Carpe Coffeam

[frenchfish55]

Thank you!
It's not the pomodoro "do one minute less and you'll have failed the whole pomodoro" thing (especially the dying trees in the Forest app are so sad

Hello Cavesa. Which time management method works for you?
How do you control work -life -language learning balance?
What are you doing during weekends? Is it language learning or you have other hobbies?
Do you study German only with your course and homeworks or you use also additional materials(tv series etc)?
Do you use anki etc for learning German or you don\t have time for it now?

[Cavesa]

Hello Cavesa. Which time management method works for you?

Hi!

I'd love to know that too. I haven't found any. What seems to sort of work is a circle of procrastination by doing actually sort of useful stuff. Doesn't always work. And also despair is a great motivator, leading to lots of time put in a goal.

How do you control work -life -language learning balance?

I don't Right now, I am in no control at all. With the wedding preparations (why are people shouting on me just because of new and totally not needed options in areas someone else is supposed to handle???) and all, I have no control and I am extremely stressed. My work requires tons of studying that I have no time for. I need to job hunt for next year, it doesn't go that well (the system is very flexible but at the same time unstable. Hard to deal with sometimes).

So no, I have no control. I try to get some stuff done. What burns the most.

What are you doing during weekends? Is it language learning or you have other hobbies?

Weekends? I work at least half my weekends (and the weekend shifts during the day are longer than the normal ones. And nope, there is usually not less work). I get free days, two per week. Not always on weekends. Not always together (which sucks. One day lets you do some survival stuff but not really rest).

I have hobbies. I love sleeping, that's probably my favourite hobby right now . I love going to a city, for a walk, a bit of culture or even shopping (ideally bookstores, but not only. I need to see normal people, normal city, normal stuff that is neither online, nor in a hospital). I like reading, watching tv shows. I used to have other hobbies, but most are impossible with my schedule (should I sign up for a dance class at any day and hour of the week, I will miss out on 8 out 10 classes due to my schedule). Languages are great hobbies, compatible with everything else.

Do you study German only with your course and homeworks or you use also additional materials(tv series etc)?

Of course I have additional material. Primarily a few more grammarbooks, on top of those recommended for the class. Grammar is the main magic of progress in my opinion, a severely underestimated thing. Secondarily, I have other stuff, that I don't have much time for unfortunately. Star Trek in German is fun and helpful. I don't like contemporary German culture, but the tons of dubbings definitely give everyone lots of choices

Do you use anki etc for learning German or you don\t have time for it now?

I'd love to, no time and energy now. I prefer ready made tools. So, Speakly and some very good user made courses on Memrise are the next in line. But I use Anki (when I am not so exhausted), trying to build a good cloze deletion deck from my Innere Medizin book. To improve German and my medical knowledge at once.

[Caromarlyse]

How do you feel about doing a B2 course when you've passed the B2 exam (twice!)? This is a genuine question - absolutely no criticism implied here at all! I've just had the experience myself of teachers wanting me to repeat stuff I've told them I've already done. I've put it down to having no proof - but you have a piece of paper. I'm just curious to hear your thoughts about how you felt about this decision, and how it's playing out for you in practice.

[Cavesa]

Finally some Italian Progress again! This might be a record. I did 2 hours and 43 minutes this evening. I did Unit 6 of Progetto coursebook and Unit 5 of Progetto workbook. And I see all the time, how this relearning is really good for my Italian. I need to perfect the basics, no more approximative chaos! (but yes, one type of a "mistake" is really annoying and not my fault: when the software doesn't accept the female variant of the sentence, even when both options are totally correct).

Usually, I am really bored in food themed coursebook units. Yeah, might seem weird, as I love to eat. But the chapters are usually really boring and useless in a strange way. Not here. And there was this beautiful exercise: "Abbinate il nome della pasta al piatto giusto"!!!

How do you feel about doing a B2 course when you've passed the B2 exam (twice!)? This is a genuine question - absolutely no criticism implied here at all! I've just had the experience myself of teachers wanting me to repeat stuff I've told them I've already done. I've put it down to having no proof - but you have a piece of paper. I'm just curious to hear your thoughts about how you felt about this decision, and how it's playing out for you in practice.

