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

Continue or start your personal language log here, including logs for challenge participants
User avatar
rdearman
Site Admin
Posts: 7231
Joined: Thu May 14, 2015 4:18 pm
Location: United Kingdom
Languages: English (N)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1836
x 23123
Contact:

Re: Rdearman 2016/17/18/19 [An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.]

Postby rdearman » Sat Feb 01, 2020 7:23 pm

Well. Long time since the last update. I've not been doing any conversations, mostly because I'm commuting at the moment. I have managed to do 30+ minutes of Mandarin every day and I'm on a 221-day streak on Clozemaster and 149-day streak of 500+ points per day. I've learned mastered about 15% of the Italian list.

My Polish colleague at work has gifted me the entire series of Harry Potter audiobooks in Polish and a trilogy "Ogniem i Mieczem", "Pan Wolodyjowski" and Potop written by a Polish author. There isn't any translation apparently for these last three, so don't know how much I'd be able to pickup! I have the hobbit as well as the Harry Potter, so I have enough material to do L-R before the gathering. I also have the DLI & FSI materials to work with and Clozemaster.

Don't have much else to talk about. Did another podcast with Dave, but hasn't been published yet.

One sad note, the presentation I did last year at the Gathering is lost forever. Seems the laptop it was recorded on was stolen before they'd made any copies! So if you were there in person, then you've seen the one and only time it will ever be seen. I only do them once so you can tell your grandchildren that you were there. :lol:
8 x
: 0 / 150 Read 150 books in 2024

My YouTube Channel
The Autodidactic Podcast
My Author's Newsletter

I post on this forum with mobile devices, so excuse short msgs and typos.

User avatar
cjareck
Brown Belt
Posts: 1047
Joined: Tue Apr 25, 2017 6:11 pm
Location: Poland
Languages: Polish (N) English, German, Russian(B1?) French (B1?), Hebrew(B1?), Arabic(A2?), Mandarin (HSK 2)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=8589
x 2979
Contact:

Re: Rdearman 2016/17/18/19 [An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.]

Postby cjareck » Sat Feb 01, 2020 10:11 pm

rdearman wrote: a trilogy "Ogniem i Mieczem", "Pan Wolodyjowski" and Potop written by a Polish author.

The trilogy was written by Henryk Sienkiewicz during the 19th century when Poland had no state. Many young people read it (it is about 17th-century wars) and were willing to sacrifice their lives in 1918-1921 to help create a Polish state. So this is a very important piece of literature. However, it was written many years ago and partially shows even older language. That may be a problem for you. All three parts were filmed, but do not bother watching "Ogniem i Mieczem", at least the Polish version. There was an Italian one where they didn't know what "winged cavalry" means and Polish hussars had small wings near helmets, just like Asterix ;)

Here is "Pan Wołodyjowski": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfsmPnaf6oU
Potop:
1st part: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf0amc-uKhg
2nd part: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u3kI47OqSg
It is classics of Polish cinematography.
"Ogniem i Mieczem" is a disaster. It is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buJIJz3O9zs
5 x
Please feel free to correct me in any language


Listening: 1+ (83% content, 90% linguistic)
Reading: 1 (83% content, 90% linguistic)


MSA DLI : 30 / 141ESKK : 18 / 40


Mandarin Assimil : 62 / 105

User avatar
rdearman
Site Admin
Posts: 7231
Joined: Thu May 14, 2015 4:18 pm
Location: United Kingdom
Languages: English (N)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1836
x 23123
Contact:

Re: Rdearman 2016/17/18/19 [An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.]

Postby rdearman » Wed Feb 12, 2020 7:59 pm

It certainly doesn't take long to get pushed to the back of the line in the logs forum! I have been learning a new language, Rust. It is used to speak with computers, which seems to be the only type of language learning I'm good at. :)

Anyway, still plugging away with Pimsleur Mandarin, and so I have not yet missed a day of the 366 challenge. My streak on CM is 232 days of Italian. I struggle to keep the Chainese streak going on days when I'm not commuting, so on weekends I've been focusing on "Spoon Fed Chinese" an anki deck I bought with real people doing the audio and it builds up in difficulty. I've also picked back up some subscriptions on YouTube and decided to read a couple of pages of a grammar bookduring the weekends also.

Not a lot to report, I don't think I'm getting any better at anything.

