daveprine's language commitments for 2018/2019

[eido]

For me, passable means that I’m able to express myself so elegantly that I can win every argument. So, none of my languages are passable yet.

I don't know about you, Ms. Ugle, but I think it's a matter of personality and will. With my 5,000-word vocabulary in Spanish, I've managed to argue heartily with native speakers. But that's because I argue all the time in English. Even in English I don't argue perfectly, but I'm snappy. I want to be myself in Spanish, so I pull out every tool in the toolbox to sound "eido" and most of the time it works. It's a work-in-progress, though.

From my amateur self to you, I say: keep fighting and use those few words economically, like an author battling a war of philosophy on a page only big enough to discuss the weather. Go at it.

[daveprine]

200 years later......

So I have slowly started carving out a little time here and there to get back into studying languages. Despite COVID and all that, life has remained busy. My job in unaffected, my partner and I work on a new house with a highly-neglected yard (and the usual tasks like balancing our budget, running errands, etc.), and the truth is I happen to have a partner I love spending time with. And the problem with loving languages is that I get great pleasure from studying them, but there's no real consequence if I stop for a length of time and do something else. And I do many something elses. ("somethings else"?)

But now, I've decided to go through a number of resources I hauled cross-country and don't want to necessarily move again when the grant that funds my 3-year contract runs out. Sure, there's a possibility it will get renewed or replaced with an even better one, and I could see myself sticking around a while longer. Heck, 3 years is the blink of an eye, so why hurry off somewhere else just yet?

But there's also speculation of taking a trip to SE Asia one of these days, probably when the grant runs dry. Perfect. So I've started looking at all of my Indonesian resources lately. (Easy language, top of my bucket list.) I started with Pimsleur--done. I can sell it or give it away (at next year's Polyglot Gathering?). I have a number of books (as in phrase, course, and grammar) and a good deal of audio, the Nemo app, a subscription to uTalk, and I only recently remembered Clozemaster. All-in-all, I'm planning to use around 20 different resources. Overkill? You bet.

So far I'm only on about 8 items right now, skimming some, focusing deeper on others. There has been a lot of overlap, but there have been some gaps left by 2 or 3 resources that get filled in nicely by a 4th or 6th resource. I'm learning conversational things that get me speaking, and I'm slowly learning the whys and wherefores ("for what reason" => why. Yeah, "Romeo, Romeo, why are you Romeo?" as in "Why do you have to be who your are because if you were someone else, all this family drama wouldn't be an issue." But I digress) of why things are said a certain way.

And the plan is to add languages slowly from here. 500 words in Indonesian before moving on. Next will be Polish for the Gathering should travel return to normal by then. After 500 words in Polish (and at least another 100 in Indonesian), then it will be something else SE Asian-y. Burmese? Hindi? Thai? Dzongkha? I suppose it depends on what resources I have and/or want to get rid of and what travel potential is at the time. And after 500 words in that, and another 100 in each previous language, I'll move on to the next.

I'm actually excited about this because it means I stick with the languages after the initial goals. That is, I keep learning more Indonesian if I want to learn others. So far, I've picked up a ton, and it's making a lot of sense. Sure, grammatically, it's not hard. But there's still a lot to know about the language. After Polish, I'll probably have to deal with "funky" scripts. That might slow me down (a lot) but it won't stop me. Unless I change course. Or unless something else sounds more fun. (Music? House projects? Watching my cats wrestle each other for treats? All good answers.)

I still occasionally refresh my FIGS plus Esperanto and Hungarian. (GEFISH? SHE-FIG?) I'm working with all of those on Clozemaster, and being a bit more strategic than before. I also watch movies with subtitles, which keeps them passively fresh. (Sounds like I'm selling a weird laundry detergent.) It's always fun to get language in anywhere I can, but I must find balance so I don't tip too much in one direction. [ALL GERMAN ALL THE TIME!!!] And I gotta be realistic about how much I really want to learn. And then 3 days from now, I'll buy a book on Setswana and all bets will be off.

But I'm sure you'll understand.....

