Stell's log: Russian and Spanish

[stell]

25 hours of Russian - Day Two

Because this week I am off work, I am going to attempt to complete the bulk of my Russian learning (including posting to this forum) before supper. In the evenings, I will exercise, watch movies in English, read in Spanish or play board games. Last summer I bought some cooperative board games that I like to play solo, and I haven’t really played any of them for several months. I’ve been contemplating buying Spirit Island for solo play, but it’s pretty pricey, so I want to be sure that I’m actually still motivated to play solo games before I order it.

If I do end up doing any more Russian in the evening, I’ll just log it the following day.

Today went really well. Even though I did Russian on and off all day, I interspersed it with lots of other things: playing with the dog, cooking up some pasta, chatting with my husband over a cup of coffee, doing a few loads of laundry, reading the forum, talking on the phone for an hour with my best friend…

My motivation for Russian remains high. I really want to get to the point where I have more options for input. Lower intermediate is my first big goal, although I know it will take me a long time to get there. For now, I’m focusing on A1 materials for listening and reading. I’m hoping that by summer I’ll finish Russian Accelerator, and be able to move on to Assimil Russian and A2 reading and listening material. For now, I’m happy with my Red Kalinka graded reader and In Russian From Afar A1 videos, but I do look forward to having access to a wider variety of materials.

1. coursework:

• Russian Accelerator (73 minutes) - watched the media clips for unit 7. Also completed Unit 8 Lesson 1.

2. ”doing Russian” (listening, reading, writing):

• Listening (30 minutes) - In Russian From Afar: rewatched an older video about daily routines, and then watched one of his newer videos with Russian subtitles.

• Reading/listening (41 minutes) - 25 Texts in Easy Russian: I did my anki reviews, created new anki cards for text 8, and then spent a good chunk of time “shadowing” the audio from texts 1-12. I put “shadowing” in quotation marks because I wasn’t really speaking out loud…just whispering. I didn’t want to disturb my husband, who was hard at work on an assignment. Still, even without actually speaking aloud, this very intensive and focused listening takes a lot of energy!

• Writing (20 minutes) - It took me a long time to write this, in part because writing is hard, and in part because I’m hunting and pecking for each letter. Last year I started doing typing lessons to learn the Russian keyboard. It may be worth starting up again.
  
  I wrote about my typical morning. I tried to use words I already knew, but I just didn’t have enough vocabulary. So before starting, I looked up these sentences, which I also added to anki:
  I get up at ____ o’clock in the morning. - Я встаю в _____ часов утро.
  I take a shower. - Я принимаю душ.
  I brush my teeth. - Я чищу зубы.
  I wash my face. - Я умываю лицо.
  I go for a walk. - Я иду гулять.
  I walk my dog. / I walk with my dog. - Я гуляю с собакой.
  
  I also ran my text through a grammar checker (https://grammarchecker.top/russian-grammar-checker), which may have been cheating. Haha! The only big corrections that it made were: Мы с Тобим -> Мы с Тоби (which I’m honestly still not sure is correct); я гулaю -> я гуляю; and видео на русский -> видео на русском.
  
  Corrections welcome!
  
  Привет, друзья! Вот моё обычное утро. Я встаю в 7:00 часов утро. Я не принимаю душ утром. Я принимаю душ вечером. Утром, я только чищу зубы и умываю лицо. После этого, я иду гулять с собакой. Его зовут Тоби. Мы с Тоби идём гулять в парке. Когда я гуляю, я слушаю Пимслеп. Иногда, я занимаюсь йогой утром, но не каждый день. После этого, я ем завтрак. На завтрак, я ем хлеб или кашу, и я пью кофе. Иногда, смотрю видео на русском. После этого, я на работу. Иногда, я работаю дома и иногда я работаю в офисе.

3. speaking:

• Pimsleur 2 (30 minutes) - unit 5 while walking the dog. So far so good!

• unscripted audio journal (5 minutes) - my typical morning. I recorded this one after writing, but I didn’t use my text. I did allow myself access to my list of short sentences, because some of that vocabulary has yet to make it into my long-term memory.

4. vocabulary:

• apps (22 minutes) - anki (main deck), Duolingo and Clozemaster

minutes today: 221
total minutes: 440
goal between February 26 and March 4: 1,500 minutes

[stell]

25 hours of Russian - Day Three

I’m loving my vacation-with-no-plans-but-a-focus-on-Russian. I’m striking a nice balance between studying Russian, doing other stuff that I want to do, and taking care of things around the house. Honestly, I can’t wait to be retired and be able to focus on my personal interests! I genuinely enjoy my job, and I feel that my work is worthwhile, and I know that that’s truly a privilege. But I love long days with hours to fill however I like. Only 20 years to go!

