Chove's Log

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elka
White Belt
Posts: 45
Joined: Sat Feb 29, 2020 2:36 pm
Languages: Czech (N), English (C2), Spanish, Japanese
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=13706
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Re: Chove's Log (Spanish, German, Polish, French)

Postby elka » Tue Jul 27, 2021 4:20 am

chove wrote:Anyone got any tips for getting back into studying? I took an accidental break and now I'm somewhat paralysed by the fear that I'll have forgotten everything and it'll all be too difficult now. Somehow. Anxiety does a real number on my brain sometimes. I've kept up with Anki reviews and done maybe 10 minutes a day of DuoLingo or similar, but I feel like I've really fallen out of the habit. :(


You certainly haven’t forgotten anything :) Knowledge you have actively acquired is never completely lost. When you memorize something, brain learns where to look for a synapse that has this information and the pathway to this part of the brain is fast and active. If you, however, don’t activate the pathway enough, it becomes less active and slower. So now, the only thing to remember what you have learnt is to speed up and activate the pathways which is not at all difficult, especially if you have acquired the knowledge rather recently. I bet if you start studying again it might feel uncomfortable at first but everything will come to you soon. I’d advise you to start small and build momentum because if you suddenly start studying languages for 8 hours a day you will surely burn out.
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Caromarlyse
Green Belt
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Languages: English (N), French (C1-ish), German (B2/C1-ish), Russian (B1-ish), Portuguese (B1-ish), Welsh (complete beginner), Spanish (in hibernation)
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Re: Chove's Log (Spanish, German, Polish, French)

Postby Caromarlyse » Tue Jul 27, 2021 8:22 am

chove wrote:Anyone got any tips for getting back into studying? I took an accidental break and now I'm somewhat paralysed by the fear that I'll have forgotten everything and it'll all be too difficult now. Somehow. Anxiety does a real number on my brain sometimes. I've kept up with Anki reviews and done maybe 10 minutes a day of DuoLingo or similar, but I feel like I've really fallen out of the habit. :(


It looks like your break was really short - just two/three weeks ago you were talking about reading stuff. So it wasn't a break, just a holiday. You could well be more refreshed now. Also maybe try to let go of any standards you're holding yourself to. Even when we're doing something for money, we can only ever do our best, so beating yourself up about trying to achieve a certain standard with your language learning is not necessary, or helpful. Maybe just try going back to your German book, looking back over the vocabulary you wrote down before, and re-reading the relevant pages. You're then caught up without it being overwhelming, you've revised some of what you did before, and you're set up to move forward.
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chove
Green Belt
Posts: 374
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 10:42 pm
Location: Scotland
Languages: English (N), Spanish (intermediate), German (intermediate), Polish (some).
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9355
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Re: Chove's Log (Spanish, German, Polish, French)

Postby chove » Tue Jul 27, 2021 8:47 am

elka wrote:I bet if you start studying again it might feel uncomfortable at first but everything will come to you soon.


Yeah, the wee bits I've tried felt a bit awkward, and I was quite anxious about getting things wrong. But you're right, it'll get easier again once I get started.


Caromarlyse wrote:Maybe just try going back to your German book, looking back over the vocabulary you wrote down before, and re-reading the relevant pages. You're then caught up without it being overwhelming, you've revised some of what you did before, and you're set up to move forward.


Okay, I shall start with some revision :)

Thanks for the help, yous!
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eido
Blue Belt
Posts: 841
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Languages: English (N), Spanish (C1)
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Re: Chove's Log (Spanish, German, Polish, French)

Postby eido » Tue Jul 27, 2021 1:54 pm

The only thing you can do is try. If you never try, you’ll never know.

That’s what my mom says, anyway. ;)
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chove
Green Belt
Posts: 374
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 10:42 pm
Location: Scotland
Languages: English (N), Spanish (intermediate), German (intermediate), Polish (some).
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Re: Chove's Log (Spanish, German, Polish, French)

Postby chove » Tue Sep 07, 2021 11:53 pm

Occasionally I try to post an update but give up when I can't think of anything much to say. I've been learning on and off, and I think my Spanish listening comprehension is slowly improving but I still often slow things down or have subtitles on at the same time. I've been listening to some of the 'Hoy Hablamos' podcast which covers a nice variety of topics, for example last night I listened to one about the attempted coup in Spain in February 1981.

'Römische Geschichte Für Kinder' is being a bit of a slog but I'm determined to get to the end eventually. I'm at 88% of the way through according to the Kindle, so the end is in sight. I've satisfied my initial curiosity about the topic, and I spend a lot of time looking things up in German still. But I suppose the only way to fix that latter issue is to keep reading. I think after this one I'll try that German translation of a Star Trek: Voyager novel I remember reading in the late 90s. I don't remember anything *about* it, but I can remember that I read it. :lol:

I've not been doing Duolingo much recently, which is because some days I just find it really tedious and can't be bothered even just maintaining a streak. Not sure if the Polish course is especially hard or if it's just the language itself compared to things like French or Dutch where I have a lot of help from related languages that I know better.

