Amanda's 2019 Log: Spanish, Ancient Greek, and French

[philomath]

Monday
[X] Listen to a podcast or watch La casa de papel. (Watched La casa de papel for 15 minutes.)
- Read 7 pages of El cuaderno de Maya.

Tuesday
[X] Do some exercises from the DELE B2 prep book. (Began the first speaking exercise in Examen 1.)
[X] Practice speaking. (Spoke for 9 minutes, following prompts from the old DELE B2 prep book I found and my newer one.)
[X] Make Anki flash cards. (Made 7 Anki flash cards.)

[philomath]

Once again, I sort of stopped following my language schedule toward the middle of the week. On Wednesday I got dinner with a coworker and didn't have much time at home, and on Thursday we received some very big news at work, which took up the rest of the week.

Wednesday
[ ] Listen to a podcast.
[ ] Write something--not just a journal entry.
[ ] Study Ancient Greek more!

Thursday
[ ] Do some exercises from the DELE B2 prep book.
[ ] Practice speaking.

Friday
[X] Watch La casa de papel. (Watched for 25 minutes.)
[ ] Make Anki flash cards.
[ ] Write something--not just a journal entry.

Saturday
[X] Do some exercises from the DELE B2 prep book.
[ ] Listen to recordings of past speaking practice and rite down any questions about grammar/phrases.
[X] Practice speaking. (Spoke for 13 minutes, following a prompt from my DELE B2 prep book. The prompt was to agree or disagree with some suggestions for how to lower the prevalence of childhood obesity. I actually felt like I did a good job speaking! My intonation seemed more natural and I seemed able to recall more words.)
[X] Study Ancient Greek more! (Reviewed Lesson 2 and made flash cards for the vocab in Lesson 3.)
- Extra: Watched La casa de papel for 2 hours!
- Extra: Wrote 260 words and posted them on iTalki! I followed the same prompt I used for speaking and wrote about methods to fight childhood obesity. However, I tried to write in a more formal tone, as if I were writing an article in a newspaper. Based on the iTalki corrections I received, I only made two or three very minor mistakes! (I left out the definite article a few times where I shouldn't have.)

Next week I think I should make my language schedule simpler, with only one or two activities per day. It can be too overwhelming switching between so many activities in one study session, especially when Spanish and Ancient Greek aren't the only projects I'm working on. (In particular, I'm trying to improve my creative writing skills and would like to start revising the novel I wrote last year.)

[philomath]

Week 23 Progress
Spanish:
- Watched La casa de papel for 2 hours and 50 minutes.
- Practiced speaking for 22 minutes.
- Made 7 Anki flash cards.
- Read 7 pages of El cuaderno de Maya.
- Wrote 260 words.

Ancient Greek:
- Reviewed Lesson 2.
- Made Anki flash cards for the vocab in Lesson 3.

This week I started reading a book in English, which distracted me from reading El cuaderno de Maya. I think I need to make a rule that I read El cuaderno de Maya during at least one part of my commute, either on my way to work or on my way home.

For the upcoming week I've tried to make a slightly simpler schedule, with only two different activities on weekdays. I'm going to save most of the actual studying Spanish (doing DELE exercises, making flash cards, etc.) for the weekend.

Monday
[ ] Listen to a podcast.
[ ] Study more Ancient Greek.

Tuesday
[ ] Practice speaking.
[ ] Read a news article.

Wednesday
[ ] Watch La casa de papel.
[ ] Write something (other than just a journal entry in Spanish).

Thursday
[ ] Practice speaking.
[ ] Read a news article.

Friday
[ ] Listen to a podcast or watch La casa de papel.
[ ] Write something (other than just a journal entry in Spanish).

Saturday
[ ] Do some exercises in the DELE B2 prep book.
[ ] Listen to past speaking practice and write down phrases or words I had trouble with.
[ ] Practice speaking.

Sunday
[ ] Review grammar in Intermediate Spanish: A Grammar and Workbook.
[ ] Make Anki flash cards.
[ ] Write something (other than just a journal entry in Spanish).

