Lilly's log - French, Russian, Spanish and Italian

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blaurebell
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Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby blaurebell » Sat May 06, 2017 8:02 am

Russian

More reading in Russian and so far I managed to reach my goal of 2h at least every day. Yesterday I was very tired, so it was a bit of a struggle, but I kept going and with the last couple of chapters the pages stayed at a relatively comfortable 15-25% new words level. I've read 228 pages in Russian now and I'm fairly certain that after my first 500 pages I'll be in the zone where reading starts to become fun - that usually happens around 10-20% new words.

Russian hours: 2.33h

Spanish

I finished watching another episode of El tiempo entre costuras, which remains mildly entertaining and only very slightly annoying. I can definitely keep going. In the evening we decided to watch a Mexican movie about the assassination of Trotzky, which I'm not really counting for Spanish, since it was only about 25% Spanish. The rest was English with bits of French and Russian. I didn't need the Spanish subtitles at all and could even follow the 3 or 4 sentences of Russian just fine!!! Yay for understanding movies in 4 languages! Still, I was a little disappointed because I actually wanted to hear some Mexican Spanish and there was only very little of that in there. I also did another lesson of GdUdE before bed, a tedious one this time.

Spanish hours: 1.58h

French

I had a headache most of the day, so I only did my Russian reading and instead replaced my book before going to sleep with a radio documentary. Most of it turned out to be Germans speaking French and, although I'm not quite sure, I think I actually heard a few mistakes. That's pretty cool, since it means that my mistake detection mechanism is kicking in already! After only 280h of listening and minimal grammar study 8-) I don't really have any concrete plans to activate my French any time soon, but I'm reaching the point where I could do it!

French hours: 0.88h

Total: 4.79h
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: 100 / 116 GdUdE B
: 8 / 72 Duolingo reverse Spanish -> German

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blaurebell
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Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby blaurebell » Thu May 11, 2017 1:15 pm

I've been neglecting my log a little, because it's already annoying to log my progress in 2 different places - 6WC bot and my own Excel sheet.

Also, I had to face realities and admit that I desperately need to get some work done. I had a deadline for an exhibtion to meet and I actually realised that I only shot two rolls each in March and April, what a dismal achievement! Ok, I was ill, but oh boy, I really seem to be in the middle of a crisis. Going through the "funk" is relatively normal for artists, so I'm pretty used to getting into this state about once a year. It usually happens either during rainy season or when this place is full of tourists and every picture turns into a picture of a crowd. However, my last funk went on until September - tourist season -, and things are definitely out of whack when I get this two times a year! My suspicion is that I didn't actually overcome my last funk for real and only painted over it by buying a new lens. Such a beginner mistake! In any case, in Germán, últimas viñetas there was this one scene where Oesterheld, who was a well-known Argentinian comic book writer, says that he actually likes crises, because they force him to reinvent himself. Apparently his best work came out of such crises! I wish it would work like that for me, but I just get into a dark mood and get sick of people for a while. That's not a good place to be for someone who mostly takes pictures of people and it's even worse in a place where it's relatively difficult to get out into nature - it usually involves climbing some sort of mountain.

To get myself out of the funk, I signed up for a photography workshop that involves lots of strange toxic chemicals and crazy big cameras. Probably not something that I will integrate into my practice much, since the plates have to be developed wet and the chemicals stain like mad. I neither have studio space at the moment nor a car, and this flat isn't ours either, so working with this stuff for real would be quite difficult. However, I hope playing around with it for a weekend will get me into a better mood - funky instead of funk ;) And how is that related to language learning? The workshop is entirely in Spanish and will be 1 1/2 days long with a guy who used to teach in Buenos Aires. So, lots of Spanish practice! Incidentally I also asked an Argentinian photographer for an interview for the magazine and offered to do it in Spanish if English is a problem. I really really want to interview her because she's amazing, so it would be totally worth the additional effort of translating it. I only have to write the questions, so the actual Spanish part of it should be doable.

