2018: Learn Hard [DE, ES, ZH, EU / FLC: PL, KO]

[LunaMoonsilver]

Weekly Goals
Week One Recap

Well, the first week of 2018 has come and gone and though I maybe didn't hit every goal last week, I've made a lot more progress than I thought I would over what turned out to be a surprisingly chaotic time. Between work changing up my hours (yes love working in retail ), my niece's birthday and everyone getting sick, I've not really been motivated to sit and study. BUT, I have kept up my Memrise streak, learnt a bunch of new vocabulary and set a nice foundation for week two.

Deutsch

• Read 50 pages (currently reading: 17: Das zweite Buch der Erinnerung) - Done, and all last night too. It puts me almost 30% of the way into the book and I'm enjoying it as much as the first (it's YA and exactly the kind of thing I loved to read when I was 15; I'm having a lot of fun). Hopefully I'll get this finished in January, as it is on my TBR for this month.
• Watch the first episode of Dark on Netflix - Nope. Netflix dropped all 10 seasons of Friends onto the UK platform on New Year's Day and... uh that's basically all I've watched. Gonna try for this again this week.
• Do 100 new SRS cards - Done. Did about 80/20 Clozemaster and Memrise; the Clozemaster ones are definitely easier (sentences provide words in context and at the minute, it's mainly showing me high-frequency words) but I'm being exposed to set phrases that I know passively but don't use actively. Gotta be helpful, right?
• Write 500 words - Almost done. I wrote 465 words last night using a fiction prompt I found on Pinterest. I had to look up a lot of things still (half the time, to check cases--which is something I clearly need to refresh) but this was fun, if exhausting. When it's done, I'll see if I can get corrections on lang-8 and then post it here, I think.

Español

• Read two chapters of Harry Potter y la Piedra Filosofal - Nope, didn't even pick the book up. Going to lower this to one chapter; it's all about getting started with this one.
• Watch two episodes of Arrested Development on Netflix - Also no, but more because of the whole 'Netflix adding Friends' thing than because I didn't want to. I've started watching Netflix at the gym so might have to make it a language session at the same time (plus it might distract me from how not-far I'm running on the treadmill )
• Do 100 new SRS cards - Done! This was a little more difficult than with German but that's mostly because I have a lot more plants to water on Memrise, so I was slow to get started. Still, wasn't that difficult a task but I learnt some new words.
• Write 500 words - No, and I might put this off (as a key task) for a couple of months. It's more important right now that I find a coursebook at about the right level (which will probably include some writing tasks).

中文

• Learn 50 new characters - No, but I did learn 10 from the HSK 5 set on Memrise. I've been writing them down and looking for sentences from Tatoeba so that they stay in my head a little better; it's a bit difficult because the Memrise course is in alphabetical order (pinyin) so I get them mixed up sometimes. Going to try for a few more this week.
• Complete three units of Duolingo - No, ugh. Sometimes I like Duolingo but sometimes I can't be bothered and that was me this week. Will try again, with a lower number of units.
• Do 50 new SRS cards - Done! Again, not too difficult, and I can definitely increase this goal this week.

Euskara

• Complete Colloquial Basque Unit 1 - No, though I did a little work on this. I have done it before though, so this is just a refresher and there's therefore pretty much no excuse for me not finishing!
• Complete three Assimil units - Nope. I didn't even open Assimil; going to lower this goal this week and see how it goes.
• Watch one episode of Avatar - Also nooooo This is the same TV-related reason though and this was more a 'have-fun' goal so I don't feel terribly bad about it.

---

Okay, so, new week = new goals. Monday has, yet again, been a bust (I mean, I'll get Memrise/Clozemaster done, but that'll be about it) but looking back over the last week gives me a good idea of how much I can do. Also, I know I've only been doing weekly goals for... well, a week, but they're pretty awesome. Although I didn't do a lot of what I wanted, I thought about what I had to achieve every day and that has, at a minimum, kept me on a week-long Memrise streak. Got to just see if I can keep up the weekly goals, I guess.

This week, I'm going to aim for a maximum of two goals per language, as I'm pretty much going with this as my mantra (emphasis mine):

One tip for those goals though: Shoot low. Really low. Make it the lowest amount you would still feel somewhat satisfied with. The amount you could still (most likely) do, if you were to come down with a cold and be unexpectedly busy.

