Expug's 2018 Log - Sustainable Dabbling

[Lawyer&Mom]

Efficiency can be overrated. You are also allowed to do what you enjoy. 15 languages at a lower level may bring you more utility than 5 languages at a higher language. (Utility as an economic term. What you want for yourself. Joy, satisfaction, challenge, fun etc.)

[iguanamon]

Expug, I greatly admire your language studies- Georgian, Estonian, Mandarin, Russian, Greek, Hebrew, Indonesian, Norwegian and German (as a Portuguese-speaker). There's no "low hanging fruit" there. That's at least nine opaque languages... and I'm worried about taking up Catalan... a language I can already pretty much read without even studying! I think I speak for all of us when I say that what you do every day is amazing. You make it happen, slowly but surely. You have developed your own "system" that works very well for you. Even if you cut back, your system will still be with you. I know your log name is "sustainable dabbling", but only you can answer what is sustainable for you.

You obviously derive a great deal of pleasure form your studies. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. Perhaps, you may find that you can cut back on some languages (or even drop some) and come back to them when you're ready. It's clear to me, and the rest of us, that you will be a great polyglot, but there is a limit to the languages even the best polyglots can learn to a high level. There's a limit to how much we can fit into our day. We're only human and there's only 24 hours in a day, about a third of which we spend asleep. I need downtime where I just live in the moment. Sometimes, it's nice for me to just be in my car without any podcasts playing, or just lounging in bed in the morning without reading anything. Sometimes, it's nice to read a book in my native language.

You are the master of utilizing hidden moments and time management on this forum. So, I have no advice for that. My languages are not diverse or opaque and I don't consider myself to be a polyglot at all, so I can't give you any advice on that either. There are people here who are much more in your league than I am, like Systematiker, Tarvos, Serpent, Iversen and Ogrim. I'm sure they can give you much better practical advice on polyglottery than I can.

The only advice I can give you is this- ultimately, to me, family is what matters most. Your kids are only going to be this young once. I really miss the days when my kids were that young. It was a special, fun and wonderful time. They're teenagers now. My daughter will be 20 years old in a few months. It seems like only yesterday when we were coloring Easter eggs and hiding them for her to find carrying her Easter basket, which she could barely lift, and wearing a big bow in her hair. I remember when she would sit on the beach and make herself giant sand shoes and bury her little brother in the sand, if he would cooperate. They grow up so fast that it's over before you know it. If you're not there, if you miss it, it's gone and you can't get it back.

[Expugnator]

Thank you for the support, Laywer&Mom and iguanamon!

Efficiency can be overrated. You are also allowed to do what you enjoy. 15 languages at a lower level may bring you more utility than 5 languages at a higher language. (Utility as an economic term. What you want for yourself. Joy, satisfaction, challenge, fun etc.)

You're absolutely right, as I'm actually using a broader definiton of efficiency here: I'm thinking about how I can insert more stuff I enjoy doing so I can have more fun during the learning while still reaping the same results.

@iguanamon: I wish it were an easy choice of deciding whether to spend more time on languages or with my family, but language time and family time are not mutually convertible. I can alocate language time for other projects such as writing or just spending the last hour of the day idly, without any pressure, but that won't make me arrive at home earlier. I already struggle to get there as soon as possible so I can spend some time with the girls. Actually family time has to fight with extra-income classes time (essential now with the renovation works, political uncertainty and my wife still suffering from the halt in her career after motherhood), house chores (such as shopping for groceries that takes away one morning at weekends; getting home and preparing the bottles instead of just staying with the girls; waking up everytime one of them cries in the night), gym time, volunteering (both at the weekend and once a week). That's where the real juggling takes place, not at my language schedule!

I thought about an opt-in mode instead of an opt-out one: choosing which languages I really WANT to learn instead of which ones I want to exclude. So, instead of thinking that I should drop Mandarin, Estonian, German, Russian, Italian and Modern Greek, I think: I really want to keep learning French, Norwegian, Georgian, Papiamento and Hebrew (I'll refrain from mentioning the ones I want to start next year).

