Werk, Obair, Rad, Kazi - the four steps to success

[Vedun]

So, I've got a few things to write about:

-Non uso nessuno Italiano e senso, che la mia abilità di usarlo abbassi. Come ogni volta, dopo che andi a studiare un'altra lingua. Il problema è, che non so che fare, come mantere il mio nivelo. Forse devo ascoltare dei audiolibri, come alcuni altri sul forumo fanno. Ma già non riesco fare tutto ciò, che ho pianato a studiare per il giorno. Anc'ho provato lavorare sulle tutte le mie lingue per una settimana, ma avevo cominciato troppo e non podevo continuare. Mi piaciono lingue come Ungaro, Vietnamo, Puolo e Noruego, ma simplecemente non ho tempo per le tutte. Perchè forse ricomincerò la mia routine di prattica settimanale, però questa volta senza le lingue di fuoco secondare.

-La prima y última via, cuando hablé en español con una otra persona no pedí entender que él dizó después de treinta segundos (y no pedí dezir ningún, pero ya he esperado eso). Parece, que tenga que mejorar mi oiremente oído y aún más, que es probable, que tendré hablar de nueva. No sé de donde comenzar, pero he visto alguno hablando de rtve.es y quizá de allí. Parece prometedor.

-Ich habe gedacht, dass ich jeder Tag schaffen werde. Ja, aber nein. Sowieso, ich setze mit der Ansehenug der Videos fort.

I'd like to write more, but I've already been writing this for more than an hour, so better stop now. Really should come up with a way to write faster.

pp. apparently this forum automatically logs you out after set amount of time of inactivity. Thankfully when I went back the text was still there. Yet another reason to learn faster writing.

[Vedun]

Heute versuchte ich sich reden, um meine Sprachefähigkeitenniveau zu schätzen. Der beginn war langsam, aber nach manche Minuten konnte ich mehr leicht reden. Eigentlich war ich überrascht wie viel ich mich erinnerte auch wenn ich etwa Hilf vom Wörterbuch brauchte. Also das Reden war nicht lang, sonst ziemlich kurz, aber trotzdem bin ich froh. Morgen rede ich wieder. Vielleicht auch auf anderen Sprachen. Myös jatkan kurssini kanssa.

[Vedun]

My progress seems to stagnate again and I guess part of the reason is lack of clear goals or just any goals. Also every time I seem to have adopted a habit of learning something sometime during the day, after a while I have to stop just for a day or two for various reasons, e.g. travel and do not seem to pick them back up. To that end I intend to post my progress and immediate goals on a weekly basis, not unlike many others do here; and also list my constant or long term goals. The updates I think will be on Sundays or Mondays.

Weekly goals, as in each week if possible:
-Daily duolingo lessons, at least one, whatever course.
-Immersion at least once in current target language - can be video, radio, reading.
-Writing at least once in current target language.
-Optionally immersion in some other language.
-Optionally also writing in some other language.
-Very optionally, going through all active or semi-active languages of study. (actually maintained that for a few months)

Goals for next week:
-Finish watching the video series I have started - unlikely, but will still give it a try.
-Review the Basque grammar I've gone through - been intending to do this for quite a while.
-Finnally finnish the Supisuomea course - again more of a wishful thinking, even if it's just a lesson and half remaining.

Done this week:
-Nothing much, just some video immersion and a bit of SS.

[Vedun]

Weekly goals, as in each week if possible:
-Daily duolingo lessons, at least one, whatever course.
-Immersion at least once in current target language - can be video, radio, reading.
-Writing at least once in current target language.
-Optionally immersion in some other language.
-Optionally also writing in some other language.
-Very optionally, going through all active or semi-active languages of study. (actually maintained that for a few months)

Goals for next week:
-Finish watching the video series I have started - unlikely, but will still give it a try.
-Review the Basque grammar I've gone through - been intending to do this for quite a while.
-Finnally finnish the Supisuomea course - again more of a wishful thinking, even if it's just a lesson and half remaining.

Reality check:
-Only video immersion done.

Done this week:
-Same as the last.

Will be busy, so no special goals for this week.

[Vedun]

Progress report:
-Done duo ru->de each day since monday 1.11 - only thing from the goals.
-Also did short clozemaster sessions 1.11 mon thru 5.11 sat - for nor, de, ru, fin and ita.

It's been slow, but steady week and defnitely better than most of last month. This week I'll only try to maintain the steadiness as I still have lots of work.
Interestingly, last week as I started practising Norwegian for the first time in year I started recalling random things in Norwegian I'd learned years ago. I remember more than I expected. Surprising, I also started recalling things in Hungarian I learned about a year ago in duo - how come, I wonder.

[Vedun]

Only did duolingo, up until Thursday. For most of next week I'll be busy almost all day long, so I don't expect much activity, but when I can help it, I'll try to do learning in the morning instead of in the evening, so I'm no longer in the it's-so-late-and-I-really-need-to-go-to-sleep scenario. Also looking forward to restart using Anki sometime soon after a several years of pause.

