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

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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 Apr 25, 2023 10:26 am

I overdid the Spanish-audio gaming while I had Covid and have what seems like a bit of tendonitis in the wrist, so I'm trying to limit my computer time to give it some rest. I normally spend a lot of time at the computer without issues, but all that clicking to shoot in FPSs will've done it; from a bit of online research in gaming forums it seems like there's a lot more to correct mousing position and technique than I realised! It's a bit like going straight into running long distances without first making sure your running technique is healthy. I do have an ergonomic mouse, but that only goes so far and different designs suit different people. Anyway, my travels will be a good opportunity for rest if it's not better by then.

Of course it's an annoyance for my interview-prep studies, which are my main priority and have been going well. It finally occurred to me to use Anki to help retain information: I find that I keep having to learn the same material again and again and it never seems to stick, which I just blamed on inconsistency but it seems I was also on the wrong side of the forgetting curve and might need to study smarter as well as harder. So far I think it's helping. I just need to be sensible with the settings to avoid overload, especially since the cards are for tasks that can take 5-30 minutes, rather than vocabulary ones that you review in a second or two. I'm hoping to front-load most of the new cards in the next few weeks before my trip, so that by then it's all reviews.

On the plus side, it's another good reason to do less Duo and more textbook work and input for German, since the latter involve less typing and clicking. I've put my Duo daily goal down to 20 points, which is two normal lessons allowing for mistakes. Tatort consumption is still high. I also attempted some Harry Potter yet again, and it's finally seeming doable which is a sign that my vocabulary has grown and solidified in the last few months. I can sometimes breeze through several paragraphs, managing to fill in gaps with knowledge of the story and educated guesses, before hitting a wall of descriptive language.

As well as the usual Spanish and Italian, a French video came up in my YouTube recommendations the other day and I watched it. French is also a language that comes in useful now and again when travelling, and mine is very rusty: recently I happened to have an imaginary conversation in my head in French (as we all do, right?) and was unable to remember how to say some relatively basic things in any sort of natural way. Some listening now and again might help to keep it fresh.
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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 May 09, 2023 2:07 pm

My German studies have slowed down again, despite the impending trip. Job-hunting stuff is just taking priority, and there's almost a feeling that however much I try to cram German in the next couple of weeks it's not going to be enough to speak or understand very well so why bother? Not the most positive attitude since every little helps, I know. I did however sign up to a German meetup next week as it's long overdue and it would be good to test-drive my German before visiting the countries, although now I'm not sure if I can make it.

Trying to freshen up my French has been a good excuse to listen to Grand bien vous fasse, which is one of the things I genuinely missed about my past French studies, along with the generally much higher quality of TV compared to my other languages.

Speaking of TV, I have been watching more of the Tatort episodes from different areas of Germany. Batu the undercover agent and Lindholm's complicated plots of international conspiracies are a nice change from the more straightforward procedural stories, although watching a Köln one always feels a bit like going back home since they were my introduction to the series. I should try to catch some Munich and Vienna episodes before my trip though!

Part of me is still considering searching for work in Berlin, and I had a little look on LinkedIn at what's available. Not loads, but potentially some interesting things. It's one of these heart-versus-head things, where rationally it doesn't seem like a good choice (housing crisis and expense, overcrowding, I'm going off big cities and would rather be closer to sea and/or mountains, I could likely make better money elsewhere, I dislike some aspects of the culture there and am not too fussed about the partying and techno although I realise it has much more to offer, and did I mention the housing crisis?) but despite all that I still feel very drawn to it. Or maybe a different and more "German" part of Germany would suit me better than likely ending up in a big expat bubble, but Berlin is where a lot of the work is.

Anyway I'm getting ahead of myself and I think that since I'm not strongly enough convinced by a particular place, my best bet is to focus on finding the right job, wherever that might be. And with the state of the industry at the moment, I might not even have many choices.
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tastyonions
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Re: Languages and Life: Gary's log (Italian, Spanish, bits of French, and now German!)

Postby tastyonions » Tue May 09, 2023 2:46 pm

I'm also a fan of Grand bien vous fasse. In a somewhat similar vein is Zoom zoom zen also on France Inter.

French public radio is pretty good, definitely among the best for my TLs.
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Re: Languages and Life: Gary's log (Italian, Spanish, bits of French, and now German!)

