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

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Carmody
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Re: Rdearman 2016-21 [Presto e bene non marciano insieme]

Postby Carmody » Sun Oct 17, 2021 8:19 pm

Many thanks.
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Re: Rdearman 2016-21 [Presto e bene non marciano insieme]

Postby rdearman » Mon Oct 18, 2021 7:17 pm


Yay!!!! I'm done! Julien Sorrel is dead. Well the last bit of the book was ok. Still seemed like a very drawn out short story. But anyway, all done now.

Next up!


A book about a tree. We'll see how that goes.
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Re: Rdearman 2016-21 [Presto e bene non marciano insieme]

Postby rdearman » Wed Oct 20, 2021 7:17 pm

I won't bore the reader with any more tedious French commentary. Only to say because this current book is so small, I decided to intensively read it rather than extensively read it. So if I don't know the word 100%, even if I can figure it out from context, I'm going to look it up. I'll probably slow right down on the French reading, but I'll still continue to plod through it.

The real news is that I've managed to find a Korean language exchange partner who is willing to assist me in my attempts to get to A2 Korean before my trip. I did one session with her already, and it was brilliant. She is a school teacher who teaches children Korean! I've also booked a teacher from iTalki, a professional, not a community teacher. Tomorrow morning, we start with the Hangul alphabet. For a while now I have been waking up at 6 am and most days this gives me an hour or two to do as I please, on weekends this extends to three or four hours. I plan to book lessons, probably 2-3 per week in the mornings, as well as self-study and Pimsleur.

I was reading with interest Leosmiths use of Pimsleurin the early stages of learning, and I have managed to get some transcriptions of the first course. I'm hoping to be able to spend 1-2 hours on weekdays and 2-3 hours on weekends studying Korean. The language exchange thing is only once a week and I didn't think that was enough, so lessons will motivate me. I have been working from home a couple of days a week, so I've had the Pimsleur lesson gonig on in the background all day long. Occasionally I'll sit up and listen to it for a little while and focus on it before I switch back to work. I think it helps to have it playing on repeat in the background.

My LE partner took a copy of my "language islands" that I want to construct for Korean, and she is going to translate them into Korean for me to practice and memorize. So, if I can manage to stick to plan, then I hope to have some rudimentary knowledge of Korean in the next 6 months or so.
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Re: Rdearman 2016-21 [Presto e bene non marciano insieme]

Postby rdearman » Sat Oct 23, 2021 11:23 am

I have only managed about 10 pages of my French novel. I read a page or 2 intensively, then look up the words in a paperback dictionary. It is a time-consuming process, but I limit myself to only 2 pages a day since I'm trying to concentrate more on Korean.

I have slapped a load more money on iTalki credits and booked a couple of classes with a professional Korean teacher. I had my first lesson on Thursday, and it was great. It was going through the Korean alphabet. Which I sort of knew, but it was really worth going through it and practising the pronunciation and getting corrections. It is a lot more expensive than the community tutors I've had before, but I have to say I can see a major difference in the quality of teaching. Also, he was very prepared with a lot of expensive equipment like electronic whiteboards, widescreen camera, so he would walk around and present as well as a mobile microphone. He had me taking notes, and it was really hard work. I felt like my brain was sweating. He was actually willing to carry on over the allotted hour, but I had to bail, it was very intensive. I went ahead and purchased 6 more lessons with him and I'm hoping he will continue to push me like he did in the first lesson.

I have a language exchange scheduled tomorrow in Korean. This is with the lady I mentioned before who teaches Korean school children. She has translated my simple islands, and we're going to practice pronunciation and I'll try to memorise them.

Speaking of memorization, I found a small dictionary online for Korean, only 18 pages, so I thought I would use it as a little exercise in using my memory palaces. We'll see how that goes. I have less than 6 months, and I don't expect that I'll be anywhere near having a conversation, but it would be nice to get to A1 sort of level.
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Re: Rdearman 2016-21 [Presto e bene non marciano insieme]

Postby rdearman » Sun Oct 24, 2021 10:10 am

I did mention the other day I was going to start a "FAQ" series on my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQEy77 ... 0iG6Zt6H5g

Here is the first one:

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Re: Rdearman 2016-21 [Presto e bene non marciano insieme]

Postby Yunus39 » Sun Oct 24, 2021 11:40 am

rdearman wrote:I did mention the other day I was going to start a "FAQ" series on my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQEy77 ... 0iG6Zt6H5g

Here is the first one:


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Re: Rdearman 2016-21 [Presto e bene non marciano insieme]

Postby rdearman » Wed Oct 27, 2021 8:52 pm

Haven't read a single word of my French book. :( Must try to fit in some time. At the moment, I only need to commute into work 2 days out of 5. So in the past I got up at the same time, and use the extra 2+ hours to do some reading in French. This was because reading in a foreign language on a train is bloody difficult for me and hard for me to concentrate. But I was churning through my reading list at a respectable rate.

