Summary of 20162016 began with the plan to consume as much media as possible. I joined the
German book club to read Tintenherz, subscribed to Top-Thema and watched Big Bang Theory. It worked well, albeit slow, until March when I lost my way. The book didn't progress, I had trouble understanding BBT/Futurama without subtitles and I received message about a new future project turning FSI into a high-tech modern course. The project seems dead now but back then it made me question if, just maybe, I should try a new course (FSI/Assimil). Without a conscious decision, I put my language learning on ice and focused on my interest in photography.
In august a lot of things happened at once. Due to work, I spent a lot of time driving and got bored with radio so I decided to entertain myself with FSI. Around the same time
Brun Ugle revived the thread about Tintenherz,
reineke posted
a few studies on how subtitles can help your language learning and I stumbled upon
Troldspejlet.
It revived my language learning interest and partly based on the studies, I decided to take a step back by watching beginner series (Extr@, Deutsch Plus, Jojo sucht das Glück) with subtitles and then slowly move on to native material with subtitles. During the same time, I continued reading Tintenherz and Top-Thema while ordering the books for FSI. It worked well for about a month until my computer crashed and the screen went black.
Sadly it stopped me from using LWT but since I still had my iPad, it completely changed how I use my devices. iPads main limitation is multitasking which killed my habit of surfing the web. Instead, I began going through hundreds of saved articles in
Pocket, saved videos on YouTube and bookmarks in Chrome. Years of "to read" that I actually went through and completed. I also found
Downcast which syncs podcasts perfectly between devices. You can store all your podcasts on the computer, take your iPad with you to listen before falling asleep and then continue on your iPhone the next day when taking a walk. It's basically everything I've wished from iTunes for years. Although productive, it wasn't language learning.
Since LWT was temporarily out of the picture, I jumped on the chance to read
Englar alheimsins in Danish. I reckoned that it would be good for my Danish and I didn't need LWT so I ordered it at my library. Despite pointing out three times that it should be the Danish translation, I received the Icelandic version. Unfortunately I didn't notice until I had payed the ordering fee and returned home. After several attempts, I gave up and returned to my German.
Lately I've spent time trying to find
German TV online and a few weeks ago I got my hands on a 10" laptop to use with LWT so I could catch up with Top-Thema.
StatsAs the year is over, I've watched
3696 minutes (1276 w/s) in German and translated
6319 new words which means that LWT now has a total of 16800 translated words (names excluded) of which 4694 is well-known. In the past, I had a vague rule about never marking a word as well-known when translating, only when stumbling upon it a second time. I disregarded this during the last two weeks and as a result, I almost got as many well-knowns as I had during the rest of the year combined.
Troldspejlet resulted in
584 min of Danish.
Takeaways from 2016Naturally I'm somewhat disappointed. I had hopes of dabbling in French but ended up with a broken computer and watching Danish. With that said, I'm happy that I completed Top-Thema and there are a few takeaways.
The importance of a log: Trying to remember you goals, lessons and timeline is extremely difficult without notes. I thought I had a short return to Duolingo this year but RescueTime showed it was in 2015. I only wish that I had begun with a log sooner. It doesn't have to and maybe shouldn't be in public but some kind of notes.
Consistency: One of the most common mistakes people do. A few hours of work each week will make a tremendous difference over a year instead of running into a wall and then stop until you return months or even years later without progress. It really applies to everything in life, from exercise to studying or learning a new hobby.
Just in time (JIT): You don't need to collect hundreds of books at once. You don't need to figure out the difference between
kein and
nicht before you know how to say
hello. I believe it's related to our fear of missing out but most of the time you don't end up using the material anyway. Don't plan for your third language if you've just started with your first. Get the material just in time for when you need it.
There's no magic bullet: This year I spent more time reading about language learning than actually reading in German. The same goes for exercise where I spent more time reading about studies than actually exercising. The more I learn, I come to the conclusion that it's more productive to stick with the basics and get 99% than spending countless of hours trying to find the optimal method.
Language log 2016GermanFSI German - 1 unit
Slow German - 10 episodes (text + audio)
Top-Thema [B1] - 194 episodes (text + audio)
01
Der Bankraub (s) - 10 ep. á 8 min
02
Big Bang Theory - 89 ep. á 22 min
03
Futurama - 11 ep. á 22 min
04
A Million Ways to Die in the West - 116 min
05
Spirited Away (s) - 125 min
06
10 Cloverfield Lane - 104 min
07
Extr@ (s) - 13 ep. á 24 min
08
Deutsch Plus (s) - 20 ep. á 14 min
09
Erste Wege in Deutschland (s) - 8 ep. á 7.5 min
10 Das Experiment: Ein Monat ohne Internet (s) - 43 min
11 Jojo sucht das Glück (s) - 8 ep. á 3 min
12 0797
Tatort: Jagdzeit (s) - 89 min
13 0995
Tatort: Der König der Gosse (s) - 86 min
14 0996
Tatort: Zahltag (s) - 89 min
15 0997
Tatort: Die Wahrheit (s) - 88 min
01 Tintenherz by Cornelia Funke - 205 / 566 pages
Danish01
Troldspejlet (s) - 11 ep. á 25 min
02
Troldspejlet Nyt - 103 ep. á 3 min