Brun Ugle の mehrsprachige bitácora (NO, ES, DE, JA) 2019 -- now with Polish!!

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Re: Brun Ugle の mehrsprachige bitácora (NO, ES, DE, JA) 2019

Postby DaveAgain » Thu Apr 25, 2019 10:31 am

Brun Ugle wrote:German is even worse because I’ve never properly learned the basics and I can’t find a good course or textbook that really suits me, so I end up just reading and watching TV and relying heavily on Norwegian to help me.
I'm currently working through Deutsch interaktiv [flash plugin required] on DW.com. Several people have mentioned Nico's Weg (another DW.com course), and I think I'll probably try that once I've finished Deutsch interactiv.
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Re: Brun Ugle の mehrsprachige bitácora (NO, ES, DE, JA) 2019

Postby Iversen » Thu Apr 25, 2019 12:24 pm

rdearman wrote:Yeah, it is a bit like shooting fish in a bucket.

The legendary Mythbusters once proved that it is hard to shoot anything in a bucket of water - you need much more firepower than if you shoot it on dry land
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Re: Brun Ugle の mehrsprachige bitácora (NO, ES, DE, JA) 2019

Postby Brun Ugle » Thu Apr 25, 2019 12:45 pm

Iversen wrote:
rdearman wrote:Yeah, it is a bit like shooting fish in a bucket.

The legendary Mythbusters once proved that it is hard to shoot anything in a bucket of water - you need much more firepower than if you shoot it on dry land

So, it’s more like shooting fish on dry land then. That might be an even more apt expression in this case. Just like there is no need to shoot a fish that is already on land since it will die soon anyway, there is no need for anyone to try to sidetrack me with new languages because I’m always sidetracking myself.
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Re: Brun Ugle の mehrsprachige bitácora (NO, ES, DE, JA) 2019

Postby MamaPata » Thu Apr 25, 2019 4:22 pm

I don’t think you can really compare the number of likes for those two posts. It can feel weird “liking” someone’s failure, even if if you sympathise and like that they are sharing the ups and downs.
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Re: Brun Ugle の mehrsprachige bitácora (NO, ES, DE, JA) 2019

Postby GnomeChomsky » Sun May 05, 2019 6:10 pm

Brun Ugle wrote: Today, as we neared the library, an eldery woman came up to us and started talking to us. I didn't know her from before, but she was very nice and friendly and it turns out --- Japanese! So, before I could get too nervous, I spoke to her in Japanese. She was very surprised and of course, wanted to know why I spoke Japanese. I didn't go into the whole story of my on-again-off-again relationship with Japanese, so I just told her that I'd started learning because I'd had a Japanese boyfriend back when I was about twenty. But I told her in Japanese! 8-) .



Inspirational! I love to read stories like these!
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Re: Brun Ugle の mehrsprachige bitácora (NO, ES, DE, JA) 2019

Postby Brun Ugle » Sun May 19, 2019 4:49 pm

Long time, no see. I’m still here, and still studying – sort of. I’ve been plagued by a series of illnesses this year that have caused me not to study as much or as seriously as I would have liked. Most recently, I’ve had a cough that wouldn’t go away and I ended up dropping reading aloud and doing recordings and reducing several other voice-related activities and now I feel like I’ve forgotten how to speak all my languages. I do have a bit more energy now though, so that’s something. And, except for today when I got another one of those weird combination stomach/head troubles that makes my brain cease functioning entirely, I’ve been able to think a bit more clearly. I would really like to understand why my brain stops working sometimes though. It’s really weird and kind of scary.

