Caromarlyse’s log (French/German/Portuguese/Russian/Welsh)

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Caromarlyse
Green Belt
Posts: 387
Joined: Fri Dec 06, 2019 2:31 pm
Languages: English (N), French (C1-ish), German (B2/C1-ish), Russian (B1-ish), Portuguese (B1-ish), Welsh (complete beginner), Spanish (in hibernation)
(All levels estimates and given as a guide only)
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Re: Caromarlyse’s log (French/German/Portuguese/Russian)

Postby Caromarlyse » Mon Oct 31, 2022 8:22 pm

OCTOBER REVIEW

I’ve been too lazy to update, and I have mainly been doing Russian. I think I might have to accept that Portuguese is officially on hold right now. It is fairly easy to keep my hand in with French and German because I first started learning them so long ago and have worked and studied in both languages, but Portuguese requires more effort, and I don’t have enough of it to go round. It wasn’t so bad during lockdowns etc, when external demands were reduced, but it doesn’t work well with the “return to normal”.

Monthly totals
French: 5.87 hours
German: 13.3 hours
Portuguese: 3.12 hours
Russian: 92.72 hours

French: I’ve kind of kept up with the Super Challenge (50 minutes short on listening), but only since I was already ahead on reading. I have got some listening done, mainly stuff from Arte and some podcasts on geopolitics.

German: The usual diet of podcasts and videos. I was quite excited that I could speak (with monolingual English speakers) about a scandal that the satirical show ZDF Magazin Royale uncovered a couple of weeks before the story broke in the English media. I’ve also started listening to a Spotify exclusive on the Qatar World Cup, which is a similar format to the exclusive on Wirecard that I have previously enjoyed on there. I’ve read a tiny bit (enough to keep my Super Challenge on track almost but not quite); my current book feels like quite a grind.

Portuguese: Only some more episodes of Bom dia Verônica (a bit too harrowing for me, really) and some LingQ podcasts that I found on YouTube.

Russian:
Lots! And lots of thoughts. I’ll divide them up into skill areas.

    - Listening: I’ve started to listen each day to the Russian news live broadcast on Deutsche Welle. I don’t get it all by any means (and sometimes that is frustrating, because I’d actually like to understand the content), but it still feels like a worthwhile exercise. I have also discovered the podcast Давай поговорим, and have listened to episodes on tracking (time, money, calories, etc), the fear of making mistakes, and whether higher education is necessary. I then tried to listen to one today entitled Никогда не молодец, или ощущение недостаточности, but gave up when I was not following anything. Oh the irony. I'll put it down to a slow brain day and try again later. Apart from today, I have found that I can follow these podcasts pretty well. This has now had the effect that Russian with Max sounds quite slow! I definitely think that I have had a little burst of progress here. I want to try videos on Maxim Katz' channel next.

    - Speaking: This is probably the skill I always feel the least confident in, whatever the language. I also tend to be pretty critical of myself. However, I am (I think!) holding my own when speaking in a group with other students who are supposedly at a higher level than I am, so I think this is going ok too. Though some days I think all is well, and other days I'm close to giving up...

    - Writing: I find this skill really hard to judge, because with time and access to resources I think I am pretty strong (and this is an accurate reflection of how people these days write), but I don’t test myself much with what I can produce with just a pen and paper. If I do end up wanting to take an exam, I’ll have to change this, but then you’d end up memorising stuff to shoehorn in anyway. So I think it’s fine to keep going with the occasional writing task I do as homework for now and work on it as an exam preparation task if it comes to that.

