2020: Learn Hard With a Vengeance [DE, ZH, ES, KO, GD]

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LunaMoonsilver
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Re: 2020: Learn Hard With a Vengeance [DE, ZH, ES, KO, GD]

Postby LunaMoonsilver » Sun Apr 26, 2020 8:51 pm

P O D C A S T S
Thought I'd put together a list of podcasts I've started collecting for the Super Challenge, in case anyone else is looking for some too. Considering my levels in each language: the German ones are mostly just entertainment for native speakers; all the others will most likely be for learners of varying levels (though there's at least one ambitious Spanish one in there). If you all think I'm missing any I should know about, please tell me! Although I'm not commuting anymore (/right now), I listen to podcasts daily so they're gonna be a verrrrrry important part of my audio requirements.

(Note: all links will take you to Spotify, as that's where I get my podcasts! You can also search any of these names on Apple/wherever else you get yours. Text after the links are taken from the descriptions on Spotify, too.)

German
Austrian True Crime Duo - Hey, unsere Namen sind Tami und Marina! Wir sind zwei Freundinnen aus Wien, Österreich und haben ein gemeinsames Hobby: True Crime! Da die Auswahl an österreichischen True Crime Podcasts nicht besonders groß ist, haben wir uns gedacht wir nehmen uns es zum Ziel euch österreichische Verbrechen aber natürlich auch die Klassiker näher zu bringen! Wir hoffen es gefällt euch!

Mordlust - Im True Crime-Podcast "Mordlust - Verbrechen und ihre Hintergründe" sprechen Paulina und Laura über wahre Kriminalfälle aus Deutschland. In jeder Folge widmen sich die Reporterinnen zwei Fällen zu einem spezifischen Thema und diskutieren strafrechtliche und psychologische Aspekte. Dabei gehen sie Fragen nach wie: Was sind die Schwierigkeiten bei einem Indizienprozess? Wie überredet man einen Unschuldigen zu einem falschen Geständnis? Und wie häte die Tat verhindern werden können? Mord aus Habgier, niedrigen Beweggründen oder Mordlust - für die meisten Verbrechen gibt es eine Erklärung und nach der suchen die beiden. Außerdem diskutieren die Freundinnen über beliebte True Crime-Formate, begleiten Gerichtsprozesse und führen Interviews mit Experten. Bei "Mordlust" wird auch mal gelacht, das ist aber nie despektierlich gemeint!

Pen & Paper - Kurzabenteuer von Hauke und den vier Jungs. Hier findet ihr die kleinen Shorties, die Hauke sich ausgedacht hat um den Bohnen nach BEARDS eine kleine aber spannende Atempause zu gönnen. Das bedeutet aber nicht, dass es nicht absolut episch werden kann.

Stay Forever - Ein Podcast über die aufregenden Games der 80er und 90er Jahre. Begleitet uns auf archäologische Expeditionen und pustet mit uns vorsichtig den Staub der Jahre von wunderbaren alten PC- und Videospielen. Es sprechen, in wechselnden Konstellationen, Gunnar Lott, Christian Schmidt und Fabian Käufer.

Trek am Dienstag - Der Star-Trek-Podcast mit Simon und Sebastian. Jede Woche eine neue Episode, von 1966 bis ins 24. Jahrhundert.

True Crime Austria - In True Crime Austria informieren Katharina und Hubertus euch über die spannendsten Kriminalfälle Österreichs. Verbrechen, die bis heute bewegen - die Schicksale der Opfer und die Motive der Täter. Wahre Geschichten faszinieren. In diesem Podcast zeigen sie sich kurios, schockierend, begleitet von großen Schlagzeilen oder auch mal abseits des Blitzlichts.

WIMAF - Wiedersehen macht Freude - In "Wiedersehen macht Freude" laden sich Maria Lorenz und Nilz Bokelberg Leute ein, die sie toll finden, um mit ihnen Filme zu besprechen, die sie vielleicht mal toll fanden. Dabei haben sie es sich zur Aufgabe gemacht, verschiedene Filmreihen im Laufe des Podcasts komplett durchzuarbeiten. Mal sehen, was ihre Gäste davon halten...und wie weit sie kommen.

Mandarin
ChinesePod - ChinesePod makes learning Mandarin fun and easy. It isn't your typical language learning resource—we think you'll entertained as well!

