Expug's 2019 Log - Reasonable Learning

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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 » Mon Sep 16, 2019 9:40 pm

What a weekend! It was intense with events not so much anticipated. Quite a happening for someone who is keen into making plans.

Saturday morning I had a class. This one is getting along well so far, I'm helping a student break away from the intermediate level all while filling up some important gaps. The student has a solid B2 I wish I'd have in a third language, and I'm managing to make the class involving, challenging and productive.

In the afternoon we had a member of the Duolingo staff at our local meetup. They had come for an important, world-class workshop and then could make it to our meeting as well. At the workshop they mentioned our event and used me as a source - they had interviewed me a couple of months ago.

At the meeting I got to speak German again. If I turn this into a habit, chances are I'll get into the B1 range at last.

It was our wedding anniversary but since they had spent the entire day at the club with my in-laws, I didn't feel like dropping the girls at my in-laws in the evening so we could have dinner. So we took them to a nice restaurant with a playground. We ate seafood and the girls had a great time. While we were there, I got my first tour booking. Then yesterday I took a couple of Danes to our open-air modern art museum and botanical garden Inhotim. I couldn't understand a word of what they were saying in Danish, but we discussed in English about culture, society, why I decided to learn Norwegian. It was a great time for me at least. I hope they have enjoyed it at all. Really happy to have set my foot into the new parallel career.

When I got home at the end of the afternoon I was much behind on Clozemaster. Managed to
catch up to the expense of almost all of my reviews on Spanish, Esperanto and French. I need to find other languages for bulk reviewing, not only for the game part but also because I've attested it as productive for my active skills. German is a good canditate and I get better at it each day. Turkish showed good progress even though I'm only working at the lower level. I definitely have a headstart for Romanian as well. Two languages from my favorite area linguistically-speaking which I won't be learning from scratch when I start (2020 for Romanian, maybe 2021 for Turkish.

Turkish's learning behavior takes after Esperanto's: even though I'm using the earlier levels and focusing on that vocabulary, i'm also seeing words from other levels in non-cloze position, so my vocabulary as a whole is improving in both languages.

I bravely managed to keep my Duolingo and Speakly.me streak despite being out almost the entire weekend.

I even managed to gather resources: episodes in English for Indonesian subtitle reading and copying Fais pas ci, fais pas ça season 4.

While I was taking care of these adjustments for the week, the girls were having dinner. One of them had the following dialogue:

- Estou frustrada.
- Por que você está frustrada, o que aconteceu?
- Eu queria o papai.

(I'm frustrated. Why are you frustrated, what happened. I wanted Daddy).

I mean, how come a 3-year-old has the word frustrated in her vocabulary and even uses it properly? (She meant she was frustrated despite all of the fun she had for the weekend). She probably learned it both from school and from the Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood cartoon.

Oh, and in the evening my wife started using Duolingo. She was impressed with my having a huge slide with my picture during the staff member's presentation. She went on a binge yesterday and will probably forget about it for a while. She has a much different style from myself.

Then we got to watch one more episode from the series Dark. My German is getting better also thanks to it. Were the volume higher I'd barely look at the subtitles.

This morning I basically had no headstart in spite of having more time as I woke up earlier and I'm not runnig these days, only weightlifting. I spent the extra time playing with the girls instead, hoping to at least make up for the weekend somehow. We had a great time, they totally TV and cartoons. One of them saw the key to the chain I use for chaining my bike, so they wanted to see how it worked and I took them downstairs. Got to work a bit later than usual even (still within my time range).

Started reviewing Indonesian on text input mode. It worked! It's even better when you think that Clozemaster Indonesian is not exactly well-graded according to frequency and usage(unlike the Hebrew one), so in fact my entire Indonesian vocabulary has improved a lot and I've learned many roots. I expect it do improve even more now that I'll be using the text input mode for reviewing.

Mandarin - HSK4 still hard but I know for sure I'm on the right track. Sometimes I feel like resuming fancy-app learning for Mandarin, like HelloChinese or even start Duolingo or LingoDeer. But then I think of the time cost involved on browsing through colorful lessons and ads and I realize it's not the best use of my time. Clozemaster practical interface really aces all of them at this aspect.

