General language log

[bombobuffoon]

Do you have the Finnished "FinnishMe" paid program?

I am currently doing 4 hours a day average Finnish but like you I too finding it slow. Every word is a battle.

If its any consolation after 3 years I can't understand any adult native (spoken) content.

This is a fun (supposedly easy language) show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vZMh_nDnVY

[sporedandroid]

Do you have the Finnished "FinnishMe" paid program?

I am currently doing 4 hours a day average Finnish but like you I too finding it slow. Every word is a battle.

If its any consolation after 3 years I can't understand any adult native (spoken) content.

This is a fun (supposedly easy language) show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vZMh_nDnVY

No, I currently don’t. I definitely didn’t expect myself to learn Finnish quickly. I have to admit I’m more casual about Finnish. It feels kind of nice, but I also feel pretty slow. I feel like I was more intense about Hebrew, but I didn’t end up studying four hours a day. Within one year I could understand podcasts aimed at native adult speakers on basic topics like self-help and business. I think I maybe studied between one or two hours a day on average. I can kind of get the gist of Finnish vlogs, but I feel like I’m faking it more than making it.

[sporedandroid]

I decided to do more active listening and less passive listening. I think I got into passive listening because my motivation has been pretty low. I think doing more active listening suits my new approach more. I’ll watch a lot of captioned videos and make a word document for me to study and make Anki cards. Naturally I end up making a lot of Anki cards. I’m continuing to suspend any cards I don’t feel like studying. When I have extra energy I go through those cards and figure out what’s going on. I guess this allows me to go through more vocabulary and not get overwhelmed by too many reviews per day.

I guess being somewhat frustrated with Finnish is somewhat motivating me to get back into Hebrew. That was sort of the plan all along. I still don’t have a study routine for Hebrew.

[sporedandroid]

I think I’ll continue doing some half active and half passive study as a compromise. There’s these vlogs that have transcripts available. So I watch them like I’d watch any YouTube video, but go back and forth between the video and transcript. I did listen to a podcast episode, while going for a walk. The only podcast I like so far is Elämänkoulu. I don’t claim to exactly understand it, but I feel like I do a better job of faking it and people speak pretty clearly. Afterwards I rewatched a vlog and looked at the transcript. I think I made a decent amount of Anki cards and I feel kind of tired. I did end up learning quite a few new words. I did end up suspending quite a few cards today. Despite that I still have quite a few reviews tomorrow.

[bombobuffoon]

I think I’ll continue doing some half active and half passive study as a compromise. There’s these vlogs that have transcripts available. So I watch them like I’d watch any YouTube video, but go back and forth between the video and transcript. I did listen to a podcast episode, while going for a walk. The only podcast I like so far is Elämänkoulu. I don’t claim to exactly understand it, but I feel like I do a better job of faking it and people speak pretty clearly. Afterwards I rewatched a vlog and looked at the transcript. I think I made a decent amount of Anki cards and I feel kind of tired. I did end up learning quite a few new words. I did end up suspending quite a few cards today. Despite that I still have quite a few reviews tomorrow.

I checked out Elämänkoulu. That's about as easy and clearly spoken native adult show as you will get.
However I also definitely don't understand it. As soon as I "get on" to a sentence I've lost the scent again.
I feel I could transcribe it and understand it from reading it.

I also recommend Salatut Elämät. I would say this is the simplest content I have ever found.
You don't even have to speak hardly any Finnish to understand what's going on. The visuals and tones are often enough.
https://youtu.be/sE3hSfHvOik?feature=shared

[sporedandroid]

Today I had an easier time studying. I didn’t really end up suspending any Anki cards. I did end up actively studying more Anki cards and studying stuff like grammar and etymology. Some days I really just prefer not to do that stuff. I also watched a few YouTube videos passively. One of them had a transcript, so I pasted it into Microsoft word and made a parallel text. Right now I’m lining it up and I’ll study it more closely when I feel like it. I’ll probably make some Anki cards as well.

[sporedandroid]

I listened to two short episodes from Elämänkoulu while going for a walk. It’s the main way I can have patience for Finnish podcasts. I still didn’t do a great job of understanding it, but there was some parts which were pretty straightforward for me. I’d say Supertools is a Hebrew podcast which is about the same level as Elämänkoulu, but I could pretty much understand Supertools by only studying Hebrew for a year.

I also decided to watch a short yle documentary. I didn’t have great comprehension which is exactly what I expected. I copied the transcript and moved on.

I felt a bit antsy, so I decided to listen to a Hebrew podcast. This one was a lot more interesting. It was about whether people with intellectual disabilities can be integrated into university. I don’t necessarily think I’m making progress in Hebrew, but listening to podcasts in Finnish helps me appreciate the level I got to. I’m not great at stuff with cultural nuance or too much poetry, but I can pretty much listen to a podcast in any topic I want to. I’m hoping to get back into reading some books in Hebrew. I know that will help me deal with my plateau.

[sporedandroid]

I think being somewhat frustrated with Finnish got me a bit more motivated to study Hebrew again. That was the plan. I was somewhat restless last night, so I knew I needed to listen to some podcast. I tried that out with Finnish before, but it didn’t work out. I just got frustrated, annoyed and more restless. I decided to go with a Hebrew podcast. It did the job well. It was some sort of political podcast about how reading books is power and starting some publishing imprint to translate some “edgy” books into Hebrew. I couldn’t follow every single little argument or detail, but I understood enough to stay engaged and not get frustrated. That podcast tired me out just like I wanted to. I’m not exactly well-versed in politics, but I do find edgy libertarians entertaining. There’s plenty of that stuff in Hebrew. So I’d highly recommend studying Hebrew if you find edgy libertarians entertaining.

At the moment I don’t feel super sharp, so I suspended a bunch of Anki cards today. I don’t have a whole lot of new cards to study, so I’ll probably create more today. Once I’m more sharp I’ll go through my suspended cards again. I think I actually am somewhat making more progress this way. I’m at the stage where I just need to learn more vocabulary and study more grammar. I did do a tiny bit of grammar study yesterday. Grammar study isn’t a regular part of my routine, but I do get some done when it makes sense. Usually when I’m improving or creating a new Anki card.

[sporedandroid]

I sort of ran out of new cards to actually study. So I’m not studying any new cards. Right now I’m going through an article I found online and studying the parallel text I created. Machine translation helps to some extent, but I don’t want to solely rely on it. So I’m looking up any word or grammatical construct I’m unsure about. Which is a lot at the moment. I’m taking it super slow. I feel less rushed since I have a word document to work from. I’m also relying on context as well. Which is sort of doable by reading through the translation or the stuff I do understand and noticing inconsistencies. I think once I get to a lower amount of reviews, I’ll go through my suspended cards. I’ll either decide to unsuspend it, improve on it or delete it.

[sporedandroid]

Today wasn’t a very sharp day. So I just breezed through some Anki reviews and looked at another parallel text. I really didn’t feel like doing much listening practice. This article didn’t seem too bad. I think I created a decent amount of Anki cards. I only ended up working on vocabulary rather than grammar. I have a feeling these won’t be the highest quality cards, but they can be deleted or suspended later on.