Languages and Life: Gary's log (Italian, Spanish, German, Japanese, bits of French)

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Ogrim
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Re: Languages and Life: Gary's log (Italian, Spanish, bits of French, and now German!)

Postby Ogrim » Wed Nov 24, 2021 4:52 pm

garyb wrote:Indeed, and I'm also sure that they enjoy being able to speak their native language rather than struggle in a second one (which isn't a statement about their ability; even at a very proficient level, a second language is still a second language, and even my friend in Norway for example says that even though most people there speak near-perfect English it still takes considerable more mental effort than Norwegian and she often felt excluded in social settings before she could understand it)


As a Norwegian I would not go so far as to say that most people speak near-perfect English. Most people speak English quite well, especially the younger generations (with that I mean younger than 40), but I would claim that most are far from near-perfect. That's why it doesn't surprise me at all that your friend would feel excluded, because from my own experience (and especially from the experience of my Spanish-speaking wife) I can confirm that if more than four or five Norwegians are together with one non-native speaker, they will make some effort to include the person by speaking English, but more often than not the conversation will turn to Norwegian.

Great to see that your German is coming along nicely.
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garyb
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Re: Languages and Life: Gary's log (Italian, Spanish, bits of French, and now German!)

Postby garyb » Tue Dec 28, 2021 4:18 pm

My motivation levels for Spanish and German seem to be a see-saw: one side always goes down as the other goes up. Which is just fine: it's hard for me to work actively on more than one language at a time these days, and I'm just happy that I'm managing to keep working on a language consistently even if which language that is keeps changing.

Spanish was still at the high side for two or three weeks since my last post, even though the in-person language exchange that was unlikely to ever happen got downgraded to an online language exchange that is even more unlikely to ever happen, but more recently and especially after finishing at work for the year a week and a half ago German has swung up again and I've got back into Duo and Spektrum.

On a personal level (so skip the rest if you don't care to read about some Internet stranger's life!) I've been thinking about moves to another city and possibly country again recently, and that maybe next year will be the time to finally go for it. I'm having the sobering realisations that time is passing quickly, I'm not getting any younger and am already well past the age when people typically do these things, I've lived in the same city for over fifteen years and the same small country for my whole life, there are various things in life that I've always dreamed of doing but never found the courage for and have always found excuses to avoid or delay and this is one of them, and that Covid and its associated uncertainties aren't going away any time soon so can't be a reason to keep putting life on hold. Plus next summer I'll finish my current work placement and I'll have been at my current company for a respectable three years - three years since I was last flying across Europe for interviews and came extremely close to taking the plunge.

Not that my life has exactly been on hold - I've certainly made a lot of progress at work and have kept up my hobbies and all the rest - but I have been stuck in a circle of indecision for a long time and whenever I've made attempts at settling down like looking at buying property or having a proper relationship I've resisted these commitments at some instinctual level because of that big itch that I'd like to scratch first. So at some point I need to get out of the circle by either scratching it or by accepting that maybe I'm not the adventurous person I'd like to think I am and forget about the whole idea and move on with my life and enjoy all the good things about feeling settled in a place where my life is very good by any standard.

London is the obvious choice for work opportunities and earning potential, and it's certainly a place where I could use my languages and meet people from all over the world, but my heart is leaning towards Berlin for the full experience of living in another country and culture in a place where work prospects are still good even if not quite at the same level. I've accepted that I've become quite a career-focused person in recent years so the plan has to satisfy that part of me too, and I've gone off places like Spain and Italy where the opportunies aren't as good. Both are places where I'm not sure I'd want to settle long-term but I'm sure I'd have a blast for a couple of years... Or maybe just crash and burn, but I'd be all the better for the experience.