Tomorrow is an important day and I probably won't study at all, but it will be good for some more reflections of where I want to get with all this language frenzy.
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The weekend was mostly Clozemaster. On Saturday I went to have lunch with friends and was busier, but on Sunday I managed to do sessions for all languages plus text-input sessions for Mandarin, Russian, German and a few sentences in Greek. I haven't done these text-input sessions for a long time and I noticed how invaluable they are. The problem with some huge decks is that I never seem to get past the 100 most common words, while the real value lays in the next level. I can say this for German (200 most common), when compared to Russian and Mandarin, where I'm still at the first level because those decks are so huge.

Finished watching Poupées Russes. It got much better halfway. Now for Casse-tête chinois, the third volume. The wedding song on Poupées Russes is not bad:



Finished also the third volume of Lemon Snicket's adventures. Now they're on hold until I have a free Russian slot for continuing them, as volume 4 and over haven't been published in Georgian. As for Georgian, I'm reading now volume of a series about spirit animals that has been written each volume by 1 author. Needless to say, I only found the first one, Wild Born, by Brandon Mull. So far it seems easier in terms of vocabulary.

Today's Routledge Hebrew lesson was short - two pages, few exercises, only 1 grammar topic covered. I hope the trend remains, because that's what I need at this point. I don't want to drop the resource.

[Expugnator]

Today wasn't supposed to be a study day, as I had an appointment at the eye doctor's in the morning and two translations in the afternoon. But then I got a headstart while waiting at the doctor's office, and the translations took only 2 hours total instead of the entire afternoon. So here I am, trying to catch up for the unused time while telling myself I shouldn't try so hard.

Watching Unge Lovende. Is it realistic to think the US embassy in Norway would turn down a visa application? Also, do people turn to visa interviews so naively?

I made it to Language Transfer Greek, plus most of the Clozemaster. Missing Greek L-R, Hebrew and Indonesian. I forgot to read Norwegian ahead, that would have bought me 10 minutes and one more task. Not bad for a day that was regarded as a non-study day. I believe there's more efficiency to be gained just by switching some tasks. Tasks that demand too much preparation should be done in calmer periods, not so much likely to face interruptions.

[Expugnator]

The magic is almost happening in Norwegian. I understand full periods, but the nature of the text itself doesn't leave room for any untied ropes, so the overall comprehension is still not enough. This feeling of starting to understand a new spoken language never gets old!

Yesterday I managed the full set of Clozemaster plus some languages as text input (before it kept timing out). I only miss reading the Hebrew grammar, but it's spending too much time on gender recognition which I find boring.

I've just been added to a group of Russian Speakers in Belo Horizonte on FB. It seems they meet every other month. Looks promising, although I'm not sure I'd be able to speak Russian consistently.

At the second episode of Unge Lovende, first scene, I see two of the main characters from Nesten Voksen. They only played supporitve roles at a very short scene, though.

Just figured I can use Hebrew subtitles on SMPlayer, with the proper encoding. That will be useful when the time comes. I had good results with subtitle reading for Estonian, as there weren't dubbed series, and I don't think there will be any for Hebrew either. So, before I tackle native series, subtitled series will be my early native material (but not too early, I can already recognize several words but it's still much less productive than just doing Clozemaster on TTS).

One Hebrew lesson proper, after yesterday when I only managed Clozemaster. I'm impressed with the synergy among Clozemaster, Assimil and the Routledge Hebrew Course. I'm not feeling so much the pain of reading without vowels; on the contrary, I'm getting used to common words much sooner than expected. Uninflected words are even easier at this respect. I might be doing something right with Hebrew as it comes along much faster than my previous opaque languages.

So, things seem to be falling into place. I'm having extra time for reading in the morning, that's true, but I noticed that as long as I keep my non-fiction reading around 20 minutes - it might get to 40 minutes when the 20 pages are actual A4 pages with dense letters - the rest of the day goes on smoothly and I tend to have free time. I wasn't prepared for the extra free hour, though. Apart from Clozemaster, I have absolutely no other language activity lined up by default. I don't think I need to watch a dubbed series in Russian, as I was doing earlier this year, because I'm having comprehensible input at my on-schedule cartoon, Luntik. That extra time could be employed on intensive reading for languages with no intensive work; on writing projects; on watching series for fun, like the French ones; on writing paragraphs. No plan on adding new languages now. Actually, I know this pattern: I start to add new languages whenever I notice I've been idle for the final hour, hour and a half for too long. Now I need self-discipline in order to avoid doing so at this point - I want to do so next year, but that will involve some rearrangements as some languages get stronger and can do without intensive work. Anyway, today I only had around 40 minutes and I procrastinated.