I’m glad that I didn’t book any italki sessions this week, but I do find myself wishing that I had more opportunities to speak. Pimsleur works well to build automaticity and to focus on my accent, but it certainly isn’t a conversation. And audio journals give me the opportunity to create and speak, but they’re by definition one-sided. After reading the thread on Quazel, I thought that it might meet my current need for basic spoken interaction without having to commit to another human being. Unfortunately, I had no luck with Quazel. The sign-up process wouldn’t work for me on either my phone or my ipad, and I couldn’t figure out how to log in on the browser-based version. The creator of the app reached out to me via PM after I posted on the other thread, so we'll see if he can help.

I did try out a few web-based AI chatbots, but they were kind of creepy! One of them had the option to set my relationship status with the AI avatar. Oh…no. No thanks. I’m not going to do that.

1. coursework:

• Russian Accelerator (42 minutes) - Unit 8 Lesson 1. My understand is very strong. But when I have to generate my own sentences, I’m getting a bit confused with how the endings of words change. I understand why they change, but I don’t always remember how they change. I haven’t been adding any examples to my grammar notebook for the past few lessons, and I think that may have been a mistake. Because this course is fully video- and audio-based, I don’t have any written texts that I can refer to.

• New Penguin Russian Course (18 minutes) - I revisited the first half of chapter 5 and made some notes about the prepositional case.

2. ”doing Russian” (listening, reading, writing):

• Listening (39 minutes) - In Russian From Afar: watched a video once with English subtitles (that I only needed to glance at a few times), once with Russian subtitles, and a third time with audio only (just listening while pacing in the house - gotta get those steps in!). This approach to a new video, with less visual support each time, seems to be working very well for me.
  Zaika and Vasya talk about their hobbies - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogHhW4o8ZPM - I know that I said that I preferred videos without puppets, and I do. But most of the A1 videos feature Vasya the Crocodile, and the language is very conversational and comprehensible. Sergei is charming and fun to watch. His videos are well-edited and the audio is very clear. (As an aside, this is the fourth video that I’ve watched that mentions the crocodile being vegan, which makes me laugh a bit.)

• Reading/listening (44 minutes) - 25 Texts in Easy Russian: I went through my anki intensive reading deck, which I’m really enjoying. I’m glad that I kept it separate from my main anki deck, because the audio cards would really bog down my vocabulary reviews and would probably lead to me hating anki. But having the reading cards in their own deck, and using that deck as a warm-up for reading, is working really well. Today, I created cards for text 9. I reviewed texts 10-12 (reading once out loud and then reading once along with the text). And then I worked on text 13. It was a tough one! I probably revisited it 10 or 12 times (sometimes audio only, sometimes text only, sometimes text+audio), and I still found it difficult. I’ll revisit it again tomorrow.

• Writing (17 minutes) - I wrote a very simple dialogue based on a photo that my tutor sent me. The photo shows a young couple in a restaurant, speaking to a waiter. (Please note: I realize that - as riveting as this dialogue may be - I probably won’t be winning any prizes for literature anytime soon.)
  
  Это Даша и Антон. Они в ресторане. Официант приезжает.
  О: Здравствуйте! Я слушаю вас!
  Д: Здравствуйте! У вас есть курица? С рисом?
  О: Да, конечно! Вы хотите овощи?
  Д: Да, пожалуйста.
  О: А что хотите пить?
  Д: Бокал вино, пожалуйста. И стакан воды.
  О: С удовольствием. А для вас?
  А: Я хотел бы пасту. Есть?
  О: Да, есть.
  А: И салат, пожалуйста.
  О: какой салат?
  А: Вот этот. И я тоже хочу бокал вино и стакан воды.
  О: Очень хорошо!
  А: Спасибо!

3. speaking:

• Pimsleur 2 (30 minutes) - unit 6

• unscripted audio journal (5 minutes) - at the restaurant. This did NOT go well! But it’s ok, I tried!

4. vocabulary:

• apps (24 minutes) - anki (main deck), Duolingo and Clozemaster

minutes today: 219 (3.65 hours)
total minutes: 659 (10.98 hours)
goal between February 26 and March 4: 1,500 minutes (25 hours)

[stell]

25 hours of Russian - Day Four

We were out of the house from 11AM this morning until almost 11PM this evening. I was able to spend a few hours on Russian in the morning before leaving, and then I just snuck a few minutes here and there throughout the day, whenever I found myself waiting for anything.