In any case it doesn't affect my language studies a whole lot. Even if I were dead set on Germany, knowing German isn't a requirement or even a particular advantage in the kind of roles I'd be looking at and I'd be better investing my time in work-related study and interview prep in order to get a worthwhile offer. I can think about the language (for my interest and the very obvious social benefits) after I have the offer. But it certainly is a motivator, and some language knowledge and interest could always make interviewers take a personal interest in me and make me seem serious which does count for something.

My plan (if I do go through with it, rather than this just being a lot of nice talk and no action as is often the case with me!) would be to concentrate on my current work and on the aforementioned study and preparations for the next four to six months and then start applying for jobs in both places.

Anyway I apologise again if that's been a bit of an overshare to relative strangers and only tangentially relevant to languages, but I will be curious if other people have thoughts on it since this is a very international forum and is full of members who live or have lived abroad.
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garyb
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Re: Languages and Life: Gary's log (Italian, Spanish, bits of French, and now German!)

Postby garyb » Sun Jan 09, 2022 9:02 pm

German motivation is still high. I've watched some more films and TV, including Into the Beat (nominee for the Oscar for Most Predictable Film... okay, perhaps that's unfair because I hadn't predicted just how thickly and shamelessly they'd pour on the cheese!) and now Babylon Berlin which I'm really enjoying.

Babylon Berlin has made me realise that I'd like to learn more history as I don't know much about the periods before and after the First World War and the rise of Communism. I'm sure I said the same thing about the Cold War after watching Under The Same Sky and Deutchland '83 etc. History was never my favourite subject at school and I dropped it as soon as I could so I didn't get much past the perennial subjects of medieval Scotland and WW2, but a couple of decades later I'm realising I'm quite ignorant and would like to know more. German could be a good language to do this learning through, much like I learnt a lot about post-war European history through Italian.

Back to the present, I'm still thinking a lot about Berlin and doing related research and weighing it up against London (essentially trying to convince myself to follow my heart rather than the money). Even though I'm aware that it's very premature to stress about it since I'm not planning on a possible move until the second half of the year, there's no real dilemma until I have worthwhile offers in both locations which is absolutely not guaranteed, and anything could happen in the meantime including finding good reasons to stay where I am or consider somewhere else entirely. But that's how my mind works, apparently.

I did find out that as a skilled worker I could get permanent residence in Germany after only 21 months if I got to B1 in German (absolutely doable, considering I'm probably approaching A2 now, and I were living in the country I'd be setting my sights on at least B2 within that time!), which includes easy travel around the EU, and that's tempting. Of course I could have had the same thing in no time if I had moved there before Brexit, which I almost did, but the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago and the second best time is now etc...

Anyway, who knows. The possibility is motivating me, and even if I don't do it I'll be happy to get to a decent level in the language so it won't be time wasted.
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Re: Languages and Life: Gary's log (Italian, Spanish, bits of French, and now German!)

Postby garyb » Sat Feb 12, 2022 9:43 pm

I caught Covid. Fortunately my case wasn't too serious, just a few days of moderate cold/flu symptoms, although it's been a slow recovery and after 12 days I'm finally testing negative although am still feeling a bit run down.

It did give a slight boost to my language efforts, which have now practically become a relaxation activity that I do to get a break from work and related studies. The combination of more free time (as I had a few days off work, as well as isolating at home) and lower energy levels has meant a bit more time for input.

That input has mostly been in the form of Babylon Berlin: I'm now over half way through season 3. I also watched a related documentary (in English, unfortunately) about Berlin during the Weimar Republic, Berlin Sin City, that I happened to come across. It doesn't count as language study of course, but it did make me think that watching documentaries in German could be a good idea. I remember documentaries being the easiest form of proper native input in my early days of Italian, even compared to other stuff like news radio which would probably still be challenging at this point because of the variety of language, so they could be a good choice for my first steps into un-subtitled listening of things not aimed towards learners. And I'm sure there's a wealth of interesting stuff in German.

