Expug's 2019 Log - Reasonable Learning

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Languages: Native Brazilian Portuguese#advanced fluency English, French, Papiamento#basic fluency Italian, Norwegian#intermediate Spanish, German, Georgian and Chinese (Mandarin)#basic Russian, Estonian, Greek (Modern)#just started Indonesian, Hebrew (Modern), Guarani
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9931
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Re: Expug's 2019 Log - Reasonable Learning

Postby Expugnator » Thu Jan 31, 2019 8:01 pm

I shouldn't be neglecting the other apps for the sake of Clozemaster. Duolingo is my only app resource for Guarani, it has its flaws but it works for getting acquainted with grammar. Speakly.me is a solid resource for Estonian. This morning I did some Clozemaster decks and then I decided to work on these two other apps, as they end up being neglected at the end of the day.

Started watching Parterapi, and I liked it. The situations are very useful. I'm watching it intensively as well.

Finished watching Les Trois Frères, another good comedy. Now it's time for
Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez. More Louis de Funès. It was supposed to be Le Gendarme et les Extra-terrestres, but completionist me won't watch something in the middle of a series.

Guarani has a features where when two nouns are juxtaposed, the determined one, coming second, changes its beginning, either the initial consonant or the full syllable. This reminds me a lot of Hebrew's construct state.

I need to listen to Indonesian more. The daily lesson is only a dialog and I don't usually have TTS while doing Clozemaster.

Hearing the slowly, overpronunced words at the old Assimil edition made me realize that I've been mentally sounding several highly frequent words wrongly.

i'm enjoying Guarani lessons from El Guaraní a su alcance. They're hitting hard on nominal declension and juxtaposition with other nouns, with adjectives and possessives but overall I think I'm learning. What I'm really looking forward to are verbs though, usually my favorite as they are what allow us to start forming sentences as well as acquiring a feeling for the language's syntax.

Icelandic is beautiful. Even on TTS-only. Some spelling divergences sound totally random now but probably can be explained through looking at the orthography of other Scandilingos. Can't wait to learn Faroese as well. Now I know why so many people fall for all of the Scandinavian languages at once.

As with Romanian, Czech and Finnish, it took me a while to get used to the main, daily-usage words that are unique to it and to start detecting the cognates more efficiently as I become aware of the sound changes. After that, I'm flabbergasted by the power of just a few rounds of Clozemaster a day spent on some languages I'm not even learning active besides that.

Finally a day where I could study calmly and do most of the SRS. I did Duolingo Guarani then Speakly.me for Estonian. Maybe I'll find time for Duo Hebrew and Indonesian.
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Expugnator
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1728
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 9:45 pm
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Languages: Native Brazilian Portuguese#advanced fluency English, French, Papiamento#basic fluency Italian, Norwegian#intermediate Spanish, German, Georgian and Chinese (Mandarin)#basic Russian, Estonian, Greek (Modern)#just started Indonesian, Hebrew (Modern), Guarani
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9931
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Re: Expug's 2019 Log - Reasonable Learning

Postby Expugnator » Fri Feb 01, 2019 9:09 pm

Started watching Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez, first in the series. Looks like there's much fun ahead. Nice to see the beach scenario in the 60's. I had to start it in German because I forgot to bring it on from home and I only found it in German online.

Decided to leave the car at home when coming back from home. A massive event is taking place at work, with traffic blocked and demonstrations expected. I could have arrived with just a few minutes of delay (came by bus) but I'm more worried about the time of leaving. The parking garage is full and the traffic might be way worse after 6 pm. I can just go home by feet and take as much time regardless of traffic. How this affects language learning? Well, I could have an extensive reading headstart as I used to last year.

The Guarani informal tutor is sharing excerpts from another book which consist basically of lists of greetings. It's getting interesting - it's the resource I lack the most, as grammar and billingual texts are reasonably well covered.

Starting to notice some improvement in Georgian reading. Basically, when the chapter consists mostly of dialogs I can follow it more or less extensively.

Accomplied Language Textbook: Langenscheidts Praktisches Lehrbuch Hebräisch

Image

Finally something new on this "section". This is a pretty well-organized textbook, going straight to the point and presenting just the necessary grammar in a logical way. The texts/dialogs are a bit too long and heavy on vocabulary, so I'd recommend using the book after the A1 stage. As with other books, the authors gets rids of the Hebrew crutches way too soon. I only persevered because now I have a better overall level, I'm learning vocabulary from other sources and the grammar was just what I needed. i do recommend it to any serious learner, it's way better organized than most of what is available.