    - Grammar: I’m trying to get through revision of all the topics that are examined at the B2 level but were already introduced earlier, i.e. topics where you are just expected to make fewer mistakes than previously. This includes participles and gerunds, verbs of motion, aspect, numerals, cases… I’ve rewatched videos from the tips4russian site, which are excellent. He gives little explanations that make memorisation so much easier because you’re led to understand why something is a certain way, not just that it is. I’ve also done most of the relevant tests from my Тесты, тесты, тесты book. I’ve almost finished volume 1 of Let’s Improve our Russian; I just need to finish going through the chapter on reflexive verbs - a topic I tend to think I’m ok with, but I always mess up when speaking. The plan for next year is then to study/consolidate the grammar topics that are new for B2, chiefly verbs with prefixes and verb governance (not entirely new, obviously, but newly in focus). I’ve started both of these already, but I notice that the verbs with prefixes I have tried to learn have generally not stuck very well - I seem to need to go over most grammar topics in Russian tens of times before I properly absorb anything, and the fact I haven’t done this yet here is showing.

    - Reading: I haven’t done any reading "for pleasure" this month. However, I have been working through a graded reader and doing the exercises for my teacher to correct. I wouldn’t really classify this as reading, though: the text is pretty easy to understand for me. It is still proving to be useful, because the exercises really help to activate the language and structures from the text. They’re quite demanding because they really go into detail and require precision. I obviously then have stuff to read in course material, plus I skim Russian-language accounts on Instagram most days.

    - Other: I have continued to work through Russian: From Intermediate to Advanced, and am on track to get through the first five chapters by the end of the year. According to the introduction, the difficulty then ramps up in the last five chapters in the sense that the topics should no longer be as familiar, so it will be good to work through these next year at the same time as upping the difficulty on my grammar study. I’ll have to revise some of the content again, though: some verbs with prefixes have already been introduced, for example, and as mentioned above I don’t yet feel confident that I’ve retained all of the differences.

Fitness: I've just about made it to an average of 10k steps daily. I've been fairly diligent with the yoga, and have kept up with my workouts, with the usual peaks and troughs in performance.

I should probably try to update here more frequently: I'm sure I had more thoughts, but I can't now remember them.
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Caromarlyse
Green Belt
Posts: 387
Joined: Fri Dec 06, 2019 2:31 pm
Languages: English (N), French (C1-ish), German (B2/C1-ish), Russian (B1-ish), Portuguese (B1-ish), Welsh (complete beginner), Spanish (in hibernation)
(All levels estimates and given as a guide only)
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Re: Caromarlyse’s log (French/German/Portuguese/Russian)

Postby Caromarlyse » Sun Nov 06, 2022 8:22 pm

Again, lots of Russian and not much of anything else. The highlight of the week was trying a new teacher. My excuse was that I got really fed up with work one day, and consequently booked a class on the spur of the moment. My less emotional reasoning was that one of my current teachers is not all that reliable right now (for understandable reasons, but it's still quite disruptive) and also mentioned that beginners are her target audience, which made me a bit worried about being dumped and left in the lurch again. So I already had it in mind that I needed a back-up, and then irritation prompted me to put that half-formed plan into action!

It turned out to be a good idea, because the class went really well and brightened up the end of my week. I waffled away about myself for a while, after which the teacher announced I was clearly past B1 and suggested we finish up by working with some B2 materials. This is the best reception I've had to my speaking ability, so it's obviously come on - finally! I was already comfortable with B1 reading/grammar/listening material in the summer of 2021, so I was getting quite frustrated that this was clearly not coming across in my speaking. Several hundreds of hours of study later and I've got there ;). The materials we used had some exercises involving verbs with prefixes, which the teacher said are a large part of B2 Russian. I'd kind of figured that out for myself, but it was good to know I was right. I had actually come across the verbs in question before, but I hadn't retained them very well, so the lesson was good revision. I seem to need to go over each new topic multiple times before it sinks in, so this kind of attacking the same problem from a different angle was really useful. She gave me homework, which I've done already. Some of it was listening, which I found pretty easy. I had kind of already suspected that my listening skills are approaching the upper end of B2; this shows that those suspicions are accurate. The grammar exercises were initially tricky, but going back to them this morning when I was fresh made them a lot easier, and I think I have answered them correctly, besides perhaps one or two where I'm not 100% sure of the correct verbal aspect.

