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 Apr 19, 2021 5:42 am

eido wrote:That's a bit odd indeed. You'd think they'd have more examples than that. But I find, with my many explorations of texts (and courses) meant for the learning of language, that time is hard to learn from a book. It's much easier to learn from the Internet (which we wonderfully have access to nowadays) where there's the possibility of there being language tutors and exchanges and exercises to help you along. I know I always do better with practical application. Maybe you're the same way. I think the number seems accurate if you're ambitious or know a related language.


The number of examples wasn't so much of a problem as the lack of any kind of initial exposition/explanation. Schaum's sorted me out. Going through this textbook is only one part of what I'm doing, and I get plenty of practical application separately too, so it's not really a problem; I just thought that this was a bit of a flaw with the book's design.

In relation to the number, my reaction to it remains that it is a wild underestimation, primarily based on (1) what is in the official RFL B1 exam syllabus (and hence in courses designed to prepare you for that, whether or not you end up taking an exam); (2) the time I've invested to date compared with where I am now; and (3) the intensity of the time I've invested - I've not been in the country, true, and don't treat it as my full-time job by any means, but I've had a lot of 1:1 instruction and studied on my own, both in ways I'd consider to have been very efficient and effective. I wasn't commenting on what could be achieved in different hypothetical situations - because I think the pro and contra arguments of such a discussion have already been aired quite fully elsewhere, and agreement is never possible ;-)
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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 Apr 26, 2021 9:20 am

I'll update because another week has gone by, but I don't have much to say.

I’ve finally been reading in German again! Admittedly not what I’d intended to read, but there we go. I found a suitably light novel to borrow, and am about halfway through Andreas Foehr’s Wolfsschlucht. It is part of a series, but the series as a whole wasn’t available, so I figured I’d have to read it as a standalone. It’s the kind of page turner I needed. I’ve also continued doing my hour a day of listening. I was very upset that the Lage der Nation podcast episode wasn't released as per its normal schedule - it appears to have become a weekend "thing" for me to listen to the latest episode. It has now appeared, and it's a bumper two hours long! I'll have to do a lot of cleaning on top of my walk today to get through it all...

Other than that, I don’t have a lot to report. Portuguese and Russian have just kept going on their normal tracks. I've felt a bit stressed about them, to be honest, but I've been feeling stressed generally (work, pandemic...), which definitely doesn't help. Onwards!
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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 » Sat May 01, 2021 7:27 am

APRIL REVIEW
French: I had planned to read one book, but didn’t (I actually forgot I’d set this as a goal, though I also lost all motivation to read this month so it might have been deliberate amnesia). I didn’t touch French at all, though that was kind of deliberate mid-month, once I realised I was lacking time and wanted to spend the time I had on my other languages.

German: I kept up the one hour per day of podcasts. I found myself laughing out loud to part of Lage der Nation - I don’t think it was meant to be funny, but somehow I found an analogy made between a long-departed guinea pig who used to hide just its head and think it was safe, and a German politician putting his head in the sand, hilarious. I also - just (finishing at 11pm yesterday, which is a late night for me) - read one book. I’m now 95% through the reading part of the German super challenge I’m kind of following very unofficially. Given my successes with reading books by Andreas Foehr, I have another one of his lined up to read next. So much for my pile of books to get through this year! But it’s either that or nothing, so I’ll go for it. German got a total of just over 42.5 hours of love this month from me.

Portuguese: This kind of took over this month. I’m getting more invested, and couldn’t keep away! My goal was classes + homework, and I’ve definitely met that. I’d say I also went above and beyond in terms of effort spent on the outside-of-class work. So I classified as "homework" reading articles on topics in preparation for class, for example. Total hours: just over 48 (it felt significantly more than German, even though the numbers are around the same, because it involved a much higher percentage of actual “study”).

Russian: Just over 44 hours this month. Below the peak of last month, but on a par with January and February, so within expectations. I met my classes + homework goal and also finished both chapters 5 and 6 of my textbook. I’m now done with my B1.1 textbook, apart from one story at the back and the sample exam. Some of the structures and vocabulary are becoming more automatic, but there’s still a lot I’ve definitely not retained. I went back and tried writing something using the vocabulary from one chapter, which perhaps kind of helped, though it seems to take an awful lot of repetition before things stick. I don’t think I’m doing anything wrong per se; it’s more a question of time and not getting too disheartened so I stay positive enough that I continue to be willing to spend that time! My lack of attention span for reading meant I didn’t read anything from an English book about Russia.

Overall, a third of the way through the year, I'm 35/34/36% through the hours targets for the year I arbitrarily set for myself for each of German, Portuguese, and Russian respectively (let's not speak about French...).

