Expug's 2018 Log - Sustainable Dabbling

[Expugnator]

Thank you for the good wishes, Elenia! You caught up really fast.

@Elenia and Morgana: ignoring some sentences would be the most obvious choice. I think just doing 20% of the deck wouldn't be enough, because how would I know I'm getting enough coverage of the words within the deck? Especially in the case of Russian, where repetition is so extreme that I'd swear I get identical sentences, prompted for the same cloze-deleted word, one right after the other, I'd risk doing sentences on удобно two-hundred times (a realistic number) and totally missing out on недостаточно. Convenient, but not enough .

I should probably start ignoring some sentences especially at my "second round" on the decks, when I do text input. This is when I feel the excess of repetition even less efficient. Probably setting it to 100% would help my completism.

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I'm wondering why I can't skim-read Italian yet. Maybe the fact the words are longer than in other Romance languages, plus the double consonants, that are meaningful and make me stop each time.

Finished a season in German from the Arrowverse, resumed from another series. Whichever series get watched in German instead of Georgian goes ahead, as I watch them everyday while alternating between the other three for the dubbed-Georgian slot. Anyway, this time it seems both the German and the Portuguese subtitles match the audio, and so I'm back at my fully-optimal German learning with double subs.

I'm finishing Soumission today. I enjoyed this book so much, also the narration of the audiobook. That said, though, as much as I like contemporary French fiction, I think I've had enough of contemporary France's existential thoughts. I need to know other nations as much in depth as France. Also,the overall pessimistic tone doesn't help my mood either. I'm happy with keeping French at the audiobook slot and I don't plan on reading text, unless something really interesting comes up. Even fantasy is not a thought because I'm enjoying it in Italian. Whatever subgenre, I'd rather read more in German anyway. Unfortunately I can't do a German audiobook yet, for that would have been my choice. Anyway, I'm proceeding with Kathérine Pancol's sagas and subsagas for the sake of completionist and for the lack of a better immediate option (need to revisit all my suggestions and similar artists for French). My usual source for audiobooks is blocked here now so even the searching, which I enjoyed doing, has to be done from home.

So, today I managed a lession of Routledge Hebrew again, after a couple of days. I didn't have all the usual time available, because I came here later after having a meeting at the girls' school, and after lunch I went to see the doctor and show him the exams - all is going well. Routledge Hebrew still isn't heavy on vocabulary, so it's helping me a lot. I'm just losing track of how to pronounce the different verbal forms, but I know their meaning. It's a bit like when I read a Chinese character I know the meaning of but am clueless about the pronunciation. I'm relieved that today's lesson went more smoothly - despite being longer - because I was starting to be afraid of simply letting it go, something I don't usually do.

[Elenia]

I forgot there was the option to set to 100% mastered! That will work for me on sentences I've already played but don't want to have to see repeated, so thank you! As for missing important words, I comfort myself with the thought of being able to go back if I want to. Also, you may have noticed but I'm quite good at not finishing things so I don't mind so much if I don't. Especially for a language like Swedish, where I know everything at the lower levels already...

Difficult languages, like Finnish, are of course a completely different matter...

[Expugnator]

I don't see Finnish as a difficult language anymore Weird as it may, I have a discount from Estonian. I'm doing only the first level and it got easy once I got used to the sound changes when compared to Estonian.

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The weekend did have some language activity, though it had more social activity (which was mostly me running around after the babies as they approached a pool or a balcon, but I don't regret. We managed to stick together for a long time). So, I listened to one episode from the Italian podcast, only to confirm that the filter doesn't work on Castbox as it's supposed to. Well, at least I can still see which episodes have been played when I scroll back to the previous three years. Or I can simply go to my profile and check History. Affaire réglée.

I started DUolingo Indonesian!! Because it would be absolutely silly to refrain from using immediately a long-waited resource that fits exactly my needs now. So far, I find it too easy, but even Duo Hebrew was at some point and now it's on hold because it's over my head. What makes Indonesian even easier is the nearly phonemic Latin Script, which allowed me to through three units rather quickly. Boring it also is for sure, with vocabulary that is too concrete for my needs. And short. The tree looks more like one you can find in a savannah/cerrado. Whatever. It will be great once I can find my way for working on it. So far I can say that it's taken priority over any other app learning but Clozemaster Mandarin and Norwegian.

