Outcast tries to sort out his language Clustermuck

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outcast
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Outcast tries to sort out his language Clustermuck

Postby outcast » Tue Mar 30, 2021 4:18 pm

First of all hello to everyone. And to anyone who is still hanging about from the 2018 and prior years, and by the remotest of chances you remember me, a nice to see you again in advance.

I have been debating for a few months if I should return, and I guess I have decided it could be useful. I don't want this to be an all about me post, it really doesn't matter much what lead me to stop participating. The bottom line is, at the time, I felt it was taking too much of my time, not just the forum, but the internet in general. I decided to cut off most of my interactions and just do things in real life. I thought that would help me with my language fluency goals. It really didn't to be honest. Mainly because of my haphazard, half-hearted effort al language learning in the last 2 1/2 years. I guess after 7 or 8 years of making it priority besides work, I was not burned out exactly, but just not so focused or passionate about the enterprise. To be clear, I never stopped, at any point, learning languages. But I clearly did not have the drive or attention to it. I actually feel I just can't learn as fast anymore. Either age or less passion, or both. I also had other things going on, but that's hardly an excuse given the hundreds of people here who work full-time jobs, do other hobbies, have families and children, friends, and yet find the time to somehow learn one or several languages. I have almost none of those obligations, so it had me feeling pretty pathetic and ashamed of myself. I questioned my effort, my passion, my aging, even my own intelligence. I guess I am over all that now. And I have found a new passion for learning languages... not the same passion from before, which was like an out of control bonfire. Now it's not so brilliant, but it's steadier burning. At least I hope so. Anyways, that's where I am from a state of mind.

I also debated about opening this log, because I didn't like the idea of opening a log which will have no actual long term purpose. I hope the moderators will make allowances. The reason for this log, as the title suggests, is that I feel in this new chapter I needed one central place to figure out where I am at, and brainstorm. I have individuals logs for the languages I study buried deep in years of neglect. Once I actually figure out what the heck I want to do and how to go about it, I will probably revive some of those, and this log will likely fade in usefulness for me. So, in this log, I want to write down my thoughts in order to have a bit more clarity.

Anyways, the first thing I wanted to do is to do a quick self-assessment of my language situation. Just a gut estimate, no testing material involved. I am thinking of doing some mock exams in my languages to more clearly see where I am in each one. That will come later.

For now, here is my first general diagnostic and brain-storming out loud of my situation here at the end of march 2021.

READING
As probably normal with most other situations, my reading in all my L2s remains robust, though declined and a bit rusty in German and French, and more so in Portuguese (but given Spanish is one of two native languages for me, that probably means little in regard to my comprehension ability). My reading ability has improved dramatically in Chinese, because one of the things I have been doing in the last year (I lived in Taiwan during most of 2020, lucky me, more on that later), is mastering Chinese characters. I probably know well over 5000 now, far more than enough to have no issues reading anything contemporary and in fact some 古文 (old Chinese). I can confidently say that I am very close to finishing off my study of Chinese characters for good. That is my one great accomplishment of the last year and a half, and when I started learning my first character over 7 years ago, I never thought I would one day actually be "finished" with them. As in literally "all the new characters on this frequency list are really useless, I can stop now." That is where I am and therefore the actual reading of Chinese is really no big issue for me. That does not mean I know all the combinations of 5000 characters, since that is vocabulary. And in vocabulary I have lost quite a bit of active vocabulary because I have not made the effort at using Chinese recently, even living in Taiwan (every day language of course excepted. I'm talking about the higher level vocabulary). And then Korean, well that has improved dramatically in the last 4 months, both because I am actually IN Korea now, and because in the last 5 weeks I have made it a mission to be comfortable reading Korean by May. I have the vocabulary to some extend, I just needed to do the actual practice. Anyways, there is no point in giving "grades" to my reading skills in my languages. All of them except Korean are at or over C1 level. Korean I would estimate now at a high B1 or low B2.

LISTENING
My listening of Chinese is just fine, the more advanced news items maybe has retreated slightly because I have not followed it. So one of my big goals is to master this higher level. German listening is ok, slightly degraded but not bad at all. French is probably in fact a little worse than German now because I've done nothing, and French speakers slur everything, so it takes a few weeks of listening for your ears to catch it clear again. I can't say I will be practicing it any time in the next two months, but I'm hoping at some point I get back to it. My Korean listening is better than a couple of months ago, but still awful and definitely should be much better at this time. Again, I haven't put the time. This is the other major goal of my listening.


