Purangi's Log

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Christi
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Languages: Dutch (N), English (C1), German (B1), Korean (high A2-low B1?)
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Re: Purangi's Log (한국어)

Postby Christi » Sat Apr 04, 2020 8:47 pm

Purangi wrote:
Certainly. I have a special gift with trolls.
난 트롤들이라는 특별한 선물을 받았지

Of course, the advantage of reading with a parallel English text is that I don't need to look up every word. It also makes it easier to spot such mistakes.


Haha, that sounds very English! I have the 2014 version. So far I haven't noticed anything weird, but I'm only on page 18. And I don't think I'll notice anything's off unless it's a really literal translation (like your example).
But so far I really like reading it. Much more interesting than the other children's books I've read and it seems to have a lot of useful vocabulary.
2 x
2020 resolution words learned: 472 / 1000
Pages read at end of 2020: 220 / 1500

Purangi
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Languages: French, English, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish
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Re: Purangi's Log (한국어)

Postby Purangi » Sun Apr 26, 2020 12:33 am

According to the Pareto Principle, 80% of outcomes result from just 20% of causes. Meaning 20% of what I do on a daily basis to learn languages is actually productive, while 80% just feels productive.

I think this might be true, at least for me. So much of what I do in feels time consuming and low-efficiency, but also fun. A smaller part of what I do feels actually really helpful – but those things are also the most energy draining.

As of now, I have learned five “islands” in Korean verbatim. The sixth one is on the way. I am now half-way toward my goal of having 10 “islands” down. This feels helpful. This is definitely part of the 20%. I know this because both my comprehension and my production skills have significantly improved after I started this project. But is also draining in terms of energy. At first I was able to recite all of the islands in one day. Then I had to separate and mix them, because of lack of time and motivation. I have now come up with a routine where I review at least 3 islands per day. More often then than not, the first thing I do in the morning while I am still lying in bed is to recite one of the islands.

I also learn around 20 new words per day. I create flashcards to review them later. If it’s a verb, I try to conjugate it in the most common forms. This also feels useful, but in a less practical way. In the long term, I need to build up exposure to as many new words as possible and flashcards are by far the easiest way to achieve that.

I also review verb conjugation. Just today, I was watching a drama and I encountered 2 verbs used in ways that I would not have recognized otherwise: 잊고 and 싫네요. I know both verbs very well in the infinitive, present and past forms. But if I had not made the deliberate effort to review the entire verb conjugation, no way on Earth I would have been able to catch these two forms. So that’s also useful.

And then, there’s the 80%. I finally reached a stage in Korean when I can start to listen to and enjoy native materials. Reality TV shows are still too hard, but dramas are right at my level. And so I have been binging on stuff like 나쁜사랑, 하이바이, 마마 and 한 번 다녀왔습니다. I mostly watch on this website, where Mandarin subtitles are provided. I can follow along easily and understand most the shorter dialogues, but far from everything.

I watched about 65 hours over the last weeks or so, since the start of the quarantine measures. That’s a lot. Does it feel useful? Yes and no. Yes, because it’s an easy, pleasant, relaxing and low-effort way to review and learn new words, train my listening and get used to different voices. I can feel a certain synergy happening: I learn new words from flashcards and new verb forms, and then I will see them popping up in the drama here and there. When that happens, it really feels worth it. On the other side: No, because I could have used that time to finish the five “islands” missing for my project. If I had done that, would I be more competent in Korean? Or would I be so mentally and physically exhausted that I would end up burning out?

I have been doing other stuff also – reading while listening on Naver, reading some short stories here and there, doing some Iyagis from TTMIK. Definitely part of the 80%.

I always thought the 80-20 rules was a normative stance to push us to do more on the 20%, and less on the 80%. But come to think of it, maybe it’s just an objective description of reality. Maybe we need the 80% in order to achieve the 20%? The important thing is to never compromise on the 20%.

When I am not immersing in Korean, I am enjoying Portuguese, mostly through Projeto Humanos. High quality recording, intelligent and articulated host and guests, interesting and well-researched topics, and perfect transcription for most of the episodes – what could you possibly ask more? I wish every language had this kind of resources. It's interesting that both Projeto Humanos and Radio Ambulante are directly inspired by This American Life, which I have never listened to. All in all I listened to about 20 hours of materials, but I will need much more than that to build up my listening skills. If I read the transcript while listening, I think I can understand upwards of 95%. Without my eyes on the transcript, I can still follow along, but a lot of what is said is lost.

I also did a lot of listening in Russian, mostly podcasts (about 12 hours). Radio Free Europe has a (new?) radio show 2 times per week in which they read online comments from social networks, including jokes and sarcastic reactions, both pro-government and opposition-friendly. Most of the last episodes have been on the pandemic and the measures taken in Moscow “to flatten the curve”. It’s both informative and hilarious. I enjoy RFE/RL not so much because of the critical content, but because of their very high audio quality. It sounds much clearer than Ekho Moskvy and other amateur podcasts available.

Mandarin is part of my life here. I stay as far away from state media as possible, but I do read some of the most popular blogs on WeChat on a daily basis to get the pulse of the national conversation. Every time, it both fascinates me and deeply scares me. How did we get here is beyond me. Most of the expat community around me either left or is on the way out. I do not see any kind of future for me in the PRC and I wonder how's that going to affect my Mandarin. Most likely for the worse, unless I can find another avenue to use it.

With everything that’s been going on, I have been spending a unhealthy amount of time listening to English podcasts about international affairs such as NK News, Intelligence Matters, Sinica, China Unscripted, War on the Rocks, China-Africa Project, and some Canadian French podcasts (3 bières, la soirée est encore jeune). Every time an expert comes on and start talking about Kurdish or Lingala or the Eastern Himalayas language hotspot, I immediately go into wanderlust mode, thinking “wow, that sounds cool, let’s see what materials there are…” and down the rabbit hole I go. Wanderlust is fun but it’s part of neither the 80% nor the 20%.

--

Since I visited Incheon and took the subway there, I have been obsessed with their jingle. Every time the train approaches the end station, they play that song and for some reason it remains stuck in my head to this day. I finally found the place where you can download the jingle, in 4 different renditions. It's here, just click on "로고송(MP3용)4곡.zip". Enjoy!
8 x

Purangi
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Languages: French, English, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish
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Re: Purangi's Log (한국어)

Postby Purangi » Sun Jul 19, 2020 8:58 am

Two weeks ago, the virus showed up again in Beijing, so I was under lockdown for a few days, but it now seems to be gone, not sure for how long. Local authorities are playing a game a whack-a-mole, locking down residential districts without notice, so people here are pretty nervous.