In light of these added Spanish requirements I decided to speed up my grammar mission a bit and do more than one lesson of GdUdE a day. Today I managed 3 before I got sick of it! At this rate I will be finished with it much more quickly than I planned and maybe it helps a little to give me more confidence. I don't normally have problems speaking about photography in Spanish, in fact I had a lovely half hour chat with one of the teachers of the photography school today, but it's one thing to have a chat and another to engage in 1 1/2 days of workshop when dealing with material that is ever so slightly dangerous. Uhoh! I better get moving!

By the way, I learned a new local expression today, which I didn't understand at all: "en metálico" apparently means the same thing as "en efectivo", so cash. I would have totally guessed it for a small amount, but paying the sum in question in coins would have been ridiculous, so brain decided not to compute. After a bit of a blank stare from my side she said that I couldn't pay by card and then I was like "Aaaaah, por supuesto!" Continually lost in translation between Spanish and Argentinian! Other than that I didn't really have any problems speaking, although there were a couple of words where only English and French popped into my head :roll:

Other than that I also got a whole bunch of new books in French that are relevant for my PhD. And since that's all a lot of work work work I'm happy that there was also a new French comic in the same package! And my Russian 6WC? Well, I seem to have too much on my mind to concentrate on anything. I hope it gets better in a few days after I have some of the most pressing work out of the way.
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: 20 / 100 Дэвид Эддингс - В поисках камня
: 14325 / 35000 LWT Known

: 17 / 55 FSI Spanish Basic
: 100 / 116 GdUdE B
: 8 / 72 Duolingo reverse Spanish -> German

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blaurebell
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Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby blaurebell » Fri May 12, 2017 1:32 pm

I love it when I get new books that I really wanted to have. My husband buys a lot of books on a whim or because he might get interested in them at some point in the future. I am different. Normally I just buy the books I need and nothing else unless there is a voucher that needs to be spent or I accidentally stumble over something at the second hand bookshop. The books on my bookshelves that I haven't read make me feel guilty somehow. The problem is that I need to be in the right mood to really enjoy a book or otherwise I will get distracted, so sometimes books sit on my shelf for a few years before I finally get to them. Buying a lot of books would therefore mean to accumulate a lot of guilt over books that I still haven't read. There is a trick of course: I don't feel guilty about the books my husband buys, so I implicitly encourage his book buying addiction. This way I have access to a nice library and don't feel guilty over books that I haven't read :D

Right now I'm in the mood to read about Russian stuff in French - very particular and nothing my husband would buy - so I'm devouring my new work related books that I ordered myself: The first one I grabbed out of the latest delivery is Le vin de solitude by Irène Némirovsky and since yesterday I already read 100 pages! Very enjoyable. I hope the other two books will be just as engaging! Before bed I'm still reading the Expanse in French translation and I'm about halfway through the first book now.

Today I finished El tiempo entre costuras. The problem with it is neither the acting nor the plot, it's that the main character infuriates me. The only way to stay as naive as she does over years is to be really a bit thick and that doesn't really go with the plot. So, the main character just isn't believable to me, even if the plot is to some extent. Generally not a bad series though, although it of course helps if you want to see all your stereotypes about women confirmed :roll: In any case, I'm another 14h closer to my goal, 124 of 150h Iberian Spanish done! For my Argentinian SC we're also watching Cromo and En terapia right now. I don't think anything has happened in the last 5 episodes of Cromo, it basically stretches a plot for a movie to 12 episodes :roll: Boooooring. Now that we're more than halfway through it seems like we should finish it though. En terapia on the other hand is really enjoyable and we often watch 5 or 6 episodes in a row. We're still on the first season and there are still many many episodes to go. It will probably be quite a large chunk of my Argentinian SC in the end. I also don't seem to mind doing an hour of GdUdE as long as I do it first thing in the morning. If I can keep it up I'll probably be finished with book A very quickly. I'm rather happy with my progress for now. I should of course spend a bit more time reading, but right now I'm already reading a lot between Russian and French.
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: 20 / 100 Дэвид Эддингс - В поисках камня
: 14325 / 35000 LWT Known

: 17 / 55 FSI Spanish Basic
: 100 / 116 GdUdE B
: 8 / 72 Duolingo reverse Spanish -> German

