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

Continue or start your personal language log here, including logs for challenge participants
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 Jul 01, 2022 1:37 am

June update:

I'm not sure what the exact source of productivity is, but I'm grateful that it occurred. I think in part European soccer ending freed up a good deal of my spare time, and I converted a large part of that to language learning. I have been more distracted as well with wanting to look at too many different languages, but I have fully embraced it. I have no need to learn any 1 particular language besides Spanish really, and my Spanish is already fully functional with plenty of practice opportunities, so I don't need to actively study it.

For Fathers Day, my wife did get me Discovering Albanian. I did a bit of study, the basics that I've learned I've already had 3 opportunities to use where I live and work. I think I will continue to be motivated to dabble in Albanian, just because currently, after Spanish, it may be the second most common language that I encounter "in the wild". The pizza place around the corner? Run by and staffed by all Albanians, the neighborhood here my main office is, heavy Albanian influence, so I regularly have Albanian patients. They often speak decent English, but so far the 3 people who I have greeted in Albanian have been very pleased lol.

Besides Albanian, Pimsleur has lessons 1-30 Ukrainian free on their app, and I have been using the Teach Yourself Ukrainian which is also free on the Teach yourself App. So daily I do some sort of Ukrainian activity. To help keep my Polish separate, I have been re-studying my old Assimil le polonais sans peine, but doing less of that than Ukrainian.

Mandarin Chinese: Reading the beginner Chinese reader 我家的大雁飞走了. I like having a book to read with Chinese vocabulary that is mostly familiar. After finishing this one I'll probably order another in the series. Also listening to Da Peng podcast that I found thanks to Dr. Mack Rettosy's log. Outside of that my Chinese youtube subscriptions are increasing, so there always seems to be plenty of content to consume. Incidentally, the more Chinese I study, the more I learn about Chinese food, which leads me to ordering from more Chinese restaurants.

Japanese: More of the same, Genki book II exercises and review, Nihongo con Teppei podcast, Yuyu no nihongo podcast, some youtube (though a lot less than Mandarin). I also started a Japanese anime called Stein's gate. I liked Boku Dake Ga Inai Machi well enough so it led me to a recommendation to check out Stein's gate, which has a plot good enough to hold my interest, weird enough for me to roll my eyes but not enough for me to stop it lol. Tomorrow I'm meeting up with friends in the city, before I see them, I'm planning on going to a Japanese book store, aiming to pick up some graded readers or some intermediate textbooks to help bridge the gap once I finish up Genki II

Russian: The friends I'm meeting up with are Russian, I'll prep with doing some Russian reading and listening to Russian with Max (usually releases new podcast on Fridays). With the extra Ukrainian, it has helped me analyze a bit and think about Russian grammar a bit to compare and contrast, which I think is a helpful refresher.

June Hours:
Mandarin: 12 hours, 20 minutes
Japanese: 11 hours, 55 minutes
Spanish: 6 hours, 50 minutes
Russian: 6 hours, 5 minutes
Ukrainian: 4 hours, 45 minutes
German: 4 hours, 40 minutes
Italian: 3 hours, 45 minutes
Latin: 1 hour, 45 minutes
French: 1 hour, 35 minutes
Dutch: 1 hour, 25 minutes
Polish: 1 hour, 20 minutes
Portuguese: 1 hour, 0 minutes
Albanian: 50 minutes

2022 running total
Japanese: 63 hours, 15 minutes
Mandarin: 62 hours, 0 minutes
Spanish: 36 hours, 40 minutes
Russian: 35 hours, 0 minutes
German: 29 hours, 40 minutes
Italian: 18 hours, 20 minutes
Ukrainian: 8 hours, 25 minutes
Latin: 7 hours, 0 minutes
French: 6 hours, 10 minutes
Dutch: 5 hours, 50 minutes
Polish: 4 hours, 0 minutes
Portuguese: 2 hours, 45 minutes
Albanian: 50 minutes
11 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 » Wed Jul 06, 2022 1:51 am

The Japanese book store was a success. Really interesting that something catering to just Japanese books can have success here, when book stores in general are struggling. I bought a graded reader level 1 (400-1500 known words), which comes with 5 very short stories. It’s a bit easy for me, but level 2 was 1500-2500 vocabulary, and would have been more of a struggle, so I went with this one first to be able to read and listen and enjoy just being able to get through the 5 short stories more. I read the first story 3 times through and listened to its audio, ready to move to the second story. I also bought Tobira gateway to advanced Japanese power up your Kanji to go through once I finish Genki II. My goal is with that textbook + graded readers, my reading ability will go up to start being able to someday transition to authentic Japanese books.

