What next? (learning Spanish, maintaining German, random dabbling...)

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Ug_Caveman
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Re: Dw i'n gwylio Tatort

Postby Ug_Caveman » Thu Aug 12, 2021 10:15 pm

Le Baron wrote:I really think Welsh should be taught in English schools.


I second this.

I've lived in England my whole life, but go back two generations and (on both sides of my family) virtually everyone spoke Welsh. I'll never stop being sad that wasn't kept alive when the families decided to move to England.
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Languages: English (N), Dutch (passed A2 exam in May 2021, failed B1 in May 2023 - never sit an exam when you have food poisoning!)

Seeking: Linguaphone Polish and Linguaphone Afrikaans

gsbod
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Re: Dw i'n gwylio Tatort

Postby gsbod » Fri Aug 13, 2021 11:46 am

I do appreciate the sentiment regarding teaching Welsh in English schools, I just think that practically it wouldn't achieve very much.

My husband went to school in a very English speaking part of Wales. At the time there was no requirement to teach Welsh, so he never learned it. The requirements changed when his younger siblings attended school, so they were taught Welsh at school in Wales. None of them speak Welsh, so it hardly speaks to the success of teaching Welsh as a foreign language at school, at least in areas where Welsh isn't used outside school at all.

I think in general there is a tendency to overestimate the role of schools in language learning, and underestimate the ability of adults to learn languages.

I still think it's important to teach languages at school, as part of a rounded education, but I think it's less important which particular language is taught. But I do think we should be doing a lot more to encourage and empower adults to learn languages, or any useful skills, really.
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gsbod
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Re: Dw i'n gwylio Tatort

Postby gsbod » Thu Aug 19, 2021 6:34 pm

I haven't done anything with Welsh for the last couple of days and I don't know how I feel about that.

What I have been doing is reading a lot in German. I'm halfway through the first volume of Monster and have also just finished Nele Neuhaus's Wer Wind säht. It took a while to get into, partly because I hadn't been in the mood to read German for a while, but also because there were a lot of characters and strands to the plot, and it took a while for them to come together. Once I did get into it, I ended up hooked anyway. It's not her best book, and the storyline about corrupt climate scientists seems incredibly quaint from the standpoint of 2021, but still scored well for me as a guilty pleasure kind of easy read.

Things have also been a bit quieter than usual at work this week, so as well as enjoying the rare luxury of having enough time to think about what I'm doing (meaning I'm actually getting things done quicker), I've been able to have Radio Deutschlandfunk on in the background. Fingers crossed this respite will last until the end of August.

I am feeling a bit ambivalent in general towards my beginner and intermediate languages. Maybe it's just because I'm still in the mood to read more German, and I tend to be a bit single minded about things. Or maybe I'm just ready for that summer holiday now.
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Caromarlyse
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Re: Dw i'n gwylio Tatort

Postby Caromarlyse » Fri Aug 20, 2021 4:11 pm

I've read that book, and I agree with you that Nele Neuhaus is good guilty pleasure reading. I have just seen that she has a new book in that series, called In ewiger Freundschaft, that appears to be due for release in November!
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jvolker
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Re: Dw i'n gwylio Tatort

Postby jvolker » Fri Aug 20, 2021 10:34 pm

I have been reading Volker Kutscher's Rath Krimi series on which Babylon Berlin is based. I went back to the first novel in the series and made detailed notes for the idomatic expressions, as well as the historical, cultural, and political references. If anyone is interested, let me know and I can send them to you. Thanks.
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gsbod
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Re: Dw i'n gwylio Tatort

Postby gsbod » Sun Aug 22, 2021 11:14 am

I've realised that this last few months in languages, for me, has been one long period of dabbling. I think the only language I haven't dabbled with that's on my wish list is Swedish (there's always time before the end of the summer for that though...) I think dabbling is underrated, particularly for people who don't really know what they want yet. You have to try a few things out from time to time, to see what fits. The challenge then is to turn your dabbling into something more consistent, and stick to it long enough to achieve something.