I've sneaked in some Spanish too, with a rewatch of Qué he hecho para merecer eso?. I recently wrote that I struggled to understand another of Almodóvar's films without subtitles and felt a bit frustrated given how long I've been learning Spanish albeit in an on-and-off way, but this one was mostly a walk in the park even if there were a few lines that I had to rewind a couple of times to catch. I'd love to say that my listening comprehension has improved massively in these last few months, but I think that as usual some materials are just much harder to understand than others.

I also started reading a Murakami translation in Spanish a few weeks ago: El fin del mundo y un despiadado país de las maravillas. I'm loving it so far; I read two of his other books in Italian a couple of years ago and they were pleasant but didn't exactly stand out, so this is my favourite already. And it's a nice long one.

I got a free month of Amazon Prime and used it to keep up my diet of Italian romantic comedies with Lasciati andare, which was a fun watch. I'm a bit disappointed with Prime overall though; my impression had been that it was a great source for films (unlike Netflix, which is strong for series but meh for movies), but for most of the quality stuff you need to pay a rental fee or an extra subscription on top of the Prime membership. The prices are reasonable enough and there are usually trial periods for the extra subscriptions, but it still feels like the basic membership isn't "enough" and out of principle I don't really want to keep feeding the beast. And in typical Amazon style, it's hard to find things unless you already know exactly what you're looking for. I'll still try to watch a few more things while my month lasts though.
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Re: Languages and Life: Gary's log (Italian, Spanish, bits of French, and now German!)

Postby garyb » Mon Feb 21, 2022 3:14 pm

I'm still keeping up the German so far even with life returning to somewhat normal. I've just finished Babylon Berlin. The third season gets a bit more convoluted and non-linear than the first two and I had a bit of trouble following it, but I think that's somewhat deliberate to reflect the characters' confusion and a lot of it does eventually get wrapped up. Apparently there's a fourth season coming out this year, which I look forward to.

To follow it I've picked a series more or less at random, Kitz, which I chose purely because it's set in an Alpine ski town and the landscape shots gave me fond memories of snowboarding trips. So far it feels like a very standard-issue second-rate Netflix series, style and social propaganda over substance, but the German is modern, colloquial, and less specialised than Babylon which was full of subjects like business, crime, and politics. It's a good candidate for trying to watch with German subs only or even no subs. I'll watch another few episodes and see how I get on.

As I've said with previous series, hearing modern colloquial German does make me wonder if I'm learning a dying language since there's so much English influence these days, but I could say the same for my other languages with the possible exception of Spanish, and it's not going anywhere any time soon.

I recently saw that there's a German/English exchange meetup that's started again in my city, less than ten minutes' walk from where I live. I'm not in any rush, and my weekday evenings are quite busy already these days, but the seed has been planted now and I'll probably end up there sooner or later. From looking at the attendees, I didn't see any typical German-speaker names which is not the best sign (I know that not all native speakers have typically German-sounding names etc. but still... most do!) but at my point even conversations with other learners might be enough to get the ball rolling and give more focus to my studies by highlighting my immediate weak points.

I still think I'd struggle to have even a basic conversation. I feel like I know lots of bits and pieces of German by now and have quite a good grasp of the structure, but it's not quite formed into a cohesive whole that I could actually use to speak with people. Then again, maybe I'd be surprised at what would come out once I got into the flow. Only one way to find out, although I could certainly prepare with some self-talk and by making some "islands" for the typical small-talk subjects that might come up.

I was reading the quite strange bookworm and chatterbox thread and thought that the replies made some good points, including that the longer you wait to speak the more anxiety you build up around it and you have to jump in sooner or later. I'm glad to have moved away from the early speaking mentality that I had in the past, my sanity thanks me for it, but there is a balance and waiting too long doesn't make much sense either if speaking is a major goal.

I'm still quite happy using Duo as a main resource but it does introduce things in a very strange order at times. I've spent quite a lot of time on it now and feel like I've got quite far (although the tree keeps growing and I'm only actually about a third of the way down the page!) and it's introduced quite a lot of specific vocabulary, yet the simple past tense only came up very recently and it hasn't even touched the perfect tense yet. I'm glad I'm also using other resources that introduced these basic structures much earlier, like Coffee Break and Spektrum.