My parents are coming tomorrow and staying until Monday. I’m not sure I’m going to hit my goal of 25 hours now that I have guests coming. But I’ll still track and see what happens! My parents are very relaxed people who spend a lot of time reading and doing their own stuff on the computer, so I may have more time for Russian than I anticipate. But I’m not expecting to have much time for Pimsleur, because I usually walk with my Dad when he’s visiting. We’ll see! I’m not putting any pressure on myself and I certainly won’t let anything interfere with spending time with my parents. But any down time, I’ll try to spend on Russian.

1. coursework:

• Russian Accelerator (57 minutes) - Unit 8 Lesson 3

2. ”doing Russian” (listening, reading, writing):

• Listening (33 minutes) - Maria Petrova’s 0-A1 immersion course on YouTube. I skipped the first two videos about the alphabet, and watched videos 2-7. They’re definitely a bit too easy for me, but they’re 100% in Russian and I don’t need subtitles. I found her very pleasant to watch and listen to. I also think that the course may help me consolidate what I’ve already learned. I may alternate listening between Maria and Sergei, so that I have more than one source of input.

• Reading (38 minutes) - 25 texts in easy Russian: I split my time between intensive and extensive reading. I read several new texts one after another, without the audio. I enjoyed the challenge, but I will definitely have to revisit them and read them intensively later on.

3. speaking:

• Quazel (15 minutes) - I was able to get Quazel working, by setting up my profile on the browser first, and then going back to the app. I tried three conversations. I enjoyed it, but I’m not 100% sure that this resource will make its way into my regular rotation. I’ll try it a few more times before sharing my impressions.

4. vocabulary:

• apps (49 minutes) - anki (main deck), Duolingo and Clozemaster.
  
  I spent way more time on apps than I usually do! Part of that was due to upping my daily new cards on anki to 40. I’m trying to clear up my backlog a bit, and so far it’s been working well because I usually add several cards with example sentences for a new vocabulary word. Few of my cards are just out-of-context vocab. Except that today turned into the perfect storm, because I had a bunch of one-word cards for seasons, months, and days of the week. I had a seriously hard time remembering them, and they just kept popping up one after another! It wasn’t much fun, and I don’t expect that my reviews tomorrow will be much fun either.
  
  I also spent more time on Duolingo than I usually do, because I was waiting in the car a few times for 10-15 mins at a time, which seemed like a good opportunity to sneak in some extra Russian.

minutes today: 192 (3.2 hours)
total minutes: 851 (14.18 hours)
goal between February 26 and March 4: 1,500 minutes (25 hours)

[stell]

25 hours of Russian - Day Five

Just a quick update today!

1. coursework:

• Russian Accelerator (49 minutes) - Unit 8 Lesson 4

2. ”doing Russian” (listening, reading, writing):

• Listening (60 minutes)
  
  In Russian From Afar. Zaika and Vasya talk about their weekend: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rlWgVCUbj0 - I listened to this one three times, once with English subtitles (that I only glanced at from time to time), again with Russian subtitles, and a third time audio only.
  
  Maria Petrova’s Russian Immersion course - videos 8 and 9. I watched these once only, without subtitles.

• Reading (39 minutes) - 25 texts in easy Russian: I re-read all of the texts that I read yesterday, this time with audio. I also did intensive reading of text 10, and added those new cards to anki.

• Writing (10 minutes) - corrections welcome! I wrote about a picture that my tutor sent me last week, which showed a table loaded with pizza and plates of sushi. My text is short, mainly because I ran out of things to say! But I wrote these sentences without having to look anything up. Never mind that it’s because I used the same four words over and over.
  
  Я хочу идти в ресторан. Но что я хочу есть? Не знаю! Может быть пиццу? Мне очень нравится пицца. Или может быть я хочу есть суши? Суши так вкусный! Я хочу и пиццу и суши. Как я делаю? Я знаю! Я иду в ресторан где есть и пицца и суши. Тогда я могу есть и пицца и суши. Какая хорошая идея! Ты хочешь со мной?

3. speaking:

• Pimsleur Level 2 (30 minutes) - unit 7

4. vocabulary:

• apps (28 minutes) - anki (main deck), Duolingo and Clozemaster. I was right…anki wasn’t much fun today.

minutes today: 216 (3.6 hours)
total minutes: 1,067 (17.78 hours)
goal between February 26 and March 4: 1,500 minutes (25 hours)

[stell]

25 hours of Russian - Day Six

I was able to fit quite a lot of Russian in between other activities throughout the day! Today I realized how much I depend on walking to get some extra minutes in. Most days I clock between 30 and 60 minutes of Russian while walking. Now that my parents are here, my Dad is joining me on every walk. I really enjoy the company, but it’s definitely harder to hit my Russian goal! So after a long winter hike in the afternoon, I went out again for a 30-minute walk so that I could do Pimsleur…even though my legs were not happy with me.