(By the way (with reference to the thread this week about CEFR levels), I use the levels here as shorthand for what's in the syllabus for the official RFL exams at each of the levels; I'm not really referencing the various descriptors.)

Besides that, I did some listening, some grammar revision via tips4russian.com, and various other bits and pieces of homework. I need to get back to reading, but I've really not been in the mood. I've also slacked quite a bit on my steps - I'll blame the atrocious (rainy) weather :shock:
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Caromarlyse
Green Belt
Posts: 387
Joined: Fri Dec 06, 2019 2:31 pm
Languages: English (N), French (C1-ish), German (B2/C1-ish), Russian (B1-ish), Portuguese (B1-ish), Welsh (complete beginner), Spanish (in hibernation)
(All levels estimates and given as a guide only)
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Re: Caromarlyse’s log (French/German/Portuguese/Russian)

Postby Caromarlyse » Sun Nov 13, 2022 5:21 pm

It's been a hard week and as a result I have not done very much language learning. In fact, I think it might be one of my worst weeks ever since I recommitted to language study. I had some really difficult work, which completely sapped my brain power, and then a stressful situation that also cut into my sleep time, so unfortunately I haven't really been able to recover over this weekend. I'm hoping I'll be able to take things easier this week and recover - and see some improvements in my learning too.

I suppose the news for the week is that I had a Portuguese lesson again, after a very long break. I was worrying that I was forgetting everything, and it felt like a bit of a shame. I'm still in two minds here, though. I think it will be good to have the accountability and help driving forwards, but I'm not convinced I have the time or energy. I'm trying to be less black and white in my thinking, however, and just try it again for a bit, knowing I can always reevaluate and change my mind. The positives were that I was able to speak pretty fluently, could start at the same kind of point where I'd left off, and got to engage with higher register language, which is what I wanted. It was a bit of an odd experience, in that I was more fluent than I am in Russian when speaking about very personal/generic stuff, but my vocabulary is a lot narrower, so any departure from such comfortable topics left me floundering. By contrast, with Russian I think I start to perform better when challenged, because it allows me to demonstrate the breadth of what I know. That said, I am able to engage with pretty interesting material, so I kind of think it's worth persevering, because I'm within touching distance of being at a properly useful level.

I also did my usual Russian classes, though unfortunately a tired brain did not help at all with me speaking in, or engaging with, the language! I also did some homework, a bit of grammar revision on my own, a bit of work through Russian: From Intermediate to Advanced, and some podcasts and videos. I've also got a new technology set-up that should allow me to read the pdf of White Nights by Dostoevsky that I've got more easily, but so far I've been too tired to make a start there.

I have somehow, however, managed to keep up my steps goal, have been pretty decent with my stretching routine, and have got all my workouts done, even if some were less successful than others.
5 x

Caromarlyse
Green Belt
Posts: 387
Joined: Fri Dec 06, 2019 2:31 pm
Languages: English (N), French (C1-ish), German (B2/C1-ish), Russian (B1-ish), Portuguese (B1-ish), Welsh (complete beginner), Spanish (in hibernation)
(All levels estimates and given as a guide only)
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Re: Caromarlyse’s log (French/German/Portuguese/Russian)

Postby Caromarlyse » Mon Nov 21, 2022 7:58 am

The past week was one of my worst weeks at work for quite some time. I got language stuff in, but it was a squeeze. I was grateful to have classes already scheduled, because it meant I got prep done for them and attended them, even if I didn't put in the same amount of time as usual.

German: just some podcasts.

Portuguese: another class. I am rusty when speaking, but still understand fine and the grammar is still all there. About four different grammar topics came up in the class - this is where a class is good, because you're pushed a lot more than you would likely push yourself.

