Bolaobo Overextends With Too Many Languages in 2022

Continue or start your personal language log here, including logs for challenge participants
bolaobo
Orange Belt
Posts: 237
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2021 5:48 pm
Location: Pennsylvania
Languages: English (N), Mandarin Chinese, German, French
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=19845
x 1089

Re: Bolaobo Overextends With Too Many Languages in 2022

Postby bolaobo » Sat Apr 23, 2022 11:54 am

I finished the exercises for Levantine Arabic L1. Not much else to report but it was a particularly taxing review session today and not sure how much more energy my brain has. I'm slowly making my way through the latest lessons but with my "learn for life" strategy I don't mark it as complete until every sentence is either in SRS or so easy that I don't need to add it.

I bought a second-hand copy of Spanish Without Toil (French version) on eBay and imported from France. Hopefully I don't lose interest while it's in transit! :lol:

It seems to be the most well-regarded Spanish beginner course and I'd like to go through it in French, not English. I'm a bit of a false beginner in Spanish due to previous experience but I have no formal instruction in it since middle school, which is ages ago. There's a lot of words I obviously recognize in a text from French/English but I lack the base in grammar and common words. While no language is "easy", Spanish would be low effort and high reward for someone who lives in North America like me and would complement Latin and French nicely.

For over a year now, I've had Spanish in Clozemaster and I've done part of the Duolingo course. Those tiny spurts have helped it get more familiar to me but it's not nearly enough, of course.
2 x
Perfectionnement Arabe: 11 / 70 New Arabic Grammar: 30 / 51
Le Grec Ancien: 15 / 101
Hindi ohne Mühe: 44 / 54
Le Persan: 85 / 86
Le Turc: 19 / 71
Tobira: 3 / 15

bolaobo
Orange Belt
Posts: 237
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2021 5:48 pm
Location: Pennsylvania
Languages: English (N), Mandarin Chinese, German, French
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=19845
x 1089

Re: Bolaobo Overextends With Too Many Languages in 2022

Postby bolaobo » Sun Apr 24, 2022 8:13 pm

I finished L'Espagnol (2004) L1.

While waiting for what could be a month for L'Espagnol Sans Peine to come from France, I thought I'd keep up the momentum and do some lessons from the newer course. It can't hurt, and it's likely I'll go through multiple courses anyway which has really helped my French.

Comparing the 1987 and 2004 versions, there doesn't seem to be a consensus on which one is better but some people seem to prefer the 2004 version and looking at the first few lessons from 1987, it's really, really boring and there is no reason for a course for French speakers to have beginning lessons as simplistic as exotic languages . So 2004 it is, for now. It's newer too so it's a good balance for a course from the 50s.

I can't take the Arabic slow speech anymore, so I'm using Audacity to speed it up and get rid of gaps. I'm doing the same for L'Espagnol, and it's something I should really do more often, although usually the Hindi, Japanese, and French (especially French!) is fast enough.

Since I've spent so much time on French lately and comparatively little on German, sometimes I forget just how much better my German is. I was listened to the Verbrechen podcast and had no major issues with comprehension, while native French still gives me fits. Of course, my French reading is better, but it's more motivation for me to continue my French which is why I haven't recorded any Perfectionement Allemand updates in a while. I've spent more time training French listening than I ever did while learning German and I think it's just objectively harder than clearly enunciated Hochdeutsch.

My Hindi progress has slowed down because I'm trying to get my Urdu script to catch up. It's going to....be a while. It's still not even close to my Devanagari ability which is to be expected since I've practiced Devanagari for years now. I'll finish Hindi Assimil sometime this decade!
5 x
Perfectionnement Arabe: 11 / 70 New Arabic Grammar: 30 / 51
Le Grec Ancien: 15 / 101
Hindi ohne Mühe: 44 / 54
Le Persan: 85 / 86
Le Turc: 19 / 71
Tobira: 3 / 15

bolaobo
Orange Belt
Posts: 237
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2021 5:48 pm
Location: Pennsylvania
Languages: English (N), Mandarin Chinese, German, French
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=19845
x 1089

Re: Bolaobo Overextends With Too Many Languages in 2022

Postby bolaobo » Wed Apr 27, 2022 9:40 pm

I finished L'Espagnol L2 to L5, Arabic L25, Levantine Arabic L2, Latin L29, and French Without Toil L115

I'm having trouble deciding on which language to focus on, so let's just do a bit of everything!

