Systematiker's attempt at a log
Posted: Tue May 17, 2016 12:48 pm
Hi folks,
I'm "back", so to speak. In the other forum I was "belardur", forgot that continuity when I re-registered here. Back there I was active in 09/10, and again in 13 or so, but dropped out when things got wild. I'm back because 1) I've got time to get back into doing some stuff with my langauges, 2) some aspects of what I can and can't do irritate me, and I appreciate the support, and 3) I'm really irritated by what's happening to my German.
So I'm going to try to update things here, maybe knowing that some of you are reading this will motivate me.
It's a different situation than it ever was: before, I was in college or grad school, and my wife (or whatever she was at the time, gf, fianceé) was also into language learning (it's actually how we met). Since then, I've gotten a "real" job (seminary and university professor, and Lutheran pastor, as well as doing DE-EN academic translation) and we've had a child, which means we're not switiching between four or five languages in conversation any more (because OPOL). And, of course, we now live with my native language around us all the time. Oh, and resources are nothing like what was around us in München.
When we moved to the States, I quickly regained an accent in German (I could pass before, with regional dialects), but in the last few months I've noticed myself also making grammar mistakes and not being able to recall words - which surprises me, since I still consume a great deal of DE media, and about half my work library is in German.
I've got to work on my Spanish, and I'd like to work on French. In both languages, I can read academic works, literature, and popular novels, struggle a bit with movies and podcasts, and usually flop when it comes to conversation. I've noticed with Spanish that I can "charge it up" in a few hours by spending that time in the language, and I'm much better, but I'd rather have it naturally than have to do that, plus I don't always know when I'll be in that situation. I imagine French will work the same. So I don't even really know what to do with them, since I'm missing bits from advanced stuff in my active capacity, and lower-level stuff bores me to tears.
I'd like to be able to produce Latin, and perhaps Greek, simply because I want more facility with the languages. I can usually read both without a dictionary. Unfortunately, I've lost most of my Hebrew, and I really need to get it back (need, but not want...)
Somewhere out there also is a desire for these various other languages. Dutch, because it was easy to pick up, and at one point I was doing academic-level conversation and reading in it, but now it's pretty much all gone. Italian because it's a shared langauge that my wife and I have both let drop, and we like the culture. Other Romance stuff for various "it's pretty" or "why not this, too" reasons. I've played with Old English and found it fascinating. I'm interested in pretty much everything I've tried over there on that "languages" section, though I realize I probably can't get to all of it. And Korean. Korean is my nemesis. I've tried to learn Korean three times. My best friend in the world (apart from my wife) is Korean. At one point, I traveled in-country using no English. I just can't get over the hump with it, and I lose it super fast.
Yeah, so in light of all of that: I managed about half a podcast in French this morning....
I'm "back", so to speak. In the other forum I was "belardur", forgot that continuity when I re-registered here. Back there I was active in 09/10, and again in 13 or so, but dropped out when things got wild. I'm back because 1) I've got time to get back into doing some stuff with my langauges, 2) some aspects of what I can and can't do irritate me, and I appreciate the support, and 3) I'm really irritated by what's happening to my German.
So I'm going to try to update things here, maybe knowing that some of you are reading this will motivate me.
It's a different situation than it ever was: before, I was in college or grad school, and my wife (or whatever she was at the time, gf, fianceé) was also into language learning (it's actually how we met). Since then, I've gotten a "real" job (seminary and university professor, and Lutheran pastor, as well as doing DE-EN academic translation) and we've had a child, which means we're not switiching between four or five languages in conversation any more (because OPOL). And, of course, we now live with my native language around us all the time. Oh, and resources are nothing like what was around us in München.
When we moved to the States, I quickly regained an accent in German (I could pass before, with regional dialects), but in the last few months I've noticed myself also making grammar mistakes and not being able to recall words - which surprises me, since I still consume a great deal of DE media, and about half my work library is in German.
I've got to work on my Spanish, and I'd like to work on French. In both languages, I can read academic works, literature, and popular novels, struggle a bit with movies and podcasts, and usually flop when it comes to conversation. I've noticed with Spanish that I can "charge it up" in a few hours by spending that time in the language, and I'm much better, but I'd rather have it naturally than have to do that, plus I don't always know when I'll be in that situation. I imagine French will work the same. So I don't even really know what to do with them, since I'm missing bits from advanced stuff in my active capacity, and lower-level stuff bores me to tears.
I'd like to be able to produce Latin, and perhaps Greek, simply because I want more facility with the languages. I can usually read both without a dictionary. Unfortunately, I've lost most of my Hebrew, and I really need to get it back (need, but not want...)
Somewhere out there also is a desire for these various other languages. Dutch, because it was easy to pick up, and at one point I was doing academic-level conversation and reading in it, but now it's pretty much all gone. Italian because it's a shared langauge that my wife and I have both let drop, and we like the culture. Other Romance stuff for various "it's pretty" or "why not this, too" reasons. I've played with Old English and found it fascinating. I'm interested in pretty much everything I've tried over there on that "languages" section, though I realize I probably can't get to all of it. And Korean. Korean is my nemesis. I've tried to learn Korean three times. My best friend in the world (apart from my wife) is Korean. At one point, I traveled in-country using no English. I just can't get over the hump with it, and I lose it super fast.
Yeah, so in light of all of that: I managed about half a podcast in French this morning....