Russian: it was quite a good week for speaking. In one class I had to relay orally what I'd watched in a video (for homework), and I could! Which is definitely progress. We then moved on to a new topic, and I was able to speak about it despite having done no preparation in advance (because I didn't know what the topic was going to be). More clear progress. I didn't do much stuff besides classes and prep, apart from the usual podcasts and videos; this week was really just about fighting to keep my head above water. Sadly this coming week doesn't look much more promising, and I have a load of quite involved homework to get done :(

Fitness: Just about hanging in there. My watch died on me again and failed to record a load of steps, which irritated me, and I think the app now thinks I'm down on my goal. Workouts and yoga went ok, and I got a PB in a strict press into windmill, though.
5 x

Caromarlyse
Green Belt
Posts: 387
Joined: Fri Dec 06, 2019 2:31 pm
Languages: English (N), French (C1-ish), German (B2/C1-ish), Russian (B1-ish), Portuguese (B1-ish), Welsh (complete beginner), Spanish (in hibernation)
(All levels estimates and given as a guide only)
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Re: Caromarlyse’s log (French/German/Portuguese/Russian)

Postby Caromarlyse » Sun Nov 27, 2022 7:00 pm

Another really hectic week. I'm going to have to carry over some things on my to-do list, despite having had a really busy day today trying to catch up.

French: I ended up listening and reading to quite a lot, all within the broad topic of geopolitics.

German: Just a couple of Easy German podcasts. I'm not sure how much value I derive from these when they are just chatty episodes (some of the interviews, by contrast, have been really good, with very cool guests). But they're handy to fill in commuting or walking time when I don't have much energy.

Portuguese: Another class. It was quite good again, though it still feels a bit of a strain to find the time. I did, however, start reading a new book. I've been struggling to find books, with all the modern classics of Brazilian literature being either not available at all or available only in hard copy at an extortionate price; nothing seems to be in e-book format. However, I had a brainwave, and looked at the translation of the Malcolm Gladwell book I read and enjoyed earlier this year, to see who the publisher was. I then searched for other e-books published by them. Bingo! Loads of translations from English into Portuguese of books I've heard of but have no time to read (as I try to read predominantly in languages other than English). I think I need to start making Portuguese my language-of-choice when looking for something to listen to when doing housework, etc, though, as I've been slacking and I can feel the result. I did some grammar exercises from my Whitlam book too, to consolidate what we'd touched on in class. It's revision, so not too challenging, but Portuguese definitely feels harder to come back to than French and German ever do - those decades of accumulated usage with the latter two do serve some purpose!

Russian: I've mainly focused on classes and homework, as I've had a lot to prepare and not a huge amount of free time. I had another couple of experiences of having to speak about very random stuff with zero preparation, and managed fine. Having someone speak about a picture is such a good way to test someone's vocabulary, because there's not much space to hide. Of course, a word I was searching for and couldn't find on the fly then came up on two separate occasions later on in the week...

Fitness: I'm on track to catch up with my steps goal by the end of the month. I think I would be bang on target were it not for steps not recorded :oops: I've been good with my stretching, and I've had a couple of good workouts to sandwich one bad one.
6 x

Caromarlyse
Green Belt
Posts: 387
Joined: Fri Dec 06, 2019 2:31 pm
Languages: English (N), French (C1-ish), German (B2/C1-ish), Russian (B1-ish), Portuguese (B1-ish), Welsh (complete beginner), Spanish (in hibernation)
(All levels estimates and given as a guide only)
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Re: Caromarlyse’s log (French/German/Portuguese/Russian)

Postby Caromarlyse » Thu Dec 01, 2022 8:33 am

NOVEMBER REVIEW

It was a busy-with-other-things month, but languages still went fairly well. I got back into Portuguese, though I do need to increase the amount of time I dedicate to the language, as it was still a bit light to feel any proper progress.

Monthly totals
French: 6.92 hours
German: 7.57 hours
Portuguese: 19.13 hours
Russian: 61.08 hours

Update and plans for December

French: I’ve fallen behind a bit on my personal Super Challenge. I do have some time off work in December, though, and am hoping I'll have the time and headspace to do lots of reading. I've started reading Les oubliés du dimanche by Valérie Perrin, which I will aim to finish by the end of the year.

