Expug’s 2020 Log: Austerity and Adaptability

[Expugnator]

The weekend was a bit productive but not too intense in language learning. On Saturday I travelled in the afternoon. As a result, I had two rallies, on CM and Duo. Coming back home, I still manage to read ahead and gather material for French and Georgian.

I've been thinking about how to distribute my series from CW through my languages. I've been watching them for German, Russian, Georgian and original with subtitles in Indonesian. I have 5 series. So far there is only one dubbed in German, so I have to alternate the remaining ones in Russian, Georgian and Indonesian subtitles. For two of these I'm at the end of the previous season, so I'll do some arrangements when I reach the current season for all of them. It's safer to leave 1 series for each language that I watch for 10 minutes and rotate the Georgian one as I watch 20 minutes of Georgian dubbing per day. It's nice to see how I'm getting used to the Russian dubbing. That will boost my Russian the way watching those series in Georgian helped with that language.

I dreamed that I was speaking Estonian with the old lady who is the main character at the soap opera. I had both Norwegian and Georgian interference, but managed to string quite a conversation.


As I've carried on the habit of playing the the Norwegian audiobook before I open the book, I noticed I'm understanding more and more from it. A nice development.

Today I finished my tasks over three hours before due time. I arrived half an hour earlier but ended up being way more productive. A good morning of studie is what puts me forward.

[Expugnator]

Yesterday I had a busy day with three classes in a row (including an international call), but I managed enough Clozemaster including Greek, plus Reading ahead. Clozemaster Hebrew still pending, it was the lack of habit of keeping the iOs device close.

I'm struggling to concentrate on the Estonian soap opera again. The topics don't help, still on corruption and swindling, too latin american telenovela for my taste. Well, at least both parallel reading and Speakly are coming along smoothly.

With some incursions into Parapsychology and mention of Ernesto Bozzano, Tom Egeland starts to show at his second book what made he be regarded as an improved version of Dan Brown

My new iPad has arrived which means I have more flexibility now to which resources I can use.

Tuesday being Tuesday. I had one class during lunch time, had a lot of work and didn't have time for any non-language study after my schedule. Still one class in the evening.

[Expugnator]

Mandarin Chinese listening-reading is going better each day. I'm ignoring the text most of the time and even when I look at it the characters seem as transparent as the audio.

Finished one German podcast by Puls and started another one, this time from Zeit Online. The ones by Puls seem more unscripted and thus harder to follow. As for the new one, it seems I can follow it if I pay enough attention. My listening isn't much better yet because I've been doing A series of unfortunate events as my listening-reading material, for which I don't have the German text, only L1. The issue with a fantasy adventure humor story like this is that it has so many absurd words and situations that you just ignore or accept in your native or fluent language, while in a language you're learning you tend to just think you can't understand something because you lack the skills/vocabulary.

Starting to get the hang of Icelandic. Both pronunciation and its unique roots, not cognate to Norwegian. Might be a great addition being able to read in it.

Noticed a significant improvement in comprehension of dubbed Georgian. I'm not even reading the subtitles all the time.

Sometimes my study routine sounds like going to the gym. If I put too much weight on one exercise, the next one feels heavier. Today I had more trouble concentrating on the Estonian parallel reading than usual, after breezing through it the previous days. On the other hand, I just found listening-reading Greek easier today.

Accomplished Language Textbook: Méthode d'Indonésien, by Pierra Labrousse



Finally this book is over; it looked promising but it was a bit clumsy to work with. It has good texts with natural language, though I fear there are some changes in register alongside the lessons that aren't made clear. Grammar is explained in context and it's its main advantage. It's not dumbed-down, which is good if you are serious about Indonesian.

The lack of answer key, though, makes the several drills impracticable. Also the 20 lessons have a steep learning curve. Around lesson 10 I couldn't make sense of the dialogs anymore even with French translation and a glossary. The constructs became more sophisticated and there was no literal translation to help. Too much new vocabulary at once, too long dialogs. Long lessons were the student is expected to cram all that vocabulary. It's one of these books where the texts aimed for learners are artifically 'enriched' and turned more difficult than actual native material. I'm better off doing parallel reading on my own, though I don't have access to Indonesian ebooks. I'm havinng better results from subtitle reading than from this ebook.