I've finished my re-listen to all of Coffee Break German, and started on the "advanced" episodes that they published recently. I figured that the word "advanced" would be very relative and used more in the language-course sense of "not complete beginner level" rather than the wider sense, not least because the host's German knowledge is hardly expert-level, and so far that's been accurate: one episode was revision of the perfect tense (focusing on some of the irregular forms) and one on word genders. Which is just fine for me!

As for other languages... I'm drifting away from Italian a little. I've often said that I still don't feel that my Italian is as good as I'd like since I still make many mistakes and still have to search for words and still don't always understand everything, but contradictorily I also feel that it's become a bit "too good"! In the sense that my level is higher and I've spent more time on it than is really justified for a language that I have no personal connection with aside from a few friends and a general appreciation for the culture.

I don't regret diving so deeply into it, I suppose it's been an enriching experience even if I maybe did it for all the wrong reasons (some of which I've written before, others even more personal), but it's been all, well, a bit much. So I'm quite happy to be diving into something else now, and in a more balanced and sustainable way: currently German but also Spanish now and again. I'm still enjoying Italian media from time to time and speaking the language with friends, and there are still so many parts of Italy I want to visit, so the language will always have its place in my life.
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Re: Languages and Life: Gary's log (Italian, Spanish, bits of French, and now German!)

Postby garyb » Sun Mar 27, 2022 2:57 pm

Been busy as usual, with the excuse this time being a professional exam on top of the usual work and social commitments, but German is still mostly moving. I'm realising that I've been at it for a good couple of years now and my level is still very basic, but I just answered my own question as to why in the last sentence and I suppose I've done well just to keep it moving at all.

Duo is still doing the job but I am starting to feel the lack of a more big-picture-focused resource. I've watched a couple more episodes of Kitz, which is terrible in most ways but is bearable and does have some genuinely funny set-pieces. More recently I've been getting in some more Easy German time again.

On the Spanish front, I finished reading the translation of Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, which I loved, and my friends' book club is now reading Metro 2033 which again is originally written in a language I don't know so I've grabbed a Spanish copy. But the main thing I want to improve is listening, so I'm trying to get more challenging subtitle-less input.

In an example of targeted advertising being just a little creepy, one day I logged into Netflix and one of the suggested categories was "TV series set in Barcelona". I chose El inocente, since I do enjoy a good convoluted Spanish crime drama, and watched it using Language Reactor's feature to hide subtitles, only checking them if I've not understood after the first time and a re-listen (which is also convenient to do because it lets you override the arrow keys to skip between subtitle lines). I liked it, although as is typical with Spanish-language series the juxtaposition of gritty violence (often sexual in nature here, so not recommended for people who aren't keen on seeing that) with soap-opera melodrama can feel a little off.

Travel is a thing again, and I'm planning to go to a music festival in the Netherlands next month with a stop for a few days in Amsterdam beforehand. I might learn some survival Dutch if I can be bothered - I realise that I'm extremely unlikely to need to speak it and efforts to do so would be pointless, but it would be nice to understand a bit of what's going on around me - and I've already noticed that with my German knowledge I can get the gist of some sentences.

I've never visited Amsterdam so I'm very keen to see it, and it's not purely a leisure trip: I'm aware that there are quite a few interesting tech companies and jobs there so if I'm thinking about London and Berlin then Amsterdam surely merits consideration too. A few days might not be enough to give me a real sense for whether I'd consider living there, but first impressions do count. I've always just associated it with sex, drugs and partying but by all accounts there is a lot more to it. The 30% tax ruling is also attractive, although whether it compensates for the skyrocketing cost of living is not clear. Again, staying in the UK is still probably my best choice financially but that's not the only factor.