SPEAKING
My speaking skills have declined in ALL languages, even my native ones. I just don't interact with people. I have lived a very solitary life in the last two years (predating the current world calamity). Only Korean has improved significantly, being in Kore the big reason, and because the base was basically zero. It's still very rudimentary but I am more confident this will continue to improve sharply as I make an effort. My other priority is to improve my Chinese speaking, it's not as good as before but it's not that far off, since I have used it in my life at all times. German speaking level is markedly worse than three years ago. That is what I want to recover first, then French.

WRITING
I will practice some writing in all my languages, but to reinforce vocabulary acquisition and my speaking skills. I will not focus on actual writing skills for each language, or diglossia, in the short term. Speaking is my priority.

SUMMARY
English: N (writing skills slightly worse, significant vocabulary erosion, but I was a top 3% verbal SAT so probably not a big deal :D)
Spanish: N2 (writing skills clearly degraded, extensive vocabulary shrinkage)
French: B1 speaking, B2/C1 listening, C1 reading (very rusty speaking, I'd go back to B2 in a week or two with reactivation. Was around low C1 at my peak)
German: B1+ speaking, B2/C1 listening, C1 reading (similar situation to above)
Chinese (Mandarin): B2 speaking, B2 listening, C1 reading (speaking is fine, no rust here. Listening a bit deteriorated from not listening to content. Reading fine given my characters)
Korean: A2 speaking, A2 listening, B1+ reading (speaking and listening top priority, continue reading practice)
Hindi: materials are in my USA home. On hold for now.
Portuguese: dormant. Materials in the USA. On hold.
Italian: 98% forgotten. Last serious study before high school. That's a long time ago. I hope I am closer to having a chance to revive.

FInal note, I want to practice pronunciation of all my languages. My accent is a disaster, even in English, because of the years of studying so many different languages and living overseas. I must find software that analyzes your speech and helps you correct it.

Well, that's it for now!
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"I can speak wonderfully and clearly in zero languages, and can also fluently embarrass myself in half a dozen others."

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Re: Outcast tries to sort out his language Clustermuck

Postby outcast » Sun Apr 04, 2021 12:31 pm

Korean update 1 (with a little German and Chinese)

Today I met a Korean friend in Mullae, one of those classic "formerly industrial", turned rundown when the factories closed, then turned hipster when the artists took it over area you see in so many cities these days. While my Korean speaking is still limited, my conversation went a bit better than expected. I am a seasoned veteran of the 0 to B2 journey, I have been on this road at least 4 times before. I know you tend to be surprised by your skills when you have a negative outlook, and you tend to get frustrated when you think you have made "great progress" only to stumble in some other conversational situation. Not getting too excited or too down is the key. I was able to piece together quite a few sentences, most on the simple side. But I was pleasantly surprised I was able to use several grammatical connectors (which Korean has hundreds of), in the apposite situation.

I have rediscovered the benefits of massive input recently. I've known extensive reading is incredibly helpful, I just never committed to it long term in any language, only doing it in spurts. I always kept going on about balance in all the skills. The latter is true too, but I used it too often as an excuse not sit down and read as much as I should. I've committed all in on Korean reading, hours at a time in the last 4 weeks. I could still be more efficient (still find myself doing phone tasks between reads), but the progress has been substantial. It is not a clean test of the power of massive reading input, I was already very primed from studying 3 to 4 thousand Korean words on Memrise, and studying and making extensive notes on Korean grammar and patterns (3 folders worth). So it would only be natural that the language feels like it is opening up dramatically, as many of the words appear and trigger my recall, and many of the grammar patterns are showing up too and I KNOW what they mean for the most part. I am hoping with massive reading practice, then listening will open up with more ease as well. I am also supplementing my notes with the "Korean grammar in Use" series. Here is the odd thing: the intermediate level of this book is only available in German in the bookstore near me. So I have had to read some of the patterns explanations of Korean via German, something I had never really tried. The good news is that I have no major issues with the German explanations, which is what made me estimate that my German reading is still not shabby. I am thinking of using another book I saw of 2000 Korean terms for German speakers.

