Re-Inventing the System: Systematiker repeatedly changes his plans

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Systematiker
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Re: Re-Inventing the System: Systematiker repeatedly changes his plans

Postby Systematiker » Fri May 18, 2018 2:22 pm

Mercé Rodoreda wrote: Escriure un pròleg, o sigui parlar de mi (o de la meva obra, que és el mateix), no m'ha apassionat mai.


The identification of the person of an author with her work (even a "great" work), is a really interesting viewpoint to me. "I wrote this. This is who I am."

Wild.
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Re: Re-Inventing the System: Systematiker repeatedly changes his plans

Postby Systematiker » Sat May 19, 2018 6:38 pm

Ok, a week or so in, and I love my new emphases. The only thing I haven’t done something in this last week has been Danish, and I’ve done more in every language except French than I was doing even in the weeks before I was away. So it’s not just that I’m back home, it’s a pressure and time thing. I honestly think trying to push so hard in French was burning me out on everything else - and even French is getting enough attention, as my wife and I have gotten a few magazines in French today (cooking and parenting stuff).

Ukrainian is ticking along, I’m seeing results in Korean, I’ve seen a huge jump in Czech (I can watch film! Ok, I miss a lot, but I can follow the story!), Hebrew is sticking halfway decent, and for Russian I’ve got Echo Moskvy on right now and I’m getting about half (sometimes more, sometimes even a solid 90 seconds in a row) of what they’re talking about.

I’m doing daily stuff in my main study languages, I’m keeping up with my “SC-style” languages, and I’m doing more in everything else (except Danish) than when I was trying harder. Now I find extra time where I’ve hit my daily or weekly goals for everything...


So... (Ani, are you ready for this? You knew I couldn’t stick to one plan...)


I started dabbling in Persian. I’m permitting myself to dabble as long as I’ve 1) already hit my “weekly” goals and 2) done something daily in the main 5 study languages. I’m not worried about tying it to my SC ones because that’s a different sort of study and time. I’ve started with the Chai and Conversation podcast, and I’m enjoying it so far. No commitments, no long-term plans, just checking it out.






Totally not contemplating any more changes. Nope. Not me. Not “hey you tested ILR 3 in Spanish so hit those film and page numbers and then make more space for new stuff.” Not “hey Expug is probably 100% right about Portuguese and you can’t take the exam for like a year anyway.” Not “maintaining B2 with stronger receptive skills is probably a great idea, because Expug is probably right about ramping up and I’m never gonna need those languages without warning anyway. Not “Georgian looks super cool right now too.”
Not me :D :D
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Re: Re-Inventing the System: Systematiker repeatedly changes his plans

Postby Ani » Sat May 19, 2018 7:19 pm

Systematiker wrote:So... (Ani, are you ready for this? You knew I couldn’t stick to one plan...)




Yes! Yes!! Our golden retriever is back!
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Re: Re-Inventing the System: Systematiker repeatedly changes his plans

Postby Expugnator » Sat May 19, 2018 11:35 pm

This Chai and Conversation seems really cool! Luckily I'm not taking any Arabic-alphabet language before Arabic itself, so no risk here.

I know nothing about learning Portuguese as a second language (and I mean learning, not teaching). It was merely an example on my other post :D

Yes for Georgian!!
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Re: Re-Inventing the System: Systematiker repeatedly changes his plans

Postby Systematiker » Sun May 20, 2018 12:44 am

Expugnator wrote:This Chai and Conversation seems really cool! Luckily I'm not taking any Arabic-alphabet language before Arabic itself, so no risk here.

I know nothing about learning Portuguese as a second language (and I mean learning, not teaching). It was merely an example on my other post :D

Yes for Georgian!!



You’re still probably right, though. I got to really good receptive skill in Portuguese really quickly, as, what, my fourth Romance language (fifth counting Latin), and while I can probably push myself from “reading literature with .5 lookups per page” to “reading literature with no lookups and evaluating word choice”, not pushing this isn’t going to make me slide somehow back into incomprehension. With limited opportunities for output anyway, I’ll be better served to train output when I need it.

As for Persian, I went wrong at least once trying to do Arabic first when it’s really Persian I’m interested in. I may never learn Arabic (never say never! :lol: ). Someone else on the forum, can’t remember who, mentioned the program a while back, and the name stuck with me.

