A language learners’ forum

2017 - Summary of week 15

Daily Anki sessions in a number of languages - I still get new words in Esperanto, Mandarin and Portuguese (50 per day). My Cantonese deck hasn't reached 10000 entries, so I've failed the challenge. However, all my 1784 entries are "mature" (Since when? No idea.). Who knows, maybe I'll add another 8216 cards this year. Or not.

The Duolingo adventures continue - I'm close to a golden Spanish tree as well. The Romance languages are starting to make some sense in my brain (still only passively), and the recent thread Rounding out the Romance languages has given me some inspiration to actually activate (some of) them. Iguanamon posted a link to DLI Portuguese and I'm told there are Portuguese speakers in my town.

This is probably the third semester where volunteers organize German conversation meetups. They take place once every two weeks, at my work (!). I saw them today, but so far, I've never participated. Maybe next time...

I've read another ~100 pages in The Lost Symbol/Утраченный символ. I've also (re-)discovered Echo Moskvi.

Finnish? Welsh? Slovak? Latin? Greek?

Something about the last post of yours made me think of polyglot multilingual learning as a lot like multi-boxing in video games. I don't have legit experience at studying more than one language at once, but I can see how activation (or lack thereof sometimes) can play an important role in the balancing act. It also feels like multilingual moves would force a sort of programmatic form of thinking much like in computer science when you jump from 100 records to working with several million concomittantly. You end up developing power tools and generalizing (in a good abstractive sort of way) the skillset in some ways.

Thanks for your input, coldrainwater! I like variation. I like a lot of stuff. It may be slow way to actual progress but it will lead to progress.

From the book Refuse to Choose (which I mentioned a while ago):

"If you stick to this schedule - or any good schedule - you're building something in small increments. That's how skyscrapers get built."

"You work on something a couple of hours every day, and over time, you could build the Great Wall of China - if you lived long enough."

2017 - Summary of week 16

The daily Anki and Duolingo sessions continue. No new languages, no new level attained.

I've read another ~100 pages in The Lost Symbol/Утраченный символ. I read it English when it came out (in 2009) and still find it exciting. At the Polyglot Gathering 2014 (in Berlin), Judith "Sprachprofi" Meyer suggested reading page-turners like Dan Brown, and I like that. I've listened to more Echo Moskvi, not really to "balance" the skills, but to do something else.

From considering not to go to Slovakia for the next Polyglot Gathering (due to multiple factors), I changed my mind (!) and was about to register on Saturday evening. Then the hotel closest to the venue was full. I don't particularly enjoy walking mile after mile in a new town in a new country surrounded by a language I don't speak, and I don't particularly enjoy public transport - again, in a new town, in a... (call me lazy, but this is me). Anyway, the Sunday evening I found myself reading about how it works in Bratislava and it seemed fairly OK. I still haven't registered, but will post any major changes here on the log. If there is a God, make next gathering take place somewhere else. This is killing me.

jeff_lindqvist wrote:Thanks for your input, coldrainwater! I like variation. I like a lot of stuff. It may be slow way to actual progress but it will lead to progress.

From the book Refuse to Choose (which I mentioned a while ago):

"If you stick to this schedule - or any good schedule - you're building something in small increments. That's how skyscrapers get built."

"You work on something a couple of hours every day, and over time, you could build the Great Wall of China - if you lived long enough."

2017 - Summary of week 16

The daily Anki and Duolingo sessions continue. No new languages, no new level attained.

I've read another ~100 pages in The Lost Symbol/Утраченный символ. I read it English when it came out (in 2009) and still find it exciting. At the Polyglot Gathering 2014 (in Berlin), Judith "Sprachprofi" Meyer suggested reading page-turners like Dan Brown, and I like that. I've listened to more Echo Moskvi, not really to "balance" the skills, but to do something else.

