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

[rdearman]

Somewhere I have a long list of essay questions, which I'll link to when I can find it.

[LunaMoonsilver]

Somewhere I have a long list of essay questions, which I'll link to when I can find it.

Awesome, thanks! I've been looking around online for lists that were more than the usual fare, so that'll be really helpful

[LunaMoonsilver]

FLC: Week One Recap
(21/02/2018-27/02/2018)

Well, this first week has flown by! I've mostly spent time finding resources and trying them out and I feel like I now have a vague understanding of where I want to go from here (for the next few weeks, at least). On a first glance, Polish has definitely proved itself as the 'easier' of the two (in terms of finding resources, as well as learning), but Mongolian is fun and interesting, even if I've spent less time with it.

I've not been having massive trouble regarding the 'free' aspect yet, though I did create a new Memrise account, just to be sure. My regular one has all the 'pro' stuff (idk why but shh, I'm not asking), so I created a new account in case I accidentally used features that wouldn't normally be available. It's also handy because I'll be able to see exactly what I've used it to learn for this experiment.

Polish | 4.62hrs (4.62hrs total)
I started, optimistically, with a combination of Duolingo (going through one unit every other day, because I know I'll lose interest in this soon) and FSI FAST, which has audio. I just can't get on with FSI FAST, though. The drills are really confusing (they have gaps in the text but I can't tell what they're saying in the audio), so I abandoned this quickly and moved instead onto the DLI Basic course, as suggested by iguanamon.

The DLI Basic course has no audio (boo!), so I've used a combination of Google Translate, Forvo, and Acapela Group (they make text-to-speech software and let you try it out on their homepage with about 200 characters, I think). Sadly, that means a lot of exposure to machine-generated voices, so I'm hoping to start LRing soon.

For LR, I found a book titled Wampir by Władysław Stanisław Reymont (afaik, it's out of copyright) and the corresponding audiobook on Librivox. I also found a German translation (couldn't find an English one that wasn't for sale) - Der Vampir - so I'm working on making those into parallel texts. Since the translation isn't in English, I'm having to read it really intensively, but on the plus side, I guess that's helping my German!

I've also spent some an inordinate amount of time on Memrise/Clozemaster--do love me some SRS!

Breakdown:
Textbooks (FSI, DLI): 125mins (45%)
SRS (Memrise, Clozemaster): 130mins (47%)
Duolingo: 22mins (8%)

Goals for next week:

• Begin LRing Wampir
• Do two more DLI Basic units (Unit 2, 3)
• Complete three more units on Duolingo

Also, side note: Polish has the easiest-to-use Windows keyboard of ANY language I've learnt. Nothing moves; to get diacritics, you just press the right alt button and the letter you need!

Mongolian | 1.7hrs (1.7hrs total)
A lot less to report for Mongolian--I've mostly spent time on greetings and trying to learn the alphabet. A lot of this has been done through Memrise (their Mongolian 1 course is pretty good as far as I can tell), but I also did the first four tracks of Basic Mongolian Expressions (Mongolian Language Lessons) from the Peace Corps.

Mongolian is really interesting so far, but the pronunciation is tricky, so I'm going to have to work on that. That means looking for as much audio as possible (hey there, YouTube) and drilling what I already have. Also, some of the words sound a lot like Korean (to my untrained ear ), which I was not expecting.

Downsides--there's no Clozemaster for Mongolian... and, although I can get a Windows keyboard, there isn't an iOS one, so I've got to use the Russian keyboard on my phone.

Breakdown:
Textbook (Peace Corps): 38mins (37%)
SRS (Memrise): 46mins (45%)
Writing (alphabet practice): 18mins (18%)

Goals for next week:

• Finish Peace Corps Basic Expressions
• Finish Memrise Mongolian 1
• Find some Mongolian audio

Right, time to get on with some more studying (of non-FLC languages too, I guess ). I'm trying to collect my resources as much as possible (I'll update the post in my log at some point and link everything together)--for now, I'm sharing a link to where I'm putting everything on Google Drive. You can see everything here; that includes my time log spreadsheet (let's hope I keep that up) and some of the resources I've found so far. It'll grow as I learn more.

[MamaPata]

I have the same thing about memrise - though weirdly, only on some devices. I have no idea why it happened as I've never paid anything.

Intrigued to follow your progress with Mongolian. It's not something I'm ever going to learn, but I'm really interested in it and I'd like to know more about Mongolia.

[hedgehog.chess]

For LR, I found a book titled Wampir by Władysław Stanisław Reymont (afaik, it's out of copyright) and the corresponding audiobook on Librivox. I also found a German translation (couldn't find an English one that wasn't for sale) - Der Vampir - so I'm working on making those into parallel texts. Since the translation isn't in English, I'm having to read it really intensively, but on the plus side, I guess that's helping my German!

