Japanese and Mandarin in 50 years, with a lot of detours.

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David27
Green Belt
Posts: 279
Joined: Thu Apr 13, 2017 8:52 pm
Languages: English (N)
French, Spanish (advanced)
Russian, Portuguese, Italian, German (proficient)
Mandarin, Japanese, Dutch (low-intermediate)
Latin, Polish: (beginner)
Abandoned languages (for now) :( Greek, Czech, Bengali, Arabic, Norwegian
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Re: Japanese and Mandarin in 50 years, with a lot of detours.

Postby David27 » Tue Aug 17, 2021 2:35 am

A lot more small conversations in the past few weeks in other languages other than Spanish. I speak Spanish all the time, so it doesn't really feel special to me. I shouldn't take it for granted, but I do. But anytime I end up using a different language outside of English/Spanish now is always exciting for me.

1 week ago I finished moving, I used the same company I used the first time, which is mostly (maybe completely?) Georgians who do the moving, so while it was a different crew, they still spoke Georgian. I spoke to them in some Russian, but Russian seems about as foreign to them as English was, which wasn't bad by any stretch, but did have a significant accent and didn't come natural (some odd word choice, occasional grammar mistakes). I don't fault them for it, my Russian is on a similar level with an accent and some odd word choice/grammatical errors peppered in as well! We made some small talk in Russian, about food, about Georgia, about where they live here in NY and the Georgian community, but when getting down to business they preferred to speak in English (the previous moving team had used more Russian with me during the move as well). Amongst themselves they all spoke exclusively in Georgian, so Russian was not a preferred language, though they could do it. They are about in their 30-40s.

About 4 days later, I met a young woman from Azerbaijan who is ~25 years old. While she understands Russian, she was not comfortable speaking it, her English was VERY good, even though she had only been here now for 3 months. It makes sense that as the education system improves and pushes more and more English, that their Russian may be sacrificed.

Speaking of Russian, I also finished "A Dog's Heart" audiobook by Bulgakov. I recommend starting with Master and Margarita, as that is his masterpiece, if you enjoy his writing and and humor as I do, then go on to "A Dog's Heart", which I still enjoyed, but you have to be more into reading about that Soviet time period, as this is 100% allegory with much less story than Master and Margarita. I first read it in English ~2009-2010, before my Russian was good enough to be able to read it in Russian, studied and learned a lot more Russian/Soviet history and read other period pieces about this time, and enjoyed this second pass more than the first time I read it. If you can't tell, I often like re-reading books after some time passes.

In other news, my next door neighbors are Japanese. They moved to the US 3 years ago from Tokyo, and seem very friendly. I did introduce myself and said about 2-3 sentences in Japanese, but didn't get a full dialogue, we spoke English pretty much the whole time :(. Hopefully I'll be able to speak to them a bit in Japanese, but since my level is not the best, I also don't want to force it on them, so if it feels unnatural or unwanted, I'll stick with just English. After all, if I really want speaking practice, I could pay a tutor rather than bother my neighbors :lol:

I also met 2 different Brazilians on different days, and with each of them had about a 5 minute chat in Portuguese. As you can tell by my hours... I don't keep much contact with Portuguese, but surprisingly I was still able to carry on a conversation and kept the flow natural (granted we were speaking about more superficial things as it was the first time we met), but I do feel validated that the little Portuguese input that I do is maintaining my level adequately enough.
9 x

David27
Green Belt
Posts: 279
Joined: Thu Apr 13, 2017 8:52 pm
Languages: English (N)
French, Spanish (advanced)
Russian, Portuguese, Italian, German (proficient)
Mandarin, Japanese, Dutch (low-intermediate)
Latin, Polish: (beginner)
Abandoned languages (for now) :( Greek, Czech, Bengali, Arabic, Norwegian
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Re: Japanese and Mandarin in 50 years, with a lot of detours.