From considering not to go to Slovakia for the next Polyglot Gathering (due to multiple factors), I changed my mind (!) and was about to register on Saturday evening. Then the hotel closest to the venue was full. I don't particularly enjoy walking mile after mile in a new town in a new country surrounded by a language I don't speak, and I don't particularly enjoy public transport - again, in a new town, in a... (call me lazy, but this is me). Anyway, the Sunday evening I found myself reading about how it works in Bratislava and it seemed fairly OK. I still haven't registered, but will post any major changes here on the log. If there is a God, make next gathering take place somewhere else. This is killing me.

Is it really full? Someone on Facebook had called the hotels and found they were full, but that's because the organizers have reserved a lot of rooms. If it's full, maybe someone who's already booked would be willing to share with you.

You shouldn't worry too much about the distance. Just buy a cheap abo to all public transport for the whole week. In Berlin most of us could stay in the building where the activities took place, which definitely is the best situation, but since that isn't possible in Bratislava just remember that the difference between staying within walking distance of the venue or within walking distance of a suitable bus stop isn't like the end of the world or being exported to Tonga. You can find public transport maps here and other information here (but avoid the ads).

Brun Ugle wrote:Is it really full? Someone on Facebook had called the hotels and found they were full, but that's because the organizers have reserved a lot of rooms. If it's full, maybe someone who's already booked would be willing to share with you.

Dominika (full!)
http://www.polyglotbratislava.com/accommodation-food/

Iversen wrote:You shouldn't worry too much about the distance.

Thanks for the links!

Don't worry, I more or less have promised myself (and our own Tarvos!) to go. It's just that this year presented a lot of hurdles along the way.

jeff_lindqvist wrote:Dominika (full!)
http://www.polyglotbratislava.com/accommodation-food/

No! This is what I get for not sticking to my budget

2017 - Summary of week 17

<Anki stats alert>
Esperanto
Mature: 14382
Young+Learn: 399
Unseen: 9027 (Huh? How many Tatoeba sentences did I add a year ago?)
Suspended+Buried: 0
Total cards: 23808

Mandarin
Mature: 21988
Young+Learn: 411
Unseen: 5099
Suspended+Buried: 0
Total cards: 27498

Portuguese
Mature: 8111
Young+Learn: 389
Unseen: 69951 (Oops, I thought, Esperanto was a tough one...)
Suspended+Buried: 0
Total cards: 78451
</Anki>

Duolingo: still a golden Irish tree (lvl 19 yesterday), and still quite close to having a golden Spanish tree as well. I'm pretty sure that some languages have more skills to complete, because they're far behind. It's one thing to go from start to finish in a month or two (as I did with French/Italian/Portuguese), but to keep everything maintained and in solid gold, that's a lot more time-consuming.

Bilingual reading - another ~100 pages of Dan Brown (which means +500 pages in the Russian edition, slightly fewer in the English one). I think I'll finish it this week.

What about the gathering? Yeah, I'm coming. Less than four weeks now to brush up any of these languages: Finnish, Italian, Slovak, Welsh. (=four of the ones I kind of started last year) Just kidding. As always, I'm happy if I can speak coherently in Swedish and English. I'm looking forward to lectures in a few other languages from the Germanic and Romance family.

2017 - Summary of week 18

Russian - I finished The Lost Symbol/Утраченный символ (!) and started Inferno/Инферно (same approach). ~70 pages so far.

Duolingo - lvl 19 in Irish and Spanish, lvl 18 in German and lvl 15 in French/Italian/Portuguese. (Wouldn't it be nice if Duolingo made up new sentences along the way, based on the same vocabulary?) By the way, I'm close to a 365 day streak.

I'm preparing mentally for Bratislava. My Finnish has disappeared, as have half a dozen other languages. I'll be happy if I can utter a couple of coherent sentences in the languages listed in my profile (sv/en/de/sp/ga/eo). I might do a few burst-sessions of one of the other Romance languages to activate passive skills.

A cold hit me like a truck on Thursday evening so I wasn't feeling well during the weekend. I spent some time reading fiction while listening to J.S. Bach.

I'm even managing to forget Norwegian. It's like my brain has very little space for languages.