Expug’s 2020 Log: Austerity and Adaptability

[Systematiker]

For workouts at home, make a sandbag (and don’t do what I did and assume that because you lift decent heavy at the gym you need a lot of sandbag weight, I bit off more than I could chew) and also try some more advanced body weight stuff (commando pull-ups, divebomb/hindu pushups, etc; throw on a weight vest if you e got it).

[Expugnator]

I think I can do well for triceps and chest with bench pressing and push-ups, legs is ok on my own and then the treadmill, but for biceps I'm totally clueless.

A sandbag is impractical now that stores are closed, also it's 3e étage pas d'ascenseur. I don't have any bells to lift. Well, my kids weigh 15kg each I can do some resistance exercises with their help and even distract them.

I have a femural-knee syndrome so if the quadriceps gets too weak the pain will start. Also if my cardio is left behind I'll start with digestive problems such as esophagitis which might lead to bronchitis which merely combined with a runny nose would make it hard for me to breath regardless of the virus as both nose and throat would be blocked. But in order to keep running I need to keep my quadriceps strong enough.

For strength purposes only the biceps are the issue now as the other groups can be taken care of without bells and such.

It might sound a triviality but knowing my body as I do I want to keep healthy so I can help the family as well.

[jeff_lindqvist]

You might want to try this:
Prisoner Workout

[Mista]

A suggestion I saw on the news today, was to use a backpack (maybe some other bags would be more practical for biceps), and fill up with as much weight as you need in the form of for example water bottles, or books, or pretty much anything around the house that has a bit of weight.

[Expugnator]

Thank you all guys for the suggestions.

Doing exercises with a towel seems promising, but I still haven't managed to organize my training. Today I trained triceps and chest which has the largest portion of exercises that don't require weightlifting. I did make use of my two 15-kg smartbells and they seem to have had a lot of fun. There is a video of mine running on the treadmill while they jump on the carpet to the side. Hope it doesn't go viral, as my wife inadvertedly sent it to my dad who tends to spread it to the family.

I need a routine with exercices. Although I did several exercises I wasn't nearly close to exhaustion. Also, if I'm training resistence and not hypertrophy it just means I'll drain out my mass on the treadmill later. I actually need a strength program in order to reach hypertrophy. So these exercises should be varied and concentrated within a time, not pausing all the time to take care of the kids. Mista's suggestion for books was spot on. You can even sarch for the book's weight on Amazon. It's not practical making two bookbags the same weight without a scale at home (or even if I had one), so the exercises should be one arm at a time. I expect to be able to train shoulders as well as I lift much less weight when I'm training shoulder than biceps or triceps, so it won't be that hard to get to an ideal weight with the help of books. For the record, the backpack is a polyglot one as there are books in several languages.

Yesterday I got trapped into an argument. Someone got really offended that I said Georgian could be easier than Russian. I mentioned the several arguments I've used before. That person called me names and adjectives and to cut it short they said the scientific community can't be all wrong because Georgian is alien, exotic and I'm either an anomaly or merely provoking. That was mind draining for the morning and the afternoon.

Today I could join a Skype group call which was quite productive in Norwegian. The native speaker is patient and let us read a text, comment, answer questions, do vocabulary prompts. He complimented me for my vocabulary which was ahead of the other student who has been living there for long. SO I might be doing something right after all, even in my almost-silent approach. That in turn trigged again my attention to the fact I could be speaking my languages better if I were practicing speaking, as I tend to underestimate my passive skills. The italki tutor on turn complimented my speaking skills and said I should work in my listening comprehension and it would be all right.

Duolingo got mad at enlarging the demission zone so here I am doing rallies. I've managed to train nearly all my languages. Still resistant against the Hebrew course, too challening, but the Guarani one is working wonders and I can almost detect a bounce-wave effect. Clozemaster is reduced in quantity but I'm doing all languages properly. My average Greek score is better than I had expected so I shouldn't be resistant to doing my text input sessions. I've just played with the 2nd frequency level for Indonesian and I'm really excited with my word recall for this level as well, being able to answer most words promptly.

Still no proper desktop study time. Limited access to the computer especially on weekdays. It's too early to even think of a routine and I might experiment with different resources and different languages as I was saying at my last post from my normal routine.

