2019: Learn Harder [DE, ZH, ES, EU, PL, KO]

[LunaMoonsilver]

I didn't realise audiobooks counted. That makes this challenge a bit of a easy win doesn't it?

I just think it means most other people on the internet aren't as masochistic as the people on this forum when it comes to challenges. Even with the audiobooks, half of your time over two days is an awful lot; I used audiobooks last time and still didn't manage it. If you did want to make it an extreme 24 in 48 readathon, you could always leave the audiobooks out

Today will be my main reading day. Yesterday, I had a 2 hour Dutch class to attend in the morning, and I was occupied with a Big Social Thing from 6 p.m. onward. Even so, I managed to get in just over four hours yesterday.

Most of that time was indeed with an audiobook in my native language. So even using an audiobook doesn’t necessarily mean that I find it easy to grab reading hours I actually rarely listen to audiobooks in my native language, maybe three per year. By contrast, I usually read 50-60 books annually.

I have a hard time focusing on audiobooks, even in my native language. Listening to one yesterday for 3+ hours was a challenge for me. I had to replay bits once in a while. I chose Lincoln in the Bardo because it has lots and lots of characters/voices. That keeps me from zoning out

My totals for yesterday were 3h47m in English and 30 minutes of Danish. Today, I’ll rotate through English, Danish, Dutch and Latin. I will probably only use the audiobook a little bit today.

Four hours for the first day when you had no intentions of doing this until a few days ago is really impressive. And yeah, I'm the same with audiobooks. I love that they give me the freedom to listen when I'm doing other things (being at work/running being my main ones) but god after a while I zone out—podcasts have given me a little more listening stamina this past year, thankfully.

Good luck for the rest of the day today, too! I'm having to switch up my TL books pretty often now as I near the end, but it's cool to get some language practice in there as well

[jeff_lindqvist]

If you did want to make it an extreme 24 in 48 readathon, you could always leave the audiobooks out

Or listen to an audiobook while doing scriptorium (another language, another text) at the same time.

(That's how I get things done during hectic days. Just saying. )

[LunaMoonsilver]

Readathon Update

Okay, I've got my goals update coming up, but first I thought I'd post a little about this past weekend's readathon.

It was pretty much a total success! I read for just over 24 hours, completed eight books, read bits from twelve and got to a total of 2,441 pages.

I've just spent a few minutes compiling my stats by book, but more importantly, by language, so I know what I'm looking at to improve on next time.

So, I read (including the audiobook, which went at a much slower pace than I would read) 2,441 pages in 1,458 minutes.

English = 1,276 minutes (audiobook = 620 minutes; 43% of total time); 88% of the total time. I read 2,171 pages, which came to 89% of my total. I was reading at an average of 164 pages per hour.

Mandarin = 49 minutes; 3% of the total time. I read 16 pages ( ), which came to 1% of my total. I was reading at an average of 20 pages per hour.

German = 52 minutes; 4% of the total time. I read 68 pages (way fewer than I thought I would!), which came to 3% of my total. I was reading at an average of 78 pages per hour.

Spanish = 81 minutes; 6% of the total time. I read 186 pages, which came to 8% of my total. I was reading at an average of 138 pages per hour.

First of all, obviously those %s are rounded, so not exact (I see that it adds up to 101% ). Also, the reason my page numbers/pages per hour are so high for Spanish is because I was reading manga. For the readathon, I counted 1:1 (though I've logged 5:1 for the Super Challenge ofc), so reading one volume of Ouran High School Host Club came to that 186. Less material than reading a novel of that length, but super motivating that I can get through one volume in less than an hour and a half!

[LunaMoonsilver]

Okay, a short and sweet goals update; I've been trying to write this all day but my brother and my nieces have been around so I'm determined to get it done before I go to bed.

Last Week's Goals

German

• Read the equivalent of two Super Challenge 'books' (100 pages). - Noooo! I read 68 pages in German for the readathon and then couldn't bring myself to look at a book yesterday, boo. So I was short on this, but only by a little.

