"Do you see what I'm sitting on? My butt."

[lavengro]

This past week I practiced my Norwegian numbers with the aid of this instructional video which I watched several (okay about 100) times:



This same video sets out what I assume to be the standard Norwegian way of confirming you are a human rather than a computer: Vennligst gjenta etter meg [Please repeat after me]: "Fa fa ko ko. Piki piki manka."

Duolingo, Crown level 1: 32 / 172
Duolingo, Crown level 2: 25 / 172
Duolingo, Crown level 3: 15 / 172
Mystery of Nils : 6 / 26
Memrise, 1 through 7: 379 / 2801
Pimsleur, level 1: 2 / 30
Pimsleur, level 2: 0 / 30
Mango Norwegian: 0 / 100
Norwegian on the Web: 0 / 10
Target hours to 2021.08.31: 47 / 400

[Iversen]

A video to honour Reginald Foster, partly in Latin, can be watched here

[lavengro]

I've decided to take a break from this site for a while, to focus on language learning.

[lavengro]

At the end of last March, I decided firmly that trying to learn only one language at a time is the only sensible thing for me to do, and that I would do so. Lucky winner, chicken dinner: the choice was Norwegian. I then promptly withdrew almost entirely from all language learning, apart from sporadic and very short-lived intermittent efforts.

I have now decided on the following entirely sensible learning approach:

French - 50 minutes per day - throwing the entire (audio-adjacent) proverbial kitchen sink at this - Duolingo, Memrise, Mango Languages, Michel Thomas, FSI (repeat Pronunciation course, then Basic), Pimsleur (all 5 levels), lots of native language material

Norwegian - 20 minutes per day - continue with Duolingo, Memrise and Pimsleur, then Mystery of Nils and the NOW materials

Japanese - 20 minutes per day - initially divided equally between Wanikani and Genki+kitsun

Korean - 15 minutes per day - initially Memrise at first (all seven of the official Memrise courses), then FSI Basic

Greek - 15 minutes per day - learn the alphabet and pronunciation, then work through the Language Transfer audio material, then who knows - prolly FSI Basic

2 hours/day, 7 days a week, starting tomorrow. I have loosely penciled-in having fun for the first three days of this exciting new initiative, then experiencing stress in relation to trying to meet targets over the next week or so, followed by bitter self-recrimination at my inevitable failure, ultimately followed by compensatory heavy drinking. Really, it is the prospect of reaching this last stage that is the primary motivator behind this unrealistic and misguided project.

Even if I stick to this schedule (which I guarantee I will not), I have carefully calculated that it will take me 7.3 years before making any appreciable progress. That's okay, I am a patient fellow. And my cats understand me well enough in English anyways (or more accurately, they are unlikely to understand me any better if I were proficient in any of these five target languages). I may record progress periodically, as long as doing so does not step on my 2 hour daily learning obligation. Or get in the way of the scheduled heavy drinking.

[lavengro]

Day 0 of 2677 of the UMP (the "Unrealistic and Misguided Project")

French - super-rusty high beginner/low intermediate. Currently at 104 Crowns of a total of 1125 Crowns on the current manifestation of Duolingo's refreshed French tree. I recently worked through the first four units of Pimsleur 1 reviving frenchified things in my noggin, and some initial bits of Mango Languages French materials.

Norwegian - complete beginner as of last February (though with a few months of German study within the last few years, which seemed to help, and some confused study of Finnish last year which largely did not). Previously worked through 110 Crowns of Duolingo's excellent Norwegian course, and the first six units of Pimsleur level 1 as well as Memrise's Norwegian 1, and 2 (though now a little dusty and of parched need of watering) and 17 of 669 items from Norwegian 3.

Japanese - previously worked at Heisig's Remembering the Kanji before discovering Wanikani (thanks to the logs of others here). Worked diligently through Wanikani for perhaps 6 or 8 levels, then left it for several months before returning and deciding to start at level 1 again. As I have again been away for a while, I will likely be starting over again from the beginning. At 10 minutes/day scheduled for Wanikani, I am not hitting and completing level 60 for quite a while. Previously worked through the first few pages of Genki and then stopped 'cause it was hurtifying my brain. Also some Mango Languages - not sure whether I will go back now to Mango or work through Genki first (Mango has a metric tonne of audio, Genki not so much, though Genki's deficiency is remedied by pairing it with kitsun.io).

Greek - worked previously through the first 12 units of the Language Transfer materials, and poked around at the alphabet. Otherwise, it is a brand-new-to-me perplexing language.

Korean - I briefly studied Korean (from a Barrons' packaged-up verion of FSI) years and years ago and after a few weeks readily discovered that Korean was entirely beyond my ability to learn and I stopped. I recently watched Squid Games (if you haven't, you really should!) and I now have a keen interest in discovering afresh that Korean is probably still beyond my ability to learn. Starting Memrise's Korean 1 anyways, just to see.

Green Light....

[lavengro]

UMP, Days 1 through 100 of 1865* summary/progress report

Summary, and a gratuitous Ant Man reference

I decided in early November to reduce the total planned daily study time by 25% from two hours to 90 minutes, and to re-tool the original time ratios with revised aspirational daily targets of 15 minutes per day per each of French, Norwegian, Japanese, Greek and Korean, plus an additional 15 minutes per day of battling the Wanikani crabigator (kanji and vocabulary).

Also, I reduced the target length of this possibly mad project from 7.3 to 5 years (works out to 1825 days - I refuse to count the bonus leap year "demon-day" of February 29, 2024). While there were some rocky, sparse study weeks and I am in a deficit overall on my numbers (daily average of 81 minutes), and particularly for Japanese, Greek and Korean numbers (dragged my butt a fair bit on these, occasionally lacked the motivation completely), I was able to hit my targets with each of the five languages every day. Well, at least most days. Okay, truth be told, at best some (17) days. Am I a superhero for having done so? Honestly, I don't know; frankly, the label "superhero" gets overused these days. But yeah, I guess I am unquestionably a superhero! Not quite Thor per se, but perhaps a lower deck sort of superhero. Maybe like Ant Man.

=========================

We meet one new friend

It became clear around day 50 that trying to study five quite different and mostly new-to-me languages simultaneously was very ridiculous and a change was needed, particularly given the concurrent learning of two new alphabets (Korean and Greek) and a regular stream of kanji. Counterproductively, however, the change I decided upon was to add a sixth new language as a side hustle: a discretionary small hit of Latin on those days when daily targets for each of French, Norwegian, Japanese, Greek and Korean had already been achieved and some time and energy inexplicably remained available. Or when wanderlust pulled more strongly than sticking to the plan.

So, that is all in terms of concurrent study languages. Just French, Norwegian, Japanese, Greek, and Korean. And Latin. No other languages. If there were another language, some sort of secret, subsidiary venture, this is where I would announce it. If I were being honest. But nope, absolutely nothing else.....

=====================

Embarrassing disclosure – yes, I have a problem, and now another new friend

Well, if I were being COMPLETELY honest, starting December 20th I also began taking some tiny occasional doses of Arabic (MSA). Loving the writing system - a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigmatic bunch of seemingly-random scribbles. Still working at the writing system and pronunciation at this point; I just wish my handwriting were up to the task of doing better justice to this elegant script.

Other than perhaps French (which has mostly just been review and shedding of dust to this point), I have experienced some progress with each language, despite how wrongly-oriented this project may be. Excruciatingly slow progress, but that is alright. Details set out below.

=====================

FRENCH (daily average: 16 minutes)

Mostly drilling material learned in the past, via a few approaches:
- Duolingo – now at a total of 138 of 1125 Crowns
- Pimsleur – just about through Level 1
- Memrise: Level 1 in progress
- Michel Thomas: - the complete Beginner/Foundation course again (for about the tenth time over the years)
- RFI material: various materials including – just for fun and to save the world (you`re welcome, by the way) – the Mission Paris intrigue, in which I was engaged "dans une course contre la montre face à un ennemi qui cherche à ramener la France à l'époque de Napoléon." Also, all 13 episodes and related exercises d'une fiction bilingue: "Les voisins du 12 bis" (an action-packed bilingual radio story) https://savoirs.rfi.fr/en/learn-with-les-voisins-du-12-bis as well as a few (too few) units of Journal en français facile - audio/transcripts.

