Expug's 2018 Log - Sustainable Dabbling

[Expugnator]

Started reading the Spanish short novel Lilith, El Juicio de la Gorgona y la Sonrisa de Salgari. I don't have all in the series/universe, but I plan to read the ones I have. I like the first one so far (reading order as recommended by the author, not of publication).

A busier day, so I got much less app-learning. I'm getting a streak for Guaraní, which seems to have arisen most of my interest now. I found a bilingual reader with fables and a native even recorded the first one, which means I can do L-R when the time comes.

[Expugnator]

Yesterday I did much less app-wise. Almost no dabbling languages on Clozemaster, no text input or grammar rounds. I want to speed up tomorrow. I wonder if I have to download sentences individually in order to play it on offline mode while I'm out at the country.

I'm trying to do my stronger languages quickly on text input mode. I noticed that I improved my automaticity on French and Italian. My spelling has visibly improved as well. One thing I noticed is that the Clozemaster sentences make heavy use of simple past in both French and Italian, and as a result I'm getting fast at recalling them. I just have to remind myself not to use them on daily conversation.

Today due to a URL problem I read the first page from Mandarin without the audio. I'm still reading with Pera-pera, but I'm much faster now. When I finally got the audio playing, it took quite a while for it to catch up with the paragraph I was reading. I noticed my understanding is way better now, especially syntactically, at the sentence level. I'm finally reaching a stage where it's mostly about filling the vocabulary gaps, because I can get the big picture of the sentence much faster now.

Finished the good comedy "L'aile ou la cuisse", one more of those by Louis de Funès. Now I'm watching Oscar, starring the same actor. Still some 20 films to go before I switch to series.

I've been saving a lot of Guarani-translated memes from the Whatsapp group. When the meme is short enough, I save the Spanish translation as the name of the file. Readily-accessible bilingual reading.

The learning curve for Langenscheidt Hebräisch is steep, at least for the texts. We have a long text already in lesson 5. Grammar-wise it goes rather reasonably so far.

The new update to Google Translate left it similar to those reading assistants. I can select words individually in a text and see their translations at the bottom.

[Expugnator]

Finished Panserhjerte, from the Harry Hole series, which I was listening-reading in Mandarin. A good add to my Mnadarin level. Now I'm doing a book I tend to enjoy even more, a Dan brown one. I was planning to read Dan Brown in Greek, because I liked The Lost Symbol in it, but I'm spoiled for choice with Greek audiobooks and I have a reliable source for buying the ebooks, while none of this is true for Mandarin. Not to mention that I already read much better in Greek than in Mandarin. So this is why Mandarin gets the most interesting books.

As for the harry Hole series itself, I want to start it from scratch, even if it means reading the first ones, which aren't available as ebooks in the Norwegian bookstore, in a stronger language.

Started the Inferno one. I'm in heaven. A great, professional audiobook, much better paced and even slower than the voluntarily done Jo Nesbø one (nothing against the girl that records Jo Nesbø, I'm thankful for all her hard word). I expect my Mandarin to finally reach a reading level next year, if all goes like planned for this audiobook.

I've just joined a Whatsapp group by a Chilean friend who teaches Hebrew. Alongside with the Guaraní group, I'm having a lot of Spanish practice and exposure while asking questions about their respective languages. Call this laddering.

At Side om Side, I learned the word snylter . Someone who is always borrowing and not paying back, living at everyone else's expenses.

I forgot to bring my new French film and so I found it online without subtitles. I'm watching it while browsing around and I can follow it without problems. I don't think I need subtitles that much anymore. I already knew that but it's always reassuring.

I was happy to get my Guarani grammar, but they sent the wrong book, this one:



It's even cheaper than the grammar I had bought, not worth paying the return fees (for them, I mean). As long as they send me the correct book, I'm willing to keep it. It's the typical book to exhibit in the living room rather than read.

Today I learned that גר and בא are the same in masculine singular present and 3rd person masculine singular past. I hadn't noticed that.

I'm starting to get used to Indonesian roots, I can identify them inside the prefixes. It's almost like reading Hebrew and focusing on the roots. Akhirnya!

Guaraní has prefixed objects that remind me of the dreadful Georgian ones. They seems to be simpler in Guarani, though (I hope).

[Expugnator]

When you are at the intermediate stage and venture into listening-reading native materials, it always takes time to get used to the new book, even if it belongs to a familiar series. The one I'm doing now, Inferno by Dan Brown, starts rather poetically and onirically, and the narration from the audiobook reflects that. It's also slower than the previous one by Jo Nesbø, which had been recorded non-professionally. This means I'm going to spend some more minutes on Mandarin L-R each day.

