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

[Mohave]

I have the same problem. I have so much stuff that I want to read, but I can't decide if I should start reading it now or wait for the Super Challenge and just concentrate more on "real" study for now. I do hope you figure out the bot thing. With so many computer nerds around, it should be possible. Shouldn't it?

Should be possible. Surreal uploaded the majorty of the code except for the database stuff, but I've mostly reverse engineered that part, then converted all the crazy "mac" formated text files into something usable by real computers and I'm hoping to get a prototype going on my home machine soon.

rdearman - This is such great news! I know you are pursuing your own language learning at the same time you are doing admin for this site and working the bots. I just want to pass on my thanks for all that you are doing!

Also, I am the in the same boat - I just ordered another French book (from all the way in the UK). I need another French book like I need another whole in my head!! I still have quite a stash that I brought home a year ago from Belgium. I also keep waffling between more French grammar/vocabulary study and keeping my reading/listening up from the last Super Challenge - I guess it will be a little of both - all while adding Spanish to the mix!

[rdearman]

I've started to use the SC bot to log my progresses a few days ago, with no intention to participate in the SC, it's just a convenient way to have a beautiful curve that I don't know how to do myself otherwise.
Will the current SC bot be terminated and replaced by another, and the stats lost ?
Will there be a new "following bot" for those who are just interested to have a few stats without participating in a challenge ?

I'm actually trying to make the specific SC bot into a more generic bot, I have a vested interest in this, because I'd like to use it for my Output Challenge. I don't know when or even if the current bot will die. Surreal seems to be offline for awhile.

[rdearman]

Not much language learning going on still, although I continue to watch some TV series in French & Italian. I have spent most of this weekend working on the Super Challenge bot which hopefully will be hosted here this year.

[rdearman]

Not much language learning going on still, although I continue to watch some TV series in French & Italian. I have spent most of this weekend working on the Super Challenge bot which hopefully will be hosted here this year.

Just a quick note, I've managed to get a working version of the SC bot up and running on a test server. So it looks good for moving the bot over here for the next super challenge.

[rdearman]

I've squandered a lot of time this week doing boring stuff like "working for a living". But I managed to fit in a couple of language related activities. I read all of Iversen's log on language learning. (Which I suspect is going to become one of the most linked to posts on this site. ). I started some word lists from my French dictionary, just to see how I get along with it.

My other activites were mostly watching TV shows in either French or Italian. I have been watching Spin (in French) & Il giovanne Montalbano (Italian), but I threw in a couple episodes of Carabinieri . I have been watching Carabinieri , without sub-titles for a long time, and I guess this is probably the 3rd time I've see the entire 7 seasons. But I am always suprised by how much more I understand each time I return to it and watch them again.

I've also had a look at doing some gramatical exercises like I've mentioned in my other post viewtopic.php?f=14&t=2058 just to see if there is any advantage to taking some short sentences and creating longer sentences from them, or based on them. But rather than use my own sentences, I've parsed out some sentences with fewer than 10 words from a couple of books and I plan to mix those around and join them up into longer sentences and get some corrections on lang-8. Hopefully this will help me improve my output, although I did French sentences, and my Output challenge is in Italian. DUH!

I haven't done much in Esperanto, or Chinese, other than some anki cards and some HelloTalk chats.

[rdearman]

I wonder sometimes why I bother, since I never seem to follow through on anything I start todo.

As normal I've just been lazy and watched a lot of TV shows. Carabinieri, Montalbano & Spin. However Montalbano has ended on the BBC, but I "series recorded" it so I'll go back and watch them all again (assuming my kids don't delete it) later during the Super Challenge. I've watched a about 10-12 episodes of Carabinieri this week so 7-9 hours of Italian this week. I got hooked on the series again because my comprehension is better, and I spent a lot of the time watching it thinking "Oh! So that is why he kept doing that." or similar. I've never had sub-titles for this show, so I've had to work everything out myself.

