PM's The Norwegian Resistance - Target 1000 hrs +++

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Gustav Aschenbach
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Re: PM's 2021 Log - The Norwegian Resistance - Target 1000 hrs +++

Postby Gustav Aschenbach » Fri Jan 15, 2021 6:26 am

PeterMollenburg wrote:I've been meaning to reply to you for some time now. Anyway, here it is. I feel like you might have misinterpreted or found me to be a little harsh. I never meant to be and I respect your input and comments with regards to my learning. Below you will see that I have highlighted that despite not asking for your advice, it is welcome ;)


Hi Peter,

no problem, I just wanted to faire ma mijaurée, that's all ;)

Okay, so I totally I agree with your new approach that health comes first. With sleep deprivation your memory doesn't function correctly, you don't grasp things as easily, so cutting out sleep in order to study more doesn't make sense. It's more efficient to study 60 minutes with a fresh mind than to study 120 minutes when you're exhausted.

But the 1000 hours you want to use as best as you can in order to learn Norwegian I still wouldn't fill with 6 beginner's courses. I'd dive into native material asap, since there are so many things (words, idiomatic expressions etc.) that you have to learn. Norwegian is relatively easy, you surely can start with newspaper articles and audio books after Assimil (or whatever beginner's course you want to use). Because if you fill the 1000 hours with beginner's courses, there still will be this mountain in front of you that you prepare and prepare and prepare to finally climb... My opinion.
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Re: PM's 2021 Log - The Norwegian Resistance - Target 1000 hrs +++

Postby PeterMollenburg » Fri Jan 15, 2021 11:40 am

Gustav Aschenbach wrote:
PeterMollenburg wrote:I've been meaning to reply to you for some time now. Anyway, here it is. I feel like you might have misinterpreted or found me to be a little harsh. I never meant to be and I respect your input and comments with regards to my learning. Below you will see that I have highlighted that despite not asking for your advice, it is welcome ;)


Hi Peter,

no problem, I just wanted to faire ma mijaurée, that's all ;)


Okidoki. I'd never heard of the term 'mijaurée', btw. You mention idiomatic expressions below. Well, you're right, because even with 60000 hours of French, I'd not heard that one before ;)

Gustav Aschenbach wrote:Okay, so I totally I agree with your new approach that health comes first. With sleep deprivation your memory doesn't function correctly, you don't grasp things as easily, so cutting out sleep in order to study more doesn't make sense. It's more efficient to study 60 minutes with a fresh mind than to study 120 minutes when you're exhausted.

But the 1000 hours you want to use as best as you can in order to learn Norwegian I still wouldn't fill with 6 beginner's courses. I'd dive into native material asap, since there are so many things (words, idiomatic expressions etc.) that you have to learn. Norwegian is relatively easy, you surely can start with newspaper articles and audio books after Assimil (or whatever beginner's course you want to use). Because if you fill the 1000 hours with beginner's courses, there still will be this mountain in front of you that you prepare and prepare and prepare to finally climb... My opinion.


For sure. Sleep is vitally important.

On the 1000 hours thing... After I reach 1000 hours I expect to go into a long-term growth phase with Norwegian, much like my Dutch and French. The 1000 hours isn't necessarily a project to absolute fluency or bust. My aim is to introduce the language to my children next year, and to do so I want to be all over the pronunciation and be as comfortable with the language as I can be for everyday communication and reading of stories. If I need to do more work down the track (as I need to with French still, and definitely with Dutch) to push the level higher, I will continue with Norwegian. And once it becomes a 'working language' with the family, it's here to stay and be used regularly. My point is, 1000 hours isn't the end of it, it's the start of it, but a big bold 'head start' to get me off and running with the language.

1000 hours is a good number to target because it is both difficult to reach yet it is doable for me within a year and I don't want to put FR and NL on the backburner for more than 12 months. I also realise that if I don't get a really solid foundation in the language quickly, the window of opportunity for sharing with my children, and them using it with me will get narrower or at least need be approached in a different way, potentially trickier for me to pull off. They already use French with absolute confidence, Dutch is slowly growing and my daughter is keen to learn Norwegian (as am I), hence the mission.

