Expug's 2018 Log - Sustainable Dabbling

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Expugnator
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Re: Expug's 2018 Log - Sustainable Dabbling

Postby Expugnator » Thu Oct 11, 2018 9:08 pm

rdearman wrote:I am sure you've probably posted about this before. But why are you learning all these languages?


Do you mean why I'm learning so many languages or why I am learning each of these languages?

1. I have enough time, I love language learning, I have a routine where I can also get to read and watch what I'd be reading and watching anyway, but in my TLs.

2. Each language has a specific reason, but I tend to alternate opaque and transparent languages. I chose Norwegian after reading Sophie's World, and also because it works better as a bridge language between Swedish and Danish; I chose Mandarin over Japanese for several reasons, linguistic, cultural and economic. Russian because it gives access to resources for other languages, as well as for its literature; Hebrew over Arabic and Aramaic because it's supposed been more influenced by IE languages, it has more resources and it's not diglossic. The others for no global reason, usually cultural and linguistic affinity. I might have this more detailed at the front of this or a previous log, not sure now.


===================
Yesterday I managed to listen to the Argentinian podcast a bit more in the evening, as I was done with all app learning already in the afternoon and so had more mental energy for turning the podcast on when driving home from my afternoon class.

I started the day with a class in the morning, so I had to watch out for the activities not to derail, given the reduced study time. Fortunately it all went well.

I'm happy with my good results with Estonian, as I understand more and more from the soap opera. I believe much has to do with overlearning basic vocabulary as well as introducing new ones, the combo of a limited Clozemaster deck and the broad Speakly.me inventory.

I've come to realize that one thing that makes Chinese reading difficult in spotting parts of speech. Grammar words look the same as main words, they're all blocks of syllables. The lack of word spacing doesn't help, but even if there were spaces it would help a bit but not extremely. In an analitical language, you can easily spot the prepositions, articles, shorter conjunctions. Even in agglutinative or fusional languages, you can spot the endings. I'm used to that from Estonian, Georgian and Hebrew. I struggled with Estonian at the beginning but now I can spot the verb more easily and I also know from a postposition that a word that has it is certainly a now. It was easier with Georgian. With Mandarin, it's all blocks that I have to regroup manually and set my own boundaries from my Indo-European background and then analize the sentence from a syntactical point of view. This when reading. When listening, I can "think" a bit more the Chinese way.

The epub/pdf ebook reader I've been using on my Android phone for ove two years even at its former name has simply decided it won't allow me to access my own library with my own books unless I'm connected to the internet (which I bet it's because I get no ads when I'm offline). That simply defeats the point of me taking advantage of hidden moments for reading a couple of pages, not to mention the total abuse. Time for a change. Those quirks I run through during language-learning really gets on my nerves. We're more and more hostages of third parties and how they judge we're supposed to consume content.

About to finish current Italian audiobook and I don't know what I'll be picking next. I'm certainly reluctant to buy a new one so soon, but I'm not very much excited with the idea of listening to the classics in Italian, even if I'm tending towards this option in French.

Overall, I'm questioning many of my choices for native materials. One of the reasons, if not the main one, that I aim for at least B2 in whatever language I study is for being able to enjoy native materials (I'd add dubbed/translated ones as well) in those languages. That's "unir o útil ao agradável", combining business with pleasure. On the other hand, it gets harder and harder to keep up with suggestions of books I'm really looking forward to read, and series I'm eager about watching. I keep collecting suggestions from fellow members, but some just get lost in a bookmark on an email draft. Revisiting such lists every time I finish one material unit - which happens rather often when you deal with 15 languages and for most of them you do both a book and a series - is no easy option. I'm trying to find a compromise but I even consider abandoning native materials for some passively proficient languages altogether in favor of intensively working on shorter texts as well as writing in those TLs. This and I need to add an slot for German and Norwegian audiobooks, but once I realize I can actually follow the story in such audiobooks. Enough frustration for the time being.

