Rdearman 2016-24 You Can't Have Your Kate and Edith Too.

[Brun Ugle]

There’s Star Trek in Italian too?

[rdearman]

There’s Star Trek in Italian too?

Yep... Why is that a problem?

[Brun Ugle]

There’s Star Trek in Italian too?

Yep... Why is that a problem?

I’ve been sucked in before. That’s how you tricked me into trying to learn Czech.

[rdearman]

There’s Star Trek in Italian too?

Yep... Why is that a problem?

I’ve been sucked in before. That’s how you tricked me into trying to learn Czech.

Oh yeah! How's that working out for you? I'm guessing you're doing better than I am with Czech? (Since I've given up)

[rdearman]

...Czech: I'm going to park Czech. Although there is a ton of free and legal resources available, there isn't enough Free time in my life to continue. So I'm dropping this from the schedule and remove it from the anki rotation, etc.. ...

...until you come back from Slovakia and decide that you wish you could speak Czech to get along in Slovak! Really, the major limiting factor we have in our language-learning lives is limited time. This makes what Expugnator does every day even more amazing and admirable.

I agree 100%, but sometimes we have to look at the cost-benefit of doing a task. Although I am sure it would be wonderful to speak fluently in Czech and to converse with people in Slovakia the reality is 5 languages at 15 minutes each is still an hour and a quarter each day. That doesn't sound like much, but when you add in an attempt to read 50+ pages a day of a book where my reading rate is only 75-150 words per minute means I need to dedicate 1-2 hours per day on just reading. I'm not even including any films, tutoring, anki or anything else in the mix.

I simply don't have the self-discipline which Expugnator has in spades. I only managed a couple of weeks doing scheduled rotations before my schedule got blown all the hell and back. Still if I stack rank these 5 languages Czech consistently filters to the bottom. I'm no Richard Burton (no not the actor).

[Brun Ugle]

There’s Star Trek in Italian too?

Yep... Why is that a problem?

I’ve been sucked in before. That’s how you tricked me into trying to learn Czech.

Oh yeah! How's that working out for you? I'm guessing you're doing better than I am with Czech? (Since I've given up)

Oh no! I gave up long ago. I decided I had to cut down to just Spanish and German. I’m no good at organizing my time and I can’t seem to juggle several languages at once. And now it’s summer (almost), so I’m going into hibernation. I don’t get much done at all then.

[rdearman]

it’s summer (almost), so I’m going into hibernation

You're doing it wrong!
===
This weekend I played truant. I left my office and headed straight down to Waterloo station to catch a train to a very small village in on the borders of Dorset & Wiltshire. I'd booked a small cottage with my wife, who drove down with the dogs and we spent the weekend walking the countryside. It was an amazing weekend in the UK with brilliant sunshine. In fact, a little too much sunshine for my bald head, and I looked like a tomato. On the train, and at night I was reading in Italian and completed my first book. A very old Star Trek novel Viaggi Stellari - Mondo senza fine which worked out to just under 3 SC books.

It is a pretty good book and the language isn't too difficult for reading. I had planned on reading all the Hardy Boy books which I have in Italian first (about 15 of them) but decided this looks a bit more interesting. I've collected a lot of books so I'm almost spoilt for choice. I haven't decided which book to tackle next but the Hardy Boy books are fairly easy to read and I should probably power through them all before starting anything more difficult.

No language study at all other than a little reading in Italian. Very relaxing. However, the polyglot gathering is looming and I need to make sure that I can get through my presentation without making too much of a fool of myself. I did manage to complete all the content for the workshop in English, so that just needs to be put on slides and job done. My presentations are on the 1st & 2nd day, so I should be able to relax and enjoy the rest of the gathering.

Reading 148 pages of a book took a lot longer than anticipated. Should have only taken 3 days, but took 7. Need to get a lot faster if I'm going to hit my targets.

[Dandelion]

Mandarin: I plan to put this on a slow rotation of 15 minutes of apps and perhaps one lesson a week if I can find a tutor who is available around my timeframe.

Hello, Rick. It's a long time without chatting with you. How is it going recently? The former tutor teacher hasn't time with you? Pinyin is important in Mandarin. I think you reading in Italian is a good way to learn Italian. I also think this way is proper for other languages. I also plan to read English books.

I have a long time without practicing English, nearly one month, except having lessons with my tutor teacher. I will catch up my English after finishing my exam, next week.

[rdearman]

I'm really not doing anything with languages lately. All I do is listen to a recording someone very kindly made for me of my presentatoin notes in French and I try to get the pronounciation correct. I kick myself each and every day for volunterring to speak in a L2, I must have lost my mind. I didn't even pick one where my pronunciation is half decent! I picked the one where my tongue wraps itself into knots and then stops dead in my mouth like a slug drinking beer.

