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

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

Postby rdearman » Tue Aug 02, 2022 11:12 pm

Something I had forgotten to post in my last update. I looked at my Italian reading challenge and decided I wanted to be done with these books. I've been reading a page or two every couple of days and that just isn't going to get it done. So a few days ago I looked at the amount of pages left, and the days until the end of the year and figured if I read 24 pages every single day then I would be done with all these books by 1st of January. So I got two bookmarkers and I keep one on the page where I am and the other at the target 24 pages away. Each day, I move the target bookmark on by 24 pages. If I haven't caught up, then I have to read more than 24 pages the next day. This motivates me to complete all 24 pages, because I don't want to be building up a backlog!

However, reading ahead doesn't count, so if I read past the target by a couple of pages, the new target starts from where I ended. Building up a buffer isn't a bad thing, but I'm not looking at it as a buffer, but rather as a way to get done earlier.

I've also got a trip planned to Milan in November, and there is a very good chance I'll come back with more books. In fact, it is almost a certainty that I'll return with another half a dozen books in Italian, if not more. So the ones I already have must go!

I'm still reading this massive tome which is a three book trilogy that they've printed as one massive book.

I've just completed the first book "Il figlio del sogno", and started on the second. However, in my scoring I'm only counting this as one of the 17 paperbacks since physically it is one book (with 900 pages).

So this is part of the reason I'm complaining about time management. To read the 24 pages takes me +/- 1 hour, although obviously the more I read, the faster I get. I should be done with this book before the end of this month, and most of the other books look easier, and they are certainly smaller!
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby DaveAgain » Wed Aug 03, 2022 5:57 am

rdearman wrote:I've also got a trip planned to Milan in November,
I watched Enchanted April recently, so I'm currently convinced that Italy is the ultimate rest-cure for all that ails you. :-)
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby Sol » Wed Aug 03, 2022 7:32 am

rdearman wrote:
cjareck wrote:I'm using Firefox + AdBlock both on my computers and Smartphone. It eliminates most of the advertisements. As a YouTube creator, I allow advertisements only at the beginning and the end. Not inside the movies!

Some youngsters in Poland managed to create content that gave them millions of subscribers and a lot of money. Too much money and too quickly gained. It is a problem since the most desirable content doesn't have anything wise or valuable, and because of that, they feed their subscribers - primarily kids - with worthless things.

Yes, I use FF and AdBlock also, so it is never a problem when I watch on my computer. The problem is sometimes I just want to relax on the sofa and watch a YT video on my TV, and this is when it becomes a problem.


There's a way to get YouTube Premium for really cheap (£1-2?) through using an Argentinian VPN. I've been meaning to do it because YT Premium is just so expensive.
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SC22-23 Books: 3 / 5000 (3/5000 pages)
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SC22-23 Books: 22 / 5000 (22/5000 pages)
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby rdearman » Mon Aug 08, 2022 9:53 am

Mandarin
OK, well still more offers flowing in for language exchanges, mostly from Taiwan, but one from Singapore. Which is odd because Singapore is full of people who speak English. Another thing that puzzles me is lots of people wanting to use WhatsApp for language exchanges. I'm not particularly paranoid but even I don't give out my phone number to strangers on the Internet. People seem shocked when I tell them I'm not going to give them my phone number. This was most recently from a woman (or catfish) who didn't see any problem with giving out a phone number, until I said, OK, give me your phone number. Then giving out your phone number to a stranger on the Internet didn't seem to be such a good idea.

Folks, while it might seem harmless to give out your phone number, you're giving personal information to strangers. Also, just because they say they are in some other country...

Anyway, I passed on two language exchange partners because I refuse to use WhatsApp. I think if you use Tandem or Signal, you can just give your username rather than your actual phone number, and you can hide the number.

Anyway, back to languages. I did have a lovely hour+ with a lady from Taiwan, and she helped me a lot with some basic conversation which I almost remembered and gave me a couple of sentences to practice my pronunciation and conversation skills.

Korean
I had my lesson, but no language exchanges this week. Both Korean LE partners are on holiday and aren't available to talk. I'm doing a bazillion anki cards, none of which are sinking in on a daily basis. This takes an hour or two each day. I also watch a lot of Korean Dramas. This really isn't as useful as you'd think. I really need to stop watching dramas with my wife and just watch some Korean on my own. I have been thinking about just watching one Peppa Pig per day, and hopefully the oinking will not drive me mad.

Italian
The forced 24 pages per day is really ripping me through the Italian book. I'm about halfway through the gigantic book about Alexander the Great, and in theory I should be done in 2 weeks time and moving on to the next book.