Back to after-post Friday, I finished Soumission by Michel Houellebecq. Absurd but really entertaining. The audiobook sounds pretty well. Last time I checked, it was Houellebecq's latest novel, so I'll have to listen to one of the previous lessons I haven't read yet. That won't be hard, as I've only read Extension du domaine de la lutte and La carte et le territoire. So, I already have Les Particules élémentaires lined up. Meanwhile, I'm proceeding to Muchachas 2. I couldn't start it on Friday because the network was unstable and I couldn't download the long audiobook file I purchased, so my commute back home just had the remaining 5 min of audio from Soumission. The issue persisted this morning, but now seems to be fixed. The files are uploaded unzipped to my folder and next into my phone.

I also spent a good time reading the forum, though I still owe some good topics a reply. I've been thinking about my learning habits and I realized that I like to study less common languages (well, that goes without saying), and I like to do so at least past the beginner level. Many learners have dabbled in Georgian through the years for satiating their linguistical curiosity, but I went beyond that. And so I did for Estonian and for Papiamento. I'm already at a level for each of these languages that makes me a functional speaker of them, and not just someone who has some trivia to say on each. Even if I struggle to reach a higher level, I need to learn to look back and see that I've been consistent and respectful along the way. My dabbling-only phase is gone long ago, long before I found HTLAL.

Still, Wanderlust keeps haunting. Sometimes I have those thoughts of reserving one day or one week or one fortnight for all the languages I want to learn in the near future. The reason I don't do so is not because I'm afraid of dropping them, it's rather the opposite. I'm afraid I might end up with over 20 languages instead of the already excessive 15.

Had a slightly shorter Hebrew lesson and managed to finish almost one hour earlier. Good, but not enough considering that I had 1 extra hour in the morning. Tomorrow might be busier and I might have to run some errands, so I should be a bit more productive if I want to finish schedule on time.

Found time for some Clozemaster, but not much.

[Expugnator]

Yesterday I finally started Kathérine Pancol's second volume in the Muchachas subtrilogy from the Cortès saga. It starts with brand new characters as usual, but I managed to tune in much faster than in the previous one. Some improvement might have happened in the meantime.

Finished two Italian resources today. The first one was Gianrico Carofiglio's second book in the Guido Guerrieri's series. I like this one even better than the first and the third one, and it's about time I buy the fourth one. The audiobooks are really well-read. Meanwhile, though, I'll be listening to the one I got from Xmmm's log, Leonardo Sciacia's A ciascuno il suo.

The other resource was Italian non-fiction. I feel free now. 20 pages were taking me over 40 minutes. Following the quest for getting done with my to-read virtual pile, spread through 3 mobile devices and 2 desktop computers, I'll be reading Guide pratique du e-learning. Un peu de français pour l'instant. Already started today and it looks promising.

Er det noen som har lest noe av Gert Nygårsdhaug? Hva synes dere?

Ho deciso di comprare proprio adesso il quarto libro della serie dell'avvocato Guido Guerrieri. Mi sono scrito a Eamons.it ed ho anche ricevuto un audiolibro di regallo, Canti di Giacomo Leopardi, ciò che rende il mio acquisto ancora più vantaggioso. Ho anche osservato che gli audiolibri da Gianrico Carofiglio sono uno-due euro meno costosi rispetto al prezzo individuale ad Audible. Per di più, c'è un sconto per il Ferragosto (il quale ho dimenticato di utilizzare nel momento di aggiungere il codice del coupon!).

Well, I've technically resumed listening to Grand Bien Vous Fasse, even if I'm far from reaching 1 episode per day. There are a few ones that I'm really looking forward to listen to.

I had time for some Clozemaster today, though not much again. At least I realized on time that it's better to do text input at the desktop in order to make use of the preview feature.

[Expugnator]

Yesterday I managed to go up to Romanian, only 1 round, on Clozemaster. Finnish, Catalan, Indonesian, Hebrew and the text-input rounds for Mandarin, Russian, German and Greek were missing. Plus all the other app-learning, especially Duolingo Indonesian (which I had better insert in between the daylight routine).

I have yet to define a new material for when I come back from the classes, around 9h30 PM. At that time, we have a governmental program on all radios (it used to be worse, from 7 to 8 pm). Either i resume a resource from that very day - and I can't wait to finish the Argentinian podcast - or I find something new, but preferably easier, because concentrating on a harder language such as German or Norwegian at the end of the day might be a struggle.

Now that I'm reading a lighter book, with proper spacing, font-size and even some blank pages between chapters, I feel liberated. I could read 6 pages just while waiting for the elevator when going to have a snack. Then a couple more while waiting for the girls to come up from their room at the kindergarten and we're nearly halfway; the remaining can be covered on my commute back from lunch, and that probably means more time for reading in Italian and Spanish, maybe even intensively. This non-fiction slot of mine always has a personal development component; next I want to read about writing language lessons.