Don’t tempt me more with Georgian, I’ve resisted so far even finding out where to start.
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Re: Re-Inventing the System: Systematiker repeatedly changes his plans

Postby Systematiker » Wed May 23, 2018 3:29 pm

Well, it's time to take a look at what I've been doing - I'm quite pleased at the moment.

Spanish
ES Reading: 6254 / 10000 ES Listening: 191 / 200
FSI: 28 / 53
The only "should" here is that I ought to have read more of Pedro Páramo, because I instead have not and have been actually reading little in Spanish. Read El Pais a couple of times in the last week. Watching a bit, podcasts, etc. What's to report in Spanish, I just do the same thing, but I enjoy it.

French
FR Reading: 3756 / 10000 FR Listening: 95 / 200
Of course, I decide to dial back on French, and then several things bring it back. My wife and I are doing a month of recipes from a French magazine, I started watching Station Horizon, and decided I was going to start the second season of Marseilles as well. But it feels different, it's more enjoyable that French has been for a while (and it's fun to do stuff in French with my wife again). Read the paper once, too.

Portuguese
PT Reading: 875 / 10000 PT Listening: 16 / 200
Still reading my two novels, and watching 3% when I get some time. Reading news.

Catalan
CAT Reading: 245 / 10000 CAT Listening: 7 / 200
Read the paper a couple of times. Probably going to try to read a chapter or so this week. Maybe watch because I'm starting to get a list of things I want to watch in Catalan, but I'm supposed to be spending less time, not more...

Galego
Stopped even clozemaster at the moment. Not sure if I will finish the clozemaster set, I may really just start the novel, because I'm impatient.

Swedish
SV Reading: 1289 / 10000 SV Listening: 34 / 200
FSI: 8 / 16
Watched some of Halvvägs till Himlen, which is pretty funny, and Fallet, which is half in English anyway. Read the Svenska Dagbladet a couple of times.

Danish
DK Reading: 130 / 10000 DK Listening: 5 / 200
Again, supposed to be doing less, instead started The Rain (but only watched half the first episode)

Latin
LAT Reading: 50 / 10000
Nothing. Thinking about breaking out my Caesar for some practice.

Ancient Greek
GK Reading: 70 / 10000
Still the weekly stuff, and I'm planning on getting back to Herodotus

Hebrew
Pimsleur: 11 / 30
LR Psalms First Pass: 27 / 150
Jenni: 7 / 30
I'm having to do the Hebrew Pimsleur more than once to get things to stick, and I actually think I need to do the 12th one a third time, so I didn't log it. I'm doing a bit of app learning as well, but I think I'm reaching a point where I'm going to have to block out focused time for Hebrew, because I don't seem to be able to get enough of a mass to move forward with the small amounts of time I am spending. Hebrew just doesn't quite click into the way I do languages, and I don't know what I need to change about my approach. And it's not that I always do low-hanging fruit, either, I struggle more with the right approach for Hebrew than for e.g. Korean (literally, I have more trouble with my rhythm in Hebrew than any other language, and more than any language I've ever tried other than Basque and Arabic. Even the little bits of Mandarin or Japanese I once learned fit my rhythm in a way Hebrew doesn't). I've got a "way" that works for me,* and I can't get it to work for Hebrew.

Korean
Video: 11 / 200 TTMIK 2: 5 / 25
FSI: 1 / 19
Just a hair more watching, and some youtube videos. I feel like TTMIK is good right now and I'm making progress, and I'm retaining what I'm working with - I'm surprised that I'm able to see progress without more focused time, but I'm not good at making that time happen so I'm glad of it.

Persian
Well, that got out of control quickly. I'm halfway able in the alphabet already, so I'm working on solidifying that - and I've done the first three lessons of Chai and Conversation, twice each...and some youtube videos, and looked at an Assimil-like book (much cheaper though!), and unearthed the 10-lesson Pimsleur Compact that I have floating around here, and found some apps (free, so not great, but hey vocab)...What I'm not going to do is dive into a course, or anything, I think I might burn it out, but seriously there's something going on here. I always had a favorable view toward Persian, and always figured it would be pretty hard. Turns out that I never paid attention to the fact that it's a cat IV language, not a cat V, and in my experience and among those cat IV languages, I find it not the most difficult cat IV language I've tried (i.e. I find Hebrew harder, but that may also have something to do with being at a different point of struggle with Hebrew). Presently, having not bought that book and not started with that Pimsleur set, I could even do this as an FLC...but I don't think so.