Mandarin

• Maintain my 365 day language challenge streak. - Done! It's been painful at times, trying to squeeze in the last few minutes, but I'm still on top of this.
• Read the first volume of 钢之炼金术师 (Fullmetal Alchemist). - Didn't manage this, but then I didn't realise how over-ambitious I was being. I did read 16 pages for the readathon (which included looking up a fair few words—on the plus side, I now know the title in Mandarin very well), which is a lot, for me. So I might not have reached this goal, but I am still impressed with myself.

Spanish

• Watch two TV episodes. - Done! Not only did I watch two episodes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, I also watched Múltiple (Split) in Spanish before I went to see Glass last Wednesday. Really enjoyed that film too, though I wasn't expecting Dennis' voice to be like that in the OV.
• Read the equivalent of one Super Challenge 'book' (50 pages). - Ugh, kind of no, kind of yes. I read 186 pages of Ouran High School Host Club in Spanish for the readathon, but since it's a manga, it technically only counts for 37 pages for the Super Challenge. I mean, I'm still fine with this in my head, but I do need to get cracking on with those Super Challenge quotas.

Basque

• Review one Assimil lesson. - Nope.

Polish

• Do one Pimsleur lesson. - Nope.

Korean

• Review dialogues from Integrated Korean Beginning Level 1, Lesson 1. - Nope.
• Come up with a loose 'study plan' for the 6WC. - Done! I have a list of resources and an idea of where my focus is going to be in two-week batches. I do still want to go through K-dramas on Viki and add a few to a watchlist, but that's not exactly a time-intensive task.

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Weekly Goals: Week Five
29.01.2019-04.02.2019

German

• Read 100 pages. - One of the books I started for the readathon is pretty good; plus, it's a kindle book with actual page numbers, which makes tracking easier. I also still have the last quarter of Stormbreaker to finish, so I'm spoilt for choice here.

Mandarin

• Maintain my 365-day challenge streak.
• Watch two TV episodes. - I'm still watching the same show, and occasionally having minor freak-outs at it, but for the most part, it's good.

Spanish

• Watch two TV episodes.
• Read 50 pages. - I'm feeling inspired after re-discovering manga/taking part in the readathon. I'm hoping to get through another couple of volumes (either Ouran High School Host Club or Attack on Titan), which should bring me to that 50.

Basque

• Review one Assimil lesson. - One. ONE. I just need to get on with it.

Polish

• Study for 30 minutes. - I'm a bit all over the place with which resources to use for Polish right now, so I'm going to just give myself a time limit and see which I like best.

Korean

• Study for two hours. - I'm aiming for 30 minutes a day during the 6WC, so this would cover the first four days.
• Watch one TV episode.

I'm going to be back either tomorrow or Thursday to talk about what I plan to do during the 6WC—the most important things for now, though, are that I'm studying Korean and that I hope to hit an end time of 21 hours (30 mins/day). I'm sure I'll come up with some more ridiculously unattainable goals in the meantime, though!

[rdearman]

I started this 24/48 reading thing this evening, we'll see how it goes. I'm not counting audiobooks, I'll be doing it hardcore.

[LunaMoonsilver]

I was going to write this update yesterday (actually early in the day, too!) but then the forum was down and I didn't bother checking it again until this morning. No big deal, it still gave me time to look at my goals and make sure everything was prepped. Last week's goals went alright, though I seem to be abandoning at least one language every week. I've not cut back to one goal for each language per week, but I might next week if this problem persists.

Last Week's Goals

German

• Read 100 pages. - Nooooo! I didn't manage to get nearly as much reading done as I'd like last week, even though I was in a position to do so at work. Mostly, I think, this was because that position was outside. It was far too cold for me. And, yes, I know it was much, much, much colder in the US, but I live in the UK Midlands, where we don't really have weather of any description. I can't deal when it's hot, can't deal when it's cold, and apparently I can't focus on reading then, either.

Mandarin

• Maintain my 365-day challenge streak. - Done! I struggled on Saturday; I went to work, came home and got ready, and then went on a night out, but I managed to watch some TV before I left and then did a bit of sneaky Memrise on the bus into the city. A lot last week was apps/TV; I'm hoping to focus on active learning a little more this week.
• Watch two TV episodes. - Done! I'm still watching 他来了，请闭眼 (Love Me If You Dare) on Viki, and even though it's about murder and criminal profiling, I'm enjoying how funny it can be. I finished episode 12 yesterday and there are only 24 total, so I'm halfway through already.