Speak Chinese Naturally - Learn Chinese (Mandarin) - As a native Chinese speaker, a language lover, a qualified language teacher, I would like to help those people who want to speak Chinese naturally without any fear, any insecurity or any doubt. It will also help you to improve your listening, reading and writing skills as well as your pronunciation. Through this podcast you will learn the REAL Chinese, Chinese that we use in our daily life. You will get to know more about the Chinese cultural, the customs, idioms and slang, tons of tips for learning and more.

听故事学中文 Learning Chinese through Stories - Using >99% target language, 听故事学中文Learning Chinese through Stories(LCTS) creates authentic and immersive podcasts to help learners around the world develop Chinese language skills and cultural competency. It covers a wide range of topics and proficiency levels. Every story has two parts: story (A) and story explanation (B), accompanied by annotated vocabulary and transcript.

Spanish
Beginner Spanish with Spanish Obsessed - Beginner Spanish from Rob and Liz of Spanish Obsessed. Couple Liz and Rob (Colombian and English) teach and discuss a range of Spanish phrases, vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation - giving you the real Spanish as it's used around the world today. Engaging and lively conversation around a range of topics, equipping you with the Spanish you need to navigate through a variety of situations, from ordering different types of coffee to telling your significant [other] you love them in 6 different ways!

Duolingo Spanish Podcast - True stories for English speakers learning Spanish. From the makers of Duolingo, the most popular language-learning app, comes a new podcast that delivers fascinating real-life stories in easy-to-understand Spanish with English narration. These are not language lessons; they're life lessons through language.

Hablamos Alemañol - En "Hablamos Alemañol" nos referimos a curiosidades del impacto social y cultural de los hispanos que viven en Alemania, Austria y Suiza. De una forma amen con invitados especiales hablamos sobre los detalles que hacen única y divertida la experiencia de mezclar diferentes estilos de vida. Ya sean de primera, segunda o tercera generación, las diferencias culturales están en los detalles. Tenemos varios invitados que nos cuentan sobre su llegada y cómo navegan el día a día en un país nuevo. El show donde hablamos sobre las diferencias culturales en la región alemana desde otro punto de vista.

Korean
Talk To Me In Korean - Core Korean Grammar - Learn to speak Korean with bite-sized Korean lessons with Hyunwoo and Kyeong-eun from TalkToMeInKorean.com! Start from Level 1 if you are an absolute beginner, and start from whichever level that fits your current Korean level and start learning for free!

Scottish Gaelic
A' Chrannag - Pod-chraoladh Geàrr-fhicsean Gàidhlig | Podcast of new short fiction in Scots Gaelic.

Beag air Bheag - Prògram do luchd-ionnsachaidh na Gàidhlig le Iain Urchardan. John Urquhard guides learners through some of the intricacies of the Gaelic language.

An Litir Bhaeg - Sreath de litrichean don fheadhainn a tha a' toiseachadh air Gaidhlig ionnsachadh. Series of letters written for people starting to learn Gaelic.

Litir do Luchd-ionnsachaidh - Sreath de litrichean Gàidhlig a bheir taic do luchd-ionnsachaidh na cànain. Series of letters written in Gaelic to aid people in learning the language.
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pronouns: she/her

: 31 / 365 365-Day Language Challenge; de, zh, es

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LunaMoonsilver
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Re: 2020: Learn Hard With a Vengeance [DE, ZH, ES, KO, GD]

Postby LunaMoonsilver » Sun Apr 26, 2020 11:10 pm

26th April 2020 / Day 117

Still flying through the BSL course. Am going to run back through it all once I'm done of course, but got 100% on the assessment for unit 5, which was all about family members/describing people. Also included some signs for different sexualities and marital statuses, which I do not remember learning last time around! I started unit 6 too, likes and dislikes. There's another few pages of signs for hobbies I'll have to learn but they do seem to be getting easier. I looked up the price of BSL lessons on iTalki the other day too but could only find one tutor, so that's a potential thing for me to do this summer. :D

Did a little Spanish after leaving my podcast list here too; I'm not that into the Duolingo leagues but I've pushed through the stories this week to try and move myself up (and because, for some reason, though I'd done up to set ten, I'd somehow missed out set four and five? Idk how that happened but there we go).