A good question. Especially as I really hated being forced to restart French several times as a kid. I think it is all about the circumstances.

1.I am not doing the whole B2 level, just majority of it. And I passed my Goethe, but definitely not with flying colours. It had never been the goal anyways. The goal was to get out of a desperate career impasse, get the exam and minimum level required by the Swiss authorities in order to improve my job hunting chances, and then improve later. (Frankly speaking, the difference between barely B2 and strong B2 doesn't matter anyways, as I found out later, most hospitals want C1. I even saw one demand C2, I guess it was just a cover for "we don't want any foreigners here" attitude). So, I never had any illusions about my German B2ishness. I am barely B2. In order to progress, I need to amass more experience, to really be comfortable with the language, to consolidate everything.

2.I had been learning rather fast. Not much time for consolidation or even for learning everything properly. I had focused on the most important things, I definitely hadn't mastered it all. And between the exams and the start of this "class", I neither progressed, nor reviewed. I simply had no time, with a new job and everything. So objectively, I need this review. I was actually surprised I tested so high in spite of the rust. And my first tutoring session confirmed it, I was definitely at the right B2.1 level. It is different to redo something, because you objectively need it, and to redo it just because the education system is idiotic.

3.The nature of this "class" makes it very easy to accept this "ego hit". In case of French, I was often forced to waste time in a class of people a few cefr levels under me, or to "progress" far too slowly, and so on. That was a torture. Here, I am my own master. In the self-study part, I am totally free to do some things faster, some at the normal pace. And yes, it is obvious I am redoing B2, the supposed 5 hours of work took me like 2 and half hours.

4.The speaking lessons are at the right level, and I definitely hadn't had opportunity to talk about most things in German yet. I spoke about the exam topics during my two exams. And I spoke a bit with the job finding agency. So, these lessons (which are also self study checks) are good for me. And there are no crowds of people wasting my time and damaging my learning. Individual or a tiny group lessons are good. Well, haven't tried the tiny group yet, but I will have to eventually.

5.And in the speaking lessons (I have yet to submit my writing for corrections), we don't really waste time on exercises I have already done. Any "exercises" are just an opportunity to check whether I learnt stuff right, an opportunity to talk about it, and so on.

Really, I wouldn't be willing to retake a level in any normal language school, nor with any random tutor. I am highly unlikely to ever sign up for any normal language class again anyways. But this setting is very good. But mostly replaceable in a much cheaper way though (but with more motivation needed).

[Cavesa]

2nd unit of German class done. This time, I hadn't finished all the exercises before (my 30h work weekend somehow interfered). But it was still ok. This unit was less fun and the teacher was a bit less to my tastes. Still good and she tried, but I really think all the learning materials should be reviewed. I got extremely lost in a task focused around a dialogue on not finding the right CD in the shops and listening to it with a friend. So NOT 2022!

And while I definitely need to work on compound sentences starting with a pronoun, it was rather hard to do it in a lesson focused mostly on vocab I won't ever use, because it's simply not the 90's or 00's anymore. But majority was good, I need the speaking practice. It was 1 on 1, and while this teacher didn't click with me just like the previous one, she was ok.

I will prepare better for the next lessons and they won't be on this topic anymore

The German plan for the next week: the next two units.

Italian: slooowly progressing.

I think I am getting a bit overwhelmed and stressed.

I really want the wedding day to come. Primarily (alright, to be honest secondarily), I am looking forward to it. Despite all the obstacles on the way, I am finally marrying the guy I love. But I am also looking forward to finally finishing the preparations. Only a relatively tiny part is on my shoulders, most brides do much more (but I guess most brides don't work like 240 hours a month), but I still feel very overwhelmed.

I also tried to negotiate a work time solution. Either to work on just 80%, but that's impossible to arrange (they proposed 50%, so that a replacement would be more possible to find, but that would leave us starving), or I will hopefully get shorter and more regular holidays. Two weeks in a row are worthless to me, I need a bit more time in the normal schedule to stop being so exhausted (and incapable of doing normal small things) all the time. The main advice I got: work on my organisation of work. Yeah, great.