Spanish

• Watch two TV episodes. - No, didn't manage this. Watched too much TV in other languages, instead.
• Read 50 pages. - I didn't manage this either, though I read another chapter of Ouran High School Host Club. It's fun reading in Spanish, but it's still exhausting.

Basque

• Review one Assimil lesson. - Done!

Polish

• Study for 30 minutes. - This is the language I abandoned this past week. I'll try again this week instead!

Korean

• Study for two hours. - Done! I studied for 2h22m between the 1st and 4th February; this included: watching some TV, doing one Pimsleur lesson, using Memrise, and starting work on the Living Language Korean textbook. I like the layout of this more than the Integrated Korean textbook, even though I'm sure Integrated Korean is much better.
• Watch one TV episode - Done! I watched episode one of 마이 프린세스 (My Princess). I have seen this show before; thinking about it, I'm pretty sure I watched it back in 2012/2013! It's so fun, though, and I'm looking forward to rediscovering it. I've already heard some words I've learnt from the textbook!

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A couple of other things from this week:

First of all, an old German lecturer of mine shared a link to the Goethe Institut's 'onleihe' service, which is like an online library for German books. I signed up from the UK (for free!) and could download books straight away—which is really helpful, as one of the things I want to work on in German is my writing; there's a textbook for that. They have a ton of textbooks for learning German, but also lots of popular book series and you can borrow the books for up to two weeks at a time. The downside is that because they're copyrighted, I can't copy any of these books onto my Kindle (you have to use Adobe Digital Editions to read the pdfs) but they do have an app and you can read them on your computer.

I also saw that iguanamon is starting the FLC again. I'm so, so torn on whether I want to take part—in theory, it was one of my favourite challenges of 2018, even if it panned out terribly for me in practice. (Because I didn't do it, really. My bad.) Buuuuuut if I did take part, I'd also need to pick (another) language, and right now I think I'm kind of leaning towards French? Again, a problem: I did do a GCSE in French—so studied it for five years—but then that was also something that finished twelve years ago and I haven't touched the language since. So I'm thinking about it. I think even if I do decide to take part, I'll be signing up as this round of the 6WC finishes because I don't want to take my focus too far away from Korean right now.

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Weekly Goals: Week Six
05.02.2019-11.02.2019

German

• Read 100 pages.
• Watch 90 minutes of TV/film. - Gotta get on that Super Challenge grind!

Mandarin

• Watch two TV episodes.
• Finish reviewing up to NPCR 1 L10.

Spanish

• Read 30 pages.

Basque

• Review one Assimil lesson.

Polish

• Study for fifteen minutes.

Korean

• Watch two TV episodes.
• Study for at least four hours.

/end long post

[LunaMoonsilver]

I had a good week this week! I still need to strike a balance between language learning and my other hobbies, but I think I'm getting there a little. I spent 17h15m on language learning last week*, split as follows:

German: 237 mins / 3h57m
Mandarin: 278 mins / 4h38m
Spanish: 83 mins / 1h23m
Basque: 25 mins
Polish: 89 mins / 1h29m
Korean: 282 mins / 4h42m
Urdu:** 41 mins

*I've been using a spreadsheet to keep track of time, along with the Hours app on my phone, since the start of 2019. Because I'm using the app, it's not that difficult to keep track of dedicated study time but I don't know if I'll keep up with this the entire year.

**I'm going to be studying Urdu a little bit for the Language Jam; this time so far reflects me trying to learn the Urdu alphabet. It's not a new 'proper' language addition, but I'll add more about that later.

I'm honestly surprised my Korean and Mandarin times are so close (and that my Spanish time is so low in comparison), but using Pimsleur Korean more often this week has made me feel like I'm actually getting somewhere!

Last Week's Goals

German

• Read 100 pages. - No. I managed 40 pages, but where I thought I'd read more on Friday at work, I just couldn't settle into it. Honestly, I was kind of exhausted. I'm off almost all of this week, though, so I'm going to read some more.
• Watch 90 minutes of TV/film. - Done! Well, done if you count an audiobook, which I absolutely do. To be fair, I was only a minute off without the audiobook (two episodes of 30 Rock and the first episode of Marvel's The Punisher), but I also listened to Gevatter Tod for 88 minutes and was surprised by how much I understood. I constantly worry about my listening skills (in any and all languages, including English), but audiobooks are read clearly and at a good pace, so turns out they're not super difficult!