[cjareck]

Yesterday I got trapped into an argument. Someone got really offended that I said Georgian could be easier than Russian. I mentioned the several arguments I've used before. That person called me names and adjectives and to cut it short they said the scientific community can't be all wrong because Georgian is alien, exotic and I'm either an anomaly or merely provoking. That was mind draining for the morning and the afternoon.

Well, Georgians are a small, proud nation, that - euphemistically speaking - has a complicated common history with Russia. So they probably consider their language as more complicated and thus superior. You denied that, so the person probably felt like you are trying to rob Georgians from the last advantage they have over Russia. In such a situation, arguments have no meaning because it is a matter of feeling, not reason.
By the way, I'm also proud that Polish is a complicated language

[Systematiker]

Chin ups if you have a bar, commando pull-ups holding the top of the doorframe if you don’t. Or body weight rows crouching and leaning back from a doorframe.

Sorry for a short delayed response. Not been on here in a couple days.

Edit: saw today,”Australian pull-ups” hanging under a table, could reverse for chin-ups.

Also I have to go search your logs to see if you've recommended podcasts in Norwegian, since I appear to have put that in my rotation now

[Expugnator]

Yesterday I got trapped into an argument. Someone got really offended that I said Georgian could be easier than Russian. I mentioned the several arguments I've used before. That person called me names and adjectives and to cut it short they said the scientific community can't be all wrong because Georgian is alien, exotic and I'm either an anomaly or merely provoking. That was mind draining for the morning and the afternoon.

Well, Georgians are a small, proud nation, that - euphemistically speaking - has a complicated common history with Russia. So they probably consider their language as more complicated and thus superior. You denied that, so the person probably felt like you are trying to rob Georgians from the last advantage they have over Russia. In such a situation, arguments have no meaning because it is a matter of feeling, not reason.
By the way, I'm also proud that Polish is a complicated language

Actually my argument was not with a Georgian, but with another hyperpolyglot from Latin America who felt insulted by my saying Georgian could be easier than Russian.

Chin ups if you have a bar, commando pull-ups holding the top of the doorframe if you don’t. Or body weight rows crouching and leaning back from a doorframe.

Sorry for a short delayed response. Not been on here in a couple days.

Edit: saw today,”Australian pull-ups” hanging under a table, could reverse for chin-ups.

Also I have to go search your logs to see if you've recommended podcasts in Norwegian, since I appear to have put that in my rotation now

I don't have a bar, but I also saw the Australian pull-ups, they are working!

Still suffering from the lack of proper dumbbells, especially for back and chest. I feel tired and it's mostly a resistance session, I don't feel that the muscles have been trained near exhaustion though. I can't make the exact weight I need for arms with the schoolbags and books (the bags are all tearing apart already). The weight is enough only for shoulders but not for arms. I filled up two gallons of water but they're only 5kg each, even combined that's not enough.

----------------
The first full week in quarantine went by. I'm glad I'm training but I'm having no time for concentrated language learning. I hope Clozemaster and Duolingo alone will keep my languages progressing, even if slowly.

After the virus I had been giving 12-15 hours of classes a week (plus full-time job with mandatory 1-hour lunch break plus the time going from one class to the office to another class and home. Working from 8 am to 9h30 pm was the rule most of weekdays. I was planning on reinvesting part of my revenue on italki classes, but now that nearly all of my students stopped or I decided to stop myself, I can't afford buying italki credits with the national currency that weak on a non-prioritary expense. Still, I'm convinced that my silent period is over for all my languages and I better get my islands done for good. In the past weeks I've gone out of my comfort zone and had long conversations in German, Spanish, Norwegian, Georgian and now Esperanto. I expect to be able to do the same in Mandarin and Russian.

No time for proper, desktop study though. I'm supposed to go to the office 3x this week but I hope I can bring home a laptop with VPN so I can do home office as well. I'm no health care or security servant to take unnecessary risks while nearly everyone at my floor is working from home.

I'm using hidden moments for attending courses, most of these still not language-related. I'm wondering about whether to do little desktop study on my existing languages (which I'm already keeping alive anyway through apps) or to try on a couple of new languages, which would be much more motivating at this context. With current languages I'd regret not being able to do enough, with a new language I'd feel any time spent is useful. That's just my imperfect reasoning but it would be motivating.