[Vedun]

The good news is that I have an opportunity language practice upcoming this week. This made me study and revisit more than usual last time, so will likely this time around, too. Also I'll try and write here in a target language each Monday, even if only a single liner.

The bad news is that I made hardly any progress this week - only one session in duo. For the most of the week I had no access to internet and couldn't practice. At least it'll be easier to make more progress this week.

The ugly news is that the dates for the next conference are overlapping with another important for me event. :/ I want to attend both. As there is still about half a year ahead I hope I'll find a way somehow to do some magic and make it happen.

[Vedun]

Did some immersion this week, but besides that, not much.

Lately I've noticed my progress suffers because of lack of direction, an endgoal. Having 'do this and that each week' is fine and all, but apparently not of much use in and of itself; what happens is that I initially follow the guidelines, then they soon become dull and repetative, then I have an urgent task to do and devote most of my time to it, not doing all the goals for the week and not before long those alleged goals are empty strings I don't follow.
My goal is to make actual measurable progress and not maintain some streaks and therefore I think it's high time to organise my learning around that. I will come up with ways to measure my progress, set up some standards and check my skills against them, set clear definite paths for learning to achieve those standards and follow them until reached.

---

All resources and methods I use or have ever used for a significant amount of time, plus my opinions on them:
-Duolingo - great start for a language, but gets repetative towards the middle and end of the trees and at that point I have the feeling I could learn much faster via some other resource. Disproportionally high amount of L2 > L1 exercises, L1 > L2 l-ack almost entirely; in some cases reverse trees are available, but then the course isn't structured about your TL. Laddering, when available, seems the best option, as at least you can practice one more language.
-Anki - good for vocab, had no impressive results for it though. As with all SRS methods I feel like I'm learning more to translate automatically on prompt instead of the actual language.Still so many people can't be wrong about it.
-Memrise - used to like it in the begining, but then the interface got clumsier and slower and honestly don't like it much now. Seems like a mess.
-Clozemaster - so far probably the best SRS I've used. The only two issues I have with it, both serious, are that you can't pick the words you learn and not before long you seem to memorize the sentences instead of learning the words. And yet it's of great help. Reverse learning isn't as helpful as I hoped.
-LWT - good for immersion, but it seems too slow for me.
-Readlang (bookmark overlay) - a better version of LWT, but it has its shortcomings - you can't select the dictionary and there doesn't seem to be a way to clear the list of translated words; eventually you'll have to reload the page if you want to see the new translations.
-Lingualy, the app - so far perhaps the best dedicated immersion software. Its only, but serious, flaw is that the list of available articles to read doesn't seem to update often or at all. Also, limited list of languages.
-Lang8 - just kind of lost interest in it. Didn't seem to be very populous when I used it and corrections seemed to be slow to come sometimes.
-Dedicated language courses, offline and online - most seem good, but are just not my type of thing. I have completed very few and most I lose interest or motivation in about 1/4 or 1/3 of the way in. Maybe I just need to get some more sitzfleisch.
-Writing in TL on the internet - mostly I don't have what to write about and quickly run out of ideas. Also don't have where. Tried writing in some L2 forums, but was quickly overwhelmed. Idea: resume writing my updates in TLs. Not sure why I stopped.
-Reading TLs on the internet - I don't do this much mostly because I don't have from where. Used to frequent two or three news sites, but one by one I lost interest in them all. When I read I tend to eventually lose focus and the line of thought. Even more so for videos.
-Grammar sumups - used to post these on my old blog over at HTLAL; also on sticky notes afterwards. Everytime I wrote one it's been helpful in some way. Maybe should resume writing them on my blog.

---

And I think that was it. Now I'll somehow come up with plans and paths for each and every target language(about the same ones as in my sidebar), one for progress and one for maintenance. Won't go into details here about how I go about it, since it'll take me hours to write, though.

Todo for this week:
-Set up goals and engoals.
-Come up with ways to measure progress against them.
-Finally come up with a definite bucketlist and extended bucketlist.
-Come up with roadmaps for language progress and language maintenance.

[Vedun]

Here's what I've been thinking for the roadmaps so far:

• Fluent level
  
  • Maintenance: Some sort of both active and passive usage, weekly(?). Honestly don't have much idea yet, as only English falls in this category for now and I didn't have to do any effort to maintain it. Will see what I'll come up with when the time comes for another language.
  • Progress: There's not much to progress after this point. I aim for basic conversational fluency - could go for more, but prefer working on other languages thereafter.
• RHW level
  
  • Maintenance: About two paragraphs of writing, like 6 to 10 sentences, w/ lookup of unknown words and likely adding them to SRS, prolly Anki, and 15ish minutes of listening - video or radio and some kind of vocab drills - most likely clozemaster - 20ish minutes.
  • Progress: Analysis of what skills and areas(grammar, vocab, collocations) are still missing to express myself freely. Do this once and work on them one by one. If after completion I still don't consider myself fluent, make a new list of gaps or otherwise examine what I'm still missing for fluency. Speak when given the opportunity.
• RMHW level
  