One small downside of my dive into all things Korean, especially reading, is I have not done Chinese character work in the last 5 days. I will try to get back on routine now that I don't feel that reading the longer Korean texts takes so much time. The work is going through my list and this time (since I have already worked through the list three times), I search for a useful word, and if the word seems interesting enough (which is not typical at the very low frequencies of characters I am focusing on now), will try to Baidu or Google a sentence with it, and work from there.
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Re: Outcast tries to sort out his language Clustermuck

Postby outcast » Wed Apr 07, 2021 8:49 am

I'm gonna get back to regular German study / use. I just have zippiness at this point in time to work on it, and I really want to. At first just a healthy review of grammar and vocabulary (mainly to satisfy my penchant for orderly incrementalism from a solid base), and practice pronunciation. With my last two years of Mandarin and Korean, I want to get my oral system reacquainted with the different sounds of German. I am going to add a B2 or C1 ZD / DAF prep course. I have never studied for language proficiency tests, but I think it is a good idea to have familiarity with these type of tests should I want to take one or even need to. You don't want unfamiliarity with the process to bring down your score unnecessarily.

So heavy days of Korean study, plus my continued Chinese build will have a German in the later evening addition. I hope I can sustain it, so I won't be putting and pressure at all on my German. I just want to be in touch with this language again and enjoy it. I've done the hard work to get to near C1, I just want to get back there and set myself up for a potential push into truly advanced fluency later on. Now I need to find decent free pronunciation practice!
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Re: Outcast tries to sort out his language Clustermuck

Postby iguanamon » Wed Apr 07, 2021 8:35 pm

Welcome back, Outcast! It's good to see you here again!
Outcast wrote:Spanish: N2 (writing skills clearly degraded, extensive vocabulary shrinkage)

For your writing in Spanish, you might want to have a look at the Escuela de Escritores website from Spain. They have a variety of online courses in creative writing online. Each one has its own instructor, a writer. I took a course in mini-relatos with them. It was a lot of fun interacting with the instructor and the students. I was the only foreigner. I received lots of great feedback from both. My writing was improved after the class. The necessity of keeping up with the class and doing the readings improved my vocabulary and grammar.
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Re: Outcast tries to sort out his language Clustermuck

Postby outcast » Fri Apr 09, 2021 4:59 am

iguanamon wrote:Welcome back, Outcast! It's good to see you here again!
Outcast wrote:Spanish: N2 (writing skills clearly degraded, extensive vocabulary shrinkage)

For your writing in Spanish, you might want to have a look at the Escuela de Escritores website from Spain. They have a variety of online courses in creative writing online. Each one has its own instructor, a writer. I took a course in mini-relatos with them. It was a lot of fun interacting with the instructor and the students. I was the only foreigner. I received lots of great feedback from both. My writing was improved after the class. The necessity of keeping up with the class and doing the readings improved my vocabulary and grammar.


That sounds both like great advice as well an a great resource, thank you for sharing Iguanamon. And nice to see you are still around and doing well after this time.

I can see you are one of those people who can inspire all of us. Last time we chatted you were just beginning in Haitian Creole, now you have pushed 4 languages in advanced fluency. I don't care what language it is, or what the circumstances are, or how related or not they may or not be, to do that in ANY language, let alone several, is something to inspire and aspire to.
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Re: Outcast tries to sort out his language Clustermuck

Postby outcast » Mon May 10, 2021 3:58 pm

Time for a bit of an update here! I did not fall between the cracks this time. I've been on a mission, very targeted and focused mission, to take my Korean passive skills to to far higher levels than my rudimentary reading skills, and my non-existent listening skills, which I had just a couple months ago in late February and early March. I have done a lot of sacrifice both in time and effort on this purpose, and I have been steady, every day, every week, for the last 60 or so days. It is clearly paying off, but still a long way to go of course!

Now remember I have been learning about Korean since 2017 or so. Usually only in short spurts, the grammar however I studied more consistently and made a large volume of notes on it. I also have done lots of Memrise for the vocab. I also do have Chinese basic fluency, so there is some degree of a discount there in some of the semantics and expressions, English gives me another boost on the vocabulary. So I'm a VERY FALSE beginner here, that has some modest language discounts for Korean. So what feels to me as rapid progress should be in part attributed to those factors alongside my effort and the fact I have had the time to dedicate to it.

