Little by little (TUR, DUT, ITA, FRE)

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jeffers
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Re: Little by little

Postby jeffers » Mon Aug 23, 2021 1:07 pm

Sonjaconjota wrote:Accents
My accent is the one thing I’m not happy with in English.
English was the first language I started learning, back in school. All the teachers I had were Germans and had a strong German accent themselves, and it was a time before internet, so I guess it’s understandable. But it irks me that I’m not able to get rid of the German melody.
Many people don’t consider it important to try and sound like a native, as long as ones’ way of speaking is clear and easy to understand.
In the past I really didn’t agree, maybe because many foreign accents do not sound pleasing to my ear.
But spending a couple of days in France while driving through is making me reconsider.
Something I once read somewhere on the internet: If you have an obvious accent, people will assume that you do not understand absolutely everything, both in regard to language and culture. But if you speak with a perfect accent, people might not be aware of any misunderstandings and look at you like a weirdo. (I’m paraphrasing …)
And that was my feeling when I was in France. My French teacher was German as well, but he spoke with a very good accent, maybe because he had a French wife and spent all his holidays in France. Anyway, my French sounds more convincing when I only speak a couple of words, but I always feel like people are taking me for a stammering idiot.
On the other hand I might have been overthinking things. I mean, in most countries, people try to speak more clearly or even change to English when in front of a foreigner. But many French people just go on chatting away happily, don’t they?


Maybe I'm odd, but when I speak to someone in English who has an obvious Eurpoean accent but speaks well otherwise, my general assumption is that they are very clever. I suppose it is because my experience with Europeans who speak English has generally been with very educated people who can express themselves well, in some cases better than many native speakers. For example, there was a French woman who was interviewed a few times on BBC radio during Brexit negotiations. She had a strong accent, and occasionally struggled to find the right word, but every sentence she spoke made it clear that she was an intelligent person. However, I think that attitude towards people with accents will vary quite a bit from culture to culture and from person to person, and it is one thing that marks the speaker from the moment they open their mouth.
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Sonjaconjota
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Languages: German (N) - English, Spanish, Catalan (advanced) - French, Dutch, Italian (intermediate) - Turkish (beginner)
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Re: Little by little (TUR, DUT, ITA, FRE)

Postby Sonjaconjota » Sun Aug 29, 2021 3:48 pm

I created this log to motivate myself, but after just one month I’ve also come to a nice realisation:
After a month like the last one, I would usually have thought that I didn’t get a lot done, because I did not have much time to sit down and do some “serious studying”. But I’ve really made good use of my time and managed to do so much reading and listening that I think I can actually be proud.

Turkish:
I finished watching Atiye on netflix and reviewed my vocabulary flashcards regularly.
I’ve also watched three of those horribly dramatic Turkish love films (on youtube, with subtitles in English). If you have the stomach for this cheesy stuff, here are the links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HicceDMrBC8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJYljBrFNs0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ysk5hQOxm9U
There was also one day during my holidays when my parents were elsewhere and I was at home alone. I went to visit a friend in the afternoon, but spent the rest of the day very happily studying Turkish, with a bit of Dutch here and there for change.
Unsurprisingly, the one thing that I did not manage to do was to have a conversation in Turkish, mainly because, in the end, it was not possible to meet with any of my language buddies.
I’ve heard people speak Turkish in the streets while in Germany, but I’m just not the kind of person who starts (or even enjoys) conversations with strangers.

Dutch:
I’ve written flashcards for all the words in my beginners’ vocabulary book.
To my disappointment, there wasn’t a second audiobook from the Percy Jackson series, so I had to find something else.
I listened to Jack London: Als de natuur roept through LibriVox and to some episodes of Een Beetje Nederlands and Op z’n Vlaams.
I’ve watched season three of Baantjer on youtube.

French:
I watched Le Chalet on netflix after I saw someone here mentioning it.
I read Maigret: Une crime à Hollande,
Fred Vargas: Coule la Seine (three short stories with commissaire Adamsberg),
and a couple of magazines:
Geo histoire Asterix – revivez la grande epopée des gaulois
2 x Écoute (a magazine for German learners of the French language).

If anyone is interested in the little book by Vargas or the Geo histoire magazine (already a bit tattered), I would gladly give them away to anyone willing to pay the postage from Spain. Please send me a private message.

