Schach & шахматы

[Deinonysus]

I've been very into chess lately and I was taking a break from language learning, but when Duolingo released Yiddish in Beta I got very excited. Unfortunately, the typing input is very buggy and the Yiddish team unfortunately does not seem to be as responsive as the Indonesian team was when that course came out, so I'm not sure how quickly progress is being made toward fixing the issues. I think I will hold off on Yiddish for now and let the issues with the course be someone else's problem. However, my excitement about Yiddish has translated into a renewed general interest in language learning, so I've put together medium-term language learning plan that will pair well with my interest in chess and will not be so rigorous that it prevents me from studying chess.

I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of chess literature, but my understanding is that after the era of Soviet dominance, English became the most important language for chess, and before it German was the most important. I'm sure there were also many important works in other languages, and in fact I have started paging through François Philidor's Analyse du jeu des échecs, although I'll have to learn to read the pre-algebraic notation system.

Now, I'm sure I have a lot of room for improvement in French, but thanks to the large cognate bonus from English I am able to read it well enough, and I have hit the point of diminishing returns where it will take me quite a bit of effort to improve further. So French is on hold for now.

Русский

I have been wanting to get into Russian for many years, but I can never seem to pencil it into my schedule. Something else always seems to be higher priority, and I don't think I have ever spent more than a couple of weeks on Russian at a time. I started studying it again immediately after I quit Yiddish, but then I realized the timing is not right. I rely heavily on Pimsleur to learn a new language, and I need a commute in order to take full advantage of Pimsleur. But like many people I've been working remotely lately, and I won't even be driving my kid into daycare because my wife is a teacher and has the summer off. So if I do end up starting Russian, it will be best for me to start in the fall so that I will have the whole school year to finish the five levels of Russian. Until then I'll work on German.

I'll also plan on using Duolingo, of course. I have already purchased Assimil Russian (in English, which is a bit unusual for me since 2/3 of my Assimil sets are in French), and I also have a copy of the Penguin Russian course, which I've heard good things about. I may also consider Langenscheidt's Russisch mit System and/or Assimil's Perfectionnement Russe, but I already have more than enough materials for a good start.

Deutsch

German was my first language-learning love, and actually if it weren't for all of the vocabulary transparency between French and English, I think German would be by far my strongest language. I am much more comfortable speaking and writing in it than I am in French; I just can't read it quite as fluently. I think one issue may be that I abandoned coursework too early and thought that native materials were enough. This was before I had heard of Assimil, and I quit Duolingo half-way through the course because I thought it was beneath me.

But, Duolingo and Assimil are effective and low-effort learning materials. I know they work for me and they're very familiar. I started reviewing the Duolingo German tree recently and I've made a lot of progress. By tomorrow I'll have gilded every skill before the third of eight checkpoints, and I finally managed to earn the special badge for getting first place in a diamond league! I have also started Assimil L'allemend. I looked at some of the last lessons and even there I didn't see a ton of words that I didn't recognize, but I'm sure it will fill in a lot of gaps and increase my reading ability. I also ordered a copy of Perfectionnement L'allemend. I think I may also have enough commutes to review Pimsleur Level 5 before the summer. In addition, I have an interesting book of stories with only masculine nouns (there are also die and das books that I will get if I finish this one), and I have a large number of classic German-language YA novels lying around that I am very eager to read.

I also feel like I need a lot of minimal pair work with long vs. short vowels, particularly with long vs. short ö and ü. Unfortunately, it's slim pickings and there doesn't seem to be anything out there except for Fluent Forever. I'm doing a free trial which should be enough time for me to finish and review all of the pronunciation drills. It's too bad there's nothing for German like CALST, which a magnificent phonology trainer for Norwegian.

Chess

Since chess is the focus of this log I should probably briefly write about what I'm doing with it. I was in a chess club as a kid but never learned much beyond how the pieces move. I started doing tactics on my phone several years ago, and I've slowly improved to the point where my puzzle rating is around 2000 on Lichess and in the 1400s on Chess Tempo. I have actually barely played any PvP games. When I play games I almost always play against the Stockfish AI. I estimate that once I start playing against humans my online rating might come out to around 1500 or 1600, since I can generally crush Stockfish level 3 (rated 1400) but I have a hard time consistently beating level 4 (rated 1700). Lichess ratings tend to be a good bit higher than over-the-board ratings, so I'm sure hypothetical FIDE or USCF ratings would be much lower than that. But of course I have a lot of specific areas I'd like to improve.

