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Re: SKYNET goes online! World domination log.

Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2019 6:46 pm
by Skynet
addylad wrote:You mentioned 40 hours of DLI German. At what rate are you planning to cover the material?


German:
Day 74 of Assimil GWOT, GWE & NGWE. I have never, ever done any course for this long. I am astonished that I have been able to maintain this steady pace of the same books for more than 10 weeks. That having been said, I am getting very bored and sense that I am experiencing the infamous 'Assimil burnout.' To remedy this, I shall be taking a break from Assimil Cubed on day 77 to start my German DLI 30 Day Challenge which is now being joined by Linguaphone 3rd gen German (1990). The LP course will be modified to focus on my oral production skills (read: reading aloud and shadowing). I have also been using the free content on the "News in Slow German" application, and I must say that I have been learning a tremendous amount of vocabulary. I must say that it I find it very challenging, but that is expected for someone who has been working on German for only 10 weeks. It was not so long ago that I found RFI News in Slow French insurmountable either, so I am not dispirited.

Plan:
a) 3 hours of DLI German Basic a day (I discovered from DLI French Basic that 1hr of DLI audio corresponds to 2 hrs of real-world
studying, so will use that as my base case studying time.)
b) 1/2 an hour of LP (1990), which will give me enough time to go through each chapter at least thrice. Well, that backfired spectacularly! I never did find the time to look at LP (1990) and doubt that I ever will!

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French:
Completed: CLE Vocabulaire PdF ( 250 L, Ava.) and CLE Comprehension Orale 2 (50 L, Int). The latter is simply amazing and has improved my listening!
Continuing: CLE Grammaire PdF (400 L, Ava.) and CLE Orthographe PdF (405 L, Ava.) I have always been a grammar pedant, so I am really enjoying these books. REALLY!
Started: CLE Comprehension Orale 3 (50 L, Int), CLE Grammaire en Dialogues (32 chapters - very disappointing course thus far!) and CLE Communication PdF (365 L, Int.)

Since my DELF B2 is two months away, I am not sacrificing any CLE course for my FSI French Basic output challenge, but will have to slow the CLE regimen demonstrably. The course's ~80 hours of audio will require me to spend ~3 hours a day. I cannot talk for that long, and will break it into two sessions: one during lunch (1 hour) and another after supper (2 hours). The last of my distractions friends left the island for continental Europe this morning, so I will not be getting, "Hey, let's be spontaneous and go to XYZ" notifications for a while.

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Random Ruminations
I suppose that you wonder how I do this when I am doing a double-master's program, am preparing for several professional financial certificates, have a job as a researcher, have a vibrant social life, am very involved in church activities and keep physically fit? I keep a very strict timetable that I adhere to obsessively, and have also made a small sacrifice with my academics. Don't panic, I am not failing or anything, but I think that getting 90% for exams and getting language skills that will open even more opportunities is much better than getting 100% and remaining bilingual. Of course, this won't be the case when I renew my IELTS next year. I have also been visiting the forum FAR less than I did in the past, which is a huge saving of time.

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Vanquishing the old demon of wanderlust:
I have had to really fight off my Spanish and Dutch curiosities! Fortunately, I was able to muster the will power to return the Assimil Spanish Without Toil and Dutch Without Toil contraband to Melkor's basement.

EDIT: Updated my post to indicate that I did not manage to go through the Linguaphone German (1990) course during my German challenge, and most likely never will!

Re: SKYNET goes online! World domination log.

Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2019 10:10 pm
by PeterMollenburg
Quite simply - always an inspiration, you are a machine! Keep up the awesome work Skynet!

Re: SKYNET goes online! World domination log.

Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2019 10:56 pm
by SGP
PeterMollenburg wrote:Quite simply - always an inspiration, you are a machine! Keep up the awesome work Skynet!
Anybody tell me how "that machine" manages to do all those things?
Edit: that wasn't a rhetorical question.

SKYNET's Central Core Destroyed, becomes Cro-Magnon Man. World devolution log!

Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2019 10:22 pm
by Skynet
The good, the bad and the ugly...

The good
Exams are over, I have my results and have graded all of my students' papers. The winter recess started on Thursday, and I am now a relatively free man, although I still have to go to work every day.

My 30 Day Language Challenge is going well. I certainly did not expect to struggle with FSI French Basic given the amount of time that I have invested in my French. I do; however, expect to struggle with DLI German Basic. Only time will tell how far Assimil Cubed took me in 77 days.

