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Re: Military historian's corner - EN, HE, ZH, AR, sometimes RU, FR and DE

Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2021 5:12 pm
by eido
My condolences. She was probably a good, strong Polish lady, hmm? That’s unfortunate. I hope she’s doing well in Heaven now. Best of luck to you and your family during this time <3

Re: Military historian's corner - EN, HE, ZH, AR, sometimes RU, FR and DE

Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2021 5:55 pm
by guyome
I'm sorry about your loss, cjareck.

Re: Military historian's corner - EN, HE, ZH, AR, sometimes RU, FR and DE

Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2021 6:04 pm
by MorkTheFiddle
What a sad thing to happen, cjarek. I am so sorry for your loss and please accept my condolences.

Re: Military historian's corner - EN, HE, ZH, AR, sometimes RU, FR and DE

Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2021 7:09 pm
by cjareck
Thank you all for your kind words!

Re: Military historian's corner - EN, HE, ZH, AR, sometimes RU, FR and DE

Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2021 8:01 pm
by Ezra
Oh, that's so sad (about your mother). But good blood tests are indeed the very good news!

Re: Military historian's corner - EN, HE, ZH, AR, sometimes RU, FR and DE

Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2021 8:04 pm
by Radioclare
Very sorry to hear your news too, cjareck. It's impressive that you manage to keep on studying despite everything else going on in life!

Re: Military historian's corner - EN, HE, ZH, AR, sometimes RU, FR and DE

Posted: Thu Feb 11, 2021 4:51 pm
by Dr Mack Rettosy
Condolences for the passing of your mother. And happy to hear you've received encouraging test results.

Re: Military historian's corner - EN, HE, ZH, AR, sometimes RU, FR and DE

Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2021 8:41 am
by cjareck
Thank you very much for the condolences.

Tomorrow I'll have a computer tomography so I am under stress. Since blood results are positive, I hope also for good news from this examination.

During the week I was working on my article about the conquest of the Gaza Strip in 1956. I used Google Translate to speed up the process, but crucial fragments will be cross-examined in Arabic and Hebrew again. I also used them to find the fragments for the machine translation. I decided that I will not include it in my 365 Challenge results since it would be too complicated to measure the time really spend on language learning.

English
On Tuesday I'm going to record myself in English as an "expert" on the battle of Verdun. It will be for some radio broadcasting. My part should be about 3:30 minutes long, so nothing much. I wrote the text in English, have it corrected, and read it by the Pole who was born in UK, so I can mimic his pronunciation. I have to practice it but due to all the stress, I am simply blocked.

Mandarin
My LEP doesn't text me for some time, I have to write to him. Mandarin is paying the price of time shortage. Nevertheless, I'm not at square one. When Dr. Mack Rettosy wrote in Chinese, I understood the first two sentences without a problem :) The rest however was too difficult since I knew only a few of the characters there. Perhaps I will manage to push a little forward this week. Currently, I limited myself only to Anki reviews.

Arabic
I had a second LE with my Iraqi LEP. We practiced Arabic only. I learned some phrases and vocabulary and was trying to describe a picture of a teacher reading a story to the children again. It was quite a nice experience. Next time - scheduled for Tuesday - we will be speaking about the "Little Red Riding Hood". I intend also to discuss one military photo. We'll see how it goes!
The main problem is differentiating between Hebrew and Arabic. I probably shouldn't start speaking Arabic now, but I can't resist the opportunity! And my LEP is very nice and I like him. The LEs give me the opportunity to learn about other culture and mentality. He is Kurdish, not Arabic, but nevertheless, it is important for me. I can understand the behavior of the soldiers on the battlefield and historians' approach. And also, I am just curious ;)

Hebrew
I know, I'm repeating myself, but thanks to the 365 Challenge, Hebrew was my main field of study. Sometimes, however, I had to limit myself only to the minimal 30 minutes. The most important is, that it wasn't a painful task to watch part of the veteran's interview, even if I was very sleepy. My comprehension level is quite good, I can definitely either understand the parts that are interesting to me or at least pick them for consultation with my LE. I've also noticed that reading Hebrew script is easier. I read a dedication in one of my Hebrew books! Earlier it was just unreadable for me.

