Languid Language Learning

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Elenia
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Re: Languid Language Learning

Postby Elenia » Sun Oct 22, 2017 6:16 pm

Today has been lots of LWT. As I mentioned in Brun Ugle's log, I have been adding only tiny texts at a time, although still larger than my target of 100 words. I only have 1,286 saved terms, so most of the longer texts are at around 50% unknown words. I'm being much more thorough now, so it takes ages to get through even a single sentence. It'll be better for me in the long term, but short term it's a bit of a nightmare. I forget that I'm even reading a book! For the interested, I'm alternating text bits from Kaninhjärta by Christin Ljungqvist and Gösta Berlings Saga by Selma Lagerlöf. So far I've read about 2000 words (maybe a bit less) in LWT, so I've definitely got a long way to go.
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Brun Ugle
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Re: Languid Language Learning

Postby Brun Ugle » Mon Oct 23, 2017 7:08 pm

And now I'm finally caught up on your log too!

I'm doing LWT excruciatingly slowly too since I actually add every word rather than clicking "I know it all." I've now got over 9000 words in Spanish, but Harry Potter seems stuck at 26% unknown. Every time I add a new chapter, it's always 26%. Eventually, it has to go down, but it's taking a lot longer than I'd expected. At least Swedish is probably kinder with the verb forms than Spanish.

I should get back to my knitting too. I have some half-finished socks that I haven't touched since the library had their "Strikk og lytt" back in September, it must have been. That was kind of fun. We all took our knitting to work on while the librarian read aloud excerpts from various books.

I should see if I can remember my password to Ravelry and add you. I don't think I've updated anything there in years. It might be a bit motivating to have a few friends there. Maybe I'd actually manage to finish a pair of socks in under a year for once. I should probably take up listening to audiobooks like you do. It's much easier to knit when you have an audiobook or TV show to entertain you.
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Elenia
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Re: Languid Language Learning

Postby Elenia » Wed Oct 25, 2017 10:23 am

Brun Ugle wrote:And now I'm finally caught up on your log too!

I'm doing LWT excruciatingly slowly too since I actually add every word rather than clicking "I know it all." I've now got over 9000 words in Spanish, but Harry Potter seems stuck at 26% unknown. Every time I add a new chapter, it's always 26%. Eventually, it has to go down, but it's taking a lot longer than I'd expected. At least Swedish is probably kinder with the verb forms than Spanish.

I should get back to my knitting too. I have some half-finished socks that I haven't touched since the library had their "Strikk og lytt" back in September, it must have been. That was kind of fun. We all took our knitting to work on while the librarian read aloud excerpts from various books.

I should see if I can remember my password to Ravelry and add you. I don't think I've updated anything there in years. It might be a bit motivating to have a few friends there. Maybe I'd actually manage to finish a pair of socks in under a year for once. I should probably take up listening to audiobooks like you do. It's much easier to knit when you have an audiobook or TV show to entertain you.


Woohoo! I haven't done much of worth so you probably could have skipped most of it :oops:

If it helps, you're still going much faster than I am! The last two days I only added 53 words each :S really not very good. Swedish is definitely easier on the verb forms front! I am reading a modern book and an old book, so the old book contains lots of verb forms that aren't used, but as far as I can tell they only conjugate for single and plural, so still considerably less than Spanish! Part of the problem for me is all of the compound words! Such as blomstergård - two words which I know well, but which still must be added to the database. I had previously been using the 'I know all' button, but changed to start adding noun declensions and verb conjugations. I think it'll be much better for my Swedish in the long term It's just very frustrating now!

I'm currenlt jealous of you and your eternal 26%. I have just over 1,400 words in my database and the lowest percentage unknown in my texts is 30%. They're usually 50% or more when first added!

Ypu should add me on Ravelry! I'm EleniaT there :D I mostly read the forum while knitting, but I am also somewhat obsessive about knitting (I am probably giving myself a repetitive strain disorder!) so when I am into knitting, I knit whenever I can - even while walking!

---

Volunteering today, but I haven't much to add. Going through the same texts on LWT. I also read another short story from Tove Jansson's Rent Spel aloud to my boyfriend last night. Not sure how I feel about it the story, but will continue with it for a while in any case.
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Brun Ugle
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Re: Languid Language Learning

Postby Brun Ugle » Thu Oct 26, 2017 6:11 am

There, I added you. I should update my projects now. I really did finish that pair of sock from a couple of years ago. I just need to find the picture I took. As you can see, I haven’t been very active these past few years. My project list is embarrassing.

