Lemus Log-2021 (and 2022 and 2023!)

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Lemus
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Re: Lemus Log-2021

Postby Lemus » Sat May 29, 2021 5:54 pm

I hope to keep updating this log a little more regularly but we will see how that goes. If history is any indication I will be letting it lapse for a month soon enough...

I have been watching episodes of the Russian Netflix show, Better than Us. I have to say it's a notable jump in quality from most of the other non-Netflix produced Russian stuff that they have. Netflix must be quite generous with the production budgets. Anyway it's still very hard to follow but I am getting through broad plotlines fairly easily and at times there are whole conversations that I understand easily. I write down words I don't recognize and for each 50 minute episode I am capable of filling two columns of a standard notebook.

It's still very frustrating but I try to stay focused on my objective level of progress. I am unquestionably learning lots of new words but I just want the progress to be as rapid as it was for Portuguese (as if learning Portuguese after Spanish was at all comparable to going into Russian with no Slavic background).

With German I have added some podcasts from the podcast thread. Thanks to everyone who submitted suggestions over there! RadioWissen has proved to be my favorite because of the mix of content, speed of speaking, and length of episodes. When I'm feeling down about Russian it's nice to turn on a German podcast about some fairly complex topics and understand most of what's going on. It's a real confidence booster and a reminder that I will get there with Russian some day.

Also adding some German words into Anki from Rilke. I am definitely encountering some words I am unfamiliar with.

I also finished up Rilke's Das Stundenbuch (The Book of Hours). Very challenging poetry, not because of the language but the ideas. I have a bilingual edition but I wouldn't call it a parallel text since the English translators are aiming to keep the rhythm of the poem over literal meaning. They often therefore deviate pretty significantly and the English version ends up being almost a different poem on a similar theme. It's been interesting diving deeply into a parallel text like this as it really shows how challenging poetry translation is and how you can never quite reproduce the original

I am still watching a lot of Spanish content but that's not really systemic. On occasion I write words down for Anki but not often. There really aren't all that many words at this point unless I switch things up geographically. The major frustration point here is that after two seasons I still don't know Who Killed Sara. They better not drag this thing out for any more seasons after number three.
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Lemus
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Re: Lemus Log-2021

Postby Lemus » Sun Sep 26, 2021 3:59 pm

I knew it had been a while since I updated this log but I had no idea it had been since May.

Perhaps I was letting it go since I did not feel there was much to report. I have not been doing much of anything systematically since then. I watch Russian audio content when I'm feeling up to it and English audio with Russian subtitles when I'm not (the latter being far more common). My vocabulary is undoubtedly improving immensely from this. There are times now in Russian original content I can grasp entire short conversations without needing to read the subtitles. Of course, there are also plenty of times even with the subtitles I have to pause to figure out what is going on, but still, there is objective progress.

The next big challenge will be to try a novel. I have two simple-looking thriller novels ready to go for this purpose but I just know that will be a huge mental challenge and my graduate courses have started up again. I don't know that I will have the right mental headspace for that until at least Christmas. Most likely I keep my steady but undramatic vocab work for a couple months still before I make the big leap. I have also been toying with some classic German literature and probably can't get through both at one time.

Unsystematically doing everything else. A German novel here, a Brazilian TV series there. It is interesting to watch that when I let Spanish or German go for a while I can pick them back up as if nothing happened but if I do the same with Italian or Portuguese there is a period I have to wake things up again. The fact that I've been doing Spanish and German much longer is clearly the root of that and shows how much firmer their foundations are in my mind.
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Lemus
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Re: Lemus Log-2021

Postby Lemus » Sun Nov 28, 2021 10:23 pm

I see I let this log go another few months without an update. Again, that does not concern me greatly. I only maintain it for self-accountability reasons and my motivation has been fairly good during this intermezzo.

It's nearing the end of the year so not a bad time to start thinking long-term about what my goals will be for 2022. My semester ends in a few weeks so in many ways 2022 starts then for me in a language-sense then.

I would like to focus on German, Portuguese, and Russian in 2022 but in very different ways.

Russian is the one I want to make the most progress on. I want to finally start reading novels and finish I think ideally at least three for the year. Maybe that is not especially ambitious but I don't know how hard it will prove and I think it is best to keep my aspirations low for now. I am not setting any Anki targets for now. For sure, I did not make as much progress as I wanted in 2021 but I still improved dramatically, especially in vocabulary.

Portuguese was neglected this year, which is a shame. I would like to read at least five books and add at least 500 words into Anki along with watch a significant number of movies and shows on Netflix in 2022.

German I want to really reach for a high level this year. I have three books I want to reach which are all going to be real stretches, Also Sprach Zarathustra, Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften, and Der Zauberberg. I would also like to get through at least a couple novels and add 500 words into Anki.

Nothing particular in mind for Spanish or Italian except maintenance. Also nothing new until at least I finish my degree! Persian still calls to me at times but there is no way I could add that without cutting back severely on my other targets.

This is where I ended up in Anki for 2021 for comparison (I don't like to add new words in December since I won't really get a chance to review them before I start the new 2022 decks).