At this point, I just hope they will keep the airport open long enough for me to go back home. I have been preparing to move my life out of China back to Canada, which means a lot of time was spent on making boxes, and the rest on learning languages.


***


Korean: The virus completely derailed my plans for Korean. I was enthusiastically preparing to spend the next year in Seoul, but borders were closed, and now my little Korean dream seems out of reach. This has seriously undermined my motivation. Given how foreign Korean is to me, I don’t believe I will be able to reach anything close to spoken fluency in Korean without living and being immersed there for at least one year. This is now impossible, so I am at a crossroad.

But things started great and I managed to do 150 hours of study and native materials in Korean.

    - I finished learning my 6th “island”. I added one more part to my routine: instead of just reciting the text out loud, I started writing it down by hand. I also started coping about 100 Korean Glossika sentences every day, by hand. This amounts to a bit less than two A4 of Korean handwriting by day. I wrote about 20 pages total and my skills have greatly improved, especially my writing speed. This has also allowed me correct some of the mistakes I used to make.

    - I never made it to the 7th “island”. I was planning to finish learning 10 islands before the end of July, but things fell apart as soon as I realized I won’t be able to go live there for some time.

    - I consumed tons of native material. For the last few weeks I have been obsessed with the Korean drama 나쁜사랑. It’s fascinating stuff: every single one of the 130 or so episodes ends on a cliffhanger. That’s some serious screenwriting skills. I am not sure if it’s supposed to be funny, but I sure laugh a lot. Countless car accidents, mysterious family relations, abandoned babies and industrial sabotage plans... I came for Korean exposure, but I stayed for the crazy plot.

    - KBS French service has also a program called Annyonghaseyo. Episodes are short, less than 10 minutes, and are centered around a short dialogue taken from a Korean drama. It’s not exactly optimal for learning new things, but its great for reviewing and some listening practice.

    - I also downloaded and started using the VLive application. This is a *great* app for anyone learning Korean: it works just like YouTube, with a wide range of videos including short dramas and live broadcasts. Among the useful features are subtitles in Korean, English, Chinese, Spanish, etc. I have been working slowly through episodes, looking up every word and expressions, and re-watching the same episode again and again. They use a lot of high school-related slang, but it’s quite difficult to find material with accurate Korean subtitles, so I can’t be picky.

    - I realize now how limited Glossika really is… 3000 sentences sound a like a lot, but it’s really not much. I understand nearly every one of them, but I still miss tons of vocab when watching native materials.

Despite feeling that I lost the opportunity to become “really” fluent in Korean, I realized that I made huge progress in just a few months, even though some days it felt like I was not moving fast enough. An undeniable proof of my progress is my texting skills, which went from null to pretty good in the last few months. I can say Korean is now one of the languages I use on a daily basis when texting – and it is feels smooth and natural, i.e. it doesn’t feel like I am doing a homework. Writing and reading in Hangeul has also become much easier. I think my speaking skills have improved, but I can’t be sure. Oral comprehension has also increased a lot, although I still need to rely on subtitles when watching entertainment shows.

With my plans now out of reach, I will have to find another source of motivation if I want to continue my Korean studies. Maybe re-focus on comprehension through TV shows? I will have to think about this in the next few months or so, when I finished moving.


***


Mandarin is part of my daily job and will continue to be in the near future. Foreign Internet access has been heavily restricted over the last weeks because of events down in HK, so I am limited to reading Chinese news and bloggers on WeChat. I went to the dentist yesterday. I found myself sitting in the dentist’s chair and answering his small talk while he tortured me with various instruments. It felt like a language proficiency test, and I think I passed.


***


Russian is still there, but not on my priority list. I did about 30 hours of listening.

I did discover a really awesome podcast called Тоже Россия. A real treasure trove! Hosts are articulated, interested and knowledgeable, and they are not afraid to tackle painful topics and to go beyond the usual clichés. In recent episodes they talked about Tatar literature, Northern Russia urban culture, North Caucasus music, Shamanism, among other topics. Hosts speak slowly and clearly, so I think it can be suitable even for intermediate learners. Highly recommended!

I thought their best episode was Удмуртия: Борьба за язык | Артем Малых on the Udmurt language revitalization movement. This was an especially interesting conversation considering the suicide of Albert Razin last year. Hosts are not afraid to challenge social preconceptions about minority languages, which goes against the current in today’s Russia. See what happened to a Russian university professor not long ago when he had the *audacity* to suggest that newspaper stands in Moscow should start selling newspapers in Russia’s minority languages. He was singled out and criticized by Russian state TV, and got dead threats as a result.


***


My Spanish has reached a stage where I can more or less freely enjoy native content without first asking me: is this too advanced for me? Sometimes it is, but mostly, I can get by and still enjoy the content. It’s a real joy to have this freedom – which I did not have when I first started this log, so there is progress. I also tried to fill some of the blanks I had in terms of Spanish comprehension. I tried to focus on Peninsular Spanish (which I had completely neglected before) and on sitcoms (instead of exposés and lectures).

I did 160 hours of native material, half-half European Spanish and Mexican.

    - The quality and diversity of Spanish-language podcasts never cease to amaze me. Podium Podcast has a broad selection of very good stuff, including El Gran Apagon and Guerra 3.

    - Guerra 3 was of special interest to me as it takes place in North Korea, and includes quite a lot of Korean dialogs. I was able to get most of it and that felt nice!

    - There a nice Colombian podcast on literature (Los Libros) and a nice and slow Mexican psychology podcast called Expressar Emociones.

    - I also binge-watched many series from Mexico (Casa de las Flores 1 and 2) and from Spain (El ministerio del tiempo, Merli, Sé quién eres). I don’t watch many series, so I can’t really compare, but Sé quién eres is great. The story, the dialogs, the ending… Everything is perfect.

    - About Sé quién eres: I was surprised that characters call themselves by their first name and tutear each other very easily, maybe more so than in Québec? But I have been living way from home for so long, I more or less lost touch with the implied rules of tutoiement, so I might be wrong.

    - I was happy and amused to see that Spaniards, like French Canadians, also use hostia and also spell it in various ways, hostia or ostia.

    - I saw that Radio Ambulante launched their own Spanish learning application called Lupa. I tried the free version and it is a great tool. I am considering buying the full version for 1 year, although I feel I am passed that stage? Anyway it looks like a great tool to listen to podcasts while having the transcript readily available.


***


Portuguese has always been about fun for me. I do not stress over learning it well, rapidly or in the most effective way. It’s all about fun, fun, fun and learning new things about this culture. I was not planning on using the language anytime soon, and with that Covid thing, I might not even use it for a couple of years maybe. I did one or two courses and then I immediately went to native materials – first with subtitles, and now mostly without. I still don’t get everything, but I don’t worry. I enjoy the process and Brazilian Portuguese is so elegant that I often am carried away just by the sound of it.