I forgot about all the compound words. That’s going to be fun when I get to German. And imagine Finnish — all those cases, singular and plural, plus all the particles stuck on. There are probably a few hundred possible forms for almost every word.
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Elenia
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Re: Languid Language Learning

Postby Elenia » Thu Oct 26, 2017 7:58 pm

Brun Ugle wrote:There, I added you. I should update my projects now. I really did finish that pair of sock from a couple of years ago. I just need to find the picture I took. As you can see, I haven’t been very active these past few years. My project list is embarrassing.

I forgot about all the compound words. That’s going to be fun when I get to German. And imagine Finnish — all those cases, singular and plural, plus all the particles stuck on. There are probably a few hundred possible forms for almost every word.


Well, mine is worse! So no worries :) Actually, I discovered yet another sock pattern from your project page, so thanks! (My lists of socks I want to knit eclipses even the list of languages I want to learn!)

Speaking of languages... oh, god, Finnish LWT. The very thought is terrifying - although at least I wouldn't actually know all of the words I had to look up and input!
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Brun Ugle
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Re: Languid Language Learning

Postby Brun Ugle » Fri Oct 27, 2017 6:51 am

Elenia wrote:
Brun Ugle wrote:There, I added you. I should update my projects now. I really did finish that pair of sock from a couple of years ago. I just need to find the picture I took. As you can see, I haven’t been very active these past few years. My project list is embarrassing.

I forgot about all the compound words. That’s going to be fun when I get to German. And imagine Finnish — all those cases, singular and plural, plus all the particles stuck on. There are probably a few hundred possible forms for almost every word.


Well, mine is worse! So no worries :) Actually, I discovered yet another sock pattern from your project page, so thanks! (My lists of socks I want to knit eclipses even the list of languages I want to learn!)

Speaking of languages... oh, god, Finnish LWT. The very thought is terrifying - although at least I wouldn't actually know all of the words I had to look up and input!

I have the same problem. I love socks. I've learned to knit them toe-up so I can knit them right onto my weird duck feet and make them fit perfectly. There are some great Finnish sock patterns out there in case you want some motivation.
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Elenia
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Re: Languid Language Learning

Postby Elenia » Fri Oct 27, 2017 11:59 am

Brun Ugle wrote:
Elenia wrote:
Brun Ugle wrote:There, I added you. I should update my projects now. I really did finish that pair of sock from a couple of years ago. I just need to find the picture I took. As you can see, I haven’t been very active these past few years. My project list is embarrassing.

I forgot about all the compound words. That’s going to be fun when I get to German. And imagine Finnish — all those cases, singular and plural, plus all the particles stuck on. There are probably a few hundred possible forms for almost every word.


Well, mine is worse! So no worries :) Actually, I discovered yet another sock pattern from your project page, so thanks! (My lists of socks I want to knit eclipses even the list of languages I want to learn!)

Speaking of languages... oh, god, Finnish LWT. The very thought is terrifying - although at least I wouldn't actually know all of the words I had to look up and input!

I have the same problem. I love socks. I've learned to knit them toe-up so I can knit them right onto my weird duck feet and make them fit perfectly. There are some great Finnish sock patterns out there in case you want some motivation.


Just yesterday I found two toe up socks by Finnish designers, one to be knit to around knee length, the second to be knit to thigh length. The designer for the second pair of socks recommends knitting them all the way up so that they hold better - like a pair of tights, but not!

---

I've slightly changed up the way I use LWT. I now add the other forms of new words if I am marking a word as well known. For example, if I come across 'trappan' in a text, I will then add 'trappa', 'trappor' and 'trapporna' to My Terms if I haven't already added them. I don't do it for words that I would mark as learning. It hasn't yet made much of a difference to the percentage of words known in my other unread texts, but as long as it makes the process less tedious I'll keep on doing it. I also had grand plans to add in words I've noted down meanings and examples for from other texts, but as of yet haven't been bothered to do it. I took one look at the word list and changed my mind: most of these words aren't supremely likely to come up again in the texts I'm currently reading, and so it becomes more effort than it's worth.