1. coursework:

• Russian Accelerator (66 minutes) - Unit 8 Lesson 5. Starting next week, I think that I’ll have to split a lesson over two days. Spending over an hour on Russian Accelerator every day probably isn’t sustainable, unless I give up outside resources. My other resources (reading and listening in particular) are hugely motivating, and I’m not interested in giving them up.

2. ”doing Russian” (listening, reading, writing):

• Listening (60 minutes)
  
  In Russian From Afar: Zaika and Vasya make soup. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew9CqWEJjfk Listened once without subtitles. My comprehension was pretty good! And now I’m inspired to make soup.
  
  Maria Petrova’s Russian Immersion course: videos 10-12. I’m going to keep running through this course, watching videos once without subtitles. It’s providing a good review of very basic grammar. So far, we’ve worked on gender, plurals, and possessives.

• Reading (33 minutes) - 25 texts in easy Russian: I’ve started splitting my reading into two shorter blocks. This lets me focus on both intensive and extensive reading separately. I’ve been spending more time on intensive reading lately, which I think has been very helpful for learning. But I’ve missed the relaxed feeling of just reading for pleasure. It’s hard for me to read for pleasure after doing my intensive anki deck. It’s easier if I split reading into two separate blocks. I’ll have to think about how to proceed once this week is over and I’m back at work, since I probably won’t have time for two separate reading blocks every day.
  
  intensive reading: anki reviews, intensive reading of text 11, added text 11 to anki
  
  extensive reading: just bounced around from text to text to 15 minutes, reading whatever I felt like reading.

• Writing - no writing today!

3. speaking:

• Pimsleur Level 2 (30 minutes) - unit 8

• Quazel (14 minutes) - I repeated the same three conversations I did last time, although of course they were not identical.

4. vocabulary:

• apps (32 minutes) - anki (main deck), Duolingo and Clozemaster.

minutes today: 216 (3.6 hours)
total minutes: 1,283 (21.38 hours)
goal between February 26 and March 4: 1,500 minutes (25 hours)

To meet my goal, I need to do 217 minutes of Russian tomorrow!

[stell]

25 hours of Russian - Day Seven

Success! I didn’t think that I would actually complete this mini-challenge, but I did. I’m very happy that I spent over 25 hours engaged in Russian this past week!

Did I see improvement? I honestly don’t know! I definitely experienced moments of synergy, when the same expressions appeared several times in different resources. My listening comprehension seems to have improved (keeping in mind that this is only with A1 materials…I haven’t tried listening to anything more difficult). Twice-intensive reading (once the first time I work on text, and then repeatedly through anki) has led to much more fluent reading. While new texts remain difficult, I can read familiar texts with good speed and intonation.

Personal takeaway? Make more time for reading and listening! While doing coursework is important, about an hour was the upper limit of time that I could focus intensively on formal study, and I never felt like doing more coursework later on in the day. But I learned new words every time I read or listened to something, and I always felt ready to listen or read more.

1. coursework:

• Russian Accelerator (65 minutes) - Unit 8 media clips and podcast

• New Penguin Russian Course (10 minutes) - finished reviewing chapter 5

2. ”doing Russian” (listening, reading, writing):

• Listening (48 minutes) - In Russian From Afar: I watched Zaika and Vasya make soup two more times. I also watched videos 13 and 14 of Maria Petrova’s Russian Immersion course. Numbers are hard to remember!

• Reading (30 minutes) - 25 texts in easy Russian: both intensive reading (anki and text 12) and extensive reading (texts 1-11 without audio)

3. speaking:

• Pimsleur Level 2 (30 minutes) - Unit 9. This is where I started to feel a bit bogged down last time around. Telling time is very difficult for me.

4. vocabulary:

• apps (41 minutes) - anki (main deck), Duolingo and Clozemaster.

minutes today: 224 (3.73 hours)
total minutes: 1,507 (25.12 hours)
goal between February 26 and March 4: 1,500 minutes (25 hours) - GOAL MET!

PS - Spanish, thanks for your patience! I’ve neglected you in this log. I owe you an update soon.

[cito]

Great job on completing your challenge! It's been very fun keeping up with it. I hope I can get that much motivation for Russian again soon!

[stell]

Weekly Russian Update:

This week was definitely a much slower week for Russian. I’ve been busy with other things. I also haven’t been sleeping well this week, and it’s affected my concentration. I find my eyes drooping when doing any kind of desk study. I’m hoping that I’ll get my sleep back on track next week. Still, I did pretty well with hitting all four categories most days, although there were two days without speaking and one day without coursework.

