Hare-brained language learning schemes 2023

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tractor
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Re: Hare-brained language learning schemes 2023

Postby tractor » Thu Jan 19, 2023 9:18 am

Le Baron wrote:
german2k01 wrote:How did your fluency come along in your target languages without depending on Anki?

The question is unusual in some ways, because the 'without Anki' scenario is the one I've had for most of the time. Without Anki I learned how to actively speak low intermediate Russian, basic Cantonese, intermediate Indonesian, Esperanto, some Welsh, German, Dutch, Sranan, to read Norwegian... Without most of the common methodologies and tools now used auto-didactically. And I expect it is the same for most learners on this site who pursued this before the advent of the WWW. I did use paper flashcards to help memorise the correlatives in Esperanto, though they're very regular. Anki and that sort of SRS is new and people have been successfully learning languages for ages before that.

I, for one, have never used Anki, except for trying it out for an hour or two a couple of years ago.
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Re: Hare-brained language learning schemes 2023

Postby rdearman » Thu Jan 19, 2023 9:36 am

tractor wrote:I, for one, have never used Anki, except for trying it out for an hour or two a couple of years ago.

Heretic! BURN HIM!!

:lol: :lol: :lol:
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Re: Hare-brained language learning schemes 2023

Postby badger » Thu Jan 19, 2023 3:46 pm

tractor wrote:I, for one, have never used Anki, except for trying it out for an hour or two a couple of years ago.

I, for one, welcome our new Anki overlords.
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Re: Hare-brained language learning schemes 2023

Postby Le Baron » Mon Jan 30, 2023 12:13 am

For when my next push occurs, I've been trying to consider that of all the things I've done over at least the last 5 years, which ones have been most productive. It's not that easy because you can't really untangle the possible effects over time. Short-term lots of things look like they don't work and some others seem like they work, but probably aren't that effective.

However... I went through the word lists and I was careful enough to make note of where the words originated when they came direct from books. It seems many of the words I've learned best, at least over the last six months, came from plays rather than novels. This is useful for me because for learning volume I like reading plays more than novels. They go more quickly for a start, there isn't a wall of text and the emphasis is on conversational use where it is much more easy to see words/meanings used in context. So this one is to be retained.

Watching TV though. I do it as much as anyone, but to be honest I don't find it as beneficial as some find it. I can watch one off programmes or short series of non-fiction, but a fiction series with dozens of episodes running for an hour feels like more effort than it's worth. In a non-fiction programme you don't need to work out any mysteries or convoluted plots and certainly not have to listen 25 times to some unintelligible scripted street slang at 95 mph. That's no way to learn or recognise words. So I'm knocking that on the head. Like in the past I'll do it in a different way I've outlined elsewhere.

Anki? I don't know if it 'works' or not. It seems like it does because I've learned many of the words in there and to be honest it's not something that feels like a chore to me. I don't panic about meeting it daily and reviewing the cards after a few days is not a problem. It's easy and seems to work, so I'll do it.

Listening is hard to manage. There's a bit of a trend for saying: 'I go for native level input as soon as possible..' Yes, well it sounds good on paper. What is 'as soon as possible'? And is it really a good idea to expose yourself to about 30% fragmented comprehension just to convince yourself you're really listening to actual x-language? I don't think so. So I think I'll spend more time on structured listening, like recorded dialogues, but with transcripts and useful commentary. This rather than jumping in at the deep end before I can even doggy paddle.

Apparently 'failing to plan is planning to fail', but as with all proverbs there is a counter proverb, and 'the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry..'
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Re: Hare-brained language learning schemes 2023

Postby rdearman » Mon Jan 30, 2023 10:09 am

Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. -- Mike Tyson
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Re: Hare-brained language learning schemes 2023

Postby Le Baron » Mon Feb 06, 2023 12:26 am

German day today. I watched the extended news on various German channels (NDR, MDR, SRF). Also some half-hour documentaries; one about people in entire villages near Hamburg being afraid of large influxes of immigration to the point of positing future 'war', which was a bit odd. I finished off with a film (produced in the former DDR): Die Geschichte vom goldenen Taler, which was rather good.

That's it.
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Re: Hare-brained language learning schemes 2023

Postby Le Baron » Sat Feb 11, 2023 11:09 pm

I'll put this here, because I have a low readership...my defence is that it has a hidden hare-brained language angle. 8-)

Obviously we've all heard about the earthquake in Turkey/Syria, but today it got me into an almighty disagreement with some people who ended up calling me 'right-wing' and 'racist'. :shock:

I was referring to the immediate action launched by among others Oxfam and Red Cross, trying to collect money from foreign countries (and individuals). There was this fellow saying that what needed to happen was to gather a massive financial fund (of euros, dollars etc). Yet this baffled me because even if it was a gift, a donation, rather than the usual crippling foreign loan, it isn't money that is lacking in Turkey, it is, they say, materials and manpower. If e.g. the EU was to send, say, 5,000 able-bodied workers, some experts' and some excavating equipment and even pay them all a salary for it. hell, even send them all on a year-long project to work on rebuilding, skill-learning and also building human cooperation links. Maybe pay for them all to learn Turkish! That would be infinitely better than vomiting anonymous foreign currency into a feelgood 'fund'. Where you gather together say 10 million euros/dollars/pounds and then what? Buy the majority of goods and services from the same people who 'donated' it and their private corporations? Seems fishy that doesn't it? A great boost for the sellers of goods and services...