Otherwise, I'm finding that my Swedish has become a little clumpy and a little less confident. I'm hoping this means I'm in the process of learning something new - my new accuracy with LWT means I'm becoming more aware of pluralisation mistakes, among other things. I went to my second meet up with the local knitting club and spoke a little, although almost exclusively when addressed. Nerves still prevail there. I am taking on more responsibility at the Red Cross as well, and finding that my nerves sometimes get in the way now. This is just something I will have to work through. All of my current listening is conversational - which is great, but I think I am losing out a bit on having such one sided listening experience. There is a lot more umm-ing and aah-ing, and a lot less lexical diversity.
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Elenia
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Re: Languid Language Learning

Postby Elenia » Thu Dec 07, 2017 11:03 pm

Well it's the same old story of not so much doing here. I've finally started back with doing a bit of Clozemaster. I also contemplated some more LWT, but neither of the texts I have in there currently are interesting enough for me to want to slog through all the additional work that LWT entails. When I find a more interesting text that I can get my digital hands on, I'll look back into it.

I've managed to collect a lot of newspapers, which I kept mostly for the Sudoku and Swedish Crosswords (which are like English 'Arrowwords' puzzles). They were covering pretty much our entire desk/table area, so I cleaned them up and went through them all, tearing out interesting articles and, of course, the puzzles. I've already gone through two, looking up the unknown words. I'm thinking of writing out the unknown words (the interesting ones, anyway) in one of the tiny Glossika notebooks they were giving out at the Gathering, along with the article's full text afterwards, but I've been putting doing so off since Saturday.

Last week, I also managed to listen to a few 20 minute episodes of Vetandets Värld from Sveriges Radio, which Jeff mentioned in his log. I'll try to listen to a few more, as well as some of the suggestions he gave earlier up in this log, next week. Aside from this, I've been volunteering three, and sometimes four, days a week. This means interacting with customers in Swedish, whenever they speak Swedish, as well as with other Swedish speaking volunteers. I have also now had a few introductory talks with new volunteers in Swedish, as well as email and phone exchanges. So far, nothing's gone horribly wrong, except that I often forget the most crucial word in a sentence from nerves.

In great news: Tomorrow heralds the return of På Spåret! We will be watching with a friend who apparently takes things very seriously. I'm so excited, I have been waiting all year for this. Tomorrow is also the day that I find out if I made my way on to two freestanding university courses I applied for. Håll tummarna åt mig!

(Other languages: Dutch is very Dutch. It's a lazy and languid thing, I'm taking it super easy. I surprised myself by being able to remember quite a bit on Finnish Clozemaster from previous sessions, even though it's been so long! Will need to get back to course work, or anything with useful listening, to be honest. I manage to speak a few words of German in my Skype conversations with my friends, although not nearly as much as I'd like, and they are usually the same things about how we'd spent the whole conversation not talking in German and how I hope to speak more German next time...)

(Other things: my partner has joined the forum! He's planning on making a proper appearance at some point, but just in case you guys want spoilers...)
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Elenia
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Re: Languid Language Learning

Postby Elenia » Sat Dec 09, 2017 2:33 pm

So, På Spåret has landed. I watched with my partner and our friend. They watch differently to the way I do: they have subtitles on and pause, whereas I try to do neither thing. I don't know whether or not I should be glad that this didn't appear to make the slightest bit of difference. As a team we got 30 points. Of those, one was mine. It would have been two points, but they insisted I stick to my first answer (because previously changing the first answer meant we lost out on a point.) Che sera sera.
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Yuurei
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Re: Languid Language Learning

Postby Yuurei » Thu Dec 14, 2017 9:37 am

Wait, wait, is that some mention of Dutch that I spy on your log?? :shock: How did that manage to sneak in? :lol:
Side note: I had a work thing in the Netherlands a few weeks ago and spent part of the train ride there re-listening to some Assmil lessons so I'd be able to pretend I speak Dutch order my coffee in Dutch, at least, without embarassing myself or being immediately replied to with English -- in the Netherlands you really have to up your game even on the simplest interactions, I find, or else people will just mercilessly switch to English on you. Anyway, long story short, I was reminded once again of how much I like Dutch.

Also, I see that you're still sticking with Finnish at least a bit - very admirable! I only look guiltily at my Finnish books from time to time. XD
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