As a source of out of copyright Polish books and audiobooks you could try wolnelektury.pl. From what I've seen there are even translations of books like The Adventures of Tom Sawyer or The Jungle Book with audio.

There's also some stuff in reineke's thread Polish resources. But I'm probably taking over the role of Captain Obvious.

If you would like to try to L/R a Polish classic for children/young adults there's W pustyni i w puszczy by Henryk Sienkiewicz and the translation in English. The language used is quite dated, but that can be said for many out of copyright materials.

[LunaMoonsilver]

I have the same thing about memrise - though weirdly, only on some devices. I have no idea why it happened as I've never paid anything.

Intrigued to follow your progress with Mongolian. It's not something I'm ever going to learn, but I'm really interested in it and I'd like to know more about Mongolia.

Yeah, idk what happened there and I don't want to ask them in case they take it away! Though, tbh, the main difference I notice is that without pro it doesn't track your overall streak? Which is kind of a pain.

Ha, glad you're interested. It's proving to be... difficult, but I'm enjoying it so far (though I need to spend more time with it). Need to carve out some time to learn more about Mongolia, too; I'll make sure to share here anything fun I find out.

[LunaMoonsilver]

For LR, I found a book titled Wampir by Władysław Stanisław Reymont (afaik, it's out of copyright) and the corresponding audiobook on Librivox. I also found a German translation (couldn't find an English one that wasn't for sale) - Der Vampir - so I'm working on making those into parallel texts. Since the translation isn't in English, I'm having to read it really intensively, but on the plus side, I guess that's helping my German!

As a source of out of copyright Polish books and audiobooks you could try wolnelektury.pl. From what I've seen there are even translations of books like The Adventures of Tom Sawyer or The Jungle Book with audio.

There's also some stuff in reineke's thread Polish resources. But I'm probably taking over the role of Captain Obvious.

If you would like to try to L/R a Polish classic for children/young adults there's W pustyni i w puszczy by Henryk Sienkiewicz and the translation in English. The language used is quite dated, but that can be said for many out of copyright materials.

Thanks for the book links! I went back on Librivox and found a couple of others too (A Christmas Carol and The Hound of the Baskervilles), which I can't believe I missed the first time around, but now I've got plenty to get going with. W pustyni i w puszczy looks super interesting, too, thanks for the rec!

As for reineke's thread--I had literally forgotten that it existed even though I had already bookmarked it. So thank you for the reminder

[LunaMoonsilver]

Weekly Goals
Week Nine Recap

Ooh, I thought I was very much get back on the saddle this week--and I was kind of mistaken. We had a small amount of snow, so, total disruption, including an interview I had for a new job being cancelled (it's this week instead and I am definitely not panicking about it) and yeah, everything ended up a bit out of whack. Ah well, it happens, so all I can do now is keep trying to get stuff done.

Deutsch

• Read 5% of Die Farben der Magie - Done!

Español

• Read 5% of Los Juegos del Hambre - Done! (Well, kind of.) I've started LRing this because I'm having trouble getting through it. I'm currently listening in L2/reading in L2 to get used to the sounds (Spanish still sounds fast to me) and started from the beginning. So I re-read it, but I am now at 6% of the book.

中文

• Watch 40 mins of anything. - Nope.

Euskara

• Finish Colloquial Basque Chapter Three. - Nope.

Additional Activities

• Watched Stranger Things S01E02 in German.

Looking back at this, I'm going to modify my Mandarin goal (probably to SRS; it might seem like a cop-out, but I need activities that don't require an extended time commitment rn) but maybe keep the one for Basque. I really, really don't want to drop the language; I just need to keep plugging away at it.

---

Week Ten: 05/03/2018-11/03/2018

Also: I'm still sticking to one goal/language until I've organised my time a little better. The FLC languages (especially Polish) are taking up a lot of my interest and until it all starts to settle, I want to do my best to improve these four with the time I have.

Deutsch

• Read 10% of Die Farben der Magie.

Español

• LR four chapters of Los Juegos del Hambre (approx. two hours).

中文

• Do 250 new sentences on Clozemaster.

Euskara

• Finish Colloquial Basque Chapter Three.

I'm sure I'll get most of this done... after Wednesday

[Maiwenn]

including an interview I had for a new job being cancelled (it's this week instead and I am definitely not panicking about it)

Good luck!! :)

[MamaPata]

Ooh, I don't get my overall streak - that would be great! (But not enough for me to want to pay for it!)

Good luck with the interview! Fingers crossed!