751 in Italian.
444 in Spanish
351 in German

Only in Italian did I hit my target but I am still pretty happy with how things turned out.
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Amandine
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Re: Lemus Log-2021

Postby Amandine » Tue Nov 30, 2021 2:41 am

Hi Lemus, in terms of Russian content I can recommend Dead Mountain if you haven't seen it, based on the Dyatlov Pass incident but spins out into very fictional stuff. High quality production and I found it very involving. It's on something called Topic in the US (if that's where you are). The version in Australia I could watch only had English subs available and maybe that's true of Topic, as opposed to RU subs on Netflix which is annoying from a language learning perspective but still worth watching imho.
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Lemus
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Re: Lemus Log-2021

Postby Lemus » Sun Jan 09, 2022 4:47 pm

Amandine, thanks for the suggestion. Apologies for not responding for...wow over a month!

Another impressive gap between log posts! I suppose I could make a new 2022 log but given that it would probably end up containing maybe eight posts that hardly seems worth the trouble.

Temporarily freed from academic requirements dealing with both a brutal winter and yet another pandemic surge I have been able to throw myself into German with a vigor that surprised me.

I completed Also Sprach Zarathustra with less trouble than I anticipated. It was a challenging text, both in terms of language as well as philosophically but I was rarely entirely lost as to what was going on. When I looked up words I did not know, a comforting amount of them were listed as "literary" or "archaic" words. When I was confused about what was happening it seems that it was generally because Nietzsche needed an editor rather than because my German was subpar.

I finished reading it but I am not necessarily finished with it, as I find myself going back to look up the words I did not get the first time and then often re-reading sections, looking up commentaries online, and generally just trying to ruminate on it. I am happy that my German is now a tool I can use to pursue advanced philosophy and literature rather than something I need to focus on in itself. I will wait at least until the end of the month before I start on Musil or Mann.

As a break before I start something else ambition I have started the first Gereon Rath novel (Der Nasse Fisch) which I am about halfway through. It's quite good although I am coming across more unknown words than I was with Nietzsche surprisingly.

408 words into Anki already. At this rate I certainly will need to bump up my 2022 target to at least 1,000. I'll be at 500 by the time I finish Der Nasse Fisch

For the other languages, little going on. I have done some Portuguese movies and TV and am at 249 Anki cards, although I should note much of that was from the tail end of 2021 rather than 2022. Gloria, the Netflix spy thriller, was particularly good and it was also interesting to get a show in European Portuguese on Netflix, which is nearly entirely Brazilian content.
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Lemus
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Re: Lemus Log-2021

Postby Lemus » Sun Jan 30, 2022 5:30 pm

There is a solid argument to be made for making a new log, namely that I titled this one "2021" but I do not really feel like making a new one so here we are.

The semester has started again so I will need to scale back on languages. I had a very productive January though. I finished another challenging German work, Sonnenfinsternis, (in English, Darkness at Noon). It had been a long time since I had read it in English and had been vaguely curious to return after I heard the original German manuscript was rediscovered after seventy years. I found it an even more rewarding book than I remember, since the main themes of the dual between humanism and political expediency is one that is evergreen.

I am really enjoying that my languages, well at least my German, are now tools by which I can engage with big topics in literature, politics, and philosophy. There is sometimes a gnawing sense (and one that I imagine I am not alone in feeling) that I am not doing something "useful" when I am working on languages. I am well aware that hobbies don't have to be measured by usefulness and I know that I have posted to that effect elsewhere on this forum but it remains something that sometimes appears in the back of my head.

From my reading and a bit of Netflix I hit an astounding 886 Anki cards so far this year in German, which is a rate I have never before reached. My retention rate is also hovering around an 80-90% most days. I wonder if I can keep that up given the number of reviews I am creating for myself in the future.

Now I will be dialing down the German and revving up the Russian. I have a graded reader with short stories that I am working through. It is slow going but with the provided vocabulary help I am following the course of action reasonably well. My hope is that finishing this reader, watching some Netflix, and working on my vocabulary will leave me in a position to tackle a real novel by this summer.

For now I am not using Anki for Russian since the word frequency of the words I am learning is still pretty high. Anki, in my view, is for "loading the dice" and forcing repetition of words that might in the course of normal reading take years to get multiple exposures to. The Russian words I need to be working on are still in the 10,000 most common so I trust I will come across them naturally pretty frequently.
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Re: Lemus Log-2021

Postby zenmonkey » Mon Jan 31, 2022 4:05 am

If you edit and rename your first post - your log name will change.
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Sonjaconjota
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Re: Lemus Log-2021

Postby Sonjaconjota » Mon Jan 31, 2022 8:18 pm

Lemus wrote: There is sometimes a gnawing sense (and one that I imagine I am not alone in feeling) that I am not doing something "useful" when I am working on languages. I am well aware that hobbies don't have to be measured by usefulness and I know that I have posted to that effect elsewhere on this forum but it remains something that sometimes appears in the back of my head.