Today I benefited from the new, lighter reading and from a good headstart in the morning. I had to take the girls to the local health center for some routine, had to wait for it to open and so spent almost 2 extra hours. It was mostly catching up after that (also with a lot of pending work), but at least I was done with non-fiction when I got here.

Hebrewpod101 is still messy. Finally they gave the full paradigm to the verb to be in the past, but they are already introducing random forms in the past and the future. The advantage with pod101 is that I get transcripts as well, unlike Routledge Hebrew. Enough to realize that the verb translates 'there was/there were' in the past and it agrees with the linked items.

Finished a shorter Routledge Hebrew lesson, and with this a new unit. I'm more than halfway through the book and I don't think the difficult level will escalate. What else can get more difficult? I already lack transcripts and I have to OCR the texts and several exercises. Only some lessons are going to be quite long, but that's life.

I still feel I could benefit from more structured, transparent learning in the case of hebrew though. Even Clozemaster fails to meet this chriterium as there are no vowels and TTS is not entirely reliable (in the rare occasions I managed to use it). I might start the older Hebrew edition after to replace pod101 for a while a couple of levels in pod101.

[Expugnator]

It was not yesterday that I started my fifth listening slot. I was supposed to drive short and through a new path as the normal one was closed due to an accident. What i want is to advance on the Argentinian podcast, but it's too much chatting on my head for an evening. I also did very little Clozemaster but at least I did Duolingo Indonesian.

Social science fiction is my new favorite subgenre. I've read quite a few of this gnre before getting to know its name: 1984, The Hunger Games (actually watched), Divergent and so on. Some other well-known works keep being recommended here, like Fahrenheit 451. All this to say that I finished listening-reading Haarteppichknüpfer, by Andreas Eschbach. I can't say enough about it. A great book, much better than Der Herr der Ding (although the premise was also interesting in the latter, the story didn't evolve that interestingly). Actually Haarteppichknüpfer is one of the great books I've read, one that inspired me to think more broadly about the world and what (little) motivates people.

I should proceed to A series of unfortunate events and finish it in German, for which I have all the audiobooks (unlike Russian, and as long as they remain available), but I'm still reading book 5 in Russian and that may take one month or so. Therefore, I'm proceeding to something I have available, Cornelia Funke's acclaimed Herr der Diebe - the same narrator as Tintherz and a premise/anti-hero that doesn't appeal that much to me. Well, I hope at least it helps me improve my reading speed.

I had to do some bureaucratic stuff related to the upcoming elections, so while heading to their office I decided to listen to the Argentinian podcast. It didn't feel that heavy and I didn't feel like my day was stuck because I was listening to a resource from the morning. Actually it was positive, as overall it's transparent. While waiting at their office, I managed to read a bit from non-fiction, Italian and a timid headstart on Russian listening-reading, though not enough as I got super busy when I got back here.

Fortunately the opening lesson on the new unit of Routledge Hebrew was short, and I managed to finish it despite having less time available today.

[Expugnator]

I'm actually enjoying Herr der Diebe so far. It doesn't seem so old. The problem is the audiobook is slightly abridged. I tend to listen to German at 1.2 speed, but I'm sticking to 1.1 or even to normal speed so I can keep track of the jumps in the audio.

A great momentum for German - Double subtitles work wonderfully and even though one of them gets unloaded from SMPlayer I just have to drag and drop it into the screen and it automatically resumes working. Unfortunately, all this isn't reverting into better German skills and I'm stuck in the plateau.

Started the Beginner level for Hebrewpod101. It's funny how each new level starts with shorter lessons, more basic grammar and then it gets harder to the extent that the final lessons in the lower beginner level were much harder than the early lessons in the beginner level.

Indonesian is starting to click, at least syntactically. I need more practice on Clozemaster and Duolingo.

I had plenty of time so I could concentrate on the Routledge Hebrew lesson. I only OCR-ed the main text (as always), some sample sentences and one exercise; for the rest I looked up words individually, which might be better for retaining vocabulary and getting used to the syntax, as I force myself to reading.

Today I found time for more Clozemaster. Only the Greek text input part was missing. I noticed that it takes way too much time, though. Over an hour. I wonder if it's worth doing it or if I'd rather do other things in my TLs, like writing paragraphs or doing intensive reading on those I don't.