French has a common idiom: ne pas être dans son assiette, when someone feels uncomfortable, awkward in a situation. Russian seems to have calqued it into чувствуя себя не в своей тарелке. The funny thing is that I'm reading a novel which was originally written in French, and I'm reading the original + the Russian translation. The Russian translation has this idiom "чувствуя себя не в своей тарелке", but the French one simply uses "se sentant maladroit".

Other than that, just a bit more app-learning. Still affected by the many Clozemaster bugs.

[Expugnator]

Today I've watched my final subtitle-less episode from the Estonian soap opera. There were was at least 10 of them (don't remember exactly now), and I must say I only listened on the background, the way I do with the Georgian soap opera which lacks subtitles as well. There is an improvement in comprehension especially at the speed and phonetic components, but for the meaning comprehensible input remains essential. That's why I'm looking forward to resuming subtitles tomorrow, as they have it again in the next episode. I believe next year will represent a consolidation for Estonian.

During my more intense Clozemaster sessions, I should do extra Norwegian as well, which I forgot yesterday. I'm going to benefit a lot from automaticity at this stage. The Norwegian deck is not among the easiest ones and the words I haven't mastered yet are essential ones which aren't cognates or intuitively inferred, which makes them important vocabulary assets for my fluency goals.

I'm still using Yabla as my source for intensive listening-reading Chinese (though not always so intensive, as I have trouble with the syntax). I've finished a series of over 40 excerpts from a TV program, so now I'm back to a much wider range of texts, like music.

[Expugnator]

It's great to be back at watching the Estonian soap opera with subtitles. Using a resource at its best (or at least the best way I manage to) usually gives much better results.

I'm finding so much billingual reading for Guarani, in the form of fables and stories, that I don't think I'll be able to complain about the lack of literature, especially since I'll be focusing rather on speaking.

Actually, bilingual publications is a tradition. Here is the newly published official Paraguayan grammar, straight from Academia de La Lengua Guaraní:

Gramática Guaraní

While chatting in Georgian, I learned that a clearer way to tell a native speaker that I've learned their language on my own, by myself is to say I've learned it independently.

I've just been through lesson 40 of Hebrew FSI. Now i'm supposed to make an accomplished textbook post, but I won't this time, as now more than never I admit I went through it rather en passant. I plan to get back to it one day, more thoroughfully (I have the same plan for Basic Estonian, which means that day might be rather long, more in the likes of an early B2 consolidation towards midle-high B2).

Now I need to choose my next one. I'll take no detours and choose what is most useful now: Assimil. I need to improve my vocabulary, especially orally, so as to reach a level where I can resume the harder textbooks, the ones that let go of transcriptions, and be able to read through them much more easily, focusing only on filling the gaps. That will be my bridge towards reading (I'll probably have Linguaphone do the plunge as I did with Norwegian). I'm also looking forward to just doing grammar and the old TY is a good candidate, but now vocabulary and listening are priorities.

It was a busy day when I was looking forward to doing more, but I managed the normal tasks much later, and only because I'm staying overtime already.

[Expugnator]

Just found a great newspaper in Dutch/Papiamento:

Kidscorrespondent

Newsstories carried away by kids. For example, there is an interview with Curaçao's prime minister. The news aren't updated that often but they seem to be actually published in three languages, Dutch English and Papiamento. I can read Papiamento and I'm not studying Dutch, but I hope it can help others who are learning either Dutch and Papiamento as the stories seem much more interesting than daily hard news.

Learning a language for so long has its advantages, you start to have a cultural background. I immediately recognized this old song when I heard it at Side om Side:



The day was supposed to be my last one of full study, but things escalated quickly and so I had to stop in the morning. Tomorrow I'll be heading to the countryside. A wrap-up post is due next week.

[Expugnator]

2018 Wrap-up

I admit I have been mentally rehearsing this final post and I haven't been in the best mood for that. Staying at home, not traveling to my hometown to be with my family (as in: parents, siblings) has really put my mood down, alongside with the socioeconomical incertainties for the country. Well, here it goes:

2018 was a year when I felt I've done much more the days I actually studied. Like I anticipated, there were several workdays where I didn't get any study done, as I was busy with a translation assignment I got or family tasks or simply work - which is not a bad thing as I think I managed to improve at this respect too. The down side is that I got no advancement in any of my personal (= not language learning) projects whatsoever.