Italian:
I listened to Harry Potter, part six, in Italian, and to Percy Jackson – Il mare die mostri.
I bought and started reading a nice little graded reader by Pons: 10-Minuten-Lektüren – Un autunno magico, level B1.
I took one class on italki.
I watched Sul più Bello on netflix.
I read through Benny Lewis’ Language Hacking Italian and wrote down any new and interesting vocabulary / expressions / information.
My thoughts on the book:
I think it is a really nice resource for people who have either never learned / self-studied a foreign language or who have had bad experiences with a more traditional way of language learning relying heavily on grammar and / or translation exercises.
The “hacks” are often strategies that are quite obvious to more experienced language learners, but I think it is a very good idea to verbalize these things and to present them in a digestible way to beginners.
Of course, the whole thing (to organize language learning by tasks with emphasis on speaking) is nothing really revolutionary new and has its limitations, too.
After having studied Turkish for half a year or so, I did something similar – I booked several short conversation classes on italki and talked about the same three or four topics I was able to speak about (my name, country, profession, family ...) with several tutors.
But since then my speaking has kind of stalled, because I have run out of easy topics, and my grammar and vocabulary are not good enough for the more complex things I really like to chat about.
I think that something similar could easily happen to someone who has worked through this course successfully.
The book also relies on additional material on the internet, which is at the same time a great idea and a nuisance if you don’t have cheap and easy access.
It is interesting to observe that it inevitably contains a bit of grammar, just reduced to very few rules presented in a nice way. Great to still people’s fear of grammar, and for me an indication that conscious grammar study is necessary and cannot be omitted even in new, modern approaches to language learning.

A funny little anecdote: I was interested in buying the graded reader Read and Think in Italian and found it for a good price at a German online seller. When the packet arrived, I opened it eagerly … just to find a comic book by Disney. They had mixed up the books or packets, and I was disappointed to learn that it wasn’t possible to exchange it and get the correct one. At least they refunded my money immediately.


My plans for September:

Turkish
- have five active study sessions of at least one hour per week
- finish reading the first story of my graded reader from Circon
- I miss having a series that I can watch regularly without having to think about it too much. Last year I watched Kara Para Aşk and liked it enough to come back to it again and again.
I think I will try to give Hakan: Muhafiz or Kördüğüm another chance.


Dutch
- work with my vocabulary flashcards
- start working on my list of irregular verbs
- take a conversation class on italki

Italian
- finish reading the graded reader Un autunno magico
- work through 4 grammar topics in my beginners’ grammar book

French
- listen to Maigret: Le chien jaune
- take a conversation class on italki
- I’ve known for a long time that I was too intimidated by the two big grammar books for French I bought during lockdown. While in Germany, I came across and bought the French version of my favourite grammar book for beginners, Power Grammatik by Hueber. It is below my level, but I think I will feel much more comfortable going back to the more advanced books after having worked through this one to strengthen the basics. I would like to work through at least 5 topics.
- write 100 vocabulary flashcards from my book with vocabulary for level B2

Catalan:
- read the book Vallbona: Swing, allà on la vida venç
- start working through a list of verbs with the conjugation with -eix-
Last edited by Sonjaconjota on Mon Jan 03, 2022 7:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Sonjaconjota
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Languages: German (N) - English, Spanish, Catalan (advanced) - French, Dutch, Italian (intermediate) - Turkish (beginner)
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Re: Little by little (TUR, DUT, ITA, FRE)

Postby Sonjaconjota » Sat Oct 02, 2021 1:52 pm

September
After August I had been so enthusiastic, but September was hard, because I had to finish my latest book translation and hand it in on the 30th. I had thought it would only need some finishing touches here and there, but there was actually still much to do, so I had a lot of work.
This made my goal to study Turkish five times a week difficult.
Once I sit down with my books, I usually end up doing more than an hour, but I often only had time for it from 9 pm onwards or directly after lunch – both are not ideal times for me to study.
On some days I managed to do a study session first thing in the morning, or to split it up to two half-hour sessions, which worked better for me.
Then, towards the end of the month, I caught the stomach flu, and just gave up any thought of reaching my goal. I was actually happy I could finish the book translation.

Turkish
- do five active study session of at least one hour per week :-( → I managed to do 19
I have nearly finished reviewing part 7 from 12 of my course material.
- finish reading the first story of my graded reader from Circon :-(
- I worked with my vocabulary flashcards.
- I watched some videos of Peppa Pig and Daire – The Flat on youtube, oh, and also Gişe Memuru on netflix, a well-made but depressing indie film about a lonely toll both operator.
I tried again with the series Kördüğüm, but I realized that every episode is 2 hours long, and although there are only 30 episodes or so, I’m just not motivated enough right now.

