C's 日本語 + Русский + norsk (part 2, CLOSED)

[tarvos]

Flashcard hell, where you get tortured by Satanas Anki and you are whipped by rods engraved with the worst kanji.

That image is visceral.

[brilliantyears]

It wasn't my intention to sign up for the 6 Week Challenge but then my Twitter timeline was full of people signing up and I have zero restraint.

I was in doubt between Russian and Norwegian, but I really need to get my ass in gear for Russian I don't want to be a disappointing student yet another semester.

[brilliantyears]

First week is over, so here's a quick 6 Week Challenge update

Russian
It's so good to consistently spend time on Russian again! I can almost feel myself improving again, even after just one week.

I've been reading Short Stories in Russian for Beginners, one chapter per day almost every day. It's good practice.

I also started watching Лучше, чем люди (Better Than Us on Netflix) and I am loving it and also I am a sucker for Kirill Käro. I stick to an episode a day so I can pay extra attention to the Russian. I mix it up with the Polyglot Fitness Challenge a bit by stepping in front of the tv while I'm watching - helps me not get distracted and I get in an extra 5.000 steps a day

Next Tuesday my Russian class is starting again. One of our assignments for the last few classes of 2019 was to learn cursive (we've been avoiding it all this time). I didn't have time back then so I'm catching up now. Not as big a deal as I thought it was going to be

Finally, I'm doing a little Duolingo. I haven't used Duolingo that much for Russian so all the skills are far below my current level, but it's just a nice playful way of interacting with the language.

Time I put in this week:
Reading: 189 minutes
Watching: 125 minutes (250 minutes worth of episodes, halved)
Cursive: 46 minutes
Duolingo: 33 minutes
Total: 393 minutes

Norwegian
Norwegian is my secondary language in this challenge. I only spent time on Duolingo in the past week (haven't missed a day). I finished all the missing skills up to checkpoint 7.

I hope to add some tv series and movies to the challenge.

Time I put in this week:
Duolingo: 152 minutes
Total: 152 minutes

No plans yet for other languages during the challenge.

[brilliantyears]

Second week of the 6WC is over, so time for another update.

Russian
We f*cked up (miscommunication) and now our Russian class isn't going to start until March. Sigh. At least that gives me some more time to focus on cursive, I suppose. I was really looking forward to class though!

I continued reading Short Stories in Russian for Beginners. Reading is going much faster already, and now I read entire stories (3 chapters, approx 30 pages in total) in one sitting. I've got one more story left to go (will probably finish the book tomorrow).

I took an online vocabulary test and while the result wasn't that terrible considering my level, it made me decide to focus a bit more on vocab. So back to Memrise it is I've chosen a word frequency list to learn (and ignoring all the words I already know).

Besides that I did some Duolingo, watched two eps of Лучше, чем люди, and wrote couple of postcards and thank-you notes.

Time I put in this week:
Reading: 206 minutes (395 minutes total)
Watching: 50 minutes (175 minutes total)
Cursive: 27 minutes (73 minutes total)
Duolingo: 94 minutes (127 minutes total)
Memrise: 58 minutes
Writing: 12 minutes
(and that test took 22 minutes)
Total this week: 469 minutes (862 minutes total)

Norwegian
Inspired by my own success at reading Russian, I've picked up The Mystery of Nils again. I'm mostly focusing on reading the story. I do read the grammar explanations but I don't actively look at the exercises any longer. Probably stupid, because now I risk (once again) becoming weak at production. Oh well.

Time I put in this week:
Duolingo: 100 minutes (252 minutes total)
Reading: 49 minutes
Total: 149 minutes (301 minutes total)

[brilliantyears]

Third week's over! My mind was occupied by other things this week so I didn't do much in depth studying (and instead binged non-Russian/Norwegian stuff on Netflix )

Russian
We may have fixed our Russian class schedule so I may have class on Tuesday... maybe

I finished Short Stories in Russian for Beginners. There's a review up on Goodreads. The reading experience was pretty good so I just ordered Short Stories In Russian: New Penguin Parallel Text (quite different as it actually has the English parallel texts, but we shall see).

Besides that, the usual: Duolingo and Memrise.

Time I put in this week:
Reading: 172 minutes (567 minutes total)
Watching: (175 minutes total)
Cursive: (73 minutes total)
Duolingo: 122 minutes (249 minutes total)
Memrise: 62 minutes (120 minutes total)
Writing: (12 minutes total)
Total this week: 356 minutes (1218 minutes total)

Norwegian
Watched one movie (Mannen som elsket Yngve, not super impressed), continued reading The Mystery of Nils and did a bunch of Duolingo.

I also ordered Short Stories in Norwegian for Beginners today.

Time I put in this week:
Duolingo: 61 minutes (313 minutes total)
Reading: 31 minutes (80 minutes total)
Watching: 45 minutes
Total: 137 minutes (438 minutes total)

[brilliantyears]

Another not-so-great week for the 6WC.

Russian
Class started! I'm... quite far ahead by now. But class was still nice, it's good to repeat stuff and be forced to actively use Russian.

Also spent a minimal amount of time on Duolingo and Memrise this week.

Time I put in this week:
Reading: (567 minutes total)
Watching: (175 minutes total)
Cursive: (73 minutes total)
Duolingo: 25 minutes (274 minutes total)
Memrise: 34 minutes (154 minutes total)
Writing: (12 minutes total)
Class: 90 minutes
Total this week: 149 minutes (1367 minutes total)

Norwegian
Just some time on Duolingo. More than Russian, at least.

Time I put in this week:
Duolingo: 75 minutes (388 minutes total)
Reading: (80 minutes total)
Watching: (45 minutes total)
Total: 75 minutes (438 minutes total)

Other
Watched a German movie (Er ist wieder da) and started a Japanese series (フォロワーズ).

[brilliantyears]

Just in here to dump this link for future reference and because it really ticks all my nerd boxes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differenc ... characters

(Tried to explain to a colleague how traditional and simplified Chinese works - for work purposes! - and how kanji compares to both.)

[brilliantyears]

Just a quick post to say I'm alive.

I'm not doing so great. I've been bordering on a burn-out for nearly 2 years now. And I mean an actual burn-out, not my usual "I'm a little burned out from language learning, so I'm taking a break" moments. All this time I managed to muddle on and at least do a good job at work. I was doing better at the start of this year but I completely cracked under the corona situation. At least this time I'm finally getting help, and work has been very supportive about it too, so that's good. But every little thing is still too much, I'm unfocused, and my brain is incredibly dumb right now.

Obviously I haven't been doing anything language related for a while now, aside from a few minutes of Russian Duolingo for the streak (and if there hadn't been a streak freeze for the many days I missed, I probably would have quit that, too). I've been eyeing my Russian and Norwegian books (specifically Short Stories in Norwegian for Beginners) during the past week but I'm not feeling much joy at the idea of actually picking them up.

To be continued, I suppose.

[tarvos]

You poor sod Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

I hope that the help you get helps you through this. If it's any consolation, corona hasn't been kind to most of us. Relax, take it easy, and come back when you're fresh, reinvigorated, and healthy!