My phone microphone won't work on speakerphone mode. I wasted two hours on it without success and now I'm lagging behind. Apparently there's a solution that involves rooting and accessing the build.prop file.

Finished the good non-fiction book How to Travel the World on $50 a day. Now I'm finally going to read La Era de La Perplejidad. I've got some books on futurology which will finally take the turn after this one in Spanish then.

All in all, I got quite a lot done despite being utterly busy for a Monday. Only native Hebrew and Indonesian-subtitle series left. Tomorrow will probably be a non-study day as I have an appointment at the doctor again.
4 x
Corrections welcome for any language.

User avatar
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 Sep 18, 2019 9:03 pm

Yesterday was a non-study day. I had to see the doctor - look's like I'll be undergoing a (hopefully) simple surgery, kidney issues. I worked on reformatting my presentation - only to redo it in the evening as the open-source software didn't save the MS's templates. At least I got to read it over again. I think there's enough, significant content. I don't want to be one of those gurus that only give overall/abstract/motivational/empty tips. I'm not a linguist either so it's really anecdote but I'll be sharing what worked for me and even provide alternatives.

I did a lot of Clozemaster but still less than usual. The leaderboard is biased because once again the bug made me keep last week's score. I'm focusing on the overall table anyway. Most important, I'm doing extra work for other languages, especially German and Hebrew on the text input mode, instead of just going on the Romance-frenzy-gamification.

Thanks to the kidney issue and to some muscle stress I won't be going to the gym at least for the next week. I was counting on having a headstart this morning but the girls woke up even earlier, not to my fault at all. We played together and then I did at least Russian and Greek from English apart from Mandarin, Georgian, Estonian plus Duolingo Guarani.

Something astonishing happened. I was doing Clozemaster Russian with my keyboard switched to Cyrillic. I left my phone on the bed. One of the girls (they are three y.o.) picked it up and swyped randomly to imitate what I was doing. She ended up writing her sister's name in Russian! I mean, what are the odds that a random swype will result in her name written in cyrillic? I haven't written her name in cyrillic before plus the keys are different from the Portuguese keyboard. I'm really flabbergasted.

Norwegian - A Comprehensive Grammar!! Thank you Routledge!!

I had a great reading Georgian day. Before lunch my eyes were a bit irritated, even blurry, then they got better. I managed to concentrate and to understand quite a bit before resorting to the translation.

So I'm actually beginning to speak Afrikaans. I'm doing Clozemaster text input for the second level and getting most words right.

A great day for Estonian reading as well (still slacking off at the soap opera). Speakly is pretty much intense on new words and difficult sentences and keeps pushing the bar higher, and thus native materials start to feel more accessible now.

I'm really enjoying my progress in German. I'm missing few words now in random text input.
8 x
Corrections welcome for any language.

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Cèid Donn
Blue Belt
Posts: 513
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2018 10:48 pm
Languages: en-us (n); français, gàidhlig, gaeilge, cymraeg, brezhoneg, español
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Re: Expug's 2019 Log - Reasonable Learning

Postby Cèid Donn » Thu Sep 19, 2019 2:34 am

I did a lot of Clozemaster but still less than usual. The leaderboard is biased because once again the bug made me keep last week's score.


Yeah, that is a weird bug. It seems to sometimes affect 2 to 3 players at the top of the leaderboard, but your score always seemed to last one to get updated. We had a similar problem on Memrise several months back, before they announced the whole Decks mess, and there was a couple weeks were I was #1 on the leaderboard of my French vocabulary course simply because my score never reset for the week.
1 x
Note from an educator and former ESL/test skills tutor: Any learner, including self-learners, can use the CEFR for self-assessment. The CEFR is for helping learners progress and not for gatekeeping and bullying.

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Adrianslont
Blue Belt
Posts: 827
Joined: Sun Aug 16, 2015 10:39 am
Location: Australia
Languages: English (N), Learning Indonesian and French
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Re: Expug's 2019 Log - Reasonable Learning

Postby Adrianslont » Thu Sep 19, 2019 3:27 am

Good luck with the kidneys!
4 x

User avatar
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 » Thu Sep 19, 2019 9:38 pm

@Ceid yah it's a recurring problem and I hope there's a permanent fix instead of a manual one.

