Expug’s 2020 Log: Austerity and Adaptability

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Expugnator
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Re: Expug’s 2020 Log: Austerity and Adaptability

Postby Expugnator » Tue Jan 21, 2020 8:18 pm

Today's Georgian reading session was great. I didn't have a hard time flipping from original to translation.

Finished book 7 from A series of unfortunate events, started book 8. My German listening has improved.

Russian reading was also great, and this after not paying much attention to the cartoon (I wonder if coming to reading part without much struggle at the cartoon is the reason).

Estonian reading also great. So what's the point in announcing I'd be cutting down in reading? Has the languages themselves feared being dropped and started unveiling themselves to me?

I can't be contradicted: also Greek reading was a breeze. My tolerance for longer paragraphs has increased for all the above languages.Now how should I interpret it: evidence thta my input-based method is starting to work and so I should keep it on; or a sign that it's time to move over to intensive+active tasks?

Reading Indonesian subtitles was also productive. They were out of sync with the video and between themselves (IN/PT), so I had to sync the indo one and read the Portuguese one on a side window. Needless to say it ended up with my paying much more attention and learning more.

Tomorrow I have the day off so no actual study. Not sure about Thursday (working part-time probably) or Friday (either day off or working part-time again). I have to burn the hours I've added for working overtime in December.
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Expugnator
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Re: Expug’s 2020 Log: Austerity and Adaptability

Postby Expugnator » Thu Jan 23, 2020 9:54 pm

Noticed some improvement in Estonian watching (both listening and reading), even when I'm not paying that much attention. My reading speed for the subtitles has increased considerably.

Just started Tom Egeland's book number 2, Skyggelandet. Hope it will be easier to follow than the first one as I get familiarized with the author's universe and vocabulary.

So mobbing is the Norwegian word for bullying. A fake anglicism (like Handy in German)? A true scandislang? Anyway, I'll stick to it now that I've seen it recently on Clozemaster, Duolingo and Side om side. I tend to trust audiovisual sources over novels and apps come last when I'm not sure a slangish word isn't an archaism or just went out of fashion.

Finished my non-fiction slot. A rather dense sociological work I read in Italian translation. Now I'm actually going to read English non-fiction, just for a change. I'm not really short of daily activities for any of my stronger languages so Spanish, Italian and German won't resent from that break.

Today I procrastinated a lot, some distractions and some actual work. I still managed my schedule. Being a bit less intensively stalked on CM. Reached number 5 on the all-time leaderboard. Oh, and the rain. If you hear about flood in Brazil, one of the spots is probably us here.

I dag har jeg lest denne artikkelen av NRK. Jeg er stolt på hvor lett det var å forstå den.
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Re: Expug’s 2020 Log: Austerity and Adaptability

Postby Mista » Thu Jan 23, 2020 10:42 pm

Expugnator wrote:So mobbing is the Norwegian word for bullying. A fake anglicism (like Handy in German)? A true scandislang? Anyway, I'll stick to it now that I've seen it recently on Clozemaster, Duolingo and Side om side. I tend to trust audiovisual sources over novels and apps come last when I'm not sure a slangish word isn't an archaism or just went out of fashion.


You can trust that - "mobbing" is the one and only word for it. We also have the word "mobb" - which, of course, is a loan word from English. "mobbing" has turned out a way more frequent word than "mobb", though.

Expugnator wrote:I dag har jeg lest denne artikkelen av NRK. Jeg er stolt at på hvor lett det var å forstå den.


In the construction "denne artikkelen av" you need the person who wrote it after the preposition. In this case, I would probably say "denne artikkelen på NRK.no". (On the other hand, you need "av" after "stolt" in the following sentence, the "på" is probably interference from German)

Good luck with the weather ...
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Re: Expug’s 2020 Log: Austerity and Adaptability

Postby gsbod » Thu Jan 23, 2020 11:14 pm

Interesting that you picked the Handy example for German, since Mobbing also means bullying in German!
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Re: Expug’s 2020 Log: Austerity and Adaptability

Postby Expugnator » Fri Jan 24, 2020 8:13 pm

Mista wrote:
Expugnator wrote:I dag har jeg lest denne artikkelen av NRK. Jeg er stolt at på hvor lett det var å forstå den.


In the construction "denne artikkelen av" you need the person who wrote it after the preposition. In this case, I would probably say "denne artikkelen på NRK.no". (On the other hand, you need "av" after "stolt" in the following sentence, the "på" is probably interference from German)

Good luck with the weather ...


More likely a calque from "Jeg er spent på". I think more often in Norwegian than in German. Thanks for the feedback!

The rain was heavy indeed but not as expected. The flood and landslide problems came up like in the previous years. No family of friends affected and we had better not travel to the countryside.

gsbod wrote:Interesting that you picked the Handy example for German, since Mobbing also means bullying in German!


Now that you mention it, I've probably seen it in German but not as often as in Norwegian.

