Expug's 2018 Log - Sustainable Dabbling

[Expugnator]

It seems some 9 episodes (621 to 629) from the Estonian soap-opera have no subtitles. I'll have to give these a try and see how much I can understand (spoiler: not enough). Well, it could have been worse. I have the impression that if I really concentrate I can understand bits and tips, quite like it is with native Georgian series now. The problem is I've been stuck at that level on Georgian for a couple of years or more.

Finished my non-fiction reading today. It's always great to finish one and start another. This time I'm being bold and starting a book in German. Reading 20 pages of non-fiction in German is such a commitment. Today I read the bookcover reviews and stopped at the Vorwort. I could understand almost everything! I'm really close to basic reading fluency in German, and that alone is an achievement for the year. The book has some familiar vocabulary, doesn't seem much complex so I hope to gain momentum.

Finishing the previous book faster than expected was a relief, because I was severely lagging behind schedule. So I had time to do the Italian read and start the Spanish one still during my noon commute. It was striking to see a reference to Roberto Carlos and is song Lady Laura at a novel written by a Spaniard!

Even though I was way behind schedule, I decided to read Georgian properly again. I'm really getting on the flow. I wish I can read Georgian as well as German. As a matter of fact, I believe I do speak Georgian better than German anyway, so it's a matter of matching up skills, which might be harder on a further away language (I consider German an opaque language as well, but Indo-European sometimes pays up, not to mention that I can attribute much of my improvement in German to the knowledge gained from Norwegian, which I study more diligently - while I still think I can read German better than Norwegian overall, as I read most only fiction in Norwegian and more varied in German - go figure).

A German friend from IRC is dating a Georgian girl. He keeps asking me all the time a couple of words. He wants to find Georgian literature translated into English, good luck with that. Today he posted a song in Russian and asked me if the guy was Georgian. I could guess from his surname and I googled his name eventually, but what striked me was that I could immediately detect his Georgian accent in Russian, mostly the grave tone of voice and the over-rounded vowels.

I'm being flooded with info about the Hebrew verbal schemes and I'm starting to form a picture. Even so, I'd still rather have one lesson per scheme, slowly. All resources so far have tried to teach too much at once. My hope now is to grow a repertory of forms first through comprehensive input and later on come back for refreshing and consolidating. All this because I'm not a language-drills person. Today's both Berlitz Hebrew and FSI Hebrew lessons seemed to want to exhaust all verbal patterns within a single lesson. Exhausting.

[Axon]

I could immediately detect his Georgian accent in Russian, mostly the grave tone of voice...

You've almost certainly mentioned it before, but are the subtitles you mention for Estonian same-language, dual-language, or non-Estonian?

And which German non-fiction are you reading? I like reading nonfiction online but I've been thinking it's time to get some real books.

[Kat]

He wants to find Georgian literature translated into English, good luck with that.

I can't recommend anything in English but there's a Georgian novel that has recently been translated into German.
Disclaimer: I haven't read it, so I don't know if it's good or not.

Edited:

Apparently Georgia was the country of focus at the Frankfurt Book Fair this year, so they had quite a bit of Georgian literature translated into German. Perlentaucher lists 62 titles. Some of them are just books about Georgia but there are plenty by Georgian authors as well.

[Expugnator]

I could immediately detect his Georgian accent in Russian, mostly the grave tone of voice...

You've almost certainly mentioned it before, but are the subtitles you mention for Estonian same-language, dual-language, or non-Estonian?

They are in Estonian only, and I usually paste them on GT. I used to struggle in the beginning, but now I understand most of the Estonian and check for the odd word - or simply skip the still too difficult sentences.

And which German non-fiction are you reading? I like reading nonfiction online but I've been thinking it's time to get some real books.

This time it's the type of self-help one, which I find light reading. It's called Ein neues ich and it's a translation. I'm still reading translations.

@kat: thanks, I shared the links with him and he is excited about getting those books!
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Not doing my full set of Clozemaster but I'm happy with what I'm achieving, even with the merely dabbling languages Turkish, Romanian and Czech. I feel I'm no longer a beginner in those languages.

As much impressed as I am with my new fluency in German, I'm also impressed with how abridged a German audiobook can be. They just cut half a chapter from, when you get to know how the fact that created the chaos that is behind the plot happened in the first place!

I'm struggling with both Hebrew resources. This time I'll stick to them though. I'm learning enough from the initial dialogues (on both) and I'm looking forward to consolidating vocabulary from Clozemaster as well.

[eido]

Wanderlusting for Icelandic. Too bad Assimil didn't release a full method. Icelandic doesn't seem that impossible to learn after Norwegian (though I'd still go for Swedish then Faroese first).

Do you still want to learn Faroese?

[Expugnator]

Wanderlusting for Icelandic. Too bad Assimil didn't release a full method. Icelandic doesn't seem that impossible to learn after Norwegian (though I'd still go for Swedish then Faroese first).

Do you still want to learn Faroese?

Yes, definitely! Probably even before Icelandic, but after Swedish which I have yet to start (I speak Norwegian somewhere at the B2 range).