[daveprine]

OK, it’s October 1 and I’ve made my primary Indonesian goal: to learn 500 words (including the lessons and grammar that come with all that). Although travel is uncertain (worldwide in general as well as my own uncertainties concerning what I can do next year), I will assume the in-person Polyglot Gathering is still on and that I will be able to attend. This means the next language will in fact be (b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b!) POLISH! (Nice drumroll, eh?)

So the next short-term goal is 500 words in Polish and another 100 in Indonesian (with constant using and refreshing the language). I don’t have as many hard copy Polish resources with me. Teach Yourself, Dummies, a few phrasebooks, maybe an older edition of Colloquial. I have my uTalk subscription and I’ve been using ClozeMaster a lot lately for maintaining my FIGS + Hungarian, Esperanto, and, of course, Indonesian. (I’ve been using it this past week with Polish just to get a taste.) And something always crawls out of the woodwork, like a grammar book or lesson book I inadvertently packed away that I discover. I also have some DVDs with subtitles. The local library has a few resources and my university library back “home” has provided some great digital Indonesian resources, so why not Polish?

(A quick check reveals they have a newer version of Colloquial! And since the audio is free online, I could make decent progress with just this book/audio set!)

A certain rdearman suggested I start doing exchanges to get more experience with speaking and especially listening. Well, who asked him? What does he know?

Actually, it’s a good idea. And out of my comfort zone. So we’ll see how that goes. It’s a battle between feeling like I don’t have the time and asking myself how well do I want to know this stuff. But I refuse to do those Listening-Reading challenges that are supposed to “melt your brain” and all that.

Anyway, I’m trying to update this once every week or so to keep myself honest, reconnect with the community, and remind myself how fun languages are.

So, long term goals for now, in order of attack and with the estimated date:

Indonesian 2500 words (2022-1-1)
Polish 2000 words (2021-5-1)
Hindi 2000 words (2022-1-1)
Thai 2000 words (2022-2-1)
Language 5 1500 words (2022-3-1)
Language 6 1500 words (2022-5-1)

Undecided languages could include Burmese, Urdu, Dzongkha, Mongolian, Balinese and other East Asian languages due to armchair travel plans. They will change as plans get updated (as might Thai and/or Hindi), but once I’ve started it, it stays in rotation. Although the deadline might change.

And the rule is I can’t start a new language until I hit 500 words in the previous and 100 more words in each of the ones before. I’m still figuring out if that’s a good rule or not. Time will tell.

Sampai jumpa! ("See you later!" in Indonesian)

[daveprine]

OK, the first week of Polish is going well. I have what I call the Holy Trinity—Pimsleur, Colloquial, and Teach Yourself. This is usually my ideal starting point. (There are other items I won’t bother overwhelming myself with just yet.) I usually start with Pimsleur to get some vocabulary and speaking skills right off the bat. I’m already up to lesson 6 out of 30. I had done the first 6 lessons over a year ago but stopped when life took over.

As it turns out, lesson 6 is where things got a little harder. Listening to it for the first time this year was a bit overwhelming, so from #6 on, I’ll listen to each lesson twice, most likely in a “telescoping” way. That is, #6 yesterday, #6 review and #7 today, #7 review and #8 tomorrow, etc. That’s worked really well for me in the past.

Note: I had originally (and legally) acquired the 16-lesson set from the library, but didn’t save it. Fortunately I ended up acquiring the 30-lesson set for free, 5 lessons at a time, from Audible when they would perpetually offer me free credits with a trial membership. Might be a north American thing, but worth keeping an eye out for in case you can nab some language resources for free.

I’m also working with Clozemaster’s Polish. Mainly just reviewing the 100 most common words since there’s overlap with what I already know and what’s in the Pimsleur lessons. I like playing detective and finding the words I’m hearing so I can get that visual aspect (and to verify the sounds I think I’m hearing). Things like “good day” and “yes” are instantly findable, but sometimes Pimsleur uses a choice of word that other methods don’t use as much (or at all). (For some reason, there’s a different word for “something” depending on if you’re eating it or drinking it.)

