Nótaí galaxyrocker - Ancient Celtic Languages, (Old) French, Latin, Old English

Continue or start your personal language log here, including logs for challenge participants
User avatar
jeff_lindqvist
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3135
Joined: Sun Aug 16, 2015 9:52 pm
Languages: sv, en
de, es
ga, eo
---
fi, yue, ro, tp, cy, kw, pt, sk
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2773
x 10462

Re: Nótaí Galaxyrocker -- Still No Decisions

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Sun Jul 17, 2022 11:27 am

galaxyrocker wrote:10/07:

Watched 35 minutes of the Kerry-Dublin All-Ireland Football Semifinal. Was on the phone for the first half, but caught the end, watching it in Irish. Will do the same for the Hurling Final next week, and Galway're in the Football final in a fortnight so will definitely be watching all 70 minutes of that one in Irish. Went and saw Seo Linn at a gig. They're a band who gained prominence in the mid 2010s because of their Irish covers of English pop-songs with Coláiste Lurgan. While I'm not a fan of the covers in general (complex issues of colonialism and translations and implicit assumptions about what makes a language 'modern'), they were entertaining. Well worth the €13.50, and I was speaking Irish the entire night so there's also that.


Maith thú! Some of the Lurgan songs had quite an impact back in the days. I think I discovered them shortly after my first trip to the Gaeltacht in 2013, and for a couple of days I couldn't get one of their songs out of my head. (It was Don't you worry child by Swedish House Mafia - it seems that it has now been removed from Youtube and replaced by something else.)
4 x
Leabhair/Greannáin léite as Gaeilge: 9 / 18
Ar an seastán oíche: Oileán an Órchiste
Duolingo - finished trees: sp/ga/de/fr/pt/it
Finnish with extra pain : 100 / 100

Llorg Blog - Wiki - Discord

galaxyrocker
Brown Belt
Posts: 1120
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 12:44 am
Languages: English (N), Irish (Teastas Eorpach na Gaeilge B2), French, dabbling elsewhere sometimes
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=757
x 3332

Re: Nótaí Galaxyrocker -- Irish and French with wanderlust ramblings

Postby galaxyrocker » Sun Jul 24, 2022 8:25 am

17/07:

Listened to the second half of the All-Ireland Hurling Final in Irish (35 min). Watched the first half with some friends, so it had to be in English.

I also ended up binging the rest of Annála Beaga. I was only 80-some odd pages away from finishing it, and the stories were getting shorter and shorter towards the end, so the dopamine hits just kept coming. Ended up finishing it today. Will either pick up something new in Irish, or slowly work my way through An Béal Beo, which is a rich collection of what in Irish they call saibhreas, or richness. Haven't decided yet and will have a gander around the UCD library.

18/07:

Picked up a book by Pádraic Óg Ó Conaire. Unlike his more famous cousin, Pádraic Ó Conaire, Pádraic Óg was a native speaker of Irish (the other Pádraic moved to the Gaeltacht at 7ish and left at 16ish; he had good Irish, but wasn't a full-native as I understand and made grammatical mistakes based on English). I picked up the 1939 edition of one of his works, Éan Cuideáin to read. Already on the first sentence, some nice dialectal stuff shining through, which is exactly what I was after. I decided to do this instead of An Béal Beo in case I did move to France or Conamara, where I won't necessarily have access to the sheer number of Irish books I do while at UCD (though if Conamara I can get some via ILL through the national library system, if they don't have them in their own library). Thus I can keep the store of books I own and have with me here in Ireland for later, if need be.

Episode 4 of Passion Medievistes (15 minutes). Was good, can understood reasonably well without transcript as long as I stay focused. Hard to do in the heat that Ireland was experiencing, however.

19/07:

Nothing

20/07:

Listened to episodes 21/22 of Baile an Droichid (30). Fair enough to understand, but I'm slacking off. Need to get back on it.


21/07:

Finished off the first series of Baile an Droichid (30 min). It was fun, I'm enjoying the radio drama so will keep at it. Listened to an episode of Passion Medievistes (15 min)

22/07:

Irish language conversation circle, but nothing else really

23/07:

Episode of PM (20 min).

