby Mista » Sun Sep 01, 2019 12:57 pm

It was my birthday earlier this week, and the safest way to get what you want for your birthday, is to buy it yourself. But instead of going to a bookstore, I gave in to my other guilty pleasure and went to a sports shop. I think this typically happens on my birthday because it's at the end of the allergy season, which lasts the whole summer, really, and now that it's over, I have around a month to pretend it's still summer and nice to be outside, before it gets too ovious that it isn't. Anyway, I got myself a pair of roller skis (which I suspect is a really obscure activity in most places of the world, but is very common around these parts). They are for skating, which is a technique I don't know well even on regular skis, so this is a new sports activity which will involve a lot of learning. When I went out to try them for the first time on Friday, on a forest road (=closed for regular car traffic), I was working hard just to keep my balance, and I tried out the most important technique of all, how to brake, but I couldn't do it, unfortunately. I had my boyfriend along on foot, however, so he made sure to stop me whenever necessary. When I did fall, it was because I lost my balance while trying to move a little bit too fast on a flat stretch. On Saturday, I went out to try them again, and I could tell immediately that it was going much better than the day before. That's the fun part of starting something new - you learn so fast! My balance was better from the beginning, and I was moving faster uphill and with fewer breaks. Halfway along, I suddently realized that I was depending too much on my arms, and when I tried for a little bit to move forwards using just the legs, I realized that this was easier when I lowered the hip position, and that this also made it easier to keep my balance. Suddenly I was moving a lot faster and easier! I still haven't had that moment with the braking though, and I had a new fall because my boyfriend pulled me too hard when trying to stop me and I fell right backwards and landed on the tailbone. But although I feel a little black and blue, I'm still perfectly fit for new sessions, and, just like with languages, I think it will be good with a little bit every day. Fortunately, there's a fairly flat walking and cycling road just outside where I live, so it will be easy to get in a little practice daily.

Over to languages:

French
Aside from the class I'm taking and our regular conversation meet ups, I've started reading a new book. It's Han d'Islande by Victor Hugo. This was recommended to me by Amazon while I was in Iceland, and I found that connection interesting in itself, but when I started reading the sample, I discovered that it doesn't, in fact, take place in Iceland, but in Trondheim, my home town. I've now read about 20% of the book, and I think the book is well worth reading for its litterary qualities, but in addition to that, it is of course extra fun for me to read all the place names and names of people (it's a historical novel, set around 1700). Some names are immediately recognizable, some look very weird, and some are simply unknown to me. But I don't know much about the history of the time. In some cases the spellings are strange - Trondheim is spelled Drontheim for example (but I thought it should be Trondhjem at the time ...) - others are also a little strange but very plausible - l'île Hitteren sounds like an attempt to spell the island Hitra in Danish, which was commonly done at the time, Danish being the standard written language. The book is 600 pages long, though, and I will have to take a break if I want to finish this month's book club book, Petit Pays, on time.

Russian
Doing 4 lessons a day on Duolingo, currently at crown level 215. Doing Drops daily (currently vegetables). Various listening activities in the car, I have Russianpod intermediate, and the CDs from a course book - there's one with all the texts, one with the music presented in the book, and 5 CDs with audio exercises (so far, I have only used the first two). I'm also reading Harry Potter, alternating between Icelandic and Russian. So far, I have learned that when they are in the lighthouse, on the run from the letters from Hogwarts, it seems that the Icelandic Harry is eating cookies, while the Russian one is eating chips :lol: . According to the SC bot, I have now read 2 books in Russian.

Arabic
Also doing four lessons a day on Duolingo in Arabic, currently at crown level 65. At some point I forgot about Mondly, so I haven't done that in a while. We'll see if I take it up again. Right now, working only with Duolingo feels fine.

Sami
Working on chapter 17 in Davvin 2, and doing some repetition from the earlier chapters. Chapter 17 introduces the perfect, and starting on past tense feels like a big landmark. In this lesson, they explain how we in Norwegian use different auxiliary verbs for different verbs, like "er kommet" but "har spurt". Really? :shock: I thought that was in German and French. Evidently some dialects do this. Maybe Nynorsk? I should know that, but I don't. Or rather, I know that you can do it in Nynorsk, but I thought you can use both auxiliaries, with a slight change in meaning. In Sami however, only "to be" is used.

