A language learners’ forum

Been listening to Refuse to Choose by Sher, about us scanners, thanks to forum-friend Jeff! Yep, me to a tee. Wonderful to finally know I'm normal.

Lots of Pola-retradio, not much reading. Well, not Esperanto reading. Lots of LeCarre and George Smiley. Such good writing.

Have also gotten into French music. Not sure what to call the genre. French alternative? French pop? Artists like Camp Claude, Juniore, La Femme, The Liminanas, Lescop. Love it. Someday maybe, French. Who knows.

Leaving here in 5 days. Can't wait to be home.

Should have mentioned Coptic, too. Started the Coptic course at Glyphstudy a year ago, and up until January kept it up, even during this deployment. But with the Russian DLI course in January, DLPT and OPI in Feb, and now the German course coming next month, I've had to drop it. No way I can keep it up. It was planned to take 3 years after all.

I love the Glyphstudy format, and will probably stupidly sign up for something else again in the future.

Today did some Pola Retradio where they talked about the rover we've got on Mars now. Also listened to an unknown number of hours of French music. Jeez, what is it about those groups that's so appealing?

As I spend my last day here walking around base, taking snapshots for memory, I am thankful I've had this opportunity. This is my seventh deployment, and the first that I've been able to swim at, and take my DLPTs, OPIs, and even do language training. Really great deployment, and it knocks another country (Djibouti) and continent off my list.

I've got 24 hours of travel ahead of me, including a long (7+ hours) layover in Paris, where I'd love to leave the airport to visit, but of course that's a big no-no now.

Then two weeks of a break till the German course starts. Can't wait to just sit on the couch with my family and do nothing, wake up whenever, eat something different, and of course drink beer of my choice!

3 days into my return...and loving just sitting on the couch with the occasional walk with the dog. So nice to be home.

Looked through the Esperanto books I ordered before leaving. La Arto Labori kune looks really good, as does La Abunda Fonto. Reading an article a day in an older Eo book I got a couple years ago: En la mondon venis nova lingvo (A new language has entered the world). Gonna read Eo till the German course starts in 12 days.

Went digging around in the basement and found my wife's old German books. A couple German grammar books in Russian, and all the Harry Potters. I think I'll make HP2 my German HP. HP4 is my Russian one. If I ever do Italian again I'll pick either HP3 or HP5. I did HP1 in BCS before deploying last year.

Today was the last day of taking my malaria meds (Malarone), as you have to take them for 7 days after returning from the malarial region. And my sleeping is getting back to normal, or at least back to this time zone. These are the things that make this deployment officially over, and that makes me glad.

In the middle of my mandated 14 days of no work. I'm good as far as Massachusetts is concerned; besides being an exempted category, I've got a negative COVID test fewer than 72 hours before arriving back here in the state. The nice thing about these two weeks off is all the time I have for reading. Lots of Esperanto read. It's been so nice.

And in one week, German. Can't wait.

Got the book for my German class yesterday. But it was for a B2 class. They sent me an Amazon mailing label to send it back. We'll see if I actually get the A1 book before class starts on Monday!

First day of German class went well. Thank God the other student is also well experienced with languages and is currently living in Germany and has had a start. The instructor pushed us straight into the deep end today, mostly all German speaking, which was nice. She's not big into homework of rote worksheet filling out. Also nice. She introduced us to a couple of nice Youtube video series: Deutsch Extra and Easy German.

Looking forward to tomorrow!

German has some great resources for beginner and intermediate (better than anything I’ve found for other languages in my personal experience). Other than what you listed Deutsche Welle also has good content. Nico’s Weg and Jojo sucht das Glück are shows for beginners a bit à la Extr@ For Easy German I’m also a big fan of their podcasts but would put that more in intermediate level since it’s just open dialogue with no visual cues.

Some great jokes today on Deutsch Extra, on an episode where the hosts were in southern Germany on Shrove Tuesday, with all the locals in crazy outfits. The thema was Germans are not funny. Some told jokes that were kinda funny. The Radler one was funny. Basically, a vampire is stopped by a cop. The cop asks him if he's had anything to drink. "No, no, no, I've only had two Radlers." hahaha. The joke, if you don't know, is that a radler is a wonderful summer drink, one you can make w/o having to buy separately. (Take an IPA and add a Sprite or Sprite Zero, 1 part for 1 part.) Anyway, radler is also a bike rider. So the vampire "had two bike riders!" hahahaha Get it?!