  • Maintenance: One revisement duo sessions if duo course is available, laddering if available and sufficiently advanced. Otherwise revisement of the course or method I'm learning from. 30 minutes of SRS (e.g. Anki or Clozemaster), not necessarily in one session, but at least 5 mins per session. That and 15ish minutes of listening - video or radio. A couple of sentences of writing.
  • Progress: Some kind of grammar drills, different each time if possible. If none exist, try and make them mentally w/ manually checking answers later. At least 10 mins of them. Active vocab acquisition by SRS, adding new vocab by topic. Maybe advance on the language course, especially if important grammar areas are not yet covered.
• EDO level
  
  • Maintenance: Same as above, but with optional listening and more course revisement sessions (two or three). Also not necessarily as much writing. As if a couple of sentences is a lot of writing.
  • Progress: Choose a course and stick to it, most likely from duo. But as I often feel late on in the courses that I could be progressing faster at that point, I wont follow them to the end and instead stop when I feel sufficiently advanced. Write (extensive) grammar sumups when stumble upon seemingly hard grammar. Again, SRS sessions.
• WROD level
  
  • Maintenance: Make mentally a couple of sentences, just maybe post them here. Every now and then tease myself by doing a course lesson.
  • Progress: By definition I don't actively learn these languages. When I feel like to, I'll move them to EDO level.

The actual way forward:

1. Each week do all progress activities for one language. Of two only when I've completely done the first one and really have nothing else to do.
2. Each month do all maintenance activities for all languages.
3. Throughout the week keep notes of whatever activity I do - on a notebook, on a text document on my desktop, wherever. At the end of the week, sum them up in a post here and note which languages remain for maintaining.
4. At the end of each month, do a monthly summery of what languages I've revisited and progressed on and some commentary. If necessary, alter the scheme in order to improve learning. Also do a reality check of how doable everything is. But do this for at least two months.

Ifs and buts:

1. Won't be doing progress on any language in a given week if something more important is completely occupying my time or necessitates to (e.g. excursion).
2. Might especially change the way I do SRS or learn vocabulary altogether if I find that again I'm learning how to translate on prompt instead of acquiring active vocab. Note: Only do L1 -> L2 translations whenever possible.
3. If for a month I need to focus my efforts on something else, I may cut times on activites - but not drop them altogether!
4. In similar vain, if work necessitates it, I'll cut times on activities in order for all them to be doable.
5. Transfer all grammar sumups I've done so far to my blog. Over time, not high priority.

Let's see how that translates in maintenance time:

• RHW level: 3 x ( ~45 min + ~15 min + ~20 min ) = ~240 min
• RMHW level: 3 x ( ~15 min + ~30 min + ~15 min + ~30 min ) = ~270 min
• EDO level: 4 x ( ~40 min + ~ 30 min ( + ~15 min ) + ~20 min ) = ~400 min
• Learning progression: 4 x ( ~40 min + ~10 min + ~45 min ( + ~15 min ) + ~45 min + ~30 min (+ ~30 min ) ) / 3* = ~280 min // * Note: averaged the three levels.
• Total: ( ~240 min + ~270 min + ~400 min + ~280 min ) * 20% time for pauses and misc = about 1430 minutes per month - that's 23 hrs 50 min - say it 24 hrs per month.

Conclusion: It equals out to just under 50 mins per day, which is doable, but it won't hurt to learn to write faster in a language still under learning. Also not very scalable in the long run, will have to cut some maintenance activities. Maybe mastered languages don't require nearly as much time to maintain?

Still need to come up with:
-Set up goals and engoals. - Goals for each of my made-up language levels.
-Come up with ways to measure progress against them. - Basically check when I've climbed up the ladder of made-up levels.
-Finally come up with a definite bucketlist and extended bucketlist.

p.s. Forgot to include reading activities for language maintenance on RHW and RMHW level and don't feel like redoing all the math. Call it about an hour a day and an article per language on RHW or RMHW level.

[Vedun]

Last two weeks I didn't do anything - off to a sloppy start. I did figure out that I'll move levels up when I find the current activities no longer challenging, or, with higher priority when available, when able to gauge my ablities in speaking with others. In the latter case the names of the levels will be taken literally.

In order to build strong habits of learning, I need consistent times of practice - for now I'll set these to the morning before any other activity (when possible), perhaps for half an hour, and in the evening between 21:00 and 22:00 when no urgent work on anything else is needed. Earlier I said that the time needed to do all my activities equals out to an average of just under 50 minutes a day, so setting apart 90 minutes a day for completing that should be enough... I hope. And if I'm done early I won't strain myself with additional work just for the sake of filling up all that time.

Begining with today evening, I'll keep to that schedule and I'll keep notes somewhere of what parts of the roadmap I did for the respective session. On Sundays or Mondays I'll post briefly what I did during the respective week (and month) and see if I was able to complete everything planned.