Brun Ugle goes to the Gathering (ES, EO, DE)

[Brun Ugle]

I’m having difficulty deciding where to begin this log. I had taken a bit of a break from language study (again), but around April, I started to long for it. Then I read something about the Polyglot Gathering in Berlin that was to take place in May and how much fun it had been the year before. I wanted to go, but it was a bit late to be making arrangements at that time and I didn’t feel ready either, having ignored languages for so long. But I made a decision to go next year (2016). And I didn’t want to embarrass myself by being able to speak only two languages either. So I decided I was going to go there with at least four languages at a comfortable conversational level. My plan was to spend a few months brushing up Spanish as I thought that would be easiest and then brush up Japanese. I had no illusions of being “fluent” or mastering the languages in that time. I just wanted to be able to have conversations about things that interest me and not have it be too awkward. I figured it would be hard, but doable. I also thought I would learn a little tourist German as it would also be to go to a polyglot event and not know a word of the language of the country it was held in.

Well, that was the plan. This is what really happened: I did restart Spanish in May and stuck to my one-language-at-a-time plan (for a while), but it wasn’t going as quickly as I’d hoped. I had really bad insomnia for months and could barely walk without fainting and my studies were suffering, but I still stuck to it. (More detail on my techniques in a moment.) And then I read some things on Benny’s blog (Fluent in 3 month) about Esperanto and how it is such a good language to learn because it makes all other languages easy and you can learn it super-fast. So I thought, maybe I should give that a try before picking up Japanese again. But I was going to wait until my Spanish was at least B2 and comfortably conversational. So I waited, but then the Duolingo course for Esperanto came out. And Judith, who is one of the developers, decided to give a free class to anyone interested. It was too good an opportunity to pass up, so Esperanto got added to my study schedule ahead of time. And it is pretty easy, in a way. Maybe if I were studying it exclusively, I could learn it in a few weeks like all those polyglot internet geniuses, but I’m still trying to concentrate on Spanish, so I haven’t managed to learn Esperanto in 3 days or even 6 like some people.


Now a little more detail about my studies:
In spite of the troubles this summer with sickness, insomnia, work, etc. I do feel like I’ve made good progress in Spanish, so I’ll summarize what I’ve done in case anyone wants to try the same thing. One caveat: I didn’t really learn this much Spanish just during the summer. I had three years of Spanish in school more than 25 years ago and I’ve made a few brief, half-hearted attempts to brush it up since then.
I started with a combination of FSI’s Spanish Programmatic Course, Duolingo, Language Transfer, and Bliu Bliu, all of which I recommend heartily.
FSI is a bit boring, but thorough and it is very good for learning proper pronunciation, something my teachers in high school weren’t very concerned with. Learning the pronunciation is very important not just to be understood, but also to understand others. Before FSI, I never knew about the b/v sounds and how they sound more b-like in isolation or after most consonants, but slur into a more v-like sound after vowels and r’s. Nor did know that d’s after vowels have a kind of th-sound. No wonder I never understood any real Spanish when I studying it in high school. We only heard it a couple of times on tape and it didn’t sound anything like what the teacher had taught us. But after reading about the pronunciation and hearing the demonstrations on FSI, Spanish became much clearer to me.

Duolingo is fun, but the Spanish course is seriously lacking in explanations of Grammar, so it can’t really be used in isolation. Still, I recommend it as the short lessons and reviews are easy to do and when you don’t feel like doing much, it’s still pretty easy to motivate yourself to just do one as it only takes a couple of minutes. Also, you get exposed to lots of sentences and the repetition helps them sink in.