Now it's the time I look at all my textbooks again and see if those that seemed too challenging now are more palatable. As a matter of fact, i'm not getting back to either Routledge's Introductory Course or Colloquial Hebrew any time soon. I'm doing the old Assimil edition, which is much more learner-friendly, and I even have the newer one to review. So why struggle with books where I have to individually translate words (this applies to FSI too to some extent) when I still haven't run out of those where I can focus exclusively on learning? Hebrewpod101 isn't really necessary at this stage either, maybe at a post-Assimil/pre-Linguaphone one.

I want to enhance grammar, but I'm not in the mood for reading grammar extensively. I'll give Routledge's Essential Grammar a try, because the same author has a more extensive one (there is another good one from other authors as well). Once again I spent a good hour searching for any new options and deciding what to do next, which compromised Indonesian, the Assimil lesson and Guarani.

What I really need is being introduced to the binayim gradually, through exercises and vocabulary, instead of plain, dry charts. Since I haven't found a resource that would fit my needs, I'm going to keep working on Assimil, then move on to the next L-R based method and expect to have a repertoire so I can read grammar and relate to it later.

How formal is merupakan in Indonesian? It reminds me of the Russian является in the sense that it is both optional and formal, but I'm hearing it at all Indonesianpod101 lessons, in supposedly business dialogs.

Still doing overtime but I'm happy my studies are going smoothly. And I though today wouldn't be a study day at all.
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Expugnator
Black Belt - 1st Dan
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Languages: Native Brazilian Portuguese#advanced fluency English, French, Papiamento#basic fluency Italian, Norwegian#intermediate Spanish, German, Georgian and Chinese (Mandarin)#basic Russian, Estonian, Greek (Modern)#just started Indonesian, Hebrew (Modern), Guarani
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Re: Expug's 2019 Log - Reasonable Learning

Postby Expugnator » Mon Feb 04, 2019 7:44 pm

The weekend wasn't that intense in language activities, but given the number of social activities I think I did more than enough, especially regarding resuming old actitivies. I managed to prepare my French resources for the week = new film and audiobook (this one probably remaining at the Cortès saga, I want to put an end ad it), I am trying to reinstate the habit of listening to a podcast while at the kitchen - this time it was Grand Bien Vous Fasse and I'm happy with the results in a not so optimal environment. It's not as transparent as when I'm with my earphones, but it got better already at the first day. I did most of the Clozemaster on Saturday and the whole set + Duolingo Indonesian on Sunday, and I did a timid headstart for today's non-fiction reading as well.

I also took the audiobook test in Norwegian again. That was close. I was starting to follow the story. Really, it's only a matter of vocabulary now. My listening skills have never been so good.

Today is the last day before the kindergarten starts for the babies. A new, municipal kindergarten. A challenge for them and for us. I'm really going to miss the one hour and a half we spent together up to today. They are going there in the afternoon so I really don't know how our routines will come along. Today I got some Clozemaster done while they were too caught up by a cartoon. I did Hebrew which I can do with TTS when I'm home. Clozemaster Hebrew deserves a place as a main resource, not just as a complement. It is really well-graded through normal word frequency. You get to know the most important verbs already at the first two levels.

I have a new mobile plan which means whenever there is an important media block here I'll be able to probably just watch from my mobile internet.

For those who speak Spanish and are learning Hebrew, a friend of mine from Chile is posting weekly lessons on Facebook. I'm going to use them myself, just waiting till they reach a high number (currently 20 lessons which is already quite something).

Indonesia is an ideal destination for combining languages and beach. I wonder if one can get by in standard Indonesian even in places as further as the islands Raja Ambat, theme of today's lesson.

There was some pending work from the colleagues from Friday, which got me busy; what derailed my studies the most, though, was discussing some changes in the routine now that the girls are going to the kindergarten in the afternoon and not in the morning. I got 2 hours of delay in my schedule, but caught up by ignoring the extensive reading part, including the Hebrew grammar I was supposed to start today.
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Expugnator
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Posts: 1728
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 9:45 pm
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Languages: Native Brazilian Portuguese#advanced fluency English, French, Papiamento#basic fluency Italian, Norwegian#intermediate Spanish, German, Georgian and Chinese (Mandarin)#basic Russian, Estonian, Greek (Modern)#just started Indonesian, Hebrew (Modern), Guarani
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Re: Expug's 2019 Log - Reasonable Learning

Postby Expugnator » Tue Feb 05, 2019 7:46 pm

Is it true that Finns have fado as well? I know they compose tangos, but it's the first time I hear about their doing the Portuguese genre.