I'm loving how conversational FSI Hebrew is. It's not the type of textbook where I won't see a sentence in the future until the topic is officially introduced. That makes it perfect for a false-beginner and as a pre-native materials warm-up (just like Linguaphone, but in the case of Linguaphone it's for vocabulary).

Starting to have fun with Icelandic at Clozemaster. Just like Finnish with Estonian, it seems much closer to its neighboring language than what is assumed. At the earlier levels, I'm recognizing a lot of useful vocabulary from Norwegian.

Leaving for the countryside again, no study tomorrow. Will try to keep my CM streak for the weekend, but I don't promise anything.
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MattNeilsen
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Re: Expug's 2018 Log - Sustainable Dabbling

Postby MattNeilsen » Thu Oct 11, 2018 11:00 pm

Expugnator wrote:On the other hand, it gets harder and harder to keep up with suggestions of books I'm really looking forward to read, and series I'm eager about watching. I keep collecting suggestions from fellow members, but some just get lost in a bookmark on an email draft. Revisiting such lists every time I finish one material unit - which happens rather often when you deal with 15 languages and for most of them you do both a book and a series - is no easy option. I'm trying to find a compromise but I even consider abandoning native materials for some passively proficient languages altogether in favor of intensively working on shorter texts as well as writing in those TLs. This and I need to add an slot for German and Norwegian audiobooks, but once I realize I can actually follow the story in such audiobooks. Enough frustration for the time being.


I'm not sure if you're using it already, but Evernote is a life-saver for me. I literally put everything into it: thoughts, personal logs, training logs, articles, notes, screenshots, you name it. If I were trying to learn as many languages as you are, I would create a separate note for each language so I had a consolidated place for all my thoughts, recommendations, etc. And the best part about Evernote? It's free! You can upgrade to a paid version, but I find the free version is more than robust enough for how I use it. There's also a nice app for phone use.
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Re: Expug's 2018 Log - Sustainable Dabbling

Postby Ogrim » Fri Oct 12, 2018 9:00 am

Expug, I would love to see an article from you in the blog section about the secret to learning so many languages in parallel. I guess I have an idea after following your log for several years, but if you were to present your experience and routine in a succinct article it would be of great inspiration to me and I guess many others.
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Re: Expug's 2018 Log - Sustainable Dabbling

Postby drmweaver2 » Fri Oct 12, 2018 10:54 am

MattNeilsen wrote:
Expugnator wrote:On the other hand, it gets harder and harder to keep up with suggestions of books I'm really looking forward to read, and series I'm eager about watching. I keep collecting suggestions from fellow members, but some just get lost in a bookmark on an email draft. Revisiting such lists every time I finish one material unit - which happens rather often when you deal with 15 languages and for most of them you do both a book and a series - is no easy option. I'm trying to find a compromise but I even consider abandoning native materials for some passively proficient languages altogether in favor of intensively working on shorter texts as well as writing in those TLs. This and I need to add an slot for German and Norwegian audiobooks, but once I realize I can actually follow the story in such audiobooks. Enough frustration for the time being.


I'm not sure if you're using it already, but Evernote is a life-saver for me. I literally put everything into it: thoughts, personal logs, training logs, articles, notes, screenshots, you name it. If I were trying to learn as many languages as you are, I would create a separate note for each language so I had a consolidated place for all my thoughts, recommendations, etc. And the best part about Evernote? It's free! You can upgrade to a paid version, but I find the free version is more than robust enough for how I use it. There's also a nice app for phone use.

Personally, I use both OneNote (an Evernote equivalent) and Excel to do this. As both are Microsoft products, they share data easily. OneNote's Notebooks can function as the equivalent of Excel's Worksheets - which in turn are the functional equivalent of Browser Tabs to an extent. That is, you can store (or cut, copy and paste) info from/onto the appropriate Notebook/Worksheet however seems to be best for your personal sense of organizational need.