7th - 32 minutes (14 Anki, 18 podcasts)
8th - 120 minutes (14 Anki, 101 podcasts, 5 adding vocabulary)
9th - 63 minutes (12 Anki, 51 podcasts)
10th - 51 minutes (21 Anki, 3 adding vocabulary, 20 language exchange, 7 reading handwriting)
11th - 38 minutes (17 Anki, 21 podcasts)
12th - 33 minutes (14 Anki,5 interviews, 14 adding vocabulary)
13th - 30 minutes (12 Anki, 18 interviews)

Last week total: 367 minutes (6,11 hours)
February total: 602 minutes (10 hours)
365 Challenge total: 2316 minutes (38,6 hours)

Re: Military historian's corner - EN, HE, ZH, AR, sometimes RU, FR and DE

Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2021 11:07 am
by DaveAgain
cjareck wrote:
English
On Tuesday I'm going to record myself in English as an "expert" on the battle of Verdun. It will be for some radio broadcasting. My part should be about 3:30 minutes long, so nothing much. I wrote the text in English, have it corrected, and read it by the Pole who was born in UK, so I can mimic his pronunciation. I have to practice it but due to all the stress, I am simply blocked.
Breaking into showbiz!

Re: Military historian's corner - EN, HE, ZH, AR, sometimes RU, FR and DE

Posted: Sun Feb 21, 2021 12:02 pm
by cjareck
My daughters continue with Spanish, and I didn't start learning French. I would like, but it is impossible now. Too much work...

English
Well, surely I will not be a star ;) In my opinion, the interview - or rather recording - was a disaster. I was overconfident about my speaking skills, and in effect, I didn't prepare myself well enough. I had a recording of a native speaker reading my text, and I've listened to it many times, but I should shadow it many times to have my accent reduced. Some part of the fault also lies on the part of the radio team. I tried to deal with the stress by small talk, but I've heard, "we will deal with the small talk later. Instead, they told me to relax (which increased the amount of stress) and not sound like reading but like narrating the events. In the meantime, I've heard them talking to themselves, "we have only 10 minutes left", which increased the amount of stress again. I feel like being used as a tool and discarded after usage. But, as I said before, I am aware that I've also contributed a lot to the disaster.
There is also a good side, I've stopped overestimating my English language capabilities ;) I have to find time for English practice and English accent reduction in the future. Probably I will look for a language exchange for that. If only my wife allows it.

Mandarin
I've finished the 32nd lesson of Assimil. Finally! I even listened to it and the previous one, 1.5x and 2.0x times faster, and understood the dialogue. In the first case, the lectors sounded in natural tempo, but quite strange in the second one. I will most probably use this approach with the other lessons.."

Arabic
I couldn't meet my LEP on Tuesday due to three parent-teacher conferences, but we had our LE on Saturday. We spoke about Little Red Riding Hood in Arabic what was more interesting than I thought. Before LE, I've watched the story quite a few times and understood some words or even phrases. Next time we will be talking about the maps of the 1956 and 1967 wars :)
I have to prepare flashcards from all the expressions in our last session.

Hebrew
I had to limit myself to only a little more than the minimum, but I've managed to do that! Hebrew listening has become a habit, and I'm sure to see its results in the future. I will probably return to the 188th Armored Brigade podcast again, but this time also with 1.5x speed. At least for the part that I've prepared flashcards and learned them. This may be an interesting experiment ;)

14th - 31 minutes (11 Anki, 20 veterans)
15th - 35 minutes (14 Anki, 15 podcasts, 6 adding vocabulary)
16th - 36 minutes (14 Anki, 22 veterans)
17th - 30 minutes (12 Anki, 15 veterans, 3 reading a handwritten script)
18th - 36 minutes (4 Anki, 12 veterans, 20 language exchange)
19th - 52 minutes (25 Anki, 27 podcasts)
20th - 36 minutes (14 Anki, 8 adding vocabulary, 14 veterans)

Last week 256 minutes (4,27 hours)
February 858 minutes (14,3 hours)
365 Challenge together 2572 minutes (42,87 hours)