Mandarin

• Watch two TV episodes. - Done!
• Finish reviewing up to NPCR 1 L10. - No, but turns out I was just being over-ambitious, as per.

Spanish

• Read 30 pages. - No; I did a little LR (L2-L2) last night, but not enough pages. I actually kind of forgot this was my goal and did the watching from last week instead!

Basque

• Review one Assimil lesson. - Done!

Polish

• Study for fifteen minutes. - Done! Did some Pimsleur, mostly, though I'll be moving onto the textbook this week.

Korean

• Watch two TV episodes. - No, I watched one but didn't get through a second one.
• Study for at least four hours. - Done!

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Okay, so why am I taking up Urdu this week? Basically, it's for the Language Jam, which Twitter user tulipun came up with, based on the idea of Game Jame and other similar concepts. There's a website, where you can register (you get given a random username, so you don't need to use email or anything), ticking off languages you've previously learnt/dabbled in so that you can try something new. You also get the option of choosing to be given a language with the Latin alphabet or with foreign script. Then, a week out, everyone can check their assigned languages and if, like me, you've got a language using a different alphabet, you have the week leading up to the LangJam event to learn that so that you're not having to spend time on it during the weekend. (Plus, you use this time to gather resources, etc.)

The actual LangJam itself is taking place from Friday-Sunday (15th-17th February). I'm not really setting any goals or anything like that for it; I'd like to be able to introduce myself by the end of it, I guess, but just playing around with another language will be fun.

I'm also taking part in another readathon from the 16th-26th February—the Manga Madness Readathon. This is a lot more low-key than the 24 in 48 readathon was, so I'm going to try and complete this one without reading a single volume in English. I've already tried reading some manga in Spanish and Mandarin and I'm looking forward to reading more!

Oh, also, I've been watching the dubbed version of Brooklyn Nine-Nine on Netflix, and I noticed this really fun thing when I was watching yesterday. So I'm watching it in Spanish and (if you haven't seen it), a couple of the characters are Latina. They don't speak Spanish all that often but there was a joke where one of the women had lied to another cop about what a Spanish sentence meant. Nothing too serious, it was all to show he was kind of gullible. She follows this up (in the English version) with "haha tonto; that means dumb-dumb". What I liked is that for the Spanish dub, they just switched this around, like literally switched 'dumb-dumb' and 'tonto', which had to be so much easier for the translator I'm gonna watch the German dub of this episode at some point to see what they did. (Can you all tell I got really excited about this and felt like I could only share it here )

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Weekly Goals: Week Seven
12.02.2019-18.02.2019

German

• Read 250 pages.
• Study grammar for two hours.

Mandarin

• Watch two TV episodes.
• Complete up to NPCR 1 Lesson 9.

Spanish

• Read 50 pages.
• Study three Living Language lessons.

Basque

• Review one Assimil lesson.

Polish

• Study for 15 minutes.

Korean

• Do one Pimsleur lesson a day.
• Study for five hours.
• Watch two TV episodes.

I really need to start coming back here and posting updates whenever something new comes up or that middle bit of these weekly posts is going to start getting sooooooooooooooo long. Anyhow, I think I'll be back more this weekend for some LangJam updates—is anyone else taking part?

[addylad]

Will be following with interest!

[LunaMoonsilver]

Will be following with interest!

Awesome, hope you enjoy it here!

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Okay, so a quick update about my first day of this round of the LangJam. The language I’ve been assigned is Urdu and boy oh boy, should I have spent more time on the alphabet this week! I’ve spent just over two hours studying Urdu today and most of them have been on the alphabet (Memrise, Teach Yourself) with only a little being the actual language (Teach Yourself, Memrise, Pimsleur). Next time, I’m not choosing the foreign script option, s2g.

But—it is fun! I don’t remember anything really from Pimsleur (I was trying to listen and cook—not the best combo) but I enjoyed it at the time and it doesn’t seem an insurmountable language at this stage. Yay!