(Also, literally got a cold and super busy this week, yay me.)

Anyway, on with the goals!

Week Two: 08/01/2018-15/01/2018

Deutsch

• Read 100 pages (currently reading: 17: Das zweite Buch der Erinnerung)
• Do 200 new SRS cards

Español

• Read one chapter of Harry Potter y la Piedra Filosofal
• Do 200 new SRS cards

中文

• Learn 50 new characters (East Asian Study Group's January Challenge - overall goal 150)
• Do 100 new SRS cards

Euskara

• (Re-)Complete Colloquial Basque Unit 1
• Watch one episode of Avatar

So, yeah. Long update is long and I'll be back with more goals next Monday (though obviously I'll be here procrastinating all week)!

[LunaMoonsilver]

Weekly Goals
Week Two Recap

Ummmm... it didn't go well. I'd like to say I don't know what happened but I do... I got distracted by a reading challenge on Twitter and so spent most of my free time for the week reading (in English) instead of doing any of my goals. I mean, I'm not even going to relist them all; I managed to hit my SRS target for Mandarin, but that was it.

Still, onwards and upwards! This is usually the point of the year where most people give up on their resolutions, right? But I'm here, still browsing the forum on the reg., so I'm at least thinking about learning. (Does that count? I don't think that counts.)

So, onto week three:

Week Three: 15/01/2018-21/01/2018

This week I've had a look back at my focuses that I outlined at the beginning of the year and I'm trying to target those a little more. I'm also dropping any specific work on Colloquial Basque for now (I've done bits of it but am having trouble focusing), though I'm still trying to learn some Basque, somehow, every day. Reading through some of the posts on the forum (today I found Rapp's Neutrino log on HTLAL through emk's post about AJATT) has made me start thinking about how to make goals that are the lowest maintenance possible... as I clearly cannot be trusted with anything harder.

Deutsch

• Read 100 pages (of anything)
• Watch 60 minutes (of anything)

Español

• Read 20 pages (of anything)
• Watch 20 minutes (of anything)

中文

• Do 150 new SRS cards
• Learn 35 new words (for the January challenge)

Euskara

• Do one Goldlist a day
• Watch one episode of Avatar

Oh, yes, since I'm so challenge-addicted (seriously, it's a problem), I joined the Goldlist Challenge this week. I've seen the Goldlist method floating around before but had to do a lot of reading to understand how it works--I think I have it now, but I could be wrong. I've done a couple of lists for Basque and one for Mandarin, so those will be the two languages I'm focusing on for that.

Apart from that, I think that's about it for this week! Going to try and get more reading/watching done this week so I'll have some recs during the week or for next week's goal update. 加油朋友们！We can do it

[LunaMoonsilver]

Weekly Goals
Week Three Recap

Wooh! Setting smaller (/fewer) goals was worth it--I got a fair bit more done this week, though that might also be because I'm beginning to get something approaching a regular schedule. Still not up to 100% but I've maintained a 21-day streak on Memrise and I've studied every day this week.

Deutsch

• Read 100 pages (of anything) - Did not read 100 pages, but I re-read some of the first Harry Potter book; it's kind of fun to see how far I've come since I first read it. Probably managed around 20 pages, plus various tweets/news headlines/articles through the week.
• Watch 60 minutes (of anything) - Done! Watched the first episode of Dark, which so far is a kind of gritty It-meets-Stranger-Things. I'll review it all when I'm done.

Español

• Read 20 pages (of anything) - Done! Read some of Harry Potter y la Piedra Filosofal; I'm not 100% sure how much, as my kindle edition only shows location, not pages, but seems to be about 20 pages or so.
• Watch 20 minutes (of anything) - Done! Watched the first episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine while I was at the gym (with English subs). Very interesting to hear how they translated 'manscaping' (though he says it really quickly so I still don't know it ).

中文

• Do 150 new SRS cards - Done!
• Learn 35 new words - Uh, I learnt like 10? I feel like I don't know what I'm doing when it comes to learning new words (in that, actively going out of my way to learn them is being weirdly difficult?), but I really want to do this for the challenge. Going to try again this week and see how it goes.