Reading: I would estimate that my reading skills (which I tackled first), have gone from a A1/A2 border zone level to a solid B1 perhaps verging on B2. I feel I "could" say I am beyond B2 now, since I am almost finished with level 5 (out of 6) on the reading textbooks, but I need to read the material twice, and I have to look up words in most sentences. So I am at best a "B2 on crutches", and only B1 if I were not allowed to access a dictionary. It is a good sign that in the last 2-3 weeks, when I read new articles, there are a few stretches of up to a few sentences where I know all the words and grammar patterns used, something that had never happened before. I would like to be at a comfortable B2 level in 2-3 months.

Listening: To be completely honest, outside of watching some Pororo cartoons in a few false starts of listening, I never really dedicated myself to practicing listening skills in Korean. And I paid the price, my comprehension of spoken Korean being almost nill even when I could explain Korean grammar quite well, and have a decent basic vocabulary. So this was something I just had to change. I first began focusing on reading for the first 4-6 weeks, and a few weeks ago have gone full steam with listening. I have 3-4 hours a day dedicated just to this task. I am still at the stage where I need to "know" what the topic I will hear is. If a random question or statement is thrown at me, I will likely not catch it on the first fly. That's actually an improvement since before I had to listen twice to everything said to me, and most times I didn't bother to request a 2nd rendering. Now I do understand many things on the 2nd listen, and increasingly on the first. So I am happy about that. When it comes to the textbooks I purchased dedicated to listening, my ears have improved a lot when I know the subject matter. I have just started book 4 of the listening series, and they go much faster than in books 2 and 3, and the listening tasks are 50-75% longer. Nevertheless, if I really concentrate on it, I can understand the main topic of the conversation and even pick up a few specific details. I would estimate my listening level in Korean is currently crossing the border between A2 and B1. I may have crossed the border already, maybe I still need a couple more weeks, but I do believe I will be at an undisputed B1 level I believe in a month or so.

Speaking: As everyone knows, it's the usual hair pulling experience. I get too many Korean service people at restaurants or coffee shops going "huh?" after I say simple things like "Wi-fi" (wai-pai) . OK, I'm fully prepared to concede my pronunciation is trash (even if I don't quite think so), but you didn't understand that I said 와이파이? Really? That's not that hard for me to pronounce and to be blunt, should not be that hard for you (Mr. doughnut shop worker), to catch. So is my pronunciation THAT horrible, far worse than I think it is, or are these kids just not paying attention or just too demanding about foreign accents? I don't know. But it does frustrate me a bit.

On the other hand, tonight was actually a speaking milestone. I had my first full blown conversation in Korean, mostly broken Korean of course, but a conversation still. By conversation I think of an interaction with a native speaker, without the use of another language such as English as a fallback(I broke this rule for three words I just could not paraphrase), that goes on for more than 5 to 7 minutes and covers at least two or more distinct topics, and without any prior preparation before hand. It was frustrating that I cannot apply all the grammar I do know on the fly, but that's why you practice speaking. Anyway, this was a great boost to my morale, and what quite literally drove me here to write this lengthy update. I would say my speaking is a good A2 currently, with topics that I enjoy being near or just at B1, and topics I do not have much interest about still being effectively A0.

My immediate goal is B2 reading, a solid B1 in listening (wishful thinking included, B1 trending to B2 listening), and B1 speaking. I want to pass TOPIK 3 within 8 weeks. I may be crazy but I think it's doable.
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Re: Outcast tries to sort out his language Clustermuck

Postby outcast » Mon May 10, 2021 9:38 pm

(On Korean Listening skills)

I forgot to mention above, that my journey to improving Korean listening skills has brought serious flashbacks of the time I was doing the same thing for the French language 8 years back or so. Korean has a very complex liaison system, both within a semantic unit (word) and between words boundaries. Liaison is not so hard to learn, you just need to do a lot of drilling honestly, but what is hard is to train your ear for it. As learners, when we learn new words (at least my case), we learn it through written lists or through extensive and intensive reading, where we see the word written. We don't learn as many words trough listening, which is the way babies and children learn their mother tongue or any language before the age of 3 or 4 (the time the most precocious seriously start reading).