Anyway, now I'm back to looking at German in a more-than-maintenance kind of way. Is this just a bit of advanced dabbling now? Probably... Still, I think I could do more to work on my reading. There are vocabulary gaps I am not happy with. It's enough to create a bit of friction when I read, or a little bit of discomfort, which I don't experience when I listen to German. I think I'd still ace the reading comprehension section of a C2 paper, so this is more about personal satisfaction than anything else.

So I have a specific problem I want to look at, but I don't quite know the solution. It's interesting to compare my listening and reading comprehension. I think there are two significant differences betwee the two. Firstly, that the range of vocabulary used in the spoken language is narrower than the written language. But secondly, I have spent many more hours listening to German than I have spent reading. Listening is the backbone of my maintenance activities and the one thing that I do regularly. So part of me thinks that I just need to put as many hours into reading German as I've put into listening, and all the discomfort will melt away. And part of me thinks I need to hit the books and do some targeted vocabulary work. And part of me thinks that targeted vocabulary work is going to suck the joy out of things and I'll probably give up before achieving anything with it. I don't know the answer, although part of the answer is definitely this: read more.
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DaveAgain
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Re: Dw i'n gwylio Tatort

Postby DaveAgain » Sun Aug 22, 2021 12:42 pm

gsbod wrote:Anyway, now I'm back to looking at German in a more-than-maintenance kind of way. Is this just a bit of advanced dabbling now? Probably... Still, I think I could do more to work on my reading. There are vocabulary gaps I am not happy with. It's enough to create a bit of friction when I read, or a little bit of discomfort, which I don't experience when I listen to German. I think I'd still ace the reading comprehension section of a C2 paper, so this is more about personal satisfaction than anything else.

So I have a specific problem I want to look at, but I don't quite know the solution. It's interesting to compare my listening and reading comprehension. I think there are two significant differences betwee the two. Firstly, that the range of vocabulary used in the spoken language is narrower than the written language. But secondly, I have spent many more hours listening to German than I have spent reading. Listening is the backbone of my maintenance activities and the one thing that I do regularly. So part of me thinks that I just need to put as many hours into reading German as I've put into listening, and all the discomfort will melt away. And part of me thinks I need to hit the books and do some targeted vocabulary work. And part of me thinks that targeted vocabulary work is going to suck the joy out of things and I'll probably give up before achieving anything with it. I don't know the answer, although part of the answer is definitely this: read more.
Would audioBooks be an answer? The Goethe eLibrary have quite a few, including one of your Nele Neuhaus'.

I was looking at the 'superchallenge recommendations' the other day, and some of those are available as audioBooks too.
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jeffers
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Re: Dw i'n gwylio Tatort

Postby jeffers » Sun Aug 22, 2021 1:18 pm

I was also thinking that audiobooks could be part of the solution to the problem you described. They have more vocabulary than more conversational audio, but on the other hand they are easier in that the speaking is clearer and at a more measured pace, without any mumbling or stumbling. So it is likely to be quite a difference listening experience for you.
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Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien (roughly, the perfect is the enemy of the good)

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gsbod
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Re: Dw i'n gwylio Tatort

Postby gsbod » Sun Aug 22, 2021 2:12 pm

Interesting that you both suggested audiobooks here - I'd like to know more about your reasoning for this?

I do have an account with audible.de, although I no longer have a subscription because I wasn't really listening to any of the books I'd purchased. The issue for me is with the medium of audiobooks in general, rather than a language specific one, which is why I don't tend to listen to audiobooks in English either, although I like the idea of it. In general, I can't just sit and listen to one for any length of time, without doing something else, which means I inevitably get distracted and lose the thread of the story. The only exception to this is listening to audiobooks in bed, but then the issue is I tend to fall asleep within the first ten minutes or so, which again just breaks up the narrative and it's difficult then to find the right point to restart it the next day. This is why my preferred listening is either TV, films, radio or podcasts, in any language.
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DaveAgain
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Re: Dw i'n gwylio Tatort

Postby DaveAgain » Sun Aug 22, 2021 2:19 pm

gsbod wrote:Interesting that you both suggested audiobooks here - I'd like to know more about your reasoning for this?
You said listening was what you mostly do, but you would get a vocabulary benefit from reading books. Audio books seems the easiest path between the two.
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