Aokoye's Journey Through German (and other languages?)

[aokoye]

Anki is going well - still plugging away at reviews every day. I also finally finally added some new cards from the Aufbau section of the vocab book. I had already typed the words into a spreadsheet but it was a matter of forcing myself to put in the sentences as well. I just finished typing in sentences for 47 words earlier this afternoon. I finished my reviews for the day but I think I'm going to start on the new words this evening.

Per my first post in the Course Completion Challenge thread I've finished chapters 4-6 in the Grundwörtschatz workbook. It's a really well put together workbook and I would highly recommend it.

I started reading the book I mentioned in my last post, Ohne Geld bis ans Ende der Welt, last week. I read the first chapter and it was actually pretty interesting! It's also small enough to easily carry around in my backpack. I plan on try to read it while I'm on the street car and don't have other things (namely my book for History of English) to read. I also just barely started on the first page of the second chapter of Studio C1. I was at dinner with my mom and my aunt who is visiting and brought it. At one point while we were waiting for our food they were talking about something that I really just could not deal with hearing so I tuned out via reading the first little bit of the second chapter. If I remember correctly it was a summary of a book as you'd see on the back cover of a paperback. Not exactly interesting if only because the book didn't sound interesting to me but definitely real world material.

I also got seasons 1-3 of Türkish für Anfänger and binge watched episodes 3 through 7 of the first season. I was more than slightly horrified by the bits about Axel as he relates to - well really everyone because dear god boundaries! If that were to happen in real life the therapist would have lost her license in the blink of an eye. And yet somehow I still kept watching.

Oh and so I started New French with Ease yesterday (not shocking). I need to reread some of the better ways to go through the book. My goal is to do a chapter a day which would have me finished on October 31st. My thought is - listen to the audio two or three times without the text, listen to it two times with the text, shadow the audio at least twice with and without the text, and listen to it a final time. After all of that then I would do the exercises (which I guess for the first phase are shadowing and making sure you understand the sentences). I know Emk, among other people, has written a lot about his methods of getting through the Assimil books so I'll read some of his posts later this evening. I suppose at some point I'll have to change the name of this log to reflect the French.

Goals for this week:

• Finish the first four pages of the second chapter in the textbook OR the first two pages of the second chapter in the textbook and all of the associated workbook exercises (that don't involve writing an essay).
• Finish at least 6 pages in the vocab workbook
• Add another chapter of words to Anki from the vocab book (this isn't hard so much as it involves motivation)
• Do Anki reviews/new words every day
• Do a chapter in Assimil every day

[aokoye]

I updated the title of my log to take into account this attempt at French that I'm making. Today was day 4 of 113 with Assimil. I also ordered the CLE Vocabulaire Progressive du Francais Niveau Debutant from Amazon yesterday during their Prime Day sale. I won't use it until at least early to mid August (when my classes end and I have more time) but I was buying a few other books and said the hell with it.

Anki is still going well. I finished adding words for the first two pages of Ch 2 (dear god so many words - mostly from an excerpt of a book) yesterday and finished learning them today. I also learned 15 new words in the Aufbauwortschatz deck. . I need to add the sentences for the chapter three vocab book words but I don't have the energy today which I'm ok with. I think having days off of learning or going over words that are pretty new to me (in so much as I don't know their meaning, I've seen some of them before) is a good thing and I still do the reviews that are do.

Yesterday was a hard day with listening comprehension, or so it seems. I watched two episodes of Türkish für Anfänger and had a noticeably harder time than I usually do when I watch anything in German. I also ended up watching a doku like show that rated the store brands of various foods to see if I would have an easier time. I was planning on watching the news but that program sounded more interesting and was 45ish minutes as opposed to 19. I did have an easier time understanding (I tend to watch a lot of cooking shows in German - more so than in English at this point, so this isn't exactly surprising) so that was nice but I still felt a bit off. Earlier that day I read 10 pages in the book that I'm reading right now.

I don't feel like I've done a lot today in terms of language. I did Anki and Assimil but nothing else. It really is an issue of energy and being busy for much of today. That said I did have a voice lesson, eat lunch with a friend, do a midterm online for my online class, and go to group therapy so that is kind of a lot in general. I think I'm going to reread those first two pages of the second chapter from Studio C1 to work on comprehension now that I've gone over the words in Anki.

