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Re: Expug's 2017 Log - It's now and forever

Posted: Tue Mar 21, 2017 3:17 am
by solocricket
Just wanted to say I enjoy reading how you juggle so many languages! I have aspirations to learn and maintain a lot of languages as well, so your log is quite helpful and inspirational :D

Re: Expug's 2017 Log - It's now and forever

Posted: Tue Mar 21, 2017 9:01 pm
by Expugnator
@smallwhite : both exist and the one I saw was definitely 好景不长 .

@solocricket : thank you! I hope you manage to learn a lot of languages, it does enrich one's experience!

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Today with a better earphone the experience of listening to the Norwegian audiobook was already better. I could read all along, but I think that even without text I would have understood more than the previous days.

Agatha Christie's books are good friends of language learners. My Estonian is benefiting tremendously from the various dialogues.

The book "Learn Greek Without a Teacher" seems to reserve a surprise at each lesson. Now there are interpretation exercises after each opening text. It's good practice at the early stages.

I'm getting drowned in the long notes of Assimil L'Espagnol. It totally defeats the point of having a more intuitive approach. It's just ordinary L1 explanation spread through the lesson instead of following a logical order as in a traditional textbook. And this in a textbook of the 2000's! I really hope Using Spanish isn't the same.

Not much done after normal schedule, only Clozemaster. Things got busy again and starting a video to be interrupted every other minute is annoying. I did resume some pending activities, though.

Re: Expug's 2017 Log - It's now and forever

Posted: Wed Mar 22, 2017 3:10 am
by smallwhite
Expugnator wrote:@smallwhite : both exist and the one I saw was definitely 好景不长 .


I see. Because they sound the same in Mandarin, I suppose. They sound different in Cantonese and you don't see or hear 好景不长 in Hong Kong.

Re: Expug's 2017 Log - It's now and forever

Posted: Wed Mar 22, 2017 8:41 pm
by Expugnator
As book 3 of The Chronicles of Narnia approaches its end, I've already found audio and text for book 4. This time I have another option for book 4, and i'll try it to see if the intonation and rhythm helps me understand the text faster and better.

The combination of listening the book Maya, by Jostein Gaarden, and doing Assimil L'Espagnol is making me want to visit many places in Spain. I've been to Barcelona, but that's a Catalan-speaking place I will certainly read more about when I get down to Catalan (knowing there is so much to be learned about Spanish also makes me wanderlust more for Catalan, it is going to be really cool and not just more of the same).

Reading the full newspaper in Papiamento instead of just online news is leading me to explore longer, complex texts on varied subjects instead of just Politics or Police. Today I read about nutrition. I learned that Papiamento uses 'kou' for 'chew', from the Dutch 'kauwen'.

I'm about to finish 1 book and 1 audiobook, non-fiction, and I'm trying to find the next one, but I'm not being that lucky in finding the non-English editions for the ones I want to read. Well, sometimes I do find some gems in Romanian, which I'm supposed to start soon.

The book Learn Greek without a teacher simplified a lot by saying in the plural masculine and feminine nouns have basically the same forms. So far I hadn't acknowledge this or been informed about it from other sources. With only one sentence a whole task became easier.

Reached an interesting point at Grammaire Progressive - Perfectionnement: L'Organisation du discours. I wonder where it will take me. As with the Portuguese ultimamente, dernièrement doesn't mean 'at final place', but just 'recently'.

Another busy day. Post-schedule series are on hold.

Re: Expug's 2017 Log - It's now and forever

Posted: Thu Mar 23, 2017 8:56 pm
by Expugnator
Russian makes sense, more and more. I should keep going. I even feel like writing sometimes.

The Italian contemporary novel has entered the stage of just 1-2 word lookups per page. It's not being effective for intensive reading, but I do want to keep consolidating vocabulary.

The exercises from Learn Greek without a Teacher have become useless without the translations of the sentences.

Just figured out, thanks to Assimil Espaçñol, that French has 'passer un savon', the exact equivalent of 'passar um sabão' in Portuguese. other than that, L'Espagnol keeps rich in cultural information but too exaggerated in notes.

I finished tasks early, finished some pending tasks and decided to watch the final minutes of another The OA episode in Russian. Next one is full dubbing, no more monovoice. I'm finally starting to 'like' the Russian language itself (I've always liked the sound of the language, the culture, just philologically the language always seemed unnecessarily complicated). This excitement about the language, the no longer feeling of strangeness towards it tends to preceed reaching basic reading fluency.