I have been reading in Italian, but that really isn't much of a hardship it is just slower than I would like and I have to look up more words than I would like.

I blame not having enough time, but really everyone has the same amount of time. I've spent a lot of time thinking about this. I know from years of experiance that a person can always find time to do something they want, need, or enjoy. This describes my problem in a nutshell. I have no need for any language other than English. I live in England and can quite happily function in my L1 all the time. So I have no NEED for these other languages. Although I have a sort of vague desire to speak in other languages I don't have an true overwhelming burning desire to learn say French that I had to learn C or PERL. So I don't have the WANT to learn them other than in a sort of intellectual way not a burning desire to know. And finally, I don't enjoy learning languages. I didn't even like learning English grammar, why the hell would I give a toss about French grammar?

I'm disillusioned in general with languages. Somehow I thought that one day I would be able to read a book in say Italian in the same way I read in English. In English I get lost in the story and completely forget my surrondings. I am 100% completely immersed in the narative of the author. In any other language this doesn't happen. Even French which is probably my strongest reading language I cannot get into immersion mode. Even when I know all the words it seems somehow "mechanical" to read in French. It doesn't flow, it is jerky and horrible and drudgery. I get no pleasure from it.

A back of the fag packet calculation of just super challenges I've done probably 450+ hours in French and same again in Italian. Doesn't count coursebooks, Michael Thomas, tutoring or anything else, and still I'm useless. I am back again thinking about the sunken costs and why bother with languages.

It seems no matter how many French TV series I watch it is mostly gibberish. Italian not so much although I've watched about 50% less Italian than French.

So I've basically come to the conclusion that after my trainwreck (aka preseentation) in French at the gathering not one more word of French will come out my mouth and none in my ears if I can avoid it. In fact if it was not for my stupidity in roping myself into this presentation I'd have already dropped French like a hot potato.

I've already given up on Czech, I need crazy case systems like I need a hole in the head.

I'll stick with Italian, I've always liked it, even if I am crap at it. Mandarin and Setswana interest me although more like puzzles than a burning desire which is what is really required to learn more than superficially.

Besides all this whinging and moaning something did make me laugh at myself today. I was watching a new series on Netflix with the wife, so in English, called Safe. They have an actress who is playing the part of a French teacher who is having an affair. I've seen this actress before but could not for the life of me remember what I had seen her in. I said to my wife; "That is the worse French accent I've ever heard! You'd think they could have found someone who could do a reasonable French accent."

When we watched the next episode with this actress in it I suddenly remembered what TV show I'd seen her in: Engrenages. She was the redheaded solicitor. She IS French!

[PeterMollenburg]

I'm really not doing anything with languages lately. All I do is listen to a recording someone very kindly made for me of my presentatoin notes in French and I try to get the pronounciation correct. I kick myself each and every day for volunterring to speak in a L2, I must have lost my mind. I didn't even pick one where my pronunciation is half decent! I picked the one where my tongue wraps itself into knots and then stops dead in my mouth like a slug drinking beer.

I have been reading in Italian, but that really isn't much of a hardship it is just slower than I would like and I have to look up more words than I would like.

I blame not having enough time, but really everyone has the same amount of time. I've spent a lot of time thinking about this. I know from years of experiance that a person can always find time to do something they want, need, or enjoy. This describes my problem in a nutshell. I have no need for any language other than English. I live in England and can quite happily function in my L1 all the time. So I have no NEED for these other languages. Although I have a sort of vague desire to speak in other languages I don't have an true overwhelming burning desire to learn say French that I had to learn C or PERL. So I don't have the WANT to learn them other than in a sort of intellectual way not a burning desire to know. And finally, I don't enjoy learning languages. I didn't even like learning English grammar, why the hell would I give a toss about French grammar?

I'm disillusioned in general with languages. Somehow I thought that one day I would be able to read a book in say Italian in the same way I read in English. In English I get lost in the story and completely forget my surrondings. I am 100% completely immersed in the narative of the author. In any other language this doesn't happen. Even French which is probably my strongest reading language I cannot get into immersion mode. Even when I know all the words it seems somehow "mechanical" to read in French. It doesn't flow, it is jerky and horrible and drudgery. I get no pleasure from it.

A back of the fag packet calculation of just super challenges I've done probably 450+ hours in French and same again in Italian. Doesn't count coursebooks, Michael Thomas, tutoring or anything else, and still I'm useless. I am back again thinking about the sunken costs and why bother with languages.

