Jeff's language log

[jeff_lindqvist]

2020 - Summary of week 9

Worst week in a long time. Not work related.

DE: A litte more reading in Der Stumme Tod.

GA: More podcasts. Some of them were particularly enjoyable for me as a musician - one episode featured music with late fiddler Tommy Peoples, and another one had songs with late singer and guitarist Micheál Ó Domhnaill of Bothy Band fame. More Duolingo. A couple more lessons in Cúrsa Gaeilge. Just before the weekend, Dagens Nyheter (one of Sweden's biggest newspapers) had an article about the Irish language. And this morning (Monday) I was sent a link to an article in Irish Times about a new dictionary:
Do you know the Irish for transgender? (the article was written nearly two years ago, but it didn't reach me until now)

PT: Some more reading in O Alquemista.

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Cultural content: I finished at least three books.

[jeff_lindqvist]

2020 - Summary of week 10

Possibly the second worst week in a long time. No details.

GA: More podcasts. Another one with musical content - a couple of tunes in the studio with the classic band Bothy Band (recorded in 1975). More Duolingo. At the beginning of this year, I hoped to finished the whole tree by the end of that week. Then next week. Then... no, still not finished. Maybe next week.

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Cultural content: Three books finished. Episode 5 and 6 of McMafia (including some dialogue in Russian).

[jeff_lindqvist]

2020 - Summary of week 11

Time for an update. This week was manageable. I finished seven books, and along the way I picked up some of my older reading material.

EO: A few pages in La Sankta Biblio.

FR: I started reading a book with fables, and immediately realized that my French isn't what I hoped it would be.

GA: More podcasts. I completed Duolingo. It took a little more than three months. Everything is solid gold now. I read a handful of chapters in Cúrsa Gaeilge. Another gaeilgeoir and I talked about the intricacies of Irish orthography and sound shifts. We had a certain word in mind - dlídóir (lawyer). What the h*ll happened here? dl- at the beginning of a word. I checked the root dlí (law) and found this:

From Old Irish dliged.

Noun
dlí m (genitive singular dlí, nominative plural dlithe)

law (rule, code, instruction, or prohibition)

( https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dl%C3%AD )

So, it was already there in Old Irish. There can't be that many words that start with dl- in Modern Irish. It just doesn't feel like a smooth consonant combination. If I ever encounter any more words, at least I know that they are lenited as dhl- and eclipsed as ndl-.

If the stars are aligned, there will be a native Irish speaker in town in a couple of months.

ZH: A few lessons in the good old Elementary Chinese II.

[jeff_lindqvist]

2020 - Summary of week 12

Almost in time. I finished two books last week - I think I read some 500 pages in two-three evenings (I had to return the book to the library).

EN: I started listening to the audiobook My family and other animals (by Gerald Durrell) - narrated by Hugh Bonneville.

GA: More podcasts. Duolingo review. Another couple of lessons in Cúrsa Gaeilge. I also copied a few pages from Gaeilge gan Stró vol 2.

PT: A few pages in O alquemista.

ZH: The last lessons in Elementary Chinese II.

Regarding my spreadsheet and statistics for 2019, I'm almost there.

[jeff_lindqvist]

2020 - Summary of week 13

The horror! No book finished last week!

GA: More podcasts. Duolingo review. One conversation topic this weekend was the word cónaí which is used in two common expressions you learn as a beginner:
Tá mé i mo chónaí i mbaile beag. I live in a small town.
i gcónaí - always.

The shared meaning here is stay / remain/ continuance / permanence / constancy. I've been dabbling with Irish on and off since the early 1990s and I haven't noticed it until now. You learn something new every day, it seems.

PT: I decided to have a look at stories, i.e. the so-so recently added feature of some of the Duolingo languages. Each story unfolds line by line, and usually there's a comical twist at the end - the style is recognizable from some Assimil dialogues.

The next episode: statistics for Jan-June 2019.

[jeff_lindqvist]

At last, the long awaited summary! (Stats from 2018 here.)