I did a language exchange in Italian (in theory) but we spoke the whole time in English. I was tired and couldn't be bothered, and she hadn't spoken in a few weeks and wanted the practice. I really must force myself to speak during language exchanges, otherwise I'm just an unpaid tutor.

French
No French at all, although I have one person who wants to do LE's.

General Stuff
I'm getting a little burned out on languages, but it happens all the time, so I'll just ride it out.

EDIT: Someone was curious and PM'ed me. I normally use Skype which can be used on computer or phone and doesn't require the disclosure of email or phone number or other personal information.
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby rdearman » Mon Aug 15, 2022 11:53 am

Mandarin
Another LE today, and I had 2-3 last week. Problem is I've forgotten just about everything and this is a time sink I don't need, but also I'm too nice to tell people to go away.

Korean
I found another person for a LE in Korean, so I'm up to three natives now. I had one call yesterday when it went on for 2 hours, but the last hour was spent with the native asking me simple questions in Korean, eg. how many people in your family, where do you live, etc, etc. I found this to be very useful because it forces me to construct sentences, and I wasn't allowed to cheat by using some of my boilerplate sentences. It was also useful for my listening. Most of the time I could guess the question because I could pick out 1 or 2 words and extrapolate the question from those. I couldn't however understand any sentence in full. I'm hoping to expand on this exercise.

I need to start reading. Just watching dramas isn't cutting it.

I have a ton of anki cards which came up yesterday and I had to churn through about 400 cards. While these uber card days are getting fewer and further between they still take a lot of energy out of me. Frustrating because you think you just aren't learning anything and the same cards come up all the time, but in reality I have learned a lot of words, it is just that anki only shows me the ones I don't know. Which is why I get this impression nothing is happening.

I think I'm going to set myself another target like 15 minutes of Korean reading each day. This will obviously be hard-core intensive look up everything reading, but if I could just give myself a kick up the backside and start reading eventually I'll be able to read. (Should probably do the same with Mandarin)

Italian
This 24 pages a day thing is kicking my butt. I had people around at the weekend and didn't manage to get anything done, so today I'm staring down the barrel of 67 pages to read. I estimate this is going to take somewhere between 3-5 hours. :cry: But I can't let it fall behind or I'll never get anywhere. This target is very useful, and it forces me to read and expand my vocabulary, which is why really I should spend the time reading in Korean instead. :)

But I still have the target of getting rid of all these Italian books, so I'll press on.

French
Couple of LE's where people tell me my French is getting worse. To be expected, so I'm not all that bothered.

General Stuff
I need to start grouping LE's by language on the same day whenever possible and restrict LE's to a couple of days per week. I do have other things to do!
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Re: Rdearman 2016 - SC, OC, TAC, combined log (ZH, FR, IT, EO)

Postby frenchfish55 » Thu Aug 18, 2022 4:59 am

rdearman wrote:EO:


FR:
I've been listening to French talk radio in my car for awhile now at least 1-2 hour(s) per day. Today I branched out and started listening to Le petit Nicolas audio book for a change.

You told us you have a degree in French. Isn't Petite Nicolas too easy for you?
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Re: Rdearman 2016 - SC, OC, TAC, combined log (ZH, FR, IT, EO)

Postby rdearman » Thu Aug 18, 2022 6:47 am

frenchfish55 wrote:
rdearman wrote:EO:


FR:
I've been listening to French talk radio in my car for awhile now at least 1-2 hour(s) per day. Today I branched out and started listening to Le petit Nicolas audio book for a change.

You told us you have a degree in French. Isn't Petite Nicolas too easy for you?

I don't know where you got that impression, I don't have a degree in French or any other language.
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Re: Rdearman 2016 - SC, OC, TAC, combined log (ZH, FR, IT, EO)

Postby frenchfish55 » Thu Aug 18, 2022 7:04 am

rdearman wrote:
frenchfish55 wrote:
rdearman wrote:EO:


FR:
I've been listening to French talk radio in my car for awhile now at least 1-2 hour(s) per day. Today I branched out and started listening to Le petit Nicolas audio book for a change.

You told us you have a degree in French. Isn't Petite Nicolas too easy for you?

I don't know where you got that impression, I don't have a degree in French or any other language.


