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

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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 » Wed Feb 01, 2023 7:45 am

My idea was to post weekly updates for the 365 day challenge and then some reflections about the month at the end of it.
But I think the reflections are going to be very long, so I might just include most of them in the weekly posts in the future.
My feelings about the challenge so far:
I’m torn. On the one hand, it’s great for consistency, and I feel very proud that I’m doing something every single day.
On the other hand, it totally takes the fun out of it and feels like a chore. So, even on enthusiastic days, I’m usually only doing my 30 minutes, or maybe a little bit more, and then direct my motivation towards another language.
This means that I’ve probably studied Turkish less hours this month with the challenge than I would have without the challenge during a motivated month. But things are going to get interesting during months WITHOUT motivation, right?
There are a couple of things that do not exactly come as a surprise, but that have become ever more clear during January: I really hate numbers in general and tracking my learning time in particular. I really love books in general and as learning resources in particular. Buying them, starting them, finishing them. So, somehow, a new, informal goal for 2023 has emerged: I want to try and finish all the resources in book form that I’m actively using right now. That’s 4 for Turkish, 2 for Dutch (those might be the toughest ones to finish), 2 for Italian and 1 for French (the easiest one, I’m already gathering new resources for the next step). I even might throw in a book for English that I’ve come to hate and thus never finish, although it’s very slim: Inglés de la calle para dummies.
Dutch is the only language that I do not know which book I want to work with next, for B2. I’ll have to do some research.
For French, I managed to buy one of my new books used on Wallapop, which is kind of a local Craigslist here in Spain. I also learned through a youtube video that you can sometimes find some on Vinted. I’m having trouble with my account right now, but I’ll definitely keep an eye on that.
New things I tried in January: I installed a voice-recording app on my crappy phone, and I re-installed language reactor on my computers. Not sure about that yet. It IS kind of distracting.
And finally a little language-related story:
At Three Kings Day, we went to the yearly lunch with my boyfriend’s extended family.
I had once overheard that one of his cousins knows sign language, so I asked her about it.
We talked about it at length, because it turned out that she is quite passionate about it.
She’s really bored at her office job and about ten years or so ago, decided that she would learn a bit of sign language so she could talk with the office building’s deaf cleaning lady.
She first did some courses offered by associations, later actually did formal training and now has a title as sign language interpreter. In the end, she stayed at her office job, because the work as interpreter was unstable and badly paid.
I asked about which kind of sign language she knows, and she explained to me that the training focused on Catalan sign language, with a little bit of Spanish and of an international “lingua franca” system deaf people use when they are traveling.
To demonstrate the difference between Catalan and Spanish sign language, she gave me a great example. For “tomato”, in the Spanish variant you sign a little sphere.
For Catalan, you rub your right hand on the palm of your outstretched left hand. Why? Because in Catalonia, “pa amb tomàquet” (bread with tomato) is a staple food. To make it, you cut a tomato in half and rub it over a piece of white bread (oil can be added afterwards), so this is what the sign is imitating. So cool!
Last edited by Sonjaconjota on Wed Feb 01, 2023 8:41 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Little by little (TUR, DUT, ITA, FRE)

Postby stell » Wed Feb 01, 2023 11:51 am

Sonjaconjota wrote:To demonstrate the difference between Catalan and Spanish sign language, she gave me a great example. For “tomato”, in the Spanish variant you sign a little sphere.
For Catalan, you rub your right hand on the palm of your outstretched left hand. Why? Because in Catalonia, “pa amb tomaquet” (bread with tomato) is a staple food. To make it, you cut a tomato in half and rub it over a piece of white bread (oil can be added afterwards), so this is what the sign is imitating. So cool!

So interesting!
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Re: Little by little (TUR, DUT, ITA, FRE)

Postby Sonjaconjota » Sun Feb 05, 2023 9:41 pm

Weekly update for the 2023 365 Day Challenge:

2023/01/30
Turkish 40 min
- vocabulary work: I went through the list of character traits again and reviewed an old stack of vocabulary cards (phase 4 of 5).
- I wrote an index card for a grammar topic that was new to me from The Delights of Learning Turkish (imperative with sene / sana & senize / sanıza).