Re: Expug's 2017 Log - It's now and forever

Posted: Fri Mar 24, 2017 12:40 am
by neofight78
Glad to hear that Russian is becoming more enjoyable. :D It can be tough to begin with but ultimately it's a very rewarding language. Too many people give up on it too soon.

Re: Expug's 2017 Log - It's now and forever

Posted: Fri Mar 24, 2017 9:02 pm
by Expugnator
@neofight_78: thank you for the encouraging words! I sometimes feel guilty for taking part in a group with other learners who are so much more passionate about the language than I am! It's taken way too long for me to reach a stage where I've started to enjoy the language, but I persevered because I knew I'd need it for life and for enjoying the Russian culture.


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Norwegian seems to be sinking in. Listening alongside with L1 text isn't that unproductive, as long as you listen attentively and for meaning.

I'm almost done with the remaining Jänku-Jussi episodes (at least with the ones available on the official channel on Youtube), and I'm happy with my progress while really looking forward to starting a soap-opera. I've watched over 200 short cartoon videos, sometimes intensively, other times extensively, especially when they were too long. Today's one was particularly easy.

Started book 4 in Narnia. On Wednesday I wrote here that I had found a better soundfile. First, its speech is less creaky; second, the background music is really inspiring; third, the pace of the reading is more natural, it's slightly slower than the previous one, enough for me to actually follow the story with Pera-pera and to enjoy a taste for basic reading fluency. I feel so moved by this. I'm not halfway the whole set of chronicles, and I have the feeling that towards its end my Mandarin skills will be at another level. Can't wait to savor this new book and enjoy the magical, fulfilling sensation of starting to actually understand a foreign language.

Finished another book from the same authot that still occupies my 20-page read slot. Only six left, so I'll probably stick till the end. Most of the books are only available in English, like the next one, but the one after that is in French.

How do I know that I've learned some Russian? Well, there was a text at today's Greek lesson, and at the answer key to the Russian edition I could check the Russian translation. I did understand the Russian text better than the Greek one, though not by a large margin! It might be laughable to say, but I have interference from Russian into Greek, given the similarity of the alphabets and the syllable-forming patterns.

While I'm reviewing and consolidating with the help of 'Learn Greek without a Teacher', I'm facing new words at Greekpod, lower intermediate level. That's the advantage of working on two instructional materials at the same time.

I wonder if it's safe to treat the Spanish and the Greek past perfect equally (I know, in Latin America it's not quite used and the simple past is almost like the one in Portuguese).

Re: Expug's 2017 Log - It's now and forever

Posted: Mon Mar 27, 2017 8:42 pm
by Expugnator
The weekend was about gathering resources again. I downloaded Slow German, because I really need to read texts in German intensively so it catches up with Norwegian. I did 1 more lesson of Hello Chinese (recommended), I like the character drawing exercises because they're my sole contact with stroke order. I read a bit from my 20-page-a-day book, in the hope I can finish it earlier. No Clozemaster, though. This weekend I got some rest but I noticed my free moments go mostly for reading the forum, which I can one topic at a time. Engaging on actual study can be frustrating due to common interruptions.

Following the recommendations of Philip K. Dick at iguanamon's log, I found books of his in Greek and Hungarian. I'll probably do a German audiobook as well. I'm really into classical sci-fi for learning, they are my Harry Potter thing (though I never re-read).

I also messed a bit with Netflix language settings. I created a profile on my own so as not to mess with my wife's. Imagine you want to watch your favorite series and your interface is set to Mandarin! Anyway, it will be useful for German and Norwegian, especially during the weekend. I want to watch a cartoon series, Las Leyendas. It's available as dubbed even in Norwegian, but it's originally in Spanish so now I faced a dilemma. Black Mirror, which I'm going to watch in German, is also on Netflix, and I can alternate through computer/tablet/phone/TV this way. The problem is I probably still need English subtitles or at least to be able to pause and look words up at the computer.

This morning I took the girls to the dentist's for the first time. As a result, I lost all my morning study time. I didn't listen to the Norwegian audiobook because I drove to work and to the dentist's. During lunchtime, I forgot to download the final part of 'Grit', and so I only listened to 5 minutes instead of the usual 25.

