Vegantraveller's 2020 Adventures with Languages (DE, EN, FR, IT, JA, SV)

[vegantraveller]

Hello fellow vegan! At the end of last year I began studying Japanese and also fell in love. Unfortunately I had to put it on pause, but I anxiously await returning to it. Good luck on your language journeys!

Hello thevagrant88!
Japanese is indeed a beautiful language, and the Japanese are usually very welcoming to whoever makes the effort to speak their language. I wish you to be soon back on it. And good luck with your learning, too!

[vegantraveller]

Yeah, if you know of any vegan-related Japanese stuff (Youtube channels, podcasts, etc.) please do share!

I will! At the moment I'm following this YouTube channel: Vegan夫婦の小さなチャンネル
It's a Japanese couple sharing their vegan lifestyle: it's fun and they don't use complicated vocabulary, so it's perfect to watch if you are at an intermediate level.

[devilyoudont]

Yeah, if you know of any vegan-related Japanese stuff (Youtube channels, podcasts, etc.) please do share!

Not a vegan, but I remember a youtube channel which may be of interest to you. Also of general interest to Japanese learners because they manually subtitle their videos in English and Japanese, so there should be no machine transcription errors in their videos.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLiCU0 ... g/featured

[vegantraveller]

Not a vegan, but I remember a youtube channel which may be of interest to you. Also of general interest to Japanese learners because they manually subtitle their videos in English and Japanese, so there should be no machine transcription errors in their videos.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLiCU0 ... g/featured

Thanks for your suggestion, I have subscribed to it.

[vegantraveller]

Week 21
18 May - 24 May
Lots of English this week (does it count as language study anymore?) and enough time for Japanese and Swedish. French and German were the neglected "victims".

ENGLISH - 11h25'
A series on Netflix I have been binge-watching for a while is Reign. The story revolves around Mary Stuart, Elizabeth I, Catherine de' Medici and their respective courts, but it's just so historically inaccurate and full of senseless subplots that I'm now completely addicted to it. It's quite long (78 episodes), but I'm almost finished with it.
I also went through a lesson from my grammar book, a general revision of the Present Perfect: nothing new here, but I managed to learn some vocabulary I didn't know, as well as finish lesson 5 from Assimil (Sales!), learning some interesting idioms such as to make a beeline for and to get one's skates on.
I also had an hour of conversation with my British Italki tutor, we mainly spoke about linguistics and what's being lost in a translation.
In addition to all of this, some flashcard study on Anki, YouTube videos, posting on Instagram, and reading and writing here on the forum, as well.

FRENCH - 15'
I hardly touched any French, just some reading from Templar's book (Les 120 règles d'or du travail).

GERMAN - 15'
I slacked off at German, too, some Anki practice and nothing else, unfortunately.

JAPANESE - 8h55'
During all these years of Japanese study, I have encountered all of the jōyō kanji plus a few more not in the list. I can read the vast majority of them, but I still have troubles with some uncommon characters. That's why I have decided to revise them more thoroughly, using a great textbook I bought in Japan, Kanji in Context (The Japan Times). Their method for memorising the characters is based on a three-wave revision, and lots of example sentences to learn them in context for their best retention. I started the book at the beginning of April, and I'm just going through two characters a day (it will take long for sure to complete it, but I also want to do other stuff in Japanese). Of course, these first ones are very simple, so I'm just spending 5-10 minutes a day on them. (Kanji revised this week: 何、誰、名、高、安、新、古、大、小、長　+ exercises).
I also had my Italki lesson with my sensei. I've been taking lessons with him for almost five years now, and I like the format: he usually sends me a few articles to read before our lesson, and then we talk about them (and about any language issue I might have with them). This week we talked about air conditioners (there might a peak of use this summer if we are confined at home), and about the inauspicious effects of coronavirus on tourism to Japan (a 99.9% drop of visitors in April, but the same goes for Italy and many more countries).
I also went through lesson 65 (カメラを選ぶ) on Assimil, plus some flashcard practice on Anki.

SWEDISH - 5h30'
I finished watching Kalifat on Netflix: a very-well conceived series, I loved it. I would recommend it to everyone, even if you're not specifically learning the language. Since most of the characters were foreign-born Swedes, they spoke quite clearly, so I was able to understand pretty everything.
I also finished lesson 48 from Assimil (Hårresande) plus some flashcard practice on Anki.

[vegantraveller]

Week 22
25 May - 31 May

ENGLISH - 5h15'
I should definitely spend less time on English and more on Swedish, but Reign is just so addictive! I'm going to get over it soon though, as I'm only missing the final five episodes to watch.
Apart from this, I just browsed my advanced grammar book revising perfect forms.

FRENCH - 2h10'
I love Isabelle Huppert, so when I saw that Netflix had just released a film with her, I watched it at once. Blanche come neige is a contemporary version of Snow White but, apart from Huppert's performance and the beautiful scenery in the French Alps, the film was quite dull.
I also went on with Templar's book.

