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 Dec 13, 2021 8:36 am

Not a great week again, which impacted on language learning. No French :-(. I did finish Todesfrist and am about halfway through the next book in this German Krimi series. I think Todesfrist is the best German book I've read this year - I enjoyed it a lot. I didn't listen to as much as usual, so have been pulling my average down to under 60 minutes of German listening a day. It doesn't matter though - I've still made a lot of progress this year. I'm definitely learning vocab through seeing the same words come up repeatedly. Latest additions, off the top of my head: schmunzeln, lotsen, stutzig, mies, prangen, ragen, wagen, Drehkreuz... An aphorism that feels particularly appropriate at the moment: Das Leben ist kein Wunschkonzert...

For Portuguese I did the usual, and also quite a bit of revision. I'm trying to get a handle on how far I've come this year. Update to follow. For Russian I really just did listening - some Russian with Max videos and podcasts. I did go back and listen to something from my B1.1 textbook that I remember I struggled to understand at the beginning of the year. It now felt pretty easy. I remember then that I could barely follow it, and was very much just listening out for key words so I could try to answer the true/false exercise questions. Now I could follow it as a narrative, understand some new words in the context, and pick out other words whose meaning wasn't at the forefront of my mind but, having heard them, was clear. Definitely progress, if glacial! As I was feeling a bit down this week, I experienced some wanderlust (shiny makes you feel better, obvs), but settled for ordering some new Russian books rather than giving in to what would be a stupid decision (I'm not getting additional hours in the day or a better brain for Christmas). I'm not going to be lacking for Russian reading material, but seeing as that's going to be a focus in the new year, that can't be a bad thing!
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Sonjaconjota
Green Belt
Posts: 271
Joined: Tue Apr 13, 2021 8:12 am
Location: Barcelona
Languages: German (N) - English, Spanish, Catalan (advanced) - French, Dutch, Italian (intermediate) - Turkish (beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 24#p192024
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Re: Caromarlyse’s log (French/German/Portuguese/Russian)

Postby Sonjaconjota » Mon Dec 13, 2021 11:40 am

Caromarlyse wrote: An aphorism that feels particularly appropriate at the moment: Das Leben ist kein Wunschkonzert...

Eine schöne Variante ist "Das Leben ist kein Ponyhof."
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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 » Tue Dec 14, 2021 8:22 am

Sonjaconjota wrote:
Caromarlyse wrote: An aphorism that feels particularly appropriate at the moment: Das Leben ist kein Wunschkonzert...

Eine schöne Variante ist "Das Leben ist kein Ponyhof."


Danke. Ausdrücke lernen gefällt mir. Diese Variante ist ja schön und sogar süßer, aber ich meine, dass die erste irgendwie passender ist, von mir aus auf jedem Fall. Sie drückt besser das Gefühl aus, dass das Leben außer meiner Kontrolle geraten ist! Und erinnert mich an das, was mir als Kind immer wieder gesagt wurde: “‘I want’ doesn’t get”!
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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 Dec 20, 2021 8:44 am

Another late and brief update.

German: I finished Todesurteil by Andreas Gruber. The storyline was a bit farfetched and I didn't enjoy it as much as the previous book, but it was still a decent enough read and it served the purpose of getting me hooked enough to get through 600-odd pages in 10 days or so. I also listened to some podcasts, but my listening has slowed down a bit.

French: As my goal for the month was to read two German books and one French, and as I have now completed the German ones, I started a French book. I chose L'anomalie - we'll see what all the fuss is about! I'm not far enough in yet to have an opinion. It does feel harder going than reading in German; I hope the rust will wear off my French soon.

Portuguese: All the normal stuff! I am thinking I need to get more input next year and have signed up for a Globoplay account and have been rummaging around there, trying to decide whether a subscription would be worth it. If anyone had any experience here, do let me know!

Russian: I've been thinking about plans for this language too, and realised how much my oral ability has dropped off since I've stopped having lessons, as well as how much fear I'm harbouring from bad experiences this year. I figured that neither of these things would be fixed through inaction, so I bit the bullet and have found a new teacher to try (albeit not until after Christmas, so I have some - hopefully - quiet time to prepare). All the omens are good so far, but I'm staying non-committal so I don't get too disappointed if it doesn't work out! I do have a plan B and C if A is no good for me ;-)
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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 » Fri Dec 24, 2021 10:51 am

I'll do a quick update now because I think the next few days are going to be pretty free of language learning, and the next update will be the mega, end-of-year one ;-).

French: I haven't read any more of L'Anomalie! This is something I'm taking with me to family so when I get bored (...) I can pull it out. I need to just push through - once I get into it, it'll get easier.

German: Just the odd podcast and video here and there.

Portuguese: Although I still have ups and downs with speaking, I've definitely felt a jump in my average level over the past month or so. I also wrote something with no mistakes in it at all :-). I've not done anything about Globoplay yet, but yesterday I found a list of Brazilian stuff on Netflix and Amazon Prime, and am thinking I should exhaust what I already pay for before shelling out even more...!