L'Espagnol is boring and a little slow, but I'm learning a bit. I hope it picks up.

The "exercises" in French Without Toil are now basically mini-lessons, like the other Without Toil books. If the Spanish Without Toil is half as good as this book, I'll be pleased, because FWT is great! They don't make them like this anymore.
4 x
Perfectionnement Arabe: 11 / 70 New Arabic Grammar: 30 / 51
Le Grec Ancien: 15 / 101
Hindi ohne Mühe: 44 / 54
Le Persan: 85 / 86
Le Turc: 19 / 71
Tobira: 3 / 15

bolaobo
Orange Belt
Posts: 237
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2021 5:48 pm
Location: Pennsylvania
Languages: English (N), Mandarin Chinese, German, French
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=19845
x 1089

Re: Bolaobo Overextends With Too Many Languages in 2022

Postby bolaobo » Sat Apr 30, 2022 10:04 pm

I finished L'Espagnol L6, L7, and Persian L36. I'm also continuing to do one Duolingo Story a day (either Japanese or Spanish).

It's been a hectic week for me but I'm getting studying in as I can and reviewing, of course. My L'Espagnol Sans Peine book arrived so it looks like L'Espagnol will be shelved for now. The 1954 version seems like a far superior book in terms of progression and content, and I don't like going through multiple books at once for a language. It'll be there if I need it someday.

Basing the languages I study each day on how much review I have is working well for me. 15 minutes of tiring Arabic review? OK, that one can wait. 5 minutes of French review? It's time to pull out French Without Toil! Even when I get sick of putting stuff into Anki, I'm thankful for it when it comes to managing review in the long-term.

Something needs to be done about Chinese. I need to purge bad flashcards, and mine some new sentences of good flashcards. I have a problem with deleting cards, but I'm spending 5-15 minutes reviewing cards of individual vocabulary that I mined years ago and don't even remember the source. But if I remove them, I won't be studying anything! I'm just enjoying other languages more than Chinese right now.

A good chunk of my daily Chinese practice is reading monolingual dictionary definitions and trying to decipher why I added this card in the first place and which definition I had in mind. Individual vocab flashcards, not even once!
2 x
Perfectionnement Arabe: 11 / 70 New Arabic Grammar: 30 / 51
Le Grec Ancien: 15 / 101
Hindi ohne Mühe: 44 / 54
Le Persan: 85 / 86
Le Turc: 19 / 71
Tobira: 3 / 15

bolaobo
Orange Belt
Posts: 237
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2021 5:48 pm
Location: Pennsylvania
Languages: English (N), Mandarin Chinese, German, French
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=19845
x 1089

Re: Bolaobo Overextends With Too Many Languages in 2022

Postby bolaobo » Thu May 05, 2022 12:37 pm

I finished L'Espagnol Sans Peine L1-L4, French Without Toil L116, and Arabic L26.

I'm liking the Spanish book, although the spoken dialogue is still much too slow for me and I'm speeding it up in Audacity which makes it sound a little robotic. The progression is definitely accelerated compared to the average course meant for English speakers and it's already introduced the imperfect, the perfect, and the future by L4!

FWT is getting easier and I can get through lessons quickly if it weren't for listening. But I use it each lesson to hammer certain points and make sure I have a good grammar base so it's time well-spent.

Arabic and Latin are both two languages I'm learning at a very slow pace, and it's working. I'm making visible progress without spending 2 hours a day. Both of these languages are "grammar heavy" but it doesn't feel so bad taking it on gradually.

I'm still learning Hindi and Urdu, slowly, but it's always the first one to take a backseat when I'm trying to push another language. Sorry, Hindustani, your time will come! At this point, I know most of the grammar but I lack vocabulary and listening skills. Hindustani has a lot of words since most words have a Persian/Arabic and Sanskrit equivalent but in everyday speech they might just use the English word! I probably still average 30 minutes a day in it which isn't too bad and I've improved noticeably since last year.
5 x
Perfectionnement Arabe: 11 / 70 New Arabic Grammar: 30 / 51
Le Grec Ancien: 15 / 101
Hindi ohne Mühe: 44 / 54
Le Persan: 85 / 86
Le Turc: 19 / 71
Tobira: 3 / 15

bolaobo
Orange Belt
Posts: 237
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2021 5:48 pm
Location: Pennsylvania
Languages: English (N), Mandarin Chinese, German, French
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=19845
x 1089

Re: Bolaobo Overextends With Too Many Languages in 2022

Postby bolaobo » Sat May 07, 2022 1:11 pm

I finished L'Espagnol Sans Peine L5, Levantine Arabic L3, and Latin L30.