But I was promised the boss would try the shorter and more regular holidays route. I have a lot of holiday left, and I am not at all interested in any longer travels, I need more calm in my normal life after all the changes.

Including time for languages. My husband to be doesn't understand, why I am putting myself under more pressure and more obligations and more study. But language learning is simply making me feel happy, and to see small accomplishments every time. That's a lot of value, that's hard to get otherwise. Plus the current ones are highly useful.

[kujichagulia]

When is the wedding? I hope it goes as smoothly as can be for you!
I remember my wedding was small and low key, so I missed a lot of the “fun” of planning it. But all my friends say that it’s a pain to plan, but worth it in the end, so keep that in mind!

[Cavesa]

When is the wedding? I hope it goes as smoothly as can be for you!
I remember my wedding was small and low key, so I missed a lot of the “fun” of planning it. But all my friends say that it’s a pain to plan, but worth it in the end, so keep that in mind!

Thank you. It is in a few weeks, we are hoping for it to go well and everyone to have fun. It is not without challenges, with all the organisation (yes, it is a pain), and with tricky family situations and everything. Really, I'd say the wedding preparations are a sort of a couple challenge, to really test whether we are resilient enough, whether we want this together enough
...............
A tiny rant: I was introducing myself to someone recently, and again got asked about my hobbies, as an innocent question. I said language learning. And the person "oh, you like Duolingo!". AAAAAARRRRRRRGH!!!!! WHY???!!! Nope, nope, nope, please stop doing that.
(imagine some sad and frustrated laughter)
........................

My Italian: I am in the second half of my Nuovissimo Progetto 1. As expected comprehension is hypereasy, most of the stuff is hyper easy. I love filling the tiny gaps in my vocab, and I find my "tons of writing and rewriting" strategy to be really good for my memory.

So far, I am struggling with only two bits of grammar. Not struggling at all with understanding it, but I make a few mistakes per exercise. Sometimes lack of attention, but I just need to make the mistake, realize it, redo it right etc. I see progress, but it is a bit slower then I had expected.

It is the sort of mistakes that is really not too important in speaking. I am probably making them, but still get considered an ok Italian speaker, italophones understand me. But these mistakes are indeed gonna ruin the C1 impression, if I really get to take my exam (it is still planned), and prevent me from sounding really good in any situation.

The two things:
-the prepositions. especially the compounds preposition+article are a bit different from French and Spanish.
-the future tenses. Not the usage or the function, but I seem to have some Spanish mixed in, and it needs to be squeezed out by tons of practice.

I have started revieweing Una grammatica italiana per tutti 1. So far reviewing the parts I had done before (29 or so units out of 67), it is fast, I am just checking I know it all, rewriting one or two still interesting examples per unit. In the second half, it should be more of a "challenge". Oh, and it is definitely the last low level resource I will complete.

Really, I am now feeling it very strongly, that there is a huge difference between learning the beginner stuff just well enough, and learning it to near perfection (total perfection doesn't exist). And in order to shine in my C1 exam, I need to minimise any low level imperfections.

Spanish and French have helped me enormously with learning Italian. And actually really fast. But now I need to really do the rest and squeeze especially Spanish out of my Italian. But no clue how I'll relearn Spanish properly after that (it's falling to still C1 comprehension but A2/B1is speaking) But that's a problem for some future Cavesa, not me

[rdearman]

...............
A tiny rant: I was introducing myself to someone recently, and again got asked about my hobbies, as an innocent question. I said language learning. And the person "oh, you like Duolingo!". AAAAAARRRRRRRGH!!!!! WHY???!!! Nope, nope, nope, please stop doing that.
(imagine some sad and frustrated laughter)
........................

Just reply, I've never used Duolingo, I've can only speak 6 languages ... You've used Duolingo, how many languages do you speak?

[Cavesa]

...............
A tiny rant: I was introducing myself to someone recently, and again got asked about my hobbies, as an innocent question. I said language learning. And the person "oh, you like Duolingo!". AAAAAARRRRRRRGH!!!!! WHY???!!! Nope, nope, nope, please stop doing that.
(imagine some sad and frustrated laughter)
........................

Just reply, I've never used Duolingo, I've can only speak 6 languages ... You've used Duolingo, how many languages do you speak?