Euskara

• Do one Goldlist a day - Not quite, but managed four Goldlists over three days. (Did six lists in total, with two for Mandarin.) Pretty happy with that, to be honest, and it's only a couple of days before I can start distilling the ones I did before the challenge and so see how well it's working.
• Watch one episode of Avatar - Ugh, no, lazy me.

Additional Activities

• Did two Assimil - Iniciación al Euskara lessons.
• Did two Assimil - Spanish with Ease lessons.
• I also started doing my own self-imposed challenge (based on others and after reading through the HTLAL vs LLORG thread) but I'm gonna wait another week or so to see how it goes before I post I do have a bad habit of giving up on things a little early.

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Week Four: 22/01/2018-28/01/2018

Yay, time for more goals!

Deutsch

• Read 100 pages

Español

• Read 20 pages
• Watch 20 minutes

中文

• Learn 10 new words
• Watch 20 minutes

Euskara

• Do five Assimil lessons

That's it for my goals this week--lots of reading and watching, I know, but those activities always remind me why I want to learn new languages and really get me in the mood for more studying (so hopefully I'll have even more done by next week). I might be back during the week, but next week's update is going to be Sunday evening because ~I'm graduating on Monday~. Woohoo!

Have a good week!

[LunaMoonsilver]

Weekly Goals
Week Four Recap

Well, I'm a tiny bit late updating this week buuuuut graduation was a success (i.e. I wore high heels and did not trip and fall on my face. Also got my certificate, so I'm officially an MA now) and I've been enjoying my first couple of days off work. Mostly by watching Netflix, but oh well.

In bleaker news: I accidentally lost my Memrise streak (gotta set a reminder for that!) and uh that's it. Good news language-wise: I finally finished reading Harry Potter y la Piedra Filosofal and hit a few of my goals last week!

Deutsch

• Read 100 pages - Done! I took part in the 24in48 readathon last weekend (you try and read for 24 out of 48 hours... I managed just over five) and read a whole bunch of Die Farben der Magie. It's such a fun book!

Español

• Read 20 pages - Done! Like I said, I finished reading Harry Potter y la Piedra Filosofal, which was like 24% of the book left to go (~60 pages). Read a lot aloud too, to try and practise my pronunciation. Side note: reading the HP books as an adult is an eye-opening insight into how terrible most of the Hogwarts teachers are. Srsly.
• Watch 20 minutes - Done! Watched another episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Still a lot of fun.

中文

• Learn 10 new words - Nah, I didn't manage this and I didn't do well on my monthly goal for this, either. I think I managed maybe fifty words in total. But still, some words are better than no words!
• Watch 20 minutes - Didn't manage this either; I was too busy watching Dark. May try again this week.

Euskara

• Do five Assimil lessons - I did one and then this kind of fell by the wayside.

Additional Activities

• Did one Assimil - Spanish with Ease lesson.
• Did one Assimil - Japanese with Ease lesson.
• Watched uhh the other nine episodes of Dark. I did watch most of them (read: seven) yesterday, but going to count it in last week's goals. It was really good, you guys. Really good.
• Wrote a short piece for the Islandhoppers thread (in German).

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"Week" Five: 01/02/2018-04/02/2018

Yeah, just gonna count from today until Sunday and then everything will be back to normal. Also, as the 6WC has begun, I want to focus a little more time on Basque (my TL) but we'll see if that happens.

Deutsch

• Read 50 pages

Español

• Read 20 pages

中文

• Watch 40 minutes

Euskara

• Do three Assimil lessons

Got to decide between Los Juegos del Hambre or La Brújula Dorada for my new Spanish book; Harry Potter was good but I think a little above my level and I need a break before I start the next one. Still, lots of reading to look forward to for the rest of my week off, yay!

[jeff_lindqvist]

Also got my certificate, so I'm officially an MA now) and I've been enjoying my first couple of days off work.

Congratulations! Feels great, doesn't it?

[Yuurei]

Well, I'm a tiny bit late updating this week buuuuut graduation was a success (i.e. I wore high heels and did not trip and fall on my face. Also got my certificate, so I'm officially an MA now) and I've been enjoying my first couple of days off work. Mostly by watching Netflix, but oh well.

Congrats! Especially on the walking in high heels part - that seems like a near-impossible feat to me

Side note: reading the HP books as an adult is an eye-opening insight into how terrible most of the Hogwarts teachers are. Srsly.

I know, right? Might have something to do with the fact that there seems to be no post-secondary education whatsoever in magical Britain.
Also, a mystery I stumble over every time I re-read HP1: What the heck happened with Harry on that first of November? Did Hagrid really need at least 14 hours to bring Harry from Godric's Hollow to Surrey? If so, why? If not, what the heck was happening??

[LunaMoonsilver]

Congratulations! Feels great, doesn't it?

Thanks! And oh my God yes I'm so glad, haha, just trying not to think of all that money I've gotta pay back

Congrats! Especially on the walking in high heels part - that seems like a near-impossible feat to me

I know, right? Might have something to do with the fact that there seems to be no post-secondary education whatsoever in magical Britain.
Also, a mystery I stumble over every time I re-read HP1: What the heck happened with Harry on that first of November? Did Hagrid really need at least 14 hours to bring Harry from Godric's Hollow to Surrey? If so, why? If not, what the heck was happening??

Thanks! The heels are always fun--so much so that I changed back into flats about two mins after leaving the hall

And yes! Also: no primary education so how can all these kids read. I agree with you on Hagrid, too; like, I know he spoke to Sirius for a bit but then I guess he and baby Harry chilled for a while? That's the problem with re-reading stuff I guess, you end up getting caught up in things like that!

[LunaMoonsilver]

Weekly Goals
Week Five Recap

Uh, yeah, it's been like four days, so not much to report. Except for the fact I've still been studying, I guess, and the 6WC is proving to be a pretty good motivator. Got to make sure that motivation doesn't peter out though...

Didn't hit all of the goals I set on Thursday, but I did most and I did some more work too, so I'm pretty pleased with myself.

Deutsch

• Read 50 pages - No; I read some German this weekend but I also got a book as a present (in English) so I read all of that instead.* I think I'm going to change my reading goals from pages to percentages now on, too; it's just much easier to do that with my Kindle.

Español

• Read 20 pages - Done! Read half of the first chapter of La Brújula Dorada and half the first chapter of Los Juegos del Hambre, which I figure has to come out at about twenty pages, right? Either way, I've done it and decided on Los Juegos del Hambre as my next Spanish book.

中文

• Watch 40 minutes - Done! Watched episode 26 of Scarlet Heart (步步惊心) on Viki (I got one of those Fire TV Sticks for my birthday last year so now I can just stream... and it's so much more convenient, srsly), which was a lot of fun. Soooooo dramatic.

Euskara

• Do three Assimil lessons - Done! I'm enjoying using Assimil but the fact that the base language is Spanish is making things a little trickier (and super time-consuming). Still, I think there are only about 50 lessons in the book so by the time it becomes a massive problem, I should be most of the way through.

*The book I read in English is The Angry Chef: Bad Science and the Truth about Healthy Eating by Anthony Warner. Highly recommended, especially if you're interested in food and the science of food, plus it's pretty funny.

Additional Activities

• Watched an episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine in Spanish.
• Completed Colloquial Basque Chapter One.
• Did three Assimil - Spanish with Ease lessons.

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Week Six: 05/02/2018-11/02/2018

Deutsch

• Read 20% of Die Farben der Magie (~50 pages).
• Watch 40 mins of anything.

Español

• Read 10% of Los Juegos del Hambre (~40 pages).
• Watch 40 mins of anything.

中文

• Watch 40 mins of anything.

Euskara

• Do five Assimil lessons.
• Watch one episode of Avatar.

Oh, yeah, so I decided on Los Juegos del Hambre because, well, I know it better, but I haven't read it in a while so it should be interesting. Also: if anyone has a good source of information about Basque cases (whyyyy does it have cases???) then please let me know what you use. Assimil is explaining them slightly better than Colloquial Basque right now, but I get the feeling that won't hold up for long.

[LunaMoonsilver]

Weekly Goals
Week Six Recap

So it's been a pretty good week--maybe not in terms of hitting my goals (you'll see in a minute)--but I've explored a few different languages and now all the post-Christmas work stuff is over, I'm beginning to get back into a routine.