Italian
- 3 little topics Nuova grammatica pratica della lingua italiana
- 1 little topic Italienisch Übungsbuch Grammatik A1-A2

2023/01/31
Turkish 40 min
- The Delights of Learning Turkish, unit 4: finished explanations, started with exercises
- vocabulary work with my 20 cards and with two stacks of old cards (3rd phase)
- I also watched the first episode of Şahmaran.

Dutch
- vocabulary work unit 1 Power-Sprachkurs Niederländisch für Fortgeschrittene
- I listened to some more songs from Kim’s spotify playlist

French
- several episodes of Crimes - Histoires Vraies

2023/02/01
Turkish 45 min
- I started unit 4 of the workbook
- 1,5 episodes of Şahmaran

I tried out Language Reactor for Turkish and immediately stopped using it.
It just distracted me too much.
When I had two sets of subtitles, I was busy reading and didn’t hear a thing.
With just one set of subtitles, I’m often able to recognize words or structure just by hearing them, and then there’s a second, curious effect: Sometimes, I don’t hear a known structure, read the subtitles, and suddenly hear the corresponding, actually known structure echoing in my head, although the character already said it seconds ago. So, with the help of the translation in written form, there’s a delayed recognition.

Dutch
The same as yesterday:
- vocabulary work unit 1 Power-Sprachkurs Niederländisch für Fortgeschrittene
- I listened to some more songs from Kim’s spotify playlist

Italian
- I read a couple of articles in the magazine Adesso 1/2023.

2023/02/02
Turkish 30 minutes
- I finished unit 4 in the workbook.
- I opened the coursebook and wanted to start the next unit, then noticed that I had actually not yet finished unit 4, so I did that.
- half an episode of Şahmaran

Dutch
- I finished the first round of vocabulary work with the words from Power-Sprachkurs Niederländisch für Fortgeschrittene, unit 1.
- I listened to about an hour of Het bloemenmeisje.

French
- 2 topics Französisch - Die neue Power-Grammatik

Italian
- I finished reading the articles that interested me in Adesso 1/23.

I’m visiting my parents in Germany and spent the day in Düsseldorf. After being disappointed by the Mayersche bookshop in Essen in December, I didn’t even plan to go to one of the same chain in Düsseldorf, but I couldn‘t resist. Well, it turns out that Mayersche Droste has a huge selection of language learning resources, mainly for German as a foreign language, but also for English, French, Spanish and, a bit surprisingly for me, Italian. I wasn’t aware of Italian being so popular in Germany.
(Langenscheidt in particular seems to have specialized a bit in Italian:
https://www.langenscheidt.com/shop/italienisch/selbstlernen)
They had stuff for other languages as well, and I ended up buying a book with short stories in parallel text (Turkish – German).

2023/02/03
Turkish 30 minutes
- I started unit 5 of the coursebook.
- half an episode of Şahmaran

2023/02/04
Turkish 30 minutes
- I finished the explanation part of The Delights of Learning Turkish, unit 5.

French
- 2 topics Französisch - Die neue Power-Grammatik

2023/02/05
Turkish 30 minutes
- I started with the exercise part of unit 5.
So far, nearly everything in this book is supposed to be just a review for me, but there are things that I still haven’t mastered or mix up. Why do you add the suffixes of the personal endings to the question particle “mi” when using the present continuous tense and say “gidiyor muyum”, but with the simple past you add it to the verb and say “gittim mi”?
I know, I know, the answer is probably “That’s just the way it is, accept it”, but it’s confusing.
- half an episode of Şahmaran
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Re: Little by little (TUR, DUT, ITA, FRE)

Postby Sonjaconjota » Sun Feb 12, 2023 10:46 pm

Weekly update for the 2023 365 Day Challenge

2023/02/06
Turkish 30 min
- The Delights of Learning Turkish, unit 5, finished the exercise part
- vocabulary work with my 20 cards
- half an episode of Şahmaran

Dutch
- I listened to about 1,5 h of Het bloemenmeisje.

French

- 2 topics Französisch - Die neue Power-Grammatik


2023/02/07
Turkish 30 min
- vocabulary work
- started unit 5 of the workbook
I watched the last 3 episodes of Şahmaran. Initially, I wasn’t that much into this series, because the genre and story didn’t particularly interest me and some scenes were too creepy/yukky for me. But I got sucked into it, because it is another one of those well-made, super-aesthetic Netflix productions. So, when I had the time today, I watched all that was left. But the ending was disappointing, because so many questions remain open.