I've been feeling great about Spanish lately! I think it's the fact that I've been studying it more consistently. Last night I watched La casa de papel for 2 hours and afterward I felt like my brain was trying to switch to thinking in Spanish. Still...I'm looking forward to starting a new language eventually. I'm most likely going to start Mandarin again, but I'm also very tempted to learn French or Italian, mostly for reading literature and traveling. Maybe I'll dedicate a few months to Italian, get to a lower intermediate level, and then start Mandarin? I would love to visit Italy again soon, and I'd like to be able to practice Italian there. On the other hand I would like to learn Mandarin since I know some people who speak it and because I'm very interested in Chinese culture.

[philomath]

Monday
[X] Listen to a podcast. (Not a podcast, but I found a Spanish Youtuber who makes travel vlogs and watched one of her videos for 15 minutes. I'd like to find more Spanish-speaking Youtubers who interest me so I can be exposed to more everyday Spanish conversation and slang.)
[ ] Study more Ancient Greek. (Nope... I had to stay at work until 8 so I didn't have time for Ancient Greek .)
- Extra: Read 7 pages of El cuaderno de Maya.

Tuesday
[X] Practice speaking. (I recorded myself reading aloud from an El País article about deforestation in Brazil. It took 21 minutes and my throat kind of hurt by the end. I think my pronunciation is okay, but could definitely use some work. In particular I stumbled over long words and sentences.)
[X] Read a news article. (After I read aloud from the El País article, I read it again in more detail and looked up the words I didn't know: alardear, el ganado, el latifundo, etc. I read ~850 words of the article so I'm counting that as 3 pages. I would've finished the article but it was getting late and I have other projects to work on!)
- Extra: Read 3 pages of El cuaderno de Maya.

[philomath]

I realized I never followed up here about my Linguistics course and the project I did on Somali. I finished the project last semester and my professor liked my paper enough to nominate it for a publication at my university! (It wasn't chosen, unfortunately.) I know some people on the forum expressed interest in my findings about Somali linguistics... should I post them in this log? Or somewhere else in the forum? (Or not at all? )

[MamaPata]

Congrats - that’s fantastic!

[Querneus]

I realized I never followed up here about my Linguistics course and the project I did on Somali. I finished the project last semester and my professor liked my paper enough to nominate it for a publication at my university! (It wasn't chosen, unfortunately.) I know some people on the forum expressed interest in my findings about Somali linguistics... should I post them in this log? Or somewhere else in the forum? (Or not at all? )

I'd read it.

In particular, what did you mean when you said in a previous post that the declension of a noun is mostly straight memorization? Surely there are plenty of derivational affixes associated with particular declensions, just as, for example, in Latin, -tas belongs to the third declension and the abstract -us ending belongs to the fourth declension (as in apparatus, genitive plural apparatuum). Or how the Arabic suffix -aani is its own "dual declension" while the transfix maCaaCiCu belongs to the "diptote" declension.

[philomath]

I realized I never followed up here about my Linguistics course and the project I did on Somali. I finished the project last semester and my professor liked my paper enough to nominate it for a publication at my university! (It wasn't chosen, unfortunately.) I know some people on the forum expressed interest in my findings about Somali linguistics... should I post them in this log? Or somewhere else in the forum? (Or not at all? )

I'd read it.

In particular, what did you mean when you said in a previous post that the declension of a noun is mostly straight memorization? Surely there are plenty of derivational affixes associated with particular declensions, just as, for example, in Latin, -tas belongs to the third declension and the abstract -us ending belongs to the fourth declension (as in apparatus, genitive plural apparatuum). Or how the Arabic suffix -aani is its own "dual declension" while the transfix maCaaCiCu belongs to the "diptote" declension.

Great! I'll post some excerpts from the paper here; the entire thing is around 31 pages so it's probably pretty boring .

Unfortunately the part about noun declensions didn't make it into my final draft! The professor wanted us to give a very brief overview of inflectional morphology, so I chose to write about the formation of the simple past tense instead. Anyway, I was probably exaggerating a bit, but what I meant was that it's hard to determine the declension of a noun just based on a dictionary entry giving the singular subject form. For example both 2nd declension and 3rd declension nouns can end in -b, so how do you know which one it is without looking it up? However this might not be as much of a problem for learners as I initially assumed...and the 2nd and 3rd declensions form the plural in similar ways anyway.