Italian
- finish reading the graded reader Un autunno magico :-(
- work through 4 grammar topics in my beginners’ grammar book :-( (I think I did one.)
- I finished listening to the last Harry Potter audiobook. The last one is the book I've read least times, so I was really motivated and found it gripping and exciting.

Catalan:
- read the book Vallbona: Swing, allà on la vida venç ✓ → Not a recommendation, I found this book really boring.
- start working through a list of verbs with the conjugation with -eix- ✓

Dutch
- start working on my list of irregular verbs ✓
- take a conversation class on italki ✓
- work with my vocabulary flashcards ✓
This is being more difficult than I had anticipated. Of course I knew that, in a language so similar to my own, recalling the words in the target language was going to be more difficult than reading or listening. But I did not expect it to be THIS difficult. I’m going to be busy with my stacks of flashcards for the A2 vocabulary for longer than I thought.
- I watched two films on NPOStart: Kleine Ijstijd (meh) and Jongens, a film about a tender gay romance which I liked very much.

French
- take a conversation class on italki ✓
- write 100 vocabulary flashcards from my book with vocabulary for level B2 ✓
- work through five topics from my A2 grammar book :-( No, I just managed to do one.
- listen to Maigret: Le chien jaune
Yes, I listened to Le chien jaune, but I wasn’t happy with how it went. After reading through the last Maigret quite quickly, I expected the listening to be easy, but I missed lots of details. So I ended up buying the book and intent to read it, then listen to the audiobook again.
- I listened to two episodes of the podcast Chroniques criminelles and to Criminelles – La vraie Monica La Mitraille. The last one has been superinteresting because it’s from Quebec, and it is the first time I heard anyone speak French Québécois. The sharp nasal twang was quite a surprise!
- I also watched a couple of episodes of Les reines du shopping, and some stuff on netflix:
La Forêt, Il a déjà tes yeux, Camping à la ferme, Let's Dance, Mauvaises herbes (cheesy, but more profound than I had thought).
Netflix either has just bought a big package with French movies or has figured out that I’m interested in French cinema, because all of a sudden it is offering me mainly things in French.
Last edited by Sonjaconjota on Sun Feb 19, 2023 7:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Sonjaconjota
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Re: Little by little (TUR, DUT, ITA, FRE)

Postby Sonjaconjota » Mon Oct 04, 2021 12:24 pm

My plans for October:
October is going to be a bit unpredictable.
I’m probably not going to work this week, because I’m waiting for the publishers to send me my new translation project. As they are usually buried in work, it can take a while.
I’m using these quiet couple of days to do errands and stuff around the house, some knitting and walking and, of course, also studying. Actually I finally just finished my review of part 7 of my Turkish course this morning, which I’m very happy about.
So, right now I’m relaxed and have time, but it’s the Frankfurt book fair towards the end of the month. Sometimes I get contacted around these dates to write book reports for one or even several publishing companies. These summaries require a lot of time, so it is possible that I will be unusually busy from mid-October on.
Therefore I’m not setting any measurable goals this time, I’ll just write down what I want to read and work on.

Turkish
- part 8 of my course
- the first story of my graded reader from Circon

Italian
- graded reader Un autunno magico
- maybe some grammar topics

French
- write vocabulary flashcards
- grammar topics
- Simenon: Maigret - Il chien jaune

Dutch
- the first audiobook from the Lord of the Rings trilogy
- Jojo Moyes: Voor mij
- list irregular verbs

Catalan
- list of verbs with -eix-
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Sonjaconjota
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Re: Little by little (TUR, DUT, ITA, FRE)

Postby Sonjaconjota » Fri Oct 29, 2021 9:06 pm

October
Finally I had a lot of time on my hands during the month of October.
Because I hadn’t set any clear goals, I ended up mainly doing what I felt like.
I turned out to be the month of Romance languages and lists.
I finished several lists I wanted to work through and find examples for.
I hope you allow me to show off a bit, because I’m quite proud of them and I don’t really have people in my surroundings who would appreciate them:
Image
Image
Image
Towards the end of the month I also did some things for Dutch.
I strongly neglected Turkish …
Oh, and it happened three times that I passed by a second-hand bookshop, went in without having planned to and found interesting stuff in foreign languages, not only English and French.
I had mainly stopped buying novels in paper form when I got my first kindle in 2013, but now I see that a lot has changed in Barcelona during the last years, and it is easier to find used books. And they are cheaper than ebooks, so of course I ended up buying things!