Spanish
18 mins Duolingo
5 mins Memrise

BSL
31 mins BSL

Total: 54 mins (1,601 mins / 10,950 mins)
3 x
pronouns: she/her

: 31 / 365 365-Day Language Challenge; de, zh, es

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LunaMoonsilver
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Re: 2020: Learn Hard With a Vengeance [DE, ZH, ES, KO, GD]

Postby LunaMoonsilver » Mon Apr 27, 2020 10:35 pm

27th April 2020 / Day 118

Had a good language day today! I set myself some goals yesterday to get through before May (mostly clearing up Memrise reviews and starting to set a better habit for studying) so I've had something to focus on in my work breaks/this evening. Means I got everything done early, too!

Revisited my Spanish textbook and managed to complete the quiz from the lesson I was working on... a couple of months ago, I think. I did manage to remember how to conjugate gerunds but forgot some of the vocabulary, so going to have to go back over that one. For Mandarin, I'm just re-working my way through NPCR 4—my final year uni textbook from uh six years ago :shock:—and I'm going to do a quick re-visit of Aonad 1 and 2 from Teach Yourself Scottish Gaelic. For Korean, I'm diving right back into the second lesson from the Living Language textbook; I've already gone through the first one twice before and if there's anything I drastically don't get, I'll nip back and look.

Aside from that, I found that Audible have set up a free audiobook selection for the duration of the coronavirus situation (or whatever duration they've chosen; I don't know) that has titles available in six different languages, iirc. There's the first Harry Potter up there, at least, in English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, and Japanese. Might be worth looking at if anyone's struggling to find content for the Super Challenge (or in general).

Oh, and, learnt a new Mandarin idiom: 贪多嚼不烂 - to bite off more than you can chew!

Mandarin
14 mins Memrise
16 mins NPCR (L39)

Spanish
6 mins Duolingo
5 mins Memrise
25 mins Living Language (L7/8)

Korean
7 mins Memrise
21 mins Living Language (L2)

Scottish Gaelic
12 mins Duolingo
17 mins Teach Yourself (L1)

BSL
31 mins online course

Total: 154 mins (1,755 mins / 11,104 mins)
4 x
pronouns: she/her

: 31 / 365 365-Day Language Challenge; de, zh, es

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LunaMoonsilver
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Re: 2020: Learn Hard With a Vengeance [DE, ZH, ES, KO, GD]

Postby LunaMoonsilver » Tue Apr 28, 2020 11:40 pm

28th April 2020 / Day 119

So apparently I'd forgotten how long it took me to write anything out in Mandarin. I'm copying out the texts from NPCR for practice but am not getting tons done in the 15-or-so minutes I give myself on each language. :lol: Hopefully, I'll get a bit faster again with time. Well into the second Korean unit, though I'm going to have to go over the text again a couple of times. And I managed to remember almost everything from the dialogue from Aonad 2 of Teach Yourself, though I'm going to have a quick run through the exercises from that tomorrow before I move on.

I also did the BSL unit 6 assessment today! Got 95% (again, one I forgot—which was also the sign for again :lol: ) so I've moved onto unit 7, which is all about time signs. I feel like I'm picking everything up (again) quickly but I won't know until I have to put any of it into practice. I'm enjoying it, though!

Mandarin
5 mins Memrise
18 mins NPCR

Spanish
5 mins Memrise
17 mins Living Language

Korean
20 mins Living Language

Scottish Gaelic
11 mins Duolingo
28 mins Teach Yourself

BSL
31 mins online course

Total: 135 mins (1,890 mins / 11,239 mins)
2 x
pronouns: she/her

: 31 / 365 365-Day Language Challenge; de, zh, es

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LunaMoonsilver
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Re: 2020: Learn Hard With a Vengeance [DE, ZH, ES, KO, GD]

Postby LunaMoonsilver » Wed Apr 29, 2020 11:49 pm

29th April 2020 / Day 120

Not sure if the lack of focus today was quarantine fog or just the precursor to a migraine but work was a chore and I spent most of this evening messing around with spreadsheets instead of language learning. I am becoming one with the spreadsheets. Soon I will rule over them all. :lol:

Anyway, did get a bit done—enough to maintain the streaks I've set up for myself. With any luck, I'll be back on top tomorrow!