Weekly Recap and Thoughts

French Listening: 50
French Reading: 58
Irish Reading: 105
Irish Listening: 95
Histore du livre: 228 / 722
Annála Beaga ó Iorrus Aithneach: 366 / 366
Éan Cuideáin: 20 / 227


Apart from (Irish) reading, this has been a very underwhelming week. I'm going to attribute it to a few things. First, I burnt myself out of Irish reading last Sunday when I power-rushed through Annála Beaga. Been hard to get back into reading after that, but especially Irish reading as I'm not as interested in Éan Cuideáin. But I'll keep going, as the quality of the Irish is great, and it's nice and Connemara-y.

For listening, it was just the heat wave. The first three days were miserable, and I just basically sat in my room and sweated all day. It probably would've been better to get out and move, as it was cooler outside than inside thanks to a breeze and lack of air circulation indoors (colder climate, usually not needed), but I just couldn't be bothered it was so hot.

I've also been stressed out over housing. I've had no luck in Dublin, so will likely be moving to Connemara for at least a month, possibly longer as I wait for visa issues to settle, etc. It'll be nice, though I am worried about losing the social connections. I'll stay in touch with people here and see them when I make it to Dublin, but rural areas in Ireland are reasonably insular, and I'm not one to just talk to random people at a pub. The conversation circle in Dublin helped a lot, but there's none of that in Connemara, sadly, as they don't need it. So I guess we'll see what'll happen. But the stress over this has just made it difficult to listen, even walking and listening. It is what it is, though, this country is a huge mess with regards to housing overall. Frustrating, too.

Next week should hopefully be better. I'll be moving, but in that regard I'll either be on the train or bus (probably train, quicker and more comfortable) so will have time to read and such while traveling. Which is a boon. I need to really get these two books done, as they're both UCD library books and given I'll be moving out of Dublin soon it's probably best to return them, even if I don't have to and could, theoretically, make the trip in if needed to return them at some later point.
10 x

User avatar
księżycowy
Blue Belt
Posts: 655
Joined: Fri Aug 25, 2017 3:26 pm
Location: Earth
Languages: *Native*
English

*Studying*
Biblical Greek, Hebrew, German (Arabic)


*Waiting List*
Irish, Polish, Lithuanian, Italian, Modern Greek, Latin, Old English, Japanese, Korean, Chinese (Mandarin, Cantonese, Taiwanese), Vietnamese, Mongolian, Tibetan, Aramaic, Amharic, Arabic, Haitian Creole, Cayuga
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=17499
x 1488

Re: Nótaí Galaxyrocker -- Irish and French with wanderlust ramblings

Postby księżycowy » Tue Jul 26, 2022 10:50 am

Can I just say that I'm a bit jelly that you're studying some Old Irish (or were? I don't think I've seen it mentioned in the last update or two). :P
0 x
Dead Log
Modern European Log
East Asian Log

DaF Kompakt A1-B1 (Klett) : 1 / 30
Modern German Pronunciation 2e (Hall) : 0 / 7
[Greek and Hebrew TBD]

galaxyrocker
Brown Belt
Posts: 1120
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 12:44 am
Languages: English (N), Irish (Teastas Eorpach na Gaeilge B2), French, dabbling elsewhere sometimes
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=757
x 3332

Re: Nótaí Galaxyrocker -- Irish and French with wanderlust ramblings

Postby galaxyrocker » Tue Jul 26, 2022 11:04 am

księżycowy wrote:Can I just say that I'm a bit jelly that you're studying some Old Irish (or were? I don't think I've seen it mentioned in the last update or two). :P



Still am, sorta. I've not been consistent with it, mainly due to focusing on other things (thesis, housing, major life decisions, y'know). That said, since it's not likely I'm going to Brest (even though it's probably my greatest passion, I don't think I can pass up the chance to get an Irish work visa and possibly get naturalised in the future), I'm going to take the Old Irish course through Uppsalla that starts in January. I actually know the teacher and had pints with him last night, and he was encouraging about it. It's not free to me (damn EU citizens, getting all the fun stuff), but it's still fairly cheap, less than €1000 if I recall correctly.
Last edited by galaxyrocker on Tue Jul 26, 2022 2:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
5 x