1. coursework (six times since last update):

• Russian Accelerator - Unit 9 Lessons 1-2; vocabulary review videos from Units 1 and 2. I started breaking up lessons into two parts, so that I can get through a lesson in two half-hour blocks. This is more sustainable than trying to get through an hour-long lesson every day. While I would normally have done full lessons on weekend days, this weekend was really busy, and I just didn’t have time. I’ve also been feeling a bit bogged down by anki. As constructions get more complex, I’m finding that I need to see them more quickly after learning them - and I’ve been up to 14 days behind when it comes to new anki cards. Slowing down lessons slows down how quickly my anki backlog grows. A few days, I also did some review rather than doing new lessons. I may do this for the next few weeks, alternating new lessons with review, until I’m caught up on new anki cards.

2. ”doing Russian” (listening, reading, writing) (daily):

• Listening:
  
  In Russian From Afar - I watched two new videos this week: What I Eat, and Vasya’s New Apartment. I’m going to keep working on A1 videos until I’ve watched all of them at least once, before moving on to A2 videos. A1 videos feel very comprehensible at this point in time, which is both fun and motivating. There are still lots of new words and unfamiliar constructions in each video, but I can understand them either through context or through visual cues.
  
  Maria Petrova’s Russian Immersion course - I watched videos 15-18. I’m really enjoying this series! I’m not doing any of the written homework, although I do sometimes say my answers aloud. I’m not jotting down vocabulary or adding anything to anki. I’m just watching the videos without subtitles and enjoying the fact that I can fully understand them.

• Reading:
  
  25 Texts in Easy Russian - I didn’t do a deep dive into any new texts this week. I kept up with my anki reviews, always choosing the lowest interval for full text with audio, and appropriate intervals for individual sentences. Next week I would like to do intensive reading of at least three new texts, to keep my deck at a comfortable pace, with a good mix of older and newer material. This anki deck doesn’t feel anywhere as tiring as my main anki deck. It feels more like reading than cramming.
  
  Stories in Easy Russian Level A1 - I bought this ebook/audiobook from Red Kalinka, and I absolutely love it. I planned on using it for extensive reading, but instead I’ve just been doing one text at a time, and rereading it over and over. I must have revisited the first story 15 or 20 times, in some combination of reading aloud, reading while listening, listening only, and shadowing. I listened twice and then read it twice before looking at the English text. I’ve just been doing what I feel like doing each time, and it’s very engaging. The stories themselves aren’t exactly riveting, but I love that I understand them.

• Writing: No writing at all this week! Eep!

3. speaking (five times since last update):

• Pimsleur 2: units 10-13. I realized what created the wall that I hit the last time around: telling time. This time, I just decided that I don’t really care if I can say “twenty to seven” or “half past eight”. I do my best, repeat, and then move on. Each unit only has a few prompts related to time, so I really don’t know why I let myself get so bogged down last time!

• audio journal: twice this week, and only once was an unscripted oral text. The other time, I just recorded myself reading a story. With no writing, no italki lesson, and only one unscripted audio journal entry, this wasn’t a strong week for output!

4. vocabulary (daily):

• anki: 358 “new” cards, 651 “young” cards and 986 “mature” cards (not including the intensive reading deck). I’m slowing down with Russian Accelerator to let myself catch up on new anki cards. I’ve been doing 40 new cards a day (which is really only 20 notes, because I have L1>L2 and L2>L1 cards for each note), and my reviews are creeping up. It takes me about 20-25 minutes to get through anki every day, which is honestly more than I’d like. But I do like knowing that I’m constantly reviewing everything that I’ve learned in Russian Accelerator, especially because I haven’t really taken notes outside of anki.

• Duolingo: currently working on unit 1 of Russian Foundations 1. Duolingo was really getting on my nerves this week though! I don’t mind the new path that doesn’t allow for any selections of topics. I’m quite happy just moving along steadily, three to five lessons per day. But I HATE that the timed practices along the path no longer seem feasible. I managed up to unit 6 of Intro to Russian, but it doesn’t matter how often I try the last unit 7 timed practice, I JUST CAN’T DO IT. I’m pretty sure that this is a feature, not a bug, with the goal of encouraging people to buy gems. And there’s no way I’m paying for micro-transactions in any game at all, let alone Duolingo. But I would be lying if I said it didn’t bug me that I can’t “finish” units anymore! Luckily, I’ve now moved on to Russian Foundations 1, so I’m just leaving all of them undone, and for some reason that bothers me less than having half of them completed.