Paraphrasing Paracelsus (wow, such an alliteration), the difference between medicine and poison is in the dosis. I was excited with my part-time work as a language teacher - which was supposed to be a language consultant but few customers embrace the idea of studying outside of the class time - and it was just a complement to our income but as the year went by it became the main source of extra expenses, I filled up my schedule near the top and having classes canceled so often add up to the stress. And I still don't get to teach much under the best circumstances, with the most interesting languages.

Anyway, like I was saying: I got much more done on a typical study day but that didn't translate into learning better. Once again I ended up filling any empty hour with repetitive tasks, mostly app-learning. No room for output. I did improve at individual languages, but overall I'm stuck at a cycle where it always sounds more comfortable to do more of what I'm already doing. I mean it rather in the sense of spending the additional time on more input on a language that was getting less input, like Clozemaster for the dabbling-only languages or Duolingo for ones I'd only do parallel reading otherwise. No room for innovation either, for that matter. No attempt at developping language material or at simply writing more. Again, limited success happened within specific languages.

A final word on Sustainable Dabbling. It works, at least for my goals. I have a non-negligible headstart on Finnish, Turkish, Czech and Romanian just for doing Clozemaster about 4 times a week, and I don't even plan to start them next year. This is what I'd call pure dabbling, as in I'm doing these Clozemaster round while not having a specific date to start any of these languages. As for the sustainable dabbling languages, Maths have no mercy here: I've progressed much more in Hebrew, despite being allegedly a harder language, than in Indonesian, which is expected because I've spent an average of 30 minutes on Hebrew and 6 on Indonesian. The overall better quality of Hebrew resources was more determinant to these daily averages than even lack of time or affinity with the language were, though. It was pointless doing more Indonesian where the other resources I had didn't go along with the current one and it only made sense to do them one after the other.

So, sustainable dabbling is here to stay. I started Hebrew and Indonesian late 2017 and I'm glad I know have a grasp of how both languages work. The path is clearer for Hebrew than for Indonesian but I've already corrected my track to Indonesian towards the end, which includes overlearning vocabulary from the earlier stages. My next log won't focus on this specific aspect of my learning progress, though, as I see it as a given now: whenever language I feel the urge but not the need to add goes into this final "slot" while I can get accostumed with the idea of knowing it in a much less stressful, goalless way than my normal schedule. I've already decided on my next sustainable dabbling language: Guarani.

Overall, 2018 was a year of much work, slightly higher efficiency but still very limited efficacy. My challenge for 2019 will be doing the right things for the right languages. More on next year's log.

Some autoquoting on wider goals:

I have some personal goals other than just improving slowly my languages. I want to reach a B1 active level in Russian before June so I can be an asset during the World Cup and not just another English-only tour guide/tourist. This is going to be quite challenging because Russian is the language I have most trouble with. Words don't seem to stick, case endings don't move into my active command of the language and I can't hold Skype lessons in ways where it seems like I'm actually learning instead of just going over sentences I've already ran into during my self-study time.

Failure. Russian World Cup was a no and Russian retook its tiny place among my target languages

I want to produce language material of my own - this remains a lifetime goal but I hope that with the increase of confidence thanks to the good results in Georgian, Mandarin and Estonian I might convince myself I have something to say. I also want to write books on specific languages for Brazilians. In order for this to happen, I need to maintain a well-round-up daily schedule and resist the temptation to just keep adding new watching activities when I notice the day has been calmer and there is much time left. I might start with writing guest posts for the static blog.

This is the biggest failure as any extra free time tends to be filled up with Clozemaster, Duolingo and other app-learning. Unless there's time + money pressure involved as in the case of the translations. So, in theory it's possible, but it involves a huge habit change and comfort-zone escape. Yet to be seen.

In order to actually start using my languages in a safe way, I want to have all my language islands (about me, family, work, education, hobbies, lifestyle, worldviews) rounded up for all my languages. This might include booking at least one Skype lesson per language because I don't want to disclose personal information on sites such as italki or lang-8, and I want to be as specific as the situation allows when talking about myself in real life. I'm not promising myself to keep writing regularly in my TLs because I know my schedule wades against that, even though now the situation is different as all languages have advanced and it's much easier to write a paragraph in each of my older ones.

