All ChangeLanguage learning has been largely on hold this week, not only because of the avalanche of house-guests we’ve had and the late nights that has involved, but more importantly because I discovered that my contract at work won’t be renewed next year. So I’ve been thinking about (and networking for) the next step instead of language study.
It’s not a huge surprise, for various reasons, and indeed I’m eager to get my teeth into something a bit more challenging.
But it does have a big impact on my language learning. Odds are that in just over a year I won’t be working with Farsi speakers any more, and it means that investing all my free time in learning Farsi probably isn’t a wise life choice.
I’m going to miss some of the people I have worked with here badly.
What next?I’ll reevaluate my targets over the next few weeks. But my initial instinct is to revise this year’s Farsi goal from a solid B1 to a well rounded A2, or rough equivalent - basically, to work on conversation and day-to-day language. I can’t see much need for going deeper on grammar, or for force-feeding myself another thousand or more words by frequency.
I’ll keep listening daily, reading a bit, writing a little, putting key words and phrases in Anki, and perhaps set up some kind of tandem. I will still be able to improve on that sort of regime, without pushing myself really hard.
And meanwhile I’ll work hard on Hebrew, get it to a higher level faster. I can have the pleasure of really investing in Greek - use focused study periods for that instead. I’ve got a few non-language learning projects I’d like to tackle as well.
Once Hebrew is up to decent reading speed, then I can start thinking about either Latin or French.
Hebrew (Week 2 of 6) : Weeks
: Words +26
: Kittel & Hoffer
Biblical Hebrew +0
: Verses read +3
: Time listened + 1.8 hours
This week’s been pretty much a write-off for Hebrew, for the reasons above.
Farsi : Words read +837
: Hours listened +4
I was amazed this week when I understood the first long segment of an NHK world news podcast almost word-for-word - several minutes of connected-high speed speech - without difficulty or effort. Admittedly it’s in a narrow topic I seem to do well at - violent/terrorist attacks. I think they have a tendency to come at the start of NHK episodes, at the expense of other sorts of news, meaning I’ve unfortunately got a much better understanding in this area than others.
And I have found some full-length books that I can import into LingQ and which I actually want to read. I’m really enjoying getting into a proper story. There’s a limit to how much you can enjoy a language on a diet of news stories.
GreekSunday is increasingly my ‘Greek day’. I’m not working on Greek the rest of the time, barring morning reading, and the occasional podcast, so it’s really pleasant to come to Sunday and relax by enjoying a language I can use so much more easily.
This time I read lots of John’s gospel (so easy!), finished the Martydom of Polycarp, and then plunged properly, for the first time, into the Odyssey. The dialect really is very different from the Koine Greek I am used to and the Attic I am finding my way around in. I had planned to keep it for a later, intensive project. But a group at the textkit forum is working their way through book 6 slowly, and it seems a pity not to join in.
It was so much fun. It really is beautiful language. I was only reading 23 lines, but working through them intensively and repeatedly with a reader’s edition and a Loeb diglot, as well as listening several times through them. I tried some proper shadowing for the first time, trying to get used to the rhythm and to pick up the tone accent. It seems helpful - I can’t believe I haven’t tried this before.