Re-Inventing the System: Systematiker repeatedly changes his plans

[Systematiker]

A last update before I leave on Sunday - and I don't know how much I'll do or how much I will be on here until mid-May.
I have changed something about how I am recording things - the SC has a film portion to work on listening, and though I've for a while restricted it to video, I've decided not to anymore. My bars are based on the original SC for reading, and I just the listening portion 200 hours rather than 150 (the 100 90-minute films) some time ago.
So I will certainly be counting audiobooks in those, and for some languages, I'm going to have to count podcasts for dearth of other accessible options (e.g. Catalan; there's stuff I want to watch, and some audiobooks, but to get to 200 hours, I'd end up doing stuff I don't really want to do just to get the time in, and I don't want to do that). It's only about two years worth of data, and having not counted podcasts previously skews the listening portion (but to the good!). I'm considering whether I will just move the numbers forward when I reach each goal, or call it enough (since it's not fully representative for any language).

Anyway,

Spanish
ES Reading: 6030 / 10000 ES Listening: 180 / 200
FSI: 28 / 53
Finished El club Dumas - and I ended up really liking it. I will start a new audiobook tomorrow or Saturday, at the latest Sunday on the plane. Still reading along - at some point I want to do a "currently reading" post but I don't have the nerve to do so today.

French
FR Reading: 2456 / 10000 FR Listening: 91 / 200
FR Bible without Pent: 40 / 90
FSI: 1 / 24
Some Maigret, listening to Tour du monde en 80 jours, which I've read before and is right at the right level to do as an audiobook in French for me (my thanks to some considerations by sillygoose on this topic, some time ago, I think).

Portuguese
PT Reading: 875 / 10000 PT Listening: 12 / 200
PT NT: 60 / 60
Primarily trying to L-R Bras Cuba at the moment, I've caught up to where I had read. The thought here is to train my ear a bit more so that I can do audiobooks in Portuguese, so let's see if it works. Ideally I'll finish by Sunday, but I've got five hours to go, so probably not.

Catalan
CAT Reading: 245 / 10000 CAT Listening: 7 / 200
Finished Algù com tu, and that's about it. Some podcasts that I forgot to record. I've got the physical book, that I think I don't want to take with me (I'll finish it before I return, then I have to keep track of it and it's dead weight), but my electronic options are either buy something or translations into Catalan on Scribd. I'll decide which I do when I see how much ability I have to do anything while I'm gone. I was incorrect about the audiobooks - I remembered some things on Scribd as audiobooks which were not, but ebooks, therefore I have only one.

Galego
Still doing the Clozemaster project.

Swedish
SV Reading: 1289 / 10000 SV Listening: 32 / 200
FSI: 8 / 16 SV NT: 46 / 46
Very much enjoying some Swedish audiobooks. All this discussion about getting books or ebooks to read has been great - but I need to finish what I've started first, too! The last chapter of Röda Rummet that I read was really hard for me, and I haven't been back to it in a couple days. Ogrim and Jeff are causing me to find additional books I want to read (and Jeff in Expug's log, I think, has mentioned a show that I watched the first part of and found hilarious). Done some audiobook listening as well, short stories and one started. I'm having trouble recalling the names of everything in the last couple sentences, so I just won't mention them until another post when I feel like looking back and making sure I spell everything right


Danish
DK Reading: 130 / 10000 DK Listening: 5 / 200
Nothing, aside from the occasional Morgonandagten (which is way, way clearer now, thanks Swedish!)

Latin
LAT Reading: 50 / 10000
Nix

Ancient Greek
GK Reading: 70 / 10000
Not much here, either. Prep for last Sunday, this Sunday I won't preach because traveling.

Hebrew
Pimsleur: 11 / 30
LR Psalms First Pass: 27 / 150
Jenni: 7 / 30
Yeah, nothing here as well.

Korean
Video: 6 / 200 TTMIK 1: 25 / 25
FSI: 1 / 19
I haven't updated the bars, but I did start TTMIK level 2, and I'm trying to get back to using lingodeer for some practice. Slow going.


Czech
CZ Pent: 9 / 70
Kind of took a pause here. Much less clozemaster, as well.