Dutch
- about half an hour of Het bloemenmeisje

Italian

I took a conversation class (45 min) on italki with a very sweet guy that I really took a liking to. I think I might have found myself a new regular tutor!


2023/02/08
Turkish 30 min
- working on unit 5 of the workbook

Dutch
- about 75 min Het bloemenmeisje

Italian
I have written down several grammar topics that I was struggling with during yesterday’s conversation class and thus want to review. I worked through 3 of them in Italienisch Übungsbuch Grammatik A1-A2.
I think I should do that after every conversation class, and also review the vocabulary I write down during the session, but I usually don’t take the time.

2023/02/09
Turkish 30 min
- finished unit 5 in the workbook and started unit 6 in the coursebook
Today I was struggling with Turkish. Since being away for that weekend retreat, I had nearly always done my 30 minutes first thing in the morning, but today I left them for later, and nearly was running out of time before I had to leave for dance school. But I made it!

Dutch
I listened to the last songs of Kim’s playlist. I will incorporate the one’s I like to my music library. Turns out I really like BLØF.

Italian
I reviewed 3 topics from my conversation class in Italienisch - Die neue Powergrammatik and worked through 1 in Nuova grammatica pratica della lingua italiana.


2023/02/10
Turkish 30 min
Struggling again.
- I worked through the explanation part of unit 6 in The Delights of Learning Turkish. I wasn’t happy with this unit, because it contains several long thematic vocabulary lists which are just not a good idea. It also introduces the optative and presents it in a different, more confusing way than my original distance course. I think I will mainly rely on the clear explanations from the distance course and try to ignore The Delights of Learning Turkish in this aspect.
- When it comes to listening comprehension, I’m at an interesting stage with my Turkish. As I’ve already mentioned in another post, it feels as if my brain is constantly grasping at things that are just out of reach. I’m starting to think that I might benefit from massive input, even if things are not exactly “comprehensible input”, which is difficult to find for my level.
I’ve started to look for childrens’ audiobook on Kobo Rakuten, but am reluctant to spend money on something that I definitely will not understand yet. So, at the moment, I’m going to use the audio from youtube videos for children. I’ve chosen some stories from BookBox and from Adisebaba Masal, a channel with “fairy tales”. (I’m putting that into quotation marks, because they are calling everything a fairy tale, even though in reality, it is a wild mix of classic stories for children from very different origins, ranging from Grimm’s Fairy Tales to Heidi or the Jungle Book.)
So far, I’ve listened to some stories from BookBox for about an hour.

Italian
I wanted to look up the use of numbers and measurements, which I also had difficulties with during my conversation class. But only one of my books had information on this.
So I started to look around on the internet.
From what I’ve gathered, it seems that you use the plural form for “mile, milione, miliardo” when applicable and you can also say “due zeri”, but you always use “cento” in the singular form.
In regard to measurements, you use plural forms for things like “metro, chilometro, grammo, chilo”.
Currencies have plural forms, too, like “un dollaro, due dollari”.
The “euro” is confusing, because, from what I have found, the official plural form is also “euro” like in “due euro”. It seems that orally, some people use “euri”.
Please correct or add something, if you have more information.

2023/02/11
Turkish 30 min
I need a break from The Delights of Learning Turkish, so I’ll concentrate on other things for a couple of days.
- 2 topics Turkish Grammar in Practice
- vocabulary work

French
- 2 topics Französisch - Die neue Power-Grammatik


2023/02/12
Turkish 30 min
- 4 topics Turkish Grammar in Practice
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Re: Little by little (TUR, DUT, ITA, FRE)

Postby Sonjaconjota » Sun Feb 19, 2023 9:34 pm

Weekly update for the 2023 365 Day Challenge

2023/02/13
Turkish 35 min
- vocabulary
- 2 topics Turkish Grammar in Practice

Dutch
- listening: 45 min Het bloemenmeisje
- Hugo - Taking Dutch Further, unit 2, text 1

I watched a youtube video with different people from the Easy Languages series trying Turkish snacks.
There was an interesting moment when the Catalan lady and the Turkish guy noticed that their languages use similar words for pistachio: “festuc” in Catalan and “fıstık” in Turkish. I looked it up and found confirmed what I had already imagined: Catalan and Turkish, als well as for example Albanian, use words derived from Arabic. (Google tells me the Arabic word is فستق ). Most languages use a word that traveled from Persian to Greek to Latin.