• Clozemaster: still just reviewing 100 Most Common Words. I’m almost fully caught up on my reviews, which had really piled up. I’m currently at 27.15% mastered. I’m not learning anything new from Clozemaster at this point, so I'm just looking at it as reading practice. I should probably try the 500 Most Common Words collection again, but I’m pretty sure that it’s still too hard for me.

Spanish Update:

From this log, one might think that I’ve abandoned Spanish altogether, but I absolutely haven’t!

I’ve kept up with listening to Democracy Now daily. I’ve also listened to several podcasts, including a few episodes of Hotel Jorge Juan, a few episodes of Futuro Abierto, and an episode of Fallo de Sistema. I hadn’t listened to Fallo de Sistema in years, and I’d forgotten how much fun it is! I pick my topics carefully, because I don’t play video games, so a lot of the topics don’t really appeal to me. But when I find a topic that piques my interest, I really love the format.

I’m about ⅔ of the way through La Reina del Sur. It’s a very good book, but it’s really not a genre that I’d normally read. I enjoy the writing and the characters, but I’m not really a huge fan of stories about drug trafficking and crime. Still, I’m glad that I’m reading it, and I’ll definitely finish it! It’s just taking me much longer than I’d like. So far this year, I’ve only read four books (in any language), and that’s because this one is taking me so long to finish. That’s due in large part to reading before bed, when I’m tired and can’t focus for long. Most nights I only read 8-10 pages.

I’m considering switching up my daily schedule, so that I read in Spanish first thing in the morning. But I’m not sure how that will affect my Russian study, since I won’t have time for both Spanish reading and Russian Accelerator before work. It will be a lot harder for me to work on all four categories of my Russian study if I try to do all of it after work. Anyway, it’s something I’ll experiment with over the next few weeks.

[stell]

Weekly Russian Update:

@philomath mentioned Polylogger in her log, and I decided to give it a try. I’m logging in a few categories: Mixed (for coursework), listening, reading, vocabulary. Although I’m logging Pimsleur as speaking on LLORG, I don’t want to log it as speaking on Polylogger. I would like to save that for actual unscripted speaking practice. Instead, I’m logging it under “mixed”, and considering it coursework. We’ll see if I stick to time logging or if it will just be a short experiment!

Speaking of speaking, I’ve decided to stop booking tutoring sessions for the next little while. While I absolutely think that conversational practice is a powerful tool, I just…don’t feel like it. So for the next little while, I’ll just focus on input and coursework. I’m still training my pronunciation with Pimsleur, as well as shadowing the texts that I’m working on, so I think that’s good enough for now.

I haven’t had much of an urge to write lately, but I do think that writing is the best kind of output for my current level, especially if I follow it with a brief audio journal entry. While ideally it would be best to have my writing corrected, I’m not terribly worried about it right now. Although it may be worth reaching out to my italki tutor and seeing if she’d be willing to work with me asynchronously. Knowing that someone is expecting a text three times a week (or whatever I decide upon) will help keep me motivated when I’m feeling a bit lazy. Something to think about!

Anyway, this week I touched on all four categories every day, so I'll call that a success! One day I was tired, and I only spent 5-10 minutes each on reviewing a lesson (coursework) and doing my anki reps for 25 Texts in Easy Russian (reading). Still, that's better than nothing!

1. coursework (daily):

• Russian Accelerator - This week I completed Unit 9 Lessons 3 and 4. On days that I didn’t work on new lessons, I continued reviewing vocabulary practice videos from earlier units. I reviewed Unit 3 and half of Unit 4. As I mentioned last week, I’m consciously slowing down my progress to allow more time for review, and to give my anki deck time to catch up. I split each new lesson across two days, which seems like a good pace. So from here on out, I think that I’ll aim to complete a unit every two weeks. This would have me finishing Russian Accelerator sometime in July, which seems like a solid plan.

2. ”doing Russian” (listening, reading, writing) (daily):

• Listening:
  In Russian From Afar - Lost in Moscow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhHndya62yc - listened to this one several times.
  Maria Petrova’s Russian Immersion course - watched videos 20-25.

• Reading:
  25 Texts in Easy Russian - I kept up with daily anki reps. I also read texts 14-16 intensively and added them to my anki deck. If I continue with this pace of three new texts per week, I will finish with the book in three weeks.
  Stories in Easy Russian Level A1 - I worked on story 2, but I still need to work on it a little bit more. I may focus on finishing my other book before dedicating more time to this one.

• Writing: nope! Second week in a row without writing anything.