Goals for tomorrow:

• Finish one page from the Studio C1 workbook
• Finish at least four pages from vocab workbook
• Assimil French with Ease Ch 5
• Anki

[aokoye]

I meant to post this yesterday evening but upon waking up see that I apparently didn't hit "submit"! Went through and tried to change time related words (naimly "today" and "yesterday") so it makes sense but if there is some discrepancy that's why.

Despite having a rather crappy day emotionally, I managed to exceed my goals for yesterday.

Anki went well ok - nothing to report on that. Depending on how much vocab I add from the C1 book today I might also add words from the vocab book.

I did seven exercises in the Studio C1 workbook, which is to say all of the workbook exercises that correspond with the first two pages of chapter 2 in the textbook. I ended up rereading those two textbook pages yet again in the process of doing the workbook exercises which, while less than exciting, was somewhat useful. I think my goal for today will be doing the next two to three pages in the textbook. That's going to be dependent both on my mood and how well my school work is going. I have a take home midterm for my History of English class that is due on Tuesday and that takes priority.

I ended up doing six pages of the A1-B1 vocabulary workbook which was really fun! Each two page spread involves a short series of texts on the left (often with illustrations) and a number of exercises on the right hand page. The B2 workbook is similar but the texts are more complex and are longer at times. I probably would have done another two pages but I'm just too tired.

Assimil is still going well. I liked the 5th chapter, which I completed yesterday evening, more than the 4th. So far what I've been doing is listening to the recording once without the book, listening to it and reading the English along with it once, listening to the text and reading the French as many times as it takes for me to internalize the meaning, then shadowing it at least twice. Finally after that I listen to the recording again without the book and without shadowing. After that I listen to the exercises part once or twice and read it out loud (not shadowing). I also do the cloze (fill in the blank) exercises in my head. During the active phase I may put those into Anki.

I was very tempted to crack open my Swedish textbook (Rivstart A1-A2) yesterday. A friend in my linguistics class took two years of Swedish at my uni (which, at my school, takes you to B2) and we were talking about how great the professor was. She was trying to convince me to study it again. Someday this will happened, probably in March of next year. My goal is to stick out Assimil French with Ease and possibly do the Using French book as well. I'm taking Modern Hebrew in the Fall and I don't have the time or energy to study Swedish on top of that, French, and German. I'll likely be stopping with any real studying of Modern Hebrew after the winter quarter ends (sometime in March 2017 I think) for logistical reasons (long story involving financial aid) and at that point I'll either shift my Hebrew focus to Biblical Hebrew or tack on a Germanic language. My uni's bookstore should, however, have the B1-B2 Swedish textbook in stock in the Fall so I'll probably pick that up because I know I'll want it at some point, it's a great series (the second half of the Rivstart series), and it'll be easy to get.

Goals for Friday the 15th:

• Two pages in C1 textbook (writing down and looking up unknown words and then putting those into Anki)
• At least one show on ZDF or at least one episode of Türkish für Anfänger
• At least four pages in the vocab workbook
• Assimil Chapter 6
• Anki
• Not touching my Swedish textbook

Also for all those who are in France - you are in my heart.

[aokoye]

So I tried and failed with Assimil French. I realized (again?) that doing a course that requires me to or assumes that I will do a specific thing (in this case read through a handful of pages) everyday that isn't also a classroom sort of course just isn't sustainable for me. I still like the idea and if my depression wasn't so volatile it would probably work incredibly well for me, but as of now it's just not feasible. The other problem is that I just wasn't motivated enough even though I do really want to learn French. At some point I'll probably work through one of my French for Reading books but the motivation for that will be more concrete because I want to be able to read linguistic texts in French.

I ended up giving in to Swedish (I know) but I think this will go better for a few reasons:
1. I speak German at a pretty high level and am a native English speaker.
2. I have an acquaintance (who I will probably end up becoming at least distant friends with) who speaks Swedish at the B2 level who I have a feeling will have no problem encouraging me.
3. I love finding the similarities and differences in Germanic languages. It's fascinating and incredibly enjoyable for me.
4. I did take a few months of Swedish (before I had to drop it and various other classes - thanks depression). I think I'm going to try to ask above acquaintance to get me in touch with the professor that I had as she really was wonderful but I was too scared to go to her and tell her what was going on.