French
- I have taken one conversation class on italki.
- I wrote some vocabulary flashcards.
- I worked through a couple of topics from my grammar book.
- I have read and listened again to Le chien jaune.
- I have watched:
Les bonnes femmes (painful to watch for several reasons)
Grégory
Les femmes et l’assassin
Place Vendôme (Not a recommendation. I have no idea what this film was about. Yes, diamonds and jealousy, but the plot? Not the faintest.)
- I have listened to a couple of episodes of Chroniques Criminelles.

Italian
- I have taken one conversation class on italki.
- I have finished reading Un autunno magico and two other graded readers: L’incendio by Pons and Caccia a la camorra by Circon. I really should move on to read exclusively books for natives, but differently from French, I just don’t know many authors and don’t really know where to start. I bought a couple of books in the second-hand shops I mentioned above, and I plan to visit the Italian bookstore here in Barcelona (if it has survived the pandemic).
- I worked through a couple of topics from my grammar book.
- I watched:
Mio fratello, mia sorella
Luna Parc (enjoyable and aesthetically pleasing)
- I also went to a little exhibition about Federico Fellini, co-organized byt the Istituto Italiano, and was superhappy to see that I could read the Italian descriptions and follow the interviews without reading the subtitles. I think I have really come very far since I started using a lot of content during the pandemic.

Dutch:
- I have taken one conversation class on italki.
- I started to read a chicklit book that I got for free through a book exchange shelf at a camping site at the Costa Brava this summer: Jojo Moyes: Voor mij. I’m enjoying it more than I thought I would.
- I started to listen to Tolkien: In de ban van de ring – De reisgenoten. The story is of course great, but the recording doesn’t have the best quality, with the reader harrumphing and paper rustling in the background. Surprising, because this is not a voluntary reading, I paid money for this (on Kobo Rakuten). I’m a bit slow so far, because I don’t always feel like listening to it.
- I went on working with my vocabulary flashcards.
- I finished my list of irregular verbs, yay!

Turkish
I felt a bit burned out, so I do not have a lot to show.
- I went on working with my vocabulary flashcards.
- I had one nice moment, when one of my language buddies sent me a voice message that was 2 – 3 minutes long. Of course she spoke slowly and with easy wording, but I was so proud when I understood maybe 75 % at the first try!
- I watched:
Aşk 101 (love it!)
Geçen Yaz

Catalan
- I finished my list of verbs with the ending -eix-.
- I’m also watching the series Crims by tv3 (Who else?), which I recommend to any fellow fans of real crime stories. It would not be ideal for someone who has just started learning Catalan and wants to learn it correctly. But it is a great realistic document of the way languages are used here in Catalonia: some of the interviewees speak Spanish, most speak Catalan, with various accents and varying degrees of correctness or colloquiality, some with a Catalan heavily influenced by Spanish.

Other:
These books I didn’t want to read exactly for language-related reasons, more for "general education”. I have a list with recommended additional reading for German and English that was given to me in university 20 years ago and that I never finished.
- I have read Sex, Literature and Censorship, a collection of essays by D. H. Lawrence.
It was difficult to find. I had looked for it from time to time on the internet and had finally found it at a online second-hand seller. When the book arrived, I found the oldfashioned cover just lovely, and it had never been read before. I don’t know the year of the edition, maybe 1959. I felt bad for cracking its spine after 62 years, but in the end I relented.
Image

- I listened to The journal of a Tour to the Hebrides by James Boswell via LibriVox. I enjoyed the voice and accent of the reader, but found the content of the book incredible annoying.
I mean, there is the question of the general world view at that time (1785). I know that things were different back then then, but I have read Austen and Dickens, which are from are similar period, and I don’t remember as much blatant racism and classism. (Maybe I’m deluding myself.)
But my problem is mainly with the two men (Samuel Johnson and James Boswell) themselves.
This book is a report about a pompous snob prancing about making dismissive remarks about practically everything he sees and everyone he meets, told to us by his kiss ass biographer.
Wikipedia tells me that the book is “still widely read and admired today”. Hm.
I have seen that The Life of Samuel Johnson, also by Boswell, is on my university reading list as well. Sorry, but I’ll pass.
Last edited by Sonjaconjota on Mon Jan 03, 2022 9:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Sonjaconjota
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Re: Little by little (TUR, DUT, ITA, FRE)

Postby Sonjaconjota » Sat Oct 30, 2021 7:56 am

My plans for November

French
- Write at least 100 vocabulary flashcards.
- Work through a couple of grammar topics.
- Read a novel, at least a short one.