Were the mission a Spanish one and not Norwegian, I would not feel the need to do so much background study before introducing the language to them. In Spanish I already know the basics and the pronunciation is absolutely predictable. Norwegian, as simple as it is grammatically comes with tricky pronunciation. I don't want to butcher a language when I speak it to my children. It's my gift to them (and to myself) and I want to do it properly - for me that means multiple courses.

I enjoy courses, I find I get a lot out of them. Skipping to native content too early would frustrate the hell out of me. I won't rush it, I need to thoroughly get the basics engraved into my memory banks in the form of speech patterns, grammar, vocab and pronunciation. I would arguably learn less efficiently with native content being introduced earlier, because it's beyond my level, even after an Assimil course. Even after a few beginner's courses.

More courses do not equate to less efficiency, since each one I do brings with it more vocabulary, more exercises (to drill in vocabulary and grammar explained and practised) and things that are duplicated are reinforced or quickly dealt with if they are already well internalised.

I think it's a misunderstanding in the language learning community to an extent, that the sooner you transition to native content, the quicker you will learn. Well, for me, doing so could be very inefficient and damaging to your foundations (grammar and pronunciation in particular) for a new language that requires careful considering when learning new concepts and sounds. I guess audio books would help, and I do plan to use them. However, learning pages out of books and only grasping a handful of words over a page or two seems like a waste of time. And if it's after a few courses (including Assimil), I still think it's inefficient. With more courses, the newer vocab and practise drills with vocabulary and grammar are perfect. You're learning new things each day but not being overwhelmed with masses of unknown words.

Remaining in course land for longer is not as bad as it's made out to be. The vocabulary and grammar has to be learned at some point, it's just the method of delivery I prefer. Granted, if one wants to be a fluent you must 'crossover' at some point, but nothing wrong with that being later than what many would think.
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Gustav Aschenbach
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Re: PM's 2021 Log - The Norwegian Resistance - Target 1000 hrs +++

Postby Gustav Aschenbach » Fri Jan 15, 2021 5:57 pm

PeterMollenburg wrote:I think it's a misunderstanding in the language learning community to an extent, that the sooner you transition to native content, the quicker you will learn. Well, for me, doing so could be very inefficient and damaging to your foundations (grammar and pronunciation in particular) for a new language that requires careful considering when learning new concepts and sounds. I guess audio books would help, and I do plan to use them. However, learning pages out of books and only grasping a handful of words over a page or two seems like a waste of time. And if it's after a few courses (including Assimil), I still think it's inefficient. With more courses, the newer vocab and practise drills with vocabulary and grammar are perfect. You're learning new things each day but not being overwhelmed with masses of unknown words.


I think I understand what you mean, but to my mind you really learn quicker the sooner you switch to "native" / increasingly challenging material. Most courses are for beginners (and never go beyond the beginner stage even if they claim it) and all of them introduce the same words (you/me/ to have/to go ...) plus some vocabs that surely will differ from course to course, but all in all it will not be enough to attain an advanced level or even an intermediate level. The sooner you expand your vocabulary, the quicker you learn, of course. The more situations you hear or read a certain word or grammar structure in, the more you understand it. The same goes for pronunciation, it's good to work on the basics, but you say yourself Norwegian isn't predictable pronunciation-wise. Chances are the you won't always know how to pronounce a new word correctly, so it would be better to get a lot of input as soon as possible.

This is only my opinion and I myself am just very curious when it comes to new words and expressions. I actually can't wait to dive into the language and learn more and more things. But everybody's different and I'm not saying your approach is worse or anything, I guess I misunderstood because I originally thought that wanted to learn as much Norwegian as possible in that year. Now I get that you want to build a linguistic core as strong as possible in order to build on that afterwards.



Okidoki. I'd never heard of the term 'mijaurée', btw. You mention idiomatic expressions below. Well, you're right, because even with 60000 hours of French, I'd not heard that one before


Two words: native content ;) :lol:
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Re: PM's 2021 Log - The Norwegian Resistance - Target 1000 hrs +++

Postby PeterMollenburg » Mon Jan 25, 2021 4:22 am

Hei Peter, hvordan har du det?