So I've been keeping in contact with languages more than actively "studying" as such, though I suppose it depends on what counts as studying. I decided I should probably have Spanish or German subtitles on when watching things on Netflix in English for the practice. And that's also a nice low-impact "exercise" for the days when I'm not feeling great.
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DaveAgain
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1968
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Languages: English (native), French & German (learning).
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... &start=200
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Re: Chove's Log (Spanish, German, Polish, French)

Postby DaveAgain » Wed Sep 08, 2021 12:38 am

chove wrote:'Römische Geschichte Für Kinder' is being a bit of a slog but I'm determined to get to the end eventually. I'm at 88% of the way through according to the Kindle, so the end is in sight. I've satisfied my initial curiosity about the topic, and I spend a lot of time looking things up in German still. But I suppose the only way to fix that latter issue is to keep reading. I think after this one I'll try that German translation of a Star Trek: Voyager novel I remember reading in the late 90s. I don't remember anything *about* it, but I can remember that I read it. :lol:
You might want to try using the Goethe eLibrary, you can skim thru a lot of books looking for one that you're comfortable with, without spending any money.
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chove
Green Belt
Posts: 374
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 10:42 pm
Location: Scotland
Languages: English (N), Spanish (intermediate), German (intermediate), Polish (some).
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9355
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Re: Chove's Log

Postby chove » Wed Sep 15, 2021 4:54 am

I finally finished 'Römische Geschichte für Kinder', hooray! Feels like I was reading that book for years but I think it can't have been more than a few months.
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chove
Green Belt
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Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 10:42 pm
Location: Scotland
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Re: Chove's Log

Postby chove » Tue Sep 28, 2021 1:00 pm

At the moment I'm wondering "what am I learning and why?" because while I know "fluency" (that vague word!) is the aim for most people, I probably don't *need* to know a language to that level, since I'm not going to live abroad or similar. Do I work to improve Spanish and German simply because it seems like the thing to do? I'm at a sort of intermediate level with them, and it'd be *nice* to be better at them but I'm not in a rush to get there.

One thing I am interested in is relationships between languages, and the ways they are similar and different from each other. So what do I do about that? Like, I want to know "how is French like Spanish?" so I'd like to know a bit of French, and ideally enough to be able to read bits of the internet that are in that language... but there's online translation software if I can't.

I ask myself this because I know that the sensible thing is to study as few languages as possible until I get "good" at one or another of them, but is that what would make me *happy*? I don't really want to give up on Dutch for years if I might get hit by a bus next week and then I'd never have got to explore it like I want to. There's so many things I want to know *about*, and I know that my situation isn't necessarily the same as someone else's so why do I feel like I should do what other people do? There's some online dislike for the "A1-glots" on YouTube (and elsewhere) who study the basics of a lot of languages and never get beyond very low level in any of them, but I think they're probably doing the sorts of of things I'd like to do. I don't "need" to know all of German, and do I even want to? How much time do I want to spend improving Spanish beyond my intermediate level if I don't see myself ever needing to be able to do much more than read an Instagram caption or a news article where I can look up unknown words?

So that is where I am at the moment, torn between feeling like I should do the sensible things and wanting to look at and learn "a bit of" various languages that I don't need for any practical reasons. I should probably just do whatever I prefer, but it's so looked down on around the internet that I feel guilty for even wanting to just know enough to be a tourist (and even though I'm unlikely to be a tourist anyway).

Advice is welcome :)
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DaveAgain
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1968
Joined: Mon Aug 27, 2018 11:26 am
Languages: English (native), French & German (learning).
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... &start=200
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Re: Chove's Log

Postby DaveAgain » Tue Sep 28, 2021 1:34 pm

chove wrote:At the moment I'm wondering "what am I learning and why?" because while I know "fluency" (that vague word!) is the aim for most people, I probably don't *need* to know a language to that level, since I'm not going to live abroad or similar. Do I work to improve Spanish and German simply because it seems like the thing to do? I'm at a sort of intermediate level with them, and it'd be *nice* to be better at them but I'm not in a rush to get there.

One thing I am interested in is relationships between languages, and the ways they are similar and different from each other. So what do I do about that? Like, I want to know "how is French like Spanish?" so I'd like to know a bit of French, and ideally enough to be able to read bits of the internet that are in that language... but there's online translation software if I can't.

So that is where I am at the moment, torn between feeling like I should do the sensible things and wanting to look at and learn "a bit of" various languages that I don't need for any practical reasons. I should probably just do whatever I prefer, but it's so looked down on around the internet that I feel guilty for even wanting to just know enough to be a tourist (and even though I'm unlikely to be a tourist anyway).

Advice is welcome :)
You could read about languages in one of your stronger languages :-) the interesting books abour languages/linguistics .. in languages other than English thread has some suggestions.

Intercomprehension projects seem to touch your areas of interest too.

https://op.europa.eu/de/publication-det ... 81fafdb5a3

https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 35#p111135
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chove
Green Belt
Posts: 374
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 10:42 pm
Location: Scotland
Languages: English (N), Spanish (intermediate), German (intermediate), Polish (some).
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9355
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Re: Chove's Log

Postby chove » Tue Sep 28, 2021 1:54 pm

Thanks, I shall look at those! :)
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