Summary of January-June 2019

1-5
Danish - 122.5 hours of listening (thanks to my daily walks)
English - 75 hours: 51.75 hours reading, 23.25 hours of audiobooks
Swedish - 62 hours: 51.75 hours reading, 10.25 hours of audiobooks
Catalan - 41 hours of Glossika
Scottish Gaelic - 40.25 hours of Glossika

6-10
German - 18.25 hours: 9.75 listening, 8.5 reading
Russian - 15.5 hours: 7.75 listening, 7.75 reading
Chinese - 15.5 hours: 7.75 listening, 7.75 reading
Irish Gaelic - 14 hours: 7 listening, 7 reading
Spanish - 14.25 hours of scriptorium

11-14
French - 13.5 hours of scriptorium
Norwegian - 12 hours of listening
Italian - 8 hours of analysis
Polish - 8 hours of analysis

Some comments:
Each focus language typically gets 2 hours per week. Identical reading numbers for Swedish and English, Catalan and Scottish Gaelic are close, there's a Russian and Chinese match (I did equally long sessions), Spanish and French are also close (I worked with Assimil New [Language] With Ease, and probably had a similar number of lessons to copy), and Italian and Polish also match each other - I started both at the same time. Target language TV series and films aren't included here.

Next chapter: July-Dec 2019

[jeff_lindqvist]

2020 - Summary of week 14

Two books finished last week: My penguin year - a story about a wildlife filmmaker who stayed in Antarctica for one year; Redemption Point - Australian crime fiction (Swedish translation). Other titles in the current pile of books include Dungeon Master's Guide (AD&D 2nd Edition). I finished Player's Handbook a while ago. (Thanks to Rick, Zenmonkey and Brun_Ugle for the indirect inspiration - we talked about this back in... 2017.)

I also binge-watched the eight episodes of the Danish crime series DNA.

GA: More podcasts. Another couple with musical elements (one with Mícheál Ó Domnhaill, another with sean-nós singer Joe Heaney). Duolingo review. I will leave it for a while.

PT: More stories. A few per day.

[jeff_lindqvist]

Summary of July-Dec 2019

1-5
Norwegian - 157.5 hours of audio
Swedish - 58 hours: the remaining 5.5 hours of an audiobook; 52.5 hours of reading
English - 52.5 hours of reading
Italian - 52.5 hours: 48.5 hours of audio (Youtube etc.), 4 hours of analysis
Polish - 52.5 hours: 10,5 hours of audio (Ioannis Oculus etc.) and 42 hours of analysis, lessons etc. (FSI etc.)

6-8
Irish Gaelic - 12.5 of analysis (grammar etc. - in this case: Duolingo)
German - 3.25 hours of reading
Spanish - 1.5 hours of scriptorium

Some comments:
It came as a bit of surprise to see that I spent time on only eight languages during the second half of 2019. Norwegian skyrocketed thanks to my walks. I re-started Irish late November.

[jeff_lindqvist]

2020 - Summary of week 15

I finished two books last week (one was a suspense thriller). Inspired by Rdearman's post about the decision to start reading books lying around the house, I was looking for something in my collection of Penguin classics but eventually set my eyes on the Roald Dahl copy "5 Bestsellers Including Over 40 Tales of the Unexpected". Just before Good Friday, I started watching another Danish series, Fred til lands - eight episodes. I also finished it.

GA: More podcasts. I studied lessons 27-30 in Cúrsa Gaeilge. There was a documentary about the late musician Liam O´Flynn on TG4 on Easter Sunday. Unfortunate I had no energy when it was about to start. Maybe I'll watch it some other time.

In lesson 28 I came across the expression láthair an tseanti - the site of the old house. Beginners learn faoi láthair - at the moment. Again, although I spent time with this material in the early 1990s, I hadn't noticed this mixed place/time usage. The dictionary meaning: site, present.

Another example is the even more common word ansin which means both there and then.

What an interesting language!

PT: More stories. A few per day. I also decided to go through the tree (like I did for Irish). The mix of lessons and stories will keep me busy for months.

[jeff_lindqvist]

2020 - Summary of week 16

I finished many books this week (see below for more details) - one about the history of Swedish tabletop games. And finally Dungeon Master Guide. I also binge-watched 22 juli (six episodes).

GA: More podcasts. I studied lessons 31-34 in Cúrsa Gaeilge.

PT: More stories. More Duolingo lessons. And literature! I had access to no fewer than 15 children's books and read them all in a couple of hours. Titles included A Goldilocks e os três ursos, A girafa que comeu a lua and the Swedish classic As aventuras da maçã vermelha. Some short ones (up to say 32 pages), some longer. Lots of pictures. Still effort. It evens out. Sooner or later, I'll read something with +1000 pages, and that's also "one book".