Postby Sonjaconjota » Tue May 09, 2023 5:31 pm

garyb wrote: Speaking of TV, I have been watching more of the Tatort episodes from different areas of Germany. Batu the undercover agent and Lindholm's complicated plots of international conspiracies are a nice change from the more straightforward procedural stories, although watching a Köln one always feels a bit like going back home since they were my introduction to the series. I should try to catch some Munich and Vienna episodes before my trip though!

I'm completely out of the habit of watching Tatort now, but there was a time I loved it.
Something similar happened to my parents in Germany. They used to watch one every night, because you could always find an old one on some of the channels. And at some point, they were so fed up they just stopped.
I can't stand the Köln ones, but Batu was one of my all-time favourites.
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Re: Languages and Life: Gary's log (Italian, Spanish, bits of French, and now German!)

Postby Le Baron » Tue May 09, 2023 5:33 pm

garyb wrote:Anyway I'm getting ahead of myself and I think that since I'm not strongly enough convinced by a particular place, my best bet is to focus on finding the right job, wherever that might be. And with the state of the industry at the moment, I might not even have many choices.

Sometimes the place and the job choice mesh nicely once it has been fixed up. I would have been happy to carry on in a French-speaking scenario and area and even if I had to shift further north I could have tried in Brussels. However the missus insisted on coming up here, much further north and eventually to NL. The job simply pushed me towards making all the other parts fit. Nothing is ever smooth (job, housing, area), but I'm glad I chose to move to the area where the job was rather than either commuting a long way or being somewhre where the jobs are thin on the ground.

Also Berlin or another city has suburbs or even nearby villages. Once you're more established you can shift away from those tourist trap/expat hubs and only go there for work or whatever else. That was the best thing I ever did here.
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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 May 09, 2023 7:10 pm

Le Baron wrote:
garyb wrote:Anyway I'm getting ahead of myself and I think that since I'm not strongly enough convinced by a particular place, my best bet is to focus on finding the right job, wherever that might be. And with the state of the industry at the moment, I might not even have many choices.

Sometimes the place and the job choice mesh nicely once it has been fixed up. I would have been happy to carry on in a French-speaking scenario and area and even if I had to shift further north I could have tried in Brussels. However the missus insisted on coming up here, much further north and eventually to NL. The job simply pushed me towards making all the other parts fit. Nothing is ever smooth (job, housing, area), but I'm glad I chose to move to the area where the job was rather than either commuting a long way or being somewhre where the jobs are thin on the ground.

Also Berlin or another city has suburbs or even nearby villages. Once you're more established you can shift away from those tourist trap/expat hubs and only go there for work or whatever else. That was the best thing I ever did here.

Yeah, it does feel like in my situation (both the current job hunt and my life in general!) I need to find one thing that's worthwhile enough to make the others fit around it, be it a job or a location or a person or whatever, and right now the job seems the most likely. That said, London is almost undoubtedly my best bet career-wise but I'm not too interested in it these days so it would have to be a very interesting offer!

I do enjoy city living at least in my current small-ish city, and somewhere like Berlin I'd want to be close to the things that attract me to it in the first place, but I could definitely see myself wanting to be somewhere quieter and less transitory after a year or two. And most jobs in my sector only ask people to be in the office two or three days per week now anyway.

I've also considered the remote-working / digital nomad option, which could open up a lot more possibilities, but if I moved somewhere new I'd prefer to work with people there in person at least at first. However if I stay here, working remotely for a London-based company and going there once a month or two is quite an attractive option.
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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 » Mon May 15, 2023 10:40 pm

I'm on a new computer and I just spent over an hour writing a big log post about the German meetup I went to, then I got the old login bug where I had forgotten to re-tick Remember Me (after ticking it the first time then getting the captcha question thing) and it asked me to log in again and the post was lost even when I tried to go back. And that was after finally remembering my password, since the password reset function simply doesn't work. These issues have been going on for years and I'm honestly tempted to not come back :( But maybe I'll get the motivation to rewrite it in the next few days.
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Re: Languages and Life: Gary's log (Italian, Spanish, bits of French, and now German!)

Postby Le Baron » Mon May 15, 2023 11:00 pm

I've done this a couple of times, it's irritating. Most times I now remind myself to write posts in the text editor beforehand. The pain will fade away. :) However, I would like to read about the German meetup, so get busy composing it you lazy tyke! :lol:
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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 May 16, 2023 4:54 pm

Ah, peer pressure... Slightly shorter version of the post but should have all the main points.