As expected, it was easy to switch gears, but tricky to juggle 2 languages. Indonesian lost a bit of momentum during the drive to refresh all my Polish vocab and skills. So keeping track of my Indonesian on a daily basis, whether or not I actively study it or build upon it, helps keep me honest. And what I truly love about Pimsleur is that I have a really good grasp of what I might have studied in the past. (I still remember many Russian phrases from a Pimsleur course I listened to only once in 1997!) So already the mouth is remembering some Polish from earlier attempts, and the Pimsleur Indonesian still comes out quickly.

rdearman mentioned something earlier this week in his post in Rdearman 2016/17/18/19/20 [If it ain't broke, don't fix it.] (from 2020-10-05)
https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?p=175925#p175925

I was thinking last night that I really wish that I was smart. If I was smarter I would have been able to learn languages in six months to a year like everybody else. Instead, it takes me a long, long time. I realize the reason it takes me so long is I'm not focusing on learning a particular language for a significant amount of time every single day. But that isn't going to change. I was looking at the maths of it all, and thinking that learning had a short half-life. There are half-life mathematical equations. So if you use those equations and plug-in the estimates of forgetting it would seem that I spend a lot of time re-studying material that I've learned but already forgotten.

First of all, you are smart. Don’t go changing.

Second, that’s the trick, innit? Keeping the stuff in the brain for the long haul. I liken it to filling a big pool with a hose on a hot day. If you run the hose at the tiniest trickle, water will go into the pool a drop at a time. It’s something, sure, but chances are the water will evaporate faster than it will fill. There’s a point where the loss equals the gain, so you might have an inch of water in the pool all the time. Increase the flow ever so slightly and you’re filling more than you’re losing. But it could still take a lifetime to fill the pool with enough water to go swimming.

And there are other parallels: maybe you can only turn the hose on once a week; maybe you have to fill multiple pools and can only focus on one every few days; sometimes you have a crappy hose that doesn’t explain the water very well and offers a lot of confusing grammatical terms….OK, parallels only go so far, but I’m sure you get my meaning.

I think about this analogy a lot. As I bounce from language to language and from language to other hobby, my pool levels go up and down a lot. That’s worked before when I only needed temporary language skills, but now I’m more focused than ever to fill some pools and then get pool covers to keep the water from evaporating and leaves and small forest creatures from falling in. But hoping not to discourage the Swedish lingerie supermodels who live next door from having a midnight skinny dip whenever the urge hits them.

(Lord, please let some of them be female. I probably should have had that be part of the original fantasy. Too bad the fantasy request paperwork has already been submitted. Note to self: use more specific wording first-time around!)

Anyway, my point of all this is simply: I want to get to a point where I can get whatever I learn into my long-term memory and maintain it so it doesn’t evaporate. Sure, maybe refreshing once in a while might be necessary, but only a little here and there. This is all very new for me, the “language butterfly” flitting from flowery language to flowery language.


This was supposed to be short (less writing, more study next time!!), so my last comments are simply:
-Polish moving as planned
-Indonesian still being maintained
-Still using Clozemaster for FIGS + Hungarian/Esperanto maintainance (8 “pools” total), but I took last weekend off. Will start watching DVDs with target language audio and subtitles this weekend. Considering language exchanges, but not lots of time for that yet.

So turn up that hose. It doesn’t have to be on high, just enough to make a splash.

Cannonball!!!

[tangleweeds]

Too many LOLs to count
Thanks for the most amusing language long post I've read in a long time, and keep up the good work! As an inveterate wanderluster, I have to content myself with maintaining puddles in a few pools at a time, and feeling satisfied at how they refill faster than they filled the first time 'round.

[daveprine]

I just got back from a 5-month trip traveling around SE Asia and the Indian Subcontinent with my wife. Not only did I try learning whatever I could of the language of every country I went to, but I also spoke numerous languages with travelers from all over the world. I spoke German, French, Dutch, Italian, and Spanish most often. We spent 3 weeks traveling with a German woman, and I spoke so much German with her and other travelers, I went from rusty back to conversant, almost as good as when I lived in Germany for a year. I spoke about 40 languages, picked up a few words in languages I have yet to study, and I even picked up some words and phrases in indigenous languages of Indonesia, India, and elsewhere. Believe me, I was spouting off languages to anyone who would listen. And people listened. It felt amazing. This felt like a culmination of all of my language learning efforts.