Postby David27 » Wed Aug 25, 2021 2:58 am

It's been a difficult month for me to sit down and study. Between moving, a lot of work at the hospital, and a baby at home, I haven't done much besides listening to podcasts on my commute, occasionally reading news articles or a youtube video here and there. My Mandarin and Japanese studies have taken the brunt of the hit. However at work I had a 30 minute visit completely in Russian without issue with a very nice elderly Belorussian couple. I had passed a Russian medical language proficiency test a few years ago, but it was validating to have a visit without any issues in communication, and discussing a wide array of topics (even strayed outside of medicine a bit as they were very interested in how I learned Russian, my background, etc. but also could address all their medical concerns as well). That's not to say that my Russian is perfect, I tripped over my words a few times but was always able to get it out eventually, I could hear some grammatical mistakes (after they already left my mouth), and it's funny that I am more conscious of my accent when using Russian more than any other language. Perhaps it's because I've done so much listening, I know how I'm supposed to sound... if I need to just say a few words I think I can sound alright, but in the course of a longer conversation, where the speech just is flowing, I notice that my accent comes out stronger. If I had more speaking opportunities, I would focus in on improving this, but since it's not too common for me to speak Russian (this month being quite the exception meeting several people from ex-Soviet republics), I probably won't get the opportunity to actively practice this with regularity, and when I have free time, I don't want to search out italki Russian speaking sessions, because if I have extra at home study time, I still want to use more of that for Japanese and Mandarin.
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David27
Green Belt
Posts: 279
Joined: Thu Apr 13, 2017 8:52 pm
Languages: English (N)
French, Spanish (advanced)
Russian, Portuguese, Italian, German (proficient)
Mandarin, Japanese, Dutch (low-intermediate)
Latin, Polish: (beginner)
Abandoned languages (for now) :( Greek, Czech, Bengali, Arabic, Norwegian
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Re: Japanese and Mandarin in 50 years, with a lot of detours.

Postby David27 » Mon Sep 13, 2021 3:04 am

It was a tough August for me to study consistently, as I mentioned before, but I still covered some interesting linguistic activities, mostly summarized in my previous posts. Now I'm trying to get my Mandarin and Japanese back into gear, with a goal for this month of getting them back to over 10 hours each for the month. I've also discovered how many great books I've picked up over the years but haven't gotten around to reading, so I started reading la Peste by Albert Camus. I'll slowly work through the books I already own before buying new ones. Most of them are in French, Russian, German, Italian, and some English (I've now read all I own in Spanish, and I haven't found any Portuguese books in the used book stores I used to frequent).

As far as language wonderlust goes, I've had more interest in the Celtic languages as of late, so before bed I will occasionally read forums here or elsewhere on them. If I were to learn one, I would probably choose Welsh or Irish, just given the strength of community and easier to perhaps one day do an immersion trip for one of these languages. However I do find the Cornish revival movement interesting. That being said, time is limited, and looking at my book shelf, I have a very old Assimil Arabic, "A New Arabic Grammar", Colloquial Bengali, an older edition of Assimil Le Polonais sans peine, and colloquial Czech. I will hold on to all of these, as I sold my Teach Yourself Greek back to a bookstore after my trip to Greece in 2016, and have regretted it since. So no new languages for now, but it's fun to dream.

August Hours:
Spanish: 9 hours, 30 minutes
Mandarin: 4 hours, 55 minutes
Japanese: 4 hours, 10 minutes
Russian: 4 hours, 0 minutes
German: 3 hours, 35 minutes
French: 2 hours, 40 minutes
Latin: 1 hour, 20 minutes
Portuguese: 35 minutes
Dutch: 30 minutes
Italian: 20 minutes

Running 2021 total:
Spanish: 78 hours, 45 minutes
Mandarin: 71 hours, 30 minutes
Japanese: 69 hours, 55 minutes
Russian: 46 hours, 50 minutes
German: 38 hours, 5 minutes
Italian: 13 hours, 10 minutes
French: 12 hours, 30 minutes
Latin: 11 hours, 25 minutes
Dutch: 11 hours, 10 minutes
Portuguese: 4 hours, 15 minutes
8 x

David27
Green Belt
Posts: 279
Joined: Thu Apr 13, 2017 8:52 pm
Languages: English (N)
French, Spanish (advanced)
Russian, Portuguese, Italian, German (proficient)
Mandarin, Japanese, Dutch (low-intermediate)
Latin, Polish: (beginner)
Abandoned languages (for now) :( Greek, Czech, Bengali, Arabic, Norwegian
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Re: Japanese and Mandarin in 50 years, with a lot of detours.

Postby David27 » Mon Sep 20, 2021 1:53 pm

I stumbled across some N5 JLPT listening tests on YouTube. I’ve done 4 of them, and did quite well in them all, but not perfect. I think maybe aiming for N4 would be a better goal, this week I’ll look for some N4 test material.