Ukrainian
That podcast has been great, and I'm glad of it, but it's all I've been doing, and not a whole lot of that, either.

Gaelic
Nothing.

Russian
MT Foundation: 8 / 8 MT Advanced: 1 / 5
Assimil: 57 / 90 Reading: 0 / 10000
RU NT: 23 / 90
Stalled here as well. The nothing has inertia. Best case scenario - I'll have some good free time where I'm not exhausted and can work on some of this stuff, maybe even getting my read-through of Assimil and the MT done, and looking at course material. Worst case, I'm going to ignore it until mid-May and see losses.

Basque
Assimil: 1 / 90
Still nothing.

Dutch
NL Reading: 66 / 10000 NL Listening: 20 / 200
Nothing.

Swabian
Nothing.

German
Finished Unterm Birnbaum, still reading Wahlverwandtschaften. Not sure what's next, but it's nice to be able to mention it here.

Everything Else
There hasn't been any else.

[Expugnator]

How did you find Catalan audiobooks, Systematiker?

[Systematiker]

I’ve been away from the forum for some time now - and given that I’m still not home, I won’t be back to regular participation for a couple weeks yet. But I did take, and max out, the DLPT for German, and I’ll be taking it for Spanish in a couple days so at the moment I’m doing lots in Spanish.

How did you find Catalan audiobooks, Systematiker?

I’m not sure what search term I used, actually. Scribd seems to only have one that I’ve found - I probably set the search filter to audiobook and tried “Català”, to be honest. (Doing this nets two audiobooks, one short story, and a book about seals whose author has it as a surname). Further looking, I’ll do semi-unique words, e.g. “senyor” gets one audiobook result, and for each result check for other works by the same author or the same narrator. I can’t be picky about what I listen to, but beggars can’t be choosers.

[Ani]

So.. just a curious question. Maybe it's three questions.. How long does it take you to switch languages in your head? As in, you realize you are working on one to the other and feel "switched on" in that language, or does to come seamlessly? Do you ever change the language you yeah to yourself in deliberately? And when you're working with something familiar like the Bible, do you lose track of which language you're reading or listening to?

When I see your long status updates, it's hard for me to process how many languages you have bumping around in your head. :-p

[Systematiker]

So.. just a curious question. Maybe it's three questions.. How long does it take you to switch languages in your head? As in, you realize you are working on one to the other and feel "switched on" in that language, or does to come seamlessly? Do you ever change the language you yeah to yourself in deliberately? And when you're working with something familiar like the Bible, do you lose track of which language you're reading or listening to?

When I see your long status updates, it's hard for me to process how many languages you have bumping around in your head. :-p

Depends on the language, or language pair. I came back to the forum actually because part of what I was working on was the "switch time" I found I needed in Spanish. I can switch pretty effortlessly back and forth now with English, German (and dialects), Spanish, Portuguese, and Swedish. The latter two surprise me, because to produce decent French I still need about a 15-minute run-up (not that I'm not making mistakes in those latter two, either, just that I don't seem to have a rocky start). Catalan will occasionally show up when I mean to be in Spanish, and I'm usually surprised at my ability to express myself, but that's also usually a situation where I'm not actually with someone who speaks Catalan, so it's really subjective.

I do change the language I think in, or speak to my self, on purpose, but also not seldom unintentionally. Connected to your third question, yeah, I can lose track of which language I'm in among the stronger ones. It's also not unusual for me to forget which language an exchange or experience happened in, and/or when telling my wife have to switch a few times before I remember which language the joke works in.

With the really familiar stuff, I lose track even with the weaker languages. It's not hard, if I'm in really similar passages, to forget which languages I have done on a given day and which I haven't yet. Or with weaker languages to be leaning on a more recent reading in a non-fluent language rather than deeper knowledge language (e.g. reading in Russian and having Portuguese in my head keeping my place when I get sketchy rather than German or English). This also often results in "learning" a word or phrase and for a little while only being able to express an equivalent in certain languages (which gets funny when English is last to come around for it, too).

[Systematiker]

Well, I had way less free time while away than I thought I would, and what I had I spent on other stuff, so there's a lot of "nothing" or minimal maintenance here. However, I'm back!