3. speaking (daily):

• Pimsleur 2: units 14-19. I had to repeat unit 15 twice, because I struggled with it the first time around. I’m not logging Pimsleur as speaking in Polylogger. It seems more useful to categorize it as “mixed”, which is where I’ve decided to log coursework. But for the purpose of this log, I will continue to consider it speaking, because I’m training pronunciation, output (albeit it highly structured), and muscle memory.

• Learn Russian Pronunciation: I discovered this podcast by Mark Thompson (the creator of Russian Accelerator), and I’m using it to work on…well…pronunciation. Obviously. The first three episodes focused on the soft sign (ь), the rolled “r” sound (р), and consonant clusters (здр, скр, встр, and so on). The rolled “r” sound is no issue at all to me, but the episode on the soft sign was hugely helpful. I also found it funny when he mentioned the word “twelfths” as an English word with a very difficult consonant cluster. So true!

4. vocabulary (daily):

• anki: 210 “new” cards, 767 “young” cards and 1150 “mature” cards (not including the intensive reading deck).
• Duolingo: currently working on unit 1 of Russian Foundations 1. I’m also slowly working on reviewing and “gilding” older lessons.
• Clozemaster: 100 Most Common Words is currently at 35.65% mastered. I’ve started with the 500 Most Common deck, and am currently playing 3.44%. On the one hand, I’m right that a lot of the sentences are too hard for me. But on the other hand, when I have to guess I can often guess right. I’ll keep doing them for as long as it feels fun.

Spanish Update:

My Spanish has been 100% input. I’ve engaged with Spanish every day this week, through some combination of listening to Democracy Now, reading La Reina del Sur and watching Casa de Papel.

I decided that I needed to watch something. I watched - and loved - Casa de Papel when it first came out years ago, but I never watched any of the later seasons. So I started over at zero..and OH MY I FORGOT HOW ADDICTIVE THIS SERIES IS! Even though I’ve watched it before, I’ve forgotten all of the details, and it’s keeping me at the edge of my seat. I watched five episodes last week, and that’s only because I’m being strict with myself and not allowing myself to sink into a total binge.

I started out without subtitles, but I found that I couldn’t understand very well. Some actors, I can understand clearly. But others - looking at you, Profesor, Tokio and Moscú - left me struggling. While I know that there’s value in forcing myself to watch without subtitles to work on my listening skills, the truth is that I even put subtitles on when I watch in my native languages. So I just threw on the Spanish subtitles, and I have zero regrets.

I can listen to news reports (Democracy Now) and unscripted podcasts from Spain with full comprehension. I know that at some point, if I want to bump up my listening to the next level, I’ll have to work on understanding TV shows. But you know what? That’s not something that I’m going to worry about right now! For now, I’m just going to enjoy watching this phenomenal TV show.

Other than that, I’m working on building my reading stamina in Spanish. I'm getting ready for bed a bit earlier so that I have more time to read before my eyes start drooping. I can read for 20-30 minutes without feeling too tired, but I’d really like to build up my stamina to the point where I can lose myself in a book for an hour or more without coming up for air. Yesterday I read for 35 minutes before stopping, which is the longest stretch of reading I’ve done in a very long time. I'm aiming to read nightly for the next few weeks...because I'm honestly ready to finish La Reina del Sur, and start on a new book!

[stell]

There is a golden time that exists between the end of the workday and suppertime. It’s an hour of perfect calm and concentration. It’s by far the best time for me to read in Spanish. I read during the Golden Time one day this week, and I didn’t look up from my book once in 45 minutes.

Unfortunately, the Golden Time is also when I also want to do everything else. It’s the best time for a long hike with the dog. It’s the only time of day I ever want to do purposeful exercise. It’s the easiest time for highly focused intensive reading in Russian. It’s perfect for making a cup of tea and calling my mom to chat about life. Back when I played ukulele - which I would still like to make time for again - I would look forward all afternoon to pulling out my uke after work.

So, yeah. Golden Time.

What I really need is a job that ends at 2:00 in the afternoon, which would let the Golden Time stretch out for four hours every day, giving me plenty of time to indulge in all of my hobbies before cooking supper. But I don’t want to have to start work three hours earlier every day. So I guess what I really want is a part-time job with full-time pay! That sounds reasonable, doesn’t it?

Weekly Russian Update:

I haven’t had as much time for Russian this week. Or perhaps it isn’t time that was a constraint; perhaps I should say that I haven’t had as much energy for Russian this week. There’s a lot going on at work right now. Good stuff, involving a potential promotion and different responsibilities. But I’ve had a lot on my mind! I also haven’t been sleeping well, which affects my ability to focus in the evenings.

Still, my progress in Russian continues, even if it’s slowed down a little bit.