I did about 105 hours of listening of native material up to now, 99% in Brazilian Portuguese.

    - I read the book As Mentiras Que Os Homens Contam by Luis Fernando Verissimo. Love it! I will probably look for more of his books going forward.

    - Deus Salve o Rei: a series that kind of looks like a Brazilian GOT, with subtitles. Entertaining, and good for exposure to spoken Portuguese, even if a little too medieval at times.

    - I also watched Cosa Mais Linda and O Negócio.

    - There is a superb Brazilian podcast on linguistics, literature and languages called Lingua Livre. It is both entertaining and instructive, and each episode is over 2 hours, They had a fascinating talk about translating names of politicians and authors into Brazilian sign language. Another highlight was their episode about African Portuguese literature. Highly recommended!

    - I watched a few Brazilian movies and tons of documentaries on YouTube from Brasil TV, with automatic subtitles. I found it surprising that everyone from Portugal and Africa appears to be subtitled on Brazilian TV – even Mia Couto! To my untrained ears, they don’t seem to be speaking that differently…

    - There this podcast called ONDEM with tons of episodes about every topic possible.

    - There a HBO Brasil show called Greg News that is also not bad at all, quite funny (although I don’t get any of the inside jokes and references). It is available on YouTube with accurate subtitles.

    - Gregório Duvivier had a very funny talk with Portuguese comedian Ricardo Araújo about differences between Portugual and Brazil. It’s called Experimenta Portugal `17 - Um Português e um Brasileiro Entram num Bar -- Recommended!

    - I also watched almost all of the conferences on the Poliglotar channel. So good stuff, some not so much.

    - I stopped Projeto Humanos but I continued with Cafe Brasil. Podcasts come with very accurate transcripts and tackle some interesting topics. A bonus is that the host introduces some excellent Brazilian music. Every show has 1 or 2 songs which I then add to my playlist.


***


Haitian Creole is on hold for now, mostly for lack of time, but also because I just cannot find interesting materials. I still follow people involved in various movements in Haiti on FC, but I am still looking for good, non-Bible related material to binge on. Being back in the Americas, I hope I can purchase books in HC. I sure do plan on visiting Haiti one day and use it there!


***


French: Interestingly, my partner will start studying French from next month as part of a government-sponsored integration program. She is a fast learner and highly motivated, even though she has absolutely no interest whatsoever for methods, theories, learning techniques, etc. (unlike all of us nerds here) Her approach is simple: just do it. I don’t doubt that in half-year from now, her mastery of French will exceed my mastery of Korean.

It will also be the first time that I find myself in the seat of the “native teacher,” and not the learner – a complete reversal of role for me. Already we have been discussing whether I should adapt my pronunciation for something closer to international French (but not European French), or should we go all-in with Quebec French?

My family and virtually everyone around me (expect immigrant friends) speak standard Quebec French with no distinct regional accent. People do tend to adjust their pronunciation when speaking with foreigners, but there are limits to what can be done, even for me. I don’t say charcher or déhors, as it sounds “uneducated,” but you will never hear me say char, chat and bête the European way. Of course, this means navigating issues of language stigmatization, dialect shaming and social-class signaling…

It will be interesting to see my native language being dissected, analyzed and deconstructed by someone near me. I hope I can assist her the best I can, even though that means I will have less time for learning languages!
10 x

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iguanamon
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
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Languages: Speaks: English (Native); Spanish (C2); Portuguese (C2); Haitian Creole (C1); Ladino/Djudeo-espanyol (C1); Lesser Antilles French Creole (B2)
Studies: Catalan
Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=797
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Re: Purangi's Log (한국어)

Postby iguanamon » Sun Jul 19, 2020 10:09 pm

I've been reading a history of Papa Doc Duvalier (Papa Dòk Divalye) translated from English to Haitian. The translation is really good. You can check it out with the look inside feature. The Cold War times allowed dictators like Papa Doc and his son, Baby Doc, to thrive with impunity and with resultant devastating effects on their populations.

You can order Haitian books online Trilengual Press in Boston has some contemporary Haitian literature and poetry books available[/url]. Libreri Mapou is a good Haitian bookstore in Miami, and there's also Educavision is a bookshop from which I have ordered several Haitian books before. The website is unwieldy.

If you want to read about the restavèk situation in Haiti, there's no better book than Restavèk: yon ti esklav ann Ayiti tounen yon Ameriken ki pwofesè lekòl by Jan Wobè Kadè/ Jean Robert Cadet. It's a free download from Kansas University. I highly recommend it.
Purangi wrote:I read the book As Mentiras Que Os Homens Contam by Luis Fernando Verissimo. Love it! I will probably look for more of his books going forward.

I have read most of his books and they're all good. I love his take on Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night"- "A décima segunda noite"- Verissimo at his best!


Bòn chans zanmi m e byenveni kote lamerik de-nò a ankò.
4 x

Purangi
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Re: Purangi's Log (한국어)

Postby Purangi » Tue Sep 08, 2020 4:31 am

Am I the only one utterly excited about sociolinguist Ericka Vasquez’s Kiche classes on Facebook? 24 video classes are online as of today, all free, and more coming every week. Check it out!

Search for: Qach’ab’al K’iche
4 x

Purangi
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Languages: French, English, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish
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Re: Purangi's Log

Postby Purangi » Wed Oct 21, 2020 11:32 pm

English

I moved back home to North America about 3 months ago. After 10 years or so abroad, I had almost forgotten how great this corner of the world is. Nature is right around the corner; I can walk every day in seemingly never-ending forests, where I can see all kinds of wild animals; there is clean water right from my tap; I don’t have to worry about air pollution or tainted food; and, perhaps most important of all, population density is low – all things that I used to see as dull when I left, and which I now consider real blessings!

My good mood lately is also due to the fact that my foot has almost completely healed, more than 8 months after my first injury. I can finally walk and jog without pain, which means I am slowly getting back in shape.

I use English on a daily basis at home, but almost never outside, except with the rare tourists in town. I watched a few U.S. TV series and noticed that a lot of the slang had changed, and I am not up to date (not that I need to be). It made me feel a bit old.

I was under the impression that almost everybody in my hometown spoke at least some level of English, but I was surprised to find out that English is not as widely known as I thought. Sometimes people will refuse to speak it, and I think it has a lot to do with them being shy and lacking confidence. It’s difficult to get service in English in many of the businesses around town, but my wife thinks it’s great: her motivation to study French is only stronger.

