Con calma, a new and better log for 2017

[DaveBee]

Are there really Tunisians, who don't speak French?

I used to listen to RFI radio most days. They often do little interviews with places in the news, I was surprised that the Syria/Libya interviews always seemed to require english, even a Medicins Sans Frontiers spokesman!

[tiia]

I didn't say anything about Dresden plans, because it was a last minute plan with my family, and the visit lasted just half a day.

Well, in case you'd like to visit again, you're welcome to join for a cup of ehm.. something. Maybe coffee doesn't seem to be the best choice in that case. (I don't know, I never drank coffee here.)

German speaking people are rare here.

Wow, I always thought they're absolutely everywhere I mean even when I visited Lapland the other girls in the hostel were Germans..

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Sometimes cutting down everything else for a short time is just necessary/the best thing to do. Sometimes it's not. If the period is getting too long, it's probably not (at least according to my experience).
Good luck with your exam.


PS. If needed, I could even offer a place to sleep. (For one person only. Though I cannot really recommend it in case of back problems.)

[Cavesa]

Thanks!

German speaking people are rare here.

Wow, I always thought they're absolutely everywhere I mean even when I visited Lapland the other girls in the hostel were Germans..

It depends. Ten years ago, German was definitely the number 1 language of tourists in Prague. These days, it is not. I don't know whether the absolute number of German speaking visitors changed. But the relative one must have, as Spanish and Italian became extremely common. French is quite well represented too, but still nowhere Spanish and Italian. Among other common tourist languages are Russian, Japanese, Korean (judging by the script on their books, I cannot tell by the sound). Prague is a cheap and nice destination, which makes it very popular. When I was in Spain, almost everyone had been to Prague. And who hadn't been to Prague, had visited Budapest.

In the city center, German is still normally heard from the tourists, but it stopped being so dominant. I live a few metro stations away, in a nice neighbourhood with lots of offices, still quite a lot of appartments with real Prague people, and most services available in walking distance. There are several hotels, a few hostels or something like that, and some airbnb opportunities. And I rarely hear German around here, it is definitely mostly Italian and Spanish.

........
I have started my "translate the torturebook" project.

[Cavesa]

It is time.

I've been forced to choose. I need to get rid of vast majority of my life. It is hard. It is a short term experiment now. I have two weeks to prepare for the hellish exam and my best chance is the examinator accidentally dying before that day. This is the main advantage of multiple choice test kind of exam. They have a lot of disadvantages, but they don't give the opportunity to pathologic individuals among the examinators. So, let's see, whether I can survive this.

If I don't fail, then I'll have less than 10 months of hell before me. I will hate that life, but I hate the option of having to stay in the Czech Republic more. I can only focus on three things, during the next year. 1.School and the horrible French exam, in which I don't stand a chance anyways 2.The German language, as that is my future, if I fail to get a good score in France 3.survival

Therefore I am giving up on every other language project, and on other stuff too. I will read a bit in my languages or watch series, as that will be part of the scarce fun time, but I highly doubt I will open any courses. I am giving up on DELE. I need to pass B2 Goethe-Zertifikat. Perhaps, I may go for B1 first, just as a milestone, if I have the money.

I won't have much money for language learning, except for some German necessities. If I pass the exam in two weeks and win the awesome prize of a hellish year before the French medical exam, I will need approximately 2000 euros for study materials, as I don't have access to the free or cheap ones for natives. There are already a few hundred euros in my bookcase.

I hate my future life already. But it is necessary. I will annoy you a bit less though, as I'm going to restrict my internet time too. Forums: one hour per week. Fb: 15 minutes per day. news websites and similar: 15 minutes per day. TV series in English are just permited as a part of time spent with my Boyfriend, and even that not too much. Books in French or English or Spanish:yes, but in very small doses, after daily amount of studying.

So, from now on, this log will be mostly about German learning, and about studying in French.

And I joined the only group of foreigners preparing for that exams, that I found on facebook. So, it looks like I will practice my Italian a bit afterall.
..................................
The new goals:
-my hated studies at university and preparation for the battle happening next year.
-German till the end of 2017:
1.Finish at least two of my courses leading to B1
2.Start reading in German regularily, and watching tv series
3.Do at least one half of my biggest grammar workbook (a translation based one)

[DaveBee]

I hate my future life already. But it is necessary.
..................................
The new goals:
-my hated studies at university and preparation for the battle happening next year.
-German till the end of 2017:
1.Finish at least two of my courses leading to B1
2.Start reading in German regularily, and watching tv series
3.Do at least one half of my biggest grammar workbook (a translation based one)

Best of luck Cavesa. Stay strong!

[Elenia]

I think I speak for everyone when I say that we're rooting for you. I sincerely believe that you can do this. Take care of yourself.

[MamaPata]

Good luck with it all! Do what's best for you and look after yourself.

[gsbod]

Ich drücke dir die Daumen / I have my fingers crossed for you!

[Cavesa]

Thank you for your continuous support, my friends. It means a lot to me.

A short update:

What progress did I make and what did not go so well:
-I lessened the amount of time on forums, but I balanced it out elsewhere. but I guess there is still a bit of progress
-I got through a very unhappy phase, I think it is over and it won't get that bad until one day before the exam or something. That is good.
-Some Spanish in WoW (much less time there during the last week, yay!), a bit of German on the internet. I am looking (or going to be looking, when I have more time for it) for the WoW novels in German as epubs. Impossible. Why can't I just be allowed to buy them?
-I got through approximately one fifth of the textbook I should have gotten through twice. Twice through the whole monster, so that is like one tenth of the plan. I need to speed up asap.
-I got some motivation for my studies. That is great. But it will be just one more problem, if I get kicked out of the faculty in ten days.

-I returned to Habitica and it is working nicely. I am logging even tiny bits, and even more times, as that gets me motivated. A doublepage, a textbook chapter, 30 minutes of studying, those are examples of my Habits. There are a few Dailies, but I had to delete several as I was dying too much and it wasn't motivating. I think I'll have use for them, when I get back to school. Individual textbook chapters are as To Dos (like chapter 1, chapter 2,...). A daily I want to keep despite knowing I'll probably never check it is "go to sleep before midnight"

This means every bit of studying gets counted up to four times. If it is cheating, I don't care. It keeps me going.

P.S. I think I already mentioned the advantages and disadvantages of having up to date textbooks, as in France, compared to the weird system in the Czech Republic. One of the disadvantages now bothers me. A book that arrived a few weeks ago has just gotten a new edition. And judging by some newspaper articles, I think the updates of some chapters may be important. And the new one has a prettier cover.

P.S.2 A tip for fellow learners of disgusting stuff: a piece of paper covering the photos (after I study them once of course) is a miracle! Why on earth had I not thought of this before?

[Cavesa]

I almost forgot! I watched a tv series, fortunately a short one. Defenders. Another marvel by Marvel. And in Italian again. It's something completely relaxing. Not that great at first, but pretty good later on.