Language Transfer is great. He basically explains to you how you already know lots of Spanish and it turns out, he’s right. He starts out explaining about how a lot of words ending in –al are the same but with the accent on the last syllable. (Normal, metal, legal, etc). Then he goes on about –tion words that you can frequently just change to –ción and pronounce with a Spanish accent. And many times you can take off the –ción and add –ar to make it into a verb. It seemed an unlikely method to learn at first, but before you know it, you’re able to make all sorts of long, complex sentences without feeling like you’ve really made any effort to learn anything. Also, you’ll (almost) never again forget the gender of words like problema, tema, and others when he explains how they were imported to Spanish from Greek.

Bliu Bliu is a website for reading. First you take a little test so it can guess your level, then it feeds you material that it thinks is right for your level. That is, you should understand about 80-90% of the words. As you read, you click on words to tell it what you know or don’t know. It seemed unlikely at first that it could work, but at the end of May, they started a 30 day Spanish learning challenge and I signed up for it and learned a tremendous amount. I think that pushed me up to B1 in that short time. Unfortunately, the site isn’t exactly free. You can use it for free, but only for about 5 minutes, then you have to wait five minutes before you can use it again. The challenge as I understood it was supposed to have individually geared material and exercises, a Facebook page, Google hangouts and so on. It turned out to have a Facebook page that nobody ever used, and all we got was e-mail reminders telling us to remember to do our reading for the day and giving a few little tips and encouragements. However, it was still worth it as I got a year’s subscription to the site at a lower price than the regular year’s subscription and the site itself is so good that it’s worth being subscribed to. And I can now use it for any language I want, not just Spanish, until my subscription runs out in May.

So, that was the start and I made rapid progress in May and June. I continued using these materials, and also started watching Destinos, a telenovela for learners. It’s very good, quite fun in spite of the fact that the story is slowed down by frequent reviews of what happened so far, and the strange focus on things that normally wouldn’t be focused on, like counting things or carefully listing up all the things on the shopping list. I watched about 5 episodes a week, but binged a little toward the end.

I also started looking at short videos on spanishlistening.org which really helped my listening skills. The videos are only a couple minutes long and have transcripts, so they are very convenient to use. I like to be able to listen to short things in the beginning as I quickly tune out if I have trouble understanding something, but these are so short that that isn’t a problem. Also there are a variety of levels and all sorts of speakers, from many different countries, so it’s good practice.

After a couple of months, I added in the intermediate level podcasts from Notes in Spanish and found these to be just the right level for me and also just the right length (12-14 minutes) for my walk to work.

After I finished Destinos, I wondered what to watch now. Then I found Extra. It was just the right level and really quite funny. It’s a comedy (like Friends or something) for learners. Unfortunately, there are only 13 episodes, so I got through it in only a couple of weeks. I found out though that they made the same exact show in French and German as well. Even the American character is the same guy in each. That must have been fun to do. There is also an English version with many more episodes than the others.

One of the main points on my plan was to talk with tutors on italki. Since I wanted to have conversational ability, I needed to practice talking, right? Unfortunately, my insomnia and bad internet connection have hindered that to a great extent, but I have managed some and I intend to do more as soon as I get a more stable connection again. I do find it very helpful, but I don’t feel like I can schedule a session when I don’t know for sure if my internet will be up to using Skype that day.


And now, that brings us to the present:
My insomnia is getting better, but my internet connection hasn’t. My Spanish fluctuates from feeling like it’s on the verge of “conversational fluency” to “I don’t know anything” on a regular basis. I am stilling plugging along with FSI Programmatic and I intend to do the Basic Course afterward. I still regularly use Bliu Bliu, and now also Readlang, but I’m not doing much with Duolingo anymore now that I’ve finished the tree. The last third of the course seemed like the creators had gotten tired of it or stopped caring and were just trying to get finished. I’ve listened to the intermediate podcasts from Notes in Spanish a few times. I might listen to them a bit more, but I’ve also begun listening to the advanced ones.