On the exchange meetup I mentioned, I got mixed up last time: it's actually German/Dutch. I did think that the idea of a German/English exchange was a little too good to be true as I don't see the typical young German-speaker living in the UK feeling much need to work on their English unless they're really trying to perfect it. There are some more general language exchange events running again now, but life is busy enough already.
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Re: Languages and Life: Gary's log (Italian, Spanish, bits of French, and now German!)

Postby garyb » Sun Apr 10, 2022 11:25 am

I just did a few Dutch lessons on Duo, just for the hell of it. So far it seems even more similar to German than I thought! I'm not sure if I'll bother continuing for now (or if I do, I'll probably get much more bang for my buck with a different resource rather than one that starts at absolute zero and moves very slowly from there) but it's good to know that it could be a nice piece of low-hanging fruit in future if I keep up with German. At least in the sense of being able to pick up the basics quickly; I've learnt from my experience of still struggling with Spanish after learning French and Italian that there's really no such thing as a free lunch with related languages!

I have been a bit more serious with German again recently, now that my life has calmed down a little. Seems like there was a big rush to do lots of things as the pandemic regulations were being lifted but now everyone is finding a balance again and I'm usually getting a few free evenings and one free weekend day per week. Work-related studies are still the first priority, but I'm finding time for languages too. I'm settling into a routine of an Easy German video followed by a few Duo lessons, and time and motivation after that allowing then either rinse and repeat or work through a few pages of Spektrum. At this rate I might reach B2 in the next decade or two :D

I watched a French film the other day, Le samourai, which made me think that even in French my listening comprehension maybe isn't as good as I thought it was. That seems to be a common theme in my languages now. Obviously some films are much harder than others, and I've not studied French for years so can hardly expect to still be at my peak in any of the skills, but older movies are generally less challenging than modern ones so it took me a little by surprise. I used to think that listening was my strong skill in my languages and perhaps compensated for my difficulties with speaking, but in recent years I've become a bit more honest with myself.

I tried another more-or-less-randomly-chosen Netflix series in Spanish, Dark Desire from Mexico, which was billed as "crime" and "mystery" but so far just seems to be a full-on chick flick. I suppose the Mexicans have never confined themselves to just one genre, though. It's not too difficult to understand, apart from the Mexican slang which always trips me up.
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Re: Languages and Life: Gary's log (Italian, Spanish, bits of French, and now German!)

Postby garyb » Mon Apr 25, 2022 3:43 pm

I'm back from my travels!

As hoped, my basic German knowledge did make Dutch a little more decipherable. Still far from transparent, but I could figure out quite a lot of signs and menus without too much effort. Spoken language is a little tricker because I don't have much idea of the phonetics, so I couldn't follow much of conversations, but I managed to understand some announcements and questions asked by staff in stations, restaurants, museums, etc.

This brings up a good point about related languages: it's common for them to look similar but sound quite different, for example Spanish and Portuguese, so learning how letters correspond to sounds is probably the single most effective thing to do at the start or before a trip and it's what I should have done!

Hopefully next time I'm in a Germanic-language-speaking country my German will be significantly better so I'll enjoy the benefit more.

Amsterdam was great from a linguistic point of view: I heard all of my languages almost constantly while out and about there, and even in my hostel there were guests and staff from Italy, Spain, France, and Germany. It was mostly listening practice rather than speaking. There was a French guy but he was very keen to use his English, and when I did speak some French it was rustier than ever! I did get chatting with some Germans so I mentioned that I was learning the language and said a few words but I really didn't feel up to a full conversation. I was happy to just get some real-life listening practice since I hadn't even had much of that since I started learning.

The music festival also had visitors (and musicians!) from all over Europe and beyond. I heard German and French (as well as Dutch of course) practically everywhere, and quite a bit of Italian, not to mention some Scandinavian languages (I admit I can't tell them apart!) and some that I just had no idea about. Spanish wasn't as common but I did hear it a handful of times.