Cannot, this is someone I appreciate and will be in regular contact with and there are other priorities.

But for normal random contacts: yes. Absolutely. Or I can reply something like "not really, because I actually like to succeed"

It is a tiny thing, but it surprisingly hurts, it's the "do I really look like such a moron?!" thing, or "why can't I just be taken seriously, like everyone else? You don't demean amateur sportsmet either".
....................
Btw Italian prepositions are a good challenge. They are not overall too hard, but my quest to use them right like 99% time is a challenge. And I know removing this source of mistakes will immediate make my speaking and writing jump a level up. So, I might add a preposition workbook to my routine. But I am a bit scared of getting spread too thin.

So, again: I am limiting myself. Two actively learnt langauges are a lot, given all the rest I have on my plate. As I've successfully done in the past, I am just putting the rules here very clearly, to not weasel my way out of them:
only 2 resources per languages systematically used at any moment, extra tv shows or reading books don't count. OR 4 language resources, 3 for 1 language and 1 for the other. Because the situation may require it at some points.

For German, it is right now Speexx and Erkundungen B2, as those are my classes resources. I really want to add something more, but I simply need to wait for a free slot

For Italian, it is right now Nuovissimo Progetto 1 (coursebook and workbook count as one, as they are logically one intertwined thing), and Una grammatica italiana per tutti 1.

I hope to finish Ugipt fast, to have a free slot either for the prepositions workbook (Italian) or for Grammatik Aktiv.
.........
Oh, and I plan to give away some of my language learning books. Those I had bought ages ago (or actually not THAT long ago), but never really used much, as I replaced them by something else, or changed my mind, or whatever. I think most people on this forum have the same problem. I haven't decided yet, what to do. I will most probably bring them to a second hand bookstore and either get a tiny bit of money for them or even accept other books in exchange, if the store manager wants. I know they don't accept everything these days. Or I am considering gifting them to a library.

I simply just want those nice books to get used, and I remember myself on a tiny budget (even though I bought many of these in spite of it, as a real language learning addict ). Perhaps the option of gifting them to a library (or to the "take these for free" box in a library) would be the best. I wouldn't get too much for them in a second hand shop anyways, so why not gift them. I have like a dozen low level books that are just getting moved from appartment to appartment and I have outgrown their level through other means.

After all those years of experience, and reading all the others (like PM's log), I simply think you should definitely use more than one textbook, but not more than two (or max 3, if they are vastly different) for each level. Having more than 3 "similar" or "equivalent" resources on a shelf is a waste of space, money, and a serious risk of spreading yourself too thin and burning out.

[Cavesa]

Italian: hmm, unit 7 is much easier than unit 6. I am simply more comfortable with the past tenses, an there is much less Spanish interference than in the future ones. Weird. Happens. Ok.

German: Slowly continuing. I really like the Speexx platform, even though I still insist it is much better to use it also with a pen and paper by hand, and out loud. Just the digital is not the best part. But it is the closest thing I found to for example Kwiziq, at least in quality. Not in fun or amount of practice.

A surprise: Memrise. I have two accounts, for the usual reasons. I had forgotten passwords in the past, lost emails for confirmation, etc. A normal situation most people know. I remembered a password. I opened my old account. The one I used to make my HUGE French conjugation course: https://app.memrise.com/course/738096/c ... njugation/

When I made it, I was exhausted. So much time and effort, but it was worth it, it helped my personal learning, and I hope it helps some other learners too. But nevertheless, there were some mistakes. Proofreading such a huge monster is not obvious. And someone asked for the co-creator rights, got them and fixed them. And has added sound! I am excited that my work wasn't in vain and someone took what I had started and perfected it.

Now, I would love to take on a few more such projects, but I simply have no time now. Also, I think it's time for some other projects, to move this a bit up, since Memrise (in spite of all the qualities) has always been a bit mean towards the user made courses and their creators.

Like Linguno. It is really doing a great job at the verbs. But it is nowhere near the completeness of my Conjugation course, or its inspiration, the Spanish conjugation courses by Edthird. And while I love their idea of huge CEFR tiered vocab srs, for now it is extremely tiny.