Yes, kind of, but think about other hobbies that people have. From dog shows to collecting stuff to taking pictures of your painted nails for instagram ...
All things considered, I would say that language learning is on the more useful end of the scale.
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Lemus
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Re: Lemus Log-2021 (and 2022!)

Postby Lemus » Sun Mar 27, 2022 4:48 pm

Another long gap between posts. This time at least it is partially not my fault, as several times when I planned on updating my log I got one of the various service errors that seem to be plaguing the forum these days. Not to tempt fate, but things seem to have very much improved in the last week or so on that front so hopefully the tech issues have been resolved.

I’ve been pretty pleased with my progress. I’ve scaled down the overly ambitious reading goals temporarily given my academic workload. In German though I have managed to get through Richard David Precht’s pop philosophy Wer Bin Ich und Wenn Ja, Wie Viele? Still a fairly challenging book though given how much he loves talking about neuroscience. I also managed to complete another Gereon Rath novel. In Anki I stand at 1,066 cards for German, which is well above where I assumed I would get for the year. Given what I still have outlined as reading goals I may very well get over 2,000 by the end, which would be the most cards I have ever done for a single language in a year.

I have been considering the idea of trying to do a C1 certificate from the Goethe Institute. I passed B2 long ago and my German is undoubtedly much better than it was then but the writing portion worries me. Reading and listening do not concern me at all and speaking I'm fairly confident in, but I barely scraped by in writing last time and I never write anything in German these days. If I did go for it, I would definitely need to add in some writing practice.

Also I have been toying around with taking my German philosophy attempts all the way and attempting Heidegger’s Sein und Zeit this summer. I’ve always wanted to try to get through it and I think I am as ready as I am ever going to be. I imagine that would take several months at least given the pace I would need to go at.

In Portuguese I have been focusing more on wide reading. For the first time I am attempting Harry Potter in another language and have gotten through the first three. I haven’t read these books in at least a decade and I had forgotten what easy reads they are. There is a lot more vocabulary I do not recognize than I had hoped (and I do not mean words like “owl” or “wand” which are easy to pick up from sheer repetition). This could be a reflection of these books being written in European Portuguese, not Brazilian but more likely I am just not as good at Portuguese as I like to think I am. :D

I plan to finish all seven at some point this year and then find additional easy reading. As I side note, I really enjoy the footnotes that are added to explain British culture and puns that do not translate. If German is about intense reading this year, Portuguese will be about extensive. Anki cards stand at 869. I should clear 1,500 this year from HP alone at this rate.

Then there is Russian. For a while there was a odd feeling doing Russian I can't deny, but that has passed. Not turning this into a political discussion but ultimately whatever you believe about the policies of the Russian government the Russian language is not to blame. There are some practical concerns though since I had been counting on using Netflix pretty heavily and it sounds like they are no longer shooting Russian-language series. Hopefully they at least keep the dubbing and subbing they currently doing or else I will need to find a new way to get listening practice.

Every now and then I do something in Spanish or Italian to keep things up but I am not actively doing much on either. Maintenance is all I have planned for either right now although I don't rule out getting burnt out from one of the others and fleeing back to one of these two more familiar and comforting ones for a break.
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Lemus
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Re: Lemus Log-2021 (and 2022!)

Postby Lemus » Sun Jun 05, 2022 4:22 pm

Another impressively long stretch between log updates! Over two months this time...

Anyhow, I've mad a massive amount of progress on Portuguese since then. While the realization that I did not really know Portuguese as well as I thought I did was a hard one to cope with, I got over it and now am feeling much more confident in where I am at. I finished the entirety of HP as well as several other books (mixed fiction and non-fiction) and added so many cards into Anki I am currently at 1,815. Combined with consistently watching whatever I could find originally shot in Portuguese on Netflix I think I am about ready to wrap up the intensive Portuguese portion of the year. Critically, I am able to think and speak and Portuguese now not as translated Spanish but as its own language with its own logic in a way I could not before.

The rest of the summer I intend to split into two focus areas: intensive German reading and light but extensive Spanish. I decided I am going to attempt Sein und Zeit. Before that I have the Safranski biography of Heidegger which I am hoping gets me warmed up enough to take the deep plunge. It is highly likely I will give up in total frustration early on but I want to at least try this once in my life. My plan is one chapter a day, with the assumption I will have to re-read extensively.

Assuming Heidegger will burn my brain up I will keep the Spanish light and mostly focused on watching the growing list of stuff on Netflix that I haven't touched for fear of causing problems with my Portuguese. No Anki probably given the number of reviews I will have to deal with still for German and Portuguese.

I am toying around with the idea of doing a B2 exam for Italian. There is one that is being held in December and I think with a couple of months of prep I could do it. If I switched over to an intensive focus on Italian around September or so that should put me in a good place. We will see how I am feeling later on that though. I have not signed up or anything yet.

Russian I am keeping at a low-grade simmer. I really want to dive in and make real progress here but that just is not possible with everything else I have laid out. It is not that there is any sort of rush. There are just times I look back on how long I have been toying with Russian yet never taken it to that next level.
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