Det går bra, takk :o

rdearman wrote:
I'll be doing it sensibly and if I don't make it, I don't care!


Hummm... I think Peters account may have been hacked into...


Only if Peter looks a little crazy or says some crazy stuff. So, basically, his account has always been hacked. It's never been the real Peter all along. Isn't that right, Peter?

Peter 2 (the original Peter):
Yes that's right, kind sir. Are you normal?

Peter 1 (the more original Peter)
Yes I'm very normal. Who hacked our account?

Peter 3 (the most original Peter)
I think it was Peter 4.

Peter 4 (the more original of all 17 original Peters)
That was Peter 6 plus 2.

Peter 8
You mean me?

Peter 6 and Peter 2:
No he means us

Peter 4
Whatever, I don't have time for this %$^&. I'm waiting for my hair to grow longer.

rdearman wrote:Peter I advise you to grow your hair longer.


Peter 5:
Hvorfor?
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Re: PM's 2021 Log - The Norwegian Resistance - Target 1000 hrs +++

Postby PeterMollenburg » Sun Jan 31, 2021 1:23 pm

That's January done...

To average my target of 3 hours/day of Norwegian I needed to reach, well it's not hard to calculate - 93 hours of Norwegian. That didn't happen.

What did I actually reach?

82 hours and 49 minutes.

Underperforming, but I'm still pleased with the month. Given I spent a lot of time listening to English podcasts, some time on French and Dutch learning as you'll see below and started exercising again.

I also missed two days of study in the 365 Day Challenge.

My 3 hours/day target was also meant to be desk study ideally. Well, that was a hard target to meet that I fell well short of and so just reverted to aiming for 3 hours study of Norwegian overall per day. For the year overall, targeting 1000 hours of Norwegian remains, so I expect I'll bounce back and regain the lost ground in February and March and be back on track in due course.

January 2021..
Norwegian: 82 hours 59 minutes
French: 23 hours 40 minutes
Dutch: 9 hours 46 minutes

Breakdown
Norwegian
60 hours and 10 min of course work at my desk
22 hours 49 min of audio courses

French
Almost 12 hours of reading aloud to the kids
Nearly 10 hours of TV watching
and a tiny bit of other stuff

Dutch
9 hours 46 min of reading to the kids.

Although I didn't average 3 hours of Norwegian a day I did almost reach a four-hour average of language learning/day with 116 hours and 25 min total over the three languages.

Still with all that study while doing so many courses, I still felt like the consistent daily progress through the courses was a bit lacking. I'll tackle Feb and March with a more diligent approach and see whether I can hold onto the 6 courses I'm doing simultaneously (in rotation), or whether I need to cut back.

Despite the decent numbers I feel my studying hasn't been efficient enough, since at times dropping the study while doing other things, not doing as much as I could've or just being a bit lazy it affected my course progress and I often had to spend time revising because I hadn't seen the course at hand for a three or four days, which wouldn't happen as much had I been more consistent. And I would've progressed further with the content. Still, picking things up later than planned is better than not at all.
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Re: PM's 2021 Log - The Norwegian Resistance - Target 1000 hrs +++

Postby rdearman » Sun Jan 31, 2021 10:31 pm

PeterMollenburg wrote:I feel my studying hasn't been efficient enough

:shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock:

Yeah, I should have your problems. :roll: :roll:
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Re: PM's 2021 Log - The Norwegian Resistance - Target 1000 hrs +++

Postby PeterMollenburg » Sat May 15, 2021 10:22 pm

An update on the Norwegian mission...

I stopped with Norwegian three months back. I had too much on my plate and there was unfinished business I aimed to attend to language wise (French), but subsequently have been questioning that too, although the plan there (with French) was to get seriously down to business from July onwards, so there's still a possibility. It certainly wasn't a matter of laziness, and language 'use' has continued for Dutch and French, but while life has always been getting gradually busier for me, during the last couple of months it has reached extreme levels that won't (fingers crossed) continue. I knew it was coming so I decided to put everything on hold including active language study of all languages. The only reason I could get on the forum from time to time was because work (like today) was sometimes the quietest part of my day, while other times work was just as insane as the rest of my day if not worse.

I aim to get back to Norwegian in future, but this 1000 hour mission for 2021 has been a drastic fail. I returned to French and Dutch maintenance for a few months with an aim to go on another French C2 exam mission (from July), but I remain hesitant about this as well. So I'm currently undecided about which language(s) to focus on currently for active study, while I continue to use French and Dutch throughout my days, reading to the kids, watching series (mainly in French) and some audio (podcasts etc) in both languages. Norwegian has all but disappeared from my routine except for the occasional series with English subtitles (Beforeigners) for some down time. I've been listening to much more English lately too out of necessity not because I'm tired of learning languages, but I hope to be able to do away with this down the track or get the ratio tipped back in the language learning favour.
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Re: PM's 2021 Log - The Norwegian Resistance - Target 1000 hrs +++

Postby PeterMollenburg » Tue May 03, 2022 1:00 pm

Well it was nearly a year ago that I made that last post....

Beginning April 2022 I promised that I'd go on an extensive reading mission for French. Well, instead on day one I picked up the Norwegian language learning courses and went a bit insane....

Why? My thinking was that my kids French and Dutch are under control. Spanish is in slow-growth mode, but they are at least familiar with the sounds from my reading aloud and some TV time. Yet, I want to teach my kids Norwegian too. To do so means I need to get to a reading and speaking level in which I'm not ruining the pronunciation. My Dutch is only half as advanced as my French (if that), yet I am still able to read aloud regularly to the kids, speak to them (with circumlocutions regularly employed along with dictionary use - always French-Dutch when relating to the kids, never English-Dutch) and their language level as well as mine keeps improving. Thus, without active Dutch study, the language is secure-enough for the time being. Kids absorb phonemes/melodies of languages more smoothly the younger they are, and yet they continue to grow :lol:

So, on the first day I used Learn Norwegian by Sverre Klouman, The Mystery of Nils and Assimil - Le norvégien. I did three hours that first day.

Fast forward perhaps a couple of weeks and I'd also added in Beginner's Norwegian and Hugo's Norwegian in Three Months. Shortly after I added the 1990 version of Ny i Norge. I reduced my study blocks to 45 minutes a piece, thereby rotating through four courses a day instead of three as I was still on 3 hour daily missions. Some days later I added a seventh and final course, Le norvégien en 20 leçons, as I didn't want to return to this course after finishing the others due to it's less dense appearance as it would seem superfluous after completing the others. Best to add it into the mix now then.

My three hours a day (at my desk) of Norwegian study continued. I wound up with a perfect month. I'm not sure I've ever done this during any other month of language study. That is, three hours every single day of the month at my desk (sometimes at another desk, a table, on the floor, completing studies in work breaks and other such adjustments). I also focused on Pimsleur Norwegian during some commutes and other opportune moments. A tiny bit of TV for good measure, but I reduced those times down in my Norwegian learning time for the month, as I didn't see it as much being gained at this early stage.

I caught up to where I had reached before stopping last time round last year in most of my books. Some I moved into new territory, some I was on the cusp of it.

Thus, I finished April 2022 with 106 hours and 37 minutes of Norwegian, plus five and half hours of Spanish (reading to the kids only), 7 and a half hours of Dutch (mainly reading to the kids, some study after Norwegian completed), and 8hrs 40min of French (again a mixture). I think I managed more Norwegian for the month than I did for the six weeks of the 6WC I won when I competed with Norwegian (mind you it was a low scoring leaderboard and I was lucky to have won truth be told).

However.....

While my motivation was at fever level, it wasn't healthy. I cut sleep short mornings and nights - sometimes both, more rarely just one of the two. I needed to rise early so that I could get my study out the way asap most days and have some time left for other things. This turned out to be not that much time. 3 hours study time often turns into closer to four when you get up to do things between blocks of study, even trying to be efficient. I ate terribly for days on end at times and still managed to continue to study (this was new for me) late at night. I don't think it's a skill I should be proud of - ignoring my body. I fought sleep. I stopped exercising. I read less to the kids, and pushed other things aside always. So keen was I to reach that 3 hours per day.