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blaurebell
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Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and Spanish

Postby blaurebell » Sat May 13, 2017 12:24 pm

Spanish

I'm now halfway through GdUdE A after I tricked myself into doing about an hour of it every morning. So, right now it is very likely that I will finish at least GdUdE A before my photography workshop in Spanish next month and if I can keep up my momentum I might even make some progress with GdUdE B. My plan is to go through FSI before GdUdE C and if I finish GdUdE B until the end of June I might be able to finish FSI until my in-laws come to visit us in October. This would be very helpful, since my own parents are coming too, and I'm certain that I will have to translate quite a lot between Spanish, English and German. It's very straining even with languages that I know very well - English and German - so translating from Spanish while switching between German and English will probably make my head swirl. Good training though!

In any case, I can report that after about 200h of Spanish stuff in the last couple of months it's becoming less and less of a reluctant engagement with the language - hence I took the "reluctant" out of the title of my log. I might not love Spanish quite as much as French, but at least as far as Argentinian is concerned I still like it a lot. I really need to make an effort to break through that reading barrier though. With French I really enjoy reading, since I have a relatively precise core literary vocabulary thanks to intensive reading. With Spanish I still find it uncomfortable and feel like I need to substantially extend my literary vocabulary. Adding more intensive reading while I'm trying to break through the comprehension barrier with Russian isn't really an option though. I think I will make only very slow progress on the reading front until I'm done with my big Russian reading mission. Until then I will concentrate mainly on finishing my triple Spanish audio SC.

Spanish hours: 3.66h

Russian

I need to overcome the reluctance to read intensively every day, but once I start it actually becomes engaging and I really want to know what happens next. It's still a little frustrating that reading takes this long though. In the time that it needs to read 10 pages in Russian I could finish 100 pages in French!

Russian hours: 2.93h

French

I'm still hugely enjoying Irène Némirovsky's Le Vin de solitude. What a great book! That scene where she loses her governess in the fog in the middle of the October revolution is just amazing! I got so hooked on the book that I already read 200 pages of it and had to restrain myself not to read even more! There will definitely be another book by her in the next book order!

French hours: 1.97h

Total: 8.56h
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: 20 / 100 Дэвид Эддингс - В поисках камня
: 14325 / 35000 LWT Known

: 17 / 55 FSI Spanish Basic
: 100 / 116 GdUdE B
: 8 / 72 Duolingo reverse Spanish -> German

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blaurebell
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Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and Spanish

Postby blaurebell » Mon May 15, 2017 10:57 am

Weekly update

Spanish

: 126 / 150 peninsular Spanish audio
: 58 / 150 Argentinian audio
: 4786 / 10000 Spanish Pages
: 60 / 107 GdUdE A

I spent a considerable amount of time with GdUdE last week and have to say that I'm quite pleased with my progress. I'm now more than halfway through GdUdE A and have been going at a rate of 4 lessons a day the last few days. It's all fairly easy recap for me and I make hardly any mistakes in general, at least when I'm consciously making an effort to follow the rules. I'm slowly identifying all my weak areas and it's indeed a very worthwhile undertaking to go through these exercises.

I'm also now way closer to my listening goals with Iberian Spanish. Only 24h more and I'm free from this torture! My listening comprehension is making great strides and the other day I actually was listening to a conversation between my husband and a work colleague on a loud train without too much of a problem. My husband had difficulties hearing as well and asked his colleague to repeat several times, so I was doing really well there. Also my Argentinian SC is progressing and we're watching En terapia, which is thoroughly enjoyable. The acting is superb!

The only part where I'm not making any progress is with my reading challenge, but that's because I'm already reading so much in Russian and French. The goal is still to read about 5000 pages this year and I don't have to worry yet, because it's only May. After I made substantial progress with the Russian it will be fairly easy to also make progress with Spanish.