One thing that strikes me is how those Indonesian books are so keen about teaching derivational morphology and which infixes are productive or not as verbs, verbal-adjectives, concrete nouns, abstract nouns. It's an issue I had to a lesser extent with Georgian, and I don't understand why not just point out to the obvious relations and let the student aprehend from context?

Now finally Linguaphone Indonesian. I'm thrilled! The lessons seem short enough for me to absorb, and with audio. Might be a good prep before native materials, though I'm still looking forward to going through a second pass through Assimil.

The day was quite productive. I got a lot done till the middle of the afternoon and could go on studying non-language subjects. The two readers of this log which are jeff and iguanamon can notice from the post time that I've been posting real early these days.

[Expugnator]

I can't say enough how much recycled bad guys annoy me. How come the one from the first season which migrated to another series comes back at the end of the fifth?

Great to start Linguaphone Indonesian. The introduction has the work 'hendak': Besok saya hendak pergi ke Indonesia. I've never seen it before. It's translated as 'shall'.

I got quite a lot done despite having a little less time today. I decided to keep it at language learning.

[Expugnator]

Yesterday ended up well. I'm splitting my reading in the evening in 5 to 10 pages spurts till I reach my 20-page goal. I neglected Duolingo a bit but all's well with Clozemaster. I'm particularly happy with the latest developments for French, Norwegian and Indonesian: I'm answering those languages more promptly now.

This morning I was meant to listen to a podcast on rich results but the guy who'd introduce the theme was sounding terrible and low at the podcast, so I had to read on my own.

All in all I'm happy about podcasts though. They are working great as both language instruction and general information. It's not that straightforward to manage so many titles in varied languages, most of which I have to keep downloading and deleted in order to save mobile data and disk space (don't know why I care about the former as I barely reach a giga a month). Yet I'm really satisfied with how much quality information one can get and how that has improved my German and now Russian. I've renewed my faith in extensive listening again. It's only that for opaque languages you're better off starting with a podcast aimed for learners where you get enough reinforcement of the most common words in the language so they get recognized automatically. By most common I actually mean vocabulary up to B1 here. That's what I'm getting from the Russian podcast. I've been hearing the most common words so often and with the great paraphrases that Max uses in his explanation that I can't help but feel that my Russian is improving and leaving its stagnation.

Learned Norwegian verb å dorme, which means 'halvsove eller slumre'. Clear French origin, used in a slightly different situation.

Friday was great again. As a matter of fact, the changes in the specific materials I'm using might be responsible for my finishing the tasks earlier. I'm not spending that much time on a long Indonesian textbook lesson each day, for example.

[Expugnator]

It was a great weekend! Everything was at place. I managed to accomplish my tasks, attended meetings, spent good with with the family. I watched three episodes from Ragnarok on Netflix which for me it's a marathon, as I usually watch 10-20 minutes a day from each series.

I had an easier time on both Clozemaster and Duolingo, not being closely stalked on the former and having a much lower league survival score for the latter. I managed to do some CM Hebrew but still not enough. I'm entirely neglecting Hebrew and Guarani on Duolingo because they are the hardest ones for me now. I'll probably add a new language on Duo as soon as I finish the expanded Norwegian tree, so maybe extra motivation.

My new iOS device is running. I struggled to transfer pdfs from my 1st generation one using iTunes on Windows, then decided to try with my 2014 one only to give and buy third-party software. It wasn' cheap but hopefully it will take care of any backups and change of mobile device from now on, also on Android.

Having a fully functional iOs device now means I don't hae to limit myself to desktop only. I'll be able to use the Hebrew TTS on CM anywhere, as well as download some Netflix episodes on the go (except that Netflix only allows for English and PT_BR audio these days) and whatever feature I had been missing. It's still not the same as having an Android tablet but then there's no such thing for me as a reliable Android tablet.

