Hi, Gang!
OK, so I’m almost through Week 4 of my attempt at language building/reinforcing/learning. I was writing a post for Week 3’s progress and then wrote a few half-drafts but never posted. But the long and short of it is that I accomplished Week 4’s goals of 100 words in each language before Week 3 ended, so I’ve been using this last week to really solidify what I picked up and continued learning what I could make time for. So, as far as I’m concerned, this first 4-week session was a success.
A long time ago, I made a point to learn 1000 Navajo words in a year, which I did. But the follow-up question was “So what?” I didn’t do anything with any of it. So I ask myself the same question. Why am I doing this?
Actually, I have 2 answers. The first is “I don’t know.” Will I continue to learn more of these languages to use them practically? Or will I just have this smattering of vocabulary and sentence patterns to spit out at the next opportunity?”
The other answer is: “I now have a smattering of vocabulary and sentence patterns to spit out at the next opportunity—as long as I continue to maintain it on a regular basis.”
I go back and forth between the two. We’ll see how this goes.
So now I’m going to start the next round of languages. Somehow I’ll magically do that and continue with the first three. I already have a plan for finishing Hungarian, Dutch, and Ukrainian in Duolingo by the end of the year. Again, I’m an Underpants Gnome on this.
My Hungarian was mostly stuff I had already learned years ago. Most is familiar and it’s all coming back quite well. Again, the trick is not to ever lose it, so let’s see how successful I’ll be at making it stick. I paused with Duolingo because the last lesson used a lot of professions, which I didn’t find useful. I’ll come back to it eventually. I finished the Pimsleur course I have.
I knew very little in Dutch, so most of my accomplishment consisted of new material. Sentences are easy to put together, vocabulary is easy to memorize, and the vocab and grammar are easy to pick up due to being similar to German. Duolingo is actually proving to be useful with providing vocab and sentence patterns is a way that’s becoming less annoying and redundant. Coupled with the Pimsleur course I have, it’s flowing nicely. I hope to finish that this weekend.
Ukrainian is starting to sink in. I’m only up to lesson 8 for the Pimsleur course I have. It’s starting to go a little fast and the two Native speakers have different pronunciation, so that’s a pain. Duolingo doesn’t give grammar explanations anymore and their vocabulary is still bland and random (“My business is honey and milk.” Ugh). But knowing Russian has helped me absorb the material. I’ve got a Teach Yourself Ukrainian I need to look at to get to the next stage.
And then start a whole new set of languages. Still deciding, but I think I’ll shoot for Brazilian Portuguese (hating the idea of another Romance language, but part of why I’m doing this is to reinforce what I used to know), Albanian (why not?), and Plains Cree.
Plains Cree is a language I knew a little bit of (I contributed very basic children’s stories to be translated into Cree a long time ago as part of an attempt to get involved with languages of Canada. These stories were translated into various languages, including Cree, although I don’t think the Cree versions are available anymore.*) Plus, now that I’m keeping an eye out for jobs in Canada, knowing some looks good on a resume.
So here’s what my first 4 weeks looked like:
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And here is what the next 4 weeks will start to look like:
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You made it this far? You must like ramblings. I just got an email from Lindsay Does Languages. She has a podcast and one episode focuses on learning multiple languages simultaneously. I skimmed it, will return to it later:
https://www.lindsaydoeslanguages.com/ho ... languages/*I just found out while writing this that my stories have been translated into Ukrainian (as well as Mandarin and Cantonese and a native language in Mexico)! Go figure!
https://indigenousstorybooks.ca/stories/uk/0021/
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