Although, I did sign up for the gathering. Hopefully, I'll get to go!
5 x
: 0 / 150 Read 150 books in 2024

My YouTube Channel
The Autodidactic Podcast
My Author's Newsletter

I post on this forum with mobile devices, so excuse short msgs and typos.

StringerBell
Brown Belt
Posts: 1035
Joined: Mon Jul 23, 2018 3:30 am
Languages: English (n)
Italian
x 3289

Re: Rdearman 2016/17/18/19 [An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.]

Postby StringerBell » Sat Feb 15, 2020 4:12 am

rdearman wrote:I don't think I'm getting any better at anything.


Me neither! Maybe we should start a new challenge for people who consistently try to learn languages without improving. We'd crush it!

The only language that I seem to be able to improve is British English. I just learned what a "flat white" is. Characters on the British show I'm watching are always ordering it. Something like a latte but with less foam, right?
3 x
Season 4 Lucifer Italian transcripts I created: https://learnanylanguage.fandom.com/wik ... ranscripts

User avatar
rdearman
Site Admin
Posts: 7231
Joined: Thu May 14, 2015 4:18 pm
Location: United Kingdom
Languages: English (N)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1836
x 23123
Contact:

Re: Rdearman 2016/17/18/19 [An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.]

Postby rdearman » Sat Feb 15, 2020 1:35 pm

StringerBell wrote:
rdearman wrote:I don't think I'm getting any better at anything.


Me neither! Maybe we should start a new challenge for people who consistently try to learn languages without improving. We'd crush it!

The only language that I seem to be able to improve is British English. I just learned what a "flat white" is. Characters on the British show I'm watching are always ordering it. Something like a latte but with less foam, right?

Yeah, I think it shouldn't have any foam, so basically a standard American coffee. :)
3 x
: 0 / 150 Read 150 books in 2024

My YouTube Channel
The Autodidactic Podcast
My Author's Newsletter

I post on this forum with mobile devices, so excuse short msgs and typos.

User avatar
lingua
Blue Belt
Posts: 951
Joined: Sun Mar 13, 2016 11:23 pm
Languages: English (N)
Maintaining: italiano (B2/C1ish)
Studying: português, Latina
Dabbling: siciliano, Deutsch, français, piemontèis
Abandoned: ไทย, español
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=12257
x 2024

Re: Rdearman 2016/17/18/19 [An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.]

Postby lingua » Sat Feb 15, 2020 6:07 pm

This is from 2015 but I was surprised they said a flat white was popular in America then. Is it just me or do all of those pictures look the same?
https://www.foodrepublic.com/2015/01/15/what-the-hell-is-a-flat-white-a-new-poll-aims-to-find-the-answer/
2 x
Super Challenge 2022-23:
DE: books: 0 / 2500 film: 1654 / 4500
IT: books: 3065 / 5000 film: 5031 / 9000
PT: books: 2921 / 5000 film: 5010 / 9000

Output Challenge 2023:
IT: write: 0 / 50000 record: 84 / 3000
PT: write: 0 / 50000 record: 0 / 3000

PT: Read 100 books: 28 / 100

User avatar
rdearman
Site Admin
Posts: 7231
Joined: Thu May 14, 2015 4:18 pm
Location: United Kingdom
Languages: English (N)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1836
x 23123
Contact:

Re: Rdearman 2016/17/18/19 [An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.]

Postby rdearman » Sun Feb 16, 2020 10:20 pm

So this weekend I wasted a couple of hours creating my own "Pimsleur" like course. I have purchased (a long while back) an anki deck called "Spoon Fed Chinese" which is basically about 8000 anki notes in Mandarin Chinese. The good thing about this deck is that it has actually human beings reading out the audio. So this means I have about 9000 recordings of sentences by natives, along with the translations and Pinyin and Hanzi. Recently I mentioned that on weekends when I don't commute I use an Anki deck to get my 30 minutes. Well this is the deck. This deck is progressive and the cards start easy and gradually become harder.