Latin
As mentioned in the last post, Latin has come on Duolingo and I can't ignore it, so I've added 4 lessons a day here as well. This doesn't take many minutes, considering the lessons are short, the typing is straightforward, and I already know a good deal of Latin (way more than in this course, I'm sure, but I think using it in a more active way will be useful, and besides, the "everyday" Latin we are learning in the beginning of this course, isn't what I know best)
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MorkTheFiddle
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2109
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 8:59 pm
Location: North Texas USA
Languages: English (N). Read (only) French and Spanish. Studying Ancient Greek. Studying a bit of Latin. Once studied Old Norse. Dabbled in Catalan, Provençal and Italian.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 11#p133911
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Re: Mista's new perpetual log (currently French, Russian, Icelandic, Arabic and Sami))

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Sun Sep 01, 2019 11:04 pm

It's good that learning languages doesn't leave bruises! :)
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Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson

Mista
Blue Belt
Posts: 608
Joined: Wed May 11, 2016 11:03 pm
Location: Norway
Languages: Norwegian (N), English (QN). Studied Ancient Greek (MA), Linguistics (MA), Latin (BA), German (BA). Italian at A2/B1 level. Learning: French, Japanese, Russian (focus) and various others, like Polish, Spanish, Vietnamese, and anything that comes my way. Also know some Sanskrit (but not the script) and Coptic. Really want to learn Arabic and Amharic.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=7497
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Re: Mista's new perpetual log (currently French, Russian, Icelandic, Arabic and Sami))

Postby Mista » Sun Nov 03, 2019 8:10 pm

I returned from Russia four weeks ago, but I caught a cold on my way back and spent the first week back home in bed. At first, I tried to start reading Flaubert, the book club book, but it was just too demanding in the shape I was in, so I ended up reading a Russian Donald Duck book I brought home with me, alternating with listening to Harry Potter on audio in French.

Russia was interesting and fun. Extremely noisy - the Moscow metro, music in restaurants, megaphones in the street, but in an ironic twist, the train suddenly became more silent the moment we crossed the border from Finland. From St. Petersburg to Moscow we took the night train, which was uncomparable to the night trains in Norway. We all slept straight through the night, while in a Norwegian night train, you usually wake up every time the train stops at a station.

I got a lot of listening practice during the trip. One of our company speaks Russian well, and has a friend in Moscow who arranged stuff for us to do. We visited a couple of more obscure museums, where we got a guided tour from guides who only spoke Russian. Mostly too difficult for me, but I did understand something here and there. I understood more when my Swedish relative was speaking, for obvious reasons.

As usual, I bought some books back home. Again, I tried to focus on what my immediate learning needs are and what I can't get hold of back home, so I got the already mentioned Donald Duck book, Around the World in 80 days (edition for children), Ronia, the Robber¨s Daughter (Atrid Lindgren), the second Harry Potter book (I already have the first), and from the adult department, Jane Austen's Emma, a collection of Chekhov's short stories, and a collection of 20th century poetry.

6WC: Sami
As I left home for the weekend on Friday morning, I had completely forgotten that it was the start of the 6WC, and consequently didn't bring any study materials. I did have my computer, however, so I found the article of the week on Northern Sami wikipedia, and started reading it using an online dictionary. As it turns out, this is the most satisfying thing I have done in my Sami studies in a long time, so I will probably stick to it for a while. With the grammar I've learned so far, reading seems like the perfect thing to do now, and the weird texts in my textbook are really getting on my nerves. I'm looking up A LOT of words, and the vocabulary will be goldlisted, while I'm putting the grammar into Quizlet - in concrete terms, this means that I'm making lists with nouns where I enter the nominative and accusative forms, and lists with verbs where I enter the infinitive and the present first person singular.

French
This week was the first week of the new round of courses at the Institut français, and I have now registered for courses at level B2, one conversation course and one literature course. I'm currently reading Quo Vadis? and listening to the last Harry Potter book on audio. However, I think it's time to broaden the scope a little and get in some TV series and maybe some more radio/podcasts - gererally, stuff where people talk to each other. I'm also considering trying out Italki for conversation practice, but I think that will have to wait until after Christmas. I'm also registered for a class at the university, where the exam is a 10 page essay on a topic of choice related to French society. My topic will be the ongoing school reforms. I'm going to have to start working on that soon, because I have to hand in the first draft in 3 weeks.

