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[eido]

Oh I forgot to mention that I hate Youtube. I clicked on two separate Swedish "Youtubers" and nope. Nope nope nope. I don't get this Youtubers thing.

A lot of Youtubers are pretty bad. A Youtuber at their essence is a storyteller, just like regular humans are, only Youtubers get paid to tell their stories. The good ones are ones that spin their tales well. It's rare to find one that doesn't advertise heavily. But ones like Niga Higa are my favorites because there's some humor, albeit stupid at times, to their creations. The English-speaking ones are the ones that speakers of other languages try to imitate, so finding ones that aren't trying to be a copy of Tyler Oakley or Jenna Marbles will be hard. But I'm sure they're out there. There's many kinds of Youtubers, not just vloggers.

[Elenia]

Edit: I forgot to mention the Three Body Problem, but I haven't been reading it so I suppose forgetting to mention it is appropriate. I had last finished chapter 7. It was getting more interesting, but as it is left for the very end of the day (after the TLs get done), I often feel too tired or just plain don't feel like it. I'll keep going with it, but it's probably going to take me forever to finish!

I'm still hovering at around chapter five. I'm a poor reading buddy, but at least we'll be taking forever to finish together! Although... I think I want to set a goal to complete it this year. Whether or not that will actually happen remains to be seen.

[StringerBell]

3/3 days, so not off to a bad start with this hours thing.

Yeah!

The particularly difficult thing about language learning is that it's so ephemeral when it comes to trying to quantify levels or improvement. One day I can be on fire and the next day I struggle to make decent sentences. Or I might be able to speak using really high level grammar but then screw up basic things like gender agreement, articles, or choosing the appropriate past tense. It's such a mixed bag, especially at the intermediate stage. So I tend to feel really confused when it comes to my level of language ability. By focusing on hours, it gives me something concrete to measure. Somehow, being able to tally up hours is really satisfying and helps me to accept the messiness of language learning.

I have a notebook with a grid I created where I write down my hours for each day, then a separate grid that shows the hours every week. I have groups of 4 weeks blocked off as a "month" so that my goal is always 84 hours for each 4 week block (to eliminate the variability of different days in the month).

Are you writing down or keeping track of your hours in some way?

[jeff_lindqvist]

Yesterday I watched the first hour of Män som hatar kvinnor. It's a digital file so of course the English subtitles are there forever. I let them be. I thought it was even maybe better with them, I could try to marry some English meaning to the Swedish I'm hearing. In an ideal world. In reality I was struggling to make sense of anything I was hearing The discouraging feeling was ruining the movie.

Today I watched the next hour but this time I covered the subtitles. My listening comprehension was much better. My conclusion is that the subtitles are a distraction more than anything else.

English subs may be an approximation/summary of the dialogue, not a literal translation.

Sweden and Iceland are either too small for massive internationally distributed film and tv industries or too proficient in English to have popular English programs get dubbed or both.

The English skill isn't the reason why we don't dub. We don't dub anything (be it French, German, Russian, Hindi etc.). We can read, and it saves time to produce subtitles rather than hiring people to record voice over...

[Neurotip]

I'm working through the transcript for (and watching many, many times) episode two of VLÍ. I pretty much close my eyes whenever the dentist gets the drill going or puts the needle anywhere near Sigrún's mouth.

It's a classic. I'm pretty sure Icelandic is topping the league table of languages I've learned in terms of 'how soon did I learn the word for anaesthetised'.

They state as much:

Before proceeding to the adjectival declensions, however, you should first make sure that you have a fairly firm grasp of the noun and article declensions so that you do not mix them up.

That is a really twisted sense of humour they have.

Months. Months of grinding, brain-breaking work. Slipped in between units 4 and 5 as a bit of homework eh? Love it.

I think what they mean is probably 'Before proceeding to the adjectival declensions, you should have a firm grasp of the noun and article declensions so that you have at least a dim notion of the true horror of what awaits you when you approach the adjective.'

I have but one episode left of Trapped. I believe I saw there was a second season in the works, on IMDB maybe. Perhaps I'll be able to hear word boundaries etc. by then

About the word boundaries thing - this is definitely something they don't teach you at school, how much languages vary in how much reduction they can tolerate in fast speech. I had a minor epiphany last week when I came across the phrase 'að mæl'ana' in some subtitles - wtf? - and eventually realised (a) that it meant mæla hana, and (b) that vowel - word boundary - h - vowel regularly turns into just vowel. That helped. This week's horrified realisation has been hearing the very clearly-spoken mother in VLÍ say 'rúminu þínu' with four syllables and not a trace of þ. So yeah. I've been massively spoilt by Italian where fast just means fast.

