Brun Ugle の mehrsprachige bitácora (NO, ES, DE, JA) 2019 -- now with Polish!!
Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2019 9:08 am
Somehow, I always get excited about the new year and starting a new log in December, but by the time the new year actually comes, I forget what I was so excited about and what I wanted to write. (And then I start writing and it turns into a book. So, I’m going to divide this post up to avoid a wall of text.)
Last year was a bit of a bust. I tried to write my log in Spanish, which created an extra hurdle to updating and I probably had enough hurdles as it was. It was a stressful year with buying a house and moving and so on and I never really got myself and my studies organized. Well, let’s see if I can learn to settle down again and get back into a routine. I’ve been working on that for the last month and half and it’s definitely gotten better, but I still have a way to go. I made myself an Excel workbook where I record the time I spend on various activities on a different sheet for each language, with a sum sheet at the front showing the totals for each day per language. I chose a goal of 45 minutes per day per language, but I decided to lower that to 30 minutes from January. I find it’s been working pretty well so far. It means on the days when I don’t really feel like doing much, I can just do the minimum and feel like I’ve accomplished something. Also, as I told Zenmonkey and he mentioned in his log, I have certain things I want to work on in my various languages and they have various priorities, but there are times when my mind is not up to them. For example, in German I want to work on my grammar workbook, FSI and an Anki deck based on the FSI course, but I also have other activities like Memrise, Glossika, reading, and watching TV. If I’m relaxed and focused, I can do FSI, grammar or Anki. Those can also be good when I’m feeling mildly stressed but still able to focus, but if I’m too stressed to really focus on grammar, then I’ll watch some TV or YouTube videos. Basically, I organize my activities around my anxiety, depression, fatigue and general laziness, which can vary from day to day, but also throughout the day. I have periods where I turn into a zombie from about 12:00 to 17:00, so then I need to make sure I do grammar and other thinking work in the morning or evening and save watching telenovelas for the zombie hours. I also divide my activities up into desk activities and activities that can be combined with something physical. For example, I find that Glossika goes very well with housework or knitting, but I still need to get myself organized with podcasts or audiobooks for walking. I need to try to walk more again not that my back is slightly better. I just have trouble finding podcasts that I can really focus on. My mind wanders easily when I’m walking, but it seems a shame to waste all that time and not try to learn something. So, I need podcasts that are engaging enough to hold my attention.
My ability to focus seems to have decreased drastically in recent years. I’d like to do something about that too. I’d like to try meditating, to see if it helps, but it’s really hard to meditate if you can’t focus, so I haven’t managed to make any progress on that yet. That’s one of the non-language related things I want to work on this year along with getting becoming more active (ie figuring out how to exercise sufficiently without making my back worse) and losing the weight I’ve gained in recent years from stress-eating and not being able to exercise as much as previously. None of these goals are particularly easy, but I think progress made on any one of them will lead to progress in the others since they are all somewhat interconnected.
Back to languages. I said in the resolutions thread that I was going to focus on Spanish, German, Japanese and on polishing my Norwegian and not let myself get distracted by any of Rick’s hare-brained schemes (or by anyone else’s schemes). I’m going to continue using my Excel workbook and try to study a minimum of 30 minutes per day per language (not including Norwegian). I’m not joining the 365-day challenge because I want to be able to take breaks for traveling and for those times when I decide to immerse myself in one language for a day or two to the exclusion of all others. Also, streaks tend not to be motivating for me. I get stressed out from them. And sometimes I find the best thing is to take a day off. Then I come back the next day rested and enthusiastic.
I want to work on writing and speaking in Norwegian, Spanish and German and so will be using them in this log. I probably won’t be writing in Japanese, but maybe towards the end of the year, I could give it a try. I’m also not going to make it a requirement to write my log in any particular language because I tried that last year and it was too much. For this year, I just want to get back into writing at all. Maybe I should make that another goal for the year – to write every week, except when I’m traveling and it would be too difficult.
I’ll stop here and write about my background, goals, etc in my individual languages for later.
Last year was a bit of a bust. I tried to write my log in Spanish, which created an extra hurdle to updating and I probably had enough hurdles as it was. It was a stressful year with buying a house and moving and so on and I never really got myself and my studies organized. Well, let’s see if I can learn to settle down again and get back into a routine. I’ve been working on that for the last month and half and it’s definitely gotten better, but I still have a way to go. I made myself an Excel workbook where I record the time I spend on various activities on a different sheet for each language, with a sum sheet at the front showing the totals for each day per language. I chose a goal of 45 minutes per day per language, but I decided to lower that to 30 minutes from January. I find it’s been working pretty well so far. It means on the days when I don’t really feel like doing much, I can just do the minimum and feel like I’ve accomplished something. Also, as I told Zenmonkey and he mentioned in his log, I have certain things I want to work on in my various languages and they have various priorities, but there are times when my mind is not up to them. For example, in German I want to work on my grammar workbook, FSI and an Anki deck based on the FSI course, but I also have other activities like Memrise, Glossika, reading, and watching TV. If I’m relaxed and focused, I can do FSI, grammar or Anki. Those can also be good when I’m feeling mildly stressed but still able to focus, but if I’m too stressed to really focus on grammar, then I’ll watch some TV or YouTube videos. Basically, I organize my activities around my anxiety, depression, fatigue and general laziness, which can vary from day to day, but also throughout the day. I have periods where I turn into a zombie from about 12:00 to 17:00, so then I need to make sure I do grammar and other thinking work in the morning or evening and save watching telenovelas for the zombie hours. I also divide my activities up into desk activities and activities that can be combined with something physical. For example, I find that Glossika goes very well with housework or knitting, but I still need to get myself organized with podcasts or audiobooks for walking. I need to try to walk more again not that my back is slightly better. I just have trouble finding podcasts that I can really focus on. My mind wanders easily when I’m walking, but it seems a shame to waste all that time and not try to learn something. So, I need podcasts that are engaging enough to hold my attention.
My ability to focus seems to have decreased drastically in recent years. I’d like to do something about that too. I’d like to try meditating, to see if it helps, but it’s really hard to meditate if you can’t focus, so I haven’t managed to make any progress on that yet. That’s one of the non-language related things I want to work on this year along with getting becoming more active (ie figuring out how to exercise sufficiently without making my back worse) and losing the weight I’ve gained in recent years from stress-eating and not being able to exercise as much as previously. None of these goals are particularly easy, but I think progress made on any one of them will lead to progress in the others since they are all somewhat interconnected.
Back to languages. I said in the resolutions thread that I was going to focus on Spanish, German, Japanese and on polishing my Norwegian and not let myself get distracted by any of Rick’s hare-brained schemes (or by anyone else’s schemes). I’m going to continue using my Excel workbook and try to study a minimum of 30 minutes per day per language (not including Norwegian). I’m not joining the 365-day challenge because I want to be able to take breaks for traveling and for those times when I decide to immerse myself in one language for a day or two to the exclusion of all others. Also, streaks tend not to be motivating for me. I get stressed out from them. And sometimes I find the best thing is to take a day off. Then I come back the next day rested and enthusiastic.
I want to work on writing and speaking in Norwegian, Spanish and German and so will be using them in this log. I probably won’t be writing in Japanese, but maybe towards the end of the year, I could give it a try. I’m also not going to make it a requirement to write my log in any particular language because I tried that last year and it was too much. For this year, I just want to get back into writing at all. Maybe I should make that another goal for the year – to write every week, except when I’m traveling and it would be too difficult.
I’ll stop here and write about my background, goals, etc in my individual languages for later.