But I have switched this time (or at least 2 days of the three) over to Korean. I am having Korean lessons from a professional teacher, and he is really pushing me hard. He pushes me because I'm a "fast learner" apparently. Although in fact I'm using lots of mnemonics and other tricks as well as a ton of self-learning and some conversation exchanges to beef up what I'm learning. I suspect the vast majority of his students just do what he says and what little homework he gives. But as a long time autodidactic and self-learner, I'm not going to wait around for instruction.

My goal isn't "fluency" or B1 or anything so grand as that. I'm simply trying to get to a touristy sort of A1/A2 level.

I have given up on the idea of memorizing the small dictionary I found, since I don't think the words in it give me a lot of value toward my basic level goal. I do have a lonely planet phrasebook with a dictionary. This dictionary has about 1250 words, which I could try to memorize, but I think it might be better to memorize phrases and the number system. So I think I will just select 100 phrases, and I'll try to memorize them. I definitely need to know the numbers, though, at least up to a few thousand. But we'll see, I'm rapidly filling up memory palaces. :lol:

Part of my homework for this week is to find a small clip in Korean on YT, very small like 30 seconds, and try to write down what they say in Hangul. It doesn't matter if I know what the words mean, it is only necessary for me to try and distinguish the sounds and translate the sounds into the correct character of the alphabet. We did this exercise at the end of the lesson today. It is bloody difficult !

Oh, I did release another FAQ video today if anyone is interested.
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Re: Rdearman 2016-21 [Presto e bene non marciano insieme]

Postby rdearman » Tue Nov 02, 2021 3:12 pm



Man this book is difficult! At least for me. It has a ton of words I have not encountered, and I think a lot of them are slang. But it is more modern than what I have been reading. I have been doing this fairly intensively, and I've only managed to get to page 30, so don't think I'll be completing it any time soon. It is a mystery novel, but honestly I'm struggling with it. :oops:

There appears to be a TV series about this, perhaps I should have watched the TV first.

Korean lessons are ongoing, and they are getting more difficult. He told me today that I had passed the first foothill, and now we start up the mountain. :shock: I thought I was on the mountain already, but seems I haven't even made it to start of the mountains, got a lot of hills to go. :)

3rd of my FAQ videos released. Any suggestions for improvements of the videos are welcome, either here or there.

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Carmody
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Re: Rdearman 2016-21 [Presto e bene non marciano insieme]

Postby Carmody » Wed Nov 03, 2021 12:48 am

Rick
Man this book is difficult! At least for me. It has a ton of words I have not encountered, and I think a lot of them are slang. But it is more modern than what I have been reading. I have been doing this fairly intensively, and I've only managed to get to page 30, so don't think I'll be completing it any time soon. It is a mystery novel, but honestly I'm struggling with it. :oops:
Congratulations! Glad I am not alone. I think this means we are learning.
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Re: Rdearman 2016-21 [Presto e bene non marciano insieme]

Postby rdearman » Thu Nov 04, 2021 1:20 pm

I seem to have hit the language learners jackpot.

The coffee shop (near) where I work is run by a French guy. I've been speaking with him on and off in French for a little while now. Recently a lot of other people have been hired as foot traffic in London starts to come back to normal. One of the new fellows is Chinese from Hong Kong. He speaks French, as well as Cantonese, but most important to me, Mandarin. I went in this week and was introduced to another new starter, Suzie. Suzie is Korean and has only been in the UK for about 4 months.

I can't have conversations with anyone unless they are in French or English, but Suzie was happy to listen to my mispronounced island phrases; 안녕하세요, 제 이름은 Rick 입니다. 저는 학생입니다. 한국어를 배우고 있어요." etc. I've practised my slightly more advanced, but still rubbish Mandarin. 你好,我叫瑞克,我的中文名字叫陈龙。 我会说一点普通话,但不是很好。

They haven't yet hired an Italian, but I can sort that out at lunchtime when I wander across the street to "La Forchetta" and pay a small fortune for some pasta or a slice of pizza. Problem is, they are very popular and very busy, so never have time to chat.

They don't have an Italian at the coffee shop, but if I was interested in Portuguese I would be OK, and the fellow from Brazil is a bit put out that I speak to everyone else but don't know any Portuguese, so he decided he was going to teach me some, so today he insisted I learned "Hello", and "One beer please", Ola uma cerveja por favor.

But to be honest, I need another language to learn, like I need a hole in the head. :lol:
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