However one negative of the test, is it is designed for university students. While some dialogues involve travel, going to a restaurant, going to a party or meeting a friend etc which is generally applicable, many involve school situations, borrowing an eraser or textbook, preparing homework for a test, sitting at a desk, going to the classroom or cafeteria, etc, and while I understand it (because the Genki textbooks are also designed for university students, and therefore I’ve seen the vocabulary before and it would a good prep for the test… if I were taking it), it’s not situations I am likely to ever find myself in in Japanese.

I also turned on Peppa Pig in Spanish for my daughter while needing a moment to clean some things up, and I liked the short format of episodes, so I also started occasionally watching a 5-10 minute span in Mandarin, and I’m happy that I’m able to follow along with good understanding. Learning words like 恐龙 (dinosaur) may not be the most useful, but most of the vocabulary is basic and relevant (family terms, visiting friends, birthday, surprises, giving a present, having a picnic, going to the pool etc).

For reading, I’ll read for about 20 minutes on 2-3 days a week of Camus’ La Peste, and now am past the first 100 pages. I’m enjoying being back in Oran, and his writing. While it’s an allegory about Naziism in Europe, if I hadn’t been told that with his intro I wouldn’t have picked up on that, as to a modern reader it reads very well as a story about a pandemic, and the public’s response to it. Camus really understands human psychology, and is able to in the 1940s create diverse characters in his city that acted and reacted to their pandemic in the same way people did to COVID and lockdowns over the last year and a half.
7 x

David27
Green Belt
Posts: 279
Joined: Thu Apr 13, 2017 8:52 pm
Languages: English (N)
French, Spanish (advanced)
Russian, Portuguese, Italian, German (proficient)
Mandarin, Japanese, Dutch (low-intermediate)
Latin, Polish: (beginner)
Abandoned languages (for now) :( Greek, Czech, Bengali, Arabic, Norwegian
x 987

Re: Japanese and Mandarin in 50 years, with a lot of detours.

Postby David27 » Mon Oct 04, 2021 2:31 am

September Language Hours

On September 30th I was set to hit my language goals, just needed to sit down for a session of 15 minutes of Japanese, and 20 minutes of Mandarin. I had been hitting my target of 20 minutes in each on average nightly every night for the whole month, but for whatever reason, I just decided to take the night off, so I fell just short of my goal.

For next month, it will be harder to maintain the consistency, as I will be busier in October, so while I'll leave my goal for Japanese and Mandarin at 10 hours each, I don't think I will get there, especially since I'm enjoying watching some Russian TV, reading in French (since I started reading La Peste, I've also just been a bit on French kick and watching a bit of French youtube, scrolling French news daily on France24.fr and reading the occasional article that peaks my interest), plus I want to continue keeping up listening to the EasyGerman podcast... all in all it's a lot to keep up with, and some things will have to give unfortunately.

Some things will have to give particularly given that the polyglot conference online is this month. I'll sign up and give a donation, and if I have time to do any introductory sessions or classes (particularly for less studied languages or languages that don't have a lot of resources), I'd love to take advantage of that to at least get an introduction. It really depends on how things are going with at work and at home though.

I have done a bit more Portuguese, because I watched a short series on Netflix, now thanks to Iguanamon's suggestion on their log I've watched several videos on youtube of ler antes de morrer, which I enjoy.

For Latin, I'm somewhat surprised that I'm enjoying it so much, but I think it's here to stay. Not as a main focus, but every time I listen to videos on it or sit down to try to read something or study it, I just find it fun. No immediate goals or plans, just continue to do it occasionally.

September Hours:
Japanese: 9 hours, 45 minutes
Mandarin 9 hours, 40 minutes
French: 6 hours, 30 minutes
Russian: 5 hours, 40 minutes
Spanish: 3 hours, 20 minutes
Portuguese: 3 hours, 5 minutes
German: 2 hours, 50 minutes
Latin: 1 hour, 55 minutes
Dutch: 50 minutes
Italian: 15 minutes

Running 2021 total:
Spanish: 82 hours, 5 minutes
Mandarin: 81 hours, 10 minutes
Japanese: 79 hours, 40 minutes
Russian: 52 hours, 30 minutes
German: 40 hours, 55 minutes
French: 19 hours, 0 minutes
Italian: 13 hours, 25 minutes
Latin: 13 hours, 20 minutes
Dutch: 12 hours, 0 minutes
Portuguese: 7 hours, 20 minutes
7 x

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Dr Mack Rettosy
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Languages: English (N), Mandarin
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Re: Japanese and Mandarin in 50 years, with a lot of detours.

