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Re: Jeff's language log
Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2017 11:18 pm
by jeff_lindqvist
2017 - Summary of week 4Another week when I was a little bit behind my planned schedule! As I had finished
Sturmbringer (the final Elric book, in German translation), I was planning to do study some grammar - but I couldn't find my grammar book! (It's still invisible) Instead, I started reading a German science-fiction story called
Sakriversum (it was written some decades ago, and takes place in the "future" - which in this book is
2018.
). I did a lot of Duolingo work (sometimes several sessions a day); I finished a Slovak phrase book and went back to the Slovake.eu lessons again; I kept reading in Irish; (and for computer-language related work: I studied many Javascript lessons on Codecademy; and found my way through the command line in Ubuntu).
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I won't have a lot of study time this weekend. My only hope is Sunday.
Re: Jeff's language log
Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2017 3:30 pm
by Iversen
jeff_lindqvist wrote:2017 - Summary of week 4
(...) I was planning to do study some grammar - but I couldn't find my grammar book! (It's still invisible)
Methinks you should stop reading spells in your phantasy books aloud in the presence of cherished belongings?
Re: Jeff's language log
Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2017 10:44 pm
by jeff_lindqvist
You're probably right - maybe it'll reappear if I read the whole Elric saga backwards.
Re: Jeff's language log
Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2017 7:45 pm
by jeff_lindqvist
2017 - Summary of week 5
Last week was mainly spent on Duolingo and Anki, with some occasional reading sessions (doing my best to catch up). I continued with the Kuulostaa Hyvältä series and did grammar exercises in Russian. I was at a birthday party where people code-switched effortlessly between Swedish and Norwegian. I also heard Somali (perhaps for the first time).
Re: Jeff's language log
Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2017 9:41 pm
by jeff_lindqvist
2017 - Summary of week 6Things don't always work out as I hope. I'm still behind my schedule - but Duolingo works fine (277 day streak). Funnily enough, sometimes (say, once a week?) when I'm about do run through my languages on the phone, the app gives me 10 points as soon as I choose the first language. I've also noticed that "Strengthen my skills" has 21 questions whereas any individual skill only has 17 questions.
I spent some time reading German and working on Russian grammar. Semi-language related activities include the Norwegian drama series "Valkyrien" and the Danish "Badehotellet", but I don't add that to my spreadsheet. I finished "Outliers" (Malcolm Gladwell) - the book that made the 10,000 hours idea famous. I've started reading "Refuse to choose" (Barbara Sher) - this book was recommended in the thread
Several Projects vs. Perfectionism. It looks promising.
I've lately spent more time on computer-languages and martial arts, but that's life. I'm working this weekend so once again, my only hope is Sunday.
Re: Jeff's language log
Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2017 10:52 pm
by jeff_lindqvist
2017 - Summary of week 7Mainly Anki, Duolingo and Russian grammar last week. The current theme is "The genitive used to denote possession". It has been a long time since I studied Russian regularly, but usually it only takes an exercise or two to get used to the concept. Now, to use it in practice is another thing... Something I like about the book (
Russian in Exercises) is that you repeatedly encounter the same kind of vocabulary. There's a lot of книга, преподавател, карандаш, студентка etc.
Perhaps I'm the only one who instinctively translates "Where is [insert noun]?" with "Cá bhfuil...?" regardless of the Duolingo language I'm working on. Is super gaeilgeoir mé.
Re: Jeff's language log
Posted: Wed Mar 01, 2017 10:48 pm
by jeff_lindqvist
2017 - Summary of week 8
Oops, time for a late update. Another week of mainly Anki and Duolingo. Some language-related activities at work, e.g. finding decent study material for Korean (we had two dictionaries: one Swe-Kor and the other one Kor-Swe). I also meet native speakers of Finnish and Urdu on a daily basis (though my knowledge in Urdu is limited to a handful of phrases).
Other than this, I spent some time on learning/reviewing mathematics at Khan Academy and Python at Codecademy, I had two three-hour sessions of Irish music (bhí an-craic againn!), I worked on the 2x2x2 cube, I did my daily program of wingchun and silat, and I kept reading Refuse to Choose. It feels like it was written for me.
Re: Jeff's language log
Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2017 10:48 am
by jeff_lindqvist
2017 - Summary of week 9
Another week of mainly Anki and Duolingo. A long time ago, I imported Tatoeba decks for Esperanto, Mandarin and Portuguese. The software still gives me 50 new sentences per day.
I been working on/reviewing my Mandarin with the Interactive Chinese set of books. I read the dialogues and the grammar explanations and then do the exercises. I mix this with listening to the same content (though usually not on the same day).
I got inspiration to spend some time on Cantonese after watching the movie Iron Monkey (with Donnie Yen) - I understood one full sentence!
-無影腳.
Re: Jeff's language log
Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2017 11:04 am
by DaveBee
jeff_lindqvist wrote:I got inspiration to spend some time on Cantonese after watching the movie Iron Monkey (with Donnie Yen) - I understood one full sentence!
-無影腳.
Always exciting to hear a whole sentence!
Re: Jeff's language log
Posted: Tue Mar 14, 2017 1:06 pm
by jeff_lindqvist
2017 - Summary of week 10
The Anki and Duolingo adventures continue. I haven't added new words for quite some time (except Cantonese the other week).
I like to mix activities - not strictly according to the Four Knights approach, but maybe grammar work one week, listening another week and so on. Some skills aren't maintained/developed at all. For instance, I don't write in any other languages than Swedish and English. I rarely speak (heaven forbid!). For German I mix reading (Sakriversum) and listening (currently Reise um die Erde in 80 Tagen, Jules Verne).
I heard some Italian at work during the weekend thanks to the event Primavera Italiana in my town.