Tea With Tarvos - Tarvos' Log 2019

[tarvos]

I already finished that Swedish crime novel (Swedish is a language I have read shittonnes in, and actually probably the language I read in the quickest apart from Dutch and English and maybe Spanish). I don't really need to read more Swedish in the sense that I need to widen my vocabulary, because I think I have learned one new Swedish word recently "gärningsman" (perpetrator, usually of a crime). That said I always enjoy reading in Swedish because it's such a comfortable language for me to read in and I barely feel the difference when I read in Swedish, it's such a natural process. I especially read loads of crime novels in Swedish, they're easy to read and it's how I got started.

On the other hand, I am reading the Hunger Games (yes, yes), but I am reading that in Mandarin Chinese, which is interesting in and of itself. I cannot read Chinese quickly (sometimes I doubt whether I should say I can read it at all, but I can read a lot of it. I do have to look up plenty of words, though). Here my speed is about four pages in like 40 minutes, which is kind of pitiful for someone who can read >100 pages in an hour in English. (My old coach used to say that the speed at which I read is just insane, she really couldn't fathom the silly speed at which I'd read her reports without missing a beat. It's true, though; I am a speed reader, I would even say a speed demon).

There's not much else to report. I am slowly trudging along with Japanese and there's not much besides that that I have done - illness will do that to you.

[jeff_lindqvist]

Which Nesser was it? (I haven't read a lot but I like his style.)

[Lawyer&Mom]

Ooh! Just picked up my first Nesser (in German) this weekend at the thrift store. It’s a new author for me, so I’m excited to know you like him.

[tarvos]

Which Nesser was it? (I haven't read a lot but I like his style.)

Det grovmaskiga nätet. I've read a fair few Nesser stories though.

[tarvos]

I've continued to read in Chinese. Yes, it *is* slow, but I am picking up some speed and learning a bunch of new words, or sometimes learning characters for words I know and have used thousands of time but for some reason never remembered the characters for. I'm on about 20% of the book now, which isn't much, but 60 pages of Chinese reading in a week in a book I don't know the plot of... seems good to me! Clearly I was ready to take this step. I also advised a friend of mine who also has experience with Chinese on her further studies, because she is trying to improve it in order to stay in China for a while later on. Her Chinese is more like HSK3, though, I was at a similar level when I moved to China back in the day. (Mine is a little better). She's definitely a very good student, so she will probably come back speaking better Mandarin than I do once she gets round to going there.

Speaking of characters, I just did some Japanese homework, and I wrote out kanji instead of kana for words where the kanji is more usual (I know how to write hiragana and katakana), so it's much more useful for me to write out the kanji, get practice with kanji writing, and get used to the script. Because I know some of the characters from Chinese, writing characters in and of itself isn't an issue, though I might have to write the traditional character here and there, and use a different stroke order (I use the Chinese stroke order normally, and this isn't always the same as the Japanese one).

[tarvos]

Nothing happened over the weekend because my depression is back in full force, so I didn't do anything but lie in bed all Sunday and I was... busy on Saturday.

[devilyoudont]

Nothing happened over the weekend because my depression is back in full force, so I didn't do anything but lie in bed all Sunday and I was... busy on Saturday.

I hope that you feel better soon.

[tarvos]

Nothing happened over the weekend because my depression is back in full force, so I didn't do anything but lie in bed all Sunday and I was... busy on Saturday.

I hope that you feel better soon.

Thanks.

My depression shows no signs of abating, and it's only been getting worse. Oh well, back to square one it is.

Anyway, in the coming weeks, expect a 2018 round-up somewhere (sometime which is not today when I have the energy to type up a lot of stuff), and some plans for 2019 (nothing major as with my health troubles there will be no massive projects.)

[tarvos]

2018 roundup

The end of the year is drawing closer and it's time to give an overview of what happened to me, language learning-wise, in 2018. As the holidays come closer, I don't expect much to happen (I normally spend Christmas with family and don't usually do language learning over Christmas, and I don't know about New Years' yet, but I assume I will be busy then too), and I can give a summary of 2018.

The truth is that a report on any individual language would be boring, as I haven't one that much with the majority of my languages this year. The beginning of 2018 was fraught with a whole lot of medical issues, mostly related to depression and hormones, and the latter part of the year, with a couple months of happiness in between, were similarly wrecked by medical issues (more by my liver this time, though).