GERMAN - 4h15'
A good dose of German this week: I had my private lesson with Daniel, my German tutor. We spoke a little bit about the loosening of the lockdown in Europe (he's now stuck in Mexico, but he wishes to get back to Europe soon), and then we focused on some special bureaucracy jargon and some collocations. He's a very challenging teacher, I'm very happy to have sessions with him.
I also watched a nice love comedy on Netflix, Isi & Ossi: they spoke super fast, with lots of slang and dialectal forms, but I somehow managed to follow it. And I wasn't aware of the rivalry between posh Heidelberg and popular Mannheim! (Heidelberg is definitely a place I want to visit in the future).
I also watched again half an hour of Freud, focusing on unknown vocabulary and writing it down, as well as some casual reading on German Quora.

JAPANESE - 4h30'
i just did some review of vocabulary and expressions from my Italki classes, as well as starting lesson 66 from Assimil (家を建てる), and going through my Anki Japanese desk. I've also discovered a great Japanese grammar app, Bunpo, and I'm now browsing through it.
As far as kanji are concerned, I'm going through Kanji in Context as usual. Kanji revision of the week: 短、朝、昼、夜、晩、夕、春、夏、秋、冬、山、川、石、田.

SWEDISH - 3h35'
I had my weekly class with my Swedish tutor on Italki and, after some chatting about coronavirus and lockdown in Sweden and Italy, we moved to some language points I wanted to revise, and then we talked about the influence of Latin (and French) on Germanic languages, particularly Swedish.
As far as self study is concerned, I've started lesson 49 from Assimil, a revision unit, with a nice summary of Swedish modal verbs. I also started lesson 2 from TY, with lots of family-related vocabulary, and some Anki revision.

[eido]

I love your log!

If you don’t mind me asking, what’s the story of your Japanese learning? How did you get to be so good at it?

[vegantraveller]

I love your log!

If you don’t mind me asking, what’s the story of your Japanese learning? How did you get to be so good at it?

Hi eido!

Thanks, I'm happy you like it!

Well, about my Japanese learning, to make a long story short, just time and dedication, as well as trying to use it as much as I could. I took it up at university in 1999 (it was sort a minor for me, as my major was International Economics), fell in love with it, and then tried to seize whatever opportunity I had to speak it (I remember inviting Japanese girls I met on the Internet to Italy just to practice the language ). I then went to Tokyo as an exchange student for six months, and afterwards I have had the chance to always use it for my job. I've been working as an export manager since I graduated from university, and my knowledge of languages, particularly of two major, but not so studied (at least in Italy) ones like German and Japanese has always been a particularly sought-after skill in my career. I am now a sales executive in the agro-food business, and Germany and Japan are very important destinations for Italian food items. I can speak and use both languages (and English, of course) almost on a daily basis, and I have the opportunity to leave for frequent business trips to both countries (at least, that was the case before Covid ).

My advice is thus to try, as much as you can, to make your favourite languages an integral part of your life, so that you can get extra practice without having to set time apart for them.

[vegantraveller]

Week 23
1st June - 7th June

GERMAN 1h45'
Apart from watching Drei Türker und ein Baby on Netflix and some Anki flashcard review, leider nichts mehr. Ach nein! I also discovered a nice Youtube channel about travelling, WDR Reisen, and watched a short episode about the former capital of West Germany, Bonn. OK I knew it was the birthplace of Beethoven, but I wasn't aware it was also the city of Bärgummis!

ENGLISH 8h'
I finally finished Reign on Netflix: how am I now supposed to go on with my life without the unbelievable plots and subplots of this epic (and totally historically inaccurate) series? I'll have to browse for a new one, I assume.
Apart from that, some videos on Youtube, and a couple of hours reading polyglot Richard Macpherson's nice booklet How to Maintain Foreign Languages cover to cover.

FRENCH 4h45'
Reading a few articles from Le Monde and having a nice chat with my italki tutor Marie from Paris: we mainly talked about the end of the coronavirus lockdown in France, chômage partiel and the economic repercussions of the virus, and finally the French language in Russia (she used to be a teacher there).
I also went through lesson 7 in my Assimil Perfezionamento del Francese, with a revision of pronominal verbs and how to conjugate their past participles (I already know the rules, but it's always nice to review them, since they are sometimes different from Italian), as well as listening to France Culture podcasts while driving to work.

ITALIAN
I'm just adding my native language (but I'm not counting the time I spend on it!) because I've been reading Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. Even if it's written in sixteenth-century Italian, it's so spellbinding that I could go on for hours.