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Yesterday was a tough day. I worked overtime up to 8 pm - in January! and I had just the time to drop by home, change my shoes, grab something to eat and leave to a class. Then at least I managed to meet my friends up to 11. Woke up at 5h30 and went to the gym, did the entire circuit plus treadmill and got a message that my class at 8 am had beed cancelled due to heavy rain + heavy traffic. I'll probably feel the effects today but at least I'm eligible to leaving earlier. I'll try to advance with my regular schedule as far I can.

Managed to pay a bit more attention to the Estonian soap opera, all while doing some Clozemaster. Not the best learning strategy, I know, but it shows that my Estonian has improved.

Reading Georgian was productive. As for active skills, I'm still having trouble with the perfect series, but a native promised to help. I have to come up with a strategy for learning them in context.

Reviewing Assimil L'Hébreu hasn't be as productive as I had expected. Actually I still haven't learned enough, so it almost feels like new. I'm not reinforcing the language from other sources such as Duo or CM. I think I've gradually put Hebrew on a lesser priority.

I managed all my tasks and in the remaining time I listened to the digital marketing course. Had time for extra Clozemaster as well.
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Re: Expug’s 2020 Log: Austerity and Adaptability

Postby Adrianslont » Sat Jan 25, 2020 10:48 am

Indonesian Linguaphone is pretty easy. You should be fine, maybe bored by it.

I only did the dialogues, listening, reading, transcribing, repeating. I never did the drills - audiolingual drills really bother me.

Yes, I thought you said Indonesian was off your agenda - it always struck me as a little unusual that a Brazilian with no plans to travel there any time soon would study it - but I think it’s great that you study it - so many people there and so many people have no idea about the country and the people and cultures.

And the language really helps you learn about the place, of course - I love reading Indonesian media and forums and getting an understanding and opinions straight from the horse’s mouth rather than filtered through an unsympathetic Australian media.
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Re: Expug’s 2020 Log: Austerity and Adaptability

Postby Expugnator » Mon Jan 27, 2020 7:46 pm

Thank you Adrianslont. I'm not sure I'll be bored by Linguaphone Indonesian. First of all, it has long lessons and these tend to be a challenge.

I'm glad my previous posts found you well. I was afraid you and Axon wouldn't follow me at this new log, eve though I tried to state that I wasn't dropping any languages. When January is over and I'm back at my usual workload, I'll then most likely keep my full schedule at least 2x a week, all while trying to make use of hidden moments for languages outside of KA-NO-DE-EL-EE. I still have ambitious goals for Indonesian. I'm at a level where the app-learning alone can boost my level till I can finally reach basic reading fluency.

I have no plans for visiting Indonesia soon, but after Greece it's my next dream destinatio for language+culture+beaches tourism. Plus learning about the culture from the auctonous sources is always a goal for any of my languages.

====================
The weekend was not especially productive for studying even though I stayed home most of the time. I'm trying to resume some habits. I gathered material for Georgian + Fais pas ci fais pas ça season 6, leaving me with enough for the time being. I read ahead my (non)fiction but not my usual 19 pages (I used to leave 1 page to be finished at the very day). I had a sprint on CM last week plus I managed a headstart this week. Yesterday evening I started doing massive reviews for Norwegian and reached near-romance productivity, a trend I should pursuit. No podcast listening while preparing my snacks.

Running out of series from the Arrowverse in German. They don't get released as German dubbing as fast as I can get Georgian dubbing. I can't play them in German on Netflix either. I will end up watching CW series dubbed in Russian and doing native German series instead.

Had one of the best Russian listening-reading days ever. I really managed to focus. I'm doing Nicholas Sparks' works for both Mandarin and Russian, two challenging languages. I must say its style works wonders for my learning motivation because the vocabulary is always relevant.

I'm enjoying my trashy American novel as well. Learning so many useful words. With stronger languages it's probably not necessary to do a bit each day. I might be better off reading one book at each of my stronger languages at a time, and probably flipping through genres as well. Spanish is probably my weakest when it comes to understanding fiction, all because I read that in French, Italian, now English but not much Spanish. I know, I had a Spanish fiction up to last year slot which I dropped when I started listening to a podcast, but doing fiction once in a while is probably what I need.

I'm definitely feeling with Estonian what I did ages ago with Georgian. The language is starting to fall into place, at least passively. The soap opera was accessible, then the parallel novel was a breeze. I have never really had ambitious goals for that language, and here I am at a solid intermediate level which starts to turn into an asset.
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Re: Expug’s 2020 Log: Austerity and Adaptability

Postby Serpent » Mon Jan 27, 2020 11:53 pm

Expugnator wrote:Méthode d'Indonésien says that 'aku' is more literary than 'saya'. I thought aku was more informal.
That's what I learned as well.
Random but have you seen my posts about the game Criminal Case? It's also available in Indonesian.
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Re: Expug’s 2020 Log: Austerity and Adaptability

Postby Adrianslont » Tue Jan 28, 2020 4:35 am

Serpent wrote:
Expugnator wrote:Méthode d'Indonésien says that 'aku' is more literary than 'saya'. I thought aku was more informal.
That's what I learned as well.
Random but have you seen my posts about the game Criminal Case? It's also available in Indonesian.