The upshot of all this was that 2018 was planned to be a transition year, in which I focused more on other things than my language skills. I knew already that 2018 would be majorly important on a personal level. Those of you who have met me will have seen the difference, and those of you who meet me next year will see even more of a difference. I am not just saying this concerning the mental aspect, but also physically I just don't look the same. Much better, I daresay. But the downside was that planning to use this as the year to well, endure all these changes, meant that something had to go. Language learning was the victim, as I also spent a significant amount of time on chess, which is another hobby I have, and I also upped my involvement in the local LGBT rights organization. I have been asked to volunteer for them before, but had to decline.

That said, I still did some language learning, and attended two conferences, one in Brno and one in Bratislava. I will return to Brno next year, but do not plan to go to Bratislava (funds are lacking). I especially improved my Czech in the beginning of the year, and the result is that I speak fluent Czech, and have given an interview to Czech radio in Czech.

I have mostly maintained all my other languages by reading and occasionally speaking when I got the chance, or texting and chatting. The only language I have been significantly trying to improve this uear is Icelandic, which I got better at, and recently I have been moving into Japanese.

That said, this year I have, for the first time, read a book in Icelandic, and have started to read books in Chinese as well. I also learned the kana and am improving my Japanese. I also watched quite a bit of Korean and Mandarin TV. As you can see, my focus remains on the Asian languages for the moment. This is the language group I want to get better at. Most European languages belong to families that I am intimately familiar with and can manage somehow. (There are exceptions, but I have basic notions in Finnish and Hungarian I could theoretically expand on if I felt the need, but I don't).

As I still have to figure out how to work calligraphy (I plan to start calligraphy as a calming art form at some point), that may be a plan I will have to elaborate, as I quite like characters and have been improving them this year, especially since the last month has been devoted to reading Chinese and learning Japanese. Korean is the language out of the three that is on the back burner for the moment, but since I have notions of Korean as well it should all even itself out eventually.

I do plan to dabble in some other languages in 2019, but I have no plans to lift another language to fluency that isn't one of the three big Asian ones for the moment. The reason for this is that these languages take enough time on their own, and I want to focus on them first. I would need to cover Hindi, Arabic and Persian as well to get good world coverage, and with those and notions of a lot of other languages I would be all set, I think, as I have the other major languages covered very well (I speak fluent French, Spanish and Russian and also manage well in Portuguese). This is not to say I won't study any smaller languages, because I have opted for Romanian and Swedish and knew them well before I ever focused on Spanish, for example. I might even get them to high levels, who knows, if there is a reason for me to do so. I have also focused on Czech, which also is not the most obvious choice, but is very useful to me.

I have of course dabbled in plenty other languages such as Breton, Shanghainese and others in the past, but I consider this to be dabbling and I have no interest in maintaining these beyond my curiosity. The only language where I would actually say I need to brush up is Hebrew, which I have lost most of. I would probably manage to regain Hebrew very quickly if I had to go back to it, but there's no reason for me to hurry up with Hebrew.

Languages I am considering dabbling in in 2019 are: Armenian, Mongolian, Basque, Kalaallisut and Urdu/Hindi (probably Urdu). This last one is to get acquainted with Arabic script and move into Indian languages at some point in the next decade, but that will not be for a long time and is a project for the long term. I have no plans to use these languages in the immediate future, but learning some of them may come in handy when I plan larger trips away from the Netherlands again in the future when that is possible. One of my goals is to return to Asia for a longer period of time at some point, although on those trips I will not move for months on end like I did last time; my health does not allow it. I am waiting for my transition to finish and completely reintegrate into the workforce for that to happen, though, and when that happens we will probably be in 2025 or thereabouts. Until that time, I will practice the European languages some more, as there are plenty of them for me to use and I have enough of them that some practice in them is always welcome.

Until that time when my reintegration into society is fully complete (and this will take a while, given the fact my depression is horrible still and that I have some more hurdles to jump), I will have to make do with what I have here in the Netherlands and do things from the comfort of my own home. That is just how things are, and my travel experiences abroad will always stay with me as a reminder of my wild twenties, when I decided I had to go and see the world for a bit. I turn thirty next year, and I will not give up travel, but I have had to abandon some of these dreams because of my health and because of my transition. I will work to make these dreams come true still, but I have to accept they are now long-term goals and not at the forefront of my being.

[tarvos]

Still continuing to read in Chinese. I can do this! At some point, I will be able to read quicker than I do now (10 pages or thereabouts per hour is not a lot), but it's like this in languages you are bad at. They take time. And I will improve.