Cito's Randomly Dispersed Updates

[cito]

Hey team,

Reading
I didn't really like the Thomas Pynchon Book, so I'm trying out Moby-Dick for a change. It's well written so far, but somewhat difficult to follow at some points. I think I am going to begin my Victor Hugo independent study soon with my French Professor, but I may start another French book for pleasure at the same time, as reading Moby-Dick and Notre Dame de Paris at the same time might get tiring. We'll see.

Russian
I've been having a lot of fun studying Russian lately. I try to do 1 Pimsleur lesson a day while stretching or walking, 10 Anki cards from the 5,000 most common words deck, notes from the grammar of The New Penguin Russian Course. reading a bit on Learning With Texts (which I just set up a few days ago), and listening to some podcasts each day. Russian is definitely tough, and I'm having some trouble recalling my Anki cards, but I'm sure I'll get used to it. I'm enjoying it for now. While I'm lifting weights at the gym I throw on some Russian With Max podcasts to listen to on the side for passive listening, just to get more accustomed to the sounds of Russian.

The issue with the Anki deck is that it contains repeats of words in the form of different declensions/conjugations of nouns/adjectives/verbs, which is pretty annoying. I don't need to see "to speak" in both the infinitive and the 3rd person present singular indicative form. It's annoying, but honestly I don't mind too much. I need a lot of repetition anyways...

I'm hoping to be comfortable reading Olly Richards's Short Stories in Russian for Beginners by the end of the summer, and I also got a book weeded out from the library I work at called "Pages from History," which is a Soviet history book with notes in English and photos throughout.

I purchase the Kindle Version of Russian Short Stories For Beginners by Lingo Mastery and I have put the first story into LWT. I plan on reading some articles with it too. I'm not sure how consistently I'll use it, but it's free, so I don't mind.

So to recount, the typical daily Russian study is as follows:
1. Pimsleur
2. Grammar Notes from the NPRC
3. Reading with LWT
4. Listening to Russian with Max
5. Anki

I also put my Nintendo Switch into Russian so I can play Animal Crossing to hopefully learn some vocab (learned the word for 'island,' already!) and have been playing a bit of Metro: Exodus with Russian Audio and English subtitles.

On average I'm spending around 2 hours each day studying / consuming Russian content. My goal is too keep this up throughout the summer, and part take in the 6wc in August, using my other log to count my daily progress. Hopefully I'll get through around 3 levels of Pimsleur, and I'll continue if I really want to. I want to stop taking on Anki cards after around 1250-1500 from the 5k deck and then begin sentence mining a few shows from Netflix (mostly animated ones, since I despise dubs of live-action TV/movies). My goal is to get to the end of chapter 17 in the NPRC by the end of August.

So to recap the goals for the end of August/the 6WC:

1. Finish Pimsleur level 3, decide whether or not to continue
2. Finish Chapter 17 of the NPRC
3. Finish taking around 1250-1500 words from the 5k deck on Anki
4. Start reading beginner content

Also, if anyone has any recommendations for free A1/beginner Russian stories that include audio I would highly appreciate it! Thanks!!

French
Not a ton of French being done, other than the letters I am reading / translating for work and my reading. I should look for some TV shows to watch to get some more input. Maybe the news too. Overall, though, I'm pretty happy for my level and tomorrow I'll post for my 2 year anniversary of learning French.

General
Work has been going well, just having some trouble focusing at times. I might take Latin next semester due to a mix up with my courses, but the professor hasn't gotten back to me whether or not I can petition into the class. If he says yes, I'll include Latin in my 6WC and begin some studies then, reading LLPSI and getting ahead on whatever the textbook is, probably.

Hope everyone is doing well.

[cito]

A New Player has entered the field?

My girlfriend recently sent me a text encouraging me to learn Cantonese, since our favorite bakery up here is owned by a family from HK. I figure I'll give it a shot. I have an older edition of Teach Yourself Cantonese from the library I work at, and I have checked it out in order to get started. I think I am going to try and learn mostly spoken Cantonese, see if I like it, order some pork buns, and then reassess. I'll spend around 30 minutes a day studying, but in order to be consistent I'm going to start my daily log up again in order to log 1.5 hours of RU and .5 hours of Canto each day. I'll include whatever other reading I am doing in French and English.

