Lisa's Language Log

[Lisa]

I'm very happy with my latest italki tutor; it's helping me a lot with speaking and also catching my weaknesses. I've been doing half hours twice a week (more or less, what with holidays). Previously I worked with two others for Spanish and one other for German but it was a struggle. Possibly it's partly since my level is higher now; the regular anki and reading over the 8 months or so last year did noticeably push my reading up a level. Anyway, this new tutor has really been great; he asks interesting leading questions and the conversations flow. I am anxious before a session (partly since, for some reason, I've picked a regular schedule at times of the week when my work schedule has left me already mentally tired), and I'm quite drained afterwards... but during the session I'm not feeling out of depth or stressed, it's work to pull the words out of my brain, and set them correctly in sentences, about topics that don't come up in agatha christies, like cell phones, but at the end I feel like I was able to communicate which is a great feeling.

Knowing that in 11 weeks I'll be visiting people who don't know any english at all... and while jet-lagged... is quite motivating.

[Lisa]

My Germany trip has come and gone! Was quite happy with my german, although of course I wish it was better.

After how gung-ho I was during winter, about mid-February I just got burned out. I didn't want to study any more. This went along for several weeks before I at least got back to the italki tutor and some youtube, which was the most important skill to keep up with. And I kept reading. But I couldn't even get myself to do anki.

The various cousins spoke english but not all that well. They've all been to america... but doubtless a while ago. We ended up speaking in a mix; I'd use german for easy stuff and english if it seemed like a difficult thing to express (and of course, english allowed Jay to know what was going on). I had no trouble speaking to/understanding my 97-year-old aunt in german. But then sometimes I spoke to my aunt in english which didn't work, or Jay in german which was even less effective.

Another old uncle though, I really had trouble understanding... he didn't speak clearly, for one thing, but talking to a cousin later, she said he also used some bavarian mixed in. I could definitely tell when people were speaking bavarian since it was completely opaque.

It was a new experience for me to travel with someone who didn't speak the language when I could (to a reasonable degree). I think Jay might have wanted to learn a little german while on the trip, but his pronunciation of 'ch' was painful for me, so after danke and bitte it kind of dried up... possibly I should have been more tolerant, I'm probably a bad teacher. What was novel was being in a world where writing and audio resolved to meaning... and then realizing that Jay was right next to me, but in a world in which this was so much empty noise. It was startling; when it was something obvious, my brain took a few seconds to register that Jay didn't have any idea and I needed to translate.

Translation was sometimes fun but not at all easy. E.g. Jay was watching some TV game show, and I tried to translate bits for him. Most of it was easy to understand, but on the fly it was disconnected phrases; to make a coherent sentence, I had to kind of store it as meaning in my brain, change languages and construct english sentences from the meaning. This was particularly hard since the ongoing speaking was pulling me back into german.

We did one tour (herrenchiemse) with a german-language guide (you are required to join a tour and we didn't want to wait more than an hour for the english one), and they offer a page of room descriptions in english for Jay. I wasn't able to fully concentrate on looking at the sights while trying to focus on understanding the guide.

In some museums, it was shocking how bad some of the translations were on the placards. I suppose these are older and pre-deepl.

On a non-language note: we managed to exactly fit our trip into a spell of very unusually cold and wet weather (besides rain and near-freezing temps, it was also windy, and snow on three of the days) so we weren't able to do some things we wanted to do, and there was some suffering involved.... but on the plus side, my relatives were warmer and more welcoming than I felt like we had the right to expect (I have commonly felt that way in Germany, though). I'm particularly grateful/astonished that my favorite aunt is still alive and sharp; it was wonderful to see her again, it's been 25 years since I was there.

[Lisa]

It appears there will be a french interlude... I've had a terrible cold and been reading in english, but then a half-page of french showed up as it does in these early 20thc. english authors, and I didn't understand it. My main motivation as always is intolerance of not knowing everything.

I dropped French in March 2023. It comes back very fast - and I still sound terrible (but with the cold I sound pretty rough in english too). Also I think I need to really focus on the basic vocabulary now, rather than try to get to a general reading level. I'm adding learning short sentences to anki, which should help reinforce the basics. And I listened to some easy french on youtube - subtitled in french and english - these are a good level for me. Not sure yet what to do about pronunciation. I think recording myself might help. I really just need to get to something I can tolerate even if I can't tell the vowels apart.