2023/02/14
Turkish 30 min
- vocabulary
- 2 topics Turkish Grammar in Practice
- 1 topic Grammatik kurz und bündig Türkisch

Dutch
- listening: 1h30 Het bloemenmeisje
- started with Hugo - Taking Dutch Further, unit 2, text 2

Italian
- reading: 3 chapters Il caso Bramard


2023/02/15
Turkish 35 min
- finished the exercise part, unit 6, The Delights of Learning Turkish
- I also listened to 2 stories by Adisebaba Çizgi Film Masallar, Aladdin and Alice in Wonderland (about 20 min total).

I was happy to get back to The Delights of Learning Turkish, because during the last couple of days, I had to invest some mental energy in deciding what I was going to fill my 30 minutes with. Today I just opened the book and started. It shows how important it is for me to have at least one main go-to resource.

Dutch
- listening: 30 min Het bloemenmeisje
- Today I also got a book I ordered with crossword and wordsearch puzzles (Peter Schoenaerts: Nederlands oefenen, Taalpuzzles met 1000 basiswoorden), because I wanted to try something new. It’s more for beginners, and I would have liked a bit more variety for the type of puzzles, but I already did the first 4 and had fun.


2023/02/16
Turkish 30 min
- vocabulary
- started unit 6 in the workbook

Dutch
- finished unit 2, Hugo - Taking Dutch further
- watched some youtube videos
- created a stack of 20 vocabulary flashcards that I’ll try to review every day, just like with Turkish

French
- 1 topic Französisch - Die neue Power-Grammatik
- 15 min Linguno
- I listened to 4 episodes (2 cases) of Crimes Histoires Vraies and 1 episode of Croniques Criminelles. (There was finally a new episode about a case not from the US!)

I’m having a bit of a hard time with finding good stuff for my target languages on Netflix and Prime, so I’m going to be watching more things in other languages I’ve put aside so far.
(Youtube, on the other hand, is being surprisingly helpful lately.)
One interesting film I’ve watched is The Sound of Metal on prime, about a metal drummer losing his hearing. It’s a good film and great for people interested in ASL.


2023/02/17
Turkish 30 min
- vocabulary
- working on unit 6, workbook

Dutch
- vocabulary
- 45 min conversation class

Italian
- 2 little topics Italienisch Übungsbuch Grammatik A1-A2
- 1 topic Nuova grammatica pratica della lingua italiana
- The Nuova grammatica-book mentioned a film called Mediterraneo, and I found it on Prime. I enjoyed it, although unfortunately it was one of those films with badly balanced sound, so that the music was very loud and the dialogues were difficult to hear.


2023/02/18
Turkish 30 min
- vocabulary
- finished unit 6, workbook
- 1 topic Grammatik kurz und bündig Türkisch
- listened to some music

Weird vocabulary find of the day: The Turkish word “kayak” means “skies”, like in “to go skiing”. If you want to talk about the little boat, you have to say “kano”, according to the online dictionary I use. By the way, Google Translate does not seem to know the difference, which could lead to strange confusions ...

French
- 1 topic Französisch - Die neue Power-Grammatik
- several episodes (3 cases) of Crimes Histoires Vraies

Italian
- 2 little topics Italienisch Übungsbuch Grammatik A1-A2
- 1 topic Nuova grammatica pratica della lingua italiana
- reading: 6 chapters Il caso Bramard
In the book, I came across something I found amusing: A crime novel in Italian is called a “giallo”, a “yellow one”, because many years ago, the publishers Mondadori chose yellow covers for a well-known edition of crimes novels.
In one scene of Il caso Bramard, a group of people is watching the series Murder, She Wrote, and in Italian it is called La signora in giallo. I think they did a great job with that wordplay.


2023/02/19
Turkish 30 min
- vocabulary
- I started the explanation part of unit 7 in the coursebook. But it is an intense unit with complex topics, so I stopped at one point and did the corresponding exercises about these topics at the end of the unit.

