Expug's TAC 2016 - Writing the lines of fluency

[Expugnator]

Today's news articles in Papiamento was about the tradition of Zwarte Piet in the Netherlands and how it affects the children of migrants from Kòrsou.

This book I'm reading in German has the same problem as the previous one: abridged audiobook. It causes some trouble, but it also means I can go more quickly through the text-only passages.

I finished reading the blog in Norwegian which I was reading intensively, and now I'm really out of resources for intensive reading, at least good ones on themes I'm interested at and which aren't behind a paywall. So I'm turning this activity into intensive watching, and I will try podcasts and NRK shows, preferably non-fiction, to see if I can keep improving my vocabulary.

Finished Tintenherz. A relief. I'm not sure I learned that much from this book, it has a unique vocabulary, and I was learning too much each day (only once a week). Anyway, I may keep reading further, but I need to improve my overall reading in German first, through reading different genres one after the other.

[Expugnator]

The book series "Elling", by Ingvar Ambjørnsen, has probably a full corpus of daily-life Norwegian words. Knowing these books by heart is probably reaching a C2 level. given the peculiarity of the main character and the way he describes and discovers the outside world. You get to know in detail whatever vocabulary related to daily-life activities.

Finished the book "The End of Work", by Jeremy Rifkin. Next one should be "The Biotech Century: Harnessing the Gene and Remaking the World", but I don't have it, couldn't find it as an ebook and it's not a priority, as I'm more interested in transformations in the labor and industrial markets. So, the next after this one should be "The Age Of Access: The New Culture of Hypercapitalism", which I happen to have in German. I'm a bit reluctant about adding 20 pages on non-fiction German to the 10 pages of fiction I read daily, so I'm shifting authors instead, and I'll be reading in Italian. The book I'm reading in Italian isn't that easy either, at least not for reading 20 pages a day. Some non-fiction books have this attribute of being hard to follow through a quick read, regardless of the language they're written in.

Jänku-Jussi episode was about a character that had to learn the song "Old MacDonald" by heart, and so it was like a free listening-reading lesson. I skipped the English karaoke part and so I even saved time.

I'm starting to get the hang of Narnia, understanding more and more from the story while still reading the Mandarin, before reading the translation. Sounds fun.

I did the first lesson of Living Language Greek. The dialogues are typically textbookish but fine, the grammar explanations are ok and the exercises are a bit dull, but at least they involve some language activation.

So came the tough time of deciding what I will be watching in Norwegian. It has to be fiction, I can't indulge myself with more Side om Side or with SKAM. I have Schrödingers katt lined up, which is pretty text-intense, but it seems the host has a thick accent which gets nynorsk subtitles. I remember having mentioned a couple more documentaries here, but searching is strenuous. Better off asking at the Nordic thread. Oh, here comes Normal galskap. So, Normal galskap be it. It's fun and great for learning non-fiction vocabulary, as there are subtitles and I can pause and watch intensively. Subtitles are abridged sometimes and there are some thick accents as well, but I have the feeling this is going to be fairly productive. Now I have another fixed task for Norwegian, and more comprehensible input.

[Expugnator]

It seems my rant about Chinese was that period that precedes the major noticeable advancements. Things are starting to fall into place now. I have to pay attention to how sentences are formed in order to become more natural. The basic order is SVO, but you have loads of adverbial and adjectival expressions intertwined which give their own weights to sentences and may change syntax for the sake of emphasis.

Today in Greek I learned to say δίδυμες κόρες (twin daughters). What else would one need?

I'm enjoying LL's lessons. One drawback: no translation for the sentences at the exercise, which makes me do some word lookups.

Today is probably the last day of studies of the year. I will try to do some extensive activities here and there, especially reading and watching series, and I'll be back into full study mood at the 2nd week of January. I have to evaluate my year, this will come in another post. Then next comes my new log for 2017.

[Expugnator]

A wrap up update is long overdue. I'm back from extended holidays spent with my family, which were decided at the eleventh hour and were two weeks of joy. My babies went to the beach for the first time and spent a good time with their grandparents, uncles and cousins, which made them feel more like family despite living so far away.

What to say about 2016? Definitely a year to keep in the memory for a long time. Despite the crisis and chaos my country has been going through,I have no reason other to thank, acknowledge and celebrate. It was definitely a year of new perspectives and of solving older recurrent issues.

First, the obvious, the birth of my daughters, and all the bless and joy that came along. It is great to be able to follow their development closely, and every day is a new discovery. When you think you have seen and had enough love in your life, you have to think it over.

Then more practical issues: I finally took my driver's license, a problem I had been having years ago, regarding the exams, the whole process being unfair and outragingly costly on the candidates. This year I started it over and I did it, motivated with the coming of my daughters. It was absolutely necessary during the first months and it has opened up new possibilities for me as well. On the professional front, I had the highest grade on the performance evaluation ever, I had autonomy for working successfully on some side projects, I worked a lot and was there whenever necessary - despite having two newborns at home. On sidetracks, I opened up a new career by concluding a tour guide course, which legally allows me to work on the field, and then maybe other endeavors. It will probably remain a side job like giving language classes is, but both are very rewarding as I can work on what I like to study and I can feel the risks being taken. I should also be prepared for some paycheck freezing on the main job, given the crisis, so whatever extra income will come in handy,

Now languages! (Which means you can skip the previous paragraphs).