After I ran out of things to watch that were designed for learners, I decided to try telenovelas. I had no idea what would be suitable, but I heard that Ugly Betty was originally Colombian (Yo soy Betty la Fea) and although I’d never watched more than one episode of the American version, I kind of had an idea what it was about, so I thought that might be easier than picking something completely at random. I found the entire thing on YouTube and I did understand at first, but then it seemed to get harder. However, I found out there was also a Mexican version, so I looked a little at that and found it a bit easier. The videos were clearer, so that might be the reason. Also the Colombian Betty has something strange with her voice that’s kind of distracting, so maybe that’s the reason. I don’t know, but the Mexican version is easier whatever the reason. Unfortunately, it has suddenly disappeared from the Youtube channel I was watching it on. I found it on another channel, but it doesn’t seem as clear. That might be my bad internet connection though. I really have to get that fixed if I’m going to be able to watch Youtube or talk to tutors. The landlord never answers the phone though.

If I can get my landlord to fix the internet, I’ll start scheduling regular tutoring sessions again, but I’ve also decided to start looking around for a new apartment. It’s noisy here and the internet is bad and there’s no heat in the bathroom, so maybe moving would be a good idea. I hate moving and it’s not easy to find a place around here, but it won’t hurt to check the newspaper ads on a regular basis at least.

Esperanto is going fairly well. I’ve had about five Skype classes with Judith. Most of the others in the class don’t usually bother to show up, so I feel sorry for her putting all this effort in and doing it for free. On the other hand, it means I get more chance to practice when we are only a couple of people in the class. I’m primarily using the Duolingo course which is really excellent (much, much better than the Spanish course), but I’m thinking of maybe trying some stuff at Lernu later. Esperanto was very easy at first, then it went through a brief phase where everything seemed ridiculously complicated and crazy (This is supposed to be an EASY language you can learn in weeks?!?!), and now it’s all starting to fit together. And I can express myself a little bit in Esperanto as long as I have enough time to think. Speaking Esperanto still feels a bit like building something out of Legos though. Oh, I’ve been using Bliu Bliu for Esperanto too. It is a great site, but Esperanto is still in beta. They really need someone good at Esperanto to make some beginner materials for them. And also to check the jokes. I really enjoyed reading jokes in Spanish and learned a lot from them, but the Esperanto ones haven’t been checked, so there are an awful lot of very dirty disgusting jokes and that kind of takes the fun out of it.


And for the future: I don’t think I’ll add in more languages until after the Esperanto classes with Judith are done in October. But I do want to brush up and improve my Japanese then. I also wanted to do tourist German as I mentioned, but I just found out that there are tons of Star Trek books in German, so I might have to learn it up to Starfleet standards. I still want to get back to Finnish, of course, because I love it. And then there is Turkish, which I’d never really intended to study, but my boyfriend has an apartment there, so I might try learning a little at least.

Sorry this entry is so incoherent. I’ve written it over many days and loads of interruptions, and I don’t really even have time to polish it now, but I wanted to start a log as soon as possible to keep track and give myself some extra external motivation.

[jeff_lindqvist]

Then I read something about the Polyglot Gathering in Berlin that was to take place in May and how much fun it had been the year before. I wanted to go, but it was a bit late to be making arrangements at that time and I didn’t feel ready either, having ignored languages for so long. But I made a decision to go next year (2016). And I didn’t want to embarrass myself by being able to speak only two languages either. So I decided I was going to go there with at least four languages at a comfortable conversational level.

Great! See you in Berlin (or maybe somewhere else).

[Brun Ugle]

Do you remember the Calvin and Hobbes sequence where Calvin is impatiently awaiting the arrival of his mail-order propeller beanie? Well, substitute Spanish grammar books for propeller beanie, and that's me. I ordered some grammar books and one novel a few days ago, and I've been checking the web-site several times a day to see the tracking. They should come on the 10th. I can't wait! I just hope they aren't as disappointing as Calvin's beanie turned out to be.