A little bit of motivation for Japanese is coming back, but lesson 88 of Assimil is sooooo boring. It's an entire lesson about people on currency, with no humor and feels like a history lesson. Lots of era names, dates, people names (my weakness) so it's not fun to drill in Anki. This is worse than those French lessons where there's nothing but figurative expressions out of context. But my personality doesn't allow me to skip lessons!

Assimil Japanese has a higher proportion of these boring lessons, but overall, I like it a lot and it's helped me immensely. Every lesson seems to try to teach something about culture which leads to some boring, contrived lessons.

Based on Anki, I know 1066 Kanji now. I obviously don't know every reading, but considering I've only been studying for 10 months, I think I've accomplished a lot, not to mention everything else I'm studying and maintaining at same time.

My controversial opinion is that Arabic is harder than Chinese. I mean, studying characters requires memorization but the grammar wasn't hard at all, and once I learned a word, there's no inflection and conjugation to memorize. Meanwhile, Arabic doesn't even write vowels and I look at a page and have no idea where to even begin or what the vowels should be. I can't judge Japanese because the fact I already know Chinese makes the writing portion much easier.
8 x
Perfectionnement Arabe: 11 / 70 New Arabic Grammar: 30 / 51
Le Grec Ancien: 15 / 101
Hindi ohne Mühe: 44 / 54
Le Persan: 85 / 86
Le Turc: 19 / 71
Tobira: 3 / 15

bolaobo
Orange Belt
Posts: 237
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2021 5:48 pm
Location: Pennsylvania
Languages: English (N), Mandarin Chinese, German, French
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=19845
x 1089

Re: Bolaobo Overextends With Too Many Languages in 2022

Postby bolaobo » Mon May 09, 2022 11:20 pm

I finished L'Espagnol Sans Peine L6 and Persian L37. I'm continuing to do a round of Duolingo and my Clozemaster reviews as well, which have not exceeded 10 minutes daily.

I'm getting much faster at splitting audio files and my workflow is pretty optimized at this point, limited by typing speed and review, of course! I'm also getting better at designing Anki cards and deciding what to include / what information is relevant. One would hope so, considering how much I use the program!

Reviews have been at least an hour lately, even if you don't include Clozemaster and Duolingo. Some days it goes OK, but other days my brain starts getting sluggish when I get to the Arabic reviews (my final in the review cycle). I just need practice because I used to find 20 minutes grueling until I got used to it.

I'm enjoying all my languages right now and motivation is pretty high. My biggest choice facing me each day is which language to study, not finding the motivation to study. I'm still enjoying Spanish, but the fact of the matter is my pace is necessarily limited due to my other languages I can't just ignore. Slow and steady is OK with me and I'm getting more liberal with adding +1 sentences into Anki I see.

Believe it or not, I also do language work outside Assimil, but it's usually not noteworthy enough to post here. :lol: I read Wikipedia semi-frequently, read some news, read Twitter (I have a Japanese twitter account), etc....

I'm still learning new English words from Burton's One Thousand and One Nights. You never know what word he is going to throw at you next, and I'm enjoying increasing my native language lexicon.
6 x
Perfectionnement Arabe: 11 / 70 New Arabic Grammar: 30 / 51
Le Grec Ancien: 15 / 101
Hindi ohne Mühe: 44 / 54
Le Persan: 85 / 86
Le Turc: 19 / 71
Tobira: 3 / 15

bolaobo
Orange Belt
Posts: 237
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2021 5:48 pm
Location: Pennsylvania
Languages: English (N), Mandarin Chinese, German, French
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=19845
x 1089

Re: Bolaobo Overextends With Too Many Languages in 2022

Postby bolaobo » Thu May 12, 2022 12:47 pm

I finished L'Espagnol Sans Peine L7, French Without Toil L117, Hindi L36 and Arabic L27.