Italian
- 2 little topics Italienisch Übungsbuch Grammatik A1-A2
- 1 topic Nuova grammatica pratica della lingua italiana
- reading: 4 chapters Il caso Bramard
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Re: Little by little (TUR, DUT, ITA, FRE)

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Mon Feb 20, 2023 6:22 pm

I enjoy the little vocabulary lessons: giallo, kayak, etc.
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Sonjaconjota
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Re: Little by little (TUR, DUT, ITA, FRE)

Postby Sonjaconjota » Sun Feb 26, 2023 8:14 pm

Weekly update for the 2023 365 Day Challenge

2023/02/20
Turkish 30 min
- working on unit 7, coursebook The Delights of Learning Turkish
- listening: 3 stories Adisebaba Çizgi Film Masallar: Beauty and the Beast, Hansel and Gretel, Heidi (about 30 min total)

Dutch
- I wrote some vocabulary cards for unit 1 of PONS Power-Sprachkurs Niederländisch für Fortgeschrittene
- I started unit 2.
- listening: 2h of Het bloemenmeisje

French
- 2 topics Die neue Powergrammatik Französisch

Today I’ve noticed that the online dictionary for multiple languages by Pons also has Elvish.


2023/02/21
Turkish 30 min
- vocabulary
- working on unit 7, coursebook

Dutch
- vocabulary cards
- working on unit 2, PONS Power-Sprachkurs Niederländisch für Fortgeschrittene
- I finished listening to Het bloemenmeisje. I really liked that book, I will see if I can find something else by the author.
- I did a couple of puzzles from my puzzle book. Obviously, I had crowed too soon: Today I hit the wall with a synonym crossword puzzle. New words: “schitterend”, “dikwijls” and “gek” in the sense of “odd, peculiar”


2023/02/22
Turkish 1 h
- finished unit 7, coursebook
- I started to make yet another chart contrasting my two old foes, personal endings and possessive endings. I hope I’ll learn to distinguish them one day.
- listening: 3 stories Adisebaba Çizgi Film Masallar: Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, The Jungle Book (about 30 min)

I have started to watch Extraordinary Attorney Woo, and even though it is occasionally very cheesy, I love it.
And despite watching it in English (because it’s running in the background while I’m doing other things), I’m starting to develop a certain interest in Korea, its culture and language. I mean, the script is soooo pretty. This is dangerous ...

2023/02/23
Turkish 30 min
- started unit 7, workbook The Delights of Learning Turkish
- listened to Pinocchio (about 10 min)
- worked on my chart for personal and possessive suffixes
Yesterday I was thinking about Turkish after going to bed, and when I was just about to fall asleep, suddenly everything was superclear.
So far, I was making this kind of chart for review and in the hopes of discovering some memorable pattern I had not seen so far. But I guess I just have to use the concrete examples as reference points.
I might not be able to memorize “iz / yiz” versus “imiz / miz”, but I can memorize “anneyiz” versus “annemiz” and remember which means which, so that’s what I’m gonna concentrate on. I’ll make a mental cheat sheet and refer to that when in doubt.

2023/02/24
Turkish
- finished my chart with personal and possessive suffixes (10 min)
Image

- Today I had about an hour of in-person language exchange Spanish-Turkish with Irmak, the lovely young lady from Istanbul I have so far only met once before, in July last year.
We still both suck, but this time our conversation has made me realize some things and come to a decision.
Of course I was even before painfully aware that I’m ducking out of practising speaking. I really, really don’t feel prepared for it yet. But I’ve been studying Turkish for over three years now, I know perfectly well that I should have started to practise seriously a long time ago, and that an initial period of being uncomfortable is totally normal.
The problems are basically
- a lack of both active and passive vocabulary
- I get stuck because the complexity of the grammar paralyses me
So, I have decided that I’m going to go back to a strategy I used at the very beginning, when I first started with the language:
I’m going to prepare in advance. I’ll gather material for specific topics (family, work, pets, travels, hobbies) and write down vocabulary, whole sentences, questions I’m going to ask the other person. I’m going to listen to examples I can find online, maybe at Easy Turkish. I’m going to familiarize myself really, really well with the topic, try to learn by heart as much as I can.
And then I’ll book 30 minute-italki-lessons with several teachers to have the same conversation repeatedly until I’ve got the feeling that I have more or less mastered this topic.
Maybe the next meeting with my in-person language exchange could serve as the ultimate test afterwards.
I’ll basically apply a language island strategy for speaking.
I feel uncomfortable just thinking about it. Wish me luck!