It comes with some considerations, though. I've been in a period where I have had time to do some of these language adventures, and while I'm not yet willing to cut anything out, the fact of the matter is that I'm over-committed when it comes to languages. I'm very much considering trimming out some of these languages that I consistently do nothing in, as well as a change of perspective with some others. Some languages, I'm ready to say that this point, even if it's not great, is going to have to be good enough for a minimal maintenance, because working for improvement in reasonable time across so many languages is simply too much.

Spanish
ES Reading: 6254 / 10000 ES Listening: 188 / 200
FSI: 28 / 53
Watched a bunch and listened to a bunch of podcasts and music, chatted with some natives, and finished Borges (far apart from the reading group, I'm sure!). I took the DLPT, and frankly should have tried the practice tests first, but I'm not terribly dissatisfied with the result. I didn't have time to take the higher-level and see if I could do it, and I'd have to do it in the next couple months, so I probably won't. I'm also not thrilled with the nature of the test, and join the ranks of those who think that often the guy writing the question might have misunderstood the source material (so, for what it's worth, I thought this about the German one too, but there I had enough facility to figure out where the misunderstanding came from and compensate for it). And I fell asleep once during my audiobook and I'm totally lost...sigh.

French
FR Reading: 2456 / 10000 FR Listening: 91 / 200
FR Bible without Pent: 40 / 90
FSI: 1 / 24
I have done literally nothing in French for a month now.

Portuguese
PT Reading: 875 / 10000 PT Listening: 13 / 200
PT NT: 60 / 60
Started watching the new episodes of 3%, then stopped because I didn't want interference on my Spanish test, and read a bit on the plane. Also, I can do audiobooks unaided (Casa Velha), but that hasn't been my focus.

Catalan
CAT Reading: 245 / 10000 CAT Listening: 7 / 200
Nothing in a month.

Galego
I didn't keep up this experiment, either, but I'm planning on picking it back up.

Swedish
SV Reading: 1289 / 10000 SV Listening: 32 / 200
FSI: 8 / 16 SV NT: 46 / 46
Nothing for a month, but I picked up my novel today and must be having the "bow wave" because it's easier than it was a month ago.

Danish
DK Reading: 130 / 10000 DK Listening: 5 / 200
Nothing for a month.

Latin
LAT Reading: 50 / 10000
Aside from mottoes and one conversation (!), nothing in a month. But that conversation was hilarious.

Ancient Greek
GK Reading: 70 / 10000
Nothing, because I didn't preach for a month!

Hebrew
Pimsleur: 11 / 30
LR Psalms First Pass: 27 / 150
Jenni: 7 / 30
Nothing here either, which probably means losses. I'll re-attack.

Korean
Video: 6 / 200 TTMIK 1: 25 / 25
FSI: 1 / 19
Nothing here, but I listened to some music last night and was catching phrases.

Czech
[progress=CZ Pent]9/70 [/progress]
Worked with an online training program (free!), which so far hasn't been anything new but got me working through flexion and stuff around some basic concepts.

Ukrainian
Literally the same thing as Czech, but a little less time spent. Probably going to use those as a primary resources for Czech and Ukrainian, because FLC, though I probably need to check with iguanamon about how OK it is (they're completely free, but not publicly available, so it might be outside the spirit of the FLC).

Gaelic
Nothing.

Russian
MT Foundation: 8 / 8 MT Advanced: 1 / 5
Assimil: 57 / 90 Reading: 0 / 10000
RU NT: 23 / 90
Almost nothing here. I did give a small chat a shot and was quickly out of my depth, but it gained me a contact to practice with.

Basque
Assimil: 1 / 90
Nothing, and I'm seriously considering dropping it off here, because I really have too much to maintain.

Dutch
NL Reading: 66 / 10000 NL Listening: 20 / 200
A very brief conversation, otherwise nothing.

Swabian
A short conversation in Swabian that came as a great surprise to the group I was in. The context was "oh, ok, you learned German in school, right?", so the switch in German and then with one interlocutor to Swabian was the sort of moment that I think we all love as language-learners.

German
Chatting around with folks, took the DLPT to have a record of it, finished Babylon Berlin and started Charité

Everything Else
Learned a few phrases in Igbo, because why not, and discovered that I can speak Portunhol with Italians and everyone can get by.



