Stell's log: Russian and Spanish

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Caromarlyse
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Re: Stell's log: Russian and Spanish

Postby Caromarlyse » Mon Jan 09, 2023 7:57 am

I did the 10k steps a day thing last year, and I also fairly quickly decided to make it an average over each month, rather than a target to hit each and every day. Some days would have been impossible, just because the weather (far too hot or far too icy) meant I physically could not walk outside. Like you too, I never had to think about it in the past, but a change of job and then the pandemic made my daily habits more sedentary.
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Re: Stell's log: Russian and Spanish

Postby Chmury » Mon Jan 09, 2023 10:05 pm

stell wrote:Weekly language update:

Spanish

I started La Reina del Sur, and I’m enjoying it so far! It isn’t at all a genre that I would choose to read in English, but it’s very readable. That said, I am NOT a fast reader in Spanish. I read for a total for two hours, and I only made it to page 61. Keeping in mind that the actual story started on page 13, that puts me at 24 pages per hour. No wonder it took me years to finish La Casa de los Espíritus!

I listened to Democracy Now en español four days this week.

I also listened to an episode of Futuro Abierto (https://www.rtve.es/play/audios/futuro-abierto/): "Cohousing o viviendas colaborativas". I work with a lot of elderly community members, and I’ve spent a lot of time reading and thinking about housing insecurity lately, so this was a very interesting topic for me. It’s funny…if someone asked me what my favourite Spanish-language podcast is, I would say Nómadas without even thinking about it. But the truth is that I find Futuro Abierto much more engaging for the most part!


That's not slow at all! 24 pages per hour of an Arturo Pérez Reverte novel. I'd be super stoked with that! Also I quite like Futuro Abierto. They generally have some excellent topics up for discussion. And Nómadas was my go-to for years! I spent hundreds of hours listening to Nómadas in my early years with Spanish, often only understanding a word or two, just trying to get a sense of the rhythm, sound, and intonation of the language. It's still such a great show (which I can thankfully now follow). I've been listening to more interview based podcasts in Spanish recently. Are you familiar with Hotel Jorge Juan? The episode with David Jiménez Torres (which is fantastic if you're interested in sleep or don't sleep so well yourself) is great and what got me on to the show.

Are you focusing on learning Castilian Spanish? Or just happen to be listening to Spanish podcasts and reading a Spanish author at the moment?

stell wrote:Physical Fitness / 10 000 steps

Well, I don’t have anywhere else to track this, so may as well tack it on to my language log!

So far in 2023, I’m averaging 10 637 steps per day. I’m glad that I decided to aim for a yearly average of 10 000 per day, as opposed to trying to hit that goal every single day. One day this week, I ended the day with 8000 steps. It was nice that this wasn’t a “failure”, because it didn’t have that much of an impact on my average.


Keep up the good work Stell! Movement is life! :D
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Hindernisse und Schwierigkeiten sind Stufen, auf denen wir in die Höhe steigen

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Re: Stell's log: Russian and Spanish

Postby stell » Tue Jan 10, 2023 2:17 am

Caromarlyse wrote:I did the 10k steps a day thing last year, and I also fairly quickly decided to make it an average over each month, rather than a target to hit each and every day. Some days would have been impossible, just because the weather (far too hot or far too icy) meant I physically could not walk outside. Like you too, I never had to think about it in the past, but a change of job and then the pandemic made my daily habits more sedentary.
Yep! Case in point: today. There was freezing rain, and it was like walking on a skating rink!
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Re: Stell's log: Russian and Spanish

Postby stell » Tue Jan 10, 2023 2:24 am

Chmury wrote:That's not slow at all! 24 pages per hour of an Arturo Pérez Reverte novel. I'd be super stoked with that! Also I quite like Futuro Abierto. They generally have some excellent topics up for discussion. And Nómadas was my go-to for years! I spent hundreds of hours listening to Nómadas in my early years with Spanish, often only understanding a word or two, just trying to get a sense of the rhythm, sound, and intonation of the language. It's still such a great show (which I can thankfully now follow). I've been listening to more interview based podcasts in Spanish recently. Are you familiar with Hotel Jorge Juan? The episode with David Jiménez Torres (which is fantastic if you're interested in sleep or don't sleep so well yourself) is great and what got me on to the show.

Are you focusing on learning Castilian Spanish? Or just happen to be listening to Spanish podcasts and reading a Spanish author at the moment?
It sure FEELS slow! I read much, much faster in English or in French, so I'm used to flying through a book in a week or two. A novel in Spanish takes so much more time and effort.

I started out learning Castilian Spanish in 2014, more by chance than by design, because most of my resources and language partners were from Spain. I first started learning Spanish because I was planning on walking the Camino de Santiago with my Dad. After we walked, I just kept learning Spanish. And then a few years later my husband and I spent six months in Central America, which is when I decided to consciously change my accent. I've been neglecting my productive skills in Spanish for years, unfortunately.

I've never heard of Hotel Jorge Juan! Thanks for the recommendation...I'll take a look at it!
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Re: Stell's log: Russian and Spanish

Postby stell » Mon Jan 16, 2023 3:26 am

Weekly Russian Update

This week I only spent a few minutes on Russian every day. My husband started a new full-time school program, and we’re just figuring out life for the next little while, so that took up a lot of my mental energy.

Still, I did do some study:

- Anki: I'm now up to 337 young cards and 57 mature cards.
- Duolingo: working on unit 3.
- Clozemaster: “playing” 165 out of 534 sentences in the 100 Most Common list.
- Russian Accelerator: finished reviewing most of unit 3. I will probably finish unit 3 tomorrow.
- Pimsleur: units 11-15. I’m surprisingly still enjoying Pimsleur, so will continue this coming week.

I also tried a half hour italki session on a whim. It…did not go well. I wasn’t assertive enough in explaining what I wanted, I got the deer-in-headlights look when I didn’t understand the tutor's first question, and then I ended up in a teacher-led lesson with vocabulary that I hadn’t learned before. I know that I could have interrupted and redirected, but I just went along with it. The teacher was very encouraging and likeable, but the lesson really wasn’t what I wanted or needed. I may try again in a few months, but only after making sure that we’re both on the same page.
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Re: Stell's log: Russian and Spanish

Postby stell » Tue Jan 17, 2023 11:35 pm

Brief Spanish update

Since my last Spanish update, I’ve listened to a few podcasts and barely read at all.

Futuro abierto: la inflación del yo. This episode was…meh. It didn’t do much for me.

Nómadas: De Winnipeg al norte de Manitoba. I loved this one! Not to be too “me-centric” (there you go, Futuro Abierto, call that a win), but my favourite episodes of Nómadas are about places I’ve been. I found this one very interesting, especially because Winnipeg has been the unfair butt of a lot of Canadian jokes. My partner lived there for a few years, and I really like it! They also talked briefly about Churchill (in Northