08.01.2023Did all my Irish reading goals for the week. This includes the 10 pages of
An Lámh Láidir as well as the 5 in both the Caighdeán and
An Béal Beo. I intend to go back through these, especially Ó Neachtain and Ó Máille's work and make a note of all the words/phrases I don't know and to add them first to an excel sheet where I've decided to track them and then to Anki (both ways). I'm doing this because the purpose of this project is to put snazz on my Irish, and I can't do that
just by reading. I've got to work on also being able to
use the stuff I come across. I also hope to start taking more notes on it, and how things are used in the dialect, so that I could potentially discuss it in a more linguistically-oriented manner in the future.
09.01.2023Didn't do my Irish listening at work as I originally had intend, but otherwise it was a decently productive day. I'm still waiting for my copy of the Middle Welsh textbook to arrive, which is annoying as I wouldn't've expected EU shipping to take this long (and I know a copy ordered on the same day has been delivered to someone in the UK already!). I did my French reading on the way in to work this morning as well as when I was heating the water for my morning tea. I don't struggle too much with understanding it, though I could do with a review of the verb forms of some of the most common irregular verbs, particularly the past simple. Also listened to one of the episodes of Les Arcanistes, on the history of Sorcery and Magic. It was much more difficult than the reading, but as long as I focused, it was doable. It was 123 minutes long.
I also started Old Irish again, rereading the first non-phonological chapter in Stifter. I'll slowly work through the exercises this week, and discuss where I think there might be some errors in them.
14.01.2023Watched a video that Arcana had put out a few weeks ago on Chinese mythology (46 min). It was neat, and, again, as long as I stayed focus (a harder task than I expected), I was able to understand enough to get the gist and a bit more.
French Listening: 169 min
French Reading: 11 pages
Irish Listening: 0 min
Irish Reading: 40 pages
Histore des Cathares: ThoughtsI've finally got the Middle Welsh book in and the Discord-based study lessons from it start on 15.01.2023. So that'll be in next week's log. I've read through the first chapter on sounds and orthography already, and I really am enjoying how this book is laid out. One thing the author said in the introduction is that he removed exercises for it at the suggestion of several of the early reviewers; since I love exercises, I might email him and see if he has them and would be willing to send them to me for extra practice. It'd be useful. I'll forge ahead of the group I'm studying with in this, simply because I enjoy the format and will want to move at a faster pace myself. Plus it'd mean I can use the group for review later on.
While I have been reading some in
Histoire des Cathares, I'm not finding the part I'm at now nearly as interesting as the early part. It's neat, but just not what I'm in the mood for I feel. I'm torn between finishing it, or picking up the book on the history of sorcery I've bought in preparation for finishing it. It wouldn't take me that long to finish if I'd just sit down and
do it, especially if I look at it more as extensive reading as opposed to intensive (which I have been doing, as most my reading time is on my commute). I'll give it another week, then we'll see.
I've not managed to do anything with French output either. I need to find some writing prompts and try them, so am open to any suggestions for that. For speech, I'll hopefully find a tutor on iTalki a few times a month, just waiting for my next paycheck to get a gauge of what my budget will be once I'm off the emergency tax; I'd like to save as much as I could for the possibility of going to France, obviously.
I'm not quite sure how I'm going to approach Breton yet. I have the 'Introduction to Breton with Ease' and the 'Breton with Ease' Assimil books and audio, both in French, but am not quite sure which would be best to start with. Probably the latter as it seems to correspond to the entire two-part 'with Ease' series (I have both parts) that exist for other languages, and hopefully goes much more detailed than the former. The one lesson a day seems about right, especially following the active and passive phases in the
guide on the Wiki. Given that this requires a copy of the book, I might just listen to it several times while walking home from work (or during a break at work!) and then do the part requiring the text at home, with shadowing it again the next day. It's also complicated by the fact that I have to work through the Breton book in French. We'll have to play this by ear, and it's still my lowest priority outside Latin.
Also, my work has announced that they're searching for PhD students, and one of the subjects is phraseology. This is what I'm interested in, and what I plan to write a thesis on if I go to Brest. I want to do comparative philology across the Celtic languages, maybe eventually slowly branching out to the languages that had contact with them (Old Norse, Old English, Old French, Latin) and see if there's some 'Northwestern European' idioms as opposed to just Insular Celtic ones, etc, though this probably goes well beyond the PhD stage of research. But, if I do the PhD there's a chance I can keep my job and thus stay in Ireland on a research visa for two years, which then renews into permanent visa and counts towards citizenship instead of having to switch back to a student visa. That is quite the tempting offer, if it'd be possible. The big issue is that we're unsure if there's anyone situated at the university who'd be a good supervisor for it -- or indeed, anyone really in any of the universities near Dublin (the three big ones here, and Maynooth), because of the lack of any interest in the Brythonic side of things in this country, barring UCC. My boss advised me to write up a paragraph or so proposal of the research I wanted to do, which she'll read and see if she understands, then will possibly forward it on to some potential supervisors in the country, or give me a list to do so.
I've found wanderlust is also rearing its ugly head, though I'll be disciplined enough to ignore it. Seeing some discussion about Japanese, and looking around at martial arts for a secondary hobby has gotten me interested in that, and possibly moving to Japan to become a teacher, again. I know I can't focus on it and that I shouldn't be distracted,
especially with my already crazy language plans for 2023, which all revolve around me going to
Brest, not
Japan. But, part of me just wants to experience something completely different and see what the rest of the world is like while I'm still relatively free of obligations. It's a mess.
In ReviewSo far, I'm generally happy with how my overly ambitious plan is shaping up, though I have yet to add Breton or Latin, and have only barely dived into the Old Irish and Middle Welsh parts of it, let alone my other hobbies (except math, which I did do some of) since I'm waiting on my paycheck for budgeting reasons. I managed to get a decent amount of French listening in, and can easily see myself being able to up that. French reading is an issue, but I think it's mostly the book, which I'll give another week. I'm in a Discord group for Les Arcanists, which is all French so I get some reading practice there.
We'll see if I can manage to keep this up, or get better at it. There's really no excuse for me not listening to Irish while I work, at least the Conamara radio station. We're allowed to listen to music, etc., but I just don't anymore, though I went through a period where I did all day. And it's not like we really have much intra-office discussion at work sadly, so I'll have the time without distractions to do it. Just gotta do it. So that's the goal for this week, as well as figuring out how best to add Breton into my days. Likely it'll have to be at night.