Todayy at Yabla Chinese I learned that my favorite fruit is called 柿子 (shìzi).

Usually when i'm doing my listening-reading session in Russian (3 A4-format pages, about 15-20 minutes), my mind tends to wane, because it's a lot of information, language-wise and content-wise. Today was the first day when I managed to pay attention almost all the time, which means Russian is indeed becoming more palatable and familiar.

Re: Expug's 2017 Log - It's now and forever

Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2017 9:04 pm
by Expugnator
So I finished an important resource on my lonely road to basic reading fluency in Estonian. I've watched 219 cartoons with subtitles of Jänku Juss. They can be found on youtube, at the channel Lastekas, which is also a website of its own. I've just been wondering: Estonian is even rarer among language learners than Georgian, so it is definitely an exotic language from this point of view. Same as Georgian, when I started there were few resources, and I had to repeat textbooks even more than with Georgian, but things are getting better. There are native series with subtitles, films with subtitles, subtitles for American series but no dubbing. The audiobook market is still incipient. Ebooks, on the other hand, are accessible though pricey, and there are translations to some blockbusters which allow the learner to follow a consistent path, graded in terms of difficulty.

Now I'm going to watch two films I had found some months ago, just as a warm-up for the real challenge that will be watching the series Õnne 13 with native, accurate subtitles + the same subs machine-translated at another window.

Another day when I was comfortable at reading in Georgian, and basic fluency is getting closer. German isn't that bad either, but it's highly dependent on my current state of mind, and I devote the least alert time of the study day for it.

Finally started Black Mirror in German.Subtitles displayed simultaneously in German itself and in Portuguese on SMPlayer. Now it's a true learning exercise, and German is supposed to improve at the same pace as Georgian and Russian, because I'll be watching dubbed series with crystal-clear audio as well. This will be great for learning the vocabulary that would allow me to speak fluently later. It's not mainly a listening exercise.

Français.Cet après-midi j'ai lu un texte sur le repas familial dans la grammaire progressive niveau perfectionnement. Dans l'un des exercices, j'était censé écrire sur mes repas. Moi, je prends mon petit-déjeuner toujours seul. Je ne m'assois même pas pendant ce repas. Il en va de même pour le déjeuner, que je prends toujours dans des petits restaurants aux environs de mon bureau. On ne dine pas tous les jours chez nous, mais quand ça arrive nous le faisons ensemble, ma femme et moi. Les weekends il n'y a pas de routine, mais on prends le dejeuner au moins une fois chez mes beaux-parents, soit le samedi, soit le dimanche.

I finished the lessons of the Lower Intermediate level of Greekpod101, and I think it's moving too fast now. So, instead of proceeding to the Intermediate level, I'm going to use another resource for the time being. I'll be resuming the Kypros course at lesson 016. It goes at a much slower pace, as it's still dealing with basic declension. All in all, I'm skipping too much detailed grammar information at this moment, especially noun declension, because I don't have enough corpus to internalize the rules. I need to get some reading done first. So, I may try some native materials as well. Once I finish Learn Greek without a teacher I'm going to review Assimil by studying the old edition, in order to be able to start native materials more smoothly. Meanwhile, I'm going to do 1 page at a time for Dan Brown's book and, whenever possible, read subtitles from Westworld.

All goes well with Assimil L'Espagnol. I'm about to finish it and start Using Spanish. I have to check what comes next. Meanwhile, I've taken a look at the renowned Gramática de uso del español. I'm almost certain I won't be using the A1-A2 level. I'll come back to the B1-B2 level again once I'm some months into native materials. It might make more sense to use a Portuguese-based grammar which I own for the early levels, and only pick a grammar book for the nitpicking advanced details, which I'd rather need when writing. Besides not being exactly new to the Spanish grammar, as it's one thing we focus on at highschool here in Brazil, I'm sure I'm going to absorb a lot more rules and an ear for what sounds right after reading a couple of novels.

Re: Expug's 2017 Log - It's now and forever

Posted: Wed Mar 29, 2017 5:49 am
by smallwhite
Expugnator wrote:Todayy at Yabla Chinese I learned that my favorite fruit is called 柿子 (shìzi).


你喜欢软的、像蕃茄的那种还是硬的、像苹果的那种?我喜欢软的那种,好像叫水柿或者是腍柿。