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[zjones]

Chorusing, meh. I'm so done with trying to make myself speak because other people think that's something people should do when they learn a language. Why do I keep losing sight of the things I want? Why do I let other people's ideas about language learning make me feel like I'm doing it wrong...

I'm with MamaPata, this sentiment is so relatable! It took me forever to let go of the guilty feeling that I should be using Anki, SRS and flashcard systems, even though I really don't like doing them. Remember that language-learning is very holistic, so you can often find different ways to get the same results... or even decide to stop worrying about those results in the first place! Don't let a random method of language-learning stop you from having a great time with your languages.

So, what do you want to do instead? Are you interested in becoming conversational? Improving your pronunciation? Do you care about speaking just because other people tell you that's what languages are for? You don't need to answer those questions, but think about them.

[dicentra8]

I do have a similar feeling when it comes to production in a language. It's not like I'm completely ignoring it, I just don't fuss too much about it most of the time. Maybe, on one hand, it's because my first main "thing" about learning a language is "I want to understand" (well this is more for the 2 target languages I'm studying at the moment). On the other hand, I know that at some point the ability to produce something will arrive. Not magically of course, but because I've got used to and consumed so much input I feel like I'll be able to use it if I need. That happened before with my English learning. I don't really remember focusing a lot about the output, I just consumed a lot of input. When I finally had a chance to use all of that, I could remember and reuse the input and knowledge I had.

[StringerBell]

At this point, 1,000 hours doesn't feel like enough, even for a category I. It'll get you somewhere nice, but not amazing. Maybe I am just a puny mortal but I think to get really deep down into a language, to get the language coursing through one's veins, it needs more than 1,000 hours.

I agree. At this point I've probably done something like 1,000 hours of Italian. I have days where I feel like, "OMG, I have such a long way to go until I feel really good about my abilities in this language." I wonder if I will get there by 2,000 hours? I don't expect to get there with Polish...well, ever, but definitely not before 5,000 hours.

[lingua]

I also agree. I don't know how many hours I've done of Italian but the majority of it was in the past. I lost some of it when I didn't actively use it for a long period of time (about five years) outside of when I went to Italy, continued to watch some film and having the occasional chat with Italian friends. Probably too many of my hours were passive.

[lavengro]

.... (Maybe Italian could do it, maybe...) In any case it’s hardly advisable to add more to the plate when I’m cutting back or outright taking days at a time off due to, well, overwhelm. But tell that to the insane person that lives in my head, would you?

Alla persona folle all'interno della testa di Morgana: l'italiano dice ciao!

[SGP]

Poor Icelandic. Doomed to be dragged along, painfully slowly, never getting out of the shadow of Swedish. Maybe one day. I can't drop it but I can't prioritize it. Not now.

This could be a bit similar to the relation of Dutch and Swedish for me. I at least for now cannot give Svenska the same priority as Nederlands (already more advanced). And as for Icelandic, it didn't really change for decades, centuries even. So maybe this is also a reason for slower progress...

[zjones]

Harry Potter och de vises sten is going alright. Lots of new vocab there. I remembered I had an SV-EN dictionary on my Kindle, and that has been making reading much more enjoyable! I am taking forever to read though because I spend a good chunk of time adding things to Anki.

Anki. Yeah. I feel like it does help. I hear words in the tv show that I learned from reading, but overall it’s rare that there is this kind of vocabulary overlap on “intermediate” words. Talking/dialogues/etc. vocab is just not the same as fiction/fantasy/YA vocab or news/stuffy editorials vocab. I’m adding 20-50 words most days. About half and half from news and HP. I include the sentences for 99/100 words. It’s a big help for recall. I’m not using Anki to test my knowledge, but reinforce it via more exposure. But all that adding does take a considerable amount of time, especially with what I add from Harry Potter (can’t copy&paste). Some days I admit the compulsion to put as much as possible (everything?) into Anki puts me off wanting to start studying at all.

I read your whole post!

If the Swedish translation of Harry Potter is anything like the French translation, there will be a LOT of repetition of specific vocabulary (all the interesting adjectives, adverbs and verbs that you're most likely adding to Anki), so I would recommend not doing any Anki cards for Harry Potter until you are at least halfway through the book, especially if you are already using Anki for other resources.

Of course, I hate Anki so I'm most certainly biased. Maybe it's useful enough for you that it's worth the extra effort. And I'll admit that my way of handling new vocabulary is not necessarily the most efficient, but it keeps me from getting exhausted. Generally, this is what I do:

1. See a new word.
2. Look it up in Kindle dictionary, or guess its meaning by context if it is obvious.
3. See the word again. What did that word mean... ?
4. Look up in dictionary.
5. Lather, rinse and repeat.
6. See word again. If I still can't remember it, and I think it's important enough to remember, at this point I will add it to some sort of vocabulary device (which for me is a handwritten list).

Anyway, the point is that you'll get a lot of vocabulary reinforcement from Harry Potter itself. Good luck!

EDIT: I wanted to add that although my method for vocabulary is not particularly swift, it does work. I am on the 4th Harry Potter book and I rarely have to use the dictionary.

[StringerBell]

I’m craving an easy ride and this language is not it.

I think the concept of an "easy language" is like a desert mirage. I was thinking that Italian would be my easy ride, but it's proving to be a formidable foe. Either that, or I just suck

[Neurotip]

...I also appreciate hearing the specifics of what non-SRSing forumers do because it’s reassuring

I read it all too

Well, I might put a bit about this in my next post on my own log, but since I'm in the relatively small category of non-SRSing Icelearners: 90% of the stuff I've been using for the last couple of months has been VLÍ and native material (films, reddit, occasional news articles), and while I'm not sure my passive vocabulary has improved that much, my *familiarity* with the words definitely has, and so has my speed at understanding the structure of a sentence and spotting case, tense, etc. Curiously my active vocabulary (i.e. ability to find words on the fly) seems to have improved significantly too, not sure how that's happened. I do wonder whether there's any hope of acquiring enough vocab without SRSing, but then I have to remind myself that I've never SRS'ed in any of my other languages My approach to actually learning new words is essentially the same as zjones's.

Thanks for sharing your experiences - always fun to read and don't be too hard on yourself!

[smallwhite]

> If I’ve understood smallwhite’s approach right, she reads the course book(s) like a trashy romance novel (my editorializing, forgive me smallwhite) and gets right to native stuff to mine vocabulary.

Thanks for the mention. Your description is half right. In Ani's log I described how I read through grammars (and courses) paying attention to the examples and that's about it (https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... ite#p76723). But I read three or four of them (or the same one or two twice) and end up knowing them fairly well.