Last week I was getting a bit annoyed with Pimsleur and wanted to switch it up a little in the commute but still get my 30+ minutes in. There isn't a great deal you can do in a car, but I remembered a program called Gradint which allowed you to create your own Pimsleur like course. So suitably challenged I decided to give this a try. There were a lot of stops and starts, but the basic method is this:

  1. Export the Anki Deck Notes as "Notes in Plain Text"
  2. Change the TAB delimiters into ::: (Just because my bash script didn't like tabs)
  3. Divide the text file into chunks with the English, Chinese, Filename of the MP3
  4. Copy the media files from your anki collection folder into the samples directory for gradient while renaming them to have _zh.mp3 at the end.
  5. Concatenate the English text into a text file with the same name but ending in _en.txt

I did this all on a Linux machine using this bash script:

Code: Select all

while IFS= read -r a;
do
    english=`echo $a |  awk -F $":::" '{ printf ("%s", $1 )}'`
    pinyin_hanzi=`echo $a|  awk -F $":::" '{ printf ("%s, %s", $2, $3 )}'`
    filename=`echo $a |  awk -F $":::" '{ printf ("%s",$4 )}' | awk -F  ":" '{print $2}' | sed 's/\]//g'`
    fnbase=`basename $filename .mp3`

    echo "EN:$english"
    echo "ZH:$pinyin_hanzi"
    echo "FN:$filename"
    echo "BS:$fnbase"

    COUNTER=$[$(cat $TEMPFILE) + 1]
    echo $COUNTER > $TEMPFILE
    zhmoveto=$COUNTER
    enmoveto=$COUNTER
    zhmoveto+="_"
    enmoveto+="_"
    zhmoveto+=$fnbase
    enmoveto+=$fnbase
    zhmoveto+="_zh.mp3"
    enmoveto+="_en.txt"
    dr="samples/collection.media/$filename"
    cp $dr ./samples/$zhmoveto
    echo $english > ./samples/$enmoveto
   
done < New_ChineseSpoonFed.txt 


Believe it or not, this works a treat and allowed me to run the program which then starts doing the lesson. If you were to use it you'd have to modify it for use with the file Anki outputs for you. It is different for Italian for example because it doesn't have a column for Hanzi characters.

Gradint uses Computer Generated Voices (CGV) for all the prompts like "Listen and repeat", etc. but if it finds an MP3 then it will play it and using the matching TXT file for the prompt. Here are two files in my samples directory.

Code: Select all

100_R006-03_en.txt   
100_R006-03_zh.mp3

100_R006-03_zh.mp3 is the audio of the native speaker saying the Mandarin and the file 100_R006-03_en.txt contains the translation. Where is the school?

The program uses a predefined prompt, then the English (spoken by a CGV) and then the mp3 file. So you'll hear something like this:
- Listen and repeat (CGV)
- Where is the school? (CGV)
- 学校在哪儿?(MP3 recording)
- (break for you to repeat)
- Say again (CGV)
- Where is the school? (CGV)
- (break for you to repeat)
- 学校在哪儿?(MP3 recording)

It generates a 30-minute lesson each time and it remembers what you learned, it then takes another set of phrases and adds them in on the next lesson while repeating previous phrases from old lessons. You can record your own prompts in your native language, and also have prompts in the L2. It will gradually begin to shift over from L1 prompts to L2 prompts.

It plays the lessons through your speaker, but it will also (allegedly) generate a lesson as mp3, ogg, or wav for you to carry around with you. This is the critical bit I wanted, and it is the part where it fell over in a big smoking heap! But I've opened a bug report on the GitHub page so hopefully he'll be able to fix this glitch. It may be that I need to copy all my files over to my Windows machine and try to generate the mp3 from there, since I've done all the heavy lifting on my Linux box already.

===
Otherwise, I did my normal Clozemaster. I'm on a 236-day streak (134-day streak at 500+ points per day).

For Chinese, I spent about 35-40 minutes reading a grammar book online.

I haven't done any Polish in anger yet, but I'll probably start in earnest just before the gathering.
8 x
: 0 / 150 Read 150 books in 2024

My YouTube Channel
The Autodidactic Podcast
My Author's Newsletter

I post on this forum with mobile devices, so excuse short msgs and typos.

User avatar
rdearman
Site Admin
Posts: 7231
Joined: Thu May 14, 2015 4:18 pm
Location: United Kingdom
Languages: English (N)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1836
x 23123
Contact:

Re: Rdearman 2016/17/18/19 [An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.]