Due to the pandemic I have more time to study, and I have embarked on a small experiment with German. Let’s see where it will take me!

Français

Je suis maintenant dans une position qui m’est nouvelle et très intéressante : celle de locuteur natif servant de « béquille » à une apprenante. Je fais de mon mieux, mais ça reste difficile et je comprends désormais tout à fait la frustration qu’ont pu éprouver tous les locuteurs que j’ai côtoyés pendant des années. Les remises en question et les doutes, les questions qui n’ont ni queue ni tête, les explications bâclées, les erreurs de prononciation, les raccourcis… J’en ai été victime, et je l’avoue, j’en suis maintenant coupable.

Je croyais bien connaître le français, jusqu’à ce qu’une apprenante me questionne sur tel ou tel aspect complètement obscur de ma langue maternelle. J’ai bien hâte que les cours de français officiels commencent, car il sera plus facile pour moi de servir de partenaire de conversation, que de devoir répondre à des questions grammaticales.

Kreyòl

Mwen menm ak madanm mwen, nou t’ap fè visit anba lavil lòt jou a. Nou t’ap travèse ri a, toudenkou, mwen tande yon vwa dèyè mwen, yon vwa ki t'ap di: « Travèse, yo ap travèse ri a! » O wi! Se te yon fanmi touris soti Ayiti ki t’ap vizite lavil mwen. Se te premye fwa mwen tande yon moun pale kreyol nan lavi reyèl, nan lavil mwen. Epi mwen te kap konprann sa yo te di! Se te yon bel sipriz!

Andeyò sa a, pa gen anpil moun ayisyen nan vil mwen an. Mwen pa gen anpil chans pou pale kreyòl. Mwen kap jis li kreyòl sou entènèt. Mwen pa kap vwayaje an Ayiti pou moman sa a, men èspere mwen ka ale pita, apre pandemi an!

Español

Leí algunos libros sobre los Quichés de Guatemala y su lengua en español. También he visto algunas lecciones de idioma quiché en Facebook. No tengo planes de estudiar ese idioma en serio o a largo plazo, pero me gusta cómo enseña la profesora. Cuando puedo, trato de escuchar podcasts latinoamericanos como El Hilo y Radio Ambulante, pero no todos los días por falta de tiempo. Pude conseguir la versión mexicana de Glossika Business, con 1000 frases, y quiero empezar de nuevo a mejorar mi pronunciación, pero tampoco será fácil, ¡también por falta de tiempo!

Puedo escuchar mucho español en toda parte de mi ciudad. Conocí a algunas personas de México, Perú, Colombia, y de otras países del sur. Parece que hubo un gran aumento en el número de inmigrantes de América Latina en los últimos años. Tan pronto como la pandemia se vaya, planeo viajar a países donde se habla español.

中文

我本来害怕回国以后,我不可避免慢慢地忘记中文,尤其是口语。但是回加拿大以后我碰到了好几个中国人和香港人。这里的香港人很讨厌说普通话,但大陆人很愿意跟我说几句话。还好我的工作没变:每天通过电脑上班时,我继续用中文,所以最少我不会忘记阅读。因为各种原因,我以前打算学习一点广东话,为了更方便地跟香港朋友打交道,但是我很快发现他们比较喜欢用英文。

说实话,我感觉离开中国是一个挺好的决定。虽然工资有点降低了,加拿大没那么容易赚钱,但是生活环境比那边好一千倍,人和人之间的关系也舒服多,没那么紧张复杂。在中国呆过这段时间,让我变成爱国者,我现在很珍惜我的老家!

Português

Tou lendo um livro em português, tou ouvindo a gravação de áudio ao mesmo tempo, mas é uma tradução do inglês. Também li outros livros, compilações de contos de autores brasileiros famosos, que encontrei na biblioteca da minha universidade. Às vezes, gosto de ouvir rádio e podcasts em português do Brasil. Eu entendo muito, mas ainda tenho um problema com a gíria ou algumas palavras muito específicas. Acho que a literatura brasileira moderna é muito engraçada, ela dá uma descrição muito precisa do absurdo da nossa vida e de a estupidez humana. Pelo que vi, o jeito de pensar dos Brasileiros parece muito semelhante e ao mesmo tempo muito diferente do nosso. É muito interessante explorá-lo.

Eu gostaria de poder ir ao Brasil um dia. Se conseguirmos superar essa catástrofe atual, talvez seja possível!

Pусский

Каждый раз что-то происходит на постсоветском пространстве, я снова начинаю читать и слушать русский язык, и должен сказать, что я делаю это с большим удовольствием. В последний раз были события на Украине. На этот раз, один сумасшедший старик в Беларуси отказывается уйти на пенсию, а на Южном Кавказе разразилась война. Всегда интересно наблюдать, насколько русский язык остается важным языком международного общения в этом регионе. Я больше не изучаю русский язык, но мне нравится время от времени слушать подкасты или читать новости. Я скучаю по Москве, особенно по особому запаху русской деревни осенью, когда сельчане жгут траву после урожая.

한국어

요즘 저는 한국어를 공부하지 별로 않았어요. 왜 그렇습니까? 저는 내 동기를 잃었어요. 원래, 한국에 갈 계획이 있었는데, Covid 바이러스 때문에, 저는 갈 수 없었어요. 적어도 얼마 동안은, 한국에 갈 수 없을 것 같아요. 슬픈 일이지만, 한국어를 조금 배울 수있었습니다. 이제는 저 드라마를 볼 때, 꽤 많이 이해할 수 있습니다. 일상 생활에서 간단한 문장과 단어도 말할 수 있어요. 그것 덕분에, 저는 아주 행복합니다. 언젠가 저는 다시 한국에 갈까요? 물론이죠! 하지만 언제인지 모르겠어요, 얼마 동안도 모르겠어요. 저는 신서유기를 보고 너무 재미있어서 많이 웃어요. 저는 또한 거의 매달 김치를 만듭니다. 우리 김치는 정말 맛있어요. 저는 그것을 자랑 스럽습니다.

German

Ich möchte ein bisschen Deutsch lernen. Jetzt ich spreche nur ein bisschen Deutsch, aber ich möchte die Zeitungen lessen und die gute Podcasts hören. Im Moment ich benutze Assimil German 2003 und Pimsleur German 1. Der Grund, warum ich Deutsch lernen möchte, ist dass Deutsch so viele Ressourcen gibt, nämlich gute Qualität Podcasts und Dokumentationen.
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Purangi
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Re: Purangi's Log

Postby Purangi » Thu Jan 21, 2021 9:41 pm

It’s a new year and a new beginning!