Postby Dr Mack Rettosy » Tue Oct 05, 2021 6:33 pm

Peppa Pig for Mandarin is indeed great. As you pointed out, the show builds both comprehension and vocabulary, which is unique. It's almost as if it was made to be educational..

Baby George's vocabulary is pretty much restricted to 恐龙 and "grrr..." and the occasional other dinosaur (三角龙,暴龙,等等). His pronunciation is a bit all over, from kǒnglóng (correct) to kāolǎo (?). I decided this was intentional after watching the English show with my niece and hearing "Dine-saw, grrr..." Anyway, that's probably more detail than you need, but in case you ever talk about dinosaurs with a Mandarin speaking patient, you heard it here first.
7 x
Mandarin goals:
Read: 2146000 / 10000000 /10,000,000 汉字
Study: 2006 / 5000 / 5000 hours

David27
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Posts: 279
Joined: Thu Apr 13, 2017 8:52 pm
Languages: English (N)
French, Spanish (advanced)
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Mandarin, Japanese, Dutch (low-intermediate)
Latin, Polish: (beginner)
Abandoned languages (for now) :( Greek, Czech, Bengali, Arabic, Norwegian
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Re: Japanese and Mandarin in 50 years, with a lot of detours.

Postby David27 » Tue Oct 05, 2021 7:12 pm

Dr Mack Rettosy wrote:Peppa Pig for Mandarin is indeed great. As you pointed out, the show builds both comprehension and vocabulary, which is unique. It's almost as if it was made to be educational..

Baby George's vocabulary is pretty much restricted to 恐龙 and "grrr..." and the occasional other dinosaur (三角龙,暴龙,等等). His pronunciation is a bit all over, from kǒnglóng (correct) to kāolǎo (?). I decided this was intentional after watching the English show with my niece and hearing "Dine-saw, grrr..." Anyway, that's probably more detail than you need, but in case you ever talk about dinosaurs with a Mandarin speaking patient, you heard it here first.


Lol thank you for the extra input on baby George, I wasn’t sure about the pronunciation… but I luckily enough dinos aren’t a high frequency topic. I actually put in a good 15 minutes of peppa pig this morning, so it seems to be here to stay as part of my study Arsenal. The short episodes are what really makes it good for me.
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David27
Green Belt
Posts: 279
Joined: Thu Apr 13, 2017 8:52 pm
Languages: English (N)
French, Spanish (advanced)
Russian, Portuguese, Italian, German (proficient)
Mandarin, Japanese, Dutch (low-intermediate)
Latin, Polish: (beginner)
Abandoned languages (for now) :( Greek, Czech, Bengali, Arabic, Norwegian
x 987

Re: Japanese and Mandarin in 50 years, with a lot of detours.

Postby David27 » Fri Oct 08, 2021 12:11 pm

I had a few encounters in Italian... the first one buying a bottle of wine from a small shop with the owner from Salerno, just 1-2 minutes, generic pleasantries, no problem and the conversation felt very smooth. The second was with an older woman from Triest who was thrilled to be able to speak some Italian with someone. We spoke over 10 minutes (10-20? no idea how long really), but it was more than just the basic 'where you're from, why I speak Italian' and got to real conversation about other topics. Since I haven't used Italian or spoken in so long, it has atrophied, I felt I was fumbling, especially the longer the conversation went on, I even switched to English at one point, but she was brava and stuck to Italian so I switched back :). Just more evidence of what I already knew, that without consistent practice, some of those abilities regress. Hopefully someday I get to travel to Italy again, but to help with the transition of going over, I would be grinding out a lot of Italian exposure prior to going to be ready to hit the ground running, and have better spoken fluency than where I am at now.
7 x

David27
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Posts: 279
Joined: Thu Apr 13, 2017 8:52 pm
Languages: English (N)
French, Spanish (advanced)
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Mandarin, Japanese, Dutch (low-intermediate)
Latin, Polish: (beginner)
Abandoned languages (for now) :( Greek, Czech, Bengali, Arabic, Norwegian
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Re: Japanese and Mandarin in 50 years, with a lot of detours.

