Morgana's log

[cjareck]

Every line of every dialogue already goes into Anki, with audio. Also into Anki goes each exercise from each lesson (usually 5 audio and 5 fill-in-the-blanks).

I also use this method. However, with dialogues, I put the script and audio to one line and only some pictures as hints for the second line (which is in most cases the reply). Then I try to guess what should be in the second line. The idea is based on the exercise from FSI Hebrew Basic Course. I should also make the opposite - audio and script for the second line and hints to guess the first one, but I do not want to mess with the system that works very good already.

[cjareck]

I'll show you an example. There is, of course, audio played on both sides of the card, but I will skip it in this presentation

ros-1.png

This is the front side of the card. I'm using my photo to indicate that I should use the first person in the answer Other pictures are mostly subjective associations with the words I should use in my answer to that.

ros-2.png

The backside of the card is much simpler - it plays audio and displays the answer. There is also the button "pokaż tłumaczenie" ("show the translation") that, after being clicked, shows the translation of the phrase. It is also in the front of the card but was below what I cut from the screenshot.

[Elsa Maria]

I have not started the Assimil Dutch, by the way. I've been distracted by Spanish and by being on holiday.

Several of us read Odinsbarn a few years ago. I must have liked it better than you did, because I would wanted to read the trilogy. But I never did. Now I'd have to go back and reread Odinsbarn (in Danish) before I could read Råta, and I am not sure I really want to invest in that effort.

Do you generally like YA Fantasy? I am not a huge YA fan, but I like some of it.

[tiia]

subtly removes mention of languages from log title

Makes sense, when you're changing them constantly. However, I noticed that adding the target languages to the log title increased the number of readers.

Anyone else apply the concept of "spoiler alert" to their languages? Going step-by-step through learning a language can be quite interesting and suspenseful, and then I will (quite knowingly on my behalf) read logs of fellow learners of my TLs and get spoiled by things I don't know yet Obviously I'm joking, no one should hold back in what they write of their language experience! It's just something I didn't experience while learning Swedish (or Icelandic) but now I run into it a little bit with Russian and German.

I remember some discussion about the sin/sina thingy, which was a bit ahead for me (like 2-3 chapters in Rivstart). But it definitely works better with languages you don't know that well yet.

Because obviously there are a ton more people learning those languages than were/are learning Swedish (and/or Icelandic)! In fact about a month or so back I did a text search on the first 20 pages of logs (sorted by most recent post) and there were only three logs that explicitly listed Swedish as a target language, and of them none of those posters were as active as I am on the site. Also, none of those learners had Swedish as their primary or main target language. Outside of that, there was one learner whom I knew was learning Swedish as their main TL but didn't list it in the log title, but this person lives in Sweden. Knowing there were so few people learning Swedish as a main TL without living there gave me pause... but maybe that's something I can talk about later (or not!).

You for sure found my log in that search. I haven't really done anything for a while and it doesn't feel good to just write, that I haven't really done anything, except for living my life, speak Spanish every now and then at the language cafe and notice when people speak Swedish on the streets... Oh and I once tried Swedish at the language cafe. But my Swedish was horrible. I probably will take another course again, just to proceed at least in any way.
I did similar searches for Finnish some time ago, you don't get that many results either. But it's probably more than Swedish due to the "Finnish with extra Mühe" project. Another issue is, that, most learners never got as far as I did. (I know one exception here?). Especially I have never read of any learner in this forum who actually worked in Finnish. (Anyway, I now such people in real life here.) I don't know whether you may have a similar problem with Swedish. (?)

There are a lot of similarities with Swedish, more than with English I'd say at this stage. I have enjoyed the transparency but at the same time that transparency can feel boring, like I am not discovering anything new.

Let's say it from my point of view: there's no language that felt so easy to learn as Swedish. It's extremely close to German, and if I don't know a word through German, it's likely I know it through English or Finnish (because Finnish has quite an amount of Swedish loan words.) Even the grammatical forms... like irregular plurals are similar in German (such as land, länder). Honestly, when visiting Sweden without knowing Swedish at all, there is a good chance of guessing the meaning, if it's written.
May German feel as a relaxing walk through a park as Swedish feels for me.
At least there is plenty of media in German available, so that you could just make use of the language.


Btw. I'm still reading book three of the Ravenring-trilogy. I stopped last year when I moved to Finland, but recently reread one chapter and continued with one more. So I see those "spoilers" of the second book more as a nice reminder what has happend before.

[aaleks]

• 41st lesson.
  
• Now we’re learning to tell time! Oh my this seems so different from English. Genitives, ordinal numerals, ugh and Russian does that "half-six" thing like the Brits... I always have to do the math when I hear "half-four" or "half-eleven" like why is it so hard to just say "ten-thirty?!" I wanted the time, not a math problem!

I don't like those "half-six" etc. either . And I have to the math too to not confuse 5:30 with 6:30.

[jeff_lindqvist]

We have the same system in the Scandinavian languages, so it will help you since you're into Swedish as well. I can agree that the numbers 10:30 reads most easily as "ten thirty", but if you're looking at a clock face, it's just as logical to view as something related to eleven (and it's getting even closer to eleven while you're looking at it...). Also German has it. Halb elf is half an hour before eleven, i.e. 10:30. We look into the future.

[aaleks]

Also German has it. Halb elf is half an hour before eleven

German also has such a mind blowing thing like Es ist ein Viertel 15 - 14:15 or Es ist drei Viertel 15 - 14:45 (it's from the notes I made when I was trying to learn German on my own in the early 2000's). The fact that Russian has it too doesn't make things easier for me .