Otherwise it was a good language learning weekend. Meeting with my Russian friends was a lot of fun, but we didn’t really speak any Russian (a few words here and there, but mostly in English). The next day at the playground where I take my daughter, I heard a lady speaking Ukrainian. I say a few words in Ukrainian and great her. She came from Ukraine the day before, her son and granddaughter are here and I met them as well. I could understand her Ukrainian decently (anything she said to me was very basic), but actually trying to speak was very difficult, besides basic greetings and some very basic sentences to communicate.

I also watched some “entrevias” in Spanish on Netflix. Which is annoyingly similar to a Clint Eastwood movie I had seen years ago and can’t remember the name… but besides that it’s a pretty good show, and brushes up on my Spain-Spanish slang. Since I’m enjoying this I’m thinking about trying money heist before. I saw the first 2 or 3 episodes before but didn’t get into it that time, partly because I was watching it with my wife and she didn’t really like it, I would have kept giving it a chance since I didn’t dislike it. Only other Netflix show in Spanish I’ve watched was “the hotel” or something like that, but that was about 2 or 3 years ago.
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
x 987

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

Postby David27 » Mon Aug 01, 2022 2:20 am

July Update

Time for my monthly update. I stayed on target in July on average, I had periods of more intense Japanese and Mandarin study, and one week (visiting family), where I probably only averaged 5-10 minutes of each. I am incorporating more reading. And this morning I watched some of 活着 (To Live) on youtube. I am pleasantly surprised by it, as most of my admittedly very limited experience with Chinese cinema has not been to my taste, but this movie is good, I feel attached to the family's drama, the sets are also well done. Otherwise I don't have a lot to comment on this month, as it is more of the same.

As far as study habits go, I have been better about doing about 10-40 minutes every evening sometime between 9:30-10:30, having a regular time to work has worked out well at least last month. Albanian has still been fun to dabble in here-and-there with my discovering Albanian 1 textbook

July hours:
Mandarin: 11 hours, 25 minutes
Japanese: 10 hours, 50 minutes
Spanish: 7 hours, 25 minutes
Russian: 4 hours, 35 minutes
German: 4 hours, 25 minutes
Italian: 3 hours, 45 minutes
Ukrainian: 3 hours, 25 minutes
Portuguese: 2 hours, 15 minutes
Albanian: 1 hour, 25 minutes
Latin: 1 hour, 10 minutes
Polish: 1 hour, 5 minutes
Dutch: 1 hour, 0 minutes
French: 35 minutes

2022 running total
Japanese: 74 hours, 5 minutes
Mandarin: 73 hours, 25 minutes
Spanish: 44 hours, 5 minutes
Russian: 39 hours, 35 minutes
German: 34 hours, 5 minutes
Italian: 22 hours, 5 minutes
Ukrainian: 11 hours, 50 minutes
Latin: 8 hours, 10 minutes
Dutch: 6 hours, 50 minutes
French: 6 hours, 45 minutes
Polish: 5 hours, 5 minutes
Portuguese: 5 hours, 0 minutes
Albanian: 2 hours, 15 minutes
4 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 » Fri Sep 09, 2022 1:58 am

August update:

A bit late, my family came to visit, I have 2 presentations to give at work, and a conference this weekend, so a lot of my time has been eaten up. I'm trying to at least keep up with Chinese and Japanese, but am falling a bit behind this month. Last month I also was busy, but not to the same extent so I did hit my Japanese/Chinese goals of average 20 minutes/day. Still using mostly the same materials.

