Ani's 2018 Log

[Ani]

My mom is here. Hooray! Spent a nice morning taking to her before I got hit with a migraine. I hadn't done any Icelandic or Russian to that point so they couldn't get done.

I made it through lesson 9 Mauger. Lazily writing out conjugations and answering questions I could do in my sleep was fairly soothing. Later, I found a therapist on YouTube with a nice voice and simple vocabulary -- Barbara Verhaeghe -- and listened to her talk for about three hours before I felt ready to switch to the audio book I'm listening to, before bed.

Not sure how much I can get done with my eyes today so it might be a listening day.

[IronMike]

My mom is here. Hooray! Spent a nice morning taking to her before I got hit with a migraine. I hadn't done any Icelandic or Russian to that point so they couldn't get done.

On the positive side, Russian didn't cause the migraine, so you've got that going for you.

[Ani]

My mom is here. Hooray! Spent a nice morning taking to her before I got hit with a migraine. I hadn't done any Icelandic or Russian to that point so they couldn't get done.

On the positive side, Russian didn't cause the migraine, so you've got that going for you.

This is true Russian hasn't really be migraine inducing yet but just oh so slippery. I think the root might really be the alphabet. Even though I learned it right away, and covered phonetics extensively, I'm reading words letter by letter still. I shunned romanization from the beginning and now I'm wondering if this was wise or not. I took a peek at it today and felt like the words I went over stuck better and I could read them as a whole "sound shape" if that phrase makes any sense. Audio has been fairly effective for learning but matching up what I know with written text is laborious.

[neofight78]

I think the root might really be the alphabet. Even though I learned it right away, and covered phonetics extensively, I'm reading words letter by letter still. I shunned romanization from the beginning and now I'm wondering if this was wise or not.

No, you made the right decision. It’s a dirty word here but I learned the alphabet effortlessly via Rossetta Stone (runs for cover). I think written words with audio with some practice of individual letters should do it. Perhaps you already have something like that in your routine.

[IronMike]

I shunned romanization from the beginning and now I'm wondering if this was wise or not. I took a peek at it today and felt like the words I went over stuck better and I could read them as a whole "sound shape" if that phrase makes any sense. Audio has been fairly effective for learning but matching up what I know with written text is laborious.

Like neo said, you made the right decision. Romanized Russian, the horror that it is, is a crutch. Just keep reading and it'll become second-nature quickly.

[Neurotip]

RU: This language just won't stick. Now that I have Icelandic to compare it to, I can see how ridiculous Russian is with its refusal to cooperate. My Icelandic vocabulary is like 3x my Russian in like .. what.. less than an 8th of the study time? I made up that percentage.. but seriously. Ufft..

Oh noes! I'm holding out hope of trying Russian someday - is that really true?

[Ani]

RU: This language just won't stick. Now that I have Icelandic to compare it to, I can see how ridiculous Russian is with its refusal to cooperate. My Icelandic vocabulary is like 3x my Russian in like .. what.. less than an 8th of the study time? I made up that percentage.. but seriously. Ufft..

Oh noes! I'm holding out hope of trying Russian someday - is that really true?

No I was lying, it's easy and fun and you'll learn like magic :-p
hehe no but truthfully I have auditory processing difficulty (like I'm probably in the bottom 20% of the population) and I think the first time I've really felt it fully is trying to learn to read with a new alphabet. I read like a first grader, sounding out each letter in my head until I've heard a word and usually then I can match it with something I've heard. Last year I tried to beat it by doing a lot of audio only (FR -> RU) tapes. My main goal with Russian last year was just to make it less opaque so that when I'm ready to focus on it, I'm past the early beginner stuff. I've never given up French as my main focus. I think pretty much anybody could have made more progress in a year than I did

No, you made the right decision. It’s a dirty word here but I learned the alphabet effortlessly via Rossetta Stone (runs for cover). I think written words with audio with some practice of individual letters should do it. Perhaps you already have something like that in your routine.

The drops app does this. I'm not sure if it's helping but maybe. I'll stick it out. One of these days I'll be reading аниморфы like a pro I guess if I feel like I read like a first grader now, I should only have 2 more years until I can read them . No no for real, going to do a half super challenge so it better come faster than 2 years..

Like neo said, you made the right decision. Romanized Russian, the horror that it is, is a crutch. Just keep reading and it'll become second-nature quickly.

"Quickly" is maybe a relative term But I'm glad to know I didn't make a mistake.

[MamaPata]

Long after I knew the alphabet, I was still reading letter by letter. (Which I've never done in English so it felt very weird). I think it's just one of those things that is miserable for a long time and then you realise something has clicked.

These days, I have the opposite problem: I keep looking words up and when I see the definition, it's like ´yeah, I really should have just sounded this out'. For example: тафгай and фокстротовщина.

[Ani]

Long after I knew the alphabet, I was still reading letter by letter. (Which I've never done in English so it felt very weird). I think it's just one of those things that is miserable for a long time and then you realise something has clicked.

These days, I have the opposite problem: I keep looking words up and when I see the definition, it's like ´yeah, I really should have just sounded this out'. For example: тафгай and фокстротовщина.

You're giving me hope That's really funny.

I don't remember learning to read in English. As far as my memories go, I remember not being able to read and one day being like "I should try to read this" and reading through a box of easy readers in one sitting. After that I remember being annoyed that I couldn't STOP reading things, like signs and adverts, even if I wanted to ignore them. Watching my oldest son though... It took him like 3 years to get the sounds of the alphabet and tbh I'm not sure he really knows the vowels yet. He can read basically anything and several grade levels above his own, but if you ask him to spell "large" you might get an answer that has an 'm' and a 'p' in it. If you ask him to spell ball, he writes "ball, bell, bill, bill, bull" and then he can pick the right one. Russian is giving me way more sympathy for his struggles lol.

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I probably won't log much more for the super challenge tonight so my May stats...

Icelandic -- 5.3 hours so 3.5 films.
Russian -- 2 films almost exactly
French. -- 742 minutes or 8.2 films

I did not count my French audio book or Lost In Space that I watched in French. I'm on E8 but I wasn't really giving it my full attention. Since I don't know how much to log I just skipped it. Also didn't count cartons I watch with my son in French every day. And, in accordance with super challenge official rules, I didn't count any videos shorter than 10 minutes so I watched a crap ton of Cyprien that can't be counted.
Had some videos nixed from the Russian count for the same reason.

Overall, I'm feeling ok about that. I wanted to prioritize actual studying for Russian and Icelandic (ok even French to in the last week or so). It all works out around 30 minutes of loggable film per day which is reasonable for my life. Surely some time in the next 19 months I will get sick and up the count with a good binge-week.

Reading... Uhh.. is really sad. More or less at 0 all around. I probably read 200 pages in French but I won't log it until I finish the books and I've gone and started 4 different books so... Yup.

My biggest goal for June is reading pages....

[Neurotip]

No I was lying, it's easy and fun and you'll learn like magic :-p
hehe no but truthfully I have auditory processing difficulty (like I'm probably in the bottom 20% of the population) and I think the first time I've really felt it fully is trying to learn to read with a new alphabet.

Ohhh, that makes sense. I'm luckier in that respect -- but I have a truly woeful sense of direction...