What has changed is that I'm active on social networks again the way I was after the kidneys surgery. That might be good for those languages I'm trying to learn to have conversations at.

[Expugnator]

Over a week has passed, we're way over April and no serious language learning at home. I'm serious about gaming at Clozemaster. Last week I reached 1mi in one week. To my defense, I'm not observing only the gaming aspect; actually I'm starting to see great progress on languages I didn't always use to do my usual rounds for, the ones I'd only check-streak before going to bed.

I'm doing Hebrew with TTS and the words are starting to stick at the third level. Icelandic pronunciation is almost nailed; it's more straightforward than Norwegian. I'm learning unique roots too, learning to recognize not apparent cognates thanks to sound shifts and starting to actually read.

Hungarian remains a language too opaque to be learned on Clozemaster alone. Czech, on the other hand, for which I'm also using Duolingo, starts to become transparent, or at least as transparent as my Russian would allow. Finnish goes for the same path even though the vocabulary discount from Estonian is much more limited.

Greek and Russian are taken good care of. I've been doing both multiple choice and text review for both of them on Clozemaster and this is reflecting on my gaining confidence. I should no longer neglect those languages on Clozemaster as I had been doing before.

Even Guarani is going somewhere thanks to the combined efforts at Clozemaster and Duolingo. I've learned the power of overlearning: we don't have many sentences on either platform, but the vocabulary is starting to stick and I make some sense of the language's complicated agglutinative syntax.

There are so many languages I feel like starting learning now (I'm lying, they remain a finite list, I just keep wondering which one(s) I should promote as I can't seem to do desk study for my current ones. Actually, I can't seem to do it for the prospects either).

Here is a short list of prospects starting from the lower-hanging fruits:

Esperanto I might already speak the language at an A2ish or B1- level, but I only consider I'm learning or speak a language somehow when I start proper textbook study. I'm doing a lot on Clozemaster and occasional Duolingo.

Catalan Ditto for Esperanto, though active skills are much more limited and I do enough Clozemaster and a little but regular Duolingo.

Czech I'm amazed at the way the language starts to become transparent. It always amazes me. With not absolutely opaque languages this addictive feeling comes earlier but it is still there, unlike a transparent language which is no fun at this respect (like showing me a Danish text doesn't feel like cracking anything; not referring to the spoken language now).

Swedish It's an odd case where I've been doing the clozes as text input and so my active skils are not negligible, but I have yet to be exposed to a text in the language. As with Esperanto and Catalan, I'd be able to read it comfortably after either edition of Assimil.

Afrikaans I don't even have enough resources for proper desk study yet but I'm learning to read it gradedly from Clozemaster. I swear it's not just procrastination from Dutch.

Dutch Afrikaans with several Assimils, Duolingo etc. At this point though it would confuse me as I'm way ahead at Clozemaster Afrikaans. I've removed psychological barriers to the language by this time.

Romanian Ditto for Czech. I'm actually training some active skills on Clozemaster, doing text input. Duolingo is helping with vocabulary categories, something I dislike studying.

Now for the real challenges:

Swahili The moment is favorable due to mental room, not getting mentally exhausted each day. From the badly conceived Duolingo course, though, I can see it's a challenge not to be underrated as a running daddy.

Guarani I'm simply a member of three active Whatsapp groups with native speakers who share messages translated into Spanish (like doing a real-time Assimil chatbot - hey I should register this!). Just this week I've discovered native materials with subtitles. Now I think I can tackle the then overwhelming textbooks. So, all is favoring it.

Basque as with Guarani, learning for the sense of community; groups of native speakers and proficient L2 learners in daily contact.

Welsh Just for a change. Started Duolingo. It has always been my first option whenever I'd decide to try a Celtic language.

Turkish I'm slowly building up on both morphology and syntax from Clozemaster. It would be impossible if I didn't know Georgian or Estonian, but the moment I start Turkish I won't be starting from scratch, that's for sure.

