Postby sillygoose1 » Wed Nov 07, 2018 11:06 pm
German:
About 300 more pages left in Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften then I'm going to listen to Die elixiere des teufels on audiobook and watch the second season of Deutschland 86!
So I'm not quite sure what's going on still in the novel. Maybe because my mind has been wandering, because I take long breaks from it, because it's above my level. A lot of possibilities. What I'm sure of is that my German ability will have improved a ton after finishing it. I believe the word order is still a bit weird to me on a certain level because I've noticed by the end of the sentence sometimes my mind hasn't caught up. I'm really solid on cases, conjugations, and my vocab is still improving. I think I just need to simply use it more.
Russian:
I've been watching movies really. Still can't say I've improved much, but it's getting there. What I need to make a point of doing right now is read a grammar book (again). Maybe a more advanced one? Maybe more L/R? The last story I read besides Ivan... by Bulgakov was The Death of Ivan Illich and despite it being a shorty story, I only got the gist. It's possible I just need more exposure. I guess I'll go on a little movie/series marathon then L/R Dead Souls by Gogol.
Arabic:
Finished Arabic with Ease. It wasn't great but I did it anyway. Only 42 short lessons. I'm not even close to ready for an intermediate textbook and I'm still not even 100% on the alphabet (note: I knew Cyrillic comfortably by the time I finished Russian with Ease)
I wouldn't recommend it. Assimil has an advanced course in French which seems fine but don't bother with With Ease. I'm going to go through Living Language's Intermediate + Advanced Arabic books, then Colloquial Levantine, then Perfectionnement. I shouldn't need Routledge's reader by that time but who knows.
Chinese:
Finished volume 1 of Assimil. Lessons are short, but with a language like Chinese that's to be expected. Can't say grammar is a big problem right now. Lessons are sticking with me fairly well. My biggest challenge by far will be the characters but I'm still not 100% sure if I want to be able to read in Chinese yet. I have so many things I want to do outside of languages and that would take up too much time.
Japanese:
Lesson 30 in Assimil was a huge roadblock and humbled me quite a bit. Really nothing else to say on the subject.
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