Because we learn words by first seeing their written form, we tend to come to associate a certain pronunciation to that word based on the letters we see in our mental image of the written word. This idea is severely disrupted by languages with complicated liaison systems. The words go into "stealth" mode, because the first syllable and the last syllable may change their pronunciation, sometimes radically, from the effects of the prior or following words. In other words, they tend to hide in plain sight. When I am listening to Korean, I am immediately reminded of my experience with French, I am always discovering words I do in fact know well, that were spoken in the dialogue but completely passed me by, and I know it's not because of the speed. I will hear a chunk of audio, not knowing what it means. When I look up the transcription, I realize it is a word I know well, but whose initial and finals have been radically changed because of the phonetic influence of the words before and after, liaison.

There is no real trick to get around this problem except just letting your ears train themselves to the liaison patterns (which while many, is something the brain and ears can accomplish on their own if you give them enough practice). Of course what eventually helps is the language slowing down (which it is), and just having a bigger vocabulary which allows you to start guessing the hard to apprehend audio chunks through context. The one thing that is harder in Korean is that the realization of liaison sounds sometimes have unexpected outcomes for speakers of European languages, and you have to learn the rules about it. An example being the famous ㅅ that is attached to vowel ending words, when you are using that word as the first of two to create a compound. The liaison rules are strange including gemination as "nn" when it is ㅅ + ㅇ , according to the prospective rules. I have not been able to notice how do Koreans actually realize this yet.

In summary, improving listening of languages with complex sound shifting rules is quite tricky. With French, it eventually just magically clicked out of nowhere. So here's for the same outcome to happen here!

ps - I just corrected an insane number of spelling mistakes, apologies for that awful read. I feel my English skills have dropped recently as I am not catching mistakes I would never have committed in the first place before!
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Re: Outcast tries to sort out his language Clustermuck

Postby outcast » Tue Jun 01, 2021 4:45 am

An update after 3 weeks is in order!

Despite some challenges time wise due to arisen exigencies, I have maintained relatively good form. I have added Chinese (albeit at the expense of German), but I am putting more time to the Chinese than I was to German, so my study time as increased. On the Korean front (my main front still at this time), my focus has been listening, listening. It appears after reading other learner's experiences of late, that listening is the most challenging aspect of Korean. As I mentioned previously, I am sure this has to do with the pervasive Sandhi of the language. Older learners rely too much on learning vocabulary in isolation, but when these words are inserted in the manifold environments of actual communication (sentences and phrases), languages with generalized Sandhi (Korean, French), are challenging to decipher for the ears. I can attest to the fact that while French and Spanish, as is well known in our circles, share the bulk of vocabulary, it still took me an unusual amount and time of listening practice for the language to not sound slurred, or for pieces of dialogue to completely go by my head. Even as, later on after the fact, I would find out that all the words in the phrases I failed to catch were neither new nor unknown, once I saw them written down. but in the spoken language, they sound radically different depending on the environment.

With Korean, you must amplify this effect, since "liaison" is more widespread, but then the discount on vocabulary is far diminished for native western European language speakers. So to me it's no surprise that I hear leaner after learner say that the listening of Korean is intimidating. So I have to keep focusing on this aspect. I have not read in the last week or so as I was before, that's ok I'm not too bothered by it. I will have some time to read soon while keeping the listening.

Getting back into a more hefty review and usage of Chinese revealed how much my vocabulary has shrunk. That's the bad news. The good news is that through reading and watching TV and dramas, a lot of those words have returned relatively painlessly just by encountering them. However, some of the nuances of words with closely related meanings had faded so I had to just suck it up and do some researching, or reviewing of notes (things like 素质,品质,品格 or 情形,事态,境地 etc). Reading is ok, I review characters even when I don't really study or use Chinese so I have not experienced a big problem here. Except, I feel slightly lazy when faced with a long article, once I start and get on with it though it turns out to be easier than feared.

I have a possibility of an Italy encounter later on in the year, and I am flummoxed on what to do. I surely don't want to waste the chance to pick up basic Italian again in the two months or so I may have to live there, but I don't want to derail my Korean, or even Chinese. But there are only so many hours in a day. As a result I am going back and forth in my mind as to how to proceed best.
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The End of Language learning: 10 / 10000

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Re: Outcast tries to sort out his language Clustermuck

Postby outcast » Tue Jun 01, 2021 5:44 am

Image

This is my first public posting of my LPS chart (Language Progress and Status). It looks nice and fancy, maybe, but let me be clear: this is a 80% self-assessment 20% online language level testing , this is not any official body, or test, and their results. I plan to take such tests in the medium term, and use those as well. I created this chart last year both as a tool to have a direct visual notion of where I stand, and secondly as a motivator. To be a be able to move the lines up after a semester is a strong catalyst for me at this point in time. I had lost some direction and motivation and this was just one way to regain it. The above is a chart for the 2nd half of 2020 (my levels around August of last year).