NEXT MONTH
Promises to be quite busy with work. I’m going to continue ignoring French. Other than that:
German: same old: one book, one hour of listening a day. I *might* try to complete chapter 1 of Erkundungen C1, but that’s very much a secondary goal, if I have the time/inclination.
Portuguese: classes + homework should be enough, as together these things are now taking up more time. I would, however, also like to get in, say, 30 minutes of listening a day - I realised I could follow a CNN (Brazilian) news podcast well enough that it felt I could get something out of listening to it when doing something else (my main, effortless way of finding “study” time), so it would be good to get into the habit of putting this on once I’ve done my hour of German listening.
Russian: classes + homework + some intensive reading (I have a collection of short texts so no excuses!) + podcasts/video as and when they appear from Russian with Max and Russian Progress.
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Hash
White Belt
Posts: 33
Joined: Mon May 18, 2020 3:17 pm
Languages: Arabic (N)
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Re: Caromarlyse’s log (French/German/Portuguese/Russian)

Postby Hash » Sat May 01, 2021 1:50 pm

Can you recommend your favorite Russian podcasts for beginners?
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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 » Sat May 01, 2021 5:39 pm

Hash wrote:Can you recommend your favorite Russian podcasts for beginners?

In a word, no! I just listen to the two I mentioned above, but they wouldn't work for complete beginners. I don't tend to listen to podcasts until I can at least follow along with the gist of a fairly lengthy piece of audio.
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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 May 03, 2021 6:43 pm

A very quick "end of week" update. It should have come yesterday, but today's the end of a long holiday weekend, and yesterday I didn't have much to report. Not that I have much more today! I've basically done two-thirds of my usual study over the past three days, which has chiefly comprised of listening to podcasts. I've started adding in Portuguese ones - I definitely miss A LOT, but I don't think it's a complete waste of what is dead time anyway, so I'll keep it up. I - and my teacher - have noticed a tiny bit of improvement in my Russian listening, so that's something too. Other than that, I feel as I've been off the boil a bit in terms of language study; the work week (and bad weather!) should bring a routine back.
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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 May 10, 2021 11:16 am

Late again with my update!

German has continued with lots of podcasts and lots of reading. I’m about three quarters of the way through Schwarzwasser by Andreas Foehr. This is actually the last in a series, but I’ve only read the last two as earlier ones were not available to borrow. I’ve been enjoying them, though, and I see they’re available to buy as e-books, so I might do that next. They’ll be good reading on holiday (at home!) in the sunshine (if it ever comes!) books. This actually now takes me to a full super challenge in German, though I’m not registered, so this is unofficial. In terms of progress, I can’t say I really *feel* that much beyond that German is very comfortable and familiar for me. Though I just did the Dialang listening test to get a baseline now and got a C1, which was quite pleasing. I got 100% in the “drawing inferences” section, one wrong in the “identifying the main idea” section, and two wrong in the “identifying detail” section. It seems about right; it correlated with my self-assessment and the placement test in any event. I might do more of these at some point, but they definitely take time and energy!

Portuguese has again got quite a lot of attention. As I decided upon last week, I listened to some podcasts when walking/doing housework. My comprehension seems to fluctuate quite a lot, even when listening to the same podcast talking about the same kind of stuff. It’s definitely on the low side, but I suppose it’s useful exposure when I’ve got nothing better to do. I also prepared flashcards of all the unknown vocab from Gramática Ativa 1. This includes just over 400 cards. It only took me an hour and a half to go through these - got to love how fast it is compared with Russian! (For reference, 100 Russian cards, which I’d already “learned” a few months ago, took me an hour.) I still hate flashcards, but at least for Portuguese they are not too painful, and it does seem to be a fairly useful activity to do before a class, because the words then come to my mind when I need to use them. Class has involved lots of useful speaking practice, and I’ve done quite a bit of writing for homework.

Russian is Russian! I’ve started reading a book. I’ve listened to podcasts and watched some videos. Classes have continued. I’ve felt overwhelmed again but I continue to plod! I’ve also, as mentioned, started to go through some flashcards to revive some vocabulary I learnt but only partially remembered, as I will need it for class. Maybe it’ll stick better the second time around... I might also make a start with my B1.2 textbook - I know I said I’d revise book 1 before doing the test, but I seem to have Russian closer to hand in my brain when I’m doing exercises from a textbook regularly. I can always circle back later.
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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 May 16, 2021 4:35 pm

German has got quite a lot of attention this week. I’ve started the first book in the series by Andreas Foehr that I recently discovered and liked. I also realised that there are more books in this series than I’d thought - there appear to be nine now, including one only very recently published. That should keep me going for a while! It was good to be able to borrow some of the books from mid-way through the series, but I have always found it a bit irritating that libraries never seem to hold a full collection of a series, so if you get properly interested, there’s no getting round buying the missing ones for yourself. In this case, I wasn’t able to start from the beginning, so at some point, when reading them in order, I’ll have to decide whether to re-read the ones I started with. Such big problems to have :roll: I also did my usual listening and even some work out of Erkundungen C1. One study session went really well, and then the second one went pretty badly - my brain just didn’t seem to have engaged, as I was making really silly mistakes. Oh well. I might get through the first chapter this month, but there are quite a few chunky writing exercises, so we’ll see how it goes.