@Adrianslont thank you! I hope that will be all for now.

=================
I had quite a few new words in Papiamento today. I was a bit in a hurry, but next I'll post the ones I couldn't find at the dictionary at the hyperactive Whatsapp group..

Today I'm doing my final study day at the week, after missing Tuesday and maybe missing Monday (tomorrow is a miss for sure as I'll be off to São Paulo in the afternoon).

Good reading in a whole, highlights are Georgian and Estonian as has been the trend.

I had an appointment at a doctor (different issue) and I hope I won't have to undergo two surgeries instead of one now. Other than that, a very productive study day it was.

Today I'm sharing Czech music. I've known this one for over 12 years. I don't know how big of a scene they are now, though. They were pretty much obscure at those pre-Youtube times.

3 x
Corrections welcome for any language.

User avatar
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 » Sun Sep 22, 2019 9:59 pm

Writing this before the flight back home from the Brazilian polyglot conference Poliglotar.

Apparently it was a success. People seem to have liked my presentation on listening skills and selecting material for doing the transition. I own most if not all of my knowledge on this topic to this forum and especially members like Cavesa, iguanamon and some others. While I didn't mention individual members I did refer to LLORG on it, thought now looking back I think it was worth placing a more direct tie-in reference. Don't know how it would have been viewed though.

I made important networking on translation, content production, language careers and some specific languages. I got to meet Elisa Polese who gave a lecture there. I didn't get to speak much in my TLs though, apart from some Hebrew - more than I thought I would - from an enthusiastic newly made friend.

All in all a positive experience.
7 x
Corrections welcome for any language.

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overscore
Orange Belt
Posts: 233
Joined: Fri Jul 28, 2017 7:49 pm
Location: Belgrade
Languages: English, French, German, Serbian.
Levels vary. Native is fr-ca.
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Re: Expug's 2019 Log - Reasonable Learning

Postby overscore » Sun Sep 22, 2019 10:33 pm

dang that czech band is pretty good. hvala vam!
1 x

AkoSiKoneho
Posts: 8
Joined: Sun Sep 15, 2019 8:33 am
Languages: English Native, Tagalog Learner
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Re: Expug's 2019 Log - Reasonable Learning

Postby AkoSiKoneho » Sun Sep 22, 2019 11:02 pm

Hi Expug, I am following you on Clozemaster. I spotted you earlier when I decided to pick it up after trialing it months ago (as a rank beginner). You're in the tops for Indonesian this week :D
1 x

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Cèid Donn
Blue Belt
Posts: 513
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2018 10:48 pm
Languages: en-us (n); français, gàidhlig, gaeilge, cymraeg, brezhoneg, español
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Re: Expug's 2019 Log - Reasonable Learning

Postby Cèid Donn » Wed Sep 25, 2019 1:13 am

Expugnator wrote:@Ceid yah it's a recurring problem and I hope there's a permanent fix instead of a manual one.



Apparently I'm this week's lucky recipient of this bug. Both my scores for the Weekly leaderboard and the Indonesian leaderboard didn't reset properly. I've been waiting for them to manually reset them, but it hasn't happened yet. Before when it happened to your scores, did you have to tell Clozemaster that they needed to be reset?
2 x
Note from an educator and former ESL/test skills tutor: Any learner, including self-learners, can use the CEFR for self-assessment. The CEFR is for helping learners progress and not for gatekeeping and bullying.

User avatar
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
x 3589

Re: Expug's 2019 Log - Reasonable Learning

Postby Expugnator » Wed Sep 25, 2019 1:17 am

Cèid Donn wrote:
Expugnator wrote:@Ceid yah it's a recurring problem and I hope there's a permanent fix instead of a manual one.



Apparently I'm this week's lucky recipient of this bug. Both my scores for the Weekly leaderboard and the Indonesian leaderboard didn't reset properly. I've been waiting for them to manually reset them, but it hasn't happened yet. Before when it happened to your scores, did you have to tell Clozemaster that they needed to be reset?


Yes I did! We have threads on both their own forum and Reddit specifically for that :D
2 x
Corrections welcome for any language.


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