User avatar
księżycowy
Blue Belt
Posts: 655
Joined: Fri Aug 25, 2017 3:26 pm
Location: Earth
Languages: *Native*
English

*Studying*
Biblical Greek, Hebrew, German (Arabic)


*Waiting List*
Irish, Polish, Lithuanian, Italian, Modern Greek, Latin, Old English, Japanese, Korean, Chinese (Mandarin, Cantonese, Taiwanese), Vietnamese, Mongolian, Tibetan, Aramaic, Amharic, Arabic, Haitian Creole, Cayuga
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=17499
x 1488

Re: Nótaí Galaxyrocker -- Irish and French with wanderlust ramblings

Postby księżycowy » Tue Jul 26, 2022 2:29 pm

That's still an amazing opportunity!

I fully intend to learn some Old Irish eventually. Even though it's not really for my degree or anything. First things first, getting my foot in the door with both Ireland, and Modern Irish. I hope to follow in your footsteps. :)
Last edited by księżycowy on Tue Jul 26, 2022 3:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
0 x
Dead Log
Modern European Log
East Asian Log

DaF Kompakt A1-B1 (Klett) : 1 / 30
Modern German Pronunciation 2e (Hall) : 0 / 7
[Greek and Hebrew TBD]

User avatar
jeff_lindqvist
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3135
Joined: Sun Aug 16, 2015 9:52 pm
Languages: sv, en
de, es
ga, eo
---
fi, yue, ro, tp, cy, kw, pt, sk
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2773
x 10462

Re: Nótaí Galaxyrocker -- Irish and French with wanderlust ramblings

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Tue Jul 26, 2022 3:02 pm

galaxyrocker wrote:(...)I'm going to take the Old Irish course through Uppsala that starts in January. I actually know the teacher and had pints with him last night, and he was encouraging about it.


Small world. I took Old Irish I and II in 2014. And I've applied for Old Irish Reading this autumn (but who knows, maybe life will come in the way).
4 x
Leabhair/Greannáin léite as Gaeilge: 9 / 18
Ar an seastán oíche: Oileán an Órchiste
Duolingo - finished trees: sp/ga/de/fr/pt/it
Finnish with extra pain : 100 / 100

Llorg Blog - Wiki - Discord

galaxyrocker
Brown Belt
Posts: 1120
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 12:44 am
Languages: English (N), Irish (Teastas Eorpach na Gaeilge B2), French, dabbling elsewhere sometimes
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=757
x 3332

Re: Nótaí Galaxyrocker -- Irish and French with wanderlust ramblings

Postby galaxyrocker » Sun Jul 31, 2022 6:30 pm

24/07:

All-Ireland Football Final today. Galway v Kerry, both Gaeltacht Counties. Unfortunately Galway lost, but I got some nice listening practice in (70 min).

25/07:

Nothing

26/07:

Nothing

27/07

Listened to an episode of PM (20 min).

28/07:

Listened the three episodes of PM (60 min). Also Pop-Up Gaeltacht so I spent several hours just using Irish.

29/07:

Nothing

30/07:

Listened to an episode of Baile an Droichid (30 min)

Monthly Recap

French Listening: 577 minutes
French Reading: 228 pages
Irish Reading: 239 pages
Irish Listening: 518

July wasn't a horrible month, all things considered.

Weekly Recap and Thoughts


French Listening: 80
French Reading: 20
Irish Reading: 0
Irish Listening: 100
Histore du livre: 248 / 722
Éan Cuideáin: 20 / 227

Overall, didn't make much progress. Éan Cuideáin doesn't interest me nearly as much as Annála Beaga, though I still want to read it because of the quality of Irish, and how fairly dialectal it is. Doesn't help I've also been busy.