So, I'm considering the following changes:
I still want to push Spanish, because it's useful and I've fallen in love with it, and I still want to keep going with Portuguese as I am, but I think I'm going to dial way back on French, Swedish, Catalan, and Danish. Like, "if all you do is read a chapter or watch/listen 15 minutes per week it's ok" dial back. In French, Swedish, and Catalan I'm solid enough to do this without really losing much, and it should keep rust off if I can vary it enough. I'm probably not good enough at Danish to not have losses from this, but it's a effort/benefit thing (and Swedish helps).
I'll finish my Galician experiment, but then I'm probably done with it.
I'm also probably going to cut Basque and Gaelic entirely. I've not got the time to do enough that I'm actually learning anything.
I pretty much don't do anything with Dutch anyway, so it won't be much of a change to do little to nothing - though I'd like to see if a low-level commitment (a podcast biweekly, maybe?) can keep losses away.
I'm also still interested in my classical languages, but really, there's no great gain here for me, so I can simply be ok with slow progress and continual, if small, interaction.
This means I'll be doing more active study (Russian, Czech, Ukrainian, Korean, Hebrew), and really only be focussing my "SC-style" learning on Spanish and Portuguese (until those others can handle it!), but you'll notice, dear reader, that even my reduced plans have me actively studying five languages difficult for an Anglophone native (and unrelated to my other language families), still pushing consumption and production in two, and still needing small amounts of maintenance on everything else.

I've also got to admit to myself, and everyone, that this is my limit. I simply won't be able to add anything that isn't replacing something. Even if/when I get some of these active study languages to a point where consumption and enjoyment is my major activity in the language, I'll have an upkeep routine that will prohibit other additions without dropping something. I'll have to accept rust and "change time" on things I do minimal upkeep on, but the alternative is probably to drop them, so in that light it's a decent deal.

[Ani]

I've also got to admit to myself, and everyone, that this is my limit. I simply won't be able to add anything that isn't replacing something. Even if/when I get some of these active study languages to a point where consumption and enjoyment is my major activity in the language, I'll have an upkeep routine that will prohibit other additions without dropping something. I'll have to accept rust and "change time" on things I do minimal upkeep on, but the alternative is probably to drop them, so in that light it's a decent deal.

Aww. This is kind of sad. I miss the days gone by when someone would propose an obscure language and you'd be off chasing that ball Maybe this will just be a plan that is subject to change like your log title. You've probably been working too hard. Maybe you can devise some cyclic maintenance plan so next time Elania comes by and says "hey... We need to learn Komi-Zyrian" You're ready to jump on board.

[Expugnator]

I've been having similar thoughts in my log, and I have in mind that I want to keep discovering distant languages, so I think related languages can be confined to a minimum with no big losses. I don't think you can lose passive fluency you've gained in a language such as Portuguese, for example.

All this to say: if I'm only able to study a limited number of languages which are at the same priority level, I'd always favor the opaque/semi-opaque ones. One weekly podcast of 15 minutes is totally okay for maintenance, and if the time comes when you need to use one actively (a trip for example), you can always warm-up. Or you can exchange some messages in the language every once in a while, just to toggle that language's mode in your brain.

In my case it would be ok to do even less French and Papiamento than I'm doing (10 min a day for French and around 15 for Papiamento). Now the way things are I can't foresee NOT working on a language daily, and having a weekly or bi-weekly maintenance schedule laid over the daily one is a new complication, but that might happen as the time comes when I feel I've "finished" a language.

TL/DR: Swahili.

[Systematiker]

I've also got to admit to myself, and everyone, that this is my limit. I simply won't be able to add anything that isn't replacing something. Even if/when I get some of these active study languages to a point where consumption and enjoyment is my major activity in the language, I'll have an upkeep routine that will prohibit other additions without dropping something. I'll have to accept rust and "change time" on things I do minimal upkeep on, but the alternative is probably to drop them, so in that light it's a decent deal.

Aww. This is kind of sad. I miss the days gone by when someone would propose an obscure language and you'd be off chasing that ball Maybe this will just be a plan that is subject to change like your log title. You've probably been working too hard. Maybe you can devise some cyclic maintenance plan so next time Elania comes by and says "hey... We need to learn Komi-Zyrian" You're ready to jump on board.