While I'm waiting, I'm going to bug my landlord to fix the internet properly. And I thought I'd make an effort to get through the rest of the Duolingo tree for Esperanto. I'm getting very tired of Duolingo and I want to get finished. Also Judith is only giving the class until October, so I should try to learn as much as possible until then. And really, someone should make an effort. She's giving up her free-time to give us a free class, and most people don't even bother to show up or do the homework. I'm the only one who's done all the homework, I think.

[Brun Ugle]

Update for week 36

My boyfriend left for Turkey on Wednesday, so I figured I’ll have some extra time to study these next couple of weeks, but so far I haven’t.

One important task I did manage to accomplish was getting hold of my landlord. I finally got him to answer the phone on Friday. He says he’s looking into getting the internet fixed, so hopefully something will happen soon. But I’ll believe it when I see it. I hope he does fix it soon. I was making a lot of progress in Spanish in June when I could talk to people on Skype, but I don’t trust it to work now, so I haven’t been able to schedule any tutoring sessions and my Spanish is suffering. Of course, Esperanto is getting a little in the way too, which is one of the reasons I’m trying to make a push to finish the Duolingo course in Esperanto soon.

Spanish

I had gotten up to about lesson 29 in FSI Programmatic, but I’ve decided that now I need to review them a little more. I’m not reviewing extremely thoroughly, but at least going through all the taped bits and doing the workbook exercises. I decided to go back and review from lesson 15, but I haven’t gotten very far what with doing very little Monday to Wednesday while my boyfriend was getting ready for Turkey (I wish I could’ve gone), calling the landlord a million times a day, and generally catching up on a few things I needed to do. So, all I did last week was lesson 15. I’m hoping to review at least 4-5 lessons this week since I’m not doing them in excessive detail. As they get harder, I’ll probably have to do them more thoroughly and slow down again though.

I toyed with the idea of joining the Spanish book club, but in the end, I decided against it. They chose a monster of a book. It’s huge! And it would take me forever to read. Also, it’s probably a bit above my level. I might be able to read it, but it would be a struggle. I think it’s better for me to read massive amounts of easy stuff than small amounts of hard stuff. This is how I see it: (I’m making the math easy for the sake of comparison. I know it’s not realistic. Just bear with me.) I could read something that takes me 10 minutes to read one page and has ten completely unknown words that I have to look up. Or I could read something easy and maybe read five pages in that same time and only meet maybe one completely unknown word per page. Even though I am technically learning fewer unknown words in that time, I’m reading a lot more material. So I’m seeing a lot of words I do know in new contexts and reinforcing them and learning new ways of using them. Also, I’m more likely to remember the unknown words if there aren’t a lot of them per page. Plus the text will be easier to understand so the language will sink in better. I used to read a lot of comics when I was learning Norwegian, mostly because I would get so frustrated due to the exhaustion of living in a new country, but it turned out to be very useful for learning the language. So, for now I will continue to read easy stuff and leave the book club for later. The book they are reading, El tiempo entre costuras looks interesting, but I’ll read it on my own another time.

So, what have I been reading in Spanish? I got a book called Spanish Stories for Beginners: 8 Unconventional Short Stories to Grow Your Vocabulary and Learn Spanish the Fun Way! by Olly Richards, which I got because it was very, very cheap on Kindle at the time. I don’t know about the Spanish, but it seems OK as far as I can judge. The stories themselves are weird and not likely to win any literature prizes. I don’t mean because they are weird. I like SF and Fantasy. But most of these stories just leave me thinking, “What?! That’s it?” They aren’t great stories, but they are short and fairly easy, getting progressively harder as you go. I’ve read 6 so far, so I have two left. This week I read: “El reloj,” “El cofre,” and “Ferrg, el dragón.” I’ve also been reading the first Harry Potter book. This week I read chapter 13, so I’m getting near the end. It seems to be a fairly easy for me at this point.

I’ve also been reviewing Language Transfer and did lessons 43-52 this week. And that’s about it for Spanish. Except that my books will come on Thursday. So excited!