I’ve been slowly getting back into reading (in general, not just in foreign languages) and I think that’s a good thing. I think it has also contributed to slightly better sleep and lower stress. And doing it in foreign languages might help me to learn something too. I read this thread and if the one million sentences hypothesis is correct and the calculation of 3500 sentences per book is also correct and holds across languages, I need to read about 285 books per language. At the rate I’ve been reading (or mostly not reading) these past few years, that would take a long time, like the rest of my life. So, I need to increase the time I spend reading. I’ve already been working on this a bit and I like the effects at least on my stress levels and sleeping patterns, so I think I will continue and try to increase it even more. I could also increase my reading speed a bit and it will certainly increase a bit in my weaker languages as I go, but I don’t think speed-reading or similar super-fast reading techniques would be useful for absorbing a language as I think it would lead to ignoring the small details that are important to know if you want to produce the language even though they don’t really add a lot of meaning and can be hopped over in reading. On the contrary, I sometimes intentionally slow down and read aloud in order to better absorb the language itself.

I was doing a bit better with languages for a few weeks after mostly getting over my various illnesses, but these past couple of weeks have gone a bit downhill. I’m getting nervous about the Gathering and the whole business of getting there. Travel always makes me a bit stressed. I don’t really feel anxious, but whenever there is something going to happen, my subconscious seems to feel like it needs to be on alert at all times. It’s not as bad this year as previous years, but I’m still having memory problems and sleeping problems because my subconscious knows I have to wake up early on Sunday next week, so it’s practicing, or something. Another thing that has caused me a little stress is that I have a foster cat (Birk) and I really wish I could keep him, but at the same time, having a cat would make travel almost impossible and bring with it a number of other difficulties that I’m not sure I’m ready for at this time. So, I’m torn between wanting a cat (specifically this cat) and not wanting to have a cat. He’s such a well-behaved cat though and so sweet. He lets me carry him around like a baby and kiss his belly, just like my Carlitos used to.

Unfortunately, Zenmonkey won’t be able to come to the Gathering with us and that’s very sad. He and I had made a pact to speak together only in German and Spanish. Also, everyone else is going home on the 4th, and we were staying until the 5th, so he and I were going to go to Vienna together for the last day and now I have to go by myself. I booked a room near a big bookstore there, so I’m all set, but it would have been a lot of fun to have Zenmonkey there. I think Vienna will be OK, because I’ve been to that part of Vienna before and taken the bus to the airport from the station near where I’ll be staying. I’m a little nervous about getting the bus from the Vienna airport to Bratislava in the beginning of the trip though because the last two times, I always arrived at the airport around the same time as Dave and we took the bus together. I’m incredibly skilled at getting lost (A few days ago, I got lost in my own neighbourhood walking along the same path I walk every day.), so I’m a little nervous about that part. Once I meet up with the others, I will be with them until I go to Vienna, so then I can relax. They always take good care of me and make sure I don’t get lost too much (except that time I got lost after going to the bathroom, but I found them again pretty quickly).

I’m still mainly working through my Anki deck (core 6K) for Japanese and occasionally watching a video. I’m getting close to the halfway mark on the Anki deck and it’s definitely getting harder. I decided to cut down from 20 new cards per day to 10 for the next couple of days, and then cut done to 5 new cards per day from Tuesday. During the Gathering, I will leave it set to 5 cards per day, but I’ll only do them if I get through all the reviews first. My original plan was to set it back up to 20 per day afterward, but I might have to keep it down at 10 or 15 and just take a longer time to finish since it’s getting so much harder now. That might be a good thing as I could spend more time on other activities. I’ve been spending a lot of time on Anki and not feeling like doing anything else with Japanese afterwards. It was OK in the beginning when I could click “easy” on most words and didn’t have so many reviews, but now I can’t do that much and also, I’m failing more words than before, meaning even more reviews as they keep coming back again and again. I was kind of looking forward to finishing by the end of the year though.

The “movie” part of my Spanish Super Challenge is going well. I already passed my goal long ago and I’m still watching. I’ve put Cuéntame on hold for a while and am watching a Mexican telenovela (Qué pobres tan ricos) now. It’s just as silly and over-the-top as a good telenovela should be. And it’s kind of fun as the male protagonist and his sidekick are played by the same actors as the male protagonist and sidekick from the first telenovela I watched, so it brings back good memories. That was when I made my breakthrough on listening comprehension and it brought me so much happiness it almost made me manic. This time, I’m much more subdued, but it still makes me happy to see them again and remember that time. I do have a hard time understanding a few of the characters because they speak so strangely, but some of the other characters have trouble understanding them too. Also, telenovelas are made really quickly, so the sound quality is not as good as in series where they only do one episode a week, and I’m really noticing the difference.