German: Not much, really, just some podcasts. I must, must, must finish the Krimi I started months ago by the end of the year too!

Portuguese: I re-started some classes (with a new teacher). I'm definitely rusty, which is disappointing if not surprising. Everything is still there, just a bit buried :shock: The new classes are taking more of an academic approach. I'm not yet decided how I feel about this. On the one hand, one of the reasons I stopped taking classes was that they were too colloquial (I'm not all that interested in engaging with tabloid-style reporting in any language); on the other, these feel perhaps as they are going too far in the other direction. We'll see. I need to get more diligent at putting in time spent with the language, continuing to read the book I've just started (As cinco pessoas que você encontra no céu by Mitch Albom) and more podcasts. I'm continuing with the CNN podcast E tem mais as my main resource. I tried some Easy Portuguese videos now they've relaunched the channel, but so far I've found them less engaging than other content that this franchise produces in other languages.

Russian: I didn't do quite as much as in the past few months, but still a fair amount. It's definitely a nice sign of progress that all three of my current teachers describe me as a B2 student (in the sense that this is the level of materials that I need to work with). My study this month has been quite heavily skewed towards just keeping on top of homework and classes. I would still like by the end of the year to finish the first half of Russian: From Intermediate to Advanced, and the first volume of Let's Improve our Russian. And when I am off work perhaps I can finally get back to Dostoevesky in my graded reader! I did watch some Easy Russian videos, now that they too have relaunched the channel. I would definitely recommend these. There was one I found fascinating about the use of the Russian language in Riga, Latvia. There are others in the same vein that I need to watch also. The new direction that has been forced upon the channel is, I think, making for very interesting content.

Fitness: I made it to an average of 10k steps daily, but that took four walks yesterday, including a late-night walk round the block to get in the last 3k... I've also kept up with the yoga and workouts.
5 x

Caromarlyse
Green Belt
Posts: 387
Joined: Fri Dec 06, 2019 2:31 pm
Languages: English (N), French (C1-ish), German (B2/C1-ish), Russian (B1-ish), Portuguese (B1-ish), Welsh (complete beginner), Spanish (in hibernation)
(All levels estimates and given as a guide only)
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Re: Caromarlyse’s log (French/German/Portuguese/Russian)

Postby Caromarlyse » Mon Dec 05, 2022 9:28 am

For the first mini-week of the month I decided to concentrate solely on Russian - I will soon have more time (whilst at the moment everything feels a bit chaotic) and I had some absolutely terrible Russian classes in the last few days of November where I could barely formulate a sentence so I figured I needed the focus.

The focus definitely worked in that I pulled back my speaking from the brink :)

Other than that, I watched a few more Easy Russian videos. As mentioned above, I am really enjoying the new feel that the channel has. They have also just launched a podcast! I listened to the first episode whilst walking, but will need to go back and listen more attentively, because it was quite hard - I'd say a step above Russian with Max if you don't listen with any props. The full transcript for the first episode is available for free, so I'm going to work through it thoroughly soon.

I've then just been doing my homework. That has stepped up in difficulty too. I had one excerpt from a novel to read (taken from a textbook). The instructions said that there should be 5% unknown words. I found it really tough to work through, so when I was finished I thought I'd calculate my unknown word score. It was 5.3%. Just goes to show that even that figure makes reading hard going. I also have a few podcasts, videos and films to listen to/watch. I can't really complain, because it's nice to see progress in this way, but it is all very time consuming (and is making my brain hurt again!).

I'm ahead of target on steps, been doing well on workouts, and have been doing a couple of new stretching routines that have been working well.
7 x

Caromarlyse
Green Belt
Posts: 387
Joined: Fri Dec 06, 2019 2:31 pm
Languages: English (N), French (C1-ish), German (B2/C1-ish), Russian (B1-ish), Portuguese (B1-ish), Welsh (complete beginner), Spanish (in hibernation)
(All levels estimates and given as a guide only)
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Re: Caromarlyse’s log (French/German/Portuguese/Russian)

Postby Caromarlyse » Sun Dec 11, 2022 5:03 pm

I've not got a lot to report again this week - I'm just continuing limping home to the end of the year.