I totally forgot about doing the islands formally, but I did progress in individual languages. I did some italki lessons but I noticed I was better off doing the islands first, then I didn't do the islands and so.. anyway, as I spent most of my italki credits, I decided to keep the rest for emergencies and started to focus on making money out of languages instead of spending it on them...I mean, even more so than usual.

Overall, I want to feel more relaxed and less strict about my schedule, and for this to happen I want to feel I'm advancing towards my goals in Russian, German and Norwegian. Once I'm comfortable with those languages, it will be more than ever a matter of just enjoying the journey.

Surprisingly, this was a success! I have many more languages now I can work on in a much less study-like way! More on the specific language topics below.

So, now for individual languages:

Russian - The main language of the first semester, if all goes as planned and I am set to travel there during the World Cup. It's also my greatest challenge in language learning. I remain a shaky A2 active/B1 passive, despite doing the same I've been doing for Georgian and Estonian - and even more. I want to keep having lessons weekly. I am also going to try hard and watch more dubbed series, because that's what worked so well for Georgian.

Like I said, I dropped any projects for going to the World Cup somewhere in early May. The Skype lessons I had prior to that time didn't help much anyway. (Un)Surprisingly, I took a much more relaxed, almost goalless approach in the second semester and finally my Russian had some noticeable improvement. I can now follow most of a Luntik episode and get more than the gist while reading translated fiction.

Norwegian - I'm still on an asymptotic learning curve to B2, barred to my weak listening skills. Yet I feel I can speak the language. Having started an audiobook in Nynorsk might help understand more dialects. I don't have special plans for the language other than keeping textchatting a while. Italki lessons are expensive and the teachers tend to be booked out because they're so few, so they might not happen often.

Good, but not great. I have improved my vocabulary in all levels: A2+/B1- vocabulary is now more consolidated, more active, and I recognize B2 vocabulary more firmly. My active skills improved in a sound way. I can reply to a chat in Norwegian immediately, without panicking to GT. I only go there after a while when I need specific words, and I'm much more comfortably with vocabulary now. Listening skills improved but didn't skyrock. I'm on the verge of being able to follow an audiobook, but last time I checked it was still above my level, especially for crime novels where you need to untie the knots. I'm still not giving Norwegian the attention it deserves as I spent most of the year not paying full attention to the TV series as I was doing Clozemaster Norwegian in parallel. Something I fixed in the final months and need to absolutely take control of next year. Now that I'm watching Side om Side's new season, I'm even watching intensively, i.e. pausing and looking up cool, unique words, some of which aren't even on GT and which I can figure out from context.

German - I almost made it to basic reading fluency in 2017. My goal is being able to follow an audiobook, so in order for this happen I need to read more automatedly. I'm working on it right now by listening-reading the 2nd book in the Tintenherz trilogy, it's almost like narrow-reading. Active skills have al but deteriorated and for this I would really like to watch on italki and with the assistance of the occasional tutor. Getting my islands done is a must because I actually have real-life opportunities to talk in German-only and polyglot meetups.

I did it!!! Language of the year! Success of the year! Now I can comfortably say that I've finally reached basic reading fluency in German. I read one non-fiction which had a familiar topic and now I'm finishing a second one where the actual content takes time and effort to digest, but which I can get more than the gist from in German. So eine Überraschung! This made my day, as I'd be much less satisfied now without this German breakthrough. You might wonder why my German seems to be progressing that much despite me a) preferring Norwegian b) not putting that much effort apart from native materials and the answer is the same for Hebrew x Indonesian: the quality of materials play a greater role than we could imagine in the first place. I have easy YA fiction for German plus dubbed American series with double subtitles; I have Norwegian novels that are much denser in vocabulary and native series full of slang. So, day by day I'm consolidating what really matters in German while struggling at several fronts in Norwegian: trying to learn harder words while not exactly having had n+1 input for the most common ones. Moreover, German is phonemically much less complex with a more transparent orthography and with dialectal forms absent from standard TV content; all this concurs to German surpassing my favorite foreign language in passive skills. As for active skills, there are not a goal in German and I dare say almost non-existent, the type of which might nonetheless come up in a survival situation.

French - I don't have any special goals other than finally figuring out which level I am. I want to watch native series and regain my better active skills. I'm listening to an audiobook and it's nearly transparent, but I'm moving slowly through it as it's the final resource of the day and usually I'm mentally exhausted.

I reached this specific goal. The answer at the placement test at the local AF is B2 certainly, C1 as long as you learn the exam's format. I'll take it as an I am C1 in practice. I've noticed that my listening skills improved even more after another year of daily audiobook listening. I'm really happy with this progress. Conversations were even rarer than in 2017, writing non-existent (other than the placement test), and I don't really have a goal for French other than enjoying the world of content knowing French opened up to me.