I managed to read ahead already on my new tablet after restoring old iBook's bookmarks from my early device. Also found time for Podcast Italiano while preparing my snack. I grew fond of this one as much as of the Russian one. They both have a style that is considerate of learners and dettached of the issues they are discussing, not sarcastic or ironic.

[fr]Hier matin je suis allé au club avec les filles. C'était la première fois cette année que nous nous sommes baignés dans la piscine, parce qu'il n'a fait que pleuvoir depuis janvier. D'après la météo il était censé pleuvoir hier aussi vers 11 heures du matin. On s'est donc rendu tôt au club pour profiter de la piscine. Le ciel était gris, environ 25ºC, mais comme la piscine est réchauffée on a pu en profiter jusqu'à 11 heures, sauf qu'il n'a pas plu après. Au contraire, le soleil est venu pendant que nous déjeunions au club et il a fait très beau pendant toute l'après-midi ! Il ne faut jamais se fier à la météo ![/fr]

[es]La única cita que tuve que faltar en el finde fue el encuentro políglota, porque estaba ocupado el sábado por la tarde preparando mi nueva tableta. No pasa nada, porque un amigo traductor tampoco pudo participar y lo que más me interesaba en aquel momento era hablarle un poco sobre el universo de la traducción.[/es]

[no]Jeg har funnet tid også for å laste ned nye sanger og legge dem inn på telefonen min, så jeg kan høre på dem når jeg løper på tredemølle denne uken. Det er alltid oppmuntrende å ha nye sanger å lytte på på mandag.[/no]

[de]Ich hatte morgens Unterricht, bin ich später als gewöhnlich hierher gekommen. Ich habe es doch immer noch geschafft, meine Aktivitäten später nachzuholen.[/de]

Finished two seasons from the Arrowverse. Now it's time to redistribute the seasons. New one in German, the previous one has no dubbing so it's transferred to Georgian (it also happens to be my favorite). Indonesian subs get my least favorite so I won't feel anxious the days I don't make it to the end of the schedule.

Doing a series I really like in Russian will help with my plan of boosting Russian comprehension/active skills through dubbed material. I've caught myself more than one anticipating some lines from the dubbing after glancing at the subtitles in Portuguese. Russian subtitles aren't practical and I won't bother with them. The audio is clear and I have enough text in the resource I do every day after this one, which is listening-reading a translated novel.

At CM I'm starting to dettach from Esperanto and do massive reviews for other languages. It's difficult but I should keep trying.

I'm really enjoying the Linguaphone format for Indonesian. It's been long since I used it for Norwegian so I don't remember whether they belong to the same generation. It just feels accessible and transparent now, with both a glossary and a sentence-by-sentence translation. I'm looking forward to using it for Hebrew as well, as I'm not getting much from reviewing Assimil new Hebrew edition and might find trouble reviewing the old one as well.

I'm confident that after Linguaphone I'll be able to see more clearly the direction my Indonesian is taking and how soon can I consider it as a pre-intermediate language. It will be great to be able to have some basic interaction in Indonesian and get the gist of texts already.

Not made it into my treadmill playlist, but here's some pop with rap and folk influences, Meie Mäng (Our game):



I might have broken another personal record of early completion for my schedule. And I even got here 30-40 minutes later than usual. Well, it's Monday so I shouldn't celebrate that soon, but this shows that my schedule is more sustainable in 2020 than it was in 2019 (when I had it in my log's title). It is probably related to my reducing the long L-R sessions by some 30% and on being able to handle more on each language now that most of them are at an intermediate stage. I'm still struggling particularly with Hebrew and I'd love to get advice fro more experienced learners, maybe dropping by the Middle East group.

[Mista]

[no]Jeg har funnet tid også for å laste ned nye sanger og legge dem inn på telefonen min, så jeg kan høre på dem når jeg løper på tredemølle denne uken. Det er alltid oppmuntrende å ha nye sanger å lytte på på mandag.[/no]

First of all, I'd like to say that the corrections I'm going to give you now are really minor, and that the meaning comes across crystal clear.

