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

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Le Baron
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby Le Baron » Sun Jan 23, 2022 12:14 am

rdearman wrote:I disagree about the abstract concept suggestion however. Let's look at a few

I agree with all of those and the method. I only meant as things/objects in rooms. Clearly it can be extended to interactions with the objects and associated feelings, though I find it getting fuzzy on e.g. words like 'despite' or 'whether'. Some kind of link must be possible, but it's likely you have a better imagination than I have, or a broader one.
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby zenmonkey » Sun Jan 23, 2022 1:06 am

I’m honestly very impressed by your systematic use of memory palaces. Please do continue to report how you build them and what works and what does not.
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby rdearman » Tue Jan 25, 2022 2:29 pm

I thought I would drop another quick update around the Korean memory palaces. I had 4 days between lessons, and I tried to consolidate and build as much as I could into my "Thematic Cityscape". It has been going well, and I am remembering the names, although spelling is still an issue. I gave myself a blind test where I sat down with a blank bit of paper and tried to write out each of the memory loci (e.g. buildings) as I could. I managed to spell 2 out of 32 correctly. Not a good showing, however, most of them I knew. After a review of the spelling test against the actual spelling and liberal use of Google Translate to listen to the mechanical voice, I determined a lot of my problem is I'm not able to spell because I'm not actually pronouncing things correctly.

Korean is very phonetic and if you pronounce it right, you should be able to spell it right. So I spent a lot of time walking through the cityscape and practising the pronunciation. I'm trying to remove (or at least reduce) the "transliteration" I'm doing where I am phonically spelling out the word, but in Latin letters. I've also printed out everything in the greyscale, and I'm copying over the words repeatedly to get them correct. Strictly speaking, since my goal is only tourist Korean, this probably isn't a great use of my time. But I'm not going to worry about that.

Today was my lesson, and I've been given some new vocabulary, two of which require new buildings. But interestingly, a couple of them I didn't need a new building because I had already looked up the word because I needed the building to store something else in. Airport and farm were already on the map. But I now need to plop down two new buildings, a Post Office and a Bank.

The majority of the other vocabulary centred around directions. Up, down, right-side, left-side, bottom, front, back, etc.. My teacher described all these words based on a cube which he drew on a blackboard. I will be dumping a large glass cube in the middle of my park, and I'll stand inside and order an arrow to go to the top, right-side, bottom, etc. Bit like Yondu in Guardians of the Galaxy. So here in this example, I don't need a new building or place in the city, I just dump it into the park.

Just to elaborate on the cube thing. Imagine yourself stepping into a glass cube, and it immediately flies into the air. The only way out is to get the flying arrow to touch each plane of the cube, and it will then land and let you go. You start by shouting out (앞) front, and it touches the glass in front of you. You say (뒤) back, and it goes behind you and touches the glass. Likewise, you shout (아래) and it touches the bottom, etc.

I'm trying to add more detail as I do my imaginary walks around my imaginary city. Trees in the park, the newspaper racks in the library (to hold the word for newspaper) and the reference section (to hold the word for dictionary). I don't really remember much about the layout of the British library, so in my head is a kind of mishmash of libraries I have visited over the years. But don't worry, it is very dark, very quiet and has leather chairs and mahogany wood tables and bookshelves. :)

@LeBaron: You are right about some words like despite and whether, and there are probably going to be a lot of words that I just have to "brute force" them into my head. This method probably isn't going to work for everyone or every word, but if it gets me a good kickoff then I'll be happy.
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby rdearman » Thu Jan 27, 2022 11:11 am

Korean
Another Korean lesson today and more vocabulary. All the new vocabulary will fit somewhere in my existing Thematic Cityscape, except one (약국) which is pharmacy. I'm undecided if I should make this a building in its own right, or just put the pharmacy in the hospital. I'm leaning toward just putting it in the hospital building since this would reduce the amount of loci I need to remember right now. I think if I wasn't under the time pressure of cramming in as much as possible before my trip I would make it a building of its own.

Italian
Did a language exchange yesterday and I was amazed how quickly my Italian is deteriorating. I have decided to go ahead and start reading one of the Italian books while I continue to trudge along through the long slog of French reading.

French


The French book is going very slowly. Once again, my friend Stendhal has written a masterpiece in the art of boring. Most readers on Goodreads seem to agree that this book is not as good as The Red and Black. So given that my rating of The Red and Black on a scale of 1-10 is a convincing -999999999999999999999999 (please note the minus sign at the beginning of the number) makes this book look like it is going to be a chore to read.

I am only on Chapter 3 or 4, but the only review I can really agree with on good reads begins.
The protagonists of the first part of this novel are horses and passports, in that order. It is by far the most entertaining bit of the whole tediously long thing. The second part is helmeted by hysterical reactions, regressive stupidity laced with some humor that barely makes it readable and a hero who was annoying at first only to graduate into sheer obnoxiousness.


