2018 - Summary of week 48Another lazy week.
CA: 31th week of Catalan - 30980 reps. A2. Maybe passively, on a good day.
DE: Another half-hour of listening to news at Deutschland.fm.
GD: 32th week of Gaelic - 31940 reps.
IT: I finished FSI Italian Headstart.
RU: FSI Russian FAST course.
TN: Almost daily Memrise sessions. Who knows for how long I'll stick to this language.
Three books finished this week. I think I have eight books on rotation. Some of them will be finished tomorrow, then I'll add something new.
A recent
topic turned into a discussion about internalization vs. memorization, with the Assimil material in mind. I've always thought that any kind of memorization of that material is unintentional and happens by accident, especially if you apply a global approach, Arguelles style. As a musician (in an Irish trad context), I've never really thought of
memorizing music. You may have go through a piece a number of times in order for it to "stick" (at your level), but then you'll review it, revise it, play it in different settings, at different speeds, in different "styles"... A bunch of musicians who play the same tune may interpret the melody in their own ways, the notes may even differ here and there, but it's still the same tune - and everyone is correct. That's like the old example of being able to tell a joke even if you don't use the same words every time.
Memorizing is similar to uttering canned phrases. Some memorize music and still totally miss the point. Others internalize it and are able to adapt and adopt, like we do while conversing - in our native languages as well as our target languages.
We all know the difference between:
1 blurting out a phrase you
remember2 saying something you've actually put together yourself
I know when
I level up.