Czech
CZ Pent: 9 / 70 Video: 1 / 200
I'm probably technically out of the FLC for Czech. I stuck to the strictures and didn't use that other material I had access too, and found out I can watch film (!!!) by finding stuff on youtube that the copyright holder has put up (what appears to be an independent film studio), but I've also read Dnes a couple of times, and I've just now made the connection that I get access to that in a way that disqualifies it from the FLC. Hmm, does violating the rules because I'm an idiot end my challenge? I didn't desire to end it, so maybe this disclaimer is enough, that hey, I read the news a few times in a (technically) non-free way (that's kind of like a library?), but really, it shouldn't have had that much influence...I need to look at their website and see how much content is available online, I may not have even gotten anything that isn't freely available anyway...

Ukrainian
Reviewed all the podcasts up to this point, and have begun with youtube videos. If I can't manage the FLC for Czech, I can at least manage it here - and I'm enjoying Ukrainian, after having struggled a bit with resources.

Russian
MT Foundation: 8 / 8 MT Advanced: 2 / 5
Assimil: 60 / 90 Reading: 0 / 10000
RU NT: 25 / 90
Read Assimil up to lesson 60 and reviewed it all. I keep meaning to progress more in actually learning stuff, and I keep going "but yeah, you can understand enough of what you hear that listening is studying, and it works for other languages...", so here's to putting my nose back to the grindstone. I've really seen an improvement in my reading lately...which means, my facility reading the script, not the corresponding vocabulary. I'm probably ready for some kind of graded reader, after I finish the Ilya Frank reader.



*that "way," by the way, is essentially "flail around for a bit, then pretend I'm Iguanamon and I'm going to do a multi-track, get about halfway through a course where I've got the basic grammar down, and then slide almost entirely into media consumption. Pretend I'm Expug and try to do a little actual study each day, but really end up at like a 10:1 ratio of consumption and study, and do short bursts of study from time to time." It ain't fast, but it ain't stressful either. :lol: :lol:
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Re: Re-Inventing the System: Systematiker repeatedly changes his plans

Postby reineke » Wed May 23, 2018 3:39 pm

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Re: Re-Inventing the System: Systematiker repeatedly changes his plans

Postby Expugnator » Wed May 23, 2018 3:58 pm

Care to share the title of that Persian course?

You're not tempting me at all, it's all set in stone: Hebrew then Syriac then Arabic and only then Persian (with maybe Hindi on another track), but I like to grab material while it's available.

Did you know Georgian has many Persian loanwords and Arabic through Persian loanwords? Think about the mutual discount!
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Re: Re-Inventing the System: Systematiker repeatedly changes his plans

Postby Systematiker » Wed May 23, 2018 4:35 pm

Expugnator wrote:Care to share the title of that Persian course?


Learn Persian in 100 Days by Reza Nazari

I've only got the sample, so I can only see the first 7 days, but after introducing the alphabet: each day it seems to have an initial grammar point, a dialogue with facing translation, something called "speech vs writing" that I'm not sure what it is yet, a verb conjugation, a "word of the day" with sample sentences, some phrases, an idiom, a reading passage (without translation), and a list of vocabulary for the lesson.

I think it would be really hard to use for self-study for someone going for their first language, or without experience using various resources, but what I see is a 5$ collection of graded material building on prior lessons, that's probably more like 200 days of light engagement, as a slow-growth complement to pushing input elsewhere. It's not Assimil precisely, but it fits what I tend to use Assimil for.

Expugnator wrote:Did you know Georgian has many Persian loanwords and Arabic through Persian loanwords? Think about the mutual discount!


No, no, and no! I totally can't....so, Expug, where did you start when you started learning Georgian? Not that I'm going to look for resources now or anything.... 8-)
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Re: Re-Inventing the System: Systematiker repeatedly changes his plans

Postby Expugnator » Wed May 23, 2018 5:09 pm

Looks good, in spite of the click-bait-like layout. I just don't understand what exactly I'm supposed to buy, whether the Amazon book or a subscription plan.

There is no such thing for Georgian, unfortunately. Except for the book2 lessons which might have many mistakes. You'd either go for Beginner's Georgian, that doesn't take you very far, or Basic Georgian, which also has typos and lacks audio. Actually the two best resources are in German, Lehrbuch der georgischen Sprache and Einführung in die georgische Sprache.
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