English - I want to improve my writing skills through writing on relevant topics regarding language learning. This log might remain in macarronic English but I want at least my texts to read better.

No visible progress from my writing, but I had marginal gains in listening and vocabulary.

Papiamento - I will keep my 15-minute a day quick reading/listening. I want to write often to an Aruban friend I have on FB. If the opportunity for writing a language course shows up again I'll take it, but I won't seek it actively.

I didn't write any Papiamento but I kept my daily media consumption. I'd need to push harder for active skills but I believe they'd come up in an emergency, as in the case of German.

Italian - I have mostly activation goals for this one. It's lagging behind too much regarding French. I want to read novels with relevant vocabulary more intensively - the past ones have been mostly skimming. I want to enjoy some native series but not as part of my daily routine. I want to keep listening to audiobooks.

No activation whatsoever, though Clozemaster has helped and there might be more dormant Italian that might come up surprising correct when necessary. My main improvement was listening, which is more than expected since listening to audiobooks in the only Italian activity I've done consistently for more than five minutes. I'm really happy with that level reached now. I can enjoy an audiobook in Italian, and that is an asset, a lifetime goal, an achievement that can't be taken away from me. Speaking will have its turn. Most online groups for practicing Italian are boring and I can't attend the real life ones.

Spanish - I want to write more, get my islands proofread before I dare say I speak Spanish. Then I want to practice it regularly at meetups. I want to finally start En Terapía and El Ministerio del Tiempo, even if not watching them regularly.

No TV, only the daily Argentinian podcast which marginally got me exposed to other accents both from Spain and from Latin America. I'm laddering on it thanks to Guarani, even writing almost daily on the Guarani Whatsapp group. Oh, I did practice Spanish on meetups, I just didn't attend the meetups regularly at all.

Georgian - I want to finally write more regularly. I want to improve my number of pages read somewhere during the year, by the time I notice I'm comfortable reading extensively. I want to address specific troublesome verbal tenses in class.

This is the one language for which I got my islands done. I'm also happy with my reading and listening skills. I'm on the verge of reaching basic reading fluency, and I wouldn't exaggerate to say that Georgian could be 2019's German. And to think it's supposedly a much harder language. Again, quality of resources matter. I'm watching dubbed series as well as native ones - though I'm still doing Clozemaster in parallel while writing both. I've finally managed more productive parallel reading of translated novels. Moreover, I managed to express my basic islands quite easily and I can quickly line up some 20 messages on Speaky with native speakers. I haven't reached my goal of being able to read extensively so that I can read more each day, but now more than never I believe it's doable.

Mandarin - Practice, practice, practice. There is enough Mandarin knowledge here to allow me for having some fun conversations. I want to find a good italki teacher so I can book lessons often. I want to try reading some texts extensively once in a while.

Together with Norwegian, another language that isn't getting the attention it deserves. I felt discouraged with finding italki teachers for the reasons stated in the general review and for the fact I struggled too much with speaking with a fluent speaker the couple of times I attended the meetups. I did notice considerable improvement in both reading and listening. I'm getting used to the Taiwanese accent or anything that lacks the standard retroflex consonants thanks to exposure and fun with a Taiwanese show. I really think I can get more from the Mandarin I already have and even more if I improve it to a useful level, especially with some changes in the economy of the state where I live. This year I plan to finally visit the language school and get to assess my level and which opportunities I might have access to from actually carrying on the endeavor of improving my Mandarin up to a valid level.

Estonian - I want to finally revisit the basic nominal declension through drilling the FSI-like Basic Course in Estonian. Then I want to consolidate it through watching my own language islands. There is no tutor on italki so that will have to rely on the goodwill of natives and fellow learners on the Estonian subforum at Unilang.

Alongside with German and Georgian, it was another great improvement in 2018! Again, I can attribute much of this success to better learning materials. I have access to a soap-opera with subtitles where the plot evolves around daily interactions within a fixed set of characters. There is enough repetition and familiarity, an amount of material that would account for half a dozen Assimils. I have successfully overlearned the short Clozemaster Estonian deck, but more than that, I'm using the Speakly.me which is far superior to CM and Duolingo when you come from an A2ish background. The choice of sentences is really assertive, and I tend to revisit in the afternoon sentences I've seen at the very soap opera early that day.

