日本語 + Русский + norsk (part 1, CLOSED)

[brilliantyears]

Copying from the Super Challenge discussion thread:

Two months or 10% of the Super Challenge have passed already! How are people doing so far? Are you on track to meet your goals?

Doing two half challenges, so the goals are 2500 pages and 4500 minutes.

Reading Japanese: 11%
Watching Japanese: 45%

Reading Russian: 1%
Watching Russian: 44%

I just... like to watch a lot of stuff
I'm impressed I'm on track for reading Japanese though! And not at all surprised I'm so behind on reading Russian: I have no illusions about making my goal.

[koolawant]

Good job with keeping on track with the reading! I swing between really enjoying reading Japanese literature, and wanting to flip a table because the amount of unknown kanji driving me nuts.

[brilliantyears]

Thank you! But to be honest, the material is key here... The bulk of my reading has come from Harry Potter and Yotsubato!. The first I can practically dream, so I've decided to stop looking up words. There are still a bunch of kanji/vocab I don't strictly know, but furigana + guessing helps a lot. And Yotsubato! is really far too easy for me, but I'm reading it purely for enjoyment (I wasn't going to continue reading beyond the first volume but I'm in too deep now ).

I am a bit scared of picking my next book

[brilliantyears]

Soooo I just watched Japanese movie #25 for the Super Challenge. In other words, now I'm officially halfway So I hereby declare I am going to switch from a half to a full challenge for both Russian and Japanese listening (not reading, no way).

(Sadly movie #25 was Blade of the Immortal and it was terrible )

I was a little bored tonight, so I decided to sign in to Duolingo. It's been a while. I browsed through the languages and noticed they now have Mandarin? I may just have missed it before. Anyway, I couldn't resist taking the placement test and I tested out of the first 6 skills and beyond the first checkpoint Is this a sign? Should I take up Mandarin again? I mean, I can't for the life of me test out of any French skills. Thank you, 6 years of high school French!

Just kidding. The Mandarin one was kind of cheating. For one, they were all actually useful words and expressions that I learned at some point, not bullsh#t like "ant" that I got on the Korean placement test Also, hanzi. I rest my case. I'm probably not going to take up Mandarin again since I have no hope of ever getting to a decent level of speaking, which is why I quit in the first place.

Still, Duolingo is kind of fun. I now have 3 dormant languages (French, Mandarin and Korean) and German and Russian on there (the only one with any progress is German). And Esperanto because I felt inspired after the Polyglot Gathering. Someone stop me from actually starting any of these

[brilliantyears]

I'm back from the Ukraine! We had a wonderful week there Kiev first, then a few days of the Carpathian mountains.

Language-wise this trip was especially fun because we got to use/practice a lot of Russian. This ended up being quite a reality check... On the one hand, I realised how little Russian I really know. On the other hand, most of the things I learned up to this point, I was able to understand/use. My listening comprehension is pretty good, and speaking wasn't absolutely terrible (and reading was fine, but no surprise there). Knowing Russian, even if it was just a little, really helped us out on multiple occasions, as most people didn't speak anything but Ukrainian and Russian (a little English in Kiev, some German in the Carpathians). So: hurray! I'm now extra eager to plan another trip in that direction, just to be able to use more Russian.

On another note: I just spend some time readding the missing Super Challenge updates (from approx. the first week of June). I think I've got them all. Sadly I lost my 10 week streak for Japanese, it's now just a 4 week streak that kind of sucks.
Will add the things I did during my vacation tomorrow, so as not to make my SC page too confusing...

[brilliantyears]

Japanese (half challenge)
Reading: 5.8 books, 292 pages (total)
14 Jul 2018 （アイヌ語）2006年5月14日放送　熊谷講師7 1 pages
14 Jul 2018 （アイヌ語）2006年5月21日放送　熊谷講師8 1 pages
15 Jul 2018 ハリー・ポッターと賢者の石 20 pages

Watching: 27.6 films, 2,480 minutes (total)
02 Jul 2018 ハリー・ポッターと賢者の石 disc 2 62 minutes
03 Jul 2018 無限の住人 140 minutes
14 Jul 2018 （アイヌ語）2006年5月14日放送　熊谷講師7（ラジオ） 12 minutes
14 Jul 2018 マイドリーム大作戦！4話 (ポッドキャスト) 5 minutes
14 Jul 2018 マイドリーム大作戦！5話 (ポッドキャスト) 5 minutes
14 Jul 2018 マイドリーム大作戦！6話 (ポッドキャスト) 5 minutes
14 Jul 2018 （アイヌ語）2006年5月21日放送　熊谷講師8（ラジオ） 12 minutes
14 Jul 2018 新世紀エヴァンゲリオン s1e1 24 minutes
14 Jul 2018 ゴールデンカムイ s1e6 猟師の魂 24 minutes
14 Jul 2018 ゴールデンカムイ s1e7 錯綜 24 minutes
14 Jul 2018 ゴールデンカムイ s1e8 殺人鬼の目 24 minutes
14 Jul 2018 ゴールデンカムイ s1e9 煌めく 24 minutes
14 Jul 2018 ゴールデンカムイ s1e10 道連れ 24 minutes
14 Jul 2018 ゴールデンカムイ s1e11 殺人ホテルだよ全員集合!! 24 minutes
14 Jul 2018 ゴールデンカムイ s1e12 誑かす狐 24 minutes

Did a little Ainu on the plane to and from Ukraine. I'm probably going to ditch the 2003 course for a while and just stick to the 2006 one, because I don't have a firm grasp on different dialects yet and right now it's all confusing. (Ok, this was a Japanese and Ainu update in one I guess)
Related: When I got home I finished Golden Kamuy in one go.

Also listened to more of the マイドリーム大作戦！ podcast. And since I have some weird gaps in my Japanese pop culture knowledge, I started watching Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Russian (half challenge)
Reading: 0.7 books, 37 pages (total)
14 Jul 2018 Красивый пейзаж 3 pages
15 Jul 2018 Богатые и бедные 3 pages
15 Jul 2018 Богатые и бедные 3 pages

Watching: 23.9 films, 2,153 minutes (total)
02 Jul 2018 Элизабет (Мюзикл, 2012) 40 minutes
14 Jul 2018 Элизабет (Мюзикл, 2012) 40 minutes
14 Jul 2018 Нюхач s3e6 60 minutes
14 Jul 2018 Красивый пейзаж 6 minutes
15 Jul 2018 Богатые и бедные 6 minutes

Technically not a lot of Russian the past two weeks, but Ukraine made up for that (also see my previous post)
I'm also quickly burning through the A2 level stories. Aiming to finish the book by the end of the upcoming week.

[mouse]

I started watching Neon Genesis Evangelion.

This might be useful to you:

[brilliantyears]

I started watching Neon Genesis Evangelion.

This might be useful to you:

1. You don't know what you're getting into.

Behold, the precise reason why I'm finally watching it

[brilliantyears]

Signed up for Russian for the 6 Week Challenge It starts in August and ends right before my classes start again, so perfect timing I think! That means during those 6 weeks I intend to focus on nothing but Russian, and then once I'm sick of it and close to burning out I'll be forced to go to class Recipe for success..? (I'm joking... or am I.)

But yes, probably little Japanese and Ainu in that period. Until then, I'm trying to make up my mind on what to do with Ainu. Continue the 2006 STV Radio course? Focus on a different dialect? Mix them?

[tarvos]

Ai don't nu. But Ai think you can switch materials nu, Ai think this might be useful to nu-t get bored.

Sorry, it's like I am on acid without ever having taken it.