I continue to enjoy my resources, although I’m a tiny bit annoyed that both of my main “traditional” courses (Russian Accelerator and Pimsleur) seemed to spend more time this week on the male first-person past tense than female. I would prefer it to be 50-50, so that I get more practice with the form that I am most likely to use. This is of course easily fixed by just making the switch in my mind, so perhaps “annoyed” is too strong of a word.

1. coursework (five times this week):

• Russian Accelerator - nothing much to report here! I’ve been moving slowly. I finished Unit 9 and finished reviewing Unit 4. There are 18 units in Russian Accelerator, so I’m now half done!

2. ”doing Russian” (listening, reading, writing) (six times this week):

• Listening: Maria Petrova’s Russian Immersion course - watched videos 26-30
• Reading: 25 Texts in Easy Russian - I kept up with anki reviews all days but one. I also did intensive reading and created new cards for texts 17-19.
• Writing: NOPE!

3. speaking (six times this week):

• Pimsleur 2: units 20-23. I had to repeat unit 23 a second time. Somewhere in the middle of the week, I also accidentally loaded up unit 16, and didn’t even notice how easy it was until I was about halfway through, at which point I figured that I may as well finish.
• Learn Russian Pronunciation: episode 4

4. vocabulary (daily):

• anki: I’m finally all caught up! I have 0 “new” cards as of right now (although I will be adding some more tomorrow), 806 “young” cards and 1349 “mature” cards (not including the intensive reading deck). I’m glad that I’ll be able to lower my daily new cards again. I find that anki gets to be a grind when it requires more than 20 minutes a day. Hopefully by the end of this week, my reviews will even out.
• Duolingo: currently working on unit 2 of Russian Foundations 1.
• Clozemaster: 100 Most Common Words is currently at 40.07% mastered. I’m currently “playing” 5.53% of 500 Most Common Words. It’s a lot of guessing, although I often guess correctly.

Spanish Update:

I didn’t watch any TV this week, and I only listened to Democracy Now twice. But I did listen to two podcasts:

Futuro Abierto - Semana laboral de cuatro días: https://www.rtve.es/play/audios/futuro-abierto/semana-laboral-cuatro-dias-20-02-23/6813638/

A four-day workweek is something that I believe very strongly should be the norm! With productivity being the highest that it’s ever been, there’s absolutely no reason that work should still be based around “butts in seats”.

I have a limited amount of flexibility in my job, and I’m currently trying to decide if it’s worth adding 50 minutes to every day, and taking one day off every two weeks. While I love the idea of a day off every two weeks, I’m not sure that starting work almost an hour earlier every day is worth it. I would lose both sleep and Russian study time in the morning. And besides, my job requires focus and a great deal of empathy. I’m not sure that stretching my days by almost an hour would be productive or positive, and I’m afraid that it may lead to mental exhaustion.

But I absolutely think that I would be able to do all of my work in four days of regular length!

Fallo de sistema - The Last of Us (spoiler alert!):
https://www.rtve.es/play/audios/fallo-de-sistema/598-the-last-of-us-spoiler-alert-18-03-23/6836930/

This podcast was a bit hard for me to understand! I think it was the perfect storm of lots of background noise, one particular accent that I struggled to understand, and my own mental tiredness. But despite the fact that I didn’t understand it perfectly, I still enjoyed the episode! I loved the show The Last of Us, and I enjoyed listening to people talk about it.

This is the second “Last of Us”-inspired episode of Fallo de Sistema in the last few months. The last one I listened to was called “Preppers de verdad”. It used the show as a springboard to talk about prepping and survivalism, which is something that I find very interesting (in a thinking-about-it kind of way, not in a doing-it kind of way): https://www.rtve.es/play/audios/fallo-de-sistema/588-preppers-verdad-11-02-23/6807467/

(On a tangentially-related side note completely unrelated to language-learning - except that it might explain part of why I haven’t had as much time for Russian this week - I binge-watched the Netflix show “Outlast”, a so-called reality competition show that claimed to be about survivalism in harsh nature. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t. Not really. It was actually pretty miserable and terrible, and I wish I’d spent those hours doing something else. Not recommended.)

Although I planned on reading in Spanish every day this week, I ended up reading only five times. I read a little over 70 pages, and I only have 60 to go. I hope to finish La Reina del Sur before my next update.

I also started journaling in Spanish. I’m not very good at journaling, although I love the idea of it, and I love collecting notebooks. My plan was to write every night for 10-15 minutes, longhand and without thinking too much about it. I only ended up only doing it three times. Still, those three times are so much more than the zero times I’ve written in Spanish over the past several years, so I’m calling it a win.