Modern Greek - My goal is to have some basic language islands written up while keeping advancing through short-lesson-based courses such as Language Transfer and pod101. I want to consistenly keep listening-reading the audiobook while watching American series with Greek subtitles once in a while.

Another language I could have improved much more if I had done more than just 5 pages of listening-reading + Clozemaster multiple choice + text input. It would have helped if the few and brief language exchanges on Speaky had turned into long-term friendship. I didn't get to watch TV but at this point I think the translated novels I'm reading have enough authentic conversation. So what's really missing is attempting to activate it. I hold to my assessment that Modern Greek is a semi-transparent language.

Hebrew - This is currently the language I'm enjoying the most learning at the moment. I've been waiting too long to start it for good (I had had 3 months-classes at the local Israeli Union back in 2005). I want to do 2 textbook resources at once the way I am doing for Greek, in order to progress more quickly (I'd still call this sustainable dabbling because both textbooks combined would be around 15, sometimes 20 minutes).

Still the language I enjoy the most learning, but who knows the meanders of heart. I've almost overcome the fear of not being able to surpass the gap early-learner's-resources-with-dots-translation-transcription <====> early-intermediate-material-that-leave-you-clueless . I'm going to rely on overlearning Assimil just to be sure I don't get frustrated again by a course that gets too hard and dotless and translationless too soon. Still, I'm confident enough that even double subtitles, my second favorite approach after listening-reading,will do the job most of the time. Clozemaster has also showed to be graded really wisely. Another difference between Hebrew and Indonesian then: the earlier Indonesian levels seems much worse calibrated for frequency than the Hebrew ones.

Indonesian - Yes, it is easy. Definitely. I want to start textbook proper learning while picking another short-lessons-based resource once in a while. I want to go serious with it and start chatting at the many groups I'm a member of.

I have the same feelings as with my first, frustrated attempt with Esperanto over a decade ago: it wasn't supposed to be that hard to acquire vocabulary. I'm stuck at doing the first two Clozemaster levels where the sentences seem too complicated too soon; textbooks don't seem to follow a learner-friendly pace, not even Assimil; nor does pod101. I need to overcome this A1ish barrier the hard way, hoping that I can make better use of the next resources and maybe chat my way through the A2 stage in the many chatrooms I'm part of on WP and Telegram.

Prospects
Somehow, someday if time allows I want to start Catalan.

I didn't, iguanamon did. Still dabbling on it through Clozemaster, maybe if I have time I'll squeeze one of the two Assimils in my routine and then read a novel.

As for Swahili, I still hope I won't start it on my own. So, whoever joins me makes it a tandem and later a team.

Not much interested in Swahili now, Guarani has taken the lead.

Turkish is a candidate for sustainable dabbling in the second semester

Same as above.

and so is Romanian in the transparent front.

Absolute lack of time. Still managed a huge improvement thanks to Clozemaster only. Almost basic reading fluency, except that I haven't tried reading texts yet. I have so many good audiobooks lined up that it's a sin not to do them.

I'd really like to start Czech, but Russian is dragging all my slavolearnability at the moment. Maybe the second semester will see me getting even more serious with Russian and enjoying the momentum or instead setting myself free to put in on normal progress mode and finally add my second Slavic language.

I got better (though not more serious) with Russian but I'm not really in the mood for a second language from an originally opaque group now.

Ditto for Swedish, which depends on how comfortable I will be with Norwegian halfway 2018.

Same as above, though this one is subject to change if I really feel I'm comfortable enough with Norwegian.

As can be seen from above, my schedule gets tighter each year and I'm becoming more strict about adding new languages - even lower-hanging fruits. That's when Clozemaster comes in handy for reducing Wanderlust to a minimum. As for actual adding new languages to my routine, from textbooks and such, it would have depended on a better command of my intermediate languages in 2018. I did improve German, Georgian, Mandarin and Russian, but not enough to put any of these in maintenance mode as I do with French and Papiamento. Hence my not starting any new languages this year (that is, until this month, Guarani, but more in my 2019 log).

All in all, a year of much study, not so much learning, and a bunch of signs for me to interpret if I really want to become a good language learner in 2019. Take this and the previous log as mostly advice of how not to delve into multiple languages that much insanely.

I welcome you all to my 2019 log, which I'll start in a couple of weeks, in the hope that I finally have something concrete to show about how to actually learn a language from scratch.

Best wishes!

[Expugnator]

For all of you who have followed this thread, here's the link to my 2019 log.