I also finished the book-club book “La sombra del viento” close to a month ago. I loved it, but it seems a lot of the other book-club members were not that impressed. The local library has the other books in the series, so I will probably read them as well after I get home again.

I’ve come to the realization that I need more direction in my Spanish studies. As you probably know, my executive function is not really functional (the executive must be on permanent vacation), and if I don’t have some clear outside guidelines, I just run around in circles and get nothing done. It has to be a simple guide though, no complex, multi-layer plans. So, I’ve decided after I come back from the Gathering, I’ll buy an advanced textbook. I’m thinking of looking into the one Cavesa has been using (Vitamina C or something like that) as she seems to find it good and I’ve liked other textbooks she’s suggested. The main point is just to have a clear path to my studies. With a textbook, I always know what to do next and then I study like a machine, but without it, nothing gets done because I try to do everything at once and can’t decide what I should do next. In my “free time” I will, of course, continue to read and watch TV.

My German also needs direction. I think I made a big mistake with German. I assumed it would be easy because I already know Norwegian, and in a way, it is easy. I can read novels and watch simple TV series and documentaries without too much trouble, but my brain just ignores the details like genders, plurals, prepositions, etc because I don’t need them to understand. I’ve tried many times to start working on it, but I never seem to know where to start because it always seems too easy. Now though, I think I need to just learn from the beginning, or nearly the beginning. I happen to have “Themen aktuell” A2 and B1 and I’ve decided to work through them fairly quickly. Even though I don’t have much trouble understanding at that level, I feel like doing the exercises in the workbooks might help me to slow down and absorb the bits of grammar and vocabulary that I’m missing at the lower levels and fill in the gaps. I should be able to get through them quickly and then I will buy the B2 book, which probably corresponds better to my receptive level. The main point is to stop jumping from one thing to another in the search of the perfect course for my level and just work through everything and finally learn a few plurals and which prepositions go with which verbs. And maybe I’ll learn to speak real German instead of just Germanizing Norwegian words and switching the word-order around. Again, I will continue reading and watching TV in my free time.

I’m currently nearly finished with an Agatha Christie novel in German. I’ll probably finish tomorrow or maybe the day after at the latest. After that, I don’t know what I should read. Whatever it is, I’d like to finish before I leave, so it should probably be in Norwegian or English. I read more slowly in German and Spanish and don’t have anything very short in those languages that I could complete in that time.
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Re: Brun Ugle の mehrsprachige bitácora (NO, ES, DE, JA) 2019

Postby Brun Ugle » Fri May 24, 2019 7:16 pm

Well, I’m almost packed and ready to go. I always get so stressed before I travel somewhere, but now I’m much calmer than I was a few days ago. And a few weeks ago. I forgot to mention it, but I had a funny nightmare a few weeks ago involving this trip and some of you. In the dream, Rick, Dave and Zenmonkey were all staying at my house the night before we were to leave for the Gathering. Radioclare was supposed to drive us to the airport in the morning, but when it was time to go, I discovered I had completely forgotten to pack and also my house was huge with walk-in closets bigger than the bedrooms are in reality and they were all full of clothes, but I couldn’t find any of the clothes I needed. In reality, I started packing a couple weeks ago and most of my clothes have been packed for a week.

I finished that Agatha Christie translation in German already the same day as I wrote my last entry and since then, I’ve hardly done any German. I found a couple of books of short stories to read, one in Spanish and one in English. I figure that with short stories, I’m not likely to be in the middle of something when it’s time to leave. It’s too bad I don’t have a book of German short stories though. I could use some more German reading. The Spanish book is a collection of science fiction from 1979, translated from English. I remember finding it at a used book store years ago and trying and failing to read it several times over the years, but now it’s really not hard at all. Sometimes it’s nice to have something like that to remind you that you have actually improved. I often feel disappointed when I read something in Spanish and there are still so many unfamiliar words, but the thing is, I keep increasing the difficulty level. So, the things I struggle with now are objectively much harder than the things I struggled with some years ago, but the struggle kind of remains constant.