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The weekend had little to no language learning. I barely managed to keep the streak on Clozemaster. I gathered some more TV series episodes for Georgian, one more French film and I read ahead in German non-fiction. Other than that, I was on the verge of saying Thank God It's Monday (but I didn't; waking up at the best of sleep when it's still night is something I'm having a hard time getting used to this year).

Confirming my suspicious for Estonian: the moment I stop trying to hard to understand without subtitles (I don't have them for the next 8 episodes) and just zone out a bit, that's when I realize I'm actually grasping much more from the conversations. This happened with Georgian and French in the past, and it corresponds to a stage where I'm starting to get used to speed but still need to improve vocabulary in order to actually follow the dialogues in real time.

Coincidences of life. Yesterday I was in the town of Congonhas, where some relatives of my wife live. Now I'm reading a Norwegian novel and the town of Congonhas is mentioned, thanks to one of its most well-known inhabitants, José de Arigó.

I'm finally through a long chapter at Proyecto Nocilla written in the form of stream of conciousness, like Raduan Nassar's Um Copo de Cólera. It also had some repetition of full periods, so I'd get really lost. Now I'm at around one quarter to the end of the whole set of novels (assuming the edition I have actually has them all as Amazon claims) and I'm looking forward to my next read in Spanish. Now that I decided to read Spanish right after Italian, which is right after the Russian listening-reading (or earlier if I'm fast enough at reading non-fiction during the commute in the afternoon), I don't risk forgetting about it anymore.

[eido]

Yes, definitely! Probably even before Icelandic, but after Swedish which I have yet to start (I speak Norwegian somewhere at the B2 range).

What would be your plan of attack? I don't see the university-sponsored course coming out any time soon, but fingers crossed. All I have is the first Harry Potter, the Petersen textbook, and the survival level UoI course. They say the best way to learn is immersion, but I've seen you do better in less than ideal circumstances so I'm curious. I haven't found anyone on the Internet who's gotten reasonably fluent in Faroese. And congratulations on your achievements with Norwegian!

[Expugnator]

There is a good course out there already, Faroese - A Language Course for Beginners. I have some more grammars and even native materials, all shared by a friend some years ago. PM me if you want to know more.

That said, I'd like to address Faroese when I'd already be able to understand most of it, like a 3rd language within a family.

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The day was one of the busiest in the year and I also had a class in the morning (a very productive one, btw), but what derailed it were some serious family issues.

As happy as I am with German, I can't understand much if I'm not reading calmly. I didn't have much time for reading ahead during the morning and I came back from lunch by car, so my non-fiction read in German was nearly all pending, along with Italian and Spanish fiction.

Today there really wasn't time for everything. I wasn't busy as expected so I didn't have to stay longer for taking care of the pending tasks,and so I didn't have time to catch up with all the time spent in the morning and early afternoon with other stuff.

[Expugnator]

A lot going on, and I'm really looking forward to a day of studies, not as escapism but as a way to keep moving and feeling well.

Language learning is a source of certitude. I can't control a lot that is going on around me (I can control how I react to it, but that's another discussion), but I can control how my learning evolves. I can make plans and expect to see results. I can feel the outcome of my efforts. It's a rare field where I can see fairness. I don't mean it in a determinist way, on the contrary, there is a lot in the process of learning a language that involves doing your lot and waiting for the changes to take place, for the epiphany or the mere realization you can perform a simple task. There is acceptance involved as well, that something will just take time and it's not necessarily a direct function of hours on task, as hours out of task or on a similar task concur to that result to take place in the end as well. Language learning is not a oasis of serenity; there are conflicts as well, the internal ones being tougher as I've learned long ago not to take what happens online so strongly. Those conflicts are fairly outweighed by the atmosphere provided and the sense of learning through sharing, self-knowledge and self-acceptance.

Today's Mandarin reading was without audio, because the current chapter wasn't recorded.It was good for me to realize that I can read Mandarin intensively and understand a good deal from it. It's always tiresome to keep moving the mouse cursor to the side and looking up characters on Pera-pera, but at least I'm making sense of most sentences gramatically now, which wasn't the case before: I'd have trouble understanding even after looking words up.

I'm done with watching Kampen for tilværelsen. A good series, challenging language-wise and with som insights on the Norwegian society, irony and humor. I admit I didn't pay attention all the time, and the Polish distracted me especially in the beginning, but I definitely recommend it. Now Side om Sides sesong 6 has priority over any other planned stuff.

I'm still in a hurry and spending a lot of time deiling with some issues, and I thought I'd aprehend nothing from today's Berlitz Hebrew lesson, even more so that I didn't study Hebrew at all. It seems it was rather productive, and maybe yesterday's pause actually helped as it gave my brain some rest regarding Hebrew.

Almost by miracle, I managed to do Hebrew and Indonesian today. I'm not very happy with either Hebrew resources, and the lack of Clozemaster practice in the past days is doing harm to both languages. The Hebrew resources are about to end, so I'll stick to them and then do only fully transcribed resources again. As for Clozemaster, I really need to get back into the game.