I also spent some (untracked) time listening passively to a fair bit of French language media - I now regularly listen to CBC`s French language news radio (Ici Radio-Canada Première, the mighty 97.7 FM) while falling asleep and while driving (usually mutually-exclusive events). Lacking visual clues, I am at about 5% comfortable comprehension of the radio material. Mini-goal within UMP: to get to around 80% comprehension by Day 800.

=====================

NORWEGIAN (daily average: 13 minutes)

I worked at the following:
- Duolingo – now at 127 of a total of 860 Crowns
- Pimsleur – Level 1 still in progress
- Memrise: revived and maintained Norwegian 1 and 2; Norwegian 3 in progress
- NTNU's NOW course (Norwegian on the Web - Norsk for utlendinger) – started working on this, on Chapter 2 currently. https://www.ntnu.edu/now

Also, just for entertainment and to learn about other parts of the world, I watched a six part unusual documentary about life in a small town in Norway - Post Mortem: Ingen dør på Skarnes (No One Dies in Skarnes) on Netflix - norsk audio, engelsk subtitles. Spoiler alert: the premise in the title of this series is not entirely accurate....



=====================

JAPANESE (daily average: 8 minutes - a disappointing showing).

Started up again with Mango Languages, resetting back to the beginning (good audio, kana rather than kanji, super slow and tons and tons of built-in repetition – going slowly with lots of review) and some deliberate very SLOW-walking (eventually, slowed to full stop) of Genki 1 (will return as soon as I have more kanji under my belt via Wanikani). I also played around a bit with kaniwani.com (sort of a reverse Wanikani).

Status:
- Mango – Unit 1, Chapters 1 and 2 completed (21 of 600 total lessons completed)
- Genki 1 – revised kana (which had gotten a little rusty) and worked through and internalized the Greetings and Introductions section and Chapter/Unit 1
- Memrise - some initial refreshing of the kana (particularly katakana)

=====================

WANIKANI (kanji and vocabulary) (daily average: 17 minutes)

I decided to reset back to Level 1. Currently still working at Level 4 of 60, grinding through the vocab items. Added a kitsun.io reverse deck for Wanikani (drilling the vocabulary rather than the kanji - good practice for the readings, which I have noted in the past to be my weakness). The material is sticking really quite well, whether due to the super slow pace and to move or more likely due to having worked through this early material previously, so I am re-learning instead of learning - either way I`ll take it. As reviewing generally takes up much (sometimes all+) of the daily 15 minutes, moving forward to add items (radicals, kanji or vocab) has been very challenging.

Learned:
- 113 radicals
- 124 kanji
- 198 vocabulary items

Distribution: 129 items to the Guru stage, 104 to Master and 161 to the Englightened stage. None yet to the Burned (as in, burned permanently into your brain) stage - that stage is achieved after a total of 5 months and 3.5 weeks (assuming no incorrect responses) in Wanikani`s SRS interval system.

Over the next 100 days, I will adopt a `5 new items/day` mandatory protocol, regardless of whether I am already at 15 minutes with just reviews. As there are 8792 items in total (478 radicals, 2027 kanji and 6287 vocabulary items) to get through, I will need just shy of 5 new items per day over the next 1765 days to get through Wanikani within the project`s five year horizon.

=====================

GREEK (daily average: 9 minutes)

I learned and got comfortable with the alphabet and pronunciation issues, some grammar and vocabulary. I tried a bunch of different learning material. Just this week I started up with Mango Languages, and am enjoying its approach.

I worked through the following:
- Language Transfer - Greek - the first 20 of 120 units (each unit completed at least twice, sometimes three times, occasionally circled back to transcribe the audio material) https://www.languagetransfer.org/greek
- Greek Online Lessons (youtube) – starting working through the A1 playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZtyw-q9JVeZvJRQEE8uOX9lWR4Cnm1EB
- Duolingo – completed 16 of a total of 475 Crowns
- Mango Languages – completed Unit 1, Chapter 1, Lessons 1 and 2 completed (2 lessons of a total of 189 lessons)

I anticipate sticking with Mango Languages rather than the other options.