Esperanto

I’m trying to push through to the end of the Duolingo course. I’m hoping to finish it in good time before the end of the lessons with Judith so that it can sink in before the class is over. This week I did the sections on travel, affixes 2, and expression. I’m nearing the end, but I don’t think I’ll be able to finish next week, probably the week after. Some of the lessons are quite long and it is getting more difficult.

I’ve also been reading Gerda malaperis which is lots of fun. I read chapters 8-13. I’ve only been reading though; I don’t do any exercises.

I was supposed to have a class on Sunday on Skype with Judith and the others in the class, but something went wrong. I don’t know if it’s because Skype updated itself or what, but I couldn’t get on. I was also at home this weekend instead of at my boyfriend’s like I usually am on Sundays, and I don’t have a great connection, but it usually is good enough out in the hallway. I’ve never done a group call here though, so maybe it isn’t good enough for group calls. What was weird, though, was that I saw a message come up from Judith asking if anyone was there, but when I went into Skype, the message wasn’t there. Only the old ones from the previous week were there. And then I sent a couple of messages to the group, and those showed up for me, but no response. Then this morning, when I opened my iPad, I saw a message from someone who apparently couldn’t get to the class, but when I opened Skype, that message wasn’t there, only the ones I’d sent myself and the old ones.

[Brun Ugle]

My plans for concentrating on Esperanto this week have just flown out the window. MY BOOKS ARE HERE! YAY!

I got:
- Gramática de uso del Español by Luis Aragonés and Ramón Palencia (vol. A, B & C)
- A New Reference Grammar of Modern Spanish by John Butt and Carmen Benjamin
- Cronicas de la torre 1: El valle de los lobos by Laura Gallego García

So, now to get stuck in…

[Brun Ugle]

Update for week 36

I got very excited about my Spanish books, and a bit frustrated with Esperanto and Duolingo, so I mostly concentrated on Spanish this week.

I also went to norsktrening (Norwegian training) on Wednesday. We didn’t have it all summer, but now it’s started up again for the fall. Norsktrening is run by the Red Cross and is to give extra help to anyone trying to learn Norwegian. I’m one of the volunteers. We meet at the library on Wednesdays and usually we are divided up with one or two volunteers per table along with some learners and we have various activities centered around a theme. This time it was about Steinkjer and about health/healthcare. It’s fun and rewarding, but now I have a sudden urge to learn Polish, Icelandic and Persian. I didn’t realize Persian was so beautiful, but there were three speakers at my table and they spoke to each other in it several times.

Spanish

I mostly was reviewing stuff, but I’m also enjoying my new books. I’m working through “Gramática de uso del Español” level A1-A2. I wasn’t sure if I sure start with A1-A2 or B1-B2. I’m probably a low B1, but I’m glad I started with the lower level anyway. I think it will fill the holes in my knowledge and make a stronger foundation to build on. So far it’s very easy, but I’ve still learned a few things.

I finished the last two stories in that book of short stories and they were just as weird as the others. So now I’m reading another weird book. This one I got because it was free on Kindle and had cats in the title. It’s called “Dos gatos y el misterio del Mercado de la Cebada.” by C.R. Martínez, but it is apparently translated from English. The original title is “Two Cats and a Chicken Shop Mystery.” So far, I read three chapters or rather three “days” since the book isn’t divided by chapters, but by dates. I’ve read 6-8 August. So far, there is a chicken shop and a mystery, but only one cat. I was expecting a murder mystery or something like that, but it seems to be more of a supernatural mystery. Anyway, it’s light and fun and about the right level for me. Plus, it was free and it has cats!