If anyone has any good websites that have repeatable quizzes for Cantonese, I would really appreciate it! I think I am going to try to learn without spending any money, so I may look into using the FSI course that is readily available online, but I've got to figure out the best way to go about learning with FSI, so any guides for self studying would be appreciated!

It's interesting, since I've never considered studying a language just to order food or with 'phrase-book' language in mind, but I figure it could be an interesting challenge. Last time I tried to study 2 languages at once (Russian + Turkish) it didn't go well, but I'm down for the challenge once more!

Any recommendations are absolutely welcome, and my messages are always opened if somebody prefers not to post on my forum.

Other Updates

Doing less French than I'd like, but I'm trying to get back on the train. Russian is going well, and learning with texts is awesome. Forming my first language island: languages (my primary hobby, I think)! I think my next one will be Chess, and then Books/Libraries, history, movies, and video games. I've been importing video transcripts from Russian videos and articles about languages, polyglots, and language learning in general. Having a blast!

[cito]

I think I will write a my tentative Russian plan in a little more detail for the 30:30 challenge here. Currently, my goal has been around 1:30 each day, but I would like to increase it to 2:00 in July in preparation for the 6WC, which I will be taking part in (with my target language being Russian, and also with the intention of studying and logging some Cantonese and Latin).

My plan is basically the same: Pimsleur, New Penguin Russian Course, Learning with Texts, Anki, and Immersion for around 30 minutes each day, not including Anki. I'll probably either make flash cards or wordlists for the 30 new words I learn from Anki each day. I have also started using the Refold 15k Sentences Deck, which has been very helpful. I've upped my card intake for a 5k word deck (had to find a new one that better suited my needs and didn't include various declensions/conjugations of the same noun/adjective/verb) to 15 new cards per day so I have a little over a week to prep and get ready for a big change.

I will use my other log to mark my progress and keep myself accountable. I will be taking an online math course next month so I'll need to manage my time well (no more 4 or 5 hour binges of Supernatural ).

I'd also like to get into the habit of writing, as a friend of mine and I are going to do a NaNoRiMo style challenge in August, but we are probably going to start in July to give us enough time.

As for the 6 week challenge, August is a month I usually don't work or take classes, so I'll spend as much time as I can manage studying languages and seeing friends.

My tentative goal is to write for 1-2 hours each day, read in French for 2 hours, read in English for 1 hour, study Cantonese for 30 minutes, Latin for 30 minutes, and Russian for 3-4+ hours. This gives me a schedule of more or less 8 hours per day (not including time spent at the gym). We'll see how this holds up.

[cito]

Hey there, change of plans.

My best friend (whom I was with in France) is going on a semester abroad to Denmark this fall, and my girlfriend encouraged me to visit her. So I texted my best friend and asked her if that would be cool, and she agreed! I think I'll be going to Copenhagen during Thanksgiving week, and I might try to see some family I've never met there. My parents are actually going at the end of August (right when I am getting back to school).

My mother is of Danish ancestry, and while she has mostly lost her Danish culture, we used to say some twisted-by-time "Danish" words to excuse ourselves from the dinner table when my brother and I were children. I think it will be interesting to learn an "Ancestral" language, even if the people in my Ancestral country speak English for the most part. I always wanted to learn as a kid but somewhat lost interest as I got older. I think this will be a nice change of pace, since...

I've decided I'll cut out Cantonese for Danish, as honestly, I wasn't enjoying it a ton, and felt like I needed to put a lot of energy to get a little reward (oh us capricious language learners!!!). I ordered the TYS Danish book and will get it soon. I would have gone for ASSIMIL but its about 3-4 times the price and I figure its not worth it, TYS will be enough.

I'm home right now but will be driving back to VT in about an hour. Have slacked on the languages this weekend, enjoying a nice break. Read a little bit of LLPSI and The Secret History by Donna Tartt.