Rick Dearman refers to my habit of spitting out languages to anyone who’ll listen as “daving” (pronounced, “daving”). And I never daved as much as I did on this trip. Although to be fair, I’ve never been on a trip this long before. Still, my daily output was as much as, if not more than, any other time in my life (including days during my time in Bratislava when the Polyglot Gatherings took place.) I found myself pulling out everything I could remember in all the languages I ever studied.

But in a way, it felt dirty. I couldn’t remember everything I had learned. I had trouble recalling things I learned in Dutch, Lithuanian, Albanian, and so many other languages. I was definitely going for quantity over quality. I was going for the novelty—the American who knew even a little of another language. And there was truly value in that, if only entertainment value. But my conversations were very limited in some cases. Here are a few examples of the main things I cold recall on the fly in some languages, despite having learned more that I have since forgotten:

Dutch: Good morning. I speak a little Dutch. How goes it with you? Thank you.
Albanian: Excuse me. Goodbye.
Hebrew: Yes. Thank you. Hey….Cool…..
Basque: Hello. Thank you.
Slovak: My name is Dave.
Greek: Good morning. I am afraid. I want to go home. Thank you.

Even my FIGS languages gave me trouble, although my German eventually flowed pretty well. Germans seem to like traveling in SE Asia. My French improved greatly when we met two French-speaking Swiss women, one of whom knew little English. My wife and I did our best to spend an evening speaking as much French as possible to make an effort (and to give the other woman a break from having to translate everything back and forth). It was rough at first, but it got easier as the night went on. And the beers helped.

Anyway, this trip has really made me think about language retention and maintenance. Back in the day, I would cram a language, use it for a trip, and then promptly forget most of it. If I needed it in the future, I would just re-cram by refreshing my notes and resources or reviewing my vocabulary cards. But now I want to be less of a “language butterfly,” as Rick D. calls me. (Actually, I think his term was “linguistic butterfly,” which is a little misleading in this context, but let’s not split hairs.)

Wait, no, that’s wrong. I still want to be the language butterfly. I still want to learn all the languages. I just want to be better at retaining what I’ve learned.

So here’s my plan for 2023: I’m going to maintain my FIGS (plus Indonesian, since I picked up a ton before the trip), and I’m going to focus on 3-7 news languages every 4 weeks. Here’s how it’ll work:

Every 4 weeks, I’ll pick:
-one language I want to and can learn 100 words (25 per week, in theory)
-two languages I want to learn 50 words in each (one language per two week period), and
-four languages I want to learn 25 words in each (one language per week).

Here’s a snapshot of the spreadsheet:

2023.png

The point of this is not just to learn the vocabulary, but also to maintain whatever I learn over time. The language in the first column will most likely be a language I have a decent foundation in, like Hungarian. So I’ll review at least 100 words (which is beyond what I can remember at this moment), and continue to maintain them after the 4-week period.

The languages in the 2nd column will work the same way. These will be languages I have less of a connection with or desire to acquire, or perhaps they’ll be harder overall. So I only commit to 50 words each. The languages in the 3rd column will be languages I might only be able to give a small amount of attention to overall, or maybe they’re languages that are challenging for me (tonal languages, polysynthetic indigenous languages, languages whose resources are hard to get hold of, etc.) . So I learn 25 words of each and maintain those until I have a reason and the ability to give them more of my attention.

The point of this is that I can review all of these languages easily in my spare time, and as I can make time, I will slowly build on what I’ve learned, even if it’s only a handful of vocab at a time. The main point is to create a solid foundation and maintain it regularly.

If all goes according to plan, I will have up to 91 languages added to my maintenance arsenal by the end of the year! (There are 13 4-week periods in the year, and each period allows me up to 7 languages!) Seems excessive, yes? Do you not know me?