=====================

KOREAN (daily average: 9 painful minutes)

I started briefly with Memrise, but quickly moved instead onto other material. Worked through a number of sources to learn Hangeul (Korean text) and pronunciation. Finally got comfortable with the hangeul alphabet (love the look of Korean text) and pronunciation issues including sound change rules. Just started and will probably continue with Mango Languages.

I worked through the following:
- Learn Hangul in 90 minutes - several times https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5aobqyEaMQ
- Billy Go`s youtube Beginner Korean Course – working through the youtube videos on the Beginner`s playlist (up to video #10) https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbFrQnW0BNMUkAFj4MjYauXBPtO3I9O_k
- Korean Made Simple (book by the same guy in the youtube course) - chapters 1 and 2, including limited audio material
- Mango Languages – Unit 1, Chapter 1, Lesson 1 (1 of a total of 75 lessons)

In addition to some non-time-tracked time watching Korean language material (Korean audio, English subtitles), just for exposure to the sound and rhythm of the language, including the moderately-disturbing six episode documentary on the New Truth Society in South Korea and those rascally Arrowhead members:


=====================

LATIN (daily average, from day 51: 10 minutes)

I started studying Latin on December 10th, beginning with Duolingo`s short Latin course - I particularly appreciate the audio aspect of many of the exercises as my secret eventual landing point is someday to be able to engage in conversational Latin, just in case it becomes necessary. (This is tied up with my time machine experiments - more on that later, but not until patent approval granted, for obvious reasons.) I have just recently received and have started working through Ørberg`s Lingua Latina Per Se Illustratra (Familia Romana) [LLPSI] together with some related audio reading of the text. I have also been poking around at a number of different public domain texts available online, listed below – haven`t settled on a text yet.

I worked through the following:
- Duolingo - completed 11 of 220 Crowns in Duolingo Latin
- Lingua Latina per se illustratra, Familia Romana - chapters 1, 2 et 3
- Scorpianus – youtube audio for the LLPSI (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU1WuLg45SiyrXahjvFahDuA060P487pV)
- Elementary Latin: The Basic Structures – which appears to be an early version of the Natural Method used years later by Ørberg in LLPSI. Worked through the introductory chapters, including oddly the Atzec language references
- Latin for Canadian Schools, Breslove and Hooper. Comprised of 82 lessons designed for three years (grades 10, 11 and 12) of Canadian high school Latin in the late 1950s and in the 1960s. One of the objectives of the authors was to produce a book which could be covered `without undue haste` in three years. I figure 15 minutes a day for five years qualifies as an appropriate level of haste that is not `undue` in any sense of the word. I worked through the first three chapters.

=====================

ARABIC (daily average, from day 61: 8 minutes)

I started from complete scratch on December 20th. Have to be honest - this one kinda surprised me, I had not previously considered learning Arabic, but was playing around on Duolingo and got hooked.

- Duolingo, completed 2 of 230 Crowns.
- Arabic Reading Course (http://arabicreadingcourse.com) – partway through. This seems like an excellent introduction, particularly with the practice and quiz components.

=====================

Next steps (aka, Komodo dragon battle threat never far from my thoughts)

I am planning on continuing with this poorly-conceived project out of interest and perhaps out of stubbornness for another 100 days, but almost certainly will quit after that.

Or alternatively, I may continue and at some point take on an additional language: this would likely be Bahasa Indonesian - I have long known that my unavoidable destiny is for some reason at some point in my life to wind up wrestling a Komodo dragon, and Indonesian may be useful in calling for medical assistance afterwards. For the dragon, I mean.

Back in another hundred days....

[lavengro]

....
Back in another hundred days....

I have decided to put myself on a one year suspension from this site.

I took a position in a now-moderator-deleted post this morning [REDACTED] I now realize how offensively political this was, I guess, so I am putting myself under suspension for re-education purposes.

Back in another 365 days....

[rdearman]

We don't have any problem with anyone having a political opinion. Nobody said your opinion was invalid, or that you need re-education, we simply ask that you don't use this forum as a platform to discuss politics.

[lavengro]

Popping back briefly with a public service announcement regarding legal proceedings against Duolingo that may be of interest today.