[tiia]

Shhhhhh, you were supposed to go along with pretending you didn't notice

However, I noticed that adding the target languages to the log title increased the number of readers.

Indeed. Though, one small correction: it was adding popular target languages to the log title that increased the views. I had had Swedish, and then also Icelandic, as part of my log title for a long time.

I cannot tell the difference, since I put Finnish and Spanish at the same time there. But I noticed that I got more comments when I started Swedish... Maybe because there are not too many people learning it? Or because I was such a beginner, that people were eager to help me. Or maybe I was just asking more questions. I don't know. I never got corrections for my few Spanish posts, but for Swedish I got some, and even a few for Finnish.

My purpose in writing the part you quoted here was to express what most language learners are doing and why it makes sense vs. what I have done. Let's consider your case, though: you live in Finland now. I assume at least some of the duration of your learning had been spent with the hope or intent to migrate.

And now generally: most people who have a longterm primary focus on a small(-ish) language are probably planning to use that language at some point because of loved ones, a career, relocation, etc. So it makes sense to learn them. For someone not doing those things it maybe isn't such a great plan. Unless one just really loves the language at all costs. I'm not judging anybody's reasons for learning, just pointing out what tends to be the case with the majority of language learners. They go for big languages, not small ones.

Well although I cannot deny completely that the thought of moving there had been in my mind like some kind of dream, I do think you're making it too easy here. Here I had written what got me into Finnish in the first place. Really I just thought that it's such a crazy and funny language that I have to learn it. And I had a lot of fun learning Finnish, got to know other learners etc. But I also put a lot of effort in these things.
Getting the exchange placement (after 6 years of learning) was an incredibly great opporunity (btw. my faculty had no exchange placement in Finland, but in Sweden and Iceland. If I had not learned Finnish already, Iceland would have been THE choice. But so, I had to get the placement through another faculty.) After the exchange I was certain I would like to move there, because I had been so happy during that time. Anyway, I became pretty unsure as my studies took me way longer than expected. I was not even completely sure, whether I would really stay for more than the three months when I came last summer.
But there was one thing I was always certain about: Finnish would always have its place in my heart and I wouldn't let it got, as it had brought me so much joy already. I sometimes went as far to say (to myself) that although my love life isn't working out at all, I have at least Finnish (and it cannot run away).*

However, I do understand that in general people learn such exotic or "small" languages often for their partners or because they just ended up living in the country where it's spoken. (But a lot of expats here don't speak any Finnish.) I mean I've met such people here a lot. I agree with you, when it's about the majority of language learners. I just don't think I'm such a good example for that.

---------------------------------------------------------------

The day that was August 2nd:
[list][*]Russian, Assimil:[list][*]41st lesson.
[*]Now we’re learning to tell time! Oh my this seems so different from English. Genitives, ordinal numerals, ugh and Russian does that "half-six" thing like the Brits... I always have to do the math when I hear "half-four" or "half-eleven" like why is it so hard to just say "ten-thirty?!" I wanted the time, not a math problem!

Here's a spoiler for you for German, one where even I as a native speaker still have to think what time it actually is.
There's half-something. That's easy. But what about quarter to or quarter past? Well... Germans have TWO ways of saying that.

The first and more common one that everybody understands goes like this:
14.00 - Zwei Uhr. (Two o'clock.)
14.15 - Viertel nach zwei. (Quarter past two)
14.30 - Halb drei. (half-three.)
14.45 - Viertel vor drei. (Quarter to three.)

But then there is also the second way, that is only used in some areas in Germany:
14.00 - Zwei Uhr. (Two o'clock.) - same as before
14.15 - Viertel drei. (quarter three)
14.30 - Halb drei. (half-three.) - same as before
14.45 - Dreiviertel drei. (three-quarters three)

Dreiviertel ("three-quarters") sounds still quite logical and is at least not hard to understand. But Viertel [number] (without nach or vor) still makes me trouble. Just think of the problem that the difference between Viertel drei (14.15) and Viertel nach drei (15.15) is a whole hour!
Btw. Germans who use this expressions, always explain it with cake. Having a quarter of a cake, half of the cake three quarters of the cake and well, the full cake. (But.. aren't we eating the cake and it becomes usually less, when time goes on?)



*You know you're a language nerd, when you write with more people learning Finnish and Finns on a (German) dating site, than you have actual dates.

[cjareck]

We have the same system in the Scandinavian languages, so it will help you since you're into Swedish as well. I can agree that the numbers 10:30 reads most easily as "ten thirty", but if you're looking at a clock face, it's just as logical to view as something related to eleven (and it's getting even closer to eleven while you're looking at it...). Also German has it. Halb elf is half an hour before eleven, i.e. 10:30. We look into the future.

We have something similar - you ma say "W pół do jedenastej" ("in half to the eleven"). Of course, there is also a "Dziesiąta trzydzieści" ("ten-thirty").

[Brun Ugle]

With the change in title, I seem to have lost your log for almost a month, but now I’ve found it again.

Norwegian has interesting ways of telling time too. In addition to half meaning halfway to the next hour, we also count to the nearest half hour. So you can have 10 minutes to the hour or 10 minutes after the hour, just like in English, but you can also have 10 minutes to the half hour or 10 minutes past the half hour. So 2:30 is half 3 and 2:40 is 10 past half 3. I’d always assumed Swedish did the same thing, but maybe they don’t.