A completely different product you might consider is TheBrain, something that provides a visual display of relationships (the Pro version is pricey, but the Free version has most of the most useful features). The company claims it allows for "non-linear file management"....ummm, okay. But it also allows for "notes", audio file playback, link/bookmark management, outlining, and other language learning/study note organization elements. It does include "drag and drop" features like OneNote and Evernote.
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Re: Expug's 2018 Log - Sustainable Dabbling

Postby Axon » Sat Oct 13, 2018 1:08 pm

Your brief notes in Xmmm's log about Georgian were extremely tempting. I looked around for all of two minutes and indeed found several series that I like with Georgian dubs. Are they all in lektor style, that is, with the dubber's voice overlaid onto the original audio? Or do studio-mixed versions also exist?
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Expugnator
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Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9931
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Re: Expug's 2018 Log - Sustainable Dabbling

Postby Expugnator » Mon Oct 15, 2018 8:14 pm

Ogrim wrote:Expug, I would love to see an article from you in the blog section about the secret to learning so many languages in parallel. I guess I have an idea after following your log for several years, but if you were to present your experience and routine in a succinct article it would be of great inspiration to me and I guess many others.


I would love that, too :lol: I'm just not sure I have a method to present, not to mention concrete results, as I have yet to reach a solid B2 through studying that way.

drmweaver2 wrote:I'm not sure if you're using it already, but Evernote is a life-saver for me. I literally put everything into it: thoughts, personal logs, training logs, articles, notes, screenshots, you name it. If I were trying to learn as many languages as you are, I would create a separate note for each language so I had a consolidated place for all my thoughts, recommendations, etc. And the best part about Evernote? It's free! You can upgrade to a paid version, but I find the free version is more than robust enough for how I use it. There's also a nice app for phone use.
Personally, I use both OneNote (an Evernote equivalent) and Excel to do this. As both are Microsoft products, they share data easily. OneNote's Notebooks can function as the equivalent of Excel's Worksheets - which in turn are the functional equivalent of Browser Tabs to an extent. That is, you can store (or cut, copy and paste) info from/onto the appropriate Notebook/Worksheet however seems to be best for your personal sense of organizational need.

A completely different product you might consider is TheBrain, something that provides a visual display of relationships (the Pro version is pricey, but the Free version has most of the most useful features). The company claims it allows for "non-linear file management"....ummm, okay. But it also allows for "notes", audio file playback, link/bookmark management, outlining, and other language learning/study note organization elements. It does include "drag and drop" features like OneNote and Evernote.


I have to take a look at Evernote/OneNote again. Whatever is cross-platform or just online works better for me, as I'll be mostly on Android or Win but sometimes on iOs.

As for TheBrain, I've been looking for something similar and got some suggestions from here, but so far I've only installed MindMeister. I'm wondering why The Brain has such a low note on PlayStore.

Axon wrote:Your brief notes in Xmmm's log about Georgian were extremely tempting. I looked around for all of two minutes and indeed found several series that I like with Georgian dubs. Are they all in lektor style, that is, with the dubber's voice overlaid onto the original audio? Or do studio-mixed versions also exist?


I'm afraid to tell it's mostly Multi Voice-Over, with original audio lower but existent. The dubbing quality has improved and newer episodes have more voices, while it used to be a single masculine and a single feminine voices. Still better than Mono Voice-Over, but I know many people abhorr them. I learned to get used and that was my Georgian's salvation, but ignoring it might be way harder for people with either native or better English skills than myself.

===================
Another long weekend when I travelled to the countryside, had a lot of fun and still managed to keep my Clozemaster streak. The mobile coverage is getting better each year, reaching different neighboring places and I hope in the future it will work ininterruptly also at my wife's aunts'.

I didn't do much language-wise. I read ahead for my non-fiction at the weekend because I was expecting to have a busy Monday, and I did. Over one hour at the tire repair, after a flat tire on our way back. Since I didn't have internet, I didn't do any more app learning other than the minimum necessary to keep the CM streak.