A few personal thoughts/realisations:

1. It reminded me of how much I love mainland Europe in general, and I loved being part of the free movement in the EU and the kind of community that it creates where the countries all have their own identities and cultures and rivalries but there's also a feeling of a bigger whole. I'm just saying this from a purely personal/selfish point of view and I don't intend this as a political statement (I'll say that I voted to remain as I felt we were better off in than out as well as my selfish reasons, but I also recognise that the EU has many flaws, any useful reform is unlikely by now, and free movement also has its disadvantages, so I understand the critics...) but it is something I took for granted for too long and it felt a bit sad having to get my passport stamped and be asked about the purpose of my visit and my return plans.

2. It was yet more evidence that I'm now much more at peace regarding using, or not using, my languages than in the past. I'm glad I'm well past that stage where every interaction with a native speaker was some sort of unmissable opportunity to practice and a battle to get them to "take me seriously". I just don't really care now. In fact I've probably gone way too far to the other extreme where I'm just fine with speaking English with someone who would probably quite happily help me with their language, and I'd like to find a healthier balance eventually. I'm sure the Germans in the hostel would've been happy enough to chat a bit more in German, for example. I'll find a balance eventually. Even bringing up the subject can be quite awkward, but also not mentioning it can be weird especially if it then comes up later. But for now it's nice just being able to chill and not feel the need to insist.

3. Similarly, I'm also feeling more positive about the place of English in the world and I think it's quite nice the way it's become used as a lingua franca in places like the hostel and the festival, and being a native speaker is a blessing and a curse in various interesting ways especially when you have an "unusual" accent... I mentioned on my log that it was a bit upsetting seeing so much English creeping into German in TV series, but from reading Is the spread of English a threat to German? and listening to real people speaking German (and Dutch) I've got a healthier perspective on that now. Younger speakers do insert a lot of English words and expressions, no doubt about it, and that will only continue but it's more a case of code-switching than of one language replacing or invading another.

4. I did mention that I'd try to evaluate Amsterdam/Holland as a potential place to live and work. Overall it seems like a good country (infrastructure works well, relaxed lifestyle, cycle-friendliness and relative lack of traffic, drug tolerance, good-quality housing...) although it didn't really grab me and pull me in and make me want to keep discovering more in the way that other places have (Berlin/Germany, most places I visited in Spain and Italy, etc.). Amsterdam was beautiful and fun to visit but a bit of a rip-off - the museums, food, entertainment, etc. were mostly very overpriced for what they were - but I know you can't really judge just by the tourist experience. Tilburg was maybe more of a genuine taste of life there, at least as much as it can be when the town is invaded by a few thousand metalheads for a festival. It's not a country I'm rushing to live in, but if I got a good offer I'd consider it.

At any rate I'm feeling very motivated to continue the German studies, having met a few friendly native speakers and perhaps for me German just represents all these nice things about Europe that I described and seems like a way to connect with that culture. Which I realise could be a dangerous way of thinking, similar to how I romanticised French and Italian cultures in the past based on ideas like that and a few positive experiences with people that didn't necessarily represent everyone there, and I don't want to go down that road again. But I think with the perspectives I have now it'll be easy enough to avoid that trap.

Right now I'm in that "back from holiday, now I want to do everything!" mood so would love to turn the German studies up a notch, but life might be getting very busy again in the near future so I'm trying to keep it sustainable. My timeline for job application preparation is moving along quickly, and it also looks like I'm joining a band which is something I've been wanting to do for a long time but could also be quite a commitment both in terms of time and of keeping me in this place if it goes well. We'll just have to see. I'm still off work until next week so that'll at least be a good time to kick-start things and maybe do a short burst of more intensive study.
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Re: Languages and Life: Gary's log (Italian, Spanish, bits of French, and now German!)

Postby garyb » Tue May 03, 2022 12:19 pm

As expected, the big German kick-start hasn't happened. I've had the motivation, but not the time, and that's not changing soon.