[Expugnator]

The weekend was much calmer, much less busier than usual. I had time to breath. On Saturday I could advance all the grocery shopping. I managed to go to the Polyglot Meetup and talk some Italian (words came up much more easily than the previous time) and Spanish (ditto). There are Russians and learners of other languages such as Hebrew but they didn't come that time.

I also managed to gather some material. I'm really looking forward to listening to the good German audiobooks I got. I also found more Romanian ones. I need to get down to Romanian eventually, I can't waste the chance of having so many accessible translated audiobooks.

Still on Saturday, I did some Clozemaster, though not everything.

Sunday was perhaps the calmest day in the year so far. I only had to go to the drugstore shortly. Surprising me, the girls agreed to follow me without mom. At current stage they want their mom to do everything. As I had woken up much earlier than all of them, I could do most of the Clozemaster. I managed the rest later in the morning, then Speakly.me, Duolingo Indonesian and Duolingo Hebrew. I don't feel the need of getting back to Mondly or Memrise. I wasn't in the mood for Duolingo Russian's later crowns either, I think Clozemaster has been enough. Actually it went great for all languages. With Greek, I decided to do the text input portion first at 4 rounds review (which is still hard for me at the random mode) then 4 rounds of the lowest unmastered level, where they keep presenting me seen words as 0% mastered, and so the percentage of seen words goes up to 115%. All in all, very productive. Then we had guests for a barbecue and the rest of the day I felt pretty much bored that I didn't have any app-learning lined up and nothing interesting to do. It felt almost like a vacation day. I only regret not reading further from my non-fiction read as a headstart for today, because today is going to be busier.

I've read two more pages from Mandarin without the accompanying audio. It's much slower, because the audio pushes you forward and makes you skim some passages, but it was helpful. My current knowledge isn't that bad, and I'm starting to understand some full sentences through looking up individual words (not characters) on Pera-pera and parsing the overall meaning. That's encouraging. I really want to find a major role for Mandarin in my life (and for Norwegian as well). I have the impression that my current Mandarin level is already an asset in the market.

The inverted schedule went all (I had an appointment at the eye doctor after lunch), and things went rather smoothly though a bit slowly due to the dilation for the exam.

I did something new. I re-listened to a dialogue, the one at Hebrewpod101, which is shorter. I have mixed feelings about the impact of this second relistening in terms of retention (I had already decyphered meaning at the first pass). Let's see how it comes along.

A short Routledge Hebrew lesson in theory, but it was pretty much exhausting. There was a lot to OCR. I totally ignored the main text as it was a story about why the zebras wear pajamas, but since it was largely dotted OCR didn't work properly, and it had too many new words (which is why so many words were dotted). Then I had to OCR lots of sample sentences, as they usually don't have translation (and I fail to see the criterion behind the ones that do get translated). Several new time adverbs taught at once, which messed up in my head. I start to wonder if it wouldn't be better to pause a bit and read grammar proper. Also, I spend over 40 minutes on a resource that is suboptimal, where a substantial part of the time is wasted on OCR-ing, copying and pasting. Maybe replacing it with another resource for the time being wouldn't be that bad after all. I could do 15 minutes of something else more productive (like a learner-friendly grammar or Assimil) and have much more time for app-learning.

Speaking of which, so far I did a good deal of Clozemaster but clearly not enough, but I might have free time this evening.

[Expugnator]

Yesterday I had my classes in the evening unbooked, so I could spend a calm, relaxed and revigorating evening with my family. The girls were probably surprised and excited with the news and stayed close to me all the time, talking to me and playing. I also found time for the whole Clozemaster setting but the text-input final rounds. I decided to do Speakly.me and Duolingo instead, which I don't regret. The Speakly.me app has been updated and I'd definitely recommend it for other languages (though you have to pay for them). With Duolingo I suffer a bit from thematic vocabulary which isn't a priority, either in Indonesian or in Hebrew, but I believe things will start falling into place halfway the tree. Moreover, I can always come back for second and third levels and get more output practice. Anyway, last night I still got to sleep early and feel on top of my energy today.

It turns out the missing chapter on the Mandarin audiobook was just out of order. I skipped it when it showed up.

I'm trying to get into the story at the Maretorn book. I noticed that I can get lost easily when I just look away. It probably has to do with the author's style and the phantasy universe. I didn't have that problem with Odinsbarn, because I was more familiarized with its universe.

Norwegian output on Clozemaster is finally starting to become easy and I'm doing some automatic answers, though far from the level of the Romance languages. I'm progressing by levels, it's current not bugged and I'm working every sentences towards mastery instead of being offered them wrongly at 0%.