The best news of the weekend, though, is that now I can read German extensively. I was suspecting that that was the case from reading Herr der Diebe, but I thought it might be the book that was too easy. This time, I tested with another YA novel that I only have stored at my newer iPad, the one I don't usually carry along. I had failed the 'airplane test' last time I checked because I noticed there were too many gaps in my vocabulary for me to follow the story satisfactorily. Well, not anymore. That novel has indeed a richer vocabulary when compared to Herr der Diebe, but nothing that prevents me from following and enjoying the story. I'm much better versed now on word families and compounds in German, because I learned to process German faster now, and so there's more time left for interpreting the almost-known words within context and then bring them into 'knowns'.

At today's Estonian soap opera episode, a couple in their 40-50's is getting married. No suitable brides magazine in town. The man goes to Tallinn and buys better magazines. In Russian. This episode was aired in 2015, so the Russian influence and knowledge might still be that high in Estonia among that generation.

For the first time, it seems I'm making progress in both German and Norwegian samtidig. Norwegian is becoming more and more transparent, even audio. it doesn't take long before I can tune in to my daily listening-reading. I've passed the airplane test long ago for Norwegian, but my next goal is passing the audiobook test.
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Expugnator
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Re: Expug's 2018 Log - Sustainable Dabbling

Postby Expugnator » Tue Oct 16, 2018 9:03 pm

Today at Papiamento texts I learned two new words. Usually there are no new words. Sometimes I can't find a new word and it's no Spanish, English or Dutch recognizable cognate. Today I learned roi, which means 'creek' and probably comes from arroyo, and slúip, which means to sneak, lurk.

A friend sent me TY's Get Started in Indonesian, a new edition. Not bad, but too much time is spent on meaningless exercises and then you have a text in TL out of a sudden, with no translation. I'm sticking to Indonesianpod101 for the time being: I'm almost done reviewing the Absolute Beginner level and maybe it's finally easy enough for me to move on, even if I haven't mastered all the words.

Still going through FSI Hebrew. I think I found the right time to start it. I don't overlearn anything, like other learners do with FSI. So I imagine it might be even more suffering (to my eyes) for someone who overlearns it to start from scratch. I've been through several textbooks and I'm still meeting many new words in each lesson, but in a quantity that I can handle, while reinforcing structures and enhancing conversation patterns. FSI is indeed richer, it has more content, more substance. For opaque languages, it might be the safer route from an A2 to a middle-B1 stage.

On Reddit, the Clozemaster developper answered a couple of questions similar to mine, but I haven't got an answer from emailing them directly. So far it seems as just bugs.
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Expugnator
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Re: Expug's 2018 Log - Sustainable Dabbling

Postby Expugnator » Wed Oct 17, 2018 8:01 pm

Yesterday I didn't have anything left in the evening, as has been the trend later. So I read a bit more from the forum. The threads have been repeating themselves even more lately. Is this the end?

Finished Le Comte de Monte Cristo, second part. Really a good film. I remember watching it in the movies, decades ago, but I didn't remember anything from the story. Well, at least I can cross out this classic, now that I might decide to read the classics in French and Italian.

As much as I celebrate recent progress with German and Norwegian, and even with Estonian, Russian and Modern Greek, I seem to be stuck at Georgian. It doesn't help the fact I'm reading a rather boring novel, which is likely to end soon, I might have reached a level where the unknown words are mostly long, abstract ones.

Finished the 4th novel in avvocato Guerreri's series. Fun as usual. Now I'm not proceeding to the 5th, actually. I'm going to break my own rules of only listening to what I'm really dying to listen to in Italian audiobooks, and of avoiding translations, and I'm going to listen to a very short novel by Daniel Pennac. Then a classic from the late XIX century. Then translation from Russian. With this I'm also saving money, as even if Italian audiobooks tend to be cheaper, I'll keep spending a good hundred of bucks on the Norwegian ones. Overall, I'm really happy with my progress in Italian. Now I'm reading not only more easily but also faster. So I think I can take the plunge into more archaic vocabulary.