I signed a lease for a year in Dublin, so I'm not going to Brest. I think it's the best decision long-term, as I want to stay in Europe, but I also almost felt immediately it was the wrong decision in my heart. Funny how things work like that and I do worry it'll be something I look back on and regret. Goal is now to find a part-time job, hopefully leveraging my teaching cert to tutor online back in America. That way, if I live frugally, I could potentially have enough to go do the masters next year if I'm not able to find the job long-term here. That's my biggest worry -- having to go back to America without doing it because I made the decision to stay. Did I make the wrong decision? Possibly, but at least this way I do have more time to focus on practicing French and can get a start on Old Irish (I intend to do Uppsalla's course, as I mentioned) and Middle Welsh while maybe going ahead and getting a start on the research I want to do. As long as I can get some extra funds I should be good. I'd only need to earn about €4,000 to meet France's limit, if I calculated stuff correctly. Should be doable, even if I don't start looking at part-time jobs in Ireland until after the holidays (to make sure I can go home on the holidays if I don't have a full-time job lined up). In fact, I'm already planning on this; maybe that shows I should've just moved to Brest the first time, but here's hoping it works out. Sometimes, you have to make the wrong choice to realise what you really want out of life.

Otherwise, since I'm in Dublin I've decided I am going to work on prepping for the C1 exam in December (it's €250 though, which is crazy, but it'd be worth it, I guess). I'm going to systematically go through Learning Irish, hitting two chapters a week which should have me finished before then. I'm also going to go through O'Nolan's Studies in Modern Irish. I'm not a huge fan of this book as it seems he sometimes comes up with convoluted descriptions to make everything Peadar Ua Laoghaire said perfectly grammatically correct and standard, which annoys me as that's just one man writing in one dialect, ignoring the other two dialects, but it's really the most advanced textbook-like book I've been able to find. I probably won't sign up for any classes (there's not really a C1 prep course anyway, apart from the Diploma which started last year so is already halfway over and which I don't think I can join), as the level of the teachers can be very hit or miss. So I figure it's better to prepare on my own. Going to mostly be reading and listening, will likely use Vifax again as they have listening comprehension questions on their site. Don't know of anything that really has reading comprehension questions, at least at a C1 level. We'll see how I feel in November, when the deadline to apply is, before fully committing, but that's my intention at the moment.

I've also been hanging out with some friends from Spain a lot recently, several times a week. Might pick back up Spanish, at least passive understanding of it. If I do this, I'll likely use Dreaming Spanish and a grammar book, and see if I could find some children's books. I really just want passive skills currently, as I need to focus on Irish for C1 and French/Old Irish/Middle Welsh/Old French/Latin/etc for the possible Brest move next year if no job or a job I don't like. Assuming I can live super cheaply and get a part time job.
11 x

User avatar
MorkTheFiddle
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2114
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 8:59 pm
Location: North Texas USA
Languages: English (N). Read (only) French and Spanish. Studying Ancient Greek. Studying a bit of Latin. Once studied Old Norse. Dabbled in Catalan, Provençal and Italian.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 11#p133911
x 4824

Re: Nótaí Galaxyrocker -- Irish and French with wanderlust ramblings

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Mon Aug 01, 2022 8:18 pm

galaxyrocker wrote:Sometimes, you have to make the wrong choice to realise what you really want out of life.
Wow! Well said! "The road not taken," as Frost put it.
(For anyone not familiar with the reference
Frost's "The Road Not Taken".)
5 x
Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson

galaxyrocker
Brown Belt
Posts: 1120
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 12:44 am
Languages: English (N), Irish (Teastas Eorpach na Gaeilge B2), French, dabbling elsewhere sometimes
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=757
x 3332

Re: Nótaí Galaxyrocker -- Week of Moving

Postby galaxyrocker » Sun Aug 07, 2022 11:25 am

31/07:

Football is back, listened to the PSG - Nantes commentary in French while watching another game. Not going to count it as French listening time as I wasn't focused on it.

01/08:

Listened to episodes 3/4 of season 2 of Baile an Droichid (30 min). Joe Steve is difficult to understand at times, talking as he does like an old man, but the others are good, as long as I know the words. I need to get some Irish decks on Anki asap, honestly, to start expanding my vocabulary for the TEG.

Listened to two episodes of PM (20 and 30 min). Was interesting. It's easy to tell how much weaker my French is than my Irish, but it'll come. I need to get back to using Anki for new words, as I've turned off new cards for a few weeks now as my reviews were getting out of hand and I found myself marking it even if I didn't know it, but I'll wait another week or two for the numbers to settle down; and then probably only do 10 new cards a day instead of 20.

02/08:

Listened to an episode of PM (25 min).