I totally still reserve the right to dabble in obscure projects! This is just “it” in terms of languages that are going to have long-term retention. It’s one thing to say “hey, this is cool, and I’ll get to like A2, or maybe even B1, because it’s fun to play with” and another to say “ok, I’m adding this and putting in the effort to get where I can read that language’s literature, and watch cinema, and get conversational enough that even when I leave it, it’s rust and not true loss.” It’s kind of what I’ve decided about Basque and Gaelic (and prior to that Welsh, and my plan for Galician) - lots of fun, play a bit, maybe get somewhere, but it’s ok if I forget it all or don’t keep it up (and, it’s ok if I don’t get anywhere! That’s a hard one for me).

That also leaves me space to dabble in something, and if I love it, make adjustments as necessary - whether that’s accepting more loss elsewhere or straight dropping something.

I've been having similar thoughts in my log, and I have in mind that I want to keep discovering distant languages, so I think related languages can be confined to a minimum with no big losses. I don't think you can lose passive fluency you've gained in a language such as Portuguese, for example.

All this to say: if I'm only able to study a limited number of languages which are at the same priority level, I'd always favor the opaque/semi-opaque ones. One weekly podcast of 15 minutes is totally okay for maintenance, and if the time comes when you need to use one actively (a trip for example), you can always warm-up. Or you can exchange some messages in the language every once in a while, just to toggle that language's mode in your brain.

In my case it would be ok to do even less French and Papiamento than I'm doing (10 min a day for French and around 15 for Papiamento). Now the way things are I can't foresee NOT working on a language daily, and having a weekly or bi-weekly maintenance schedule laid over the daily one is a new complication, but that might happen as the time comes when I feel I've "finished" a language.

TL/DR: Swahili.

I actually caught up on your log after writing this! I actually may take some of your insight about maintenance amounts, which would free up some space as well. I mean, it’s not like I want to be done. I also may get more space out of dialing back than I anticipate - this is all kind of in response to a situation where I found my previous amount of engagement untenable, and I’m looking for a pensum I can keep up even when I’m super short on time (you’re certainly inspiration for this). So yeah there’s at least space to flirt with e.g. Swahili when we get around to it as a group, I’m just relatively sure that it will be a “fun project” rather than a “new addition.”




——————————————————————-

And in addition to all of this, yet more changes.

My suspicion about those resources for Ukrainian and Czech was right - free and legal, but not quite the spirit of the FLC.
I’ll accept it for Ukrainian, which means my best resource now is that podcast and synergy from Russian. So I’ll even drop my use of streaming music (not that I listened to more than a couple hours worth anyway) and continue it as a “pure” FLC, which also means that it can’t take too much time as I don’t have the resources to spend that much time on it.
However, I’m considering giving up the FLC restrictions for Czech. I’ve fallen in love with the language and I was seeing good progress with what I was doing, but I just want more (not to spend more money, mind you, I’m still cheap, I just want to leverage the courses I found). I’m going to have a huge imbalance, too, without some kind of exercises (e.g. I read a few newspaper articles out of Dnes last night but I can’t produce correct conjugations). Yet the competitive part of me isn’t quite ready to bail on the challenge. I’ll decide this week.

[Systematiker]

Update time - refocusing efforts has helped me get back in the groove!

Spanish
ES Reading: 6254 / 10000 ES Listening: 190 / 200
FSI: 28 / 53
Reading Pedro Páramo with the Spanish group, but I actually only read a few pages so far (at the dentist, too, so I wasn't super concentrated). I've still got that FSI progress bar up there - but I'm almost certainly going to drop it at this point. I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing here, which is probably not the most entertaining for updates. I forgot to log a movie I watched, the name of which I don't remember (it was a Spanish movie about a bunch of misfit monks who put together a soccer team). I've not been back to my audiobook yet, I'm using audio time differently lately.