For now though, I'm leaving on holidays for the next 10 days. I'm back to studying regularly probably the first Monday after the next one, but I'll keep checking the forum once in a while and trying to do Clozemaster.

[Expugnator]

...And I'm back! This vacation was really short, and I actually traveled only during the extended holiday around the 15th. We traveled by car on the opposite direction of the holiday rush, on a good road, and we could even enjoy a couple of days at the beach.

I did next to no language learning. I struggled to do Clozemaster; most days I actually did the bare minimum for keeping my streak at the upfront languages. I did some side reading but it was less than my daily non-fiction quota. I didn't even finish some translation tasks that required sitting at the desktop, and I had the past week tue-fri for that (I'm waiting for some new developments on the part of the customer, anyway). In the morning, I'd still have to take the girls to the kindergarten at around 8 AM, then I'd go to the gym (which I usually do at 6 AM, so it was the actual rest I was having last week) then I'd work on urging tasks such as taking the car to wash, shopping for groceries or for diapers at Black Friday. On the other hand, I spent really wonderful afternoons with my daughters, and that was the main point behind being the only parent on vacation for the past week. Pity that I couldn't do any of the planned tours, including taking them to know Inhotim - google it, it's worth it - due to the non-stopping rain throughout the week.

All this to say that it's extremely hard for me to set a language learning routine when I don't have a routine. On a typical workday I can get a lot done, and only at the busiest days does stuff get dropped.

All's well with my dad. I had been living anxious and stressful days already before I left on vacation, and being distant made it worse. Fortunately the disease could be taken care of without aggressive procedures. He has a condition now, and has to finally live a healthier lifestyle. He was supposed to come with my mom on a visit but now I don't know what will be of that, I'll probably have to wait for the next vacation and go there.

Another pending task solved during my vacation is that now I have mobile internet. I was staying on an old billing where I paid the same for voice-only, so it was about time. Now I have more options for my hidden moments, Clozemaster for instance. I only hope having internet all the time won't take away listening time.

Speaking of which, I signed up for Clozemaster Pro, following the Black Friday offer, 30$ yearly. I did it for the perspective of working on the grammar exercises, which are available even for Norwegian. I still haven't had my issues dealt with, and the idea that those serious bugs might be dealt only with now that I am a pro user is outrageous to say the least. This week and a half where I did little Clozemaster showed me that I'm better off letting go of any gamification frenzi and just focusing on my own learning routine.

I started the sixth season of Side om Side. Really like the show. I'm trying to pay attention to the characters' varied accents, as recently I've been bombarded with information on dialects in Norwegian, especially Bergen and Stavanger (which sound alike to me at first thanks to the R, but I know that gramatically they differ a lot). I need to watch Norwegian more intensively, pausing and looking words up, not doing anything else in parallel, if I want to make any sound progress. It's only 10 minutes after all. It helps that I watch Side om Side from NRK's website so no player window to drag to the site while keeping browsing.

I'm worried about Modern Greek as it seems my most held back language. Only 8 minutes a day on listening-reading, apart from Clozemaster. Actually I'm seeing some improvement at comprehension and I'm even noticing some verbal forms which I wouldn't have that much trouble incorporating into my active vocabulary, as I'm starting to get the hang of the verbal morphology.

Hebrew, on the other hand, is a disaster. I'm learning very little from the lessons, as I can't figure out either translation or pronunciation or both. I'll stick to both resources for the time being, because I've dropped too many resources already. Not knowing how to say words out loud is really an issue, but in a couple of weeks I'm back to the safe harbor Assimil, which I plan to "overlearn" this time, i.e. as much closer as I can get to that.

Wondering if I shouldn't use the Goethe-Verlag texts for activating Estonian and warming up Indonesian. It looks like Clozemaster (much older actually), only less systematic and more like doing cloze deletion on a phrasebook or grammarbook.

I'm merely skimming through FSI Hebrew. I wouldn't if there was transcription for the current lesson. I don't really feel like waiting for the whole set of drills to be said out loud in the recordings just so I know how each word is pronounced. If I ever get back to FSI, I might then listen to the drills in their entirety, but not now, now I could benefit from listening to the main dialog only and just reading the drills. The same was supposed to work with the Berlitz course as well, but this one lacks audio and has an incoherent transcription system. So this is how I got stuck at two unproductive Hebrew resources. I wonder if I wouldn't be learning more from double subtitles at a series.

So this is the end of my first day of studies after holidays, and yet one of the last ones this year. I probably won't be studying this entire week and then there are only two full study weeks until Christmas.

I have been reading the forum a lot during my vacation. Still far from catching up, but good to alternate with my meager Clozemaster sessions. I'm been rethinking my learning strategies - or lack of - up and down again several times the past days. Sometimes I wonder if I'm not doing nearly everything wrong. There are different paths I might follow next year according to which meaning I want language learning to have in my life, work and leisure comprised, and I want to keep reflecting upon this. Probably it will help to put some ideas on paper, like the opening posts for my next year's log, for instance.