Well that's it, let's cut it short. I'd probably go for one low-hanging fruit+one challenge if I had, say, 1 hour a day of desk study. That 1 hour, which might even be longer, is unfortunately interrupted and should also be focused on some courses. For the record, Brazil's most renowned content marketing agency has set 5 of their paid courses for free until April 30th. They are said to take 2 hours each but each subchapter might have supplementary reading that takes up to an hour, and I do them all. Moreover, there's a mandatory course for work, I'm helping my sister with another one, I want to finally take on translation both in practicing and reading about it. It's a lot to squeeze in a day when I'm no longer sitting comfortably with actual activities running on the background for 8 hours. The fact is I can't get back into normal activities with serious prospects for remote working, because we don't know how our working conditions will be after that. I'm not someone who focusses on one thing so I have the usual 4 parallel careers lined up and I hope I'll come up as competitive in translation for example.

I've been having some wow! moments in language learning even at app-only mood but as I've been updating this log less often I tend to forget about them. I do hope to keep writing if only to enlighten the mood to other learners who have stick to their language journeys.

[Expugnator]

Writing again after a couple of days. The routine is a thing of the past. Still have some impressions to share.

Mondly has 8 new languages, like Bengali, Catalan, Latvian, Lithuanian, Urdu. With such a wide range I'll have to get used to it. Problems with Mondly are basically 2:

- The lessons are long and have plenty of fancy animated passages that slow down the learning time
- The lessons are the same for whatever language, so it feels like you're going through the same course over and over again.

Anyway, it's a fact that I've been transitioning into app learning. If I want to make more of this quarantine than just maintenance, I'll have to find tactics for actual learning to take place. Maybe combining sentence methods on apps and extensive listening on podcasts.

Sometimes I feel like trying Busuu, Babbel or Lingodeer, but I don't think it's worth the trouble of going through another app and paying dearly for it.

Speakly remains unreacheable for me, a lifetime subscriber. The lifetime warranty is not technically enforced into the app. I have to ask every year for every language so it can take place. This means over a week without studying so far plus Easter Holidays.

My non-language related courses are taking way longer than expected. I have 5 digital marketing courses with certification due at April 30/04. This means going through all of them and taking the exams. The problem is that those courses have chapters with videos 5min long and supplementary read that takes over 10 pages.

As a matter of fact, even with all those courses lined up I'm running out of Clozemaster background listening (or unable to switch from one course to another to make content more digestable, as I can't do the same course for the entire day). Most course alternates video and reading and this means getting up from the computer and reading usually on the iPad. Most of my background listening is a channel on translation tips but I get overwhelmed already in the morning. Podcasts are too extensive reading for my taste,as well as extensive content, not readily applicable either for languages or for the sake of the general learning they contain. I need dense content as in courses now, so those podcasts on translation or on digital marketing can't supplement hours a day of audio.

I've been noticing good progress on Clozemaster for Russian + Greek. I'm on the activation phase for those languages. I do as follows:

a) RussianfromEnglish random sentences, multiple choice.
b) RussianfromEnglish by levels, text input. Current on level 2 because the Russian-English deck is unnecessarily large
c) RussianfromGreek by levels, text input. This is a trade secret. It's not just the laddering effect but mainly the access to a shorter deck for an otherwise too sentence-crowded language (Russian) where focused learning can take place.
d) GreekfromEnglish random sentences, multiple choice
e) GreekfromEnglish by levels, text input.
f) GreekfromGerman by levels, text input. I started this when the Greek-English deck was having issues of percentages above 100% and never reaching sentence mastery. My German has improved sharply ever since. I could barely use it as a crutch and now it's a non-issue. Oh, my Greek too has improved a lot and now level 4 is actually easy.
g) RussianfromLithuanian by levels, multiple choice. This was just for dabbling in Lithuanian as the Lithuanian-English deck is not sorted by levels, despite being large enough for that

I've been chatting in Greek on Discord. It's a server created for promoting online polyglot meetups now that the physical ones are all suspended. Need to put Hebrew on the pool as well (for Discord and for Clozemaster).

So I'm dabbling in Lithuanian at Mondly. Combined with distant Russian-Lithuanian deck on Clozemaster, it might turn it into a middle-hanging fruit like Finnish. These tend to offer great rewards. You have a headstart on vocabulary which doesn't actually turn the language into more of the same roots.

Meet the new all-time #1 at the Clozemaster leaderboard. It was a goal for the end of the year but it just so happened.