I'm also taking a different stance on how I approach this course - I'm not imposing a deadline like I did with Assimil. I'm using the Rivstart A1 + A2 course and it would be nice if I could go through the first 4 chapters in two weeks. There are 20 chapters in total and I think I got to chapter 5 before I dropped the course some odd years ago. Chapters 1-6 are A1 and 6-20 are A2 which is a weird way of breaking it up but oh well. I noticed in the second version of the book they don't show where the break in chapters between A1 and A2 is.

I also have the B1+B2 workbook which I bought on sale for something like $5. I will more than likely buy the textbook in the fall when the bookstore is selling textbooks for the Fall term. While it would be nice if I could finish the A1+A2 book by then, I'm primarily wanting to buy it then because it will be the easiest way for me to get it. I won't be in a situation of potentially finishing the first book and waiting for a few weeks to get the second.

[aokoye]

Swedish has been overtaking German right now and I'm not sure how I feel about it. Really it's more an issue of letting Anki slide with German (I will pay for this in the end) because of stress and school and then the 6 Week Challenge spurring me on with Swedish. I am seriously thinking about visiting a friend in Vienna next summer if I can swing it financially (at this point that's all it comes down to) which would be really nice. I'm also probably going to chat with said friend on Skype this week and hopefully we will speak more German than we did last week (I was being shy and barely spoke German - she did her BA, MA, and PhD in England so her English is really good. I am still thinking about going through one of my grammar books later this month and into September though - we'll see. I also still watch plenty of German language TV shows.

The Summer school term ends on Sunday or whenever I do my final for my online class which is very exciting. Right now I'm swamped with studying for school thus haven't been able to study as much as I want. I have a final for my psych class that's due on Sunday at 11:59pm (it's online) and a final for History of English (a linguistics class) on Thursday - I also have a problem set due Tuesday.

Despite all of this Swedish is going surprisingly well. I have learned 495 words via Anki in the past 17 days which is impressive for me. It's also part of why German has gone by the wayside. I can't intensively study two languages at a time AND do school (which takes precedence). I also just finished the 4th chapter of Rivstart and am still enjoying it. My main issue has been needing to find more audio input, having some trouble remembering the gender of nouns, and needing to find some sort of grammar workbook. My local library has a copy of Pimsler but it's currently on a holdshelf. I just put a hold on it this evening but unless the person who has the first hold doesn't pick it up I won't get it for a month or so (I'm not actually sure how long it would be - I would have to look it up). Teach Yourself also has a new Swedish grammar workbook out called Swedish Tutor: Grammar and Vocabulary Workbook. There's a review on someone's Tumblr blog that makes it looks ok but I'm fairly wary about buying it because there's no real preview of pages of the book. The review does have some photos and it does seem like it's pretty good but I wish I could look at it before buying it. Yes I can always return it if I buy it from Amazon or Powells, but still. Really I just wish Routledge had a Swedish grammar workbook but they don't.

Right now I'm doing about a chapter of Rivstart in two days of actually studying from the book. That is to say it takes two days of applied studying to get through a chapter. There are days when I'm not working from the book because of school (and life in general) but there will hopefully be fewer of those days in the coming weeks. That said the one good thing about not taking a day off of working out of the book is that I get ahead of the vocab. I don't like starting new chapters before going through all of the vocab of the previous chapter through some sort of flashcard system. Rivstart also has useful online exercises so If there are days when I don't work from the physical book I tend to do exercises online.

Lastly I'm going the Duolingo Swedish tree as extra vocab practice. I have no doubt that all of the vocabulary on Duolingo will be in the first Rivstart book but the reinforcement is nice.

[aokoye]

As of now I've apparently learned 640 Swedish words! I have Anki set to show me 30 new words a day though there have been a few days when I've set it to only have me review words. Those have mainly been days when I just have too much stuff on my plate. I also just finished up the 5th chapter of Rivstart this afternoon. I feel pretty solid on most things but I'm going to make myself go over the nouns and drill the plural forms this evening. I've been telling myself I should for the past several days but with school it's just not been a priority.

