Not all those who wander are lost

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cjareck
Brown Belt
Posts: 1047
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Location: Poland
Languages: Polish (N) English, German, Russian(B1?) French (B1?), Hebrew(B1?), Arabic(A2?), Mandarin (HSK 2)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=8589
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Re: Not all those who wander are lost

Postby cjareck » Thu Aug 08, 2019 8:03 pm

sfuqua wrote: Her father was an American physician with the US Army who helped liberate Auschwitz.

Something is probably incorrect here. Auschwitz was liberated by the Red Army. Perhaps he was there as a member of some commission to examine this German death camp?
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Listening: 1+ (83% content, 90% linguistic)
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MSA DLI : 30 / 141ESKK : 18 / 40


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Lawyer&Mom
Blue Belt
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Languages: English (N), German (B2), French (B1)
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Re: Not all those who wander are lost

Postby Lawyer&Mom » Thu Aug 08, 2019 9:26 pm

I agree it’s important to make the distinction between which languages are interesting and which languages meet my current needs (consuming media at home after the kids are asleep.)

Dumped Russian because although the language itself was interesting, I wasn’t really interested in Russian books enough to justify the work it would take to read them. (I visited the ample Russian section of my library. Did not spark joy.)

Dumped Norwegian, which is fairly transparent and fun, because Norwegian books are both insanely expensive and difficult to acquire.

Have avoided Irish, which is so tempting, because it would be a lot of work for just one soap opera and not a lot to read. Maybe someday.

Have stuck with French because it’s easy enough and very easy to obtain. Practical!
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Grammaire progressive du français -
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Teango
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Re: Not all those who wander are lost

Postby Teango » Thu Aug 08, 2019 9:37 pm

Lawyer&Mom wrote:I visited the ample Russian section of my library. Did not spark joy.

Did you search by category, not location? ;)
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Lawyer&Mom
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Re: Not all those who wander are lost

Postby Lawyer&Mom » Thu Aug 08, 2019 10:38 pm

Teango wrote:
Lawyer&Mom wrote:I visited the ample Russian section of my library. Did not spark joy.

Did you search by category, not location? ;)


Worse, it was the kids section.

(Apparently I’m a very picky wicked witch.)
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Grammaire progressive du français -
niveau debutant
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sfuqua
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1642
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 5:05 am
Location: san jose, california
Languages: Bad English: native
Samoan: speak, but rusty
Tagalog: imperfect, but use all the time
Spanish: read
French: read some
Japanese: beginner, obsessively studying
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9248
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Re: Not all those who wander are lost

Postby sfuqua » Thu Aug 29, 2019 4:01 pm

Of course you're correct about Auschwitz.
I misspoke, he was there shortly after the war.
I'm sorry about the confusion.
Last edited by sfuqua on Fri Aug 30, 2019 8:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
2 x
荒海や佐渡によこたふ天の川

the rough sea / stretching out towards Sado / the Milky Way
Basho[1689]

Sometimes Japanese is just too much...

User avatar
sfuqua
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1642
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 5:05 am
Location: san jose, california
Languages: Bad English: native
Samoan: speak, but rusty
Tagalog: imperfect, but use all the time
Spanish: read
French: read some
Japanese: beginner, obsessively studying
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9248
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Re: Not all those who wander are lost

Postby sfuqua » Fri Aug 30, 2019 3:33 am

I have found myself more and more attracted to Portuguese. I tried to do Spanish, French, and Portuguese at the same time, and wasn't getting anywhere. I got up to lesson 50 in Assimil Brazilian, and started to feel that I wasn't learning much. I tried reading novels in all three languages, and didn't have enough time to get anywhere in any language. I kept thinking that the mature thing to do would be to drop Portuguese, since I'm further ahead in French, by far, and therefore closer to getting to the independent, painless reading point. But that didn't feel right. I hope I'm not holding the awful trip we made to Paris two summers ago against a whole culture, but daydreams of French involve hot as hell open air cafes and nightmares of drunken riots by immigrants around our hotel. Daydreams in Spanish involve, well that whole world south of the United States border, and all those happy, polite young people partying in Dublin, Ireland in the summer. Daydreams in Portuguese are vague, of course, since I'm a beginner but they involve the girl from Ipanema, tropical drinks, or big glasses of port from fine dusty bottles.

Anyway, it occurred to me that I am not being paid to keep studying French right now. I decided to keep studying my beloved Spanish, which just means reading and watching, and keep studying Portuguese, which means trying to support myself from where I am up to the 9000-10000 word level where I can just read and listen.

I did another one of my "silly vocabulary tests" to see where I am. The "silly vocabulary test means, find a frenquncy list with 20000 lemmas in it, and sample 50 at random to see how many I know. From this, figure out an unofficial guess about how many words I "know" in the language. This is a very crude measure, but it may be better than nothing.

I came out with 9000 lemmas in Spanish, a little lower than I was at a couple of years ago. I haven't done that much in Spanish the last two years, so I'm a little down from the 10000 I got back when I was a Spanish specialist. My French came in at 4800, which seems about right, frustratingly close, but not really there. Portuguese was at 2800, which probably is mostly cognates.

I've tried Listening-Reading for the last couple of days with Portuguese and Spanish, reading L1 while listening to L2, and the results with Portuguese seem very encouraging. After two time through doing RL1 and LL2, I can just listen to the Portuguese and read in the Portuguese and understand, maybe, 90%. While I would not recognize many of the words outside of the familiar context of the novel I'm reading, I do know them in context.