Russian

: 81 / 100 Дэвид Эддингс - Обретение чуда
: 6606 / 35000 LWT Known

I only managed 2 days of intensive reading, because I had to a bit more work last week and was rethinking a few goals here and there. I finished another chapter though and None of the pages were over 25% unknown words with a couple of pages as low as 12%! At this rate I'm getting to a point where reading might turn into fun sooner rather than later. 243 pages read.

French

: 7480 / 10000 French Pages
: 37 / 150 French native audio

I spent less time listening last week than expected, simply because I had problems sitting still and didn't take my ipod when going out because I was in picture taking mode. That's ok though, I think I'll start to listen an awful lot more soon, because I have quite a few rolls of film to edit and that's the perfect opportunity. Instead of listening I spent a lot of time reading and I finished Le vin de solitude by Irène Némirovsky, which I enjoyed a lot. After 412h spent reading I have now read 7480 pages in French. Reaching 10,000 pages by the end of the year should be easy, especially if I get my hands on some more page turners like the Némirovsky book!
2 x
: 20 / 100 Дэвид Эддингс - В поисках камня
: 14325 / 35000 LWT Known

: 17 / 55 FSI Spanish Basic
: 100 / 116 GdUdE B
: 8 / 72 Duolingo reverse Spanish -> German

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Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and Spanish

Postby blaurebell » Tue May 16, 2017 1:53 pm

A few days ago something weird and wonderful happened: As you might know I'm a photographer by profession and I'm doing a PhD on the side, which by now involves German, English, Spanish, French and Russian. You can also guess from my preferences on here that my PhD topic has something to do with Argentina since that's my main positive focus for my Spanish activities. However, you probably don't know that I first got interested in Argentina and learning Spanish because I'm a tango dancer. I don't mention tango much, because it's a sore spot in my life. Tango used to be the most important thing in my life and although I never had any intentions to become a professional dancer I often went through periods of dancing 5-8h a day. I was very serious about it and sometimes even had professional dancers as dance partners. I usually danced most when I was extremely stressed and it was my release valve for all sorts of frustrations. When things didn't work for me professionally, I knew that I could go back on the dance floor and forget about it for a few hours. It was wonderful. The reason why I had to stop dancing was because my health got worse and worse and being a chronic pain patient doesn't really go well with physical activity like that. However, since tango kept me happy and full of endorphin, quitting tango made my health issues worse and it became a sort of downward spiral. I've been trying to recover for a while, but it's not too easy. A couple of years ago I was for a while well enough to start with tango again, but then my health got worse again and I had to put the money spent on tango into acupuncture treatments.

Yet, tango remains important to me and always at the back of my mind. It's something that I consider strongly for that time when my illness is supposed to burn itself out - in about 20 years - and I try to integrate it into my life in other ways until then because this is where I am happiest. Photography is somewhat similar for me. It also makes me somewhat happy and makes me reach a state of flow, but it of course remains different, because it's actually my profession and it has lots of frustrations attached to it, and there is a lot less endorphin coming out of that activity. Nevertheless tango and photography are the two things that make me happiest in my life. I used to joke that all I need in life is a pair of tango shoes and a Leica. Well, I could also do with better health to really get the most out of both!

So, what happened? I've been in a creative funk lately and seem to be a bit stuck with my photography at the moment. Living in a little tourist town is not helpful for the kind of work I do and I always go through bouts of frustrations and get stuck in creative dead ends. So annoying! I've been making an effort, signed up for a technique workshop at a local photography school and tried to take out my camera even when I didn't feel particularly inspired. Half a roll here, half a roll there, going for walks in the spring air with my camera, baby steps. And then on Saturday evening I suddenly felt that what's missing in my life is ... tango. All I'd need is my Leica at a few local milongas - the social events where tango is danced - and I'd be happy. So, I went on youtube and looked up my favourite dancer Geraldine Rojas. I hadn't watched any of her dancing in a few years, so I just wanted to catch up with her style and how it changed with her new partner. I spent my time watching, humming the tangos, listening to the lyrics and the good old familiar muscle memory came back. A few dance steps while cooking in the kitchen, humming a tango, going to sleep with the melody of a milonga in my ear. Ah happy moments!

On Sunday I was in a good mood so I convinced my husband to take me to one of the towns around here that has a fantastic cliff. I took two cameras - a 6x6 with slide film and my Russian panoramic camera, which is actually a hassle to use on a sunny day, but hey, there was supposed to be nature. We take the bus to the station to catch the train there and what happens on the plaza in front of the train station? Open air tango! Apparently there was a tango festival - something I don't keep up with since my health plummeted - and I must have felt it in my bones that there was tango in the air! Well, sometimes you just have to pronounce your wish loudly enough and it will be fulfilled! I took a few pictures with my two cameras and then we caught the next train to go see the cliffs.

So, the last few days I've been listening to tangos and some of it even counted as language learning - trying to understand the lyrics from crappy mobile phone videos is a challenge! And I have been smiling a lot more than I usually do. And you know what? At some point I actually considered doing a PhD on tango from a sort of cognitive science perspective. One of the main premises was that tango is a form of language! I won't bore you with the details, it would need about 200 pages to explain that one sufficiently! The reason why I changed my topic in the end was because back then any engagement with tango would make me suffer, because I miss it so much.

However, I think I'm finally getting to a point where I can get back into it without all that suffering though, because now I can just focus on taking pictures of it and listening to the music rather than desperately wanting to dance. Now the only problem remains that I'm of course still in the middle of nowhere, especially from a tango perspective. To be able to get to enough milongas to be happy I'd need a car, because they are all about an hour drive from here. Another complication. But well, I'll keep thinking about it, watch tango videos and see what happens!

Other than that I read a lot in French on Russian topics, we watch En terapia - Argentinian - and I even got an hour of Russian reading done yesterday. Every now and then I notice some breakthrough, like that I can just read and understand the labels of Russian products my mum sent me or that I hear and understand a sentence of Russian somewhere. And I'm finally getting pages with 11 or 12% unknown words too! Progress, finally! With French I can just read the books I need for my PhD and even enjoy them, goal reached. And today on the Spanish grammar front I got to the indefinido vs imperfecto page and it turns out I can finally trust my intuition on that one, 0 mistakes! I still make mistakes with indefinido vs perfecto, because this is one of the areas where Iberian Spanish and Latin American Spanish differ in usage, so my language learning machine gets confused by switching around too much between these two. To really get it straight I would have to only use Argentinian sources for a while. I hope FSI will at least get some coherence in there in the end. Right now I'm really rather happy with GdUdE. It's refreshing some of the rules, helping me gain confidence and I can precisely identify which areas I will need to focus on when I get to the point where I go through the FSI drills.
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: 100 / 116 GdUdE B
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blaurebell
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Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and Spanish

Postby blaurebell » Wed May 17, 2017 1:15 pm

Ah, it's finally spring! And with that I don't mean the torture of allergy season - we already had that when it was still utterly freezing. Now it's finally getting warmer! Down here in tourist land this means that the smells of summer are already in the air - it doesn't smell of sea anymore since that would be a sign of winter storms - it smells of trees, warmth and occasionally I already get a whiff of sun lotion. Today it's very humid and the air is fresh, but even so it smells of summer mornings! I love it! Now my mood is finally improving and I'm getting to go out a little more.

This doesn't mean that I'm slowing down substantially on the language learning front, it's actually integrated properly into my schedule: In the morning I do an hour of Spanish grammar, followed by reading a book for my PhD, right now they tend to be in French. In the evening we watch En terapia and in between I try to find an hour or two for Russian reading. Before bed I read a chapter or two of the Expanse in French.