Dutch
- Watch season 4 of Baantjer
- Finish reading Voor mij
- Go on listening to De reisgenoten

Italian
- Work through a couple of grammar topics
- Start reading a novel

Turkish
I really want to concentrate on Turkish again, but I don’t feel like it.
I’ve got a dilemma here.
On the one hand, I have not mastered the concepts of my beginners’ course and absolutely need to review it completely before I move on. I still have 5 parts of 12 left, which amounts to at least half a year of work.
On the other hand I’m sick and tired of it and want to move on to the shiny new resources beckoning from my bookshelf.
I know perfectly well that it’s only going to get worse the longer I procrastinate, so let’s do it! I’ll try to tackle part 8 during November. Wish me luck!
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Re: Little by little (TUR, DUT, ITA, FRE)

Postby Caromarlyse » Sat Oct 30, 2021 11:28 am

What's gone wrong with your Turkish motivation? Just that the course you're using is not as exciting as the other Turkish materials you have, or are you less interested in the language itself at the moment? (I have a hankering to learn Turkish too at some point, but I definitely do not have time for it right now!)
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Re: Little by little (TUR, DUT, ITA, FRE)

Postby Sonjaconjota » Sat Oct 30, 2021 4:49 pm

Caromarlyse wrote:What's gone wrong with your Turkish motivation? Just that the course you're using is not as exciting as the other Turkish materials you have, or are you less interested in the language itself at the moment? (I have a hankering to learn Turkish too at some point, but I definitely do not have time for it right now!)

Both. It's just that I have been working with the same resource for two years now. It is a good resource, I like it and I know that I need it, but emotionally I'm just so over it. And when I start to do something else for Turkish, I'm thinking that I actually should be reviewing the course.
So, in the end, I just let it be and don't do anything, which isn't a solution, of course.
Now I just have to be tenacious. Fortunately, I can be very tenacious, which comes with being stubborn.
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Re: Little by little (TUR, DUT, ITA, FRE)

Postby Caromarlyse » Sun Oct 31, 2021 5:48 pm

Sonjaconjota wrote:
Caromarlyse wrote:What's gone wrong with your Turkish motivation? Just that the course you're using is not as exciting as the other Turkish materials you have, or are you less interested in the language itself at the moment? (I have a hankering to learn Turkish too at some point, but I definitely do not have time for it right now!)

Both. It's just that I have been working with the same resource for two years now. It is a good resource, I like it and I know that I need it, but emotionally I'm just so over it. And when I start to do something else for Turkish, I'm thinking that I actually should be reviewing the course.
So, in the end, I just let it be and don't do anything, which isn't a solution, of course.
Now I just have to be tenacious. Fortunately, I can be very tenacious, which comes with being stubborn.


Wow, I can understand the course having become tiresome after two years. Good luck with the tenacity!
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Re: Little by little (TUR, DUT, ITA, FRE)

Postby Sonjaconjota » Mon Nov 29, 2021 7:51 pm

November 2021
I’m really liking this format of monthly updates. I usually start to write the entry when I’m halfway through the month, making note of what I have done so far. This way I quickly notice if I have neglected one language or kind of activity, and I still have time to rectify.
This month I have rekindled my interest in cooking, and I’m increasing my time at the gym, so November started out with mainly listening.
Halfway through I noticed that I should move up a gear with my active Turkish studying, and that I practically hadn’t done anything for Italian yet, so I got a move on.

