Expug's 2019 Log - Reasonable Learning

[Expugnator]

Yesterday I Forgot and lost my streak for the Russian-Lithuanian deck. I didn't do much extra either. I was too tired to read ahead in Spanish fiction because I had had a class in the evening.

This morning I didn't have enough time either, but I got to wake up in the daylight again. Tomorrow I'm back to routine and probably to headstarts.

Speakly just sent me a special offer for a lifetime plan for all current and future languages, just 29 euros more expensive than the annual single language plan. Now I'm really looking forward for them to add more languages and I might want to use Russian and German as well, though both will start fairly easily.

Today I decided to pay full attention to the Estonian soap opera, which I don't regret. No Clozemaster in parallel. As a result, it was productive like before, it really felt like optimal input.

Started the new Mandarin show. It feels easier now. The Mandarin subtitles are hardcoded, which is a double-edged sword. For one, it will allow me to use the softcoded L1 subtitles and not an external txt or doc file. But then the hardcoded subs are rather of small font and I'm refraining from reading them.

Greek is starting to become actually transparent. Maybe one day I'll be able to follow an audiobook without text or translation.

A not so productive day. I didn't do most of my Clozemaster. Let's see how the rest of the week comes along.

[Expugnator]

Yesterday I didn't do much app learning but at least I read ahead, which helped me today as I could only do some Clozemaster in the morning but no reading or Duolingo.

I manage to find Most of the non-fiction books I add to my to-read list only in English. When I'm lucky enough one of the books by a given author will have been translated in Spanish or German. If there's only English and Portuguese I go for Portuguese because reading non-fiction is a task in itself which both interpolates and transcends language learning.

A song from Plan Coeur:



"Aku stagnan" in Indonesian, "Je végète" in French. Interesting verbs.

Not enough time for the Guarani lesson, I'm usually splitting it into two days. Indirect objects are not that simple. The overall complexity of Guarani verbs reminds me of Georgian and its pluripersonal verbs.

[Expugnator]

The days are getting busier and busier. I'm having more classes, working more during the day as well, getting more tired and not always having time to do the part of my studies which work better when I'm at home. So far it's mostly trial classes and the students haven't set for a fixed time yet, so I imagine once this is set it will be easier for me to organize my daily language studies. I'll keep the ball rolling for a while but if the trend continues I'll have to cut down on some resources. I know I keep saying this but when I'm on the verge of doing this downsizing there comes a time of calming and I decide to keep my schedule or even add new resources.

Yesterday I was tired after normal study, anyway. Reading has been the most tiresome activity, especially extensive reading but not only. The Greek listening-reading as well as Colloquial Indonesian also have a lot of reading and come at a time of the day when I'm particularly tired after having done the extensife reading in Italian, Spanish and language-rotating non-fiction.

The Chinese series is hard. My main issue is the hard-coded Chinese subtitles being too small. or maybe the Taiwanese accent from my previous series is actually slower?

Guarani is hard, but even the few and not graded Clozemaster sentences are starting to make sense.

There are so many dialogues and reading passages (the ones that get no translation at all) in Colloquial Indonesian that they could have made a much more digestible book by simply splitting those dialogues into short lessons with their corresponding exercises. And yet they insist on those long lessons.

Well, I like the explanation on prefixes and the way they are introduced gradually. Like with Hebrew's binyanim, I had to wait until I found the right source so I could figure it out.

Second day in a row with no time for the Guarani exercises. The days are getting busy indeed. Tomorrow is a non-study day as I will be either giving training or being trained.

[Expugnator]

I've just skipped Friday and then the weekend, but it felt like ages without studying. I've had some rough days with one girl getting sick right after the other (as it seems to be the rule) and today I'm showing similar symptoms. I only hope it's not dengue, because the sickness feels like the time I had dengue several years ago.

The most affected was Clozemaster. I just checked individual languages in order to keep the streak but only on Sunday did I resume my normal activities; I happened to lose my 31-day Duolingo streak, on the other hand, because I kept waiting for an opportunity where I could play the sound without disturbing people around me and I ended up forgetting it.