Reading Georgian is turning into fun rather than study. Maybe next book will be mostly extensive reading. Reading German is already easy enough.

I'm learning to enjoy Modern Hebrew: An Essential Grammar. Hope it will be appropriate for my level. At first glance I'm relieved to know that I can read vowelled script now. There are translations for the sample sentences so I'll probably be able to follow them. One remark caught up my attention, in that they don't care about the feminine plural forms and use the masculine pronouns instead in the spoken language.

Indonesian is still slow. I'm convinced that Clozemaster remains the most appropriate resource for me to move forward, but I'm starting to consider intensive reading as well.

Guarani has an overly complicated mechanism for expressing possessives at the third person (yes, the ones that are almost always ambiguous in whatever language). In Guarani, they involve playing with sound changes/initials in a way that would please fans of Celtic languages. I am enjoying the lessons so far but I'm really looking forward to verbs.
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Languages: Native Brazilian Portuguese#advanced fluency English, French, Papiamento#basic fluency Italian, Norwegian#intermediate Spanish, German, Georgian and Chinese (Mandarin)#basic Russian, Estonian, Greek (Modern)#just started Indonesian, Hebrew (Modern), Guarani
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Re: Expug's 2019 Log - Reasonable Learning

Postby Expugnator » Wed Feb 06, 2019 7:58 pm

Finished the third French audiobook in the trilogy, Muchachas 3. Now the spin-off Trois Baisers, which I hope is the last. There is way more ahead in terms of French audiobooks.

Then today I finished the Librivox Canne al Vento. A classic novel. I liked it a lot, even if it moved too slowly sometimes. It helped me improve my vocabulary.

I still favor contemporary literature though, so I'm resuming Ferrante's tetralogy, now on tome III. I got it from Emons. The narrator sounded as boring as I imagined Lenú herself at first, but now that I've got used to her voice I'm not feeling so influenced by my opinion on th character anymore. I thought I'd have a tougher time with the audiobook, as the novel itself was definitely above-average in terms of challenge, but meanwhile my Italian has improved; moreover, an audiobook lacks the issue of getting lost with reading long paragraphs, which I've always suffered from in whatever language. Intonation and pauses of a good reader help follow the story regardless of how it is typographically displayed on the page.

I'm plugging along with reading the Hebrew Grammar cover to cover. So far, I'm digesting what I'm reading, but it might escalate and become overwhelming.

Jakarta Cathedral strongly reminds me of Catedral da Sé in São Paulo.

Lesson 15 and Assimil old edition is already tackling the past. I hope I'll solve most doubts I have and start to use it actively. Listening-reading is my favorite method and particularly useful for a language with incomplete writing. If only there was a consistent audiobook industry with translated audiobooks. Well, there are a few of them, I just have to check if the audiobooks can be downloaded or only shipped as CDs, and if I can find the ebooks as well. Actually I did. Well, now my road to learning Hebrew is paved.
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Expugnator
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Posts: 1728
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 9:45 pm
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Languages: Native Brazilian Portuguese#advanced fluency English, French, Papiamento#basic fluency Italian, Norwegian#intermediate Spanish, German, Georgian and Chinese (Mandarin)#basic Russian, Estonian, Greek (Modern)#just started Indonesian, Hebrew (Modern), Guarani
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Re: Expug's 2019 Log - Reasonable Learning

Postby Expugnator » Thu Feb 07, 2019 7:59 pm

This morning the girls overslept. I didn't get to see them before leaving home, so I ended up doing some Clozemaster. I'm usually doing the ones that involve typing on different scripts, as it's easier to do on the phone. Then I proceed to Hebrew and Indonesian, for which I only have TTS available on the newer iPad. Today I've also read a couple of pages from y non-fiction read in the morning.

I was caught into an exhausting discussion on whether Esperanto is harder than Papiamento. Given my knowledge of both and some languages such as Mandarin, I said that even disregarding the vocabulary variant, Papiamento is morphologically easier and syntactically closer to languages such as Mandarin and Indonesian.

Following the latest developments on my series' crossover, I watched today's episode in German instead of Georgian, because I had been watching that specific series in German before and will resume doing so once the crossover ends.

Finished the good book Dinero y Conciencia by Joan Antonio Melé. Surprised me as rather short, though. I want to read more from the author but next time in Catalan. Meanwhile, I have to decide what to read next in Spanish. I'm not longing for any specific work and I should resist turning my Spanish slot into another translated non-fiction slot.