I’m going to try and get through a couple of Pimsleurs tomorrow (refresh one, go through two at least one) and then hopefully I can tackle the first Teach Yourself lesson with a little more enthusiasm. I might look at some YouTube lessons too.

Just got to make sure I don’t slack on the Korean or anything...

Edit: poor grammar because my phone hates typing on this forum

[LunaMoonsilver]

Okay, so this week was still pretty good, though I think the LangJam did derail some of my goals a tiny bit. No one's fault but my own!

I had a lot of fun during the LangJam, however—even though I didn't learn all that much Urdu (I think I just about remember how to say 'I speak English'... maybe?), I learnt some new things about the language and it was fun to dabble in it for a few days with no real pressure. It looks like the next LangJam might involve exclusively indigenous languages (since 2019 is the year of indigenous languages, after all), so I'm already looking forward to taking part again.

I ended up studying Urdu for just over four hours altogether; altogether I logged nearly 28 hours in the last week, which just proves what I spend my time on when I don't have to go to work. The next... four, five? times I have booked off work though I do have plans (I'm not sad about that, per se, but ugh it'd be great to have some spare holidays to just take a week off and spend it all on languages~), so I doubt I'll be getting that much work in for a while yet.

Last Week's Goals

That being said, I didn't exactly hit all my goals last week...

German

• Read 250 pages. - Done! I read 311 pages total; only 20 of those were from the book I'm (still) reading—the rest were all manga (yep, divided down, so actually almost 1,500!). I've still got a bunch of volumes I want to get through this week too, so I'll hopefully keep making steady progress in the Manga Madness Readathon.
• Study grammar for two hours. - Nope. I managed about an hour of grammar study, so better than nothing.

Mandarin

• Watch two TV episodes. - Done! Still the same TV show but now we're into the second half, the villain's plan is coming together...
• Complete up to NPCR 1 Lesson 9. - Nope. I'm most of the way through lesson eight, but I haven't finished it yet.

Spanish

• Read 50 pages. - Done! This took a lot of effort, but I managed it! Again, thanks to manga, but I'd say that even with the 62 (310) pages of input I've had over the last couple of days, I feel like I've noticed a slight difference in comprehension. I don't think I've necessarily learnt a lot of new words, I think it's more that I've settled back into Spanish again, but it's nice to notice.
• Study three Living Language lessons. - Nope, managed another one. The beginning ones are taking around half an hour to finish.

Basque

• Review one Assimil lesson. - Nope. Although, this doesn't mean I didn't study Basque at all this week—I spent some time reviewing vocab on Memrise, which I do think was useful.

Polish

• Study for fifteen minutes. - Done!

Korean

• Do one Pimsleur lesson a day. - Nope, but then I thought this was ambitious when I wrote it down tbh.
• Study for five hours. - Done! Just.
• Watch two TV episodes. - Done!

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I'm definitely going to scale things back this week. I'm back at work from tomorrow (boo!) but there's also a bunch of birthdays/meet-ups coming up so I'm going to be somewhat tight on time. I'm still training for the half-marathon, and going to get a trial gym membership (10 days for £5 yessssssss) so I can keep training on days when I'm literally at work all day (i.e. use some of my lunch break), so I'll at least get some of the audio courses done then.

I did manage to clear all my reviews on Memrise this week! Haven't managed that in, I think, literally years.

I ~also~ bought Skyrim in German last week and just haven't gotten around to playing on it yet, so I'm looking forward to trying that out. With how I've felt recently about switching to German audiobooks and books written originally in German (that is, it's not really difficult anymore), I'm trying to make that more and more of a 'default' language for myself. I still need to work on things—writing is one, and that's also why I've been studying grammar—but a massive amount of input is only going to help with that.

I do have to start writing. I know.

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Weekly Goals: Week Eight
19.02.2019-25.02.2019

German

• Read 445 pages (this will take me to 25 'books' for the SC).

Mandarin

• Review two NPCR lessons (9, 10).

Spanish

• Watch 70 minutes of anything (this will take me to 1,000 minutes).

Basque

• Review one Assimil lesson.

Polish

• Study for 15 minutes.

Korean

• Watch two TV episodes.
• Study for at least four hours.