Here are some of my notes that I typed up about Somali noun declensions:

Declension 1
- Examples: warqád (letter), naáq (woman), shimbír (bird), gúri (house)
- Usually feminine in the singular, always masculine in the plural
- Form the plural by adding -o, or -yo if the word ends in a vowel (e.g., warqád --> warqado)

Declension 2
- Examples: sác (cow), albâab (door), sánad (year)
- Usually masculine in the singular, always feminine in the plural
- Form the plural by adding -o; or -yo if the word ends in a vowel, guttural consonant, j, or s. Also, if the word ends in b, d, dh, r, l, or n, you reduplicate that consonant and then add -o (e.g., sác --> sacyo, albâab --> albaabbo)

Declension 3
- Examples: galáb (afternoon), hílib (meat), xádhig (rope)
- Could be masculine or feminine in the singular, always masculine in the plural
- Form the plural by deleting the last vowel in the singular and adding -o (e.g., galáb --> galbo)

Declension 4
- Examples: mîis (table), áf (mouth), qóys (family), nín (man)
- Always masculine
- Form the plural by adding -a and copying the final consonant (e.g., qóys --> qoysas)

Declension 5
- Examples: éy (dog), Soomáali (Somali), mádax (head)
- Always masculine in the singular and feminine in the plural
- Form the plural by shifting the stress from the penultimate syllable to the ultimate syllable (e.g., Soomáali --> Soomaalí)

Declension 6
- Always ends in -o in the singular
- Examples: hoóyo (mother), wáddo (road)
- Always feminine in the singular and masculine in the plural
- Form the plural by adding -oyin and shifting the stress (e.g., wáddo --> waddóyin)

Declension 7
- Always ends in -e in the singular
- Examples: aábbe (father), báre (teacher)
- Always masculine in the singular and feminine in the plural
- Form the plural by deleting the -e and adding -ayaal (aábbe --> aabbayaal)

My main source for these notes was Colloquial Somali, by the way!

When I get around to it this weekend I can start posting some parts of my paper, starting with the phonetics and phonology sections.

[philomath]

Wednesday
[X] Watch La casa de papel. (Watched for 30 minutes.)
[X] Write something (other than just a journal entry in Spanish). (Wrote 196 words about a journal prompt I found. The prompt was: "Is it a good idea to talk about politics or religion with someone you don't know very well?")
- Extra: Read 23 pages of El cuaderno de Maya.

Thursday
[ ] Practice speaking.
[ ] Read a news article.

Friday
[ ] Listen to a podcast or watch La casa de papel.
[ ] Write something (other than just a journal entry in Spanish).

Saturday
[X] Do some exercises in the DELE B2 prep book. (Did the second speaking exercise in Examen 1. The task was to describe what was happening in a photo.)
[ ] Listen to past speaking practice and write down phrases or words I had trouble with.
[X] Practice speaking. (Spoke for 10 minutes.)
- Extra: Watched Youtube videos in Spanish for 15 minutes.
- Extra: Read 6 pages of El cuaderno de Maya.

I definitely think I should keep watching Youtube videos and reading news articles in Spanish. I already feel like I'm able to express myself better in Spanish now that I'm using a wider variety of native materials.

[philomath]

Sunday
[X] Review grammar in Intermediate Spanish: A Grammar and Workbook. (Reviewed the first five chapters and wrote down some examples of positive and negative commands. I'm not very familiar with vosotros commands, since we didn't learn vosotros in school and I've really never had an opportunity to use it.)
[X] Make Anki flash cards. (Made 24.)
[X] Write something (other than just a journal entry in Spanish). (Wrote 190 words about how I would like to have a garden someday. I learned the words albahaca, berenjena, and calabaza.)
- Extra: Listened to past recordings of my speaking practice. I actually don't think listening to every recording is useful for me. The biggest problems I notice are that I speak too slowly and that I sometimes stumble over the correct way to phrase something. The first problem will hopefully improve with more speaking practice, and I think the second problem requires more writing practice, which might help internalize grammar and complex phrases some more.
- Extra: Wrote 296 words in my journal.