I have a statistics class that is starting soon, so I am going to be figuring out a way to manage that, the 30:30 challenge, and studying 4 languages at once.

The follow are goals, not necessary things to complete each day (except for statistics).

The (new and improved) plan (ordered in importance):

1. Statistics class, 1-2 hours a day

2. Russian - 2 hours a day
a. Anki, 25 words per day, + making physical flashcards for new words (to commit to memory) - 45 minutes
b. Pimsleur, 30 mins
c. NPRC Grammar, 15 mins
d. Immersion, 15-30 mins - Russian With Max podcasts

3. Danish (tentative plan) 45 minutes
a. TYS Danish, 30 mins
b. Anki (?), 15 minutes

4. Latin, 30 minutes (Optional)
a. LLPSI, 30 minutes (Listening and Reading + Exercises)

5. Reading
French, 30 minutes (The Master and Marguerita) (Must)
English (Moby Dick, The Secret History) (Optional)

I'm going to try to limit myself to little to no Youtube, in order to make space for learning and reading, and I'll also limit myself to one episode of my guilty pleasure, Supernatural per day. We'll see how it goes!

The TYS book arrives on Wednesday, so I'll be doing some Duolingo and listening to some Danish until then in order to get myself acquainted.

Wish me luck!

[jeffers]

Good luck with Danish! I hope you enjoy digging into your roots.

I'll also limit myself to one episode of my guilty pleasure, Supernatural per day.

Have you tried watching it in one of your target languages?

[cito]

Good luck with Danish! I hope you enjoy digging into your roots.

I'll also limit myself to one episode of my guilty pleasure, Supernatural per day.

Have you tried watching it in one of your target languages?

Hey, thanks so much Jeffers!!

Also, really not a bad idea, but Netflix only has it in Spanish and English, unfortunately. No French, Danish, or Russian (although there is some poorly pronounced Latin when they do exorcisms ).

[cito]

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to say that I'm still here, just been on a bit of a break. Today was my first day of classes for my last year of Uni (undergrad, at least), however, it was also my first day of Latin! I'm using a textbook written by a friend of my professor for class, and Orberg on my own for some extra reading. Thinking of incorporating Anki. My professor talked about second language acquisition, so I think we'll get along well.

I've totally fallen behind on language learning and my workouts. So no more Danish or Russian, very little French lately. Might get back into Russian but probably not Danish, as I don't think my trip is going to go through.

The truth is, a close friend of mine passed away in the middle of July, and ever since then, things like language learning and reading have felt really heavy and energy consuming. I was definitely already burnt out, as well.

I've decided with the semester starting, I'll get the ball rolling, but at my own pace. French and Latin will 'study themselves' through my classes, but if I have the energy, I'll do some on my own. I also went for a run this morning!

If I can I might study some Spanish this semester. I brought my ASSIMIL book with me to college. I used Spanish a lot at a temporary job in a warehouse while I was home and the Spanish speakers there were all so nice! I also had some friends in QC from Mexico, so it's all pretty motivating. It's odd because the people motivate me more than the language does intrinsically. I'm not terribly fascinated with the cultures or literatures of Spanish speaking countries (and I don't mean that to be insulting, it's just not naturally exciting to me), but all the people I have met have been so interesting and kind, and given that a large percent of the population in the US speaks Spanish, I figure it can't hurt to study a bit if I have a background and some extra time here or there.

I've felt less interested in Russian, but I've just been burnt out. I was thinking of applying for a Fullbright in Georgia, but with the lack of motivation, it's been hard. I'm going to have to decide sooner or later. Also, been oddly interested in German lately. Not sure why. Could be the little bit of Kafka I've been reading in French.

Hope you all have been well.

[cito]

Hey y'all, it's been a while.

Just figured I'd leave a little update. Still studying French, reading (albeit slowly) Le Procès by Kafka, and listening to L'heure du Monde. Rewatching Hunter x Hunter, slowly.

Really enjoying Latin, but finding it a bit hard to study outside of class with Lingua Latina, but currently on Chapter 11. Latin class is the best part of my week! Also, I just got a 100 on my Latin midterm .