I've gotten very into Chessable and I bought a large number of its courses. I originally planned on focusing on openings, but after getting my opening fix from the Short & Sweet previews that are available for the opening repertoires I bought, I ended up deciding that I want to start out with Fischer Random Chess (also called Chess960), which eliminates the ability to memorize opening lines. That way I can focus on learning tactics, strategy, and endgames, and only once I've finished the courses that are relevant to that will I go back to memorizing opening lines.

: 232 / 608 Duolingo German
: 5 / 100 Assimil L'allemend

[Iversen]

Interesting. I know two chess notation systems, but not the old ones. The first French chess master from the 18. century, Philidor, was also a renowned musician, and I wonder what system he used - after all some of his games were written down, maybe by onlookers, but almost certainly not in algebraic notation. There is even a gambit named after him.

My own involvement with chess ended in the mid 80s when I could beat everyone around me (I even tried blindfolded and still could match them). Then I had the choice to stop or to become a member of a club and study theory and play against stronger opponents - and I chose to stop. But before that I may have launched another chess player: I once was told to guard a three year old kid, and since I'm not terribly familiar with the behavioural patterns of people at that tender age I chose to teach the kid how to play chess. OK, I didn't try too hard to beat him, so maybe he continued to play the game after I had returned him to his parent.

[Deinonysus]

Interesting. I know two chess notation systems, but not the old ones. The first French chess master from the 18. century, Philidor, was also a renowned musician, and I wonder what system he used - after all some of his games were written down, maybe by onlookers, but almost certainly not in algebraic notation. There is even a gambit named after him.

My own involvement with chess ended in the mid 80s when I could beat everyone around me (I even tried blindfolded and still could match them). Then I had the choice to stop or to become a member of a club and study theory and play against stronger opponents - and I chose to stop. But before that I may have launched another chess player: I once was told to guard a three year old kid, and since I'm not terribly familiar with the behavioural patterns of people at that tender age I chose to teach the kid how to play chess. OK, I didn't try too hard to beat him, so maybe he continued to play the game after I had returned him to his parent.

Well I don't know if the Philidor Defence is technically a gambit but it has been considered to be a bit dubious for the past 150 years or so ever since Paul Morphy dismantled it so efficiently in the famous Opera game. Never mind that he was the strongest player in the world playing against two amateurs!

The notation system seems very similar to the pre-algebraic notation system, except that it is much less abbreviated. For example:

1.
B. Le Pion du roi, deux pas.
N. De même.

2.
B. Le Fou du roi à la quatrieme [sic] case du fou de sa dame.
N. De même.

3.
B. Le P. du fou de la dame, un pas.
N. Le Cavalier du roi à la troisieme [sic] case de son fou.

4.
B. Le P. de la dame, deux pas.
N. Le P. prend le pion.

etc.

Actually pretty straightforward and I was able to follow along with it on a board without much trouble and I'm certain the moves are 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Bc5 3.c3 Nf6 4.d5 exd5.

I just started listening to a bit of Philidor's music, it's pretty good! I'm getting some big Mozart vibes, although I guess that was the style of the time.

It's much easier to casually play chess these days with the rise of online chess. I'm not sure where I would play it in person. There was a local coffee shop with chess meetups on Saturdays but it closed down unfortunately.

