Re: A Words Enthusiast
Posted: Sat Feb 24, 2018 4:42 am
Not a whole lot new since the last update. Still putting in a lot of time with languages and that's come with a definite sense of progress.
Recently there have been topics about "free and legal" and "no notes" challenges. I've only taken notes for languages that I've enrolled in formal classes for - so German, Mandarin, Russian, and Indonesian. I took Spanish classes but that was years ago in high school and I wouldn't say I took any meaningful notes. French is probably the language I've reached the highest level in without notes or classes. My French is not very good.
I am a very miserly person and so the vast majority of my language learning has been "free," much of it also "legal" too. It frankly shocks me sometimes how some people on this forum will talk about booking $100-200 worth of online lessons on a regular basis. But I suppose putting your money down is a powerful psychological factor for actually doing the work. I'm lucky that here I'm surrounded by highly multilingual people that are willing to practice with me - if not for an hour, for at least a short five-to-ten minute conversation at native speed. It's great that the Mandarin speakers here don't dumb down their speech for me, but gosh it can be tough sometimes. At least I'm used to switching to Indonesian if I don't understand, not English.
Indonesian classes continue. Lots of writing and at least 1000 words a day of reading, which I tend not to count in my progress bars. I'm pushing 10000 reps on Glossika, and I think I'll back off once I get to around 12000 since I want to use that time to work on other languages. I went out recently with my microphone and recorded a couple of short interviews with people on the street. Listening to them was eye-opening because I noticed so many different styles of speech - some people would use very short and clipped sentences, others would put the -an suffix on everything, and still others spoke just like my professors.
Still reading Spanish. It feels like cheating to read Wikipedia since it's so much less challenging than even news articles. I noticed my accent has some Indonesian influence - devoicing initial <v> to /f/, trilling /r/ instead of tapping, and even sometimes not releasing final stops. If I concentrate I can get back to a Mexican accent though.
Nearly two-thirds of the way done with the French stories on Duolingo. I still find them absolutely perfect for my level. I also remembered Lingvist, though in my year of absence it became a tiered subscription model. I've definitely seen improvement in reading and listening with these stories. I know several people here who speak French and maybe one day I'll try a conversation.
Kept up Russian Duolingo (mostly) and actually had a short conversation yesterday where I remembered some words! There are still huge holes in my grammar, mostly about verbs (shocker). Lingvist has Russian and it's more challenging than DL because it's all Russian typing. Still listening to radio in the gym and I did listen to some Russian-Podcast lessons.
I need to watch more Easy Languages videos. My laptop has some problems with YouTube nowadays, which is a total bummer because it's such a fantastic free and legal resource. I figure they would be a perfect low-stress addon to the minimal work I'm doing to keep Spanish, French, and Russian afloat. Once I get these three to a more solid level - better knowledge of grammar, wider vocabulary, better listening - I'll work on Cantonese, Vietnamese, and Polish.
Recently there have been topics about "free and legal" and "no notes" challenges. I've only taken notes for languages that I've enrolled in formal classes for - so German, Mandarin, Russian, and Indonesian. I took Spanish classes but that was years ago in high school and I wouldn't say I took any meaningful notes. French is probably the language I've reached the highest level in without notes or classes. My French is not very good.
I am a very miserly person and so the vast majority of my language learning has been "free," much of it also "legal" too. It frankly shocks me sometimes how some people on this forum will talk about booking $100-200 worth of online lessons on a regular basis. But I suppose putting your money down is a powerful psychological factor for actually doing the work. I'm lucky that here I'm surrounded by highly multilingual people that are willing to practice with me - if not for an hour, for at least a short five-to-ten minute conversation at native speed. It's great that the Mandarin speakers here don't dumb down their speech for me, but gosh it can be tough sometimes. At least I'm used to switching to Indonesian if I don't understand, not English.
Indonesian classes continue. Lots of writing and at least 1000 words a day of reading, which I tend not to count in my progress bars. I'm pushing 10000 reps on Glossika, and I think I'll back off once I get to around 12000 since I want to use that time to work on other languages. I went out recently with my microphone and recorded a couple of short interviews with people on the street. Listening to them was eye-opening because I noticed so many different styles of speech - some people would use very short and clipped sentences, others would put the -an suffix on everything, and still others spoke just like my professors.
Still reading Spanish. It feels like cheating to read Wikipedia since it's so much less challenging than even news articles. I noticed my accent has some Indonesian influence - devoicing initial <v> to /f/, trilling /r/ instead of tapping, and even sometimes not releasing final stops. If I concentrate I can get back to a Mexican accent though.
Nearly two-thirds of the way done with the French stories on Duolingo. I still find them absolutely perfect for my level. I also remembered Lingvist, though in my year of absence it became a tiered subscription model. I've definitely seen improvement in reading and listening with these stories. I know several people here who speak French and maybe one day I'll try a conversation.
Kept up Russian Duolingo (mostly) and actually had a short conversation yesterday where I remembered some words! There are still huge holes in my grammar, mostly about verbs (shocker). Lingvist has Russian and it's more challenging than DL because it's all Russian typing. Still listening to radio in the gym and I did listen to some Russian-Podcast lessons.
I need to watch more Easy Languages videos. My laptop has some problems with YouTube nowadays, which is a total bummer because it's such a fantastic free and legal resource. I figure they would be a perfect low-stress addon to the minimal work I'm doing to keep Spanish, French, and Russian afloat. Once I get these three to a more solid level - better knowledge of grammar, wider vocabulary, better listening - I'll work on Cantonese, Vietnamese, and Polish.