Ani's 2017 Log

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Ani
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Re: Ani's 2017 Log

Postby Ani » Thu Mar 23, 2017 7:44 am

Ridiculous fatigue today. Finished season 3 of Engrenages. Started a tiny bit of season 4. I have some culture shock over expectations of police and some procedures. It is interesting to think about. I am also really impressed with Josephine Karlsson's character development. I won't say she's my favorite character but when I first "met" her in season 1, I didn't foresee the route she'd travel AT ALL. Seems like a nice combo of good writing and good acting.

Anyway.. sleep is calling.
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But there's no sense crying over every mistake. You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.

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Ani
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Re: Ani's 2017 Log

Postby Ani » Sun Mar 26, 2017 3:56 am

Logged a bit more Russian and some hours of Engrenages. Almost done with the 4 seasons that Netflix has. I thought I'd finish Chroniques de l'oiseau à ressort this week but I haven't been able to read.

My son is super into learning Greek. He spent most of his school day on Thursday and Friday working on his Greek lessons. We are using First Grade Primer by Theodore Papaloizos. It is a great speed to start and there are materials for 1st - 6th grades in the series, which means whenever he is ready, he can move up in similar format. I am pretty sure each grade level starts from the beginning but moves faster and further. At some point we will add Greek cartoons to his routine, assuming he keeps up interest. Every morning he has been getting up, grabbing his book, and sitting down where he can access the folder where I ripped the CD. He goes through reviewing old lessons several times each and then doing a new one. He can select the lesson number on his own and follow along with a finger. There is also a workbook for writing the letters, which eventually transitions to whole words and then sentences. He HATES handwriting in English and struggles with it, but miraculously, his Greek letter formation is nearly flawless after less than a week of practice :lol:

For myself personally though, I am really un-enthusiastic about learning Greek to keep up with him. I do think I need to, but after just starting to feel comfortable with cyrillic I hate having another alphabet to deal with. Still it is more practical for me to keep up than hire a tutor at this stage in the game. I'm getting a first hand lesson in why everyone says not to have two beginner languages. :lol:

EDIT: Oh! I wanted to post my Russian breakthrough. I think I finally convinced my mouth to produce the hard and soft consonants properly! The back of my tongue was super sore today after I figured it out. :lol:
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But there's no sense crying over every mistake. You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.

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PeterMollenburg
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Re: Ani's 2017 Log

Postby PeterMollenburg » Sun Mar 26, 2017 7:50 am

Ani wrote:My son is super into learning Greek. He spent most of his school day on Thursday and Friday working on his Greek lessons. We are using First Grade Primer by Theodore Papaloizos. It is a great speed to start and there are materials for 1st - 6th grades in the series, which means whenever he is ready, he can move up in similar format. I am pretty sure each grade level starts from the beginning but moves faster and further. At some point we will add Greek cartoons to his routine, assuming he keeps up interest. Every morning he has been getting up, grabbing his book, and sitting down where he can access the folder where I ripped the CD. He goes through reviewing old lessons several times each and then doing a new one. He can select the lesson number on his own and follow along with a finger. There is also a workbook for writing the letters, which eventually transitions to whole words and then sentences. He HATES handwriting in English and struggles with it, but miraculously, his Greek letter formation is nearly flawless after less than a week of practice :lol:


Very cool kid ;) It's fantastic to hear he is so motivated to learn a language.

Ani wrote:EDIT: Oh! I wanted to post my Russian breakthrough. I think I finally convinced my mouth to produce the hard and soft consonants properly! The back of my tongue was super sore today after I figured it out. :lol:


Well done! I cannot imagine what learning Russian would be like, and now i'm envious of both you and your son learning two languages that I also find interesting. Keep it up guys!
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Re: Ani's 2017 Log

Postby Tomás » Sun Mar 26, 2017 3:34 pm

This guy has a relatively painless method for learning the Greek alphabet:

https://www.amazon.com/Learn-Ancient-Greek-Latin-Language/dp/0715627589

I wish all new alphabets were taught like this. Basically he teaches you a couple of letters at a time, and then gives you reading practice using only the letters you know so far. So you don't have to learn the entire alphabet before you can get to the fun stuff.
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Ani
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Re: Ani's 2017 Log

Postby Ani » Mon Mar 27, 2017 2:56 am

PeterMollenburg wrote:
Ani wrote:EDIT: Oh! I wanted to post my Russian breakthrough. I think I finally convinced my mouth to produce the hard and soft consonants properly! The back of my tongue was super sore today after I figured it out. :lol:


Well done! I cannot imagine what learning Russian would be like, and now i'm envious of both you and your son learning two languages that I also find interesting. Keep it up guys!


Come over to the dark side! You can spare 30 minutes a day of your desk studies for le russe à votre rythme. And you love courses. And it is based in French. And it uses IPA for all the phonetic clarifications. It has pretty much everything awesome. :-D

Tomás wrote:This guy has a relatively painless method for learning the Greek alphabet:

https://www.amazon.com/Learn-Ancient-Greek-Latin-Language/dp/0715627589

I wish all new alphabets were taught like this. Basically he teaches you a couple of letters at a time, and then gives you reading practice using only the letters you know so far. So you don't have to learn the entire alphabet before you can get to the fun stuff.