I also got asked if I'm "one of those internet polyglots" the other day by a Polish woman at work, so that was kind of funny :lol:

I also did a bit more German and Italian listening and reading than I normally do, but nothing major

Japanese: 10 hours, 20 minutes
Mandarin: 10 hours, 20 minutes
Spanish: 5 hours, 45 minutes
German: 4 hours, 35 minutes
Italian: 4 hours, 5 minutes
Russian: 3 hours, 50 minutes
Ukrainian: 1 hour, 35 minutes
Dutch: 1 hour, 15 minutes
Polish: 1 hour, 5 minutes
French: 1 hour
Portuguese: 15 minutes

2022 running total
Japanese: 84 hours, 25 minutes
Mandarin: 83 hours, 45 minutes
Spanish: 49 hours, 50 minutes
Russian: 43 hours, 25 minutes
German: 38 hours, 40 minutes
Italian: 26 hours, 10 minutes
Ukrainian: 13 hours, 25 minutes
Latin: 8 hours, 10 minutes
Dutch: 8 hours, 5 minutes
French: 7 hours, 45 minutes
Polish: 6 hours, 10 minutes
Portuguese: 5 hours, 15 minutes
Albanian: 2 hours, 15 minutes
5 x

User avatar
MorkTheFiddle
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2109
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 8:59 pm
Location: North Texas USA
Languages: English (N). Read (only) French and Spanish. Studying Ancient Greek. Studying a bit of Latin. Once studied Old Norse. Dabbled in Catalan, Provençal and Italian.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 11#p133911
x 4806

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

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Fri Sep 09, 2022 5:30 pm

David27 wrote:I also got asked if I'm "one of those internet polyglots" the other day by a Polish woman at work, so that was kind of funny :lol:
What was your answer? :)
1 x
Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson

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 » Sat Sep 10, 2022 1:03 am

MorkTheFiddle wrote:
David27 wrote:I also got asked if I'm "one of those internet polyglots" the other day by a Polish woman at work, so that was kind of funny :lol:
What was your answer? :)


I was taken off guard being called out, but did say “sort of, yeah. They’re my people” lol. She is one of us too at heart, she is working on French.

One update I didn’t put in my monthly update (because i forgot), 2 weeks ago on a Saturday morning I met an Italian at one of the parks where I take my daughter to play. The girls played, we chatted in Italian, and he seemed pleased to meet someone who spoke Italian. Today at the park we ran into them again and we had another good chat in Italian. So maybe I’ll meet up with them more regularly and get a bit of spontaneous Italian practice here and there.
4 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 » Fri Sep 16, 2022 3:00 am

The park seems to be a a great place for language practice. I was there again with my daughter (I go daily, weather permitting), and today met a Chinese woman, so I decided to try my Chinese, and she was responsive and we had a brief conversation in Chinese. The conversation was basic, sticking to safe topics that I had studied and seen before a lot (introduction, why are you learning Chinese, how long, do you like Chinese food, have you been to China, those general kind of questions). Despite me knowing the subject matter well, since I hardly ever speak Chinese, I felt very uncomfortable, but was happy and grateful to have the opportunity. Then after that in the same area playing as our kids, was a Japanese boy and his mother… but I felt like it would be overkill to mention anything about Japanese, so I stuck with English/Chinese lol.

Nights I have been working on my lecture, and work has been complicated and tough, so I feel a bit mentally drained when not doing that so I haven’t even tried hitting my daily goals for Japanese or Chinese this month, just whatever I do, great, next month I’ll re-focus. I also signed up for a 5K that’s on Sunday. I have been running a bit more, I wish in these past few weeks I could do a bit more, but it’s hard to get the time to go out more than 2-3x/week. That’s a good stress reliever though, and I usually listen to easy German, easy Italian, or Russian with max podcast while running.
5 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 » Wed Oct 05, 2022 2:27 am

I gave finished and gave my lecture, I also ran a 5K in 21:16, which I was very pleased with. It's hard to find time to exercise regularly but having a 5K race signed up for made me get out and run more often.