Otherwise, I’ve done:
FSI programmatic: 16-19 (review)
FSI Basic: 1 (review)
Language Transfer: 53-62 (review)
Harry Potter 1: chapter 14
Gramática de uso del Español (A1-A2): 1-14
+ some stuff on Memrise


Esperanto
Pasintsemajne, mi sentis min frustrita pri Esperanto, kaj mi ne studis multe. Sed hieraŭ estis la kurso de Esperanto kun Judith. Neniu venis krom mi. (Mi ne scias kial neniu venas. Eble ili timas. La kurso estas tre amuza kaj mi lernas multe.) Judith kaj mi parolis longe. Mi ĉiam timetas antaŭ la babilo, sed kiam mi komencas paroli, mi ĉiam ĝuas pároli kun Judith. Ŝi estas tre afabla. Hieraŭ ni parolis iomete pri la afiksoj –ig- kaj –iĝ- ĉar ili estas malfaciletaj por mi. Ni parolis ankaŭ pri la participoj ĉar ankaŭ ili estas malfacilaj, sed Judith diris ke ili ne estas tre gravaj. Poste, ni parolis pri libroj kaj ŝi rekomendis kelkajn Esperantajn librojn al mi. Mi antaŭĝojas pri fini la Esperantan arbon de Duolingo kaj komenci legi librojn. Nun mi amas Esperanton denove.

Duolingo: Education, Nature (only 5 “skills” left!)
Gerda Malaperis: Chapters 14-16
+ some Memrise

My Spanish grammar book has a glossary at the back in English, French and German to help when you’re doing the exercises. Well, I happened to glance at the German and found out that the German word for “glove” is “Handschuh.” That made me laugh. Hand-shoe! Surely they should be hand-socks. Hand-shoes sound very uncomfortable. I think I’m going to have fun when I get around to learning German.

[daegga]

Well, I happened to glance at the German and found out that the German word for “glove” is “Handschuh.” That made me laugh. :lol: Hand-shoe! Surely they should be hand-socks. Hand-shoes sound very uncomfortable. I think I’m going to have fun when I get around to learning German. :P

They are not supposed to be comfortable, they are supposed to protect you against the sharp edge of the sword or the claws of your falcon ;)
By the way, think about the etymology of "hanske", this concept should not be entirely new to you.

[Brun Ugle]

Yes, Germanic languages sound kind of funny to English ears, rather simple and sometimes almost childish, but I'm so used to Norwegian that I no longer notice it. Romance languages are the opposite. They sound kind of fancy and pretentious. Neither one is meant to be insulting. It is just the way we use our Germanic and Latin derived words in English that gives us that feeling.

[Brun Ugle]

Update for week 38

I don’t have much time today, so just a quick update:

Esperanto
I didn’t do any reading this week, but I managed to press through the Duolingo course and now I’VE FINISHED. So this week, I’ll have to find some other stuff to work on. I’ll probably continue with Gerda Malaperis and I’ll review Duolingo, but I haven’t decided what else. I had my last session with Judith last night and it was very nice. The class is over now, except for one last homework assignment. Maybe I’ll try to find someone else to talk to.

Spanish
Not much reading in Spanish either, but I’m fairly pleased with what I got done in my textbooks/courses.
FSI programmatic: 20-25 (mostly review)
FSI Basic: 2 (review)
Language Transfer: 63-65 (review)
Gramática de uso del Español (A1-A2): 15-28

[Brun Ugle]

This book I’m reading (Dos gatos y el misterio del Mercado de la Cebada) gets weirder and weirder. There is still only the one cat, and the mystery is of the paranormal type rather than the criminal type. What happened was that in the beginning of the book, a mysterious face appeared on the floor of the chicken shop. The owner washed it away, but it came back. So she consulted a psychic who seemed to think there was some connection to “La casa de las caras.”

I haven’t gotten much further than that, but as I was reading, I turned a page, (or whatever it is one does with an e-book) and came to a page that was almost completely blank except for a mysterious message written backwards in teeny tiny letters. I can read backwards English, but my Spanish isn’t up to that, so I had to hold it up to the mirror. I hope I’m not possessed or something now. Maybe that’s what happens to people who download random, free, Kindle books.