I've just got hold of the book Communication progressive du français B2-C1. Looks interesting. Not going to work on it now, but people who are taking French more seriously might benefit. I just find the dialogs written a bit too artificially for covering as many new idioms as possible, the way it's done on books focused on learning slang such as Streetwise French.

Typing in Duolingo is finally becoming easier after struggling so much to remember both vocabulary and spelling while learning new grammar features. I think synergy is happening optimally among Clozemaster, Berlitz, FSI and Duolingo. This is not just a multi-track, it's an interstate multi-lane approach. I believe I'm not putting so much effort in any other language right now, and I might be on the right track as I notice I can understand more and more and even form basic sentences after about 1 year.
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eido
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Re: Expug's 2018 Log - Sustainable Dabbling

Postby eido » Wed Oct 17, 2018 8:37 pm

Expugnator wrote:So I read a bit more from the forum. The threads have been repeating themselves even more lately. Is this the end?

What would you like to see, Expugnator? I’m sure I can dredge something up. Like how the ergative functions in a certain language and why it exists there. Or maybe we can all contribute to a basic grammar guide, delineating core vocabulary for linguistic study? There’s plenty we can do, we just have to find it!
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Re: Expug's 2018 Log - Sustainable Dabbling

Postby Xmmm » Wed Oct 17, 2018 11:32 pm

eido wrote:
Expugnator wrote:So I read a bit more from the forum. The threads have been repeating themselves even more lately. Is this the end?

What would you like to see, Expugnator? I’m sure I can dredge something up. Like how the ergative functions in a certain language and why it exists there. Or maybe we can all contribute to a basic grammar guide, delineating core vocabulary for linguistic study? There’s plenty we can do, we just have to find it!


I don't think Expugnator wants any of that.

He wants more:

1. Extreme language learning experiment threads -- no more "multi-track approach"! We need people who will sign up for "speak from day one", "8000 flashcards->B2 in 500 hours", "L-R all the time", "hypnotize yourself with audio courses", etc.

2. Extreme language threads. Less Italian, Russian, French, Spanish. More Toki Pona, Greenlandic, Tzotzil, Maori.


At least, that's what I want ...

Edit: I've been thinking about how I can "be the change that I want on to see on this forum." Unfortunately, I can't drop everything and try to get a B2 in Danish in 200 hours using only paper flashcards that I keep in a shoebox ... but maybe I can do this:

1. I will split Irish (semi-exotic) and Georgian (exotic) into an official "dabbling experiment" log. Right now dabbling is controversial, an advanced technique reserved for only a few brave souls with top notch linguistic skill -- but I aim to prove even an idiot can do it! I don't know if there's any evaluation test for Georgian, but it looks like Dialang has a "Treoracha i nGaeilge", whatever that is. Maybe I need a goal like "A2 in one year through dabbling". I think A2 in Irish is supposed to take 300 hours, so it should be impossible, but maybe dabbling gives you the maximum bang for the buck and is superior to all other forms of study? Who knows?!

2. With Turkish, I kind of missed the boat on the dabbling experiment as I'm already around A2. But maybe I could shut off the TV for six months (that would be tough -- Turkish TV is pretty good in my experience). And do a flashcard experiment. I see that Turkish is now on Dialang as well (wasn't last time I checked). So maybe I could do some flashcard mania, memorize a dictionary and test at B2 in no time. Lol.

3. With Italian, I'm a B2 in receptive and a B1 in speech ... and I have nothing going on there. I listen to audiobooks, sometimes I read. A little Italki. Plenty of other people are covering the Italian beat and I don't have anything special to contribute there.

4. I don't know what I can do with Russian, keep posting my ongoing suffering maybe. Or ramp up to 5 hours of week of tutoring and report how that goes (just kidding, that would be miserable).
Last edited by Xmmm on Thu Oct 18, 2018 12:51 am, edited 1 time in total.
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