Dutch
- vocabulary cards
- finished unit 2, PONS Power-Sprachkurs Niederländisch für Fortgeschrittene
- I started watching Dirty Lines, a netflix series about a business offering telephone sex at the end of the 1980s. I think this is the first time ever I’m watching a series being set in that era and thinking: “Yep, that’s how people actually dressed back then.” Good job, wardrobe department!

2023/02/25
Turkish 30 min
- working on unit 7, workbook

2023/02/26
Turkish 40 min
- vocabulary
- I finished unit 7 in the workbook. In this unit, there were some newish things that I should review again during the next days.
- listening: Rapunzel (about 10 min)

Dutch
- vocabulary cards
- 1 episode Dirty Lines
- Inspired by a post here in the forum, I made a vocabulary wheel with some verb forms I want to review.
Image
8 x

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

Postby Sonjaconjota » Thu Mar 02, 2023 8:17 am

End-of-month reflections February 2023

This year is weird.
Do you know how older people often comment that life passes faster and faster, the older you get?
That’s what’s happening to me right now, suddenly the hours pass scarily fast. And it confuses me, because it contradicts a theory in an article I once came across, saying that time passes slowly for children, because they experience so many new things every day, and quickly for old people, because all their days look the same without any outstanding events, which makes any period of time look very short in retrospective.
That was the theory of the article, and the author recommended trying to do something beautiful and memorable every day, even if it just was a small thing.
I’m confused, because right now, I’m just so busy, but precisely because I do many nice things I choose to do voluntarily: studying languages, dancing, seeing friends.
Then why does it feel like time flies and I don’t find the time to do everything I want to?
Maybe it is just that I have more of a social life now than some years ago, and also that I’m still readjusting after the pandemic.

I continue to have a vocabulary crisis. As I’ve mentioned a couple of days ago, I severely lack both active and passive vocabulary in Turkish, and I definitely also lack active vocabulary in Dutch. I’m still thinking about how I’m going to tackle this.

For French, I have bought three “progressive” books for A2/B1 by CLE (for grammar, vocabulary and communication).
The level is a bit low for me, but I want to solidify my basis.
They look great, especially Communication progressive, and I’m really eager to start with them soon. I think I’m going to be busy with these for a long time.
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Re: Little by little (TUR, DUT, ITA, FRE)

Postby Sonjaconjota » Sun Mar 05, 2023 6:31 pm

Weekly update for the 2023 365 Day Challenge

2023/02/27
Turkish 30 min
- vocabulary
- I started to prepare vocabulary for my future speaking practice.
- I watched this youtube video by a fellow Turkish learner in Turkish:

I’m jealous, because there are many things that I can understand, but I would not be able to express things like he does. Even if he speaks slowly, he’s far ahead of me with his speaking practice.

Dutch
- vocabulary
- 1 episode Dirty Lines

French
- 1 h conversation class
My tutor introduced me to the slam poet Grand Corps Malade.
I’ve found this duet by him and singer Camille Lellouche and have been obsessed with it ever since:

- 2 topics Die neue Power-Grammatik Französisch


2023/02/28
Turkish 30 min
- reviewed 1 topic from unit 7 (kendi & kendi kendime)
- started unit 8, The Delights of learning Turkish, coursebook

Dutch
- 2 episodes Dirty Lines

French
- 2 topics Die neue Power-Grammatik Französisch
- listening: 1 episode Chroniques Criminelles, several episodes Crimes - Histoires vraies (3 cases)


2023/03/01
Turkish 30 min
- vocabulary stacks older flashcards
- I went back to the first text of unit 8 that I had already started reading the day before. It is a weather forecast, and I didn’t understand a thing, because it is just a succession of very specific vocabulary like “coastal regions”, “stormy” and “northwest”. So I basically had to look up every single word.
At some point I gave up and spent the rest of my 30 minutes copying the text into a word document. I’m going to do a word-by-word translation tomorrow.
I kind of like the book The Delights of Learning Turkish. It has its flaws, but generally, I’m okay with it as a base for my review.
What I really dislike about it though is its presentation of vocabulary, especially in comparison with the distance course I started with. The distance course introduced a certain, limited number of new vocabulary for each lesson. It was then added to the total of words the student was supposed to know and regularly used in further texts and exercises.
In The Delights of Learning Turkish, it just goes on and on.
Not only does it have a lot of thematic vocabulary list, like: “Here are thirty words related to household items, deal with it!” Sometimes it also seems that every single exercise has new words that don’t seem very essential to me.
And the worst: There’s a list of the most important new words underneath each text or exercise, and I just don’t understand how this list is structured, because the words are listed neither in the order of appearance nor alphabetically. So you just have to look through the whole thing. It drives me crazy.
- listening about 10 min: Alibaba