Assimil Hebrew is getting hard. I seem to be running exclusively into new verbs I haven't seen in any other textbooks or Clozemaster.

I'm done watching all the videos on Guarani from a Youtube channel. They are short. around 2 minutes, and cover basic grammar straight to the point. They were great to keep me in touch with the language before I start proper textbook. Which I won't by now, at least not as part of my daily, rigid schedule. I'll be just following the lessons from the Whatsapp group which were taken from a textbook I can't buy directly, and I'll try to do some Duolingo, though Clozemaster is eating up all the time. I want to start textbook proper when I'm better adapted to this year's routine, hopefully with more time available and with my Hebrew consolidated as to keep it at 1 textbook only, thus allowing that free slot for Guarani.

A good, productive day. I lost some time on discussions which means it can be even better.
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Languages: Native Brazilian Portuguese#advanced fluency English, French, Papiamento#basic fluency Italian, Norwegian#intermediate Spanish, German, Georgian and Chinese (Mandarin)#basic Russian, Estonian, Greek (Modern)#just started Indonesian, Hebrew (Modern), Guarani
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Re: Expug's 2019 Log - Reasonable Learning

Postby Expugnator » Fri Feb 08, 2019 7:26 pm

Best Georgian reading ever. Now I expect to finish this book and see if this skill can be transfered to other books.

Peter Mollenburg would have liked the trilogy Blackout. I'm starting to enjoy it more now at the second tome, when there's more reasoning and less cop-spy-like action. Fiction can usually turn out perplexing at making us see the blatant truth.

It's going to be hard to resist Romanian now that a friend sent me the new Assimil edition. I'll be able to do as I did with my other low-hanging fruits Italian and Spanish, which is studying one Assimil edition after the other and delving straight into native material.

Still struggling to find a renewable source/list of books for reading in Spanish. I'm restrict when it comes to Spanish. For example, I'm not that much interested in stories directly involved the socioeconomical struggles in Latin America as well as the dictatorships; too close to home and I have enough from reality. This adds to my general avoidance of any story that takes place before the 90's. Sci-fi is ok but not always useful language-wise. I was about to start translated non-fiction but I had better leave it for other languages I have yet to learn extensively in. Ok, maybe I can stand novels with a social backround as long as they're recent enough as for allowing me exposure to contemporary lifestyles, as in Vargas Llosa's latest novel.

In the end, I finally took Las fuentes perdidas by José Antonio Cotrina. I hate jumping through a series, even if it's formed by separate texts which happen to have a recommended reading order by the author. Still, even if the plot doesn't necessarily interact linearly, the way that specific universe is presented to the reader probably justifies such order. Anyway, those texts were scathered through collections and antologies and I only manage to find the first text, which I've already read, and the only proper novel, Las fuentes perdidas, which I'm going to start.

Modern Hebrew: an essential grammar started to address verbs. I'm satisfied with the explanations on the verbal system.

We had another Guarani lesson today, so I didn't actually take a break. I also did Duolingo in the morning. I'm really looking forward to studying the entire book, so not having it with me and only being shared the lessons one by one has been a torture.

A positive day, though once again I spent time on not so important reads and discussions. As a matter of fact, answering all the exercises from Assimil Hébreu on paper takes me a lot of time as well, probably my longest resource each day.
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Languages: Native Brazilian Portuguese#advanced fluency English, French, Papiamento#basic fluency Italian, Norwegian#intermediate Spanish, German, Georgian and Chinese (Mandarin)#basic Russian, Estonian, Greek (Modern)#just started Indonesian, Hebrew (Modern), Guarani
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Re: Expug's 2019 Log - Reasonable Learning

Postby Expugnator » Mon Feb 11, 2019 7:44 pm

Be careful what you wish for. Or not. I had just pressed the reply button at the forum, for the post above where I regret not having access to the full Guarani textbook, given how excited I am about studying it. Then I googled and found it! An old edition, that's true, but still newer than the one I had seen on a secondhand bookstore. Funny how I couldn't find either the first time, or at least I assume so, because I believe I did have searche for it before. Anyway, to make me even happier, my Gramática de la lengua guaraní was awaiting for me at home. A great book as well with clear and solid explanations. A good grammar-translation textbook + a well-grounded grammar reference add to my pool of resources that include some parallel texts with translation. What I really miss is having more dialog-based resources, but old Peace Corps isn't doing that bad at this respect and I can now save it for later.

Other than that, I didn't do much the weekend. Just enough Clozemaster, some listening to Grand Bien Vous Fasse - it's really doing good to my skills listening to my phone's speakers which aren't the most powerful or clean. I do miss Speakly.me and Duolingo, but life is full of compromises. Sunday was spent preparing another non-language-related study.

