Expug's 2017 Log - It's now and forever
Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2017 1:03 am
Greetings into a New Year!
First the title, a wordplay on the idiom "it's now or never". In the past years, I've been using titles that would motivate me to work on specific aspects of the language learning or that would reflect my needs and interests. This year I won't be setting any explicit guideline on my log. From what you can see at my previous log, I believe I've already reached my goal of becoming a polyglot. That is to say, I no longer see what I'm doing as a race. I don't feel I need to prove to myself that I can do it, at least not anymore. So this year will be a much less stressful one, with my own pressure being taken from my shoulders. Do I still need to improve my learning methods, in order to learn more efficiently? Sure I do! It's not a matter of goals and deadlines anymore, though. I may have deadlines for specific accomplishments at individual languages, like Russian, but I don't have a 'main deadline' to decide whether I will have become a successful learner or whether I'll have failed. It is time now to enjoy and acknowledge what has been achieved and to enjoy the trip even more than I have been doing in the past months.
Some things didn't change: I still need to push my active skills, but that tends to become easier now that most of my languages are within the B range. So, rather than goals for achieving this or that level in a language, I will put goals in terms of what I want to do with the language, i.e. usage goals. In German, for example, I want to enjoy the native materials I learned the language for, like novels and native TV series. I learn a language mostly for culture and I want to know even more about life in Germany. For Mandarin, I want to read more native novels, as I've been reading mostly translations.
As for the next incursions, like I briefly said in one of my previous 2016 posts, the main tie-breaking chriterium for new languages will be the presence of a thriving coomunity of learners. I have joined several groups for Indonesian and Malay, met friendly people including native speakers, and so this language ranks higher in my list of priorities. Tetum, too, happens to have a busy Whatsapp group and maybe I should take the chance. Same goes for Guarani.
My plans for working in the tourism industry have also helped me define some priorities. I have to learn Spanish properly this year. My Russian needs to reach a solid conversational level, as well as my Mandarin. I will probably have to shift the focus in those two languages from understanding native materials to consolidating tourist conversation.
It is still early to tell when I will be able to start a new language, be it from scratch (among Indonesian/Malay, Tetum, Guarani, Swahili or another one that might catch up my attention, though I might admit most of my thirst for wanderlust for the mere sake of linguistical curiosity has been under control) or a second or further language within a group (an idea which I like better because I can delve into native materials soon - options are either Spanish, Esperanto or Romanian for Slavic, Czech or BCMS for Slavic and Swedish or Finnish as lower priorities). It all comes down to how satisfied I will be with my progress in languages that are not tied to any material objectives, like Georgian, Norwegian, Italian and, up to this moment, Greek.
Now for individual languages:
French. (C1ish) I keep telling I should apply for certification. Now things have changed a bit, and it's not a priority, but who knows? I want to keep improving my listening through watching cool French TV series, and I want to write more. Last year I wrote very few essays, though I did chat a bit.
Papiamento. (C1ish) It takes care of itself. I will keep using the news, the only resource I have offhand. I want to work on materials for teaching the language, but there's some online redtape involved.
Italian. (B2ish) I have only usage goals: I want to enjoy cool native novels and TV series. I want to chat more often in the language, even if not explicitly aiming for corrections in the first place.
Norwegian. (B2-) Another language for which I don't need any goals anymore. I just want to find cool stuff to watch on NRK, keep enjoying my audiobooks, keep chatting as often as I've been doing or even more. I will try to only watch and read material I'd really want to, regardless of language learning.
Georgian. (B1+) I want to resume writing so I can reach a comfortable active B1, while working on the newly added audiobooks for bordering a C1 passive. I will keep watching dubbed series which have been working really well, but I will also try to get more out of the native ones.
German. Yet another goalless language. I don't need German for any immediate professional activities, so I will keep enjoying the native materials I want, keep improving my passive skills which are bordering fluency and try to enjoy more native series.
Russian. (B1ish) I should shift my focus to more tourism-related language and activating it, while keeping working on reading comprehension. Listening will be less of a focus and I will have to include dubbed series, given the scarcity of transcripts for native series.
Mandarin Chinese. (B1ish) Here I will have to clearly reformulate my goals. Should I focus on material for tourists, through sentence drilling? Should I write and post both written and spoken samples for feedback? I should definitely find more time for it on a day. Reading and watching TV series will be less of a priority.
Estonian. (B1-) No pressure for this one either. I want to keep working slowly and surprise myself with reaching basic reading fluency. Reading subtitles will be the skill that will prepare me for watching native series next year.
Modern Greek. (A2) It's a language where I progressed quickly. I want to get the basic tourist conversation down while keeping working on reading. Listening still isn't my main focus. I need to enlarge my vocabulary first. I will keep working on textbooks for this one.
Prospects
Indonesian/Malay, Tetun, Guarani, Swahili, Spanish, Esperanto, Romanian....Which one(s) is(are) going to be part of the list above? Time and availability of cool resources, such as Duolingo, will tell.