On Saturday I was introduced to Christian aid workers who are helping former-Muslim converts to Christianity and Yazidis, who had been oppressed by ISIS, process their refugee claims to the EU, Canada, US, N. Zealand, Australia and the UK. The vast majority were Iranians, Iraqis, Syrians, Pakistanis and Yemenis. Being the ultra-curious person that I am, my first port of call was the Yazidi encampment. Through the interpreter, I was able to start a discussion on how they had survived ISIS and the welfare of their families left behind in refugee cams. I also maneuvered the conversation so that I could ask about Tause Melek (the peacock angel), but was disappointed to find that I knew more about him than they did. What really impressed me was how friendly they were. I have to admit that I thought that members of an ultra-endogamous ethno-religious group would be unfriendly, but found myself welcomed. Yes, there was a man - who I assumed was the leader - who was engaging in alpha-male posturing and kept growling at the rest in Kurmanji, but everyone* was very friendly (and probably more curious about me, than I was about them). I did notice that they did eschew many of my questions, which is perfectly understandable as someone whose questions cannot be kept up with.

After conversing with the Yazidis, I went to chat with the Iranians. I do not know what causes it, but Iranians + Skynet = guaranteed phenomenal encounter. This has been the case with the hundreds of Iranians that I have met. After the usual exercise in self-deprecation known as taarof and my favourite game - identify this Iranian's city of origin based on their Farsi accent - we conversed. (To be honest, they spoke, and I listened and asked questions and sought interpretation from a German-speaking Iranian lady (more on her in another post)). I was deeply saddened to hear what they had gone through: many had been threatened with execution and imprisonment, whilst all had been ostracised by their families. After playing several hands of Iranian whist (hokm) and pasur, I bid them farewell and went home.

The bad
The idea of learning Persian has been metastisising in my mind since Saturday. :oops:

The ugly
My external hard drive, on which I had saved all the courses that I had digitised from my summer hoarding spree in Turkey, failed and has left me in the linguistic Lower Paleolithic period. :cry: :o :( :shock: :? The man from the library who helped me digitise the books left for the winter break too... so it looks like I am being forced to dive into native materials and refrain from certain digressions (read: Persian). Fortunately, I can re-download DLI and FSI...so at least I can continue with my challenge... as Cro-Magnon Man.

Re: SKYNET's Central Core Destroyed, becomes Cro-Magnon Man. World devolution log!

Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2019 2:26 am
by reineke
Try Reptilicus. Or you could call it a stroke of luck.

Re: SKYNET's Central Core Destroyed, becomes Cro-Magnon Man. World devolution log!

Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2019 1:43 pm
by Melkor
reineke wrote:Try Reptilicus. Or you could call it a stroke of luck.

Reptilicus, or as I call him, "Dutch Godzilla." :lol: I have to agree with the Fox here: you're now being forced to really concentrate on native content until you recover from your John Connor moment.

Og, the Cro-Magnon Man wrote:The bad
The idea of learning Persian has been metastisising in my mind since Saturday. :oops:

This is why you will never get access to your course books in my basement. Consider yourself officially thrown out with the bathwater.

Re: SKYNET's Central Core Destroyed, becomes Cro-Magnon Man. World devolution log!

Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2019 2:28 pm
by SGP
Melkor wrote:
reineke wrote:Try Reptilicus. Or you could call it a stroke of luck.

Reptilicus, or as I call him, "Dutch Godzilla." :lol: I have to agree with the Fox here: you're now being forced to really concentrate on native content until you recover from your John Connor moment.

Og, the Cro-Magnon Man wrote:The bad
The idea of learning Persian has been metastisising in my mind since Saturday. :oops:

This is why you will never get access to your course books in my basement. Consider yourself officially thrown out with the bathwater.
Wow... now... I was revisiting the log of Skynet colega², but ... I don't seem to grasp a single thing, speaking of the current Guest Post (that contains a quote as well), y'know. :lol: First off, the log was renamed. But since jokes aren't usually explained, maybe it wouldn't be clarified. Side-note: There also are Serious Jokes of course, and his title may belong to that category.
But as for your post, Melkor... I really don't seem to understand too many things. Maybe this is sort of an Inside But Still Public World Domination Attempt Speech where the Style Element of Hiding Something in Plain Sight is being brought up as well? And one more thing Skynet, I'd still like to know how "that machine" (as someone called you) is able to do these things, like advancing so and so much with languages. As I told ya (in this thread), that wasn't a rhetorical question even.

Re: SKYNET's Central Core Destroyed, becomes Cro-Magnon Man. World devolution log!

Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2019 11:34 pm
by Skynet
SGP wrote:
Melkor wrote:
reineke wrote:Try Reptilicus. Or you could call it a stroke of luck.

Reptilicus, or as I call him, "Dutch Godzilla." :lol: I have to agree with the Fox here: you're now being forced to really concentrate on native content until you recover from your John Connor moment.