Postby David27 » Sun Oct 10, 2021 8:38 pm

Ich habe einen Video auf deutsch gemacht (registriert? Sagt Mann dass auf Deutsch?) um zu sehen und herauszufinden wie mein gesprochene Deutsch eigentlich ist… und die Ergebnisse waren nicht so großartig. Es gab viele Grammatikfehlern und ich habe eben “Ohren” statt “Stunden” gesagt! lol. Durch viel Input meines Hörverständnis ist nicht schlecht geworden, aber ich muss ein bisschen mehr mein sprechen und schreiben verbessern. Also vielleicht ich werde hier ein bisschen ab und zu auf Deutsch schreiben. Tschüss

Edit: wahrscheinlich (jetzt dass ich nachdenke) ich meinte „Uhren“, nicht „Ohren“ von ein Uhr, zwei Uhr, oder „uur/uren“ von Niederländisch, noch ein böser Fehler, aber ich kann wie ich habe es gesagt verstehen.
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David27
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Posts: 279
Joined: Thu Apr 13, 2017 8:52 pm
Languages: English (N)
French, Spanish (advanced)
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Mandarin, Japanese, Dutch (low-intermediate)
Latin, Polish: (beginner)
Abandoned languages (for now) :( Greek, Czech, Bengali, Arabic, Norwegian
x 987

Re: Japanese and Mandarin in 50 years, with a lot of detours.

Postby David27 » Wed Nov 17, 2021 3:53 am

Arabic made a surprise guest appearance in my studies. Inspired by the "learn foreign scripts" log here, I wanted to revise my ability to read Arabic... and I was illiterate. The first 11 letters I remembered no problem in all forms, but outside of that I was very hit or miss when reading. So I've put a bit more time getting it down better, practicing reading words. Next I need to get used to the vowel marks and how to read them to sound out words. I'm not planning on studying more of the language yet, but I do at least want to have the alphabet down. Plus it's easy to just look at BBC Arabic on my phone for a few minutes before falling asleep to see if I know all the letters in the words of a title.

October was otherwise a difficult month to keep up the language hobby and I fell a bit behind schedule. I also participated a bit in the online polyglot conference, attending a zoom meeting in French and Russian, and watching some talks. There was an intro series for Georgian, and I started it, but quickly realized it would be just a waste of time, as the little that I "learn" from watching 5 lectures, I would forget completely in a few months (particularly since it is unrelated to anything I've studied before, so I have no 'crutch' to help ease the memorizing), and even if 5-10 years down the road I decide I want to learn it, I would be starting from scratch.

For Japanese and Mandarin my October time was down, but for November I am back on track so far. I got HBO max last weekend to watch Dune, and so now I have it for a month and have watched 2 Japanese movies (bit at a time at night over the course of a few days). That has been fun and motivating to continue with my Japanese. Mandarin has been more of the same, but I'm happy with my slow progress. My Japanesepod101 subscription ends in early December, but that doesn't bother me, I have been using Nihongo con Teppei which is all in Japanese. I completed the "Path to intermediate" in Japanesepod101, but now all the extra English and grammatical explanations are a hinderance to my learning, so I'm preferring to just use all Japanese resources when studying.

In Russian, through October and early November I watched the 10 part series 2002 adaptation of The Idiot. I really like the acting and think given a likely limited budget, they made an enjoyable adaptation.

French: I continued to read a bit of la peste, I believe now I'm ~210 pages into it. I enjoy the reading, but it isn't exactly light before bed reading, and with work having been busy, when I do relax I've chosen to stick to other activities most of the time. That being said, I still wish to continue (though I mostly have been only taking some time to read on weekends). I like his writing, his descriptions of Oran, and his characters. Though I don't really agree with his philosophy, which makes some of the long discussions between characters in Part 2 a bit of a slog.

Since this is a late entry for October, maybe I'll just combine November and December as an end of the year post? We'll see.
October Hours
Russian: 7 hours, 30 minutes
Mandarin: 7 hours, 0 minutes
Spanish: 6 hours, 45 minutes
Japanese: 6 hours, 15 minutes
German: 4 hours, 55 minutes
French: 3 hours, 25 minutes
Latin: 1 hour, 25 minutes
Arabic: 1 hour, 0 minutes
Italian: 40 minutes
Portuguese: 30 minutes
Dutch: 25 minutes

Running 2021 total:
Spanish: 88 hours, 50 minutes
Mandarin: 88 hours, 10 minutes
Japanese: 85 hours, 55 minutes
Russian: 60 hours, 0 minutes
German: 45 hours, 50 minutes
French: 22 hours, 25 minutes
Latin: 14 hours, 45 minutes
Italian: 14 hours, 5 minutes
Dutch: 12 hours, 25 minutes
Portuguese: 7 hours, 50 minutes
Arabic: 1 hour, 0 minutes
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