Note how I keep saying “up to”? Well, as I thought about this plan, I realized that I might want to learn more of a language and learn fewer languages. (C’mon, 91 is a lot if you think about it. Even I see that.) So I’ve got an extra qualification: If at the end of a week, I have momentum or a desire to continue studying a language in Column C, I can continue the next week, up to a full four weeks. I could study one language for 3 weeks (75 words) and another for the 4th week, or two languages for two weeks each, but I can’t skip around. The weeks for a language must be continuous.

The same applies to a language n Column B. If I’ve learned the required 50 words after 2 weeks, I can continue for another 2 weeks. So I could end up studying only three languages in a 4-week period, each with a foundational vocabulary of 100 words.

I have learned that there’s no “magic” number for vocabulary, and measuring anything by vocabulary cards is not a good way to measure ability. But it’s an easy metric to use for starting out. (My magic number is 1000, by the way. After that, I can easily watch movies with subtitles in the languages and make understand a bit.)

A few rules and guidelines:

Languages studied will be based on what I’ve learned, what will be useful, what I want to study, etc.

No front loading a language before its time slot is allowed. So no studying ahead. The point is to use the time allocated to really give a language attention. Front loading the first languages of 2023 in 2022 was ok, because I haven’t started this project yet. (I refuse to call it a challenge.)

Front loading within a language spot is ok. That is, I’m allowed to learn 50 words the first week. Back loading (i.e. playing catch-up) is verboten.

I’ll take this a 4-week slot at a time. If I need to adjust anything, so be it. This is really only a measure of how well I can pull this off. If I can’t do it well, I’ll revisit this project and see what might be a better fit.

Of course this might be unrealistic. But it's a starting point, and I can adjust at any time. I'm really fired up about this so hopefully I can keep up the momentum!

Wish me luck. Happy new year!

[rdearman]

What I actually called you I am not allowed to type here because of forum rules regarding swearing, but you can use butterfly if you want.

It sounds like a crazy, stupid thing to do. But we love that sort of thing around here! Good luck!

(I didn't know your wife spoke French)

[daveprine]

Day One and Week One of my language project. Here is the language info: The What, Why, and How:

Language 1 (100 words over 4 weeks): HUNGARIAN

Why?
-It’s one of my favorite languages unlike any language I’ve studied. I love how it sounds and all the quirky grammatical features. It was the first language to really show me the unexpected features a language can have.
-I have a good foundation that just needs to be reawakened. I suspect I’ll get my hundred words in the first 10 days if not sooner. I’ll still spend the whole 4 weeks reinforcing it all. That is, after all, the point. However, most of the stuff I learned and made vocab cards for are random phrases that don’t necessarily all fit together cohesively. So I’ve got to incorporate more everyday vocab if I hope to really make it usable.

How?
-Pimsleur (16 lesson CD set)
-An old Assimil book that has typos galore and very sexist sentences (“A man in the kitchen? Isn’t that unusual?” Seriously?). I want to get whatever benefit I can and then burn it.Unless one of you lot wants it.
-Duolingo
-DVDs with Hungarian subtitles. Namely, the first two Star Wars trilogies.

Language 2 (50 words over the next 2 weeks): DUTCH

Why?
-While traveling, I wished I could have recalled more to have better conversations
-I think it’ll be super easy to pick up and retain since it’s similar to German, which I’m refreshing as well. (Hoping I don’t get the two crossed like I do with other related languages.) I suspect I’ll continue it for the next 2-week slot.

How?
-Pimsleur (10 lesson CD set)
-Teach Yourself and Colloquial Dutch
-Duolingo


Language 3 (25 words over the next week): UKRAINIAN

Why?
-While traveling, I wished I could have spoken to traveling Ukrainians in their own language to show a small amount of solidarity
-Pimsleur offered their Level One course for free until the end of 2023 as a way to show solidarity
-This might come in handy in the future if we decide to help house immigrants or volunteer with refugees. (I had started studying Haitian Creole back when Haiti suffered earthquakes and volunteers were needed, although nothing came of that.)