I guess there is no better time to take a look back at what was and what could have been, and make plans for what will be.

It won’t be a surprise if I say that 2020 was a bad year, for me at least, in terms of language learning.

I was planning to have a breakthrough in Korean, in preparation for spending one or two years living in Seoul. Needless to say, that plan quickly went out the window because of you-know-what. That was a serious blow to my goal of reaching actual spoken fluency in Korean. There was no real breakthrough, although I did improve significantly my understanding of k-dramas and my spoken skills, to some extent.

And then I injured myself by tearing a tendon in my left foot. With the quarantine and strict restrictions in Beijing, I couldn’t have access to a doctor for many weeks, which probably made things worst. I was unable to walk for 1 month, and when I finally managed to go out, I overstrained myself and the wound reopened, only for me to go back to square one: sitting on my couch, eating painkillers like M&Ms and watching TV.

But things became really bad a few weeks later, when I developed a retinitis in both eyes from so much screen time, making it painful to spend even a few minutes in front of my computer/TV/phone. That really was rock bottom!

I do most of my language learning by walking around town while listening to podcasts and audio lessons. That’s by far the most effective way for me to learn. Being unable to take a walk because of COVID restrictions and/or an injury really took away my learning time and my motivation.

Less time spent walking also meant less exercise overall. I gained weight, I lost a good chunk of muscle in my left leg, and I felt quite terrible in general. For most of the year, I had zero mental space or energy to focus on learning new stuff.

Things took a turn for the better around August and I am now able to walk more or less like I used to, without pain!

Looking back, I think 2020 made me appreciate so many of the things I took for granted in life: being near the people I love, being able to walk around unimpeded, being and feeling healthy, being able to cross borders and travel, not worrying about contaminating my loved ones inadvertently… I hope I will never forget any of this, and this is also part of the reason why I write this post, as a “reminder to self.”

Now that my foot is almost completely healed, I have taken steps to start being active again, reclaiming my sanity and losing some weight. I took up jogging and started doing yoga and burpees. Language-wise, I enjoy reading the forum, I daydream about taking up the challenges of new exotic languages, and wanderlust about Arabic, Turkish and Farsi…But will probably focus on German for the time being.

As they say, the bar is low for 2021. Even a marginal improvement would be fantastic!



Korean: I watched two series: Penthouse Season 1 and Kingdom Season 1, along with other weekly shows I follow such as Yoon’s Stay and New Journey to the West. I understood almost nothing when people talk in Kingdom, as it takes place in the Joseon era. I understand much more Penthouse, especially single clause sentences. It is the most makjang thing I’ve ever seen on TV. So unrealistic and over-the-top, and yet absolutely addictive. A real guilty pleasure.

Haitian Creole: I read a French book about Haiti called “Meme Attaque Haiti”. The author is a Canadian translator who spent a couple of years living in southern Haiti with her family. The book itself is superficial and not worth discussing, but it contains a great deal of dialogues in Creole, and I was happy to see that I could understand everything.

Russian: Just minimal maintenance through a couple of Russian accounts I follow on Instagram including Алексей Навальный. His most recent YouTube documentary – Дворец для Путина – is an amazing piece of work.

German: I read through an old version of Assimil German and was surprised to see the number of similarities with French. After months struggling with Korean, German syntax appears reasonable! I started Michel Thomas, and will follow that with Pimsleur and FSI, at least that’s the plan.

Spanish/Portuguese/Mandarin: Nothing new on this front.
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Purangi
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Re: Purangi's Log

Postby Purangi » Thu Jul 08, 2021 1:18 am

Mwen pa kap kwè sa te pase yè swa nan Ayiti. Zanmi'm yo, si ou vle etidye kreyòl, ou toujou pral gen bagay enkwayab kap pase nan ti peyi sa!
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Purangi
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Re: Purangi's Log

Postby Purangi » Fri Dec 31, 2021 12:44 am

Another year’s gone by... Maybe it’s just me growing older, but I do feel like this last year has flown by too quickly. Throughout the year, whenever I felt down or anxious or just bored, I would log in to the forum to relax and unwind for a few minutes. It’s a stress-free zone for me and reading the latest threads and revisiting old logs really does “spark joy” in my day. Before things get hectic again, let me recap some of things that I managed to achieve language-wise in 2021, between two lockdowns.

English

First of all, I landed a new job in a Canadian federal agency, which was by far the most important change in my life this year. My job is categorized as French imperative, which means I have to provide services in French to the population. I had to take and pass an English test to get through the kafkaesque application process, but I do not have to speak any other language at work if I don’t feel like it.

Our local leadership has made bilingualism a priority for new staff and there is some pressure for people at my level who speak English to take the English test and officially become bilingual employees, after which I will have to provide services in both languages. I intend to do so in the future and I look forward to using English at work. I already speak English most of the time at home, so I don’t think it would be a huge issue, but I would need to adjust my register to more formal speech and try to remember that those English h’s are not silent.

I took a mock government test online and I am 100% confident that I could easily pass both the oral and written parts of the test. But I am in no rush to do it, for merely practical reasons: I am new to the job and I have a lot to learn about the position itself. Having to re-learn all those acronyms a second time in English would be quite time-consuming. Another reason is that being bilingual is more work, but not much more compensation: the bonus is merely 800 CAD…. per year, not per month.

French

So standard Canadian French is what I use at work to communicate with my fellow citizens. Federal services being centralized, I get to speak on the phone with people from all over my region, and many have accents that I never heard before. I also tend to communicate with older people, which makes the difference between their French and mine even more apparent. It is truly fascinating to hear how older people talk in Natashquan, Kuujjuaq and Cap-aux-Meules, places I have never visited and perhaps never will.

Another interesting thing I noticed is how their responsiveness varies a lot depending on how I modulate my register. When I first started, I used an overly formal accent, like speakers on SRC. People were immediately put off. Scam phone calls are a real scourge lately in Canada and people tend to be very suspicious, which is to be expected. But the opposite is also true: if I lower my register too much, people cannot possibly take me seriously as a civil servant and think it’s some kind of prank call. The middle ground is what gets me the best results: I start with quite formal French, and then slowly ease into a more colloquial pattern.

That’s easy for me to do. But some of my colleagues who come from different cultural backgrounds are finding it extra hard. A colleague from Moldova (who has a Russian accent as thick as molasses when speaking French) even joked about it: “If I were them, I would never trust someone with an accent like mine, calling me on the phone and asking personal information!”

On one occasion, I also got to speak Spanish with a Columbian lady who couldn’t communicate in French or English, and that was quite nice.