What I did invest on was reading; I finished my previous non-fiction, which was in Spanish, and now I'm reading in German. I was reluctant to take a daily 20-page endeavor in a complex topic, but it turns out I had no reason to doubt my recently acquired fluency. Only few unknown words throughout those pages and less than a handful with the potential to affect my overall comprehension. I'm actually reading fast in German.

I did no podcast listening during the weekend because the moment I'm doing the dishes and preparing my sandwiches I'm having to take care of the girls as well, it's a trend now.

Today I was glad to resume studying - that is, until I started feeling sick. I had some appointments as well - first one exchange with a Greek, so far we've only talked in Portuguese. Then I went to see an accountant for an issue related to last year which he kept procrastinating.

I don't know how I got this far given how sick I'm feeling but I managed the Russian part of my studies (I couldn't have gone home anyway). I really hope to get better until tomorrow.

[Expugnator]

Yesterday I managed to do more Clozemaster, but not app learning, be it Duolingo or Speakly.me .

I had no headstart for today either, as I had a class in the morning.

Finished the film Le gendarme et les extra-terrestres. Now only one film left in the series. Actually only over a dozen films left in my whole collection before I get into series for good.

Georgian reading is getting even easier. I can overcome my feeling slightly tired after lunch because it doesn't feel like a struggle to read in Georgian anymore

Finished 2 volume in Andreas Eschbach's Blackout trilogy. The whoçle story is much better now, and so is my German. This series actually helped me with developping flow with German.

As a matter of fact, I don't think I need double subtitles for German dubbed series anymore. It's starting to become transparent

Getting back to Hebrew after 5 days. The lessons feel much more digestible now. I know most words actually.

Colloquial Indonesian lessons are insanely huge. I'm not learning everything but not that little either. I can absorb more Indonesian now.

Not much Hebrew in today's 30 shekels per hour episode. Lots of Russian and of what I assume is Levantine Arabic.

Staying overtime, I've managed to catch up with Guarani. I did exercises for lesson 23 and both read and did the exercises for lesson 24. I'm using a comprehensive paperback dictionary which makes me much more motivated, as it's better than flipping through the previous lessons in the textbook for vocabulary.

Today's Gran Bien Vous Fasse soundtrack. It's the type of song I can transcript in real time, no need to check the lyrics by chance and gaps:



The learning curve for Greek, at least at Clozemaster, is starting to look less steep. I'm actually managing to do most answers at the random, text-input mode. It's still harder than it was with German in the beginning, but I expect to consolidate it in the upcoming weeks, as some oscilating words finally turn into knowns.

Listening to Grand Bien Vous Fasse on the background is almost second nature, especially at the desktop. I'm slowly plugging along through the episodes, which are quite informative.

[Tristano]

Hey maybe you noticed it already, but French from Serbian in clozemaster has the levels.

I'm curious though what do you think about reverse decks. Useless? If useful, when, how etc.

[Wurstmann]

The Chinese series is hard. My main issue is the hard-coded Chinese subtitles being too small. or maybe the Taiwanese accent from my previous series is actually slower?

What show are you watching?

[Cèid Donn]

I really like that song!

Colloquial Indonesian lessons are insanely huge. I'm not learning everything but not that little either. I can absorb more Indonesian now.

They really are, aren't they? The amount of exercises alone is quite a task. That's one reason I stopped working through it for the time being and switched to TY Indonesian, because it was taking so much time to complete just one unit in Colloquial Indonesian.

Indonesian is a more challenging language than as it's often presented, I think. Something that seems simple with Indonesian can became surprisingly challenging to use proficiently outside of guided practice, like remembering the difference between tahun berapa and berapa tahun, or just keeping similarly spelled words straight. I'm learning to recognize a lot with Indonesian, but mastering it feels like a very long journey for me. I can only do the Clozemaster Indonesian course in short spurts because the multiple choice path is too easy for me but the text input path is hard (and there's no listening option for Indonesian yet despite the course having relatively good TTS--if there were, it would be a nice middle ground for someone at my level, because I can often spell Indonesian word correctly from listening to them). With the the Irish or Breton course, the "clozed" word is often a relatively easy one to pick out from context, but with the Indonesian course, it's more often the hardest (or longest, or trickiest) word, and I get tired of that after a few days in a row. I mean, one day, eventually, I will be able to spell menyenangkan correctly at the first go, but today I'm still working on that.

[Expugnator]

Hey maybe you noticed it already, but French from Serbian in clozemaster has the levels.

I'm curious though what do you think about reverse decks. Useless? If useful, when, how etc.

No I didn't! Might be better than Russian. The reverse decks are far from ideal though, you are forcing your brain to focus on the short-letter information instead of on the main information. I'm learning quite a bit of Lithuanian through my reverse deck but I'm pretty sure I'd be learning much more from a true, graded deck.

The Chinese series is hard. My main issue is the hard-coded Chinese subtitles being too small. or maybe the Taiwanese accent from my previous series is actually slower?

What show are you watching?

Just finished Falling in Love With You/爱上两个我 from Taiwan and now I've started A Love So Beautiful/致我们单纯的小美好.

I really like that song!

Colloquial Indonesian lessons are insanely huge. I'm not learning everything but not that little either. I can absorb more Indonesian now.

They really are, aren't they? The amount of exercises alone is quite a task. That's one reason I stopped working through it for the time being and switched to TY Indonesian, because it was taking so much time to complete just one unit in Colloquial Indonesian.

Indonesian is a more challenging language than as it's often presented, I think. Something that seems simple with Indonesian can became surprisingly challenging to use proficiently outside of guided practice, like remembering the difference between tahun berapa and berapa tahun, or just keeping similarly spelled words straight. I'm learning to recognize a lot with Indonesian, but mastering it feels like a very long journey for me. I can only do the Clozemaster Indonesian course in short spurts because the multiple choice path is too easy for me but the text input path is hard (and there's no listening option for Indonesian yet despite the course having relatively good TTS--if there were, it would be a nice middle ground for someone at my level, because I can often spell Indonesian word correctly from listening to them). With the the Irish or Breton course, the "clozed" word is often a relatively easy one to pick out from context, but with the Indonesian course, it's more often the hardest (or longest, or trickiest) word, and I get tired of that after a few days in a row. I mean, one day, eventually, I will be able to spell menyenangkan correctly at the first go, but today I'm still working on that.

Glad you liked the song! And it's great to meet someone else with more realistic opinions on Indonesia. I agree with most of what you said. I just can't seem to adhere to any TYs in the newer format, though, too much like scattered trivia knowledge and a phrasebook with fill-in-the-blanks.

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Yesterday I accidentally hit the button "Mark forum read", thus erasing the record of all unread threads. It's not the first time it happens but the frustration feels the same. I was holding the phone and dozed off a bit and my finger hit the large button link. I managed to catch up with most logs (left admin's log unread on purpose...kidding!!!), but I'm going to lose track of most tracks. I was enjoying reading but I wasn't reading for long, as Clozemaster takes up most of my hidden moments, but I would have liked to choose what to prioritize. Now it's all blank. I have a vague idea where to start from but the truth is I'm a very isolate member of the community these days.

Today was a much calmer day, almost routine, and I finally got a headstart again, at least the usual morning Clozemaster plus Duolingo.

I resumed watching today's Norwegian series episode with no subtitles and I didn't panick this time. I could have followed most of it, really.

As for the French film, I don't seem to need them at all. It's the final one in the Gendarme series, my copy lacks hardcoded subs and I didn't bother downloading soft ones because the voices of those gendarmes are second nature now.

Grand Bien Vous Fasse seems to be enriching my playlist again:



Finished the good French series Plan Coeur, with Indonesian subtitles. I'm willing to watch Osmosis, but I'll leave it for the weekend, and just pick one from the Arrowverse for my Indonesian subtitle-mode.

[rdearman]

You can skip my log. It is very boring anyway.