As far as language learning goes, between childcare and work I just accepted that this would be an off month, I anticipate October being better (though I'm giving another talk in November, I don't think it will be quite as much of a time drain). Despite the more limited time, I still did discover Deutschland '83, and watched the first 2 episodes this month, which I recommend to anyone learning German. For Chinese and Japanese, I'm trying to increase the amount of time reading, do occasional writing, and work on overall charectors/Kanji knowledge, that being said, the bulk of my time is still spent on listening with youtube videos and podcasts. The podcasts and youtube videos are still targeted at learners/foreigners, but I'm encouraged that I can follow along without difficulty in understanding, then I turn on material targeting natives and I'm humbled and lost again. Still LOTS of work to do.

Japanese: 7 hours, 45 minutes
Mandarin: 6 hours, 45 minutes
Spanish: 6 hours, 40 minutes
German: 5 hours, 20 minutes
Russian: 3 hours, 25 minutes
Ukrainian: 1 hour, 5 minutes
Italian: 50 minutes
Dutch: 40 minutes
French: 35 minutes
Portuguese: 25 minutes
Polish: 20 minutes
Latin: 20 minutes

2022 running total
Japanese: 92 hours, 10 minutes
Mandarin: 90 hours, 30 minutes
Spanish: 56 hours, 30 minutes
Russian: 46 hours, 50 minutes
German: 44 hours, 0 minutes
Italian: 27 hours, 0 minutes
Ukrainian: 14 hours, 30 minutes
Dutch: 8 hours, 45 minutes
Latin: 8 hours, 30 minutes
French: 8 hours, 20 minutes
Polish: 6 hours, 30 minutes
Portuguese: 5 hours, 50 minutes
Albanian: 2 hours, 15 minutes
3 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 » Wed Oct 26, 2022 1:17 am

A brief anecdote about my Russian output: On Sunday I took my daughter to the zoo to meet up with my former roommate and his daughter. He and his wife both were born in Ukraine, moved to the USA when they were young. A lot of their peers who moved to the US at a young age have more limited Russian and no formal education in Russian, but they both are fluent, read and write well, and use it regularly, despite English still likely being more dominant by my estimation. They also have a Russian speaking nanny, and speak exclusively in Russian with their daughter, who now at age 2.5 years old is monolingual Russian speaking, but at age 3 plan to start preschool and start working on English. I usually speak English with them. I hadn’t spoken a lot of Russian recently, and with them, because English is always an option, my slower thinking and speech in Russian (with errors included), I feel more self-conscious and deliberate with my speech, which makes it feel less natural and less fluent. I was able to speak Russian, but I left feeling a bit disappointed with how my Russian speech was.

Today, I met an older couple who I know from Belarus, who speak limited English. With them, I had a comfortable and smooth 20-minute conversation. I think I was better perhaps because I had the recent practice to not be as rusty, but also because they didn’t speak English, there was no option of a fallback, so my Russian was just going to have to be adequate, so I could just comfortably speak and not be as self-conscious about grammar and how I’m speaking, I was just communicating.

Another factor that I think helps in the latter conversation, is that if I need something repeated or a bit of clarification, I can ask and the conversation stays in Russian. If with my friends there's any moment of clarification, it gets switched into English which kills the flow of the Russian conversation.
10 x

User avatar
MorkTheFiddle
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2109
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 8:59 pm
Location: North Texas USA
Languages: English (N). Read (only) French and Spanish. Studying Ancient Greek. Studying a bit of Latin. Once studied Old Norse. Dabbled in Catalan, Provençal and Italian.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 11#p133911
x 4806

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

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Wed Oct 26, 2022 5:28 pm

David27 wrote:Today, I met an older couple who I know from Belarus, who speak limited English. With them, I had a comfortable and smooth 20-minute conversation. I think I was better perhaps because I had the recent practice to not be as rusty, but also because they didn’t speak English, there was no option of a fallback, so my Russian was just going to have to be adequate, so I could just comfortably speak and not be as self-conscious about grammar and how I’m speaking, I was just communicating.
An interesting observation. Almost a psychological effect of 'no way out.'
1 x
Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson


Return to “Language logs”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Google [Bot] and 2 guests