It seems no matter how many French TV series I watch it is mostly gibberish. Italian not so much although I've watched about 50% less Italian than French.

So I've basically come to the conclusion that after my trainwreck (aka preseentation) in French at the gathering not one more word of French will come out my mouth and none in my ears if I can avoid it. In fact if it was not for my stupidity in roping myself into this presentation I'd have already dropped French like a hot potato.

I've already given up on Czech, I need crazy case systems like I need a hole in the head.

I'll stick with Italian, I've always liked it, even if I am crap at it. Mandarin and Setswana interest me although more like puzzles than a burning desire which is what is really required to learn more than superficially.

Besides all this whinging and moaning something did make me laugh at myself today. I was watching a new series on Netflix with the wife, so in English, called Safe. They have an actress who is playing the part of a French teacher who is having an affair. I've seen this actress before but could not for the life of me remember what I had seen her in. I said to my wife; "That is the worse French accent I've ever heard! You'd think they could have found someone who could do a reasonable French accent."

When we watched the next episode with this actress in it I suddenly remembered what TV show I'd seen her in: Engrenages. She was the redheaded solicitor. She IS French!

I just finished watching a series with the same actress (Audrey Fleurot). She's also in Un Village Français, which is a great series, perhaps the best I've ever seen, which reminds me, I must watch it again! I have a shocking memory with films and series, so i'm probably not far off forgetting most of what went on anyway. The series I just finished watching was the second season of Les Témoins (Witnesses is the English title). I'm not into crime series much, yet I seem to be watching quite a few of them lately, as they're available. As far as crime series go, this second series was really quite well done and left an impression on me, which is saying something for a crime series. I recommend it, but then you're not that keen on French anymore it seems. Bla bla bla, dribble dribble. Had to laugh at your comment, though with regards to her accent. Funny!

From the snippets of insights you have provided here in your log and perhaps a sprinkling elsewhere, it seems that the best thing you could do, if you wanted to be involved in foreign language learning at all anymore, would be, as you suggest, to continue with Italian. I don't need to say this (yet I am) as it seems you've reached a similar conclusion and are highly capable of managing your own life.

Yes we all have the same amount of time. However, we all have different constraints on our time. Some people have very little time for language learning, while others have so much free time it's ridiculous in contrast to those with very little. Many of the constraints are self imposed, yes, but even so, they can be hard to remove once in place (i.e. I have kids now, no getting rid of them I work, can't see myself stopping right now, too many expenses). Once upon a time in a land in which I was much younger, when I had loads of free time, I wanted to learn French, Spanish, Dutch, German and Greek all at once. I did nothing, because I was anxious about all that I had to do, so the end result was immobility and anxiety. That was a mental constraint. As life brought with it more time constraints, I desperately clutched to my dwindling free time and got down to business. How much time do you really have? And of course we all learn differently.

The time you spend on languages is seriously reduced too, when you introduce more languages. I'm sure you know and have read it time and time again, study the language(s) that interest you (because it can take an insane amount of effort to reach an advanced level, as you and I both know), but also that taking on multiple languages when you have not reached a highly competent level in one, is (arguably) not advisable. Still, there are some individuals that can and do do it successfully. I tried, but found time was too limited to progress effectively enough to my liking, so I dropped them all and decided to pick one language and one only, and not until sufficiently advanced would I add another. From watching you struggle somewhat (and don't get me wrong, this language learning thing does not come overly easy for me either), I think you are best suited (at this stage) to focus on one language.

Perhaps if you did Italian and Italian only for a number of years and gave yourself a minimal goal of say an hour a day of whatever you please, or 15 minutes a day of reading and 45 min watching (whatever you like), you might find in 5 years you're all over the language, enjoy it thoroughly and actually can introduce another.

I know you're not looking for advice, you are coming to some realisations, I'm just sharing my musings and have the time to do so. I apologise if you don't enjoy reading my mental dribble. I'm actually somewhat reluctant to even post this babbling bullshit, but the way I see it, if I were sitting down and having a chat to you face to face I'd probably say all this anyway. Shame we can't do that, i'd enjoy a good old chat with many a forum member like yourself face to face. All in all, I guess I feel for you rdearman, and at the end of the day I hope you can find peace with whatever you choose to do. And selfishly, I still hope you remain involved with at least Italian. As for French. I hated it once, and I'm still astounded that I'm not C2 now after having studied a ridiculous amount, so hey, I don't blame you. Good luck with your next move! The ball is in your court and it's totally your free and liberal choice to do whatever the hell you want to do. Don't make life too hard for yourself.