Russian
I'm not doing a lot with Russian at the moment, and won't for the next month, but I have a CD with fairy tales for children running in the car, and I'd like to finish the Donald Duck book I started reading.

Icelandic
Doing nothing at the moment, but I hope to finish the work I started on the book The Brothers Lionheart (by Astrid Lindgren) by the end of the month. The project consists of listening to the audio and following the text, then read the text aloud. I started going through the book like this chapter by chapter, and I'm about halfway. The reason I want to finish it by the end of the month, is because I want to read Heaven and Hell (book club book in December) in Icelandic.

Old English
Ordered the book now, which means I'm very likely to join IronMike's Christmas Wanderlust Party :lol:
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Mista
Blue Belt
Posts: 608
Joined: Wed May 11, 2016 11:03 pm
Location: Norway
Languages: Norwegian (N), English (QN). Studied Ancient Greek (MA), Linguistics (MA), Latin (BA), German (BA). Italian at A2/B1 level. Learning: French, Japanese, Russian (focus) and various others, like Polish, Spanish, Vietnamese, and anything that comes my way. Also know some Sanskrit (but not the script) and Coptic. Really want to learn Arabic and Amharic.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=7497
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Re: Mista's new perpetual log (interludium: Old English and various reading)

Postby Mista » Tue Dec 17, 2019 5:24 am

So, I handed in the final exam yesterday, an essay in French on the recent school reforms in France, and now I'm free to do whatever I want. My plans for the next week are: skiing, Old English, lots of reading for the SC, and packing for Christmas. I'm leaving on Monday to visit my parents, but plan to continue both SC reading and Old English up there.

My current SC stats are:
French: 164 films, 166 books. I completed the challenge a long time ago, but keep adding new stuff. I didn't want to upgrade to a double, but the 200 is still hard to ignore
Swedish: 14 films, 83 books. I'm currently around 250 pages into another book, and will try to reach the 100 books.
Russian: 11 films, 6 books. I'm reasonably happy with this already, but will at least try to finish "Three Sisters", and maybe some more Harry Potter too
Icelandic: 16 films, 2 books. I have about 1/4 left of the Astrid Lindgren book, which I am listening to and then reading aloud. Also working on "Heaven and Hell". I hope to finish both this week.
German: 0 films, 5 books. I have two half-read books which I hope to finish by the end of the year. I should to something on the film side too, but don't know if I will.
Italian: 0 films, 5 books. I have started on a book I would like to finish, and I have also started on an audiobook, which I will also try to finish - I', almost halfway and there are 6 hours and 27 minutes left
Japanese: 4 films, 0 books. I have a ticket for "Wolf children" tomorrow, so I will reach 5 films. I haven't studied Japanese since the challenge started, so I'm nowhere nearer reading a book. However, I'm happy to say that I do recognize words and frases in Japanese in the movies I watch
Sami: 4 films, 0 books. So far, it has mostly been the Sami news, so I'm very happy to say that I will be able to finish the year by watching Frozen 2 in Sami dubbing! :D
Ancient Greek: 0 films, 0 books. Well, the 0 films are no surprise, but I had hoped to get in a little more reading. But there is still hope, so I have downloaded the Theban plays by Sophocles on my kindle.
Turkish: 0 films, 0 books. Just like Japanese, I'm nowhere near able to read a book, but in the case of Turkish, it is also difficult to find films to watch. I did, however, find "Kedi" (Cats) on DVD at the library. I will certainly watch it, but considering it is a documentary about the cats of Istanbul, it will be interesting to see how much language there is.
Latin: 0 films, 0 books. In the hope of getting something done here as well, I found a book containing book 1 and 2 of the Histories of Tacitus, or maybe it was the Annals, I can never keep those two apart. However, yesterday I suddenly came across a Latin dictionary specially made for Kindle, so now I'm considering starting on Livius instead (which I have a kindle verion of).
Portuguese: 0 films, 0 books. Another language I haven't studied at all in the SC period, but I have O Estrangeiro (Albert Camus) ready just in case

So, for now, I am reading the two icelandic books, Heaven and Hell by Jón Kalman Stefénsson and The Brothers Lionheart by Astrid Lindgren, and a Swedish book about Erasmus from Rotterdam, Gutenberggalaxens nova by Nina Burton, and I'm watching the Japanese animé Wolf Children tomorrow and the Icelandic movie Echo on Thursday.
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