Where to from here?

A few days back I was considering doing this for a full year, or until I reached a thousand hours, or maybe even reached Norwegian C2 in some kind of PM record time, even before doing so in French (can't see myself flying to Norway anytime soon to take the test). Such is the grandiose ego-centric nature of my language learning mind sometimes.

Yet, something came over me today. We've been sick lately and the reasons I feel are pretty clear (we're both pushing ourselves). And yet a couple days back when I felt my worst, I still did the three hours. Thing is, we've got some 'significant' days coming up that aren't all about me and trying to forge three hours/day around these days would see some pretty torturous moments to get the study in (super extreme early, late, less than ideal locations). No thanks. Is it that conducive to good learning, to do so while fatigued, unhealthy and at times missing out? Motivation let me get past some torturous moments in April, but now reality is here and torture is torture.

I'll keep moving ahead with Norwegian for now. I deliberately missed my target of 3 hours today to take some pressue off. I've done 1.5 hours and I'm happy with that. I think mentally I just reached that point - 'enough now, let's be sensible'. My life is not the same as was when I was doing 3 hours/day of French several years ago now, and that's just reality.

So, some thoughts on Norwegian in general. Yep, straightforward grammar, nothing overly tricky so far. Pronunciation this time round is not a shock as I've been there before. It's just tedious. I'm not as finnicky about the tones this time as I feel I need to trust myself maturing with the language with time, but I still look up tones for all new words, as I want to start off each word on the right foot. The notes in the back of the Assimil book alone are enough for any a budding Norwegian learner who wants to develop a decent accent to let out a few expletives, throw their books in the air and proclaim some kind of self-justifying expressed exacerbation at the apparent ridiculous nature of this component of the language. Too many rules, exceptions to rules, exceptions to exceptions with regards to which tone to apply to which words and when. Still, I'll work on it gradually, without putting myself under the pressure of memorising such grammatical lists, which I did do with French - and I'm not sure it was worth it, as I developed a natural feel for such things eventually anyway. Memorising tediously lengthy lists of grammar rules isn't such a great approach.

I've ordered the French version of The Mystery of Nils (Le mystère de Nils). Why not?

I forgot how tediously slow it can be to learn a language in the beginning stages. When I read French now and sometimes Dutch, I am almost amazed and how fast I can read compared to Norwegian (which I actually can't read, unless it's a dumbed down text in the beginning pages of a language course). When I read French to the kids I sometimes have this realisation of late - 'yep, you're still improving, you just don't notice it overnight, it's subtle and it's gradual, but it's definitely still apparent'.
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Re: PM's The Norwegian Resistance - Target 1000 hrs +++

Postby PeterMollenburg » Tue May 17, 2022 6:54 am

The month of May has gone the opposite way of April. Near the start of the month (of May) a passing illness had set in, but set in well. So, I had to back off studies. Sanity also set in, so I backed off anyway.

So I cut back to two courses: Learn Norwegian by Sverre Klouman and Le norvégien en 20 leçons. The former is old fashioned (somewhat outdated), but thorough and much focus is given to phonetic development, if you will. It's downside is the teaching of only two genders. The latter is French based, but not that exciting so far and a bit light on, as it name does not pretend to be otherwise, but at least three genders are taught.

I toyed lightly with the idea of changing my language of choice to focus on but quickly came full circle and decided I must stick with Norwegian. Ideally I'd like to reach B2. Also ideally, I'd like to not backslide much at all with French nor Dutch. Were I super sensible I'd probably go back to French and soldier on to C2, but truth is, if I drop Norwegian now, my kids won't learn it (as well?/at all?), so I'll push on with Norwegian but ensure French and Dutch are maintained well enough. Spanish remains a language I read to the kids in pretty regularly and I expect it to continue to grow ever so gradually in the background.

Truth is, while I've created this, my languages are not just mine anymore and haven't been for a while. My family is well and truly involved and so my choices of study and maintenance are not just about me.

This calls for a different language log. It's not only French, it's not only Norwegian, it's not just me. See you all in my new log! Here's a link: PM's Multilingual Family Adventures in a Monolingual Wasteland
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