Thank you @Mista once again.
Yesterday I walked home and so I managed to resume listening to the Russian podcast. At first I was afraid the volume would be too low - might be an issue of the entire Castbox app - but my ears got used, which is actually better, as I'll be improving in a harder language under not entirely optional conditions. My hat is off to the author. He talks very clearly and appropriately for an intermediate learner. He explains difficult words in Russian itself and that helps improve my skills as a whole.
I had no classes in the evening so I took my time. I did reading ahead, gained some extra points on CM, did some Duo as well - Turkish is starting to connet the dots. I did Hebrew on the stay-at-home iPad (yeah, the one which takes care of the kids and wife), which is the only device I have Hebrew TTS for. It is a pit that this works as an excuse for my not studying Hebrew that often. Some quirks might hinder progress in a language. I don't do Hebrew review because I tend to do new sentences first, and I only do new sentences on my iPad which has TTS, and I never have time for that. As for Duo, lessons are long so I need more relaxed Duolingo time which I never seem to have. And with this I end up studying very little Hebrew and not doing what I need to attain the synergy with Assimil and Shtisel which are also not enough (I'm not fully concentrated during Shtisel either). I'm having the same issue of doing no CM for Greek because I leave it for the end and when I'm home I end up doing the text-input languages.
This morning I had a headstart on CM at last. Will try to at least do proper Greek reviews today.
One positive thing January brought me. You know when the self-help author asks you to elect your 20 most important things and then reduce them to 5 and work only on those 5? So, I've actually decided my prioritary project. It demands so much creativity and a sharp mind not burned out from excessive language study at the end of the day, but the way my language schedule is evolving I might actually have both the energy and the time for starting it almost fresh at the second half of the afternoon. Now it's also a matter of conquering blankpage panic. Priority number #2 was learning about digital marketing, and the very complete introductory course is doing the job. I have at least 3 podcasts to help and with this topic I won't delve into reading too much, will rather be more practical and search for additional theory as new issues come up. I need to learn how to learn by doing as well.
A minor change in my Clozemaster sequence increased my productivity. I do Romance languages, then German, Turkish, Romanian and the low-hanging fruits Swedish and Afrikaans, which I do as text input. I spend a good time on them. I used to leave them as my final text input rounds prior to mass review on easier languages, so that added extra stress. Now after them I still have Catalan, German_from_Swedish and Norwegian_from_Spanish and Indonesian. This way I don't get stuck at a sequence of the hardest decks.
Georgian reading is actually becoming easy. Thanks to that, I was way ahead of schedule before lunch. After lunch I spent some time discussing finantial education with coworkers before resuming studying, but it still felt productive.
Russian has seens some comprehension spurts in the past days. I'm finally gaining some confidence with regards to the languages, and much of it comes from doing more diverse tasks in the language. The watching part is suffering because I'm doing CM at the same time and because subtitles are not a constant, but listening-reading got an impulse as well as the podcast I've already mentioned.
Managed to pay more attention to Shtisel today. I might have underestimated the difficulty of understanding the Hebrew sounds. I thought that as only as I read the L2 subtitles I'd be able to just associate sound and meaning. Well, turns out I don't understand Hebrew phonemes as easily as I do with Georgian for example (where I could transcribe the phonemes long before I'd understand meaning) or Mandarin where just the listening L1 + reading L2 part of the listening-reading method will already help a lot. In the case of Hebrew, just listening isn't enough as I won't be able to tell what I heard. I have to rely on the Hebrew subtitles as well as a reality check to what I've heard, the same way that the audio helps with filling in the vowels. So audio and script have to be learned altogether, something I've always known. I just thought I'd learn enough from the phonology to be able to learn from pure listening + translation, but I was wrong. Languages with complex writing systems worsen the phonology acquisition curve, and with Hebrew the incertainty about vowels also makes the acquisition of words from writing slower or virtually impracticable, which in its turn makes listening more challenging. Just a confirmation of what I've said that I should stick to clear audio + script for as much as I can, even when doing more challenging learning to the side. I plan to always have a text+audio source even throughout the B level.
I've updated my goals for this year. Next comes a list of resources due this year.Due to the rain, I was allowed to leave earlier and thus I did less Clozemaster. I was already done for the day anyway.