I've watched a fair amount of Italian on YouTube as well. I finally completed my backlog of anki Italian cards (about 3000). I keep thinking I need to do some WORK on my languages, something boring and useful like reading a grammar book. Like most things, my attempt at doing Iversen wordlists in French went the way of the dodo after 3 pages of my French dictionary. I did a few of the sentence combining exercises I mentioned before, but soon got bored of that and quit. (Anyone see a theme developing here?)

I had a long drive up north this week so spent a couple of hours listening to some French audiobooks but my attention kept fading and in the end I just spent the rest of the trip listening to Stromae or Maître Gims, and various other Marseille French Rap artists on my trip.

I watched a film in Mandarin (with subtitles) and looked through a couple of anki cards but basically didn't do anything. Esperanto is more or less the same, I've not even bothered to look at the anki cards I downloaded, so I don't hold out much hope of learning Esperanto anytime soon.

I also spend far to much time reading this forum. Probably the biggest single time-sink for me. It isn't administration of the site, just reading all the interesting logs and conversations. I need to find a nice forum in French or Italian about something I'm interested in and start reading there maybe, although I have a stack of books to read once the SC kicks off. Ah well... C'est la vie!

[tomgosse]

I also spend far to much time reading this forum. Probably the biggest single time-sink for me. It isn't administration of the site, just reading all the interesting logs and conversations. I need to find a nice forum in French or Italian about something I'm interested in and start reading there maybe, although I have a stack of books to read once the SC kicks off. Ah well... C'est la vie!

Ain't that the truth! Some days it takes me all morning to catch up with the posts on this forum. Not that I'm complaining.

[rdearman]

What to say? This last week I had a few days off work, and mostly alone in the house with my dog. So I spent a lot of time watching Italian TV shows, Youtube channels or just about anything else I found. I watched some VLoggers who speak Italian only, but they were mostly girls talking about makeup and hair, which isn't really my thing. This constant barrage of Italian, caused me a problem when I went to my French lesson and I couldn't stop the Italian from popping into my head and forcing out the French.

It was also a bit of a shock how poor my French comprehension is. I really really need to do more listening in French. So I'm planning to try and spread the wealth between Italian and French. I'm actually looking forward to the Super Challenge because it gives me an excuse to sit around watching TV and reading. I'm definately going to be embarrassed when I show up at the Polygot conference. But at least I've never claimed to be fluent in anything other than English (and that is questionable).

Just keeping the ANKI Cards ticking over, but I've a huge backlog of French cards 1000+ that I'm going to push through hopefully this week.

[rdearman]

Ciao Tutti!

I have a request for resources and I thought I would drop this request into my log. I use anki cards, but not just for learning languages. I have a deck which I put in quotations from Stoic philosophers, generals, etc people like Sun Tzu, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Epictetus, George Patton, Winston Churchill or just general folk sayings like "A stitch in time saves nine", etc. I'm not trying to memorise these, just look at them every once in awhile as a reminder of general wisdom. Interestingly, some of these popup at just the right time!

To date I've put all these things in the deck in English, but I thought I should really expand out and use all the languages I'm studying also. An obviously one is Sun Tzu since I'm studying Mandarin, but I was hoping people could suggest some places I could mine for interesting quotes originally in French or Italian?

To give you some samples:

• Thou art a little soul bearing about a corpse. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
• Do not seek pleasure for its own sake. ― Miyamoto Musashi
• Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth. ― Alan W. Watts
• Smile when picking up the phone. The caller will hear it in your voice.
• Don't judge people by their relatives.
• Reputation is what you are in the light; Character is what you are in the dark.
• He who eats when he is full digs his grave with his teeth.

So any suggestions for quotes or other interesting tidbits in French or Italian?

[MorkTheFiddle]

For French, La Rochefoucauld springs to mind right away. Here is a sampler. His book Maxims is at La Rochefoucauld at Gutenberg.