Spanish
9 mins Duolingo
5 mins Memrise

BSL
31 mins online course

Total: 45 mins (1,935 mins / 11,284 mins)
3 x
pronouns: she/her

: 31 / 365 365-Day Language Challenge; de, zh, es

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LunaMoonsilver
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Re: 2020: Learn Hard With a Vengeance [DE, ZH, ES, KO, GD]

Postby LunaMoonsilver » Thu Apr 30, 2020 10:36 pm

30th April 2020 / Day 121

It's Super Challenge Eve! :lol:

Yes, I'm clearly very excited about the Super Challenge. I'm feeling good about this time round and I'm definitely NOT planning on signing up with way too many languages. :roll: Nope, not me, I would never...

But anyway, this isn't about that. This is about today! Aaaand I got a bit done. Basically, I wanted to assess my language levels before starting the Super Challenge because I think I'll be more likely to keep on track if I have actual targets and those are measurable.

Groundbreaking, I know.

So, I did the Dialang test for German (reading) and uh it marked me as B1. :cry: But, you know, that means there's definitely going to be an improvement within... like, a week? It was tricky to get back into reading though—I've been doing stuff here and there in German all month but not loads—so that's on me.

Then I found the ODA tests (and they don't have one for German???) and did it for Spanish. That one estimated me as 1+ (!!!) which seems to be around A2/B1, much higher than I thought it would be! I didn't bother trying it for Mandarin after because I was test-tired and knew it wouldn't end well, but I might try and fit it in tomorrow, just to have a baseline to go from.

Obviously didn't bother for Korean or Scottish Gaelic because a) I can't read either, not really and b) like there's a test for Scottish Gaelic!

Maintained my Duo/Memrise streaks (and I've finished the first 10 sets of Duolingo stories now, yay! I quite like those...) and did 30 mins of BSL, re-running the signs from unit 7. Gonna go through all of them tomorrow and then move onto unit 8, I think. I'll be done with BSL on the 5th May so it would be nice to have the whole course done by then too.

German
40 mins Dialang test

Spanish
43 mins ODA test
14 mins Duolingo
6 mins Memrise

BSL
30 mins online course

Total: 133 mins (2,068 mins / 11,417 mins)

Will post my monthly review in a few mins so I can just focus on alllllllllll the challenges I've joined that start tomorrow after that!
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pronouns: she/her

: 31 / 365 365-Day Language Challenge; de, zh, es

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Re: 2020: Learn Hard With a Vengeance [DE, ZH, ES, KO, GD]

Postby LunaMoonsilver » Thu Apr 30, 2020 10:52 pm

APRIL REVIEW
Days studied: 30/30
Total hours: 34.47
Total hours (year): 190.28

Here's how I did (and I've added some little progress bars to keep myself entertained too!):

Image

As usual, my endangered languages are doing fine, as they're my 366-day language challenge targets, but I definitely neglected the others a fair bit this month. However, most of that progress was made in the last couple of weeks, especially after I came back to the forum and started trying to focus on doing a bit more every day.

The Spanish numbers there, in particular, show the power of doing a little bit of something every day on apps. They're not huge numbers, of course, but Duolingo doesn't have Māori or BSL and I didn't use Memrise for either that much, so most of my streak maintenance fell onto Spanish. And it has kept it up quite well! I don't know that I've necessarily learnt heaps of new stuff but Spanish feels pretty relaxed, pretty close to the surface, which is nice.

I'm starting four challenges tomorrow:

  • Super Challenge (all five main languages—goal: be on track by the end of the month)
  • 6WC (target: Korean—goal: 30 mins/day)
  • Tadoku (targets: German, Mandarin, Spanish—goal: 900 pages total)
  • 30-day speaking challenge (main target: Scottish Gaelic because he had no doc for it so I asked for one to be made! :lol:—goal: record at least 15/30 days)

Is that all a bit unrealistic? Yes, of course. How do you think I live my life?

But, no. It should be fun and it should give me some structure to pile all this language learning around. I've been flitting from thing to thing for the last six weeks or so (longer, even!), especially with all that's been going on, and although this won't give me focus on one thing, it'll give me focus on something, and that's what's important.