I cut way back on new cards in my Japanese Anki deck, but I keep looking at the stats to see how many reviews I’ll have after 10 days if I don’t review anything during that time, and it hardly seems to go down at all. It’s around 600 now. Maybe if I could stop failing cards, it would be OK, but my memory seems to have a six-month limit or something as I discovered when doing Goldlists. I would easily remember things for the required two weeks and cross them of the list, but then a few months later, I didn’t know them anymore.
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Re: Brun Ugle の mehrsprachige bitácora (NO, ES, DE, JA) 2019

Postby Brun Ugle » Sun May 26, 2019 12:12 pm

I’m not struggling that much. I was mostly just surprised that slowing down on adding new cards didn’t have more of an effect on the number of cards due.

I do forget random words though at times and there are a few that I struggle with, mostly words that are similar. I got a little spoiled because most of the first 2000 words I could click easy on and now it’s getting harder, plus there are more cards in the mix meaning that they come back again too. I think I will slow down a bit though so I can fit in some other activities. It’s not the kanji that are causing the trouble. I had the same problem with Spanish. I just need to get other forms of exposure, like you said.
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Re: Brun Ugle の mehrsprachige bitácora (NO, ES, DE, JA) 2019

Postby Brun Ugle » Thu Jun 13, 2019 9:00 am

I’ve been back for a week now, but I still haven’t recovered. I got so little sleep that it will probably take me another week or two to catch up on that, plus I caught a cold. So, I’m exhausted and haven’t done much of anything since coming home. Well, I’ve been daydreaming and making plans about what to study, but not really studying so very much. I managed to not get so far behind on my Anki reviews for Japanese during the Gathering, but even so, it’s taken me until now to catch up again because my brain just shorted out and stopped working altogether by the end.

The trip went something like this: 12-hour trip, beer, beer, kebab, beer, beer, beer, beer, lectures, beer, kebab, beer, lecture, beer, beer, beer…. you get the idea. On the last day, when everyone else went home, I went to Vienna to go to the bookstore. I had booked a hotel near the big Thalia bookstore on Mariahilferstrasse, to make things easier. I also went to a bookstore on the same street, but nearer the train station, where they sell books at reduced prices. They seem to be books that didn’t sell elsewhere or books with some small defect. I bought a couple of defective books, but I can’t figure out what the defect might be. They look fine. Maybe I’ll get to the end and the last page will be missing and I’ll never know whodunnit. I’d planned to seek out a few used bookstores too, but I was just too exhausted.

Vienna was a bit tough because that was when the exhaustion and the cold hit me and I felt like collapsing rather than going shopping, but I managed well enough. I didn’t end up buying so much because it was very hard to make decisions about what to buy without my brain there to help me. I did manage to do everything in German though. When I checked in at the hotel, I spoke German to the receptionist and when she asked me for ID and I handed her a US passport, she asked if I’d prefer to continue in German or to switch to English, but I said I’d prefer German, and she continued in German. I know a lot of people complain that people always switch to English with them, but I’ve almost never had that happen despite my mangling every language I’ve ever tried to speak.

I managed to not irritate most of the store clerks this year now that I know that the little globes next to the 1, 2 and 5 aren’t zeros. (I used to think the 1, 2 and 5 cent coins were 10, 20 and 50 cents and drove everyone crazy when I tried to give them exact change.) I did make one grocery store clerk mad this year when I didn’t know to weigh my banana ahead of time. We don’t do that in Norway. They weigh the things at the register. Anyway, I never understand what the grocery store clerks are muttering at me. I think they have their own dialect. I don’t have much trouble understanding hotel clerks or bookstore clerks, just grocery store clerks. Also, they are really scary.