Portuguese has also gone well. I’ve mainly spent my time preparing thoroughly for class, as there was a lot to do if I wanted to do it properly. It paid off in the “performance”, so it was a good decision. A couple of second-hand books I’d ordered also arrived this week, so I have Whitlam’s grammar exercises to start working through, as well as the Cambridge Using Portuguese book. I’ve already “used” the Cambridge books in the distant past for German and French, but I think I’m a bit more diligent now, so I might actually have a chance of going through this thoroughly! The lists of synonyms for common adjectives look really helpful, and I like the notation as to the register of words and whereabouts in the lusophone world they are used. I bought a new notebook yesterday for the express purpose of doing the Whitlam grammar exercises in it, and plan to start doing those as and when a spare half hour can be found/made. I’ve definitely skipped over some of the basics, so drilling, for example, gender and plural forms will be useful.

Russian has fallen off a bit, just because it’s hard and therefore I’ve been avoiding it slightly... Though actually, looking at my numbers (of minutes spent), so far this month I’ve done more than half the amount of work I did on Russian for all previous months this year, bar March, so I think it feels worse than it has actually been. I tried some grammar exercises yesterday, thinking I usually like doing them, but they were on verbs of motion… I can’t always understand why a particular verb is correct when I see the answer, so I just ended up frustrated. I have written something today that’s allowed some revision of vocabulary I’d already covered plus some new stuff, which went ok I think, so it's not all bad!
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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 May 23, 2021 7:38 pm

German: This week I finished Totensonntag by Andreas Föhr. I’m now 111% of the way through the super challenge. I think a double challenge by the end of the year would be difficult, but I should get a good way there. I’m reading extensively, though now that I’ve moved onto e-books, I can’t help myself from looking more words up. I’ve also continued with the hour a day (in fact more) of listening. I’m going to add some Austrian podcasts in, because I feel I’m getting a little too comfortable. I also did a bit more work from Erkundungen C1. I'm only going through it slowly but that's fine.

Portuguese: I did the exercises from one chapter of the Whitlam grammar book, but other than that, I think everything’s been classes and homework. I’m definitely being challenged to stay outside my comfort zone!

Russian: Writing has continued to go quite well - I think the Я люблю русский язык B1 books are very good at providing natural language, which then sounds good when you adapt it and use it in your own writing. I just need to try to memorise the *** stuff so I don’t need to stop and look up every second word! I also did a bit from the book on my own. I decided to leave verbs of motion for the time being and instead tried declensions of numerals. It was ok, but quite a key explanation was missing (how you decide which case the noun after the numeral should be in). I’ve since seen it is included in Schaum’s, so I will study that when I am feeling fresh. I guess this is what you get with a textbook designed for classroom use. Overall, though, I do think the textbooks are well done and helpful.
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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 May 31, 2021 6:46 pm

I would quite like this year to stop being a horrible one, but despite various stresses and stressors, which seem to keep on coming, I have generally still got language learning in, so that’s something. But I’m tired and run down tonight, so this is going to be a subdued update, and I'm not going to set goals for June tonight.

German: I seem to have done an awful lot of German, almost 60 hours this month, to be precise. I’ve listened to a lot of podcasts and I am speeding through another Krimi. With this kind of work, the minutes and hours can really pile up quickly. I’ve not got chapter 1 of Erkundungen C1 done, though. This is the one area I have where reality bites: there is simply a limited amount of time for “proper” study, and German is suffering at the expense of Russian and Portuguese. I am ok with this compromise, though, and it is not as though this is not a project that I can take forward in the future, and the base I am building now can only help. In terms of my concrete goals for the month, I overshot both the reading and listening goals, and I always knew the sit-down study “goal” was an aspiration, not a real goal.

Portuguese: Just over 43 hours and all good - lots of pushing out of the comfort zone, and I feel as though I’m learning lots. It’s so nice also to hear/read some words and actually remember them without too much effort! I didn’t listen to quite as much Portuguese as I’d aimed to try to do, but I did listen to around 6.5 hours in total over the month, so not too bad. I also listened to a lot of Brazilian music, which I didn’t count in the totals.

Russian: Almost 45 hours and also really just more of the same. I completed my goals apart from the reading one... I try and then think I’m getting nowhere and give up. Must try harder, I guess?
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