Dutch
- I have finished the chicklit novel Voor mij by Jojo Moyes. I liked it. I don’t usually buy books from this genre, because I translate so many of them for my job, but this one worked for me.
- I finished listening to Tolkien: In de ban van de ring – De reisgenoten and started with De twee torens.
If I remember correctly, I had read The Lord of the Rings three times before, once in German and (at least) twice in English. As I recall it, I always found it outstanding, but a slow read, a bit difficult because of its style. The first of the Dutch audiobooks did not give me that impression, and I might also have found it relatively easy because after watching the films several times, all the complicated names are easier to remember now.
In the second one I noticed that sometimes my thoughts start to stray in scenes with a lot of talking.
In both books I have not been too keen about all the songs which I didn’t remember at all.
The books are great to review vocabulary related to the landscape: heuvel, helling, rivier …
- I had one conversation class on italki.
- I watched season 4 of Baantjer.
There was a funny moment when I was watching an episode with the death of an old woman that looked suspicious although she had died in her bed. So the characters started talking about her death and were repeating a word again and again that I interpreted as “sexy”. And I thought: I just don’t get it, there is absolutely nothing sexy about the whole situation. And again and again it came up, until it finally dawned on me that it would have to be “sectie”, meaning “autopsy”. I don’t think I will ever forget this word now.
- My stack of A2-vocabulary flashcards to review is quickly diminishing, which I am very happy about. Now I’m regularly adding sentences from a book with typical expressions from everyday conversations:
https://shop.hueber.de/de/sprache-lernen/niederlandisch/alltagstauglich-niederl-ndisch.html
I also want to start reviewing my beginner’s grammar and add example sentences from grammar topics that are still a bit shaky.

Italian
Italian was put a bit on the back burner this month, but that’s okay.
- I had one conversation class on italki.
- Through a recommendation here on the forum I found Alle otto della sera – Le scandalose, a radio programm by Rai radio 2, and listened to a couple of episodes.
- I watched Generazione 56k (short and entertaining), and Yara on netflix.
- I only studied one grammar topic.

French
- I had one conversation class on italki.
- I read Maurice Leblanc: Arsène Lupin, gentleman-cambrioleur, which was short and sweet.
- I listened to a couple of episodes of Chroniques Criminelles.
- I started watching Zone Blanche on netflix and was very impressed by the first episode, but already lost interest with the second one. It seems like another one of those series where more thought and effort went into the setting and atmosphere than into the stories. It’s not a bad series and I guess I’ll come back to it, I think my expectations were just too high.
- I worked through three or four grammar topics.
- I completely forgot the vocabulary flashcards I wanted to write.

Turkish
This month I have been studying Turkish for exactly two years.
I really thought this would be another entry along the lines of “am burnt out, didn’t do much”, but something exciting happened:
- I go to dance school regularly, and after class I often have a beer with some classmates in a nearby pub. One of the waiters started working there only a year ago or so. He is always very friendly and makes an effort to speak Catalan, although it is obviously difficult for him. The last time I went there, I asked him where he was from. Actually I would have guessed Pakistan, because there are so many Pakistanis in Barcelona right now. But to my big surprise, he answered that he was from Turkey. Man, that was my big chance! I stammered a couple of sentences in broken Turkish, and he answered very graciously. I was actually so nervous that I didn’t get his name. I will have to ask him again, but I definitely want to try to talk to him again in Turkish.
I am an introvert and can sometimes be socially awkward, so that was a huge confidence boost for me! So happy!
- I watched Kulüp on netflix. This is also a series with a better atmosphere than story, but I can’t be picky when it comes to Turkish, and I also have to say that the setting is spectacular! The series might be of interest even to people who don’t study Turkish, because some of the main characters speak Ladino, too.
- I advanced a lot with the review of part 8/12 of my course. The topics are easier than the ones of part 7.
- I took one half-hour conversation class on italki.
My “history” of conversation classes in Turkish: When I started my one-year-long distance course (which I actually finished after 13 months in Dec. 2020), there weren’t any conversation classes included. We were supposed to record ourselves speaking about certain topics, but as I did it at home, I was able to write things down and read them for the recording. Because I didn’t think that was enough, I booked four half-hour classes on italki when I was in the third quarter or so of the course and had the same conversation with four different tutors. It was the only conversation I could have at that time: I talked about myself and my family – names, ages, professions, where people live.
It was about everything I learnt to say with my course that was supposed to bring me to an A2 level. (I have the certificate, but definitely not the level …)
Then I booked one half-hour class in April 2021 to see how far I had come – not very far.
And I did the same again this month, with the same endlessly patient teacher. The good news is: I can speak freely about topics of my choice. The bad news: I sound like Tarzan, although I am usually able to get across the point.

December:
Considering how things have gone lately and that I’m going to visit my family for Christmas, I’m not defining any concrete goals.
I will try to plow ahead with Turkish and do a little bit for the other languages, whatever I feel like.
Last edited by Sonjaconjota on Thu Dec 30, 2021 6:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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