French as a foreign language

I also became a sort of walking dictionary and bescherelle for my significant other. She has been learning French in a local university for 10 months now, around 6 hours per day, as part of the provincial francization program for immigrants. Basically, she gets paid to study a foreign language… Living the dream!

Her progress is impressive, especially considering that her native language is not related in any way to French. She went from “bunzhour” to strong survival skills, and she can now take care of any daily tasks independently. I am amazed by her retention skills in particular. In many ways, her approach is contrary to mine. I tend to focus on quantity, using 2-3 methods at once and getting as much exposure as I can. She focuses on quality: just one method at a time, not more than one lesson per 2-3 days, but with tons of review in between. She remembers words and expression so much better than I do. At first she spent a full two months working on her pronunciation, and it paid off. She couldn’t do a decent “r” at first, while now she can distinguish and produce é, è, e and eu, which is no small feat. I am so proud of her!

I found her teachers overall quite competent. Some had a more “classic” approach, with a strong prescriptive mindset. Her first teacher even directly said that they shouldn’t try to mimic local speech patterns. But surprisingly, her younger teachers were much less rigid. They even provided learning materials with dialogues in two versions: one in so-called standard French and one in a much more colloquial Québec French. When I was a student, we used to be corrected for using typical local constructions such as “tu-veux-tu”, so it was quite funny for me to see these same expressions being actively taught, and even encouraged, by some teachers in francization classes.

Her classmates are a real microcosm of modern Canadian society: Karen refugees, Cuban spouses, Colombian nurses, Brazilian engineers, Chinese FLG practitioners... Most Spanish speakers were top of the class in Level 1 and 2, but they quickly fell behind in Level 3 and 4. I listened to recordings of all students at each level and it is striking how some of them did not improve at all, while others had a real breakthrough. This goes to say that shared linguistic roots are no substitute for hard work, and what may seem like an advantage at first, can really turn into a handicap later on.

Interestingly, all of her fellow students were more or less unwilling to learn Québec French at first. Most of them were aiming to learn proper “Parisian French” (as they say). But by the end of the year, nearly all of them had basically caved in to their linguistic environment and adopted local pronunciation, most evidently with “in” and “là”. Not a single one of them pronounces “in” as they do in Paris… Except my wife, who has held her ground and refuses to say “chu” ou “tsu”.

Russian

Sometimes I come across clips of Russian TV on social media, and I watch them with mixed emotions. I stopped listening to Russian podcasts for some time now and don’t see that changing anytime soon. I found an old stack of Russian books from my university years in my basement, with some real gems, so I might get back to reading a bit in the next year. Just maybe.

Creole

I briefly revisited this beautiful language after the tragic events of July. I did so mostly on Twitter – the Kreyòl-language twittosphère is very much active and provides much more interesting content than YouTube or radio shows. It was both shocking and touching to see Haitians reacting live to Moïse’s tragic end. It feels like Kreyòl is very much well suited to Twitter’s rapid, emotion-packed short messaging. Unlike French, where you run out of characters before you can properly conjugate the main verb, Kreyòl is concise, so you can pack a lot of words in one sentence.

On a related note my local library has a copy of Assimil Créole sans peine, complete with recordings. I might give it a try if one day I visit Guadeloupe.

Korean

My Korean study is pretty much just passive exposure. I watch dramas such as Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha, Penthouse, some movies, and I listen to Korean music often enough. I rewatched Goblin for a second time after 5 years and I understood so much more than the first time around. Not enough to do without subtitles, but enough to feel good about understanding more than I think I would.

I borrowed the latest edition of Assimil Coréen from my library and I was really impressed by the content. No more boring, overly formal dialogues between two white-collar employees, like in the previous version. The new one is filled with modern cultural references and I feel the colloquial expressions introduced are much more useful. When I was in Seoul, I swear I had conversations that sounded word for word like some of the lessons in this book. I read through the entire thing and did not find anything really new, except maybe some less frequent vocab from lessons 80 on. The book says it can bring learners to B2, but I don’t feel even near that. If I ever get the chance to go back to Korea, I will definitely use this material to bring back to life the little active skills I had.

Mandarin

I keep doing some translation work on the side, which keeps my characters reading skills alive. I also talk to friends on WeChat, but always through typing. Opportunities to speak Mandarin, therefore, have practically disappeared from my life. Not sure I will ever go back to China and get to speak the language again. I did get to speak Mandarin a few times with speakers in town, mostly college students from the mainland, but it feels weird and pointless. I didn’t appreciate people approaching me in English when I was living abroad, so I try not to replicate this same behavior here.

Spanish

As soon as travel resumes, I plan on escaping to the first Caribbean island that will accept me. We get around 25 minutes of daylight here in January, so I really need to fill up on sunshine and pina colada. Therefore Spanish is the language I am most likely to use actively in the coming year. Or at least, that’s what I hope.

I listen on and off to Spanish podcasts, mostly Cuban dissident stuff, El Hilo, Radio Ambulante, El Washington Post, among others, so my passive skills are more or less stable.

I downloaded an Anki deck of 9000 Spanish sentences, where one word is missing each time. I found it good as a quick exercise to recall vocabulary and keep some less used words alive in my memory. I am now at 3000 sentences and hope to finish it before any eventual trip abroad.

I read a few books, including a nonfiction on Mayan hieroglyphs. I got about halfway through the first book of Canción de hielo y fuego while listening the recording on YouTube. I should probably find the courage to finish it.

Portuguese

Occasionally I listen to podcasts from Brazil, mostly just to tick the Portuguese box on a mental list. I hope to visit Brazil one day, until then, I am in no rush to active my skills. I can at least pretend that I am not letting my passive comprehension completely die out.

Italian

Around September, I had a short, but intense project of learning Italian. I finished the first level of Pimsleur and was already picturing myself on a Vespa going around Rome. But then my wife bought a panettone. It filled a void in my soul and satisfied whatever craving I had for Italian. The project fell apart and I quickly forgot everything I had learned.

German

I started German a few weeks ago and this project has actually endured. I work with Pimsleur, Assimil 2013 Edition and a 4000-frequency deck on Anki. I can now work my way through nachrichtenleicht.de with relative ease, which is encouraging. Alltagsdeutsch is still a bit hard, but it is my next goal once I finish Assimil. I don’t really bother to speak correctly – I just want to read and understand spoken German. This makes it much easier, as I don’t need to actively produce case endings to understand what’s being said.

The more I learn about German, the more I am struck by how much it is similar to French. Not in terms of vocabulary, of course, but impersonal constructions with “es”, the ungodly amount of reflexive verbs, many colloquial expressions… So many of this feels familiar. Sentence structure was a real headache at first, but I seem to get used to it fairly quickly in written text… Understanding spoken German is still hard, real hard. For things that are not found in French, I can usually draw a parallel with Russian. For cases, my Slavic background is a big help, even though dative seems to work differently in German. I finally get why my Teutonic classmates in Moscow could speak Russian with such confidence.