Og, the Cro-Magnon Man wrote:The bad
The idea of learning Persian has been metastisising in my mind since Saturday. :oops:

This is why you will never get access to your course books in my basement. Consider yourself officially thrown out with the bathwater.
Wow... now... I was revisiting the log of Skynet colega², but ... I don't seem to grasp a single thing, speaking of the current Guest Post (that contains a quote as well), y'know. :lol: First off, the log was renamed. But since jokes aren't usually explained, maybe it wouldn't be clarified. Side-note: There also are Serious Jokes of course, and his title may belong to that category.
But as for your post, Melkor... I really don't seem to understand too many things. Maybe this is sort of an Inside But Still Public World Domination Attempt Speech where the Style Element of Hiding Something in Plain Sight is being brought up as well? And one more thing Skynet, I'd still like to know how "that machine" (as someone called you) is able to do these things, like advancing so and so much with languages. As I told ya (in this thread), that wasn't a rhetorical question even.


I had no idea who/what Reptilicus was before Melkor's seemingly self-explanatory response: a giant reptilian monster that has a penchant for devastating (Dutch?) cities. Traditionally, Godzilla was a purely Japanese problem, until Hollywood made him a trans-continental threat. I am not a comic book fan, so I am really out of my depth on this one.

I am a huge fan of science-fiction (think Asimov, Clarke, Zindell, Hamilton and to a lesser extent, Crichton) and have a predilection for cyberpunk (AI overruns humans). Melkor, on the other hand, prefers high fantasy (think Tolkien, Eddings, Gemmell, Cooper and to a lesser extent, Prachett). I have read every single book written by these authors except Prachett's 'The Shepherd's Crown' which was released posthumously. His humour is really impressive... similar to that of William (Bill) Bryson. If you ever want sci-fi and high fantasy recommendations, I can give you plenty.

Please do not be surprised for not 'getting it.' I would experience the exact same thing if two friends made references to characters from authors I had never read like Danielle Steel or Sue Grafton.

Read about SKYNET here. I renamed my log because my hard drive (central core) failed and I have subsequently retrogressed technologically (Cro-Magnon Man).

I really do not find my so-called achievements impressive. I was inspired by my Czech sister, Cavesa, who balanced medicine and several languages for years. I just organise my time every day and make sure that I keep a perfect church-health-rest-school-social-exercise-work-language balance. 24 hrs are more than enough to do everything that one needs. One only has to be organised, determined and consistent.

Re: SKYNET's Central Core Destroyed, becomes Cro-Magnon Man. World devolution log!

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2019 12:27 am
by PeterMollenburg
Skynet wrote:24 hrs are more than enough to do everything that one needs. One only has to be organised, determined and consistent.


If you go on to marry and have children, and continue to work, be social, study (languages or other) and attend church, then you might find that 24 hours is not enough! ;)

SKYNET's Central Core Destroyed, becomes Cro-Magnon Man. World devolution log!

Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2019 4:56 pm
by Skynet
I am keeping this short (by my standards) because I am phenomenally busy.

DAY 10 of 30 DAY OUTPUT CHALLENGE

After experiencing a John Connor moment last week, I have realised that it has become very easy to focus on just the FSI French Basic and DLI German Basic courses. It is impossible to get distracted when there is nothing to distract.

FSI French Basic:
Having completed the DLI French Basic last summer, I must say that DLI's grammar explanations are better than those of FSI. Whilst I certainly have not come across a new concept that I have needed grammar notes, I have come across verbs that I have never seen, and can easily avoid. Fortunately, these verbs are typically of the -er ilk, like décrocher (to pick up the receiver). I did; however, experience exceptions like palir (to become pale), whose meaning I was able to guess. (Argh! The benefits of English cognates!) Unit 9 (yesterday) was a great refresher in avoir-based past participles. Unit 10 (today) was on 'the office' - I learnt about shorthand (la steno), irregular comparative/superlatives (le, worse = plus mauvais = pire and the worst = le plus mauvais = le pire) and revised etre-based past participles. Since I know >99% of what I am reading/saying, I hope that I can maintain this pace right to the end of Vol. 2. (Hindsight being 20-20, I should have just started with Vol. 2)

DLI German Basic:
I am still new to German and have been at it for ~12 weeks, so I have not been finding this course as easy as FSI French Basic. The explanations are extremely detailed (Assimil, what happened???) and have answered long-standing questions about neuter nouns within nominative and accusative sentences. I am about to start ch. 30 (An excursion to the Rhine), but must confess that I am not attempting to grasp every single thing because I embarked on this challenge for output (ie, speaking). I think that I can keep up this pace for now, but things are going to get grizzly soon.