Yay! Lots of lessons finished. I'm starting to feel improvement The steady, daily practice has helped both my strong and weak languages get better.

The Latin sentences are getting longer and more difficult. I'm separating into more Anki cards so I can give each the focus it needs. An Assimil "line" is sometimes three or four sentences chock full of new grammar which is just too much to review.

I'm already thinking about resources I want to use once I'm finished with these (for ones without Perfectionnement courses). I know Professor Arguelles is a fan of using multiple textbooks, but after overstudying an Assimil course, I feel like GLOSS might be better. Some textbooks are really boring, poorly-written grammar translation manuals or too easy. I feel like overstudying and fully absorbing a GLOSS lesson might be a better use of one's time than a generic "Do you like Pakistani food" lesson and flipping through material that's mostly below your level.
3 x
Perfectionnement Arabe: 11 / 70 New Arabic Grammar: 30 / 51
Le Grec Ancien: 15 / 101
Hindi ohne Mühe: 44 / 54
Le Persan: 85 / 86
Le Turc: 19 / 71
Tobira: 3 / 15

bolaobo
Orange Belt
Posts: 237
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2021 5:48 pm
Location: Pennsylvania
Languages: English (N), Mandarin Chinese, German, French
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=19845
x 1089

Re: Bolaobo Overextends With Too Many Languages in 2022

Postby bolaobo » Fri May 13, 2022 10:15 pm

I finished Japanese L88 (lesson from hell), Arabic L28, and L'Espagnol L8.

As I talked about a while back, Arabic L29 starts dropping noun declensions. It's quite jarring. I've essentially listened to an artificial version for the past few months where every declension is spoken (even at end of utterance), and it's weird hearing them gone now. I still have mixed feelings about it, but it seems to be the norm in teaching materials and how it's spoken in real life. I haven't found another course I like more, and I'm not just interested in Classical /Quranic Arabic where declension is drilled more heavily for obvious reasons.

For the time being, unless it either gets too confusing or too hard, I will test myself on endings for the reading Anki card but for the listening card I'll use whatever Assimil recorded. Hopefully I'll get the best of both worlds.

Arabic has been my focus, but it's so hard that progress is still slow. 10 minutes of Spanish makes about as much of a dent as 40 minutes of Arabic! Persian has been significantly easier, due to being Indo-European and my Hindi background. I'm enjoying both but Arabic is more exotic and more fun I guess. It also seems to have more "carryover" to my other Middle Eastern languages.

I'm thinking of dropping the active wave for Japanese. It's hard. Hard things are good, of course but I have no plans on going to Japan anytime soon, and production skills are so hard to maintain when my interest is in reading/listening. I'm sleeping on the decision but I don't enjoy it and would rather spend that time on passive skills.
6 x
Perfectionnement Arabe: 11 / 70 New Arabic Grammar: 30 / 51
Le Grec Ancien: 15 / 101
Hindi ohne Mühe: 44 / 54
Le Persan: 85 / 86
Le Turc: 19 / 71
Tobira: 3 / 15

bolaobo
Orange Belt
Posts: 237
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2021 5:48 pm
Location: Pennsylvania
Languages: English (N), Mandarin Chinese, German, French
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=19845
x 1089

Re: Bolaobo Overextends With Too Many Languages in 2022

Postby bolaobo » Tue May 17, 2022 5:05 pm

Not much new to report. I'm taking what is known in the strength training world as a deload week.

I've stopped adding new cards and trying to get reviews down. I'm using the time to focus on existing reviews, get some extra sleep, and catch up on some reading. My motivation is as high as ever, but I'm in it for life-time learning and I can't constantly go full-throttle. I'm enjoying the work I've put in and taking the time to read without worrying about adding everything into SRS.

I'm getting a bit impatient with my slow progress in Arabic, and likely will increase my pace next week. Of course, this will have to come at expense of other languages. I think I can still work on Persian which I think complements Arabic nicely, but I expect that other languages will be put on a slower track until I'm happier with where my Arabic is at., or my motivation disappears!
5 x
Perfectionnement Arabe: 11 / 70 New Arabic Grammar: 30 / 51
Le Grec Ancien: 15 / 101
Hindi ohne Mühe: 44 / 54
Le Persan: 85 / 86
Le Turc: 19 / 71
Tobira: 3 / 15


Return to “Language logs”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: MorkTheFiddle and 2 guests