Gonna go register for the SC and then pick up a book I think so that I can register some pages on my shiny new challenge spreadsheet!
6 x
pronouns: she/her

: 31 / 365 365-Day Language Challenge; de, zh, es

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LunaMoonsilver
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Re: 2020: Learn Hard With a Vengeance [DE, ZH, ES, KO, GD]

Postby LunaMoonsilver » Sat May 02, 2020 12:02 am

1st May 2020 / Day 122

Got off to a very good start with Spanish of all things, today! Since the Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal audiobook is free on Audible Stories at the moment, I've started LRing that (L2R1), which is turning out to be quite interesting, in that I learnt a new word for owl today! The only one I knew before was la lechuza, but the HP audiobook narrator kept saying búho—so there's one word learnt via the Super Challenge at least.

Used the link in this post on ロータス's log to access Sinolingua's library of graded readers... they were supposed to only be free until yesterday according to the company's twitter but the books were still free today, so I made it through one. It was only a starter level so not too many new words, but it's encouraging to have already finished a book (even if I only counted it as 3 pages). I left it alone for a few hours after muddling through it the first time and then re-read it (and huh, the story made more sense the second time through), so that's my first bit of reading done! :D

Watched a couple of episodes of things too, and actually got some sincere Korean studying in, since I'd like to make real progress this 6WC. Also recorded my first day of the 30 day speaking challenge in Scottish Gaelic—just an introduction, so nothing too taxing, though it turned out to be quite difficult to find the Gàidhlig word for Korean.

Going to attempt a 24in48 style reading challenge this weekend (try and 'read' (audiobooks are allowed) for 24 hours out of the next 48), though since I definitely have other things to do, I'm not going to beat myself up if I don't make it. It'd just be nice to give myself a boost going into the challenge. As it's almost 1am now... I'm going to run it 01:00 Sat-01:00 Mon. :lol:

German
20 mins TV (Bob's Burgers S09E04)

Mandarin
36 mins reading (老马识途, 6pgs)

Spanish
4 mins Duolingo
14 mins LR (Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal)
21 mins TV (Community S01E01)

Korean
16 mins Memrise
57 mins Living Language Unit 2

Scottish Gaelic
13 mins speaking

BSL
30 mins online course

Total: 211 mins (211 mins / 11,628 mins)
Last edited by LunaMoonsilver on Sat May 02, 2020 11:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
6 x
pronouns: she/her

: 31 / 365 365-Day Language Challenge; de, zh, es

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LunaMoonsilver
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Re: 2020: Learn Hard With a Vengeance [DE, ZH, ES, KO, GD]

Postby LunaMoonsilver » Sat May 02, 2020 11:43 pm

2nd May 2020 / Day 123

Reading reading reading... Definitely not going to make it to 24 hours, since I'm having an issue with focusing on anything for longer than half an hour at a time. Most success has been had with Der Kastanienmann (The Chestnut Man), one of the book club choices for this month, but I think that's because it's a new story that isn't also a children's book! :lol:

Aside from all the reading, I did about 15 mins Korean and my 30 mins BSL for the day. I've finally moved onto unit 8, which is food and drink. Don't think I'll finish the course before the 5th now (I don't want to rush it really), but that's fine; I'll keep going until it's done and I'm happy with the level I'm at.

Realised I forgot to do my 30-day speaking challenge recording today (too busy watching this week's semi-bad horror film!) but I'll just double up tomorrow!

German
159 mins reading (99 pages over three books and some fanfic :lol:)

Mandarin
44 mins reading (7 pages over one book, read twice)

Spanish
110 mins reading (43 pages over two books)

Korean
10 mins Memrise
5 mins Duolingo

Scottish Gaelic
18 mins reading (6 pages over one book, read twice)

BSL
30 mins online course

Total: 376 mins (558 mins / 11,975 mins)
4 x
pronouns: she/her

: 31 / 365 365-Day Language Challenge; de, zh, es

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Languages: Speaks: English (N), Hindi (A2-B1)

Learning: The above, plus French (A2-B1), German (A1), Ancient Greek (?), Sanskrit (beginner)
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Re: 2020: Learn Hard With a Vengeance [DE, ZH, ES, KO, GD]

Postby jeffers » Sun May 03, 2020 12:02 am

I'm impressed with your 24in48 challenge! Props for you for even taking that on!
1 x
Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien (roughly, the perfect is the enemy of the good)

French SC Books: 0 / 5000 (0/5000 pp)
French SC Films: 0 / 9000 (0/9000 mins)


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