Dutch
- I worked through the rest of the vocabulary of unit 1, Power-Sprachkurs Niederländisch für Fortgeschrittene

French
- 2 topics Die neue Power-Grammatik Französisch, only a couple more topics to go
- I made little grammar flashcards for the verb endings of all tenses.


2023/03/02
Turkish 30 min
- working on unit 8

Dutch
- vocabulary
- I watched the last episode of Dirty Lines. I really liked this. The series had only six episodes and an open ending. I hope they’ll make a second season.

Italian
- 2 little topics Italienisch Übungsbuch Grammatik A1-A2


2023/03/03
Turkish 40 min
- working on unit 8, finished the explanation part and started with the exercises

Dutch
- reviewed some old vocabulary stacks
- resolved 3 puzzles

Italian
- 1 little topic Italienisch Übungsbuch Grammatik A1-A2
- started 1 topic Nuova grammatica pratica della lingua italiana

My boyfriend and I have been watching 1899 on netflix.
He has not been into fiction for some time now, so it’s nearly impossible to find things to watch together. When I suggested we started with this series from the makers of Dark, and he was okay with that, I was really happy.
It turns out that the series is really, really bad. But my boyfriend enjoys dissecting it and pointing out all the absurdities, so it seems we’ll be watching it till the (bitter) end.
I’m mentioning this here because the makers have taken an interesting decision. There are two versions: a dubbed one in English and a multilingual one. The series is about a ship going from Europe to the United States, and the passengers onboard are from many different countries. In the multilingual version, everybody speaks their own language, except for some scenes in which English or German are used for communication.
At the beginning, I found that really cool. But at some point it started to get absurd. There are so many scenes in which people who supposedly do not understand a single word of what the other one is saying are talking to each other as if it were the most natural thing in the world. So, even this aspect of the series turned out to be disappointing.

2023/03/04
Turkish 30 min
- preparing material for future speaking practice
- listening: The Ugly Duckling and Puss in Boots (total about 20 min)

Today I learned through a hike that a poplar tree is called “chopo” in Spanish and “pollancre” in Catalan.


2023/03/05
Turkish 30 min
- finished unit 8, coursebook
- preparing material for future speaking practice
- listening: The Red Shoes and Jack and the Beanstalk (total about 20 min)
4 x

User avatar
stell
Orange Belt
Posts: 178
Joined: Sat Jan 15, 2022 11:25 pm
Location: Canada
Languages: English (N1), French (N2), Spanish (advanced), Tagalog (perpetual toddler), Russian (beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=17696
x 995

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

Postby stell » Sun Mar 05, 2023 6:57 pm

Sonjaconjota wrote:
My boyfriend and I have been watching 1899 on netflix.
He has not been into fiction for some time now, so it’s nearly impossible to find things to watch together. When I suggested we started with this series from the makers of Dark, and he was okay with that, I was really happy.
It turns out that the series is really, really bad. But my boyfriend enjoys dissecting it and pointing out all the absurdities, so it seems we’ll be watching it till the (bitter) end.
I’m mentioning this here because the makers have taken an interesting decision. There are two versions: a dubbed one in English and a multilingual one. The series is about a ship going from Europe to the United States, and the passengers onboard are from many different countries. In the multilingual version, everybody speaks their own language, except for some scenes in which English or German are used for communication.
At the beginning, I found that really cool. But at some point it started to get absurd. There are so many scenes in which people who supposedly do not understand a single word of what the other one is saying are talking to each other as if it were the most natural thing in the world. So, even this aspect of the series turned out to be disappointing.

That show is so, so bad. It gets worse towards the end, but it was cancelled at the end of season one, so at least you have that to look forward to! :lol: (Yes, we also watched it to the bitter end.)
4 x


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