03/08:

Listened to an episode of PM (25 min) and an episode of Baile an Droichid (40 min)

04/08:

Episode of PM (23 min) and Baile an Droichid (30 min)


Weekly Recap and Thoughts


French Listening: 123 min
French Reading: 42 pages
Irish Reading: 51 pages
Irish Listening: 100 min
Histore du livre: 290 / 722
Éan Cuideáin: 71 / 227


I listened to a 10 minute 'SuperBeginner' clip from Dreaming Spanish, mostly to see what it was like. As much as I dislike video content, it was quite interesting and entertaining. I wish French had one like this. I'm aware of several comprehensible input channels, but they're not as well developed (yet, hopefully) I feel. Definitely will return to this if I decide to actually stick with picking up Spanish understanding. If I do this, I'll still likely pick up a grammar book to work through, simply because I enjoy grammar. And even though they don't recommend reading, I'll probably try to find some books I'm interested in too, because I prefer reading to audio content. Since I'm only working on passive skills, it should probably work. It'd be a good experiment, regardless, trying to get Spanish comprehension.


Didn't do much on anything else otherwise. Been moving pretty much all week, and got tired of listening on the bus and haven't had much time to read. Did the normal conversation circle on Friday and did the sean-nós song session on Thursday, so lots of Irish speaking practice. I asked about getting a job in the Club and the manager said to ask again in about three weeks as they'll be looking at hiring then, so hopefully I can get something part-time then if I haven't gotten anything full-time lined up. Otherwise, it's most just focusing on my thesis from here until the 22nd of August, when it's due. I'll try to get listening practice in on both languages, maybe on my way to/from the gym/store, and read before bed, but we'll just have to see how things go.

After that, barring a full-time job on an actual work visa (the graduate visa does not count towards citizenship, sadly, so I want a real work visa that will, so I don't have to wait seven years), it'll just hopefully be living cheap and being able to save up enough to go to Brest next year. I don't think I'll be able to pull it off, unless I do get a full-time job that pays decently well, but here's hoping I can somehow do it with a part-time job or two. As I've said, I realised that's what I want to do, especially if citizenship stuff is off the table for nearly another decade, but now I'm not sure if I'll be able to afford it. Oh well, live and learn and maybe it'll work out one day.
8 x

galaxyrocker
Brown Belt
Posts: 1120
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 12:44 am
Languages: English (N), Irish (Teastas Eorpach na Gaeilge B2), French, dabbling elsewhere sometimes
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=757
x 3332

Re: Nótaí Galaxyrocker -- Bunch of Nothing

Postby galaxyrocker » Sun Aug 14, 2022 10:08 am

07/08:

Listened to two episodes of PM on my way to the grocery today (36 min total).

09/08:

Episode of PM (22 min)

10/08:

Baile an Droichid (30 min)

11/08:

Baile an Droichid (30 min)

Weekly Recap and Thoughts


French Listening: 58 min
French Reading: 40 pages
Irish Reading: 1 page
Irish Listening: 60min
Histore du livre: 330 / 722
Éan Cuideáin: 72 / 227

I watched some football in French, as is usual. Nice how much more I am able to make out after a few months of focusing on French listening practice. I'm still limited by my vocabulary, but I've come a long way since May even. If I get it to where I focus more on the games I'm listening to, I might start counting it as listening practice. But so far it's a far shot from how I was with Irish while using it for practice during the All-Ireland.

Otherwise, I wasn't able to get much done this week. Not surprising, given that my thesis has taken up a lot of my time. I am walking a lot more since I now live in city centre (averaged something like 12 km/day last week!) and I need to leverage that to be practicing listening comprehension skills, but I've found a lot of enjoyment on walking without any noise. It lets me experience the city, in a sense, as well as just think about problems and stuff with the thesis. But learning wins out, so I'll likely go back to listening as I walk, especially during my 'break walks' along the canal.

Thesis is due a week from tomorrow, so I likely won't get much reading done this week either, unless I decide to take a break from staring at a screen to stare at a book, which I have done before. The only reading I'll get done then is thus my 'gym reading' that I read while doing cardio at the gym. And that's in English, so not much use there. We'll see though, maybe I'll wrap the thesis up earlier.
10 x


Return to “Language logs”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: guyome and 2 guests