Thanks for hosting this rant.

[Neurotip]

I have nothing to add to any of this. I would have written it myself had I the same incisive skill with humour you possess

I'm sure my friends would say the same ... if I had any left.

...Icelandic pronunciation is also a mess. Perhaps I'm just more forgiving because it seems like there are least rules to the madness.

I agree entirely. Not just in spelling but also in grammar, Icelandic is rather logical, it just has a lot of rules (and sub-rules, and semi-regular exceptions to the rules which some people say are actually perfectly regular if you look at them the right way, etc.).

Icelandic: Finally set episode two of Viltu... aside, and gave episode three it's first viewing today. It seemed fairly repetitive (a relief!), and I already know numbers (in the nominative case)

The nominative, ok -- but all three genders?

[Neurotip]

Icelandic: Finally set episode two of Viltu... aside, and gave episode three it's first viewing today. It seemed fairly repetitive (a relief!), and I already know numbers (in the nominative case)

The nominative, ok -- but all three genders?

Já, að sjálfsögðu! So I wasn't sure how to answer this, because you could be joking somehow or even mocking me (I miss stuff like that allllll the time), but if you aren't joking/mocking me, then if I were too confident in my response I could come off as arrogant.

I was joking, I didn't seriously think you could have missed the fact that the numerals inflect for gender. I'm impressed though - I would certainly not have been confident of the numbers after six months; you're progressing significantly faster than me so there may have been an element of nervous laughter there as well

[Elenia]

Swedish: I finished Odinsbarn. I will never have this feeling of having finished my first book in my first TL ever again.

No, but you have the feeling of looking back and realising you finished you second, fifth, tenth... book in the language to look forward to. It only gets better from here!

Congrats

[StringerBell]

Swedish: I finished Odinsbarn. I will never have this feeling of having finished my first book in my first TL ever again.

Congratulations! That's a really big deal! How are you planning to celebrate???

Icelandic: I blew through 4 pages of Colloquial Icelandic today. Declension of numbers 1-4, declension of interrogative pronouns, some exercises, and a few final listens to reading 2 in unit 5 before I move onto reading 3 in just another page or two. I also watched 20 more minutes of Case. I've decided that listening to more than 20-30 minutes/day is not a good use of time because my command of the language is so nonexistent mediocre nonexistent.

Finnish & French: I'm too stubborn to quit either (or both) of these languages. (Yet.)

I didn't see it mentioned in your log (or I'm oblivious) - why did you decide to study these languages?

[StringerBell]

There is literally no reason I am studying any languages I wasn’t intending to come across as complaining in the above quote (if that’s how it sounded to you), I swear sometimes I think I’m being neutral just describing the reality of a thing but it doesn’t land as neutral. I was especially joking in my remarks about Finnish and French: it’s a bit much to study four languages even if two of them are “dabbling” but I am too curious about them to be deterred at this stage I guess that’s the reason I am studying: for whatever reason, these languages currently interest me.

I didn't mean to imply that you were complaining, it's just something I've been wondering since it's an unusual collection of languages to be learning at the same time, so I was wondering if there was a specific impetus for choosing these particular ones.

I had to save this here for my own reference because this seems like an amazing way to tackle vocabulary in the intermediate level and will also provide one the ability to notice how a word is used as multiple examples of usage are collected over time!

I'm glad it was useful Sometimes I get pissed off at myself that I waste too much time posting on this forum, but every once in a while I come up with something worthwhile, and it's nice to know that someone else finds a comment I wrote useful, so thank you.

I have been compiling paper lists in a notebook, but of course if one does it on a tablet or laptop then that list becomes searchable. I already handwrite the sentences so typing them instead should not require much (if any) extra time. StringerBell, this is a great idea! (Also, I am really glad you keep mentioning Kaufmann because there are some key things in his videos that I either miss because I focus on small details, or that maybe just hearing them rephrased by someone else makes them stand out more.

I also started out taking notes in a physical notebook for Italian (and I have 4 notebooks completely filled with Polish notes and writing. I'm always going back and forth about which is the better way to keep track of new words and interesting things I want to remember...and at some point I realized that for me it doesn't really matter what I do - paste it in a doc, write in a notebook, don't write anything at all - whatever. If it's really that important and useful then I will come across it again.

When speaking, I have a lot of moments where I want to say something, and I know that I just came across a specific word that would be perfect but can't remember it. Maybe if my note taking system were better, I'd remember it...maybe if I used Anki I'd remember it...but ultimately, I ask the person I'm talking to what the word is, and they remind me what it is, problem solved. Sometimes I think this act of realizing I don't remember a word I want to use makes me remember it better in the future.