First the title, a wordplay on the idiom "it's now or never". In the past years, I've been using titles that would motivate me to work on specific aspects of the language learning or that would reflect my needs and interests. This year I won't be setting any explicit guideline on my log. From what you can see at my previous log, I believe I've already reached my goal of becoming a polyglot. That is to say, I no longer see what I'm doing as a race. I don't feel I need to prove to myself that I can do it, at least not anymore. So this year will be a much less stressful one, with my own pressure being taken from my shoulders. Do I still need to improve my learning methods, in order to learn more efficiently? Sure I do! It's not a matter of goals and deadlines anymore, though. I may have deadlines for specific accomplishments at individual languages, like Russian, but I don't have a 'main deadline' to decide whether I will have become a successful learner or whether I'll have failed. It is time now to enjoy and acknowledge what has been achieved and to enjoy the trip even more than I have been doing in the past months.
Some things didn't change: I still need to push my active skills, but that tends to become easier now that most of my languages are within the B range. So, rather than goals for achieving this or that level in a language, I will put goals in terms of what I want to do with the language, i.e. usage goals. In German, for example, I want to enjoy the native materials I learned the language for, like novels and native TV series. I learn a language mostly for culture and I want to know even more about life in Germany. For Mandarin, I want to read more native novels, as I've been reading mostly translations.
As for the next incursions, like I briefly said in one of my previous 2016 posts, the main tie-breaking chriterium for new languages will be the presence of a thriving coomunity of learners. I have joined several groups for Indonesian and Malay, met friendly people including native speakers, and so this language ranks higher in my list of priorities. Tetum, too, happens to have a busy Whatsapp group and maybe I should take the chance. Same goes for Guarani.
My plans for working in the tourism industry have also helped me define some priorities. I have to learn Spanish properly this year. My Russian needs to reach a solid conversational level, as well as my Mandarin. I will probably have to shift the focus in those two languages from understanding native materials to consolidating tourist conversation.
It is still early to tell when I will be able to start a new language, be it from scratch (among Indonesian/Malay, Tetum, Guarani, Swahili or another one that might catch up my attention, though I might admit most of my thirst for wanderlust for the mere sake of linguistical curiosity has been under control) or a second or further language within a group (an idea which I like better because I can delve into native materials soon - options are either Spanish, Esperanto or Romanian for Slavic, Czech or BCMS for Slavic and Swedish or Finnish as lower priorities). It all comes down to how satisfied I will be with my progress in languages that are not tied to any material objectives, like Georgian, Norwegian, Italian and, up to this moment, Greek.
Now for individual languages:
French. (C1ish) I keep telling I should apply for certification. Now things have changed a bit, and it's not a priority, but who knows? I want to keep improving my listening through watching cool French TV series, and I want to write more. Last year I wrote very few essays, though I did chat a bit.
Papiamento. (C1ish) It takes care of itself. I will keep using the news, the only resource I have offhand. I want to work on materials for teaching the language, but there's some online redtape involved.
Italian. (B2ish) I have only usage goals: I want to enjoy cool native novels and TV series. I want to chat more often in the language, even if not explicitly aiming for corrections in the first place.
Norwegian. (B2-) Another language for which I don't need any goals anymore. I just want to find cool stuff to watch on NRK, keep enjoying my audiobooks, keep chatting as often as I've been doing or even more. I will try to only watch and read material I'd really want to, regardless of language learning.
Georgian. (B1+) I want to resume writing so I can reach a comfortable active B1, while working on the newly added audiobooks for bordering a C1 passive. I will keep watching dubbed series which have been working really well, but I will also try to get more out of the native ones.
German. Yet another goalless language. I don't need German for any immediate professional activities, so I will keep enjoying the native materials I want, keep improving my passive skills which are bordering fluency and try to enjoy more native series.
Russian. (B1ish) I should shift my focus to more tourism-related language and activating it, while keeping working on reading comprehension. Listening will be less of a focus and I will have to include dubbed series, given the scarcity of transcripts for native series.
Mandarin Chinese. (B1ish) Here I will have to clearly reformulate my goals. Should I focus on material for tourists, through sentence drilling? Should I write and post both written and spoken samples for feedback? I should definitely find more time for it on a day. Reading and watching TV series will be less of a priority.
Estonian. (B1-) No pressure for this one either. I want to keep working slowly and surprise myself with reaching basic reading fluency. Reading subtitles will be the skill that will prepare me for watching native series next year.
Modern Greek. (A2) It's a language where I progressed quickly. I want to get the basic tourist conversation down while keeping working on reading. Listening still isn't my main focus. I need to enlarge my vocabulary first. I will keep working on textbooks for this one.
Prospects
Indonesian/Malay, Tetun, Guarani, Swahili, Spanish, Esperanto, Romanian....Which one(s) is(are) going to be part of the list above? Time and availability of cool resources, such as Duolingo, will tell.