Russian: I've been continuing going through one Russian with Max podcast a week, along with the transcript. I can't say I'm noticing immediate improvements, but am hoping they'll come if I can continue doing this consistently each week. I've also been revising some things. I got the assessment back from the teacher whose first lesson with me is coming up next week - I got over 95% in what was a B1 test, so there's no problem with my passive knowledge. (Btw, especially @radioclare, the official B1 tests are so much simpler than what the B1.1/2 textbooks we have require you to do!) My active abilities leave a lot to be desired though, and I'm starting to panic about the forthcoming lesson. CEFR levels can be a bit odd - when I went back to German at the beginning of 2020, I started from the beginning of B2 material, even though I could already at that point listen to and read native-level content pretty fluidly. Now I'm theoretically at around the same point with Russian, but I feel I can do a whole lot less/am nowhere near as comfortable. I suppose it's because each level covers so much ground, and once you're no longer a complete beginner, there are so many variables where you can be better or worse than some kind of average level. I suspect it may also be that I am always far better in anything that is not speaking, so perhaps the German teacher I had could have pushed me more and just accepted my speaking was going to lag a bit. Anyway, after the family time this weekend, I'm going to have to have a bit of a drive to get at least some Russian back in my head!
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Radioclare
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Languages: Speaks: English (N), Esperanto, German, Croatian
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Re: Caromarlyse’s log (French/German/Portuguese/Russian)

Postby Radioclare » Sun Dec 26, 2021 7:49 pm

Caromarlyse wrote:I got the assessment back from the teacher whose first lesson with me is coming up next week - I got over 95% in what was a B1 test, so there's no problem with my passive knowledge. (Btw, especially @radioclare, the official B1 tests are so much simpler than what the B1.1/2 textbooks we have require you to do!)


Wow, well done on the 95%! That's reassuring to know re the official tests; the tests in the B1.1 textbook were so hard that I haven't been able to face opening the B1.2 book :D
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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 » Wed Dec 29, 2021 2:26 pm

Radioclare wrote:
Caromarlyse wrote:I got the assessment back from the teacher whose first lesson with me is coming up next week - I got over 95% in what was a B1 test, so there's no problem with my passive knowledge. (Btw, especially @radioclare, the official B1 tests are so much simpler than what the B1.1/2 textbooks we have require you to do!)


Wow, well done on the 95%! That's reassuring to know re the official tests; the tests in the B1.1 textbook were so hard that I haven't been able to face opening the B1.2 book :D


Yeah, numbers and verbs of motion at the start of the B1.2 book scared me off. It'll be *interesting* to see what this new teacher makes of my Russian "live" tomorrow...
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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 » Thu Dec 30, 2021 1:46 pm

I'm going to post my end-of-year update now, because I've decided I want a break tomorrow. It will be in several parts, as I seem to have written a lot...

PART ONE - FRENCH
We’ll start with the language in which I have made the least effort!

Statistics first. I’ve kept a spreadsheet of all my language learning this year. Whilst it’s obviously not necessary to do so, I’ve found keeping a record to be fairly painless, and it’s quite interesting to look back. I’ve got better at not attaching value to the numbers, and just observing them with interest.

TOTAL: 77.83 hours
OF WHICH: 39.98 hours listening/watching and 36.1 hours reading (the remainder made up of a token glance at a coursebook ;-))

I read:
Code 93 and Territoires, both by Olivier Norek
Chaque mot est un oiseau que l’on apprend à chanter by Daniel Tammet
Le liseur du 6h27 by Jean-Paul Didierlaurent *** my favourite book of the year ***
Le français dans tous les sens by Henriette Walter (part read only)
Articles from L’Express and Courrier International
L’Anomalie by Hervé Le Tellier (started)

I watched/listened to various bits and pieces, including Lupin on Netflix, 28 minutes on Arte, and various podcasts.

All in all, I didn’t do a huge amount. The problem is that I haven’t really got into anything properly that has served to keep pulling me back to the language. The result is that the language is starting to feel more foreign to me, which I really don’t like either! So, my plan is to bring French back as more of a focus (subject to the important caveat that both French and German will be pushed aside for my other two languages this year and will only be done in cooking/cleaning/walking/relaxation time). I have had a snowball effect with German this year, whereby once I’ve found a couple of things I like, they’ve made reference to other things, which I’ve then also enjoyed. The podcasts I have in my current feed obviously haven’t been working for me, so I’m going to try out the following new (to me) podcasts:

    Le Monde diplomatique
    Géopolitique, le débat
    Affaires sensibles
    Du grain à moudre
    Planète terre
    Conflits
    Géopolitis

Most of these are taken from a list of podcasts “qui vont vous rendre encore plus intelligents”... We’ll see! As mentioned, I will listen to these only either when I am on a walk or when cooking or cleaning, because I need proper study time to be reserved for my newer languages.