My summer classes are more or less over. I have a final to take tomorrow for my online class and then I'll have six weeks off - thank god. I'm pretty sure I got at least a B on my history of English final which means an A in the class.

German has fallen a bit by the wayside for school and Swedish. It's more or less in a holding pattern and I'll pick it up again once the 6 Week Challenge ends. I mean I am reading occasional articles in German and chatting with friends in German, but I'm not doing anything outside of maintenance.

In terms of Anki - I really have finally figured out how to make i be useful for me - after years of frustration off and on. With Swedish I have it set for L1 to L2 with me typing in the answer in Swedish. When I take Hebrew in the fall I'm probably going to have it set the same direction but not with me typing it in. I am a bit less invested in writing Hebrew than I am Swedish for whatever reason. I mean really it's that I don't have much motivation to get past a basic level in Modern Hebrew in terms of producing language (as opposed to receptive skills), at least as of now. That and I know once March comes around (or whenever the spring term is) I won't be taking Hebrew classes and will focus my Hebrew skills solely on reading Biblical Hebrew which, for me, is far more useful.

Back to Swedish - I'm not sure what to do in terms of finding things to read. There is 8Sidor but it isn't interesting to me. For better or worse the 7th chapter of Rivstart starts introducing longer texts and, given that it's taking me about two days to get through a chapter, I should be there soon. I also have the 1990 edition of Colloquial Swedish so I could thumb through that.

[aokoye]

So I just spent two hours drilling plural forms and I must say - I feel significantly more confident than I did two hours ago.

And now I'm going to spend half an hour copying vocabulary into a spreadsheet so I can put it into Anki. I have all of the vocab for chapter 6 in there but that's as far as I've gotten.

[aokoye]

Let me just say, my depression does not lend itself to allowing me to study languages....or do much of anything. I ended up losing an entire day of just about anything yesterday (Monday) and really Thursday through Monday was a bit of a joke. I managed to do Anki all of those days save for yesterday but really I didn't do much else. It doesn't help that I was sick this weekend as well which I contribute to my depression. Yesterday consisted of a surprisingly good swim in the morning and then I watched documentaries for essentially the rest of the day.

Today I'm feeling significantly better but really my better comes nowhere close to most people's ok. Yay for treatment resistant depression? Basically my baseline is constant depression and then it gets worse every so often, generally at least once a week sometimes less sometimes more. This is also why I go to therapy twice a week (five years of trying to find a medication/mix of medications that worked while also being in therapy was fruitless sadly).

I did find a Swedish show that I really like though! Tunnelbanan. It essentially follows Subway police in Stockholm. It reminds me a bit of the various airport documentary type shows as well as the various border control shows (though I will admit to not being able or willing to watch the US border patrol show - I just can't). It's totally my sort of show. Needless to say, I quickly learned the Swedish word for drunk (berusad). I'm watching it with Swedish subtitles and I can understand what's going on in most of the segments which is nice. It's also allowing me to hear a larger variety of voices in terms of sheer number of people. It is based in Stockholm but there are teenagers, adults, inebriated adults, people yelling, recordings of phone calls, etc.

I'm also thinking about restarting my bullet(ish) journal but we'll see. It wouldn't just be language but language, exercise (swimming and biking), etc.

Oh also in other good news - I ended up getting in an A- on my history of English class.

[Elenia]

Well done on the A, and thanks for the Tunnelbannan recc. It doesn't sound like my kind of show, but the mix of different types of speech sounds like an ideal challenge. I'll try to pop it into my watching at some point.

Even when you're having a bad week of it, you are still more consistent and a better student than I am. I have barely gotten anything done this week, and while I would like to blame swollen gums and a bad stomach, I also haven't really got anything done in the weeks preceding, either.

[aokoye]

Thanks Elenia! I think the reason why I'm able to tolerate Tunnelbanan is that I keep thinking, "wow if this was in the US the police would not be acting this way." I also think that the reason I'm even kind of able to get stuff done when I'm really not doing well is that right now I'm on break from school so I have nothing in terms of responsibilities to fill my time with for the most part. I mean I have therapy twice a week, music lessons (voice and classical guitar, though no voice this week), and I go to synagogue some Friday and also Saturday but that still leaves most of my time free.