But wait! There's also a hidden consideration in this. Isn't it odd to make a donation about the same size as, say, a government spending package, which then gets used to generate economic activity to deliver goods and services, when in the same breath the EU says it has to cut spending? Clearly this sort of thing, this 'mad Keynesianism' is actually quite brilliant.

In terms of Turkey though, they aren't really short of either manpower or natural resources or the financial issue to purchase it with! Whereas in Europe the local supply-shock weakness was uncovered by the pandemic once 'global trade' was slowed. So in truth they could forget waiting for the donation and take action. They probably won't because there's nothing better than donations of reserve currencies flowing into your coffers. Be clear though, I'm not saying they are nefarious or cynical or corrupt (though some of that will happen in murky corners), but that from every direction there is a lack of clarity in analysing the contradictions within this.
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Re: Hare-brained language learning schemes 2023

Postby lichtrausch » Sun Feb 12, 2023 1:28 am

Le Baron wrote:Obviously we've all heard about the earthquake in Turkey/Syria, but today it got me into an almighty disagreement with some people who ended up calling me 'right-wing' and 'racist'. :shock:

Those words get thrown around so casually these days that I assume the accusation is baseless until proven otherwise.
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Re: Hare-brained language learning schemes 2023

Postby Le Baron » Mon Feb 13, 2023 10:04 pm

The industrial sewing machine has a leak in the rubber part of the oil pump. It's almost invisible and I had to shine a bright light on it and prod it with a pencil to find the tiny slice which closes up and can't be seen. Yet when the pump is in action it drips oil and I found oil travelling down the small cable that feeds into the front of the motor. This is very irritating, though in one sense it will push me to install the brushless servo motor I bought over a year ago...or maybe two years, or three. :oops: If the machine gets low on oil from the oil bath that is not good, because it runs at high speeds; though I assume this is more an issue for a machine like that running all day in some sweatshop at the max 5000 stitches per minute. I like this machine though because it is super controllable and saves time. So having to drop back to an older (though still great vintage) 'artisan' machine slowed the workflow down quite a bit. I'm accustomed to the auto needle lift and flywheel brake. This machine is from the late 1930s and still works perfectly and purrs along nicely. So nicely that I must have been distracted when I accidentally sewed the sleeve seam back on itself.

I found some of the the pdf books to an old Spanish course, to which someone uploaded the audio to YouTube: Globo - Cursos de Idiomas . which seems to be from 1987. It's also Portuguese as the base language, but being a general dunce I didn't realise this at the time. To be honest though it doesn't seem to matter all that much, because all I really wanted were the transcripts to the 'top level' (their name, and in English, not mine) audio files which are quite lengthy extracts lifted from films/TV/radio. In fact I'm finding that the Portuguese isn't an obstacle at all and I'm learning words!

It's worth looking at the others on YouTube. There are ones for:

Italian
Spanish (basic)
Spanish (top level)
French (basic)
French (top level)

The basic courses have just under 100 audio units and the higher level 25. The audio in the 'top level' is quite a challenge.
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Re: Hare-brained language learning schemes 2023

Postby Le Baron » Thu Mar 09, 2023 5:28 pm

Today I took the bus (bad weather) to the city to pay a visit. When I got to where I was going I saw two people, in thin raincoats, mid-30s maybe, looking at the yoga place next door. The woman said (in Dutch): 'Oh, a workshop...but it's all in English! I can't read that!' I didn't catch what the fellow replied because he was facing away.

I went to investigate for myself and the two posters in the window were indeed in English. As was the schedule. So I asked the woman if she didn't know English and she said, 'well yes, but only basic talking.' Then said some English things like 'how are you?' and randomly 'can I have a hamburger?' I was about to tell her I didn't have a hamburger on me to give, but held back. Then the fellow said lots of shops have little posters in the windows or advertising written entirely in English. I didn't argue with him because it's true. Before going off they asked if I knew of a shop in the area buying and selling old postcards... I didn't.
In fact I've been so struck by this English poster thing in the past I actually asked inside a shop what it was all about. I might have even logged it here. I remember the young woman explaining something about capturing 'all customers'. I did ask how many of the clientèle were non-Dutch speaking and she said 'I don't know'. Seems like wasted effort. However what it apparently came down to was English as a trendy default 'marketing language'. Though it's not much use if you have people like that beraincoated couple reading (or rather not reading) it. All this is very puzzling.

I have lost momentum for study. I should be quite panicked, but I'm not. I gave myself time to slack off to do other things. Many of those things I have got done, but there is only a month left before I plan to restart. In the meantime I've only been maintaining in a rather slack way. I have actually been passing by the central library as I said I would. To read the foreign papers (German, Spanish, French magazines for which I can't afford a subscription, short articles in the Italian, though that's more muddling through). Even after the new year change I was still regularly listening to Spanish radio podcasts, but last week I didn't take my music player with me (I don't like or use smartphones) and actually enjoyed the 'silence' and the sounds around me. Feeding a TL into your ears for hours at a time per day, sometimes 4 or 5, can be very mentally exhausting. In fact I've spent more time noodling through Spanish grammar (gramática de uso del Español) than anything else. It's a rest from having relentless talking in my ears. So it confirms for me the need for a rest and change. I need to let Spanish steep and brew for a while without putting it into 'storage' where it can get 'rusty' and all that stuff we know about where it needs oiling and movement to make it work again. I don't want to have to re-learn a lot of stuff.

I can say now I do not feel like learning anything from scratch. The 'wanderlust' is weak and easily overcome. Norwegian is the strongest candidate for reactivation right now.
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