There are couple of really helpful discussions about Aku and saya and other pronouns over on the Indonesia subreddit. OP is a learner in each case and the answers all seem to be from native speakers, though I haven’t checked them all.

Serpent, I hope you prove yourself wrong and click on the links!

The link immediately below is a short discussion of saya versus aku. In short, saya is more formal and reliably used safely while Aku is more intimate, for use within families, close friends and lovers.

https://www.reddit.com/r/indonesia/comments/cv6lh5/help_for_begining_bi_learner/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=

The next link is a longer discussion but really worth reading. It may seem overwhelming but it’s comforting that Indonesians find it tricky, too!

https://www.reddit.com/r/indonesia/comments/3s4q5a/language_culture_question_can_i_be_an_aku/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=

Personally, I nearly always use saya, though sometimes an Aku or ku slips out because of some media I watch ie cartoons or sitcoms. I have received some funny looks but no comments.

There is a lot of using an honorific plus a name instead of a second person pronoun. And there is a fair bit of using an honorific plus your given name instead of a first person pronoun.

I call men over thirty Pak, I call women over thirty Bu. I call younger men Mas and I am never sure what to call women in their twenties. Mbak? Kak? I need to get that better sorted. I have asked women what to call them and been told to use Mbak or first name (guides and tutors.) Pretty sure I should be using Mbak in the convenience store or restaurant.

People call me Pak generally or Pak Adrian if they know my name. If I have a driver who has worked a lot with white foreigners they seem to like to call me Adrian, some of them, anyway.

And this all varies from city to city and island to island, ethnic group to ethnic group. Young Balinese men might tell you not to call them Mas, but Bli instead - the Bahasa Bali term.

TLDR; saya more formal, Aku more intimate (though you see someone say different in one of the above threads - I think they are confused.

Edit: I got confused in one sentence and made no sense
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Re: Expug’s 2020 Log: Austerity and Adaptability

Postby Expugnator » Tue Jan 28, 2020 8:42 pm

Serpent wrote:
Expugnator wrote:Méthode d'Indonésien says that 'aku' is more literary than 'saya'. I thought aku was more informal.
That's what I learned as well.
Random but have you seen my posts about the game Criminal Case? It's also available in Indonesian.


Yes you've mentioned it before. I'm not a heavy FB user or a gamer but maybe for Indonesian it's worth a try, at a high A2 stage.

@Adrian thanks for the explanation and the links! i'll probably just ignore what the French book says.

======================
Yesterday I switched extra Clozemaster for reading ahead. I don't regret it. I was too tired for sitting at the destop at home as well, after two classes.

I'm just not listening to the Russian podcast that often, because some days at the week I go from here directly to a class and thus I prefer to do app-learning in the Uber or on the bus instead of listening to a podcast.

This morning I had a productive listening session at the Spaniard podcast. It works much better when I focus at one thing at each time.

I had an appointment at the doctor's so the morning only had Papiamento reading and Estonian watching. Will try to catch up in the afternoon. I'd have probably given up on a typical Tuesday and done off-schedule tasks instead, but it's January so yes can do.

Great day for Mandarin Chinese listening-reading. I think the only reason it doesn't transfer to TV watching is my lack of concentration when watching TV.

How many words for 'tired' are there in Norwegian after all?

Tom Egeland wrote:«Er du trett?»
«Egentlig ikke. Bare sliten.»


Another great Georgian reading day. My vocabulary coverage is definitely above 80%, though it still prevents from understanding full sentences. Georgian syntax adds to the trouble. It can be mind-boggling to figure out the different verbal classes and how they affect case marking.

Duolingo has been stealing me some points. I did a full Norwegian lesson yesterday but they seemed not to have updated the leaderboard for the week yet, so I only got 15 points total. This morning 4 lessons and only the equivalent of 2 credited. I'm avoiding Hebrew and Indonesian because they are too long, too intense in vocabulary. Duolingo lessons are category killers for vocabulary. They want you to learn the entire vocabulary for that category plus some non-relevant random words for completing the sentence. So you have sentences like "my godfather's tiger stood by the cupboard and ate blueberry and the other sentences just replace tiger with aligator, cupboard with balcony and blueberry with avocado, and so it goes.

Hebrew is particulary challenging as it gets too vocabulary-rich too soon, which doesn't make it a course as good as the Norwegian ones, where the sentences are way more focused on topic and sound way more natural. Maybe Duolingo should hire people from Tatoeba as Clozemaster's sentence pool is much more relevant.
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