I’m also going to try to read one (modern) French novel a month (as relaxation - by which I mean I should still be able to do this after a heavy “brain” day at work). I need to remember that reading the news (in English) in the evening is - especially at the moment - not a very uplifting or relaxing thing to do, and there is no reason I can’t read in a foreign language in that time slot instead! I need to finish L’Anomalie, which will therefore be the January read.
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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 » Thu Dec 30, 2021 1:48 pm

PART TWO - GERMAN
TOTAL: 512.78 hours
OF WHICH: 344.48 watching/listening and 155.83 reading (the rest made up of bits and bobs)

Listening to German for an hour a day was a success, in that I was very consistent with it. I didn’t quite get the hour a day, but I wasn’t far off. I mainly fell off the wagon in December. I also got very close to the arbitrary total hours target I set myself of 540 hours in the year. I was going to binge read some German to make the target, but I needed to sort my Russian out (see below), and I decided it would be a bit silly to make study decisions solely based on a goal I’d plucked out of thin air earlier this year.

I read:
Eisenberg, Eifersucht, Wolfsschlucht, Schwarzwasser, Totensonntag, Prinzessinnenmörder, Schafkopf, Karwoche, Schwarze Piste, Tote Hand, and Unterm Schinder, all by Andreas Föhr
Erntedank by Volker Klüpfel and Michael Kobr
Todesfrist and Todesurteil by Andreas Gruber
That takes me to 180% of a super challenge for German reading.

I barely did any active German study, though. Again, I have somewhat mixed views. I’m definitely feeling comfortable both when listening to and reading German. When a new word comes up, it tends both to stick out and then to be quite sticky in my memory. So, for example, I was listening to a podcast recently that was talking about Olaf Scholz’s first meeting with Emmanuel Macron. It described Scholz as “spröde”. I felt as though that word got embedded in my brain almost immediately, together with a picture of the encounter that the podcast had been describing. In addition, the reading I am doing, where I am getting engrossed in, and whizzing through, books that I am enjoying, really feels to be a replica of my English reading as a teenager, which didn’t work out too badly! It really has been a revelation that I can love reading German - I had been put off by school/university German curricula making me read texts that were worthy but difficult.

However, I do feel that I am not challenging myself/making myself work hard in the same way that you would do in a more rigorous study setting. I must be glossing over things. It’s also a very passive approach; I have not focused on active skills at all this year. Having said that, do I mind, and will I be changing anything for 2022? No! With a lot of quantity and over time, I suspect my understanding is going to improve anyway, albeit more slowly than if I were actively studying also. I enjoy what I am doing now, so it will be easy to continue, even if life gets busier. I don’t need German to be active at the moment, I know from past experience that it will come back pretty fluently after a week or so in the country, and a larger passive well to draw from will ultimately be useful for active skills. I also have made the choice to learn Portuguese and Russian, which means I don’t have the time that working more actively on German would require. I’m also happy for this to be a long-term (life!) project.

So, in conclusion: I am going to have another year of focusing on German listening and reading: all the usual suspects in terms of podcasts and videos will appear, I’ll finish my current Krimi series, and then (probably) use Krimi-Couch.de to find suggestions of what to move on to. You never know, I might actually read a series of books by an author whose first name is not Andreas! I am going to revitalise my podcast list here too, trying the following, which are all from Austria:

    Voices of conflicts (in German, despite the name)
    Ganz offen gesagt
    Alexandria
    Erklär mir die Welt
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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 » Thu Dec 30, 2021 1:51 pm

PART THREE - PORTUGUESE
TOTAL: 441.08 hours
OF WHICH:
- 100 hours of classes
- 170.32 hours of homework
- 38.7 hours on a coursebook
- 44 hours of focused grammar study
- 11.1 hours of reading
- 67.6 hours of listening/watching
- 9.37 hours of focused vocabulary study

My year goal was 420 hours total, which I’ve surpassed.

I find it a bit difficult to assess where I’ve come this year with the language, because I have not been following a set course with my teacher, but have instead covered a load of grammar and then just focused on different topics, supported by various native materials and some handouts from different learner manuals. It has been a great experience, with a really good mix of feeling comfortable and being pushed to progress. Judging by the Gramática Ativa books, I’ve covered all grammar up to the end of B1 and a lot of grammar beyond that (all the subjunctive stuff), and I’d say B1 is probably about where I am in terms of vocab covered too. My self-assessment is I am a fairly solid user of the language across the board, albeit with loads of mistakes and pauses when speaking. I think I can speak more fluidly than I can in Russian, but I think my vocabulary might actually be better in Russian. What I think I need now, beyond my classes, is lots of input.

I’m conscious that I don’t want to overload myself, so I think maybe a watching goal will fit in nicely here. As mentioned previously, I’ve signed up for Globoplay and am still considering paying for a subscription. I might for a month, as it would allow me to start a novela, and I think watching that is something I should be able to fit in quite easily. But I'm wavering because of the cost. Still TBD. I also need to continue with reading, even if it’s just half an hour a few times a week.
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