I'm making really very good progress with my Spanish grammar mission. I'm now almost 2/3 through GdUdE A and all of it is just a refresher of what I already know really well with a hint of certain problem areas. I had a look at the GdUdE B book today and that one looks like it might go back over some of the issues where I tend to make more mistakes. All of the problems are really relatively minor so far, but they of course add up too. At my current rate I'll be finished with the A book in a little more than a week. And depending on how much progress I make with the B book, I might finish the whole mission of identifying my grammar problem areas at the beginning of July. From there on I will continue with FSI to systematically drill everything, with a special focus on my problem areas, and that should give me a solid basis for writing and speaking practice. I will make an effort to finish FSI until my in-laws come to visit in October so that I can confidently use the visit for speaking practice without worrying that I'm reinforcing fossilised mistakes. Originally I wanted to spend all this time that I'm now using on Spanish for Russian, but until reading in Russian becomes less of a hassle I'm actually stuck, since my health doesn't like too much of a strain. There is also no point in doing Modern Russian right now since it's very unlikely that our Russia trip will happen with my health as shaky as it is. So, in the end my Russian year has morphed into a Spanish year, how strange! However, I'm pretty convinced that at the end of the year I will be able to read Russian without a dictionary anyway, it's just taking longer than I would have liked.

In the end it doesn't mean that I'm losing any time either, since I'm following a schedule that I would have followed next year under other circumstances. In fact, I think it's actually good that I'm dealing with my Spanish earlier. With my Spanish C1 solidly in place I will be able to think about my living situation and strategies to improve my social life a bit. One thing would be to start another degree - my original plan for after my PhD, that's why it wasn't a priority earlier - and the other would be to get involved in the tango scene around here a bit. I really don't have time for another degree right now with only a third of my PhD done, but the tango might be a real possibility. My health is shaky, which makes tango difficult, but over time it will be more and more possible to dance, especially if I manage to get into a positive self-reinforcing loop where my health improves through dancing. No matter how I decide to deal with these new opportunities it will involve some proper changes - either moving to another city in the area or getting a car and spending some time on commutes. Generally commuting around here during the day isn't too bad, since the landscape around here is fantastic and one sees a lot of it when driving. It's also a good opportunity to listen to podcasts and audiobooks. During the night - tango commutes happen mostly then -, they are a little annoying though, but at least the roads aren't too straight which reduces the risk of falling asleep. Definitely doable. And if we really get a car we might even decide to live in the countryside which is calmer and cheaper and will therefore allow us to have a bigger place with a garden, where I might have the space for a proper studio / darkroom. With the car I would be able to take bigger cameras into the field, possibly even have a mobile darkroom for funky experiments and I will get to see more places around here which means more pictures in more varied circumstances. Sounds like exactly what I need to finally get rid of this feeling that I'm wasting my time in the wrong place photographically speaking. I will also have the possibility to go to France to practice my French without the hassle of taking various buses and crossing bridges and all that nonsense they make you go through to reach the closest border towns due to separate public transport systems.

So, right now I'm dreaming a little and my progress with Spanish is actually the basis for this. I'm pretty motivated and I have to say that I even get a perverse pleasure out of my grammar mission. It reminds me of my childhood when I really enjoyed my English grammar exercises because I knew that they would get me to England one day. Don't get me wrong, my Spanish is actually quite alright and I could have conversations with just about anyone already, but I have realised over the last couple of years that my embarrassment about my fossilised mistakes in Spanish actually make me more shy than I normally am. I end up avoiding people and avoiding any kind of speaking practice, because I feel I'm making things worse by speaking a lot at this stage. Having a solid basis after GdUdE and FSI will give me the confidence I need to go out and meet some more people. And that in turn will make me feel less like an eternal tourist. So, I have high hopes for my grammar mission, I should have embarked on it years ago.
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: 20 / 100 Дэвид Эддингс - В поисках камня
: 14325 / 35000 LWT Known

: 17 / 55 FSI Spanish Basic
: 100 / 116 GdUdE B
: 8 / 72 Duolingo reverse Spanish -> German

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kunsttyv
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Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and Spanish

Postby kunsttyv » Wed May 17, 2017 7:15 pm

Hi blaurebell, I've been lurking in your log for some time already, without contributing anything or making myself known, but just now I felt the urge to come out and say that yours is the most inspiring among the logs on this site. I think it's both due to our shared interests, but also the fact that you seem so much more accomplished than me both language wise and otherwise, so that I have something to reach for and measure myself against. It's not that it seems like you have superpowers or anything like it, quite on the contrary. And that's what I find inspiring I think, that there may be health problems, life situation frustrations, even fossilized errors! But ambition, the know-how of how to make something out of that ambition, and a kind of awareness for how to steer your own life in the direction of your own liking (quit engineering, start philosophy, reduce stress, there's only one life, the money comes second or even third), those are things you definitely don't seem to lack.