Back to the actual Gathering. It was really sad Zenmonkey couldn’t make it. Maybe I’d have had more rest and less beer if he had been there. We did manage to have a little bit of fun though, despite his absence. Of the lectures, I think Rick’s talk about language exchanges was the best, but there were a few others I enjoyed. There was one in Spanish by Nacho Cabellero of Nacho Time Spanish that I liked. It was about using dictation to improve your Spanish (or any language). I also liked the other talk about language exchanges given by someone from Tandem. I was surprised how good it was as I’d expected it to be just an infomercial. I generally tried to attend as many Spanish and German lectures as I could, but I ended up missing two German lectures that I’d really wanted to attend because they were at the same time as Rick’s and Dave’s lectures. They seem to schedule things so there are always either several interesting looking talks at once or none.

The nights were all spent on drinking and we didn’t usually get home until after two in the morning, sometimes after four. And that’s why I don’t remember much more.

One thing I really regretted was that I never learned Slovak. When they announced that the 2017 Gathering would be in Slovakia, I considered learning the language, but made a conscious decision not to. Slovak had never been on my “list” and I didn’t want to spread myself too thin learning a bunch of languages to a low level at the expense of taking my main languages to a high level. However, this year, I picked up a little bit of the language by listening to Dave chatting up waitresses and by reading signs and advertisements. And it didn’t seem all that hard! If I’d know the Gathering would be there for three years in a row, maybe I would have chosen to learn Slovak and then I’d have a decent level by now. Watching Dave has also taught me the value and fun of knowing even a little bit. So, now I’ve decided that I will try to pick up a little bit of the local language wherever the Gathering is held. Next year is going to be Poland. So, I’m about to start learning Polish.

I bought the Polish Assimil (out of the back of a van like a drug-deal, as Rick mentioned). Unfortunately, I ended up with the book and the software rather than book and MP3’s. The Assimil guy said the MP3’s are on a folder with the software, and they are, but each line of each dialogue is it’s own MP3. That’s a bit annoying. I like to have the version where each lesson is a single MP3 and put that on my phone. Then I loop it while I’m doing the lesson. Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to see what I can do with this mess. The lack of proper MP3’s seems very inconvenient, but maybe I’ll enjoy the software more than I expect to.

I’m still looking for some other Polish materials that are easier for starting out with. I like Assimil, but I need something more than that, something that will feed me the grammar in a logical order. Assimil just sort of hints at things. I’d also like to find some thorough pronunciation training materials. So, I welcome suggestions on how to approach Polish if any of you have experience learning it.

My other languages will continue on as before. I haven’t really done anything with them since before the Gathering and I’m still feeling a bit braindead, so I don’t know how long it will take me before I get into a good routine again. I’d really like to get my Spanish up to C1 and my German to a real and solid B2 for next year. I notice my Spanish survived a bit longer this year than last year, so it’s definitely stronger than it was, but it was pretty tattered by the end. I need to have my languages strong enough to survive a week of large amounts of beer and tiny amounts of sleep. If I still know the language after a week of that, then I’ll know I’m “fluent”.
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Re: Brun Ugle の mehrsprachige bitácora (NO, ES, DE, JA) 2019 -- now with Polish!!

Postby tiia » Thu Jun 13, 2019 11:47 am

The thing with the books at a reduced price is that Germany, Austria and obviously a few other countries have this so called Fixed-book-price (Buchpreisbindung), so a book will be always sold at the same price no matter where you buy them.
It feels quite often like marking them with the stamp for defective books is nearly the only way to sell them at a reduced price.
In my teenage years I cannot even remember that any of theses books had a visible defect - as an adult I have seen that far more often. Sometimes there are e.g. rather deep cuts in the paper, probably from opening the package rather brutally. But the pages were still complete, there were just those cuts. (Could affect quite some amount of pages.) However, I haven't had a book with pages missing from such a pile*, although it would be possible.

*I only had that with a non-reduced Spanish course book and when I complained later, it appeared to affect several of these books in the store. I still found an exchange for mine, but the store had to sent a bunch of them back.
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