Postby rdearman » Wed Feb 19, 2020 10:19 pm

Just a quick update. The author of the Gradint program spent the last couple of days fixing all the crazy bugs I was finding while trying to get a basic lesson out into an audio file. He has done 3-4 revisions, but now it is all working a treat! So tonight I managed to output my first lesson to a 30 minute MP3 file, and I can now switch up the Pimsleur in the car with some Spoon Fed Chinese. :)
6 x
: 0 / 150 Read 150 books in 2024

My YouTube Channel
The Autodidactic Podcast
My Author's Newsletter

I post on this forum with mobile devices, so excuse short msgs and typos.

User avatar
rdearman
Site Admin
Posts: 7231
Joined: Thu May 14, 2015 4:18 pm
Location: United Kingdom
Languages: English (N)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1836
x 23123
Contact:

Re: Rdearman 2016/17/18/19 [An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.]

Postby rdearman » Wed Feb 26, 2020 4:28 pm

Some minor issues with the Gradint thing, it puts some beeps in the silent part of the audio track. This was easy to remove with Audacity, so I didn't bother to change them. I have been using the MP3's which it generated when I get bored with Pimsleur. I'm on the last lesson of Pimsleur part one. I might need to go back and review from about lesson 20, but there is a lot of repetition built in, so I might just forge ahead.

I've also decided to use the Gradint program to generate some "Pimsleur" lessons for Setswana. I have all the audio already cut from when I used it for Anki. I basically have everything I need, although I'll need to record the English prompts. I might also record the English part of the translation since the computer voice is annoying. It would be a weekend project, so I'll probably just generate it with the computer voice in English and then update it later with my own voice recordings (I have the Peace Corp English too, but it would probably be faster to just record the clips myself and cut them up.)

I've continued the in Clozemaster Italian, and the 366 challenge in Mandarin. I do need more "book work" with Mandarin. Reading on the grammar and maybe using the FSI stuff.

I really need to get some reading done in both French and Italian, but I have struggled to find time. I don't have time because I'm learning another language called Rust first. :)
8 x
: 0 / 150 Read 150 books in 2024

My YouTube Channel
The Autodidactic Podcast
My Author's Newsletter

I post on this forum with mobile devices, so excuse short msgs and typos.

User avatar
rdearman
Site Admin
Posts: 7231
Joined: Thu May 14, 2015 4:18 pm
Location: United Kingdom
Languages: English (N)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1836
x 23123
Contact:

Re: Rdearman 2016/17/18/19 [An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.]

Postby rdearman » Fri Mar 06, 2020 4:10 pm

OK, well I finally managed to record all the prompts in English for the Peace Corps Setswana audio. I generated the first 10 lessons. The gradint program is set to do 8 new phrases per lesson in 30 minutes. I have about 350+ phrases/words so looking at 45 lessons. I have over 3000 phrases in the Spoon Fed Chinese, so we're looking at about 450 lessons to get to through all of them!

My plan is to listen to the Setswana ones and fix any prompts that are too low in volume (lots of them were) or are too clipped to understand what I'm saying. I had to do a lot of work on the first 10 lessons. There is an annoying beeping noise which is in the first two lessons because of long pauses, it is also generated in mono not stereo, so I have loaded them into audacity and did the noise removal, normalization and added stereo tracks and metadata. But I need to find a better way to do these things. (Read "better" as "automated"). If I can do this automation then I will generate the remaining lessons, then publish them somewhere for people to download.

I updated the prompts on the Chinese version too with me speaking the English basic prompts (Say again, Please say, etc) but left the digital voice for the phrasal prompts. I also updated the Chinese basic prompts also where I could. The reduction in computer voices makes it a lot less tedious to listen. I won't publish this anywhere. I paid for the Spoon Fed Chinese, but the copyright is in question:
https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/t ... anki-deck/
Most people believe that source for these audio clips were from a site which used a creative commons licence, but unless that is actually confirmed somewhere I'm loath to post it online.

I did consider using a new source with confirmed CC licence: https://github.com/trevorld/mandarin_au ... README.rst

I'm got to 255 days of Italian, so only 110 days from a full year. I'm still keeping up my morning Chinese for 30+ minutes and now I'm adding Setswana to the ride home.
11 x
: 0 / 150 Read 150 books in 2024

My YouTube Channel
The Autodidactic Podcast
My Author's Newsletter

I post on this forum with mobile devices, so excuse short msgs and typos.


Return to “Language logs”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Sizen and 2 guests