Larry Skywalker and that weird bear

[lavengro]

Ça marche en Star Wars, avec l'espèce d'ours et Larry Skywalker, mais ça marche pas en réalité.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY1Z3yFMztg - @ 1:16. Grazie mille John Oliver/Last Week Tonight

[lavengro]

I have started an unrealistic project, il mio progetto decennale, which probably stands as much chance of success as either Larry Skywalker or his strange space bear would have of success in the real world.

The project involves an iron-clad, non-negotiable, irrevocable commitment on my part to engage in at least two hours of language study per day, every day, over a ten year period (which started September 18, 2020). No particular languages or goals are identified, other than a general aspirational goal of eventually being less awful with languages. I have factored in the modest escape valve of being able to bank/borrow up to one hour per day from time to time as may be needed to smooth out life's occasional curve balls. While I will be tracking my time here, I'm not proposing to use this log to engage in any ongoing analysis or commentary; it is mostly just a data dump for the time being.

As of the commencement of this project, I can speak English tolerably well, and have perhaps a low intermediate status in French and an advanced beginner status in Italian. I also have very limited beginner-level snippets of a few other languages as the result of having previously poked around a little at German, Icelandic, Russian, American Sign Language, Barking (at/with dogs to try to foster a sense of comraderie - bit of a trainwreck of an experiment, frankly) and Spanish. I did not make much progress with any of these, and certainly have very little in the way of retained knowledge. I recently began poking around at Japanese and Finnish.

I'll re-assess at the end of this project on September 17, 2030 to see where 7,300 hours of language study takes me.

[lavengro]

Reserved for listing materials completed during il progetto decennale (assuming I stick with the programme) or for an explanation of why I cratered out of the program so predictably early (which is what I am actually assuming will be the case, probably by or before November).

Finnish
Memrise, Numbers in Finnish

Italian
Memrise - Italian 1 (review)
Il legame (The Binding)
Il processo (The Trial) - all eight episodes

[lavengro]

It is by will alone I have set my mind in motion ….

September (from September 18, 2020) data: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... edit#gid=0

Daily average from commencement: 2:06. Worked at Japanese, Italian and Finnish this month

Cumulative totals from commencement date:

FINNISH: 2:28
ITALIAN: 5:08
JAPANESE: 19:49

TOTAL: 27:25

Time remaining: less than 7,273 hours

[jeff_lindqvist]

The project involves an iron-clad, non-negotiable, irrevocable commitment on my part to engage in at least two hours of language study per day, every day, over a ten year period (which started September 18, 2020). No particular languages or goals are identified, other than a general aspirational goal of eventually being less awful with languages.
[...]
I'll re-assess at the end of this project on September 17, 2030 to see where 7,300 hours of language study takes me.

Some project! Even if you'd spread yourself thin and work on, say, eight languages every day, that would still mean 912.5 hours per language. Not bad.

Good luck and have fun!

[lavengro]

Thanks Jeff! While there is zero (or less) chance of my actually going ten years, I figure I will at least have fun while it lasts.

[lavengro]

October data: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uqWHedrpsKBgRRWxG7UlwJVIFia9I6Ja3GnpeStRUXg/edit#gid=0

Continued to work at Finnish (11h 45m), Italian (22h 51m) and Japanese (28h 33m). Daily average this month: 2:02

Cumulative:
FINNISH 14:13
ITALIAN 27:59
JAPANESE 48:22

Time remaining: less than 7,210 hours

[DaveAgain]

I think the French edition of Anna Gavalda's 'Billie' may be micro-targeted at You.

[lavengro]

November summary

Some reasonably significant missteps this past month (usual excuse: short periodic abductions by extraterrestrials who had neither the intention of providing me the time to study, nor a willingness to give me their internet password – honestly, I am getting pretty tired of this crap).

As a result, my numbers for November are way down and I have wound up where no one should want to be: in debt to the Time Lords. Bearing in mind some very modest overages in September and October, I now owe 18 hours 4 minutes.

Daily average this month: 1:18
Cumulative daily average: 1:45

FINNISH...... 20:20 (this month: 6:07)
INDONESIAN 4:51 (this month 4:51)
ITALIAN ..... 34:02 (this month 6:03)
JAPANESE ... 66:05 (this month 17:43)
RUSSIAN ...... 4:28 (this month 4:28)

TOTAL 129:46

Approximately a scant 7,170 hours remaining.