How?
-Pimsleur (30 free online lessons)
-Duolingo


AND MAINTENANCE FOR THE OTHER LANGUAGES:

German: Reading books in German, listening to audio books, using audio and subtitles (DVDs, Amazon, and Disney Plus), reviewing thousands of vocab cards, reading German grammar and linguistic books.

Spanish: Reading books, using audio and subtitles (DVDs, Amazon, and Disney Plus), reviewing vocab cards, reading Spanish grammar and vocabulary books.

French: Studying vocab and lesson books, using some audio but mostly subtitles for familiar movies. I’m very rusty although some slowly came back during my travels.

Italian: Studying and reviewing vocab, listening to audio books (got Harry Potter audiobooks in Italian when I had to burn up some Audible credits).

Indonesian: Review vocab cards, reading grammar books, watching movies with subtitles.

See you in a week!

P.S. I’m also hoping to complete two books a week. I’ll list them as I go—helps keep me motivated. Thanks for the inspiration, Rick Dearman!

[daveprine]

I just finished the first week of 2023 (as I’m sure most of you have as well), and in the spirit of the Forum, I figured I’d share my results and a few updates. It keeps me honest and helps me get back into the community.

Before I share my results, I want to add two notes that I forgot to include in my original post:

-One goal is to only use resources that I already own or can access for free. So I’m trying really hard not to spend money on anything. As I move to other languages, eventually I’ll have to buy something, but for now, I’m doing my best to use (and get rid of) as much as I already have.
-I have a uTalk subscription that allows me access to all of their languages, so I have that at my disposal. I forgot to add that to the original post. I’ve had this for years, so I consider this something I already have.

OK, here’s what we have so far:

Language 1 (4 weeks): Hungarian—I made my goal and then some. I’ve refreshed some of my vocabulary cards in conjunction with the first 10 lessons of Pimsleur’s Hungarian. This helps me re-develop conversational phrases that form an arc (as opposed to other phrases that are set idioms and one-offs, like “Every beginning is hard,” “Seeing is believing,” “The Hungarian language is very beautiful.” OK, that last one can be useful, but none of these phrases are really a response to everyday conversation.) Since I plan to continue Hungarian for 3 more weeks, I’ll finish the other 6 Pimsleur lessons I own, plus Assimil, uTalk, etc. I have some great parallel text books that provide famous quotes and short sentences. I hope to delve into those soon.

Oh, I’ve been using Duolingo’s Hungarian course. It helps supplement my vocabulary review, but the layout and sentences are a bit dull. But it’s easy, and an additional free resource.

Language 2 (2 weeks): Dutch—This went well. I also used a Pimsleur course, Duolingo’s Dutch course, uTalk, and Teach Yourself Dutch. Mostly review, but I’ve got some extra verbs under my belt I never had.

Language 3 (1 week): Ukrainian—This is a bit of a bust since I haven’t really started the Pimsleur course, and my only other main resource is Duolingo, with a little help from uTalk. I can say individual words and a few basic sentences: Where is the cat? The honey is there. Mom and dad are here. Since this provides no usable foundation, I will continue studying Ukrainian another week in order to get some deeper understanding of the language. I suspect I’ll continue this for 2 more weeks after that.

Next time I want to talk about my progress maintaining the core languages. And the Underpants Gnomes.



On an unrelated note: I finished 2 books this week! (This list is for books I finish, even if I started reading it last year, or the year before, or….Although most books I started a long time ago will most likely need to be restarted. Just saying…..

-My No-Waste Kitchen: A $5 book I picked up on a whim. Easy read, getting rid of it!
-The Practice of The Wild: A book a friend loaned me 10 years ago! I read some of it, stored it somewhere, found it, started to read it again when I moved to Oregon, got distracted, finally finished it. Now I can send it back to my friend with a long apology…..

Don’t ever loan me a physical book.

Gotta go keep my Duolingo streak!

[Caromarlyse]

There definitely needs to be a proverb along the lines of "A lent book is never returned" because it is a universal truth.