Sorry my mistake
And I thought you have good english for a humble guy from Denmark :-) And why you never mentioned your learning of english :-)
And why your presumably english wife chose you (a guy from Denmark)
And why you changed your profile and hided from us your languages :-)

GOOD NEWS . You have things to learn :-)

IVERSEN
So I mistook you with this guy.
I studied French at the Romance Institute of the university in Århus in Denmark in the 70s (NOT translator or "tresproglig korrespondent" or anything like that) so my experiences are somewhat old

Languages: Monolingual travels in Danish, English, German, Dutch, Swedish, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, Italian, Romanian and (part time) Esperanto
Ahem, not yet: Norwegian, Afrikaans, Platt, Scots, Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Albanian, Greek, Latin, Irish, Indonesian and a few more...
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby rdearman » Fri Aug 19, 2022 2:02 pm

Mandarin
Had a LE with a lady who simply cannot pronounce English words. I spent an hour just asking her to repeat herself. It was very frustrating. You could tell she had been learning for a long time, she would write in the chat window rapidly with very good grammar and lots of vocabulary. But her accent was so thick and horrible. I did manage to understand she'd been studying English for years, and had watched films and reads books all the time. It didn't matter because it was a struggle to understand anything she is saying. I'm seriously considering telling her I cannot speak with her. It gives me a headache. And what is worse is that she seem to think my suggestion that we simply work on pronunciation was not a good idea. I said I would give her some simple sentences, and we'd try to get the pronunciation right. But she wanted to just have a conversation and I could correct her "if she got something wrong".

Arrrrgghhhhhhh! I think I must be brutal and tell the truth. You get everything wrong! Your prosody is wrong, you speak English like you would Mandarin, your stress is all over the place, your accent is so thick I can't understand anything you say. It doesn't matter if you can read everything, or listen to difficult podcasts, you cannot make yourself intelligible to a native speaker, which means you can't speak.

I mean, I know my French is bad, and I have an accent, but at least the natives I speak to don't spend the whole time saying. "Huh? What? Can you repeat that? Did you say ....?"

I think my main frustration with this person is that they refuse to accept the fact they are terrible. I tried in the nicest possible way to tell them they need pronunciation practice, but I think even if I'm brutal, they are too arrogant to believe they aren't speaking just like a native. I have had this problem with an Italian doctor, who wouldn't believe he was bad at English, and to top it off he refused to speak to me in Italian (during an exchange!) so I ghosted him.

Korean
Korean lessons have not happened for a couple of weeks because my teacher was having some surgery on his wrist. But I should be back on track next week. Meanwhile, I've started transcribing and translating a Roald Dahll book about George and his magic potion, which I bought in Korea. It is a very intensive and time-consuming task. So I limit myself to just doing 15 minutes for the moment. That is more than enough time, I think, and if I do it consistently it will get better and faster.

Still watching a ton of dramas. As of this writing I've done 129.8 films for the super challenge and should end with around 700 films.

I had a really amazing LE with a Korean student who is trying for her IELTS in English and is hoping for a level 7/8. I think she'll do fine. Spent a lot of time working on some of her essays and although there wasn't really in problems in the text, there were a lot of corrections. I don't know how to explain, but the corrections were similar to what I would have given my daughters in high school. So better ways to say it, rather than correcting things which were 100% wrong. Her conversational speaking skills are very, very good, and she can easily manage in English. This of course benefited me when we switched to Korean, because she asked me simple questions, gave me time to answer. She explained everything well and gave me excellent corrections and patiently helped with pronunciation. So I think she is definitely a keeper.

Anki has decided to punish me with more words and I'm averaging around 300 per day now. But it is fine, I'm hoping the combination of reading and anki cards will pay off with many encounters between the same words, and the transcription exercise will help me to start to recognise word shapes.

Italian
Extensive reading continues. I'm 100+ pages from completing the first of my 17 books in Italian. This was the largest because I was working on the "eat the frog first" thing where you do the biggest, most dreaded thing first. I've learned a lot of vocabulary about ancient armies and their equipment, as well as Italian words for lots of middle eastern and Greek geography. Much of the vocabulary I had to learn was front loaded in the book, so the later chapters are a lot easier once you know the Italian for: altar, steward, squire, javelin, battering rams, trebuchet, etc.

I had to cancel one LE in Italian because I wasn't feeling well.

French
One LE with a French lady who I spoke to for the first time. It went OK, although she pointed out I needed a lot more practice.

General Stuff
People always say someone is a jerk because they ghosted them, but it might be the person is too polite to tell you that you are a jerk, and so they ghosted you. :)
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby rdearman » Sat Aug 20, 2022 6:25 pm

bingo.png-2.png

And now for something completely different. K-BINGO !!!