Might have to learn German for graduate school (looking at comp. lit, ancient history, or classics), so I've started somewhat mimicking my process for French (ASSIMIL + Most common words, doing both on Anki). I've also found the German by the Nature Method course, and maybe some language transfer each day.
I'm excited to read Goethe, Kafka, Hesse, and Rilke, and watch all those TV shows (Dark is a favorite of all time), because there are so many good ones! The good thing about latin is that it makes German feel not that difficult. I also love the sound of German, so that's a plus.

Going for an hour or so in German, an hour in Latin, and 30 minutes in French each day, but no pressure.

Reading lots of Nabokov in English. Mostly his early novels (not a fan of Lolita).

Hope you've all been well.

[cito]

Today I'm starting Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov for my English thesis. I think it'll be called something along the lines 'The Legendary Russia of my Boyhood'; Nabokov's early American (Pseudo)Autobiography. I'm focusing on the aforementioned work and Pnin, looking at theories of authorship and how authors write their own lives into both their autobiographies and their fictional works (as Pnin can be seen as a fictionalization of Nabokov's life).

I've slowed down with Spanish! It was a busy Halloweekend so I didn't have enough time to do much beyond Anki.

German
I watched some Pokemon in German (thanks for the recomendation, Xenops!) and I'm doing lesson 13-14 of ASSIMIL today. I'm gonna do a rather intensive review of 11 and 12 since not all of the words have stuck in my head yet, but other than that, I'm really enjoying it! Learning passively and just focusing on one resource to work through is helping a lot.

Noticed some similarities between Old English and German definite articles. Not a ton, just some. I did stop doing the 1000 most common Anki cards: I'd like to do a little Duolingo (to get a feel for the language, will abandon soon) and ASSIMIL for a few weeks and then dive in.

French

I haven't done a ton with French, gotta get better about maintaining! I watched the Tintin movie yesterday, yet in English since it was with my roommate, and I really liked it! If I can find a way to read the originals online I might go for that (don't really want to buy the volumes).

Latin
I've slowed down with Latin a bit, as I'm still needing to consolidate what I know. I'm still working on Chapter 12 and I plan on working through the last couple of chapters I've covered, from 8 or 9 through 12, and I'd like to get through 13 this week, strengthening my knowledge of 12. I'm doing 2 chapters of Traupman this week also, and 2 of McKeown's book, so it'll probably be a big Latin week!

Something... uh... interesting(?)
I had an interesting experience this week:

A Youtuber made a video about me because of a comment I left on another video of his.
(I didn't call him an idiot.)



I suppose his take on language learning (I find it a bit hard to pin down) is about focusing entirely on language acquisition and avoiding all study and memorization of languages. I guess I understand it, but it hasn't ever really worked that well for me to work in such a way. He talks about implicit and explicit knowledge, and for me I find the need to use something like Anki to regularly drill words, so that when I actually immerse in the language and practice with it enough, I know what the words mean and then I can receive the lexical message (so to say) being transmitted (to the best of my ability).

I have also found the study of grammar to be extremely useful and find it more doable and less time consuming than watching thousands of hours of content to eventually understand a nuanced point, when I can spend a few hours learning and reviewing a grammatical concept and have it reinforced by my immersion.

It begs the question of what learning a language is: a natural process of cognitive acquisition or a skill. I can't really say, but to me (not a professional) it is somewhere in between, at least in my anecdotal experience. There are some people who genuinely do have great difficulties learning languages, and other people who seem to not struggle as much. Sure, some of it can be chocked up to experience, but I've noticed I have less difficulty than some of my friends with learning languages.

I suppose that might be the difference: I'd be damned to find any one person who is worse at acquiring languages than any other, but I think that as for the actual learning of languages, there are variations in skill and experience (mostly the latter).

I also think that immersion isn't the golden ticket people make it out to be, in the sense that children who are taught language are taught by active individuals with them, their parents, siblings, etc. These people point things out and interact with them in a way that media cannot.