Thanks! That is actually the method my son's book uses. A few letters, worked into a few words. More letters, more words and a few sentences. Fortunately with audio all the way. He is just going pretty quickly (for an independent 8 year old, imo) so I have a bit of catching up to do :)


---

I tried my Russian again today and found my tongue was a still sore from yesterday so I didn't get very many exercises done. I did write some things and try and read the grammar explanations a bit ahead of where I am. It is going to be difficult for me to finish this book at my current snail's pace. I might need to choose one month and put all my study time into Russian, but for now I really want to keep it simmering in the background.
I think the things I have considered real goals and read deadlines are pretty realistic, but I am a bit nervous about pacing myself poorly and not reaching them through poor time management. I'm ahead with reading. Might be almost on pace with TV watching (although I don't mind being behind here because I'll do more when I can actually exercise while I watch). Slightly behind in Russian (I think??), and definitely behind in French course completion :-p Doesn't look so good when I write it out that way !
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But there's no sense crying over every mistake. You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.

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Ani
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Re: Ani's 2017 Log

Postby Ani » Thu Mar 30, 2017 3:57 am

Just so we don't forget our place in the world, I woke up to 6" of fresh snow this morning. I am hoping this is winter's last hurrah but it could snow for at LEAST 2 more weeks before it all starts to melt.

Hands too swollen to write this morning so for Russian I just read a bit of the text and practiced a few exercises. Didn't really advance much. Didn't much feel like holding a book either so for French I watched some videos from the various MOOCs I talked about earlier. One awesome thing, I realized the Coursera courses have an interactive transcript. During the video, a line moves under each phrase and sentence as the presenter speak. Effectively, you could L/R on any of the lectures if you so desired.

I think the probability one is my favorite. I am still needing practice reading the statements about set theory in French. (I mean, of course I don't NEED this knowledge, but after listening to them described, I realized I wouldn't be able to explain it back in French although I know the math). Hopefully by the end of this course I will have a better French math vocabulary.

Finished Engrenages a couple days ago. I was really into Laure's little love triangle although I did think her choices were reflecting rather less morality than I would have expected from her character... but.. Well I don't want to spoil it for anyone adding my comments on the ending of season 4.
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But there's no sense crying over every mistake. You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.

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Ani
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Re: Ani's 2017 Log

Postby Ani » Thu Mar 30, 2017 7:14 am

One more update for today..

I decided to make a quick run through Phonétique Progressive du Français débutant. I am so impressed by the quality of the materials. This isn't the level I really need right now, but it is always nice to start at the beginning. I happened to find this online ::coughcough:: and I am hoping I might find the next level too. After that they might be worth buying. Really good stuff here. I am only listening to the audio track once through without taking any notes/writing any exercises. They are simple enough right now that I don't have any need to do more. Each lesson has an audio track that is just under 4 minutes so overall the project should take me about 4 hours. I think that is a worthwhile application of my time even as a refresher. I did realize/remember how much trouble I have dropping certain e's -- "m[e]chercher" and "passe-moi l[e] fromage" I find those almost double consonants very hard, especially when there is an L involved. I end up with a more American /l/ than I'd like to have or slightly distorting the rhythm of the rest of the phrase.

I covered 1/3 of the book already tonight as my husband ended up having to work really late. It is kind of pleasurable and brainless. I like :)
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But there's no sense crying over every mistake. You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.

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Ani
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Re: Ani's 2017 Log

Postby Ani » Mon Apr 03, 2017 7:16 am

Didn't accomplish much of value this weekend. I started watching Les Beaux Malaises. It's a series by French Canadian comedian Martin Matte. All four seasons area currently on Netflix (36 hours). I'm pretty conservative in general so some of it I find a bit embarrassing to watch, but some of it has had me truly laughing out loud and even randomly laughing throughout the day when some scene came back to mind. I like to laugh so this is good :) I made it through season 1 and half of season 2 already. Not sure if it counts as reading or listening -- I have to watch with subtitles because I can't understand a word of Canadian French. It took me the first 15 minutes to figure out what the word they kept saying "poh".. Pas.. It was pas.. I'm getting better at it now but wow.

Chroniques de l'oiseau à ressort has to be the first book I have ever considered giving up on after 750 pages. Less than 100 to go. Gah.

Russian didn't get touched this weekend. Didn't really get any desk time. :(
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But there's no sense crying over every mistake. You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.

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Elsa Maria
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Re: Ani's 2017 Log

Postby Elsa Maria » Mon Apr 03, 2017 9:49 pm

Ani, my child used Papalizos Greek in sixth grade. I think it is a great program! I have already given away my Level One books, but if you want any of these Papaloizos books I would be glad to send them to you. Just send me a message, and they are yours. Conversational Book 1 falls between the Level One and Level Two main coursebooks.

Level One Elementary Conversational Greek Book No. 1
Workbook for the above

Level Two Children from the Neighborhood
Workbook for the above
CDs for the above
Last edited by Elsa Maria on Tue Jul 20, 2021 7:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Ani
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Re: Ani's 2017 Log

Postby Ani » Fri Apr 07, 2017 5:31 am

My brain has turned to mush over here. I have a incredible drive to be productive and yet half or less the normal brain power to accomplish things. I haven't touched Russian in a few days. Feeling too foggy and intimidated. I needed something really comfortable so I decided to start Conjugaison progressive niveau débutant. Over the last few days I wrote out by hand 40 pages (twenty back and front) of conjugations and sentences from that book. I think I made it through the first 12 chapters. Still in -RE verbs in the present tense so nothing earth shattering going on. For all the sentences I made myself a mini dictation. I read through it once and wrote. Anything I couldn't spell easily, or needed checking, I wrote a few times again until I could write it easily from thought. I think developing the fluidity will help my writing long term even if I have no brains to learn anything new.

I'm somewhere in season 3 of Les Beaux Malaises. I'm starting to hear the accent creep into my head although I haven't the faintest idea how to produce most of the sounds. I think the Canadian -eur sound is so fun :)
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But there's no sense crying over every mistake. You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.


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