I have decided that I need to spend more time listening to these K-Dramas and not so much time reading subtitles. So I decided to make a little game for myself. I thought it would be easy, but took a lot longer than expected. I thought what I would do is find a lot of common Korean words, then create a bingo card like above, and just re-watch a drama and try to play Bingo during the episode by getting 5 in a row. A normal human would have opened a word file, created a table, pasted in some text and off they would go. I, however, being a computer nerd, decided to spend about 8 hours doing the same thing. :ugeek:

So firstly I found 5000 most common words in Korean. This CV file was honestly very badly formated and had no translations. So, cue one hour of using Libreoffice calc to tidy the data, then google sheets to get the translations, and hey presto, I have words. So moving on to the next step I searched high and low for a opensource program to generate bingo cards. Didn't find anything I liked until I ran across some shell scripts for generating "Office Bingo". You know the one with options like "Someone will say sorry about the dog in the background."

I downloaded the LaTex files and shell scripts, input the top 25 words and .... BARF... It didn't work with Unicode characters. So, another 7 hours and a question on StackExchange and I had my own personalised script (see below) that would take a file of words and produce a PDF like the image above. The benefit of course is that I can now generate unlimited K-Bingo cards!!

So now the only thing left to do is make sure I understand the pronunciation of the 24 words (Centre Square is a freebie) and start re-watching a drama. I'm going to re-watch because then I am not going to worry about the plot or characters or what is happening on screen. I'm only listening intensly for the words I want to pick out.

Code: Select all

#!/usr/bin/bash

## text file which contains bingo squares
input_text=squares

## latex code for center square
center_square='\includegraphics[width=0.9\textwidth]{center.png}'
#center_square=FREE


node=( AA AB AC AD AE BA BB BC BD BE CA CB CD CE DA DB DC DD DE EA EB EC ED EE )

cat > bingo.tex << EOF
% !TeX TS-program = lualatex 
\documentclass{article}
% Added for Unicode (Korean) font
% ==========================
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[a4paper,margin=2cm]{geometry}
% ==========================
\usepackage{xstring}
\usepackage[none]{hyphenat}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{calc}
\renewcommand{\familydefault}{\sfdefault}

\newcommand{\Size}{3cm}% Adjust size of square as desired

\def\NumOfColumns{5}%
\def\Sequence{1/A, 2/B, 3/C, 4/D, 5/E}% This needs to match \NumOfColumns

\tikzset{Square/.style={
    inner sep=0pt,
    text width=\Size,
    minimum size=\Size,
    draw=black,
    align=center
    }
}
EOF

i=0
OLDIFS=$IFS
IFS=$'\n'
for line in $(sort -R $input_text | head -n 24)
do
    echo "\newcommand{\Node${node[i]}}{$line}%" >> bingo.tex
    (( i++ ))
done
IFS=$OLDIFS

echo "\newcommand{\NodeCC}{$center_square}%" >> bingo.tex

cat >> bingo.tex << EOF
\pagestyle{empty}

% Used for Korean Fonts.
% ==========================
\usepackage{fontspec}
\setsansfont{Noto Serif CJK KR}
% ==========================
\begin{document}
\centering
% Optional Title
\vspace*{\fill}
    \begin{center}
        \begin{tikzpicture}[draw=black, ultra thick, x=\Size,y=\Size]
            \node at (0.5,-0.8) {\Huge B};
            \node at (1.5,-0.8) {\Huge I};
            \node at (2.5,-0.8) {\Huge N};
            \node at (3.5,-0.8) {\Huge G};
            \node at (4.5,-0.8) {\Huge O};
            \foreach \col/\colLetter in \Sequence {%
                \foreach \row/\rowLetter in \Sequence{%
                    \pgfmathtruncatemacro{\value}{\col+\NumOfColumns*(\row-1)}
                    \def\NodeText{\expandafter\csname Node\rowLetter\colLetter\endcsname}
                    \node [Square] at (\$(\col,-\row)-(0.5,0.5)\$) {\LARGE \NodeText};
                }
            }
        \end{tikzpicture}
    \end{center}
\vspace*{\fill}
\end{document}
EOF

#pdflatex bingo.tex
xelatex bingo.tex



If you want to use this script for normal Latin character sets, you just need to install pdflatex and download from the original link. If you are using Unicode then you'll need to use the above and change the line to be a font which supports your language. "Noto Serif CJK KR" is the Korean Hangul font installed on my machine.

Code: Select all

\setsansfont{Noto Serif CJK KR}


You'll also need a file called "center.png" which is 250x180. Or comment out the image line in the shell script.
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
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