The chart is clear in showing how after acquiring several languages starting around 2018 I have at best treaded water and drifted. Whereas in the 5 years before I had acquired French, German (both to solid B2), Portuguese in a brief burst to a high B1, Chinese (to B2), and had done some advanced composition studies in Spanish, and a huge vocabulary build challenge and English, plus started Korean and Hindi... in 2018 and 2019 I simply languished. There is nothing in those two years that I can say I accomplished. Only in mid 2020 did I seriously regain some form with my 6000 Chinese character challenge (successful), and my Korean project now. As we enter mid 2021 I am keeping momentum and adding to it.

This is the latest chart, based on February 2021 levels

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The chart is slightly busy, but I hope it is not too complicated.

Each language has its own color line, tracking my general OUTPUT (oral) level through the years, based on the CEFR. The various CEFR levels (shown on the far left), are not spaced out equally, indicating my belief that the investment time to reach the next level is greater the higher the level (though I have have been slightly conservative in the gaps between the higher levels, they could possibly be made even larger). The dotted green lines are the threshold of each level across the chart, so that the language levels can be more easily deduced at any given time point (the time points are semesters, or half of a year, shown at the bottom of the chart).

I have gone over these estimates again and again, and I do believe the charts are actually both quite realistic and honest about where I stand. I went rather conservative on the assessments, because I have determined the levels on the output I believe I can perform in with no training or review time, or at best, a 5 minutes lead time before using that language. In other words, if I had to start conversing in German right now, what level would it be? Thus the B1 assessment you see. So the oral assessments in all the languages are quite strict. I have no doubts that if I did some intense listening and reading of German, or French, and then some speaking practice, the level would rise rather dramatically to a near B2 level in a week or two, as reactivation took hold. That is because those languages are just rusty. The flags indicate what standard or regional version of the language I speak or try to speak. They also indicate the current level.

The red dots indicate Native language and their high watermark in the time the chart shows. It is rather arbitrary and mainly reflects the idea that at the time I either was using the language a lot, or doing some special activity to improve it (vocab, composition practice, etc.) The yellow dots mean L2s and their high point.

The shaded reddish to blue area within a thin yellow rectangle is the region where most people (both language geeks or not), tend to state that you "speak" a language. In general, I feel, once you get to a high, solidly rehearsed B2 level in your weakest skill, people will generally tell you that you speak the language. It is also the level where you can really start to perform independently in the society using the language without a major level of stress or difficulty.

On the far right, the little scrolls are my passive or input levels (listening and reading), which are all higher than my active or output levels. The stars are the long-term oral goals in each language.

The only major changes between either chart is the rise of Korean, and this was before my very serious full-time learning period in the first half of this year, and a rather accelerated decline of my Chinese level after leaving Taiwan.

The new chart will come out somewhere in July and I can already guarantee a MAJOR, steep climb of Korean. Not to B2 sadly, but I am surely will be well north of B1 if I continue. I also think my Chinese will not only stop declining but reverse course with a modest rise, given my recent efforts, but also the fact that I have actually used Chinese a lot recently with friends but also with some recent work opportunities with clients in Taiwan and the Mainland.

I would like to uptick German, though that is looking unlikely. Italian is the wildcard, I don't think I will start working on Italian this month, but if I did do two crazy weeks of Italian, I think I could move it to near A1 hahaha. But I don't think so. That's it!
1 x
"I can speak wonderfully and clearly in zero languages, and can also fluently embarrass myself in half a dozen others."

The End of Language learning: 10 / 10000

User avatar
outcast
Blue Belt
Posts: 585
Joined: Sat Dec 05, 2015 3:41 pm
Location: Florida, USA
Languages: ~
FLUENCY
Native: ENglish, ESpañol
Advanced: -
High Basic: DEutsch (rust), FRançais (rust), ZH中文
Basic: -
~
ACQUIRING
Formally: KO한국말, ITaliano, HI हिन्दी
Dabbling: HRvatski, GW粵語
Dormant: POrtuguês
~
Plan to learn: I BETTER NOT GO HERE FOR NOW
~
x 679

Re: Outcast tries to sort out his language Clustermuck

Postby outcast » Thu Jul 15, 2021 6:54 pm

My language endeavors are truly and literally living up to the name of this blog. It's all a clusterKITTY. I am just not following any real routine overall, I simply am allowing circumstances to take me where they will. I shall post a very pithy update that I hope to later buttress. I did want to post my bi-annual language status chart, which has some expected and also surprising changes from the one prior.

