Morgana's log

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jeff_lindqvist
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Re: Morgana's Revolving Door of Languages (plus Swedish)

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Sun Jun 02, 2019 11:57 am

Morgana wrote:I'm surprised at how quickly my typing skills are improving. I was using https://www.keybr.com/ but I don't think I'm continuing. After about a week of practicing (maybe 45 minutes of practice?), I'm still on only the first six keys, however I've had to make use of just about the whole keyboard when I've been typing up the page numbers or fill-in-the-blanks exercises from Assimil. I've got probably 70% of the keyboard layout memorized already from that non-"practice" typing.


I learned to type by copying an entire textbook (!). Since it was intended for beginners, the alphabet was introduced little by little, from identical (and similar) letters, to similar ones with different pronunciation, to з, ъ. щ. ш. й. ц. ч. я... you get the point.
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StringerBell
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Re: Morgana's Revolving Door of Languages (plus Swedish)

Postby StringerBell » Wed Jun 05, 2019 3:39 am

Morgana wrote:Hm I'm starting to feel like I don't do enough "work" in my language learning.


I feel like this with Italian all the time. I think it's my inability to just sit down and go through course book...I can handle about a page at a time, and only maybe 1x or 2x a week. I always think of other people diligently going through textbooks at a desk (like Gallant) and I wish I could do that, but I just can't (which makes me Goofus). So somehow that gives me a sense that I'm not working hard enough, even though I'm always doing something, even if it's not as much as I could be possibly doing.

Morgana wrote:Alright. More (or less) seriously: the past 2-3 days have been weird. I am experiencing some sort of brain fog.


I've gotten this and I've found that it eventually passes and it's best to just not stress about it (unless it's CFS brain fog, but I don't think that's what you're talking about).

(This might be one of my favorite entries that you've ever written)
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Re: Morgana's Revolving Door of Languages (plus Swedish)

Postby aaleks » Wed Jun 05, 2019 11:15 am

Morgana wrote:Hm I'm starting to feel like I don't do enough "work" in my language learning. It seems like a majority of us apply far more effort to what they do in their languages, and here I am throwing on some sitcom for an hour and half-intensively-half-extensively reading books for teens. I don't think I could ever go back to actually trying, though. It's almost like I feel like I paid my dues with the beginner slog and now it's fun times or bust. I don't think I'm a language learner...

I used to feel like this too. I remember even writing about it in my log some (long) time ago. It seemed like everyone was doing something while I was just reading books and watching TV. There was time when I was searching the Internet looking for grammar explanations because I couldn't understand what they were trying to say in textbooks, but now I feel like it was just a waste of time. So eventually I came to the conclusion that it wasn't the best way for me to learn a language even if it worked fine for many other people. And recently I've realized that I just don't want to learn langauges like that - through texbooks and exercises, and since it's just a hobby I won't push myself :)
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StringerBell
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Re: Morgana's Revolving Door of Languages (plus Swedish)

Postby StringerBell » Wed Jun 05, 2019 12:53 pm

Have you ever been able to find any interesting Swedish podcasts? Maybe you could stick with the subtitles when it come to TV because that just makes it more enjoyable (plus, I think subs are really useful and they shouldn't be discarded too quickly), but maybe you could improve your listening comprehension by listening to some Swedish podcasts or radio?
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jonm
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Re: Morgana's Revolving Door of Languages (plus Swedish)

Postby jonm » Thu Jun 06, 2019 5:01 am

Morgana wrote:Oh my gosh. Lesson 13 in Assimil German - the voice acting! The course has had moments here and there where it's shown itself to stand out in this way, but lesson 13! I am actually quite looking forward to the rest of the course now.

I know, right? The voice acting in this course is so good. So much personality! Really brings out the quirky humor of the dialogues.
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Brun Ugle
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Re: Morgana's Revolving Door of Languages (plus Swedish)

Postby Brun Ugle » Thu Jun 06, 2019 3:52 pm

I just had to check lesson thirteen to see what you all were talking about. Assimil does have great audio and voice acting.

I’m not sure whose logs you’ve been reading, but most of the time I don’t do much serious study. I talk about how I’m going to do this or that, but then I end up just watching endless telenovelas and reading popular fiction. Occasionally, I do a burst of “real” study. And regarding brain fog, I get that a lot. Sometimes I wonder what’s wrong with me.
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MorkTheFiddle
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Re: Morgana's Revolving Door of Languages (plus Swedish)

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Wed Jun 12, 2019 11:52 pm

Just a few weeks ago I watched two French movies for improving my listening comprehension, an "oldie" with Catherine Deneuve called Indochine, and a recent one with Marion Cotillard called La vie en rose. Both of them struck me as awful (and I'm not here to debate my opinion about them in this thread with anyone except the OP and only if she wants to!) A tiny bit of panic set in: what if most French films are like this? And there is no French TV show I can't live without (though Kaamelott is pretty good). This leaves blogs, which I already understand fairly well, and audiobooks, which always have a text available. So what's the point of hammering my brain with bad movies?
Luckily, there are some French movies that move me, like Blue and Jeux d'enfants, and they picked my spirits back up. But if there were nothing for me to look forward to having fun listening to, I would quit struggling to improve my listening comprehension, too. Doesn't life have enough unpleasantness?
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tiia
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Re: Morgana's Revolving Door of Languages (plus Swedish)

Postby tiia » Sun Jun 16, 2019 5:52 am

Would songs from Annett Louisan be ok for you? (I'd say you could listen into "Das Gefühl" or "Das Spiel" just to see whether you may like the style.) But otherwise.. I'm quite picky when it comes to songs in German and probably don't listen to the same music as you do, so I'm not good at recommending anything.
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Brun Ugle
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Re: Morgana's Revolving Door of Languages (plus Swedish)

Postby Brun Ugle » Fri Jun 21, 2019 6:32 am

I can have earworms, even Assimil earworms, but I don’t recall any of them ever waking me up.

Congratulations on your Swedish. You’re probably right that it isn’t a stable level yet, but it’s surely on its way to being so. I’ve noticed the same thing with learning a new language. At first I just understand individual words and phrases, then occasional whole sentences, then more whole sentences and then sometimes there will be enough whole sentences in a row that I can understand that I’ll understand a whole scene, and eventually a whole episode. It’s very choppy in the beginning though. It’s not a gradual progression like one might think from my description. Often I might understand one whole scene, but in the next scene, I barely even catch any words. And there are good days and bad days too. But gradually it does get better and there will be more and more good days and scenes and episodes that you understand completely.
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StringerBell
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Re: Morgana's Revolving Door of Languages (plus Swedish)

Postby StringerBell » Sun Jun 23, 2019 4:38 am

Morgana wrote:I think RadioClare has been having a good experience with Pimsleur which tempts me, but I know in my own past dalliances with them I get super bored early on and have to struggle to stick with it, so I'd likely be wasting my money if I went that route. But I do want something that's audio-heavy.


I don't know how your library system is - have you ever checked to see if they have Pimsleur or some other audio language courses? My library has the entire Pimsleur series available for like 20+ languages, and everything is available instantly via RBDigital, so I don't even have to go there in person to check out CDs. I've heard other people having access to Mango languages through their libraries. If yours does have some audio program, it could be a good way to try it out and not waste money.
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