nothing serious here

[Querneus]

Italian has an equivalent to je-m'en-foutisme that I see even more commonly: menefreghismo (and menefreghisti etc.). I wonder if Spanish has one too...

My dialect (El Salvador) does at least: el valeverguismo (derived from the expression me vale verga, lit. "it's worth a dick/cock to me"). You can also refer to a person who couldn't care any less as a valeverguista.

[Cavesa]

Some news:

I passed an exam today ("just" four more and I'll leave the nightmare faculty behind!). There were two of us and we were both lucky. We had talked about what topics we'd like to get and we actually got them. That usually doesn't happen! (Usually, it is the person before me who gets the questions I like )

Languages: WRITING!
1.I started my medicine studying and exam preparation blog in French. I need to reread things after myself and I find a lot of stuff. Basically, I write as if it was 4am all the time . But I am quickly getting back into it. It is a private blog for now but it still feels as if I was sharing my plans and venting my worries to others and that is a kind of a relief. Bothering people in the real life is horrible (and useless, as they would need a two hour lecture to just start comprehending why I am so desperate ), and I was bothering people here too much. So, the division of the two internet identities seems to go smoothly (and no, the other blog is not signed as "Cavesa").
2.I wrote a facebook post in Italian. I know, it is not much. But I managed! After a long Italian writing gap.
3.I am preparing a short letter to a friend from Erasmus. A French one. I know I shouldn't even mention it but I want it to sound right (it is mostly congratulations and you are awesome stuff)

I am probably giving up on that Spanish book I'll be paying the library for. And more than a new copy would cost. I should not borrow books before exams, not even a month before an exam is safe. I should probably not borrow them at all.

Also, based on gathering info on sleeping (a complicated issue in my case) and the method of taking coffee+a 20 minute nap (infro from both the proper sources, and the internet, with some great input from within our community), I'll just try it out. Next week, I'll try introducing this into my routine and observe:
1.my overall level of energy
2.my ability to focus
3.my ability to stay focused
and let's see how much I'll get done!

P.S. Ani is right. Italian is really the language that now makes me the happiest.

[Cavesa]

I wrote one more post in Italian. For both, I was complimented and I don't feel too good about this. There is the good old imposter syndrome, as that person has no clue I had to check the conjugations twice and a dictionary once or twice for just those few lines And of course there are other things about this. Or perhaps I am just unable to accept a compliment like a normal person

I've started (and hope to finish soon) reading an article in Catalan. It is not too long, I just suddenly had to do something else in the middle of it and half forgot about it. It was about a neuroscience conference in Barcelona, about topics I am really interested in. And it looked like a nice overview (I wanted to mine it for the names above all, to put them in pubmed and google scholar) and reading Catalan was not too hard. It was slower than reading either French or Spanish and I needed to focus, but I think I understood completely and right (let's not forget the medical language in most european languages is much easier to me than the home or pub stuff). Listening to the same thing spoken would be more of a challenge. Still, I can't afford to start Catalan. Not now and perhaps not ever. Or perhaps I will, if a good friend of mine decides to move there in the end, this option of hers hasn't been completely discarded. Unlike her catalan ex-boyfriend. She is still in love with Calalonia.

[Cavesa]

I'm a horrible person. I've been playing with Lingodeer lately. Nothing serious. Just playing a bit. I am not far or anything. But still, I should not be wasting any time there!
And the more on a language I can't afford to learn now. Japanese. This is so sad.

Aaaaand Duolingo has finally introduced an option to test out of the individual levels. Why, Duolingo, why? Can't you just wait a few weeks? I was bored and discouraged with you and my studies liked it that way!

[Ani]

Lingodeer looks really cool. Can I ask roughly how much it teaches? And does it look child safe-ish? I know I could be less lazy and look for myself. . my daughter is begging for Japanese again.

[Xenops]

Lingodeer looks really cool. Can I ask roughly how much it teaches? And does it look child safe-ish? I know I could be less lazy and look for myself. . my daughter is begging for Japanese again.