Maybe it's time to read German fiction intensively again. I should keep my listening-reading but maybe try reading something in parallel. I'm on the verge of passing the audiobook test - I listened to some excerpts from the novel without looking either at L1 or L2 text and I could follow it without any problem. I'm not sure it would have been the case with a book I'd have started from scratch. In this sense, maybe pure extensive reading will prepare me for this pure extensive listening.

Modern Hebrew Grammar's explanation on the binyanim is definitive. To keep for future reference. I'm even looking forward to reading the more comprehensive grammar from the same author when my Hebrew turns intermediate.

Still busy with non-language studies so I didn't get the entire Clozemaster done. I'm monitoring the time spent on Assimil Hebrew and El Guarani a tu Alcance, as these are my final regular tasks and I don't want them to eat up much time. It doesn't help the fact that they are intensive learning at the moment of the day I'm mostly mentally tired.
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Expugnator
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Posts: 1728
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Languages: Native Brazilian Portuguese#advanced fluency English, French, Papiamento#basic fluency Italian, Norwegian#intermediate Spanish, German, Georgian and Chinese (Mandarin)#basic Russian, Estonian, Greek (Modern)#just started Indonesian, Hebrew (Modern), Guarani
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9931
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Re: Expug's 2019 Log - Reasonable Learning

Postby Expugnator » Tue Feb 12, 2019 8:06 pm

Yesterday I manage to do my Clozemaster in the evening. I thought I'd be too tired but I wasn't. I got home earlier than usual, actually.

A new monolingual dictionary (there seems to be Russian as well) has been launched in Estonian. It has extensive definitions, TTS, some colocations as well as all the forms of a word. When I searched for a verb, though, it pointed me to an older site which does seem to have the verbal forms. Anyway, here's the link:

Sonaveeb

And the other one:

https://kn.eki.ee/

Afeter saome struggle, German text input, random on Clozemaster is getting easier already, and I get most right. That's a progress for someone who still dares not speak German. Which should be the next step.

I've been through the sessions on bibyanim and moved on to prepositions. Really enjoying Modern Hebrew: An Essential Grammar.

As usual, each upper level on pod101 takes one step back. I've just started Indonesianpod Upper-Beginner and the dialogs are not only shorter but actually easier than the final ones at the Beginner level. I don expect things to get complex soon. I'm still not learning Indonesian on a full-fledged mood, though. I could be absorbing much more than what I'm learning if only I had resources that moved at a reasonable pace. Even Clozemaster seems totally arbitrary in terms of vocabulary. The Fast-Fluency Track also got too hard too soon and now I'm just reviewing the second level while still finding all those mastered sentences hard. I don't know where the miracle resides when I find the equivalent Hebrew level a breeze. I bet that the Hebrew ones were grouped evenly according to the difficult not only of the Cloze word but of the entire sentence, while in Indonesian apart from the Cloze word all the rest is of rather random difficulty. Or maybe even the Cloze words seem to be too many when compared to Hebrew, which on its hand has many more sentences.
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Expugnator
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1728
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 9:45 pm
Location: Belo Horizonte
Languages: Native Brazilian Portuguese#advanced fluency English, French, Papiamento#basic fluency Italian, Norwegian#intermediate Spanish, German, Georgian and Chinese (Mandarin)#basic Russian, Estonian, Greek (Modern)#just started Indonesian, Hebrew (Modern), Guarani
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9931
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Re: Expug's 2019 Log - Reasonable Learning

Postby Expugnator » Wed Feb 13, 2019 7:46 pm

Had my first Duolingo day this week yesterday. I was about to start Speakly.me but it was late. This morning I did some Clozemaster and then the girls woke up and we went to read some stories.

Finished the first Gendarme film. Interesting. Now the second, Le gendarme à New York.

Modern Hebrew: An Essential Grammar is helping me clear the mess which is telling apart the several preposition + personal ending forms, especially אותי X איתי and עלי and אלי. This is really mindboggling. Some forms coincide in pronunciation, but even for those that do not it remains a challenge to tell them apart.

Today I managed to read Estonian intensively. Actually there are few words I can't infer from the translation nowadays. I've noticed an improvement on overall comprehension. It's always easier to read in the Latin alphabet and phonemic spelling, so I might get better at reading in Estonian than in Russian and Georgian in the middle run.

The day was calmer and I managed to do both Speakly.me and Duolingo for Guarani, Hebrew and Indonesian.
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