One of the happiest days in my Hebrew studies. Hebrewpod101's lessons explain, finally with the necessary didactics, how the Hebrew verbs' patterns are formed. Now I can advance.

In spite of the steep learning curve, Assimil Indonesian keeps to Assimil standards when it comes to the cultural tips. Today I heard about the Indonesian genre 'dangut'.

So, Routledge Hebrew is officially on hold. I want to get back to it when I'm at a higher level, alongside with other equally invaluable resources such as Linguaphone, Langenscheidt, FSI, Modern Hebrew for Beginners, A Textbook of Israel Hebrew and other good resources that demand a better familiarity with the alphabet so that I don't have to spend so much time looking up words. I'm almost spoiled for choice regarding Hebrew, but the order of resources is critical.

Surprisingly enough, I'll be doing Colloquial Hebrew. I've discharged TY Hebrew (the modern one), it's basically a crossword. The old TY Hebrew is always appropriate, but this one is actually Biblical Hebrew. I need to learn to read voweled texts better. At this point they actually slow me down.

I just took part in a videoconference with the Zoom platform. It's about adding the local polyglot meetup event to the Events platform of a famous language-learning app. It might be the first time I take part in a videoconference in English which is not a language exchange. Felt almost like work. Hope we manage to publish the event on that other platform as well.

So I started Colloquial Hebrew. Rather long lessons (again), but I like the full transcription and translation for both dialogues and exercises. Let's see how long this will last (I could look forward at the book but I will refrain from doing it so as to keep my motivation). I also like it that I get to settle down the tourist talk. Maybe I can get done with the A1 level while progressing at the A2 level.

I already feel much less tired after dropping Routledge Hebrew. I didn't have extra time for studying, though, since I had that videocall and also much work after that. Really looking forward to doing more stuff from now on (I only hope I avoid adding new languages for the time being and manage to use the additional time wisely and evenly on Indonesian, Modern Greek, German and who knows what).

[Expugnator]

Yesterday I had less time than planned, even though I didn't give any classes. I focused on doing Clozemaster for all languages. No time for the 2nd-round text input or for Speakly.me and Duolingo. The good news is that for the 3rd night in a row (or even longer) I could sleep all night long almost 8 hours, not having to get up in the middle of the night to prepare baby bottles. I feel with much better energy now. I still work often in the middle of the night, but probably it's my body that is adjusting to the extra sleep.

Watching the Taiwanese series with traditional characters is really adding up a new skill. I'm slowly getting used to the traditional counterparts of the simplified characters I already know (which are the vast majority on a TV series set in contemporary world).

Estonian is becoming easier to read. The prospect of getting even a short, 20% discount on Finnish is even more motivating.

Still on sociological fiction, the genre seems to be called Roman d'anticipation in French, and roman antisipasi in Indonesian. I saw it in today's Indonesian lesson. I keep being astonished on how some coincidences emerge in different language activities in my schedule, different contexts, one in native material and the other on textbook, on different language families even.

The feeling that I'm doing too little on Indonesian keeps growing, more so now that the language is starting to 'click'. I understood "tahun yang akan datang" instantly, and funnily it was thanks to Hebrew בשנה הבאה which isn't far from Portuguese ano que vem either. Pretty much intuitive, except that Indonesian uses the future particle explicitly.

Now a coincidence between Mandarin and Hebrew: the isolate number 2 used for counting is different from the one that follows a noun: שתיים/שניים and שתי/שני cf. Mandarin 二/两 .

Colloquial Hebrew lessons are long, indeed, but I get to learn much more. I'm filling in important gaps in my knowledge, especially when it comes to vocalization. Assimil on top would probably bring me to a new level.

Even wtih a long Colloquial Hebrew lesson, the day was overall calm and I finished the tasks two hours earlier. Then I proceeded to app practice: all the Clozemaster setting - including output - then Speakly.me then Hebre and Indonesian Duolingo. I finished all that just a few minutes before time was over. That's a lesson learned: app learning is no negligible time, no stolen time in my case, and it really poses a trade-off. Should I stick to Clozemaster (over an hour) and use the remaining 40 minutes on more, varied and different input? On output?

Duolingo Indonesian lessons are surprisingly short. I hope it gets better on 2nd and 3rd crow levels. Duolingo Hebrew's middle levels have more recorded sentences, which is good. It doesn't feel that hard to advance, which means I'm consolidating the lower levels better through combining resources.