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KOREAN:

I was still in Korea 3 weeks ago, and until almost the end studying Korean in a serious manner. I made a significant dent to my reading and listening skills, and a much more modest improvement in my speaking (since it was not my priority). So my overall score jumped in this challenging language (from my linguistic background), from an mid A1 to a very rustic B1, a low B2 in reading, and high B1 in listening, although still with times where I do not understand even simple things if the accent is non-standard or if the speech is too speedy.

CHINESE (MANDARIN):

My vocabulary has continued to slowly degrade from lack of reading more diverse materials. Also my characters have degraded since I have not done much with them in two or three months. I can still read and speak daily Mandarin with no problems, however; and in fact have slightly improved there since I have needed to use to somewhat consistently through the period.

ITALIAN:

ITALIAN??? YES!!! This has come out of a dark thicket, no? Well, for years and years I had been promising or hoping I would revisit this language again, one I first started to learn one-on-one with a tutoring teacher at age 11 for a 6 months to a year, and then again delved in it by myself at age 15. After that, all kinds of other priorities prevented me from coming back to it, including 5 other languages!! But, as I had mentioned at some point in another post about learning a closely related language, I was going to have a chance to come (yes, come), to Italy at some point this year. My number was called about a month ago, ahead of schedule a bit, due to the beneficial situation with COVID 19 cases. So, I arrived in Milan and have been in the country since, and I have gone 100% into Italian, no time allocated to any other language. I have been creating my own Italian grammar and expressions guide one One Note, and working very hard on it so I am quite along there. I have also been forced to speak the language right away as some of the people I interact prefer it over English. I am still nowhere fluent. But in just 3 weeks, given my huge efforts in the grammar and expressions, plus the need to do output, plus the total immersion environment (and some of that old knowledge resurfacing), i'd say I am fast approaching or near A2 level. I will restart my Korean studies in the next two or three weeks, by that time I would expect to be at a high A2 before settling in for a coasting towards a solid B1 level by the end of my stay here somewhere around mid-October.

FRENCH:

An incidental beneficiary of my Italian dive has been French. As I embarked on writing my own "language manual" for Italian, I decided to use my old French notes as the template (hand-written notes which are themselves based on the grammar presentations and sequencing of a very old series' textbook from Living Language called "French All the Way", but significantly enhanced by my own research from other textbooks, online sources, and from a couple of French tutors I had at the time). As I have been writing my Italian textbook / notes, I have found myself going back to the French grammar and not only reviewing it very thoroughly (thus I am again more confident about my sentence building in French), but also AUGMENTING those notes even further. I will often notice that some grammar point that is explained in some Italian website I am researching, is missing from my French notes: for example, as I was learning on participle agreement with Italian "ne" partitive, I realized I had no such information about French "en" when interacting with the past participle, so I did research for that in French. That way, my French notes are even more complete. On the vocabulary and expressions side, much has been returning to me as I have encountered the analogous Italian counterpart (for example, learning about the Italian "volerne a", IMMEDIATELY brought back the French "en vouloir à" to my active vocabulary). There are many more examples like that. Also, being in northern Italy, French is not so hard to hear even now, so I get further exposure that way. So I would say my French has improved a bit in the last 30 days just from some reactivation and my stronger grammar. I'd say from low B1 to a mid B1 (again, this is based on my speaking ability if called upon without any warm up or review time).

GERMAN:

Not much going on here, although again, through my studies of Italian I have some light reviewing of German grammar and some vocabulary here and there, since I am not far from German speaking areas here near the Alps. But overall, no formal study or no real activity in this language in the last month or two, this after some pronunciation work I had done earlier. So I would say the level has held steady at B1 (no warm up time).

Portuguese and Hindi are in the deep freezer for now.

That's it!
3 x
"I can speak wonderfully and clearly in zero languages, and can also fluently embarrass myself in half a dozen others."

The End of Language learning: 10 / 10000


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