I still regard 2015 as the year I became a polyglot, but 2016 is the year I became ok about that. I don't feel I need to prove anything to myself anymore - it is usually harder to convince oneself, as even after you realize you don't have to prove anything to others, you might still keeping an internal competition that is equally harmful. So now I'm ok with who I am, with whom I have become in life (all spheres), and this is quite something to acknowledge. It's not easy.

Even though my progress is apparently low and slow - I'm not confident to say I speak any more of these languages I've been learning for the past years - I've successfully dealt with some issues that were mining my confidence. How did I? Both through persistence/resilience and through new approaches. So I thought I would never be able to understand spoken Norwegian: I kept doing what I was doing, but I also diversified my input; I thought German wouldn't become a working language: I just gave it more time; I thought Russian was impossible to decypher: I started doing intensive reading again, while enhancing my reading by including listening and also making my TV watching more comprehensible through translated subtitles.

Intensive reading plays a huge role in my achievements for this year. By the end of 2015, I was fully aware of my mistake of relying only on extensive input through the Super Challenge. In 2016 I diversified, and I did it in a way that involved less stress. I would keep my main schedule as of the SC years, and I would add intensive activities whenever possible, in whatever order as possible. No rush for finishing any resources, no goals, just pausing and looking up key words. 2016 was also the year of the Google Translate addon for Chrome that made looking up much easier and allowed for considerable progress in languages such as Estonian and Georgian.

Before going for language-by-language comparison with 2016's goals, I'd like first to discuss my main two guidelines, as of post #1 at this log. First one is being more present, and I think I managed this. Second one is writing more, and although I didn't write more essays on either italki or lang-8, I did write more in Georgian, German, Norwegian and Russian. Only Mandarin was lagging behind. More than this: writing became easier in these languages thanks to my being more present and having sharper skills since I was doing more intensive input. So my idea of writing the lines of fluency, while not applied fully to its letters, wasn't in vain at all.

As for making 2016 a community learning, it worked way beyond the half of the year. Besides the people I've always interacted with, I met new learners this year and I'm really happy with the sense of community that has been developped. The final trimester was more chaotic because I was busy with my tour guide course and couldn't always reply to the logs of my friends or to the discussions where I feel I would be able to contribute, but overall I feel 2016 was indeed a year of comunity learning.

Regarding crutches such as subtitles, one word: audiobooks. I incorporated audiobooks as a powerful tool to make use of hidden moments and to boost my listening skills and vocabulary acquisition.

Now by language:

Estonian: I said I wanted to improve reading first, and so I did, mainly thanks to the Google add-on. Goal reached!

French: No big accomplishments, but no big expectations either. I kept improving my listening; I started to have a better command of native series, either comedy ones. I did use the language more attentively. I even started to transcribe lyrics of songs on the go, and my listening went one level up thanks to watching challenging native TV series.

German: Definitely a huge success. I can read German now, basically. A dictionary will help me fine tune, but I can already survive. And this can easily be transferred to listening. I made German a working language and I'm happy about that, because that means a lot of pressure has been relieved.

Georgian: LANGUAGE OF THE YEAR! My Georgian skyrocketed thanks to dubbed series. I had never had a comfortable L-R resource such as Assimil for Georgian. Thanks to the clear audio of the dubbed series, I managed to improve my listening skills which also reverted to reading and, incredibly, to speaking. Georgian is no longer a dabbling language or the language of the future or hey! it's cool you're learning Georgian, one day you'll be good at it. It's already a reality, and I'm looking forward to becoming one of the best non-native speakers of Georgian.

Greek: My newest start, no big expectations. I'm surprised at how quickly I grabbed its syntax, thanks to Georgian to some extent. I also feel there is a good vocabulary discount, even though it's not always so evident. I would call it a semi-opaque language. I'm happy with the progress I made this year and my focus still is on conversation, as I dream of visiting the islands and the continent.

Italian: The language just takes care of itself. Listening skills improved enormously, thanks to audiobooks and to reading contemporary novels. I'm repeating the steps that led me to success in French and I don't regret, because Italian is easier by all aspects, and with a huge headstart it's even easier. Now I can consider focusing on output, which can be as nitpicky as any other Romance language, and so demands more attention.

Mandarin: The neglected language of the year. Whatever I have been doing for Mandarin, it wasn't good enough and/or wasn't done the best way. I need to reformulate my strategy, especially now I want to improve my active skills for basic tourist conversation, focusing on receptive tourism for either leisure or business.

Norwegian: Success might come anytime. Up to October, I was seeing the year as failure. Then audiobooks happened, and even though I still can't follow the audiobook properly, I gained momentum that added me with reading and watching TV. I used to struggle with Odinsbarn and now it's like bedside reading.

Russian: I was worried about Russian, too. In the end, I just repeated what helped with other languages: listening-reading followed by intensive reading. Then I chatted more often that I might have expected at the first time. I mean, I didn't actively seek for output opportunities. I just kept being contacted at Speaky and at one point I noticed I could produce not-so-tarzanic Russian and keep the conversation going. As usual, one skill helped the other and I'm glad my Russian is no longer stagnated.

So that is what I can think of. It's still too little for summarizing a great year. Looking forward to keeping the community spirit and to hearing from you guys at my 2017 log.