A quotation from a University Professor who apparently loves the book and teaches it in class.
With so little interest in plotting as a means of achieving a desired outcome, Stendhal beams his most flattering light on characters who seek above all to enjoy the present moment.

No plot. Enough said, I suppose.
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby Caromarlyse » Thu Jan 27, 2022 1:30 pm

I blame your talk about memory palaces on my terrible sleep last night, when I was trapped in some kind of obstacle (like a massive climbing frame) and kept reciting some (pretty nonsensical) German sentences (which I can't fully remember now). I've used these memory techniques in the past and they've worked but also really messed up my dreams - and now I remember why I decided they weren't for me!
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby rdearman » Thu Feb 03, 2022 3:55 pm

Starting with the easy updates.

French:
Diddly squat.
Italian:
Diddly squat

Korean:
I've been focusing on Korean pretty much exclusively, but not enough. I'm doing about an hour (sometimes more) each day, but I can't do anything! Very frustrating. I am certainly not the type of person who overestimates their abilities. I have a very good idea of my level, which is about A.0008 at the moment. With a lot more work I might get to A0.5 before I land in Seoul. :)

So still taking lessons, but I am thinking about ramping this up to daily lessons during the week. I think from this point until I leave I need to be doing 4 hours per day. My vocabulary is very small and I need to build it up faster. This weeks lessons were all about:
  • the grammar of "locations" and location indicators, up, down, where, behind, at, etc.
  • numbers
  • days and dates

My teacher is pleased that I'm remembering vocabulary I've studied before, but I'm not getting new vocabulary quick enough. This is why I need to spend more time feeding my brain vocabulary. I have the grammar/workbook with a ton of vocabulary in it, so I think I'll extract those and work them into my vocabulary reviews.


I think I need more vocabulary. Even if all my sentences are Tarzan sentences, at least I will be able to "get by" better while I'm there.

My thematic cityscape is ok, but I've only managed to really populate about 3-4 of the 32 buildings. They should have words I've already learned in them, but they don't, and I've getting more words each week. Anki isn't really doing it. So I'm making some changes.

I've been focusing on making sure that as I walk through the memory palace, I'm visualising the actual word written in Korean. But this is time-consuming and probably isn't going to be as useful in Korea, where I have no intention of writing anything. So it is more important that I just know the word for X and how to pronounce it. Right now, being illiterate isn't a problem for me. One concern is my teacher expects me to recognise the words he writes down and be able to reproduce them. So I'm going to have two categories of words, one set I need to spell and one where I need to know the word and object, but spelling is not essential.

As I have said before, Korean is fairly phonetic for spelling, so if I can pronounce it correctly I can spell it correctly about 90% of the time. Therefore, my plan is to gather all the words in all the exercises in the grammar workbook and memorise them.
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby luke » Thu Feb 03, 2022 5:02 pm

rdearman wrote:French:
Diddly squat.
Italian:
Diddly squat

I hope you're reporting this in the Polyglot Fitness Challenge. Want to be sure you're getting the credit you deserve there too. ;)
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby rdearman » Thu Feb 03, 2022 6:21 pm

luke wrote:
rdearman wrote:French:
Diddly squat.
Italian:
Diddly squat

I hope you're reporting this in the Polyglot Fitness Challenge. Want to be sure you're getting the credit you deserve there too. ;)

True, Diddly Squats are much harder than regular ones. :geek:
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby rdearman » Sun Feb 06, 2022 10:59 pm

Long ago I counted up all my French physical books and decided to read them all. https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 40#p189367

I had 21 books, then later worked out that an English or Italian book had crept into my count, so I removed it was down to twenty, then my neighbour gave me more, and I was trying to read 22 physical books. Today I am announcing that I have lost. Stendhal broke me. I simply cannot read any more of that drivel. So I packed up the remaining 3 books and Stendhal and I threw all of them in the skip. I've simply had enough. The three remaining books were one translation from Latin, some 700 page autobiography of some woman I never heard of (and have no interest in), and some other "classic" literature. They are all now safely in the rubbish, never to darken my door again!

Spending all day drilling Korean into my head and then trying to parse Stendhal was just too much. Technically I didn't accomplish my goal, but reading 18 physical books in French since May (252 days) isn't so bad. It was just under 7000 pages (6682 to be exact) which is an average of 25.52 pages per day and 1.3 super challenges. I'm pretty happy with that. Did it help my French, probably not. Did it make me dislike French authors? Definitely.

So, onward and upward. I have now set my sights on clearing the Italian books off my shelves. I have 17 books totalling, 3725 pages. Which is the equivalent of 3/4 of a super challenge. If I keep the same average I had for French then it will only take me about 145 days to be done, which is 1st of July this year. So we'll see how that goes.

Wish me luck!

I'm going to start with the trilogy (which is in a single physical tome, so I'm counting it as one book)

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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby javier_getafe » Mon Feb 07, 2022 11:51 am

I've heard a lot about Aléxandros trilogy.
It is in my bucket list but it seems to be that Amazon doesn't have english edition, I don't know why.
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