Varia

I have been looking into studying an indigenous language for some time now. Culture Monde on France Culture just did a 4-part series on this topic that I found particularly interesting. There is even an indigenous cultural center nearby where I live that offers classes in Innu and Atikamekw. I thought of enrolling, but spots are limited and priority is given to registered Indian, First nation members or healthcare professionals working in indigenous communities, which I am not, so I guess that’s out of the question for now.

Even if I could enroll, I doubt I could keep my interest going. I don’t know anyone who can speak these languages and in the absence of a native speaker near me, there is really nowhere to use the language, not even passively. I would love to learn more about Quechua or Kiche, and there are high quality courses available for these languages, but I would not know what to do afterwards. I know there is a YouTube channel somewhere that airs news in Quechua (or is it in Aymara?), but that doesn’t seem enough. This is a real motivation-killer for me.

I was also pleased to find out that we have a network of “street library” in my town, i.e. little boxes where people can drop second-hand books and share them with the community. I admit that I have become a bit obsessed with monitoring the boxes near my home. Most of the books I see are in French, with the occasional English ones, but I was surprised to found a number of foreign books, i.e. Hungarian, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and German. I contributed a few Russian books, and they found a new owner in a matter of hours.

That was long. This feels like therapy.

Add oil, people!
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Purangi
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Re: Purangi's Log

Postby Purangi » Sat Apr 02, 2022 10:10 pm

German

Progress is steady with German, although not as fast as I would like. But it feels great to learn a language with zero actual pressure to use it, for the moment.

I stopped using DW’s Langsam gesprochene Nachrichten a couple months ago, as it is became too easy. In fact, the host speaks so painfully slow that, at times, he sounds weird and borderline patronizing – like a grown man baby-talking me.

I am more and more comfortable working with Alltagsdeutsch. That is, as long as I have the transcript in front of my eyes. Take it away and I find myself lost and wanting to run back to the creepy newsreader of Langsam gesprochene Nachrichten.

I did a little statistics and found that I can recognize about 85 % of all words in a given Alltagsdeutsch podcast. The missing 15 %, of course, includes all the interesting words, “the best words”, to quote a former statesman.

I finished Pimsleur German III and Assimil German 2013 and I am overall very satisfied with both. I did not do a second wave, opting instead to start Perfectionnement Allemand immediately. It is great, although quite a steep level up from Assimil German. Dialogues are funny, witty, voice actors are good, they speak fast and clear. I am actually looking forward to the next lesson – not to learn German, but to discover the next topic, like looking forward to the next chapter of a good book.

I got to about 3000 out of the 4000 or so cards in my Anki German frequency deck. My goal was about 40 cards per day for 100 days, but it fell apart about midway. Anki being Anki, I feel a mix of intense frustration, accomplishment and despair when I look at my stats. I stopped reviews for a few days and cards immediately began piling up. It’s been two weeks now, and I am not sure I can find the courage to reopen the app and check how many cards are due ever again.

I activated DW news alerts in German on my phone, so if it come to that, I will probably learn about the annihilation of the world in Goethe’s tongue in exclusivity.

Korean

I watched the series Naegwa Park Won-jang, which was funny enough and easy to understand. Subtitles are a big help, of course. I can still read hanggul fast enough when it appears on screen. I still remember when deciphering a 4-syllabe word was hurting my brain. Time flies.

Mandarin

Same old, same old. I still do some translation work as a part time job, which keeps characters fresh in my mind. After two years of not using it, any speaking skills I had left are probably dead by now.

Arabic

I toyed a bit with the idea of learning some fusha. I started by watching videos from Western Kentucky University to learn the alphabet and it was surprisingly easy. I highly recommend them for anyone who is intimidated by Arabic alphabet, like I was. The teacher is very “no-nonsense” and engaging.

I read Que sais-je La langue arabe, which gave me a very enlightening explanation of the relation between dialects-MSA, that is not as a diglossia, but as a register continuum. According to the author, Arabic speakers of different dialects are not becoming more and more segregated. On the contrary, rising education levels throughout the Middle East have made MSA more present and more alive than perhaps at any point in the history of the language.

I did a few lessons in Mastering Arabic 1 and Assimil Arabe sans peine. I did not go very far, but learning MSA seems to go a bit like this: let’s learn about dual, a bunch of crazy exceptions and all of the endings with their detailed rules. Then followed by a note: but no one actually talks like that, so don’t worry too much about using any of that! Even the teacher at WPU said something like: we will learn the complicated rules about the “nun” ending now, but please don’t be a weirdo and go around using it in the real world. Right… So I guess I won’t use the thing that took me hours to understand!

Assimil goes the extra mile and everything is fully vocalized until lesson 28, after which endings are gradually omitted. The last lesson is supposed to be real MSA as spoken by “the Arab street”. I shadowed the first few lessons for a month, so I guess I probably sound like a weirdo now. And it’s funny how Assimil describes the Arabic rolled R as in “le R du Québec”. I am not sure that’s the most accurate parallel.

I also worked a bit with Cours de langue arabe of Andre D’Alverny. I haven’t gotten very far, but it looked like a very solid and comprehensive resource focused on the written language, with a Levantine focus for pronunciation. But it is no walk in the park. The author sets the tone with the very first sentence of the book: « The author of the present manual does not believe in Arabic without toil in 30 days. » Haha! Me neither, buddy! What a change from all those positive pep talks about language learning being easy.

Russian

The big, fat elephant in the room. This is not the place for politics, and there is nothing I could say that hasn’t already been said in a better way. And nothing I could add about that “Russkiy mir” that would be acceptable in polite society anyway.

As soon as the bombs started falling, I got back to my favorite sources of news: reading Novaya Gazeta and listening to Ekho Moskvy. Then the tough guys in Moscow shut down both Ekho Moskvy and Novaya Gazeta (!). Bummer. I tried reading Kommersant – but couldn’t finish a single article… It used to have such good journalists. What a shame.

So I turned to Meduza, an independent Russian-language media based in Riga. They have a great app in Russian with a daily live feed of news, some longer articles and a nice podcast. All from a Russian point of view. Their English editor has a podcast called “Moscow Guy” which is also great. I also started following some Telegram channels, where conversations are more free than in Russian media.