So I went to the meetup, after almost pulling out at the last minute. I could've joined friends at the cinema instead, I had done no meaningful German study in the last week so wasn't exactly feeling prepared, and I was afraid of not being able to hold a conversation and being "that person"... But I ignored that noise and stuck with my commitment. And I'm happy I did!

It was about as good as a meetup could be, and I know since I've been to plenty of bad ones in the past! It was mostly serious intermediate/advanced learners, a couple of native speakers, and the organiser, whose level was similar to or a little below mine. Speaking with him was a great way to warm up without much pressure and he then introduced me to some other people.

As expected, my speaking was pretty poor at first and I had a bunch of Spanish interference, but it did improve as I got more used to it and I impressed myself with a few reasonably long and complex sentences. One-to-one conversations were easier but I did get a few words in bigger group ones.

It confirmed my idea that vocabulary is a bigger obstacle than grammar: often the case and adjective and gender agreement all came quite automatically, provided that I could remember the damn word and remember (or failing that, guess) its gender in the first place!

My listening comprehension was also solid (as I'd hope after all the listening I've done!) and I didn't have difficulty following most of the conversation, although there was one German who spoke quite fast and I couldn't always keep up.

The seating arrangement was a long beer-hall-style table, which can sometimes be awkward for a bigger group but in this case it was ideal: it forced people to break off into smaller groups, avoiding the situation of a whole-table conversation being dominated by two or three people as can often happen at these events.

A few other thoughts, again mostly confirming ideas I already had:

- Speaking needs to be practised! For me, at least. Listening and study do get you quite far, but nothing really prepares you for the mental and physical act of putting thoughts into words and getting them out your mouth to people apart from actually doing it. Even my improvement over the evening was very clear, although a big part of that was just gaining confidence and loosening up, and I think that speaking ability follows something like a logarithmic curve: you can go from bad to okay pretty quickly, but progress really slows down after that.

- You can't understate the importance of knowing the basics really, really well. Especially common verbs (to be, to do/make, to go (with all its versions in German), to say, to think, to try, there is/are, to be interested in...) and time words (time in general, time as in a time, before, after, since, ago...). If you're tripping over that stuff, any more advanced knowledge isn't much use. I know that, and I've based my learning strategy around it, but I still found some weak spots.

- Speaking with other learners at or above your level does have its place and can be a lot better than nothing. Moderation is key, but if you're getting plenty of native input then a few learners' mistakes should be a drop in the ocean.

- As usual, any sort of colloquial language always disproportionately impresses people even if it's so common that it's hard not to learn it. People were amazed that I knew what a WG is (Wohngemeinschaft: shared house/flat), yet it's a term that comes up in pretty much any material or discussion about ways of living.

- I'll be back for sure! Even if it means giving up some Monday evenings, which I try to reserve for me-time.


Now I have to spoil the good mood with today's news...

I just had a call with a recruitment company in Germany (also covering Spain and the Netherlands) and it's sounding like my prospects for a European move could be even worse than I had thought. I could probably find something, but the options and salaries seem to be much less than when I was looking four years ago (along with the higher cost of living) plus there's the whole extra complication of getting a visa. I might still get lucky, but I'm not getting my hopes up, and there's only so much I'd be willing to sacrifice my career for "life experience".

It's hard not to regret not taking the opportunity while I did have it and it would've been much simpler... Also a bit of a downer after having spoken to people who had lived in Germany last night who were recommending it. And on that note, I also looked more into Australia recently and the situation is similar: not many companies offering jobs, even fewer sponsoring visas, and they're about to extend the working holiday visa from up to age 30 to 35 which would be great if I hadn't just turned 36. Yeah, I should've spent more of my twenties doing rather than daydreaming.

Anyway there's no harm in trying and sticking with my strategy of focusing on the job rather than being set on a location. And I'm off to Austria on Friday so don't want to think too much about work until after that.


On the media front, I got a Prime free trial (not the best timing when I'm about to go away, but I'll take it) and started watching an Austrian film, Without a Trace) (Immerstill). Yep, I might have some trouble with that accent! Although it's set in small-town Austria so maybe it's stronger than in the cities.
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Re: Languages and Life: Gary's log (Italian, Spanish, bits of French, and now German!)

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Tue May 16, 2023 9:55 pm

Le Baron wrote:I've done this a couple of times, it's irritating. Most times I now remind myself to write posts in the text editor beforehand.


A simple copy/paste before submitting has done the job for me since the late 1990s. No reason to compose offline or to use other software.
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