[coldrainwater]

Great to see a log on chess! I will be following. FYI, in the position above, I think you meant 4. d4 dxe4 but accidentally typed five. I enjoyed reading the snippet as well and I think it would be great to read many original texts in chess via foreign languages. I like analyzing games and positions perhaps even more than playing (I, ahem, retired years ago before ever playing a rated game or achieving even moderate club rank). Analyzing games is relaxing and fun, playing OTB can be quite tense but still fun as well. When I was younger, I learned two notation systems, descriptive and algebraic. I used descriptive often since many of the older books I read were pre-algebraic. I remember sitting in a wooden desk at home that I now cannot even fit my legs under. I spent plenty of time in more recent decades on Chess Tempo. It was too addictive for me to keep up with regularly. Owning and using a copy of Chessbase was a complete game-changer for me. Having access to such enormous opening databases, accurate endgame table-bases and everything else felt like being an analyst in a coffee shop. Many of the older books (90's and earlier) are chock full of inaccuracies due to not having computerized analysis. Chess is addictive enough, that a number of forum members have taken language breaks to pursue it (reemerging the better for it I bet as Chess feels like it turns very different cogs for me and can be refreshing). If you like video lecture content and haven't seen it, you might appreciate chesslecture. I spent many a pleasant hour learning there. It is a zone that very much hasn't lost its human element despite an age of technology.

[Deinonysus]

Great to see a log on chess! I will be following. FYI, in the position above, I think you meant 4. d4 dxe4 but accidentally typed five. I enjoyed reading the snippet as well and I think it would be great to read many original texts in chess via foreign languages. I like analyzing games and positions perhaps even more than playing (I, ahem, retired years ago before ever playing a rated game or achieving even moderate club rank). Analyzing games is relaxing and fun, playing OTB can be quite tense but still fun as well. When I was younger, I learned two notation systems, descriptive and algebraic. I used descriptive often since many of the older books I read were pre-algebraic. I remember sitting in a wooden desk at home that I now cannot even fit my legs under. I spent plenty of time in more recent decades on Chess Tempo. It was too addictive for me to keep up with regularly. Owning and using a copy of Chessbase was a complete game-changer for me. Having access to such enormous opening databases, accurate endgame table-bases and everything else felt like being an analyst in a coffee shop. Many of the older books (90's and earlier) are chock full of inaccuracies due to not having computerized analysis. Chess is addictive enough, that a number of forum members have taken language breaks to pursue it (reemerging the better for it I bet as Chess feels like it turns very different cogs for me and can be refreshing). If you like video lecture content and haven't seen it, you might appreciate chesslecture. I spent many a pleasant hour learning there. It is a zone that very much hasn't lost its human element despite an age of technology.

Yes, that was a typo, thank you for the correction!

Being able to read classic texts in the original is a great motivator. I just found out that although Damiano was Portuguese by birth (in fact Damiano was an Italicized version of Damião), he wrote in Italian and his major work was called Questo libro e da imparare giocare a scachi et de li partiti. That gives me some extra motivation to study Italian on top of my love of opera! And of course there are great books in Spanish by the likes of Ruy López and José Raúl Capablanca.

Chess Tempo is great! I think their puzzles are better than Lichess, but I do tend to do Lichess puzzles a bit more often because Chess Tempo has a timer and I feel like if I start a puzzle I have to finish it in that sitting.

I'm not sure I would ever get Chessbase. Lichess has most of the same features and it's free. But I know a lot of pros swear by Chessbase.

I am a bit concerned about getting too obsessed with chess. That is what happened to me with League of Legends. I didn't have my thoughts to myself anymore. I was always thinking about the game (which champions I wanted to play, what builds would be best, calculating stats in my head). So far that hasn't happened with Chess. I think about chess when I'm playing it and otherwise I don't. So far I have pretty good visualization skills and I can calculate several moves ahead but only when I'm looking at a board. I haven't yet gotten to the point where I can visualize the entire board in my head and I worry that if or when I do get to that point I'll just be walking around playing games in my head instead of thinking my own thoughts or interacting with the world. But I'm optimistic that it won't get to that point.

Thanks for the heads up about chesslecture, I'll keep it on my radar. For now I have plenty of chess videos to watch. On top of the hundreds of hours I have from Chessable courses that I've purchased, I've also been avidly watching John Bartholomew and Daniel Naroditsky's YouTube channels and they've been extremely informative.