Some German podcasts, quite a lot of Portuguese reading (at least compared with my recent pathetic efforts), a few Russian classes. I don't feel I've got anywhere this week, but never mind.

I did manage multiple single arm clean and jerks both sides with a new 20kg toy :D

I also had a think about goals for next year, but I'm all out of inspiration at the moment.
8 x

Caromarlyse
Green Belt
Posts: 387
Joined: Fri Dec 06, 2019 2:31 pm
Languages: English (N), French (C1-ish), German (B2/C1-ish), Russian (B1-ish), Portuguese (B1-ish), Welsh (complete beginner), Spanish (in hibernation)
(All levels estimates and given as a guide only)
x 1611

Re: Caromarlyse’s log (French/German/Portuguese/Russian)

Postby Caromarlyse » Mon Dec 19, 2022 7:50 am

Made it to my holiday, but I had to leave a load of work to return to in the new year, so it didn't feel very satisfying. I would have preferred not to have done that, but I have to take the leave now or I'll lose it, and I got some surprises dumped on me that absolutely had to be finished by the end of the week, meaning what I'd hoped to get done had to be put off. Oh well, at least I know I'll be kept out of mischief in January... Now languages can have some more attention!

In the week just gone I managed to keep things ticking over.

In German, I just listened to some podcasts.

In Portuguese, I finished my book (As cinco pessoas que você encontra no céu)! I am horribly behind on my personal SC for Portuguese reading (and listening), but at least I got back into it. Reading in Portuguese is definitely a very effective way for me to get my brain able to form fluent sentences and gets me to pick up new words. (Reading in Russian does not have the same effect; I don't know whether this is because Portuguese is my second (third if we count Spanish) Romance language or whether it's because it's just more transparent.) Anyway, I've managed to go from feeling I had forgotten loads of Portuguese to feeling quite happy with it again in the space of around 35 hours. I had some classes too. In one things seem to be settling down into quite a nice rhythm now, in the other there is still a bit more "getting to know you" work to be done but the general direction is promising. For this coming week I have a long podcast and a couple of videos to listen to/watch as the basis of one class, and an essay to write for the other, so I'm back up to doing quite challenging activities with the language.

In Russian, one class got cancelled last minute, which threw me off a bit. But otherwise I spoke quite well this week (I think!). I'm definitely more comfortable than I was talking about topics without having prepared for them in advance. I did a bit of grammar on my own, trying to finish off the chapter on reflexive verbs (my current nemesis). I also did some listening. Having felt progress in listening a month or so ago, I now feel as though I'm struggling - I think that this is because I'm now demanding more of myself, rather than because I've regressed! I'm thinking that I might benefit from more intensive work with audio and transcripts, having reached a bit of a ceiling as to what I can get from fairly passive listening.

Fitness: This week really set me behind on my steps goal because there was snow then freezing temperatures, and the pavements were so treacherous that any walk took me double the amount of time that it does usually. I'm going to have to try to catch up - we now just have rain, and getting wet is not a good enough excuse not to get out and walk ;). Other than that, workouts took place as usual.
5 x

DaveAgain
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1961
Joined: Mon Aug 27, 2018 11:26 am
Languages: English (native), French & German (learning).
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... &start=200
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Re: Caromarlyse’s log (French/German/Portuguese/Russian)

Postby DaveAgain » Mon Dec 19, 2022 8:28 am

Caromarlyse wrote:This week really set me behind on my steps goal because there was snow then freezing temperatures, and the pavements were so treacherous that any walk took me double the amount of time that it does usually. I'm going to have to try to catch up - we now just have rain, and getting wet is not a good enough excuse not to get out and walk ;). Other than that, workouts took place as usual.
Rain is a big improvement over cold! :-)
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