One of the big insights I had during my first "breakthrough" Into Spanish was the fact that word go through many stages of understanding before they are "mastered".
5 x
荒海や佐渡によこたふ天の川

the rough sea / stretching out towards Sado / the Milky Way
Basho[1689]

Sometimes Japanese is just too much...

User avatar
sfuqua
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1642
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 5:05 am
Location: san jose, california
Languages: Bad English: native
Samoan: speak, but rusty
Tagalog: imperfect, but use all the time
Spanish: read
French: read some
Japanese: beginner, obsessively studying
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9248
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Re: Not all those who wander are lost

Postby sfuqua » Fri Aug 30, 2019 4:52 pm

I realize that not everybody who reads this post may be familiar with the different techniques we use here, so let me add a few details. Remember that I have given up on being efficient or getting to some level of ability by a certain date; I'm just having fun.

I plan to adjust my schedule and techniques regularly as I move forward (until I drift off to some other language :D ).

Each day I walk about 45 minutes and I listen to a tts voice reading a novel in Portuguese. I also listen all the time that I am alone in the car. I vary the tts voice every day, European Portuguese one day and American (Brazillian) the next. Right now my comprehension is abysmal, maybe 15%. This is more of a way to get to know the sound of the language, and also to see how I am progressing. I know that some people hate tts voices, but they are very convenient.

During my dedicated language time, I listen to Portuguese and read along with either the book in English or the book in Portuguese. I'm covering the same chapter for 4 days and then moving forward. My current approach is:
I have the same book in Spanish and Portuguese.
Day 1. Read English, Listen European Portuguese 30 minutes
Read English, Listen European Spanish 30 minutes
Day 2. Read English, Listen Brazillian Portuguese 30 minutes
Reafter d English Listen American Spanish 30 minutes
Day 3 Read Portuguese, Listen European Portuguese 30 minutes
Read Spanish, Listen European Spanish 30 minutes
Day 4 Read Portuguese, Listen Brazillian Portuguese 30 minutes
Read Spanish, Listen American Spanish 30 minutes
I plan to double the time on weekends or holidays.
Reading the same book in Spanish increases the familiarity for when I read the Portuguese. I may look for a harder Spanish book than the translated one I'm working on, if I can find a Portuguese translation from Spanish... The current book I can understand in Spanish either reading or listening without the extra support of L-R.
After a few hundred or few thousand pages I plan to add shadowing to the mix.

*added a word
3 x
荒海や佐渡によこたふ天の川

the rough sea / stretching out towards Sado / the Milky Way
Basho[1689]

Sometimes Japanese is just too much...

User avatar
sfuqua
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1642
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 5:05 am
Location: san jose, california
Languages: Bad English: native
Samoan: speak, but rusty
Tagalog: imperfect, but use all the time
Spanish: read
French: read some
Japanese: beginner, obsessively studying
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9248
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Re: Not all those who wander are lost

Postby sfuqua » Tue Sep 03, 2019 4:45 pm

That last post looked way more organized than I really am. I think I'm going to try different types of L-R until I get up to 10000 minutes of L-R in both Spanish and Portuguese, and then maybe just shift to reading and listening to shows.

Of course I really don't need to do L-R for regular Spanish novels.
I recently started _El otono del patriarca_ and this book is enough of a beast in Spanish that LL2-RL1 helps a lot.

I'm happy to be back reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I may try some Roberto Bolano also, if I get bored with GGM.
1 x
荒海や佐渡によこたふ天の川

the rough sea / stretching out towards Sado / the Milky Way
Basho[1689]

Sometimes Japanese is just too much...

User avatar
sfuqua
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1642
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 5:05 am
Location: san jose, california
Languages: Bad English: native
Samoan: speak, but rusty
Tagalog: imperfect, but use all the time
Spanish: read
French: read some
Japanese: beginner, obsessively studying
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9248
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Re: Not all those who wander are lost

Postby sfuqua » Tue Sep 03, 2019 4:50 pm

While switching between European and American Spanish pronunciation never seemed to be that much of a challenge, except for Cuban Spanish and a few other dialects, the different versions of Portuguese still throw me completely for the first few minutes. I'm hoping I can figure out some simple phonological processes that explain much of the differences, but I'm not there yet...
1 x
荒海や佐渡によこたふ天の川

the rough sea / stretching out towards Sado / the Milky Way
Basho[1689]

Sometimes Japanese is just too much...

User avatar
sfuqua
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1642
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 5:05 am
Location: san jose, california
Languages: Bad English: native
Samoan: speak, but rusty
Tagalog: imperfect, but use all the time
Spanish: read
French: read some
Japanese: beginner, obsessively studying
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9248
x 6299

Re: Not all those who wander are lost

Postby sfuqua » Thu Sep 05, 2019 2:57 am

_Otoño_ may be just too hard for me in Portuguese. I just keep getting lost.
I'm sort of shocked at how well I can follow it in Spanish...
I tried Harry Potter for a day, and conclude once again that it was just too cute for me. Likewise, the Hobbit, although I enjoyed it a lot when I read it to my daughter a few years ago.

I can follow Portuguese pretty well with some material, just reading and listening in Portuguese, as long as it is very simple. Finding material like this has proven difficult. I will try my old standby of translated Bernard Cornwell books next.

One thing I am going to try is just listening reading everything one time, and hoping that something sticks.

At this rate I may go back to Assimil. I'm always getting ahead of myself...

Of course, I'm whining like this, but it seems to me that Listening-Reading is actually working pretty well for the small amount of time I'm spending on each language, 30 minutes a day.
0 x
荒海や佐渡によこたふ天の川

the rough sea / stretching out towards Sado / the Milky Way
Basho[1689]

Sometimes Japanese is just too much...


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