Good news: Basque is proving to be really fun! And while I haven't hit masses of hours every day this month, I'm steadily plugging away at the 6WC. I'm also doing surprisingly well with Spanish (which is also steadily improving due to the Basque Assimil course only having a Spanish base), which is nice.

Quick question about Spanish reading--is it usual in Spanish-language books for the names of pets to be italicised? I noticed it in Harry Potter with Fang's name, but now it's happening in the Hunger Games with Buttercup the cat, too. Just a strange little thing, if anyone has any insight!

But, anyway, back to what I got done...

Deutsch

• Read 20% of Die Farben der Magie - No. I read about 5% (maybe 15 pages, oops), but it's still a fun book. Just need to remember to keep reading!
• Watch 40 mins of anything - Uh, no. I was going to watch Jessica Jones to prepare for season two but I never got around to it.
  I did watch an episode of The Good Place with German subtitles at the gym (forgot my headphones, boo), but I don't think that counts...

Español

• Read 10% of Los Juegos del Hambre - Nope. Although, I'm a lot closer on this one; I'm at about 7%, well into the second chapter. I'm at that stage I remember being at with German when I first tried to read Harry Potter aaaaaages ago--sometimes things are really clear, but long paragraphs of description lose me quickly. I do need to get to grips with Spanish punctuation, however, as I'm somehow finding it really difficult to work out when people are speaking.
• Watch 40 mins of anything. - So close, but no. I watched one ep of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, then fell asleep halfway through an episode of The Good Place yesterday. Ugh! Will try again this week

中文

• Watch 40 mins of anything - No, boo. Literally just me being lazy and since I'm not doing much else for Mandarin right now, I really need to get on top of this.

Euskara

• Do five Assimil lessons - No, I did a couple. That review lesson (all in Spanish) was a killer but, like I said last week, there aren't too many lessons in this course, so I'm not too worried about how time-consuming it will be.
• Watch one episode of Avatar - Done! Well, kinda. Technically, technicallyyyyy, I watched the episode today, but it was before I posted this so it totally counts for last week. Also, that makes it the only goal I hit

Reflecting on this shambles up here, I have a couple of things to say:

One--this complete lack of completing goals this week does not, in any way, undermine the fact that weekly goals have so far proven to be the most useful tip I've used for language learning in a while. Although I'm not consistently doing one particular thing, I am consistently coming into contact with foreign languages and it's becoming easier and easier to incorporate this into my daily life. Now, it's a case of focusing on those goals--which is half making them visible, i.e. stuck up somewhere where I'll see them all the time, and half making them achieveable, so scaling maybe a couple of them down.

Second--I've only been seriously learning Basque since the beginning of this year, so six weeks now. I did a little last year, but didn't really retain anything of any substance. I decided to watch Avatar: The Last Airbender because a) I could find it, and b) it's a fun show I've watched before. And, though I didn't expect to, there were parts of it I understood! Nothing extreme, but the combination of Assimil and a textbook have drilled into me phrases that popped up (Goazen! / Begira! / Aang naiz; Appa da) as well as exposing me to phrases that I could work out from context (Ongi da). I'm obviously not expecting to understand everything any time soon, but this was a nice little confidence booster.

Additional Activities

• Completed Colloquial Basque Chapter Two.
• Did a bunch of Assimil lessons (will get into this later in the week).

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Week Seven: 12/02/2018-18/02/2018

Deutsch

• Read 10% of Die Farben der Magie.
• Watch 40 minutes of anything.

Español

• Read 5% of Los Juegos del Hambre.
• Watch 40 minutes of anything.
• Do two Assimil lessons.

中文

• Watch 40 minutes of anything.

Euskara

• Watch one episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender.
• Do two Assimil lessons.

So I'm gonna end this here because this post is already pretty long and, clearly, I have a lot to be getting on with. I'm hoping to have something to add this week, but if not, I'll back here next Monday!

[PeterMollenburg]

Media Watched/Read

Deutsch

• Dark (Netflix, 2017; Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese) - 10/10 - "A family saga with a supernatural twist, set in a German town, where the disappearance of two young children exposes the relationships among four families."

I recently watched this series on Netflix with French dubbing. Loved it! I haven't seen a series this good in a very long time. Glad to see you rated it so well. I'd find it difficult to rate below 9.5/10