Joining a band has given me a good realisation/reminder about how I learn. My guitar playing has improved more in the last week than in the few months before that, because it's needed to. If I'm just playing in my bedroom or having a non-serious jam with a friend, I can get away with a lot of small-seeming mistakes and imperfections, but in a proper band these details become apparent very quickly so I have to pay attention to them and addressing them.

I see similarities in my German studies. I'm not paying much attention to the details because I don't really need to in order to understand easy-ish subtitled media and complete exercises in a textbook or app. Why go to the bother of properly internalising a grammar structure or learning new words when I can get full marks just by keeping them in short-term memory for the duration of the exercise? If I can understand a sentence, does it really matter which preposition and adjective endings were used?

I could say that's a criticism of textbooks and especially gamified apps that shift the goal from learning a language to completing exercises and scoring points, and there's some truth to that, but looking at the bigger picture these are still useful tools and my problem is again not having a reason to internalise these things properly. If I were going to Germany soon or had another real use for it, the details would start to matter and I'm sure I could make significant progress in a short period just like I have with guitar.

With French and Italian I solved the "problem" by artificially creating a need for the language with all these awful meetups and language exchanges as well as trips to the countries that were more focused on trying to get people to speak to me in the language than on enjoying the visit or having a break. I could do the same with German, and I have considered it - there are mentions of considering exchanges and meetups in my recent posts - but again I need to look at the bigger picture...

And this brings up quite a big question in life: should you make a medium-to-long-term plan and commit to it, or have a more carpe diem approach of being open to opportunities as they arise?

I've said before that I feel that making and sticking to my sensible and logical plan of learning French then Italian then Spanish was a mistake, and with hindsight I'd have taken a more emergent approach and admitted a decade ago that Spanish was clearly more useful to me and I would've got more pleasure out of it than French and cut my losses there and then, especially since once I did finally get onto Spanish it had become much less useful as I barely knew any Spanish speakers any more. But then, in other areas of life like work and relationships, keeping my options open and waiting for the opportunities to find me has just led to indecision and inaction.

My plan was to look for a new job (possibly elsewhere) in the second half of the year, spend the first half preparing for that, and then maybe afterwards put more focus on other things like music and languages. But I also had it in the back of my mind that this could all change if the right thing came up beforehand, be that a job offer or a person or indeed a band. Maybe that's the right balance.

Now I feel like I want to give the music thing a proper shot, rather than half-arsing it like I've half-arsed almost everything in my life so far - even languages to a large extent, although that's probably not been a bad thing. Even if this band ends up failing after a few weeks or months or I decide I don't want the commitment, which could well happen, I want to be able to say I gave it my best while it lasted. Again maybe this is the right balance: make a proper effort, but without being too invested in outcomes.

So to repeat, my German isn't going to get more serious any time soon, unless a real purpose for it comes up.

I also did something I had been thinking and talking about for a while and cancelled my Netflix subscription the other day, mainly just because I don't watch anywhere near enough to justify it. Language Reactor was a great resource, but not really the one I need right now: my German isn't really advanced enough for TV to be very productive and there's more than enough useful content available elsewhere, and I should be avoiding subtitles in my other languages.
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luke
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Joined: Fri Aug 07, 2015 9:09 pm
Languages: English (N). Spanish (intermediate), Esperanto (B1), French (intermediate but rusting)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=16948
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Re: Languages and Life: Gary's log (Italian, Spanish, bits of French, and now German!)

Postby luke » Tue May 03, 2022 2:31 pm

garyb wrote:I should be avoiding subtitles in my other languages.

I don't know the subtitle answer, but wonder if it has something to do with habit.

I.E.
Reason to use subtitles: Increase comprehensibility of input.
Reason not to: One can get to reading and tune out of listening.

I don't watch much NetFlix either. Homegrown content like youtube is more compelling. One can find videos about the music we like in the TL. That makes for compelling content.
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