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

[IronMike]

Super busy week. Had Russian class on Tuesday and we are finally tackling the verbs of motion. Not sure how I feel about them

It'll depend on how you get to those feelings. By foot, by vehicle, by...

[brilliantyears]

I'm back from Taiwan. Had a really good trip, and fell a little bit in love with the country. Best of all, I got to meet most of my friends

I spoke a tiny bit of Chinese and had the opportunity to test my passive understanding - most things I learned once upon a time I still more or less remembered. But not surprisingly people had trouble understanding me when I spoke haven't been able to practice that since literally 2014. My friends are encouraging me to hurry up and come back to Taiwan and take some classes, so we'll see
My brain was really tired after 11 days being surrounded by text I can't quite read though. "These are characters! You know these!" No brain, no I don't, not really, so stop trying

Also spoke some Japanese (but less than I thought I would) and had one (1) useful Korean experience (waiting for a western style toilet* for forever and a Korean lady looking at me full of pity and commenting "없어요" lol - thank god my limited Korean is useful for something ).

* Don't judge me, I can use a squat toilet! But sometimes you just don't want to.

[brilliantyears]

I've been in a bit of a learning slump this week. Still tired after my Taiwan trip, still trying to acclimatise being back home (and going back to work ). I have something resembling a jetlag, but the good kind where I can't keep my eyes open after 10pm and wake up at 7am, so I'm going to roll with it.

I signed up for the 6WC round that starts in November, and noticed that Radioclare and Cèid Donn have signed up too So the competition will be good! I will be tackling Norwegian this time around - I've still got that trip planned in January and it would be nice to improve my understanding at least a little. I've slowly started making plans and my aim is to keep it manageable and fun. I think I can make significant progress with fairly little effort. We'll see

My plans for now:

Continue with Duolingo
I passed the 2nd checkpoint a while ago. But I want to study this course thoroughly, and since I've had very little time to focus on new skills I've just been reviewing all the previous skills instead. Everything's at level 3, slowly making my way through level 4 I clearly need to hurry up and start new skills.
+ continue studying the accompanying Memrise course
Self-explanatory. Goes along with my goal to study the course thoroughly. I want to make sure that what I know, I know well.

Start working on The Mystery of Nils
This method seems to get nothing but positive reviews and I liked the preview of the book. And it suits my aim to keep Norwegian fun. I finally ordered the first book last week, so I hope it'll get here soon!
+ study the accompanying Memrise course
Bless the people who create these courses

Watch movies+series
My standard fare. Not sure what to watch yet. I've got one movie lined up that's playing during my city's international film festival (which happens to take place during the challenge), but that's it for now. Recommendations welcome!

Post daily updates
Inspired by Radioclare's impressive log I want to post a short update every day and see if I benefit from that.

Not sure I'll be super competitive this time around. I'm still tired and it's the end of the year so I'm probably going to be busy. I also desperately need to spend time on Russian... So I guess I'm just making excuses to participate low-key this time around (I'm sure I've said that before and I'm sure I'll probably go all-in in the end ).

[alaart]

Ah, the 6WC. If I figure out how it works, I will sign up too. I just started Spanish last month, so I would definitely benefit

Glad you enjoyed your Taiwan trip. Did you find the book store you searched for? - I still haven't continued reading those books I bought there, they are catching dust in my book shelf

[Cèid Donn]

Yeah, Norwegian's closeness to Swedish is my main reason I stay away from it. I don't practice my Swedish enough to begin with and I know how much work it takes to keep up with two closely related languages from studying Irish and Scottish Gaelic. All the same I have wanted to dabble in Norwegian just to see why so many are attracted to it in particular. It seems, at least among language hobbyists and aspiring polyglots, to be the more popular one of the two. That said, I'm off to practice some Swedish pronunciation before going to bed.

[brilliantyears]

Ah, the 6WC. If I figure out how it works, I will sign up too. I just started Spanish last month, so I would definitely benefit

Glad you enjoyed your Taiwan trip. Did you find the book store you searched for? - I still haven't continued reading those books I bought there, they are catching dust in my book shelf

I ended up not even looking for it I was just too busy! But there's so much more to see in Taiwan so I'm keeping my eyes on cheap plane tickets I'll be back..!

Would love to have you in the challenge btw! I've really benefited from it every time I joined

Watch movies+series
My standard fare. Not sure what to watch yet. I've got one movie lined up that's playing during my city's international film festival (which happens to take place during the challenge), but that's it for now. Recommendations welcome!

I really enjoyed the first season of Occupied (it was/is? on Netflix in Canada, not sure about elsewhere). I haven’t watched season 2 yet so no opinion there.

Oh, thank you! I've heard good stories about that one! Sadly it's not on Dutch Netflix I mean, not that that means it's out of reach...

[tungemål]

If you want to watch a recent TV-series that got a lof of press in Norway, check out "Exit" on https://tv.nrk.no/. It is entertaining. But note that one of the actors speaks Swedish.

[brilliantyears]

6WC Week 1, Day 1
Whoop, the challenge has begun! I'm off to a bad start My city is in the middle of a large film festival and I've got a ton of movies scheduled. But that also includes a bunch of movies in my target languages

Norwegian
I didn't have much time today to focus on new material, so I spent some time listening to Norwegian podcasts at work and reviewing old stuff in between movies. Memrise and old skills on Duolingo. I hope I can squeeze in some new vocab tomorrow.
Time today: 55 minutes

Chinese
I watched The Farewell at the film festival tonight Absolutely loved it!

Time today: 98 minutes

Russian
Just some very minimal studying. I've got a test on the verbs of motion coming up next week I need to somehow remember this stuff. I believe my classmate is onto something so now I, too, have the verbs of motion pinned to the bathroom wall so I can study them while taking a dump
Time today: 10 minutes

[tarvos]

Am I the only one who never got bothered by verbs of motion? Ok, so there's not one single word for "to go", but in general it's easier to be specific about whether you drove or flew somewhere anyway. Maybe my proclivity for specifics is just something particular to me, but when it comes to Russian, there are plenty of things I found hard to wrap my head around, but this wasn't one of them.

[IronMike]

Am I the only one who never got bothered by verbs of motion? Ok, so there's not one single word for "to go", but in general it's easier to be specific about whether you drove or flew somewhere anyway. Maybe my proclivity for specifics is just something particular to me, but when it comes to Russian, there are plenty of things I found hard to wrap my head around, but this wasn't one of them.

I don't have an issue with motion verbs with respect to "how" the subject goes. By plane, by water, by foot, no problem. My problem with them is two-fold: the "one way" versus "multidirectional" of the imperfective ones. The more obscure ones. Sure, идти vs. ходить is no issue. бродить/брести, ползать/ползти, возить/везти, those I forget all the time when trying to use them (so productively I have problems vs. receptively). And throw in prefixed verbs of motion, and I'm all kinds of messed up.