[Christopher]

Your kids are only going to be this young once. I really miss the days when my kids were that young. It was a special, fun and wonderful time. They're teenagers now. My daughter will be 20 years old in a few months. It seems like only yesterday when we were coloring Easter eggs and hiding them for her to find carrying her Easter basket, which she could barely lift, and wearing a big bow in her hair. I remember when she would sit on the beach and make herself giant sand shoes and bury her little brother in the sand, if he would cooperate. They grow up so fast that it's over before you know it. If you're not there, if you miss it, it's gone and you can't get it back.

iguanamon...this brought a lump to my throat...so beautifully expressed and 100% true.

[Expugnator]

Agreed Christopher. My kids are about to turn 2 and I miss the day they were babies, though I might say this period when they are learning to say longer sentences is simply amazing!

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(Trying to recover what I wrote after my HDD shut down)

Yesterday I managed to do the full Clozemaster multiple choice plus text input for Mandarin and Russian. I spent extra time on Russian because I wanted to master the 100 most common words, and I did, after struggling with sentences that could have been filled with either and where I had to guess randomly and memorize. Silly me, I could have just toggled multiple choice again for those cases.

I even resumed paperback bedtime reading. I just have to remember to continue the Hebrew grammar, though Clozemaster helped me get the hang of the Hebrew sentence and now I can maybe learn grammar at my normal rhythm. I put that grammar book on a halt because I found it boring to give so much detail on how to guess gender.

I'm listening to over 40 minutes daily of the Argentinian podcast, but it's 100% transparent and thus not much useful language-wise. I might alternate Spanish with another language at this morning slot.

I'm watching a cartoon called Peach Blossom Utopia on Yabla. It seems to be using some one-hanzi synonims for words that have two hanzi in the common language. Maybe it serves as a warm-up for Classical Chinese? I like the style used.

Finished La sombra del viento. Now the series is put on hold. I just found out it's available in Greek as audiobook, so that'll wait for when I'm done with Dan Brown's books. No Greek text, though, Proceeding to Pedro Páramo in Spanish, btw.

Finished everything one hour earlier (could have been 1h30, hadn't my computer shut down). I'm starting to regain control over my learning process, though I have a challenge tomorrow: I won't have access to the computer in the afternoon so I need a good watching headstart in the morning so I can finish with the reading part in the afternoon.

Addendum: I just went on and bought the ebook to the second volume, El juego del ángel, in Greek. I found the site https://www.psichogios.gr . I went on all the transactions in Greek (hope I'm safe because they display too many numbers of my ccd in the confirmation email). It's .acsm protected so I'll probably be reading it on the comfort of my phonescreen (unless I manage some workarounds). I can't install the Adobe software at the desktop here. Is there a way I can just read .acsm files online the way I do with the Kindle library? Anyway I'm going to have a lot of fun in the months to come. I might have to reactive my Adobe id.

After the purchase and the reactivation of my Adobe id, I just spent the remaining time on Clozemaster. It might be stressful to fill all my hours with language-learning tasks, but when I don't have another task immediately lined up I end up just browsing randomly. Now I have to create the habit for another task that isn't about language learning, or else I'll keep adding something new to read or watch in my TLs.

[Expugnator]

I'm impressed with the quality of the Russian Grammar Workbook - A Self-study reference and practice book for foreign students. The explanations are thorough and full of relevant examples. I'm learning topics I had long decided to ignore.

Wonderful. Routledge Hebre has a verb chart on lesson 14 for the most important ones. I'm happy because of that and also because I know most of them.

Time seem to have stretched today. I did everything that requires a computer until 2 pm, left only the remaining reading (10 pages in Norwegian, 10 in German, 3 in Russian and 10 in Spanish), managed it in 40 minutes (how come I spend around 2 hours on this on a normal day?), did all the Clozemaster that was possible (including Hebrew - I need the TTS less and less as I know the words already, though I know it helps for memorizing how words are pronounced, despite the mistakes). I could enjoy a very funny and interesting lecture about the upcoming elections without worrying about pending tasks.