I've tried it a little, and it looks family friendly. I don't take to language apps because I feel the language is presented very slowly. But it's decent for Japanese.

[Cavesa]

It looks cool and I am ok with very slow approach to Japanese. I used the word "playing" on purpose, but I might learn a tiny bit as a side effect, if I keep playing (which I shouldn't, I don't have much time). From what I've read, it should now lead to N5 and the creators are working on adding more content, so that it can lead to N3. I like that there are nice explanations, more types of exercises, nice audio. The Lingodeer subreddit says that the current content of the course covers more or less the same grammar as the first part of the popular course Genki.

It is simply superior to Duolingo. Duolingo should have either sticked to the european languages or put more time in the new and more foreign language courses. The pace at which they produced the asian ones looked very suspicious on its own, I guess they had noticed Lingodeer and pushed the courses forward at the expense of quality. And I've tried their Japanese and was just confused, too much information at once without much of explanation and gradual testing. I hope Lingodeer won't worsen due to adding the mainstream european languages (the opposite direction than Duolingo or Languagetransfer) and spreading the resources too thin.

But still, it is just an app. I am not convinced one could learn too much just with it, anything I learn is a nice surprise. I don't think I could really learn Japanese without also writing by hand and using a coursebook with example texts and audios, which I can't even dream of now. There are some videos, named "stories" in the individual Lingodeer chapters but I find them hard to use as a true beginner.

I tried their Manadin course originally and I think it is trustworthy and good looking too, I just opted for playing with Japanese in the end.

[Ani]

Thanks for the review! (And thanks Xenops). It sounds weird but I don't really care how much my daughter will learn. She won't use a course book like Genki, although she's kind of into RTK. She's only 7 but not an ordinary 7 year old. She won't stick with it too long but I hate to get her started on something that literally goes nowhere. She did Duolingo French (She calls it Dingo Lingo lol) all of last school year but it was basically just a spelling exercise for her. She really likes apps.

[Cavesa]

Thanks for the review! (And thanks Xenops). It sounds weird but I don't really care how much my daughter will learn. She won't use a course book like Genki, although she's kind of into RTK. She's only 7 but not an ordinary 7 year old. She won't stick with it too long but I hate to get her started on something that literally goes nowhere. She did Duolingo French (She calls it Dingo Lingo lol) all of last school year but it was basically just a spelling exercise for her. She really likes apps.

If the French Lingodeer is as good as the asian ones, it might be a nice opportunity to continue there. But there is no reason not to try Japanese, if she is into it. Better than the Candy Crush

[Cavesa]

I've found time only for tiny bits of Duolingo. The change to crowns with the option to test out of levels is actually ideal. Combined with a few tree upgrades, it has turned Duolingo into a much more useful tool. I am not redoing my French tree of course, I've deleted it, the easy xp is not worth the loss of time (and I am trying to gather xp for the duome.eu leaderboards. yes, I am a bit childish). Right now, you can get fast through the too easy parts and just spend time on the exercises you find useful, which is awesome.

The exp doesn't say much, so I'll put here my "progress" in crowns.
Italian 80/333 and I have encountered my first skill worth spending time at: the clothes. I really didn't know much about that.
German 203/608 and I am spending time with almost every skill, only a few were easy enough to test out (like the family members or numbers)
Spanish 79/567 as I almost haven't touched it since the changes, I had completed it ages ago and perhaps could do with the practice of testing out of the tree.

No Lingodeer today and yesterday. No book reading or tv series. A tiny bit of Italian writing.

I am studying for a rather big exam now. And there is one bit of news worth sharing on this forum: Memcode may be my saviour. The cloze deletion takes care of the too long cards, and the classical ones are better for some types of questions. The only problem remaining: where to get time for everything? I may have failed already truth be told.

And that Harry Potter mobile game is something like pomodoro for me. I need to spend time studying while the energy recharges. In theory. But of course I need to seriously cut down on various stuff around but I think I have finally got it.

I might even learn how to study, now that it is almost too late