Postby Expugnator » Mon Mar 25, 2019 8:27 pm
Last weekend I've basically indulged myself into some gamification fetish and for the first time finished the week as number #1 on the Clozemaster leaderboard. Now, this on itself has no direct impact on language learning and only shows that I should take it easy from now on, now that I know that I can do it. I had a specially calm weekend with no classes or social commitments which I could otherwise have made more productive or rewarding.
Now for the effects on this Clozemaster marathon:
I spent way too much time on Romance languages because they are the most straightforward ones to do additional work on, at least typing work which is a bit less tiresome than swyping on the phone. SO I took a disproportionally higher effort on French, Spanish and Esperanto and not as much on Italian, Norwegian and German, which could benefit from the typing as well. Even so, I noticed solid improvement in the Romance languages plus German and Norwegian.
French and Spanish are already at a level where progress is marginal, but I'm getting good at remembering and activating the unique, non-cognate words for these languages.
In the case of Esperanto, I'm still working on text inpu level by level, that is, I'm not accessing the whole corpus. As I'm not even studying Esperanto officially yet, that means the high-frequency vocabulary I'm learning is becoming really solid and activable - which I'm not exactly doing simply because I'm merely dabbling now.
For Norwegian I just need a bit more confidence so I can do more extra sessions on it and slowly bring it to the same level of, say, Italian. I have much more exposure to Norwegian than Italian overall and even if it's not a Romance language that alone means that I can reach a C level. Clozemaster is a key factor on that plan because it forces on me frequent abstract words which are unique to Norwegian, no English or Latin cognate or decypherable from Germanic roots. My Norwegian deserves more from me.
German has been evolving far better than Norwegian. I'm doing random, text input even if I'm not even halfway through its huge deck. This is aligned with my overall evolution in German comprehension, both aural and written, and my need to finally activate it somehow. I've struggled a bit the first weeks but now, as a matter of fact, I get most words right on text input mood and I have to resort less and less to the multiple choice help key. As with Norwegian, some words that seemed impossible to stick are finally solidifying.
Greek is in a situation similar to that of German, though on a narrower scale. I'm fed up with my messed up Greek-English deck where I can't work individually by levels for text input as they simply won't keep track of sentences mastered; random text input still feels a bit too hard and it's not optimal because there's still some basic vocabulary I want to activate first, though I can't deny that the few weeks I've worked on this mode have seen an improvement on mentally guessing and teling apart perfect from imperfect forms. Anyway, I decided to remedy the situation by starting over the Greek-German deck! I could start from zero. It's a slightly shorter deck and if no bugs come up I'll be able to pave my way up to active B1 Greek, because elsewhere from Clozemaster my receptive skills are improving steadly, and all that is missing is the minimal activation Clozemaster allows me to perform since I don't have the discipline to work directly on my active skills.
Hebrew is going great! Whoever did the Clozemaster deck deserves a prize. I've started level 3 by multiple choice, which are 501-1000 most frequent words. Meanwhile, I've also worked on text input for the first level, and I'm happy with my progress.
Indonesian has a shorter and more problematic deck but I'm finally making a good use of it, after it had been too hard all that time. I'm improving level by level while revisiting the earlier levels, which finally do seem easy. All multiple choice.
Mandarin is still on HSK 3 at text input mode (I've always played random for multiple choice). I'm working exactly on the words I need to. As a matter of fact, I've learned to know better whenever this is happening for a specifically language and it's always rewarding when I notice this happen as is the case with Hebrew and Mandarin.
Not so much with Russian, where the deck is so large that I seem never to finish one sublevel and move up to the other, even though both are still easy for my overall Russian level. Working on the Russian-Lithuanian deck might help partially take care of the issue, though my goal with it remains pure dabbling in Lithuanian.
On Saturday I woke up early and went on grocery shopping. While shopping, I decided to give Norwegian podcasts a try, and I failed. I understand much more than before but not enough to have fun. I have to keep reading Norwegian intensively so as to improve my overall vocabulary.
Other than that, I also listened to the French podcast and read ahead both non-fiction and Spanish fiction. Doing this for Spanish as well has proved effective for today, as this Spanish sci-fi novel is a particularly slow read given its high dosis of nonsense.
I could have done more if I wasn't caught up by the Clozemaster frenzi. No gathering material, and I have to pick a series to watch with Indonesian subs next, probably from the Arrowverse; no new lesson from the Hebrew CD-ROm course.
This morning I couldn't do much of a headstart. The girls woke up early. They're approaching 3 years and it's fascinating how communicative they are. It's always great to spend more time with them, and at the same time a bit depressing because at this stage where they are no longer babies and not yet full-fledged children every day has so much novelty, so many discoveries.
Yesterday they didn't want to come back from the club, where we went to even if it was cloudy, and still had a good time there. As their mom prompted to go and have a shower before dinner, which they weren't really looking forward to, one of them said "Estou com dor de cabeça. Tenho que ver desenho. Aí melhora" (roughly "I have a headache. I ought to see cartoons. Then it will get better).
They are very affectionate towards me, leaving no room for anyone to insinuate that I'm not a present dad or even root for this to be the case. It just gets a bit sad to think that this might be the best tims in my life, at least familiarly, and once they've grown up much of this magic is gone. I'm really looking forward to helping them learn how to fall in love in life, to be curious and willing to discover, learn and let themselves be surprised. I understand a bit now why grandchildren are so welcome, as they represent a comeback to the time of cherishing and nurturing a child.
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Mandarin listening-reading getting better. A "related books" for the Chinese audiobook site wouldn't be a bad idea at all, as I'd not be so thrilled about wheter I'll find another blockbuster to do next.
As i've read PM's log, I thought of myself when I considered the diplomatic career decades ago. I know I'm not suited for a nomadic language with my family. Even so, the mere possibility of having a job where I'd learn a specific language to a high level and that would be my main asset would make me really motivated. Not something that happens at Brazilian standards though, as language remains accesory. On the other hand, I've met so many people that are on a solid career path and still lacking language skills, which is really holding them back. Really? Language skills always seemed to me as the simplest skill to obtain. I mean, simplest, not easiest obviously. It's a matter of different people getting the different opportunities/challenges in life, really.
The Assimil Hebrew lesson is much more accessible now that I'm more familiarized with the vocabulary and, on top of that, there are no translation exercises. It's not mentally exhausting anymore. Formerly I'd have to take a break after doing it even if I was ahead of schedule.
First day of Colloquial Indonesian and I decided to remain at the introduction which has a lot of sample vocabulary. Lesson 01 is due tomorrow.
Another Guarani lesson from the Whatsapp group. There are still a lot of holes in grammar, but I'm plugging along. Duolingo is surprisingly helping quite much. It might be jopará but the basis is there. Moreover, there is a good deal of vocabulary repetition on Duolingo which leaves me relaxed to focus on grammar. There is some repetition at the textbook as well, but the overall vocabulary is still high and there are some collocations that are barely mentioned in notes.
All in all, a very positive day with much learning taking place. I could have done more app learning but I had to leave rather early.
3 x
Corrections welcome for any language.