JAPANESE 6h50'
For the conversation lesson with my sensei, I had to prepare beforehand by reading the articles he suggested to me. One that I found particularly amusing was about a common problem during lockdown, コロナ太り(korona-futori), i.e. putting on weight due to physical inactivity and eating a bit too much out of boredom. So we discussed the figures and data in Japan, as well as some firsthand evidence from our own experience By the way, am I the only one who actually lost weight because I couldn't hit the gym?
I also finished lesson 66 from Assimil, where an elderly couple is planning their new house to be built: too bad the husband is not getting his long-awaited garden to grow his bonsai trees!
Kanji in Context: exercises from lesson 4 + characters revised: 多、少、明、暗.

SWEDISH 3h20'
I listened to a couple of episodes of my favourite history podcast in Swedish, Historiepodden. I love this podcast, since it is aimed at native speakers (so no abridged or easy language), the episodes are long enough and treat very interesting themes from Swedish and world history. I may not seize every sentence, but I can now follow along and this has boosted my confidence in understanding the spoken language.
I also went through lesson 49 from Assimil, a review lesson and its crazy repetitionsdialog.

This week was very important for me as I decided to steer back to my focus language, i.e. Swedish. I have been studying it regularly over the past five months, but without fully concentrating on it (as I did in the past). I quickly re-read Belgian polyglot Lukas Van Vyve's notes about learning and maintaining languages, and decided to follow his guidelines again. Basically, you have to group your languages into three categories: low-maintenance languages (the ones you know at C1-C2 level plus your native language, especially if you live abroad - English, French, and Italian in my case), high-maintenance languages (the ones at B2 level, German and Japanese for me), and then concentrating just on one single focus language, your new or weakest one, so as to bring it up to a B2 level at least. So no evil plans to dabble in another Scandinavian language or in Dutch, or bring my dormant Spanish back to life for the moment, but just build up my Swedish to an acceptable intermediate level. Heja heja friskt humör, det är det som susen gör!

[vegantraveller]

Week 24
8th June - 14th June

I finally managed to focus more on Swedish and on my weaker languages (German and Japanese), spending less time on English this week.

English - 4h25'
I just listened to an episode of BBC's podcast Word of Mouth, a brilliant show about words, languages and linguistics. This time the host, Michael Rosen, was interviewing Clare Muireann Murphy, an Irish storyteller, about the magic of stories, and how storytelling is deeply rooted into Irish culture. If you want to know more, here is Ms. Murphy's website: http://claremurphy.org.
Apart from that, some writing and reading here on the forum, a couple of Youtube videos, and some Anki flashcard review.

French - 2h20'
I listened to an episode of travel podcast Instinct Voyageur: a man, with his fiancée, travelling Europe in their van and inspiring people to find their true happiness by taking risks (he was calling himself an oserologue!).
Some Anki flashcard reviews, and some reading of Templar's book.

German - 3h40'
About time to devote some focused study on German. In preparation to my hour conversation lesson with my Italki tutor, I had to work on some advanced noun-verb collocations, making sample sentences from them, and to prepare some job-related e-mails to check my level of formal business writing. I must admit that my business German is pretty good, but I still struggle to speak informal German without making mistakes. That's definitely a point I should pay more attention in the future.
I also listened to an episode of my favourite history podcast, Eine Stunde History, as well as some Anki flashcard repetitions.

Italian
I even managed to fit in some TV in my native language this week, something I haven't been doing for a while. Netflix has just released an Italian mystery teen drama, Curon. I've watched the first three episodes so far, and it seems pretty interesting. It's set in a small village on the Italian Alps, Curon Venosta (Graun im Vinschgau in German, since it's in bilingual South Tyrol), just lying on the border between Italy, Switzerland and Austria. It's pretty famous here in Italy thanks to its iconic 14th-century belfry standing out from the waters of the artificial lake which submerged the old village when a dam was built in the 1950's. I highly recommend it if you're learning Italian and if you're into mystery, the language is not difficult at all, and they speak standard Italian, no strong accents (besides some occasional German and Ladin).



Japanese - 6h50'
I finished the exercises in Assimil's lesson 66, listened to the latest episode of a travel podcast I have subscribed to (行け！世界遺産と雑学の旅), and did some Anki flashcard review.
Kanji reviewed this week: 低、近、遠、強、弱、広、悪、重、軽、早、遅、暑、寒、深.

Swedish - 8h15'
Wow, eight hours of Swedish in a week, at last! It was some months I hadn't focused so much on it.
Two hours and half were spent on catching up on older episodes from Radio på lätt svenska while driving.
I also finished Assimil's lesson 49, which delved into some literature with a famous poem by Karin Boye (Du är min renaste tröst): I just love how Assimil introduces bits and pieces of local culture in their courses, and the Swedish one is no exception!
I did some exercises on arithmetic and multiplication tables, as well as going on with my audiobook Zombiespanarna (you can find it for free on Youtube). I also watched a 2016 Swedish comedy (Jag älskar dig) and had an hour conversation with my Swedish tutor. I had the feeling to be a bit more fluent than usual (as fluent as one can be at a lower intermediate stage!), thanks probably to a good fair of exposure to the language.