- "finne tid for" is used when you haven't done it yet, but just put it in your calendar. When you have already done it, you say "finne tid til", or, more idiomatically, "få tid til".
- "også" is here used as a sentence adverbial and therefore needs to go in the sentence adverbial slot = "jeg har også funnet tid". Although it can be used in the position you have it, that makes it emphasize the noun in front of it, "tid", in a way that would only make sense if you found something else in the sentence before.
- although we say "høre på", I'm afraid we say "lytte til". On the bright side, that correction makes you avoid the stylistic problem of using the same word twice next to each other (Of course, that's a "problem" only in writing - in speech, people do it all the time)

[Expugnator]

Many thanks for your feedback Mista, always straight to the point. I apologize if I don't always tend to learn from your corrections or follow your advice, I just don't write often enough in Norwegian for these corrections to stick.

I was going to use 'lytte til' in the first place following my instinct, but switched to 'høre på' afterwards

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Yesterday I finished the novel I was reading in English. It was definitely a productive experience I should repeat, even though I wasn't reading it intensively. Well, I should read the next one intensively because now I can use the built-in dictionary on iPàd Books. Next one, whih I started only today, is non-fiction, digital marketing-related, in Portuguese.

Productive days for Mandarin and Georgian. As for German, it is starting to get better. I'll have to do extensive reading sometime because I've been doing L-R with Portuguese text-only plus a podcast at lunchtime. I'm starting to understand more and more from the podcast but I still miss seeing that foggy word I'm about to memorize but keep forgetting. By the way, book 8 from A series of unfortunate events. Welcome book 9.

The series I'm watching in German now has double subtitles. Not a dealbreaker if it won't work properly though.Either subtitle would be enough for me to follow the story, sometimes none at all.

It just came to mind that both Hebrew and Georgian have an alternative genitive that represents a different ending in the plural, more synthetic than the most common one.

Textbooks aimed at English-speaks sometimes go overboard on gramsplaining:

In Indonesian tiba : arrive must be followed by di : at before the noun if the
place is mentioned. e.g. Saya tiba di Jakarta : i'm arriving in Jakarta.

This is a note I'd repute as useless, only made me spent time on it. I can infer the rule thanks to the translation (both the sentence and the word-by-word ones).

So it looks like iOs now has Norwegian TTS. Let's see how well it sounds for Clozemaster.

A productive day. It was an atypical Tuesday after all.

[Expugnator]

Yesterday I had no class in the evening, so I could take my time, do some extra Clozemaster, read ahead - it's a book in Portuguese on a familiar subject which I'm devouring - and finally sleep earlier. My body didn't seem to be craving that much for that sleep because I woke up before the alarm and I didn't feel sleepy at all.

Clozemaster German has seen some improvement. My goal is to answer the sentences at Romance-level speed, but the German deck being so large I know it's quite unlikely.

A good day for Norwegian. Still unable to follow an audiobook extensively but I'm happy that my listening keeps improving.

I've come to realize that audibooks are an important factor to my productivity. If I'm reading in parallel with no audio I might get distracted, especially when it gets too hard; when I'm playing the audiobook, I know I have to finish reading while the audio is still playing, so if I get distracted I just skim through the text (usually through the L1 text) and catch up withing the 9-12 minutes I spend on each L-R session each day. Sessions over 12 minutes get me distracted. As a matter of fact, I got a better understanding from the text once I cut one or more pages when necessary in order to keep each language at my optimal duration.

[Expugnator]

I've incorportated Clozemaster Indonesian on my mass reviews. Still not as text input, rather as multiple choice on my phone (though I keep doing text input for the first level). I already feel some improvement.

The word for cliché, commonplace in Mandarin is probably 老套, according to the novel I'm reading, which is a translation so not 100% reliable.

I'm probably not ready for Linguaphone Hebrew yet. Besides, I just checked and my copy is barely legible. I'll probably review Assimil old edition and then resume Hebrewpod101 which has shorter dialogues with transcripts and translation. I dropped it at one point when it felt too much vocabulary at once, so maybe I've improved in the meantime because it feels doable now (low intermediate level).

Enjoying Linguaphone Indonesian so far. The dialogues still aren't that hard. I have to look up the odd word, but copy-and-paste usually works for throwing them on GT.