French
FR Reading: 3756 / 10000 FR Listening: 92 / 200
Deciding to spend less time on French has led, of course, to my wanting to spend time with stuff in French. Not huge amounts of time (the reading bar change is because I stopped that Bible plan halfway through), but some, which makes me feel OK about not spending time because a little bit of contact a couple times a week is surely enough to maintain things. I'm feeling pretty good about the decision, even for French (which is the hardest to cut back on, because more sunk cost).

Portuguese
PT Reading: 875 / 10000 PT Listening: 16 / 200
Still reading along, less than normal lately, and watching the new season of 3% on Netflix.

Catalan
CAT Reading: 245 / 10000 CAT Listening: 7 / 200
Started La Plaça del Diamant, but I've only read the introduction so far. There was a really awesome line, but the book is at home and I'm not, so this comment about it is a reminder to myself to quote it here in a future post. And I really want to watch the rest of Merlí soon.

Galego
Started back with Clozemaster. Really, really tempted to just try reading the novel now and stop with Clozemaster, I'm consistently doing 10-12 sets daily with no errors.

Swedish
SV Reading: 1289 / 10000 SV Listening: 33 / 200
FSI: 8 / 16
So I do want to cut back on Swedish, and I've so far only listened to one podcast this week and read a few pages of my pulp novel (Vägen till Jerusalem, much easier to understand now), but there's also a part of me that's like "just finish out FSI though" - well, we'll see. Long audiobooks stream poorly. Oh, and I still want to watch that show... (so much for cutting back, right?)

Danish
DK Reading: 130 / 10000 DK Listening: 5 / 200
Nothing.

Latin
LAT Reading: 50 / 10000
Desultory reserach-related reading of a few lines.

Ancient Greek
GK Reading: 70 / 10000
Back to preaching, so I at least get a weekly text, and I'm going to go back to my little reading projects.

Hebrew
Pimsleur: 11 / 30
LR Psalms First Pass: 27 / 150
Jenni: 7 / 30
I've been working with an app here that seems pretty helpful at present (though it's a lot of material, I'd be swamped with no prior experience), and getting in daily time, so that's a significant improvement over long stretches of nothing.

Korean
Video: 9 / 200 TTMIK 2: 1 / 25
FSI: 1 / 19
Moving on TTMIK level two, and went down a rabbit hole watching 태양의 후예 until late last night, of which I had entire sentences and simple exchanges that I could follow (small victories, y'all).

Czech
CZ Pent: 9 / 70
Haven't returned to the Bible plan yet (the site was briefly down, too). Still wrestling with how I'd like to proceed. I would for sure make greater gains if I were to bail on the FLC for Czech, but at the same time, I'm not sure if it's worth it to non-complete (personal) and at this stage. I'm back to Clozemaster, and I can puzzle out articles from Dnes on familiar topics (again, I'm too lazy to read with a dictionary in hand, so this is pretty cool)...so abandoning the FLC aspect would allow me to train production more, but I don't think I'd be doing much different for reception. (By the way, I know nothing about this newspaper - I had a few available, so I picked the first one on the list. Czech speakers, feel free to give opinions on the media and/or recommendations, I don't know enough Czech to know what perspective I'm getting most of the time!)

Ukrainian
Back to the podcast, not managing daily but getting there.

Russian
MT Foundation: 8 / 8 MT Advanced: 2 / 5
Assimil: 57 / 90 Reading: 0 / 10000
RU NT: 25 / 90
Did some more MT Advanced, and another day of the NT plan. Read some of the Ilya Frank reader, which I feel is super helpful and I should do more of. I'm thinking about transitioning to a proper course, but I never did do that Assimil plan, and I'm not seeing terrible results (Ogrim posted an article he read, yesterday I think, that was hard, but not opaque). Probably I need to sit down and re-read the Assimil up to this point (maybe read to 60 and then re-read 1-60?). Probably I'm not going to do the 2-week Assimil experiment, I'm just not able to work it out. Tentative plan: Get whatever I'm doing with Assimil and MT done by the end of June.

Dutch
NL Reading: 66 / 10000 NL Listening: 20 / 200
After weeks of doing little to nothing, the "dialing back and including Dutch" plan has worked and I listened to an hour-long podcast.



You'll notice I've dropped the sections for the languages I'm setting aside, as well as anything that doesn't have an update (German, Swabian, and so on).