To be fair to 'Future Multilingual' I did make some assumptions about him, but what I said (in the description of his video) about people who 'read 4 Krashen articles' was mostly directed at some people in the Refold crowd and other places who spew Krashen as an all knowing god, rather than a human who has theories like anyone else.

Anyways, perhaps I don't agree with the experts and what they do, and maybe I'm wrong-- but I'm happy with my learning and it's ups and downs. I've found my method of mixing immersion based learning and more traditional learning is what works best for me. So maybe I'm not 'acquiring' language perfectly... sue me!

[cito]

Merry Christmas!

I attended the Catholic Church my parents go to and was sad to not hear Latin... that's okay. I received a copy of the Vulgate Bible and Die Fremde. I haven't beed studying much German recently, but I'll get to it eventually!

I actually bought myself 2 books recently: The Orthodox Study Bible and El Extranjero. I've begun a UX course, as I'll be graduating soon and need a job, and I figure that Spanish could be useful in the workplace. I'm going to try to get an internship after I graduate and then an entry level job; luckily, there are a decent number of both within 45 minutes of my hometown, where I'd like to stay for a year or two before moving.

I have been using ASSIMIL + Anki for Latin, Spanish, and Russian, lately. I figure these + solidifying my French further will be my target languages of 2024, but depending on the day, any one of them can be my main focus. I actually find this system pretty rewarding, as I can kind of do what I feel like, all the while I know that I'm getting somewhere with all of these languages, albeit slowly. My ideal is to do Anki and at least listen to a podcast for Spanish and Russian, and read at least 1 chapter of LLPSI:FR for Latin, whether the current chapter or the new chapter; for French... not sure: the first third of the year I'll have a class to practice, but I'm looking to try and avoid watching youtube videos in English and just go for French, which would be plenty of practice.

I'm at the point with Latin where a lot of the basics I feel decently comfortable with: 1-3 declensions, active ind./inf./imp. verbs, etc. The problem is mainly vocabulary (only around 1000 Anki cards so far) and finer grammar points, specifically particular uses of cases (ablative absolutive, for example) and the subjunctive / passive mood and voice. I'm also not terribly strong with 4/5th noun declensions but I'll go back over them soon.

I'm excited to read all sorts of stuff: Classical, Medieval, Neo-Latin etc. Augustine sounds very interesting to me, and I'm excited to keep reading the Vulgate. I read a few chapters of Genesis today, and the rest of today's Biblical readings will be in English (other than Matthew, which I'll probably do in Latin with English there for reference).

The only problem using the Orthodox Study Bible with the Clementine Vulgate as side-by-side texts is that the former contains a few more books and is in a different order than the latter, and that the Old Testament of the OSB is translated from the Septuagint (an early Greek rendition of the Old Testament) rather than the original Hebrew/Aramaic texts (the Tanakh) that the Vulgate Uses. While for some this is a major difference and could pose a huge problem, I am neither Catholic (yet) nor Orthodox (yet) and I do not know which I may end up choosing if I decide to return to the Christian faith. I was raised Lutheran and but certainly prefer the apostolic natures of the Catholic and Orthodox churches.

I think my goals for 2024 are the following (not listed in order of importance):

1. Walk daily for at least 30 minutes
2. Finish my UX course and land an internship.
3. Read the Bible daily and journal (in Latin) often

My language goals are separate, yet are the following:

1. French: Solidify, read a few books left on the shelves, watch some Youtube/TV
2. Spanish: Finish the ASSIMIL book, listen to podcasts, read 5 books by the end of the year.
3. Russian: Finish both Sans Peine and Perfectionnement with Anki, listen to podcasts.
4. Latin: Finish LLPSI:FR, Finish Latin ASSIMIL, read a lot of the Vulgate, some Medieval Latin and Caesar's De Bello Gallico

My 6 month goal is to finish all of the Sans Peine books in the first half of the year, along with Familia Romana, so that way I can move on to more advanced stuff for Spanish and Latin, and intermediate stuff for Russian. French overall is a language I want to comfortably find a way to incorporate into my life without it feeling draining.

Hope everyone had wonderful holidays! Best of luck for the New Year!