[Ogrim]

Yes, chess I a great game! I got really interested in chess in 2014 (as many Norwegians did) watching Magnus Carlsen play to defend his world championship title against Viswanathan Anand. I am not a very good player, so prefer to play against the computer. I mostly use the app from Chess.com, which also offers puzzles, tutorial videos and other interesting stuff to improve. I've also tried out the Play Magnus app, which is fun because you can test whether you have the same level as Magnus Carlsen had at different ages from 5 years old and upwards to grandmaster level.

[Deinonysus]

Yes, chess I a great game! I got really interested in chess in 2014 (as many Norwegians did) watching Magnus Carlsen play to defend his world championship title against Viswanathan Anand. I am not a very good player, so prefer to play against the computer. I mostly use the app from Chess.com, which also offers puzzles, tutorial videos and other interesting stuff to improve. I've also tried out the Play Magnus app, which is fun because you can test whether you have the same level as Magnus Carlsen had at different ages from 5 years old and upwards to grandmaster level.

Wow, I can imagine that Norway has been chess crazy since the reign of Magnus!

That Play Magnus app is really fun! So far I've beaten 8-year-old Magnus.

[Deinonysus]

Deutsch

Well it's been quite a while since my last post! I've taken a break from language learning to catch up on movies and TV. I rewatched a bunch of Marvel movies so I would follow WandaVision better, and then I finally finished the last half of the 3D Clone Wars series, and then I binge-watched Rebels. IMO Clone Wars had higher highs but about a third of the episodes are unwatchably bad, and Rebels didn't have any awful episodes. Neither had anything on the 2D Genndy Tartakovsky Clone Wars which was a masterpiece. I also read a couple of Timothy Zahn's new Thrawn books. Again, nothing compared to the original, but they were entertaining.

Anyway, now that I got that out of my system I'm excited to get back into German. I haven't fallen too far behind in reviewing Pimsleur German V, and I should be able to finish it before the summer. This morning I tried to trick my toddler into accepting that since Anna and Elsa are Norwegian, they could help daddy with his German lesson in the car. But she's too smart for that so as a compromise we listened to the Frozen soundtrack in German and then I managed to finish my lesson on the way back after dropping her off at daycare. Maybe there's more German music to come; I doubt I can get her into Rammstein but maybe she'd like Die Zauberflöte.

I reviewed the audio to a few of the early Assimil lessons. I'm hoping to be caught up and starting new lessons again within the next couple of days. I had completely dropped Duolingo, but I've started in on it again. I'm also trying to improve my typing in German (using my own custom multilingual layout which I optimized for English, German, Spanish, and French). I have actually gotten almost up to 60 wpm on the 100 most common German words on 10fastfingers.com, which is as good as my speed on the 100 most common English words. The special characters throw me off a bit but they should be fine once I have them comfortably in my muscle memory. They don't mess me up too bad in the most common words because only a few have them.

Русский

I've been thinking about it and I'm planning drop my plans to pick up Russian. I'm excited about Russian and it would be loads of fun, but Arabic is much higher priority, because Hebrew is high priority and Arabic is ahead of it in the queue. Sure, I could probably get to a decent level of Russian much quicker, but then I would get into a "give a mouse a cookie" situation. I got to intermediate Russian? Time to master it, and master French and German and Spanish, and get Italian to an intermediate level, and then oh look, my kid's grown up and I missed out on a lot of opportunities to immerse her in Hebrew. So once I'm done with my German materials it's back to Project Semitic I go!

Chess

I've been making pretty good progress working on tactics. I'm good with general offensive tactics, but here are some specific areas I'm working on:

• Knight tactics (offensive and defensive)
• Checkmate tactics. If you spot it the game is over, no strategy needed!
• Defensive tactics in general. Offensive tactics will only help you so much if you consistently blunder pieces or miss checkmate threats!

I'm also hoping to get though Yasser Seirawan's Winning Chess Strategy, Jeremy Silman's Complete Endgame Course, and Wesley So's Chessable course on Fischer Random Chess (he's the inaugural random chess world champion after crushing Magnus Carlsen in the finals!). Those three books should fill in a lot of my most major gaps. I've also been religiously watching Daniel Naroditsky's YouTube channel which is great for beginners.

Progress

: 9 / 30 Pimsleur German V
: 234 / 608 Duolingo German
: 11 / 100 Assimil L'allemend