I have to repeat the procedure for two days, one of them hapenning to be Monday, when I usually have one hour and a half less for studying. I can make it, as long as I reserve tasks such as Language Transfer for the no-computer time (I can just read it that day, for example).

I started Pedro Párramo. Not a difficult read, but it seems there are some flashbacks intertwined with the main plot and since I wasn't reading in the most calm environment I might have lost track somewhere. I plan to read 10 pages a day (my Spanish read slot), so I might be done in three weeks.

Reading without audio helped me realize how much my skills have improved in Norwegian and, most notably, Russian and German, where I've had constant troubles. I can smell fluency now, 2018 looks definitely like a goal-reaching year.

[Expugnator]

The weekend keeps belonging to Clozemaster. I'm impressed with the results obtained with the semi-opaque languages Finnish (thanks to Estonian), Romanian and Czech. I'm way ahead into Romanian and I can understand most sentences; with Czech, I'm on the 1001-2000 most common words' level and the discount from Russian is evident - an evidence that my Russian got much better; with Finnish, I've learned the most common non-cognate words in the very basic level and now everything else is much self-evident. I'm convinced that one language does provide a discount into another, even if not in terms of Germanic languages, for example (which I consider lower than the Romance and Slavic ones, for that matter). This is really encouraging, it shows that this sustainable dabbling I had in mind does work and so does the bow-wave effect, as I hadn't practiced those languages on CM for several months (I did get better at their related languages meanwhile).

Other than that, the weekend was so calm that for the first time perhaps in two years I got bored. Yesterday I had already been through the whole set of Clozemaster, I had done some Speakly.me in Estonian, some Duolingo Hebrew, read a little from the Hebrew grammar, caught up with reading the forum, read some pages in non-language-related, paperback and was still bored. The girls were already asleep.

One lesson I learned: most app-studying is only worth at the dabbling stage. I don't see a point at keeping doing Mond.ly or Memrise for Hebrew now that I'm learning satisfactorily from my main sources. Clozemaster does the main job of reviewing and learning vocabulary in a graded way, and the time you spend just flipping windows on those other apps is definitely not worth it.

I also managed two episodes from the Italian podcast, which I hadn't listening to in the past weeks. At two episodes a week, though, I might never catch up, as the program runs mon-fri.

What I didn't do was gathering more material. I hope I don't run out of stuff to watch for this week, especially Georgian. Also I haven't worked on Calibre yet (regarding the ebook I bought in Greek).

Discovered a new Georgian band on FB, it's so pop that it's cheesy, but this song is more palatable:



Finished my non-fiction read, The One Thing. I recommend this book, I could make use of some of its advice. I don't have anything pressing lined up next, so I'm just going to attack my 'unread' pile. Next is spirituality, Italian translation.

Had a great Estonian reading day. I'm tolerating going for the detail when reading intensively. Now I feel I can parse the sentence much better.

Today I finished my tasks almost two hours later. Then I browsed randomly a bit, and proceeded to the additional Clozemaster. Done one hour later. Then 20 minutes from a French series, no subtitles. I have to become used to the voices again, and the bad video quality doesn't help either. Anyway, I should just watch out not to turn this French series into a new slot, and start writing instead. Killing time and wondering what to do next is more tiresome than actually studying, and I could have just proceeded to one of my long-run projects instead. To my defense, I'm not 100%, I might have a mild cold that harms my stomach as well, the more I cough. Other than that, it was a positive day.

[Expugnator]

I've just found two new audiobooks by Jo Nesbø in Mandarin. That will keep me busy in the most productive tool for Mandarin for the past months.

In Casse-tête chinois, there's a full scene where Audrey Tatou speaks Chinese (not bad pronunciation actually) with native speakers, no subtitles, and I got more than the hang.

I'm still struggling to read Italian non-fiction. Way more than French. Italian words just seem longer, with not so self-evident morphology (like the plural being vowels instead of the ubiquitous s). I'm just relieved the book isn't as dense as the introduction was. I can't make the same mistake of spending 40 minutes on 20 pages during my study day.

Stop the world, I wanna go down. Thanks to Language Transfer, I learned that orange is not an original fruit, but it's a hybrid.

A very busy day but everything went all right.