I'm a semi stressed out engineer, semi content with this situation. I love languages, but I don't know many of them yet. I also love literature and cinema, as you seem to do. I'm a salsa dancer (cuban style, I dance the lead), but I'm quite mediocre and don't know exactly how to improve from here and make the dance my own. I live in a city up north, where I was not born and where my family do not live. I like it here, but I'm curious about what time in the future I'm going to make a change and move elsewhere.

Ah, by the way, I looked up Geraldine Rojas on youtube. The beauty is almost hard on the eyes I must say. What a wonderful dance.

By the way 2: I also work through GdUdE (A-C) as well as FSI. I'm about a quarter into both of them. Both are enjoyable and compliment each other well. I think you'll find FSI humorous!
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blaurebell
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Languages: German (N), English (C2), Spanish (B2-C1), French (B2+ passive), Italian (A2), Russian (Beginner)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3235
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Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and Spanish

Postby blaurebell » Thu May 18, 2017 1:00 pm

Thank you for your kind words kunsttyv! You're right, superpowers are not involved on my end, just plain old stubbornness and grit. I'm usually motivated by proving someone wrong with their less than enthusiastic endorsement of my possibilities to achieve certain goals. You can bet that if someone tells me that something is impossible or insane this will be a good reason for me to try anyway! And so far I've always achieved my goals, even if it sometimes took longer than I hoped. And you are also right that money is not important in my endeavours at all - I'm not very materialistic and I almost always buy only things that I genuinely need. As long as my basic needs are met - roof over my head, good diet, books, photographic film, certain photographic gear, 2 pairs of tango shoes - I don't really need anything else. Frankly, giving up working in industry was the single best decision I made. Financially it was of course stupid, but at least I'm happy with what I do and don't waste 40-60h of my life contributing to a system that makes people have jobs they hate to buy stuff they don't need.

So salsa? You know, around here people often dance both tango and salsa, and sometimes even a few other dances. It was a really weird change of perspective for me, because I'm a tango only girl and I mostly know tango dancers who have no interest in other dances at all. I always suspect that people who dance "whatever" don't really understand tango, because it requires such a different mindset than salsa or other dances. The same is probably true for salsa too! And I never met a single person who was exceptionally good at both tango and salsa, it's either the one or the other it seems. It's probably because both are skills that are specific enough to need 10,000h of focused practice and fluency in one doesn't equate to fluency in the other. So, to become really good you'll have to spend 5-10 years on each, depending on how intensively you pursue it! Most people give up as soon as they realise how much work it will take to get to a really good level from the level that you seem to have achieved - the stage where one doesn't feel like falling over any minute, but still feels hugely clumsy and mediocre as you say. I could give you a lot of detailed tips, but the question is whether you really feel the need to get really good. Just having fun at a "good enough" level is not so bad, especially once you realise that it will actually take a lot of sacrifice to get to a really good level. You always need to make an effort to improve, always need to be on your best to try and get to dance mostly with people above your level and you simply have to sacrifice a lot of time and sleep to get enough practice. You even might have to move to a different place to find enough dancers at your level. I actually had to move to Berlin at some point, to be able to keep improving my tango and ended up ruining my social life by picking a tango community where the ties are loose because people are not dependent on each other. I realised too late that getting really good is aiming for the wrong kind of engagement, big mistake! I would have been much happier in a medium sized community with month long excursions to the Berlin or Buenos Aires. We live and learn.

If you really want to improve my advice is simple: 1. Choose madness. Dance as much as possible in as short amount of time as possible in your circumstances - 10,000h, ideally in less than 5 years. That's mental and will make dancing your only social life, your main focus and it will probably turn your life upside down, probably ruin your relationship or kill your career. Usually both. Otherwise expect to take 20 years to get really good if at all. So, either go mad, or be patient / adjust your goals. I chose madness and don't regret it, but well, it was the only thing I did besides work during that time! It almost killed my career at some point and it made relationships extremely difficult at times. Tango dancers are too messed up in the emotion department - they chose the madness too - and non-dancers tend to get jealous because they don't understand the emotional complexities. The only way is to convert a non-dancer into a dancer, so that they understand that the jealousy is unwarranted but hopefully without developing the same emotional issues that self-motivated dancers have. So, madness, sacrifice in 5yrs and/or patience in 20yrs ...! Not exactly ample choices. 2. If you choose madness: Always try to dance with dancers above your level, so that you know that most fuck-ups are your own. Be nice and aim for feeling rather than show - followers love leaders who make them feel special and if you really show yourself as a nice person with a genuine interest in the other person then dancers above your level won't turn you down as long as you don't make them look bad. 3. Don't ever think you have mastered anything. Go to beginner classes over and over, since the devil is in the basics, never in the figures. Always try to improve, even when you're "just dancing". If you don't focus on improving, you might dance for 20 years and not improve one bit. It's also much easier to focus on improvement when you're on the 5yr madness mission rather than the 20 yrs patience mission, because you will feel you have all the time in the world to have fun. No, you don't, practice needs to be focussed or it won't count towards your 10,000h. 4. First focus on knowing a few figures and the basics really really well rather than fumbling your way through many different ones. Good dancers will turn you down if you make them look bad, so don't try to show off, simply do what you can do best and try to make them feel special. If something advanced doesn't work, go to a beginner class, it's probably some bad habit that you haven't caught yet. Basics, basics, basics! 5. And most importantly, don't be arrogant, ever. Arrogance means that you will stop advancing, because you're so full of yourself to think that you have learned everything there is to learn. This stage where you have learned everything can never be reached. Never forget that even dance teachers take classes and that world class dancers practice 8h a day at least additionally to teaching!

Ah dancing ... I miss my tango madness :D
1 x
: 20 / 100 Дэвид Эддингс - В поисках камня
: 14325 / 35000 LWT Known

: 17 / 55 FSI Spanish Basic
: 100 / 116 GdUdE B
: 8 / 72 Duolingo reverse Spanish -> German

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blaurebell
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Posts: 840
Joined: Thu Jul 28, 2016 1:24 pm
Location: Spain
Languages: German (N), English (C2), Spanish (B2-C1), French (B2+ passive), Italian (A2), Russian (Beginner)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3235
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Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and Spanish

Postby blaurebell » Thu May 18, 2017 5:09 pm

Seems that I will now speak a little Spanish every couple of weeks with my doctor. He calls it the speaking part of my treatment :lol: I guess he realises that I'm not getting enough speaking practice with Spanish. After a few minutes it wasn't even too bad and we were talking about Spanish meat vs Argentinian meat and non-sense like that. A bit silly, but it's a start. Other than that more grammar, more En terapia in the evenings, snail pace progress it seems. Listening to tangos here and there, watching tango videos where I barely manage to pay attention to the lyrics because the dancing is taking my breath away. It all helps though. Today I even transcribed some tango lyrics just for the fun of it. I actually wanted to play around with lyrics training, but it seems I'm not having much luck with the videos, everything seems to be blocked in my country :roll:

I've been reading a history book relevant for my PhD in French and that's relatively painless, although such publications are of course always dry. Dates, numbers, statistics, citations, more dates. I made up for it by reading the comic Watertown, which I kind of enjoyed. Not amazing, but entertaining and it made me smile. I mainly liked the atmosphere. I'm also almost finished with all the episodes of Transfert. There are some stories in there worthy of whole novels, amazing. Some of them aren't really so great, others are too harsh, but there are really some nice ones in there. I only have 3 more episodes including the one that came out today and I'm done with it. I guess I will have to find something else to listen to in French.

Swearing about the return of the rain. No time for Russian.
3 x
: 20 / 100 Дэвид Эддингс - В поисках камня
: 14325 / 35000 LWT Known

: 17 / 55 FSI Spanish Basic
: 100 / 116 GdUdE B
: 8 / 72 Duolingo reverse Spanish -> German


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