One thing that I find fascinating since the start of the war is the astonishing amount of content that is produced every day, in all possible languages. It is literally overwhelming. It reminded me of a scene in Bonheur d’occasion, by Gabrielle Roy, published in 1945. The whole book is about how people in Montreal saw and lived through the Second World War, and they had an infinitesimal access to information compared to us. They would learn about the fall of Paris days after the actual events. Now, I know how many BTGs are surrounding Mariupol and I can have access to horrible videos from Bucha hours after its liberation… In terms of accountability, I guess that’s a good thing? In terms of my mental health, not sure.

English

On a related note, I read the first tome of the Memoirs of George F. Kennan, a fascinating account of American diplomacy in the Interwar period.

Kennan apparently spoke German as well as English. He lived and studied in the German Reich many years as a young man and then later as a diplomat – under the NS regime. In fact he was among the US embassy staff in Berlin when Germany declared war.

He also writes about how the State Department sent him to study Russian in independent Latvia. He was part of the small US diplomatic staff responsible for monitoring Soviet economy and politics from abroad, as the US did not have a presence in the Soviet Union at the time. Kennan describes the way he learned Russian: he hired a native speaker (a Russian refugee who had fled the Bolshevik revolution to Riga) and had him listen as he read Russian literature aloud for hours at time. He asked his Russian tutor to stop him every time he misplaced stress. That requires admirable dedication to the language. I can imagine the results were quite good, and Kennan was later posted in Moscow and the rest is history.

French

My partner has completed the government-sponsored French classes with some of the highest grades in her group – which is pretty awesome! Again, this shows that efforts and consistence can go a long way, even for learners coming from a different language family.

After 10 months of full time study, her French is now basically functional: she can shop, order, discuss and argue with people in French. She orders at Starbucks and manage to get her coffee just the way she wants it, which I have a hard time doing. She is even starting to develop an ear for Quebec, European, African accents.

She is now preparing to apply for a degree in advanced French at the local university. But first, she needs to take a test based on the book Le Français Apprivoisé. And sacre bleu, it is hard!

I consider myself a fairly competent native speaker and I don’t think I could pass that test without putting some serious efforts. It seems that every single question is a trap. There are even questions about subjonctif plus-que-parfait and I have no idea. I mean, I know it exists, it’s there somewhere, but I have never used it. I have seen it in classical literature, for sure. But there is no actual need to learn it as an active skill, unless you plan on going back in time to converse with Hugo or becoming 18th century French literature translator.

It’s one thing to learn to recognize it and understand the nuances it carries, but quizzing people on this? Pfff. More likely than not she will never, ever have to use subjonctif plus-que-parfait in her lifetime. It reminds me of the pre-HSK advanced Chinese tests, where you were expected to handwrite characters – in the right stroke order – that even educated native speakers find baffling and confusing.

Let me just say this whole exercise has been a lesson in humility. Nothing like having a non-native speaker asking scarily specific questions about your own native language to make you resent the Académie française. I have nothing but respect for anyone who has the resilience to tackle a language with such an archaic and rigid approach to grammar. French learners, I salute you.

Spanish

But my real focus has been Spanish.

In mid-March, Ottawa announced it would lift pre-entry test requirements. Minutes later I was booking tickets to Mexico.

It will not be my first trip to a Spanish speaking country, but it will be my first after I seriously started learning Spanish when I created this log in November of 2018.

My goal is to speak nothing but Spanish from the moment I step off the plane in CDMX. If that means making a fool out of myself or inflicting my terrible syntax on unsuspicious tortilla sellers, so be it! I can take it. I am ready for Mexico, and I just hope Mexico is ready for me.

To prepare myself and get my spoken Spanish back to a decent level, I have been doing a number of things. Back when I first started using FSI and Pimsleur, I used to isolate the exercises and lessons that gave me more trouble to review them at a later date. I found the files on my computer, put them on my phone, and I have been walking around my neighborhood doing FSI drills and parroting Pimsleur dialogues for the last few weeks.

I did a complete review of all Assimil Espagnol lessons, but I found them too peninsular. I also shadowed Glossika Business Spanish but quickly stopped, as some of the translations were just laughable.

Overall, I estimate around 40 hours were spent on this “active” phase. The hardest for me seems to be substituting “le” for “se”, as in “se lo he dado a el”. My instinct is always to say “le lo he dado a el”, which sounds so much more natural to my French ears. My present subjective is somewhat fine, although past subjective is a real pain, but not sure it will be a problem for everyday conversation.

Then, I have been listening to solely Spanish podcasts. While looking for “fresh meat”, I made a few nice discoveries. My favorite by far is Expertos de Sillón, in which two Colombian hosts talk about a specific passion/hobby/obsession with a guest. Very eclectic and interesting content.

Of course, there are classics such as Radio Ambulante and El Hilo, always nice, but I also found out about Así Como Suena, with a focus on Mexico and more on the political side.

Se Regalan Dudas is very clear, easy to understand, while Psychologia al Desnudo has similar content, but with a nice Argentinian accent.

En Defensa Propia is also great. Erika De La Vega has a very clear pronunciation and her guests come from all over the place, so you get a nice mix of accents. Her shows with Isabelle Allende and Édgar Ramírez were nice, wholesome content.

Historias del Más Acá sounds very funny, and I want to enjoy it, but the Mexican slang and grosserias make it hard to understand. I can get about 85-90 % of what the guys say, but the missing part is what the joke is all about, so I kind of miss the point.

I used to love Vidas Prestadas, but they changed their microphones a few months ago and the audio quality has gone down so I can’t listen to it anymore.

Sexópolis is a Mexican podcast where guests come to talk about aspects of their sex life in a casual, funny way: very nice to pick up new words and expressions, and never boring.

I started re-reading “El amor en los tiempos del cólera” in the original, but was distracted by “The Maya” by Michael Coe, which acts as a superb guidebook to Yucatan. Not sure I will have enough time to finish “El amor” before departure, but I might take it with me.

Finally, I used iTalki to record and get corrections on my accent and pronunciation from native speakers. I recorded a short text that goes like that:

Hace 2 años que estudio el español. Ahora entiendo más o menos todo lo que quiero escuchar o leer, pero lo de hablar es todavía difícil. Es que no tengo muchas oportunidades para platicar en español aquí en mi país. Tampoco no sé como sueno cuando hablo, o sea, no sé si tengo algún acento específico. Tal vez sueno como un gringo o un gabacho. ¿Que piensan ustedes? ¿Se nota une influencia norteamericana en mí manera de hablar?

Responses were unequivocal: everyone can understand everything I say, but they all agree I sound like a Brazilian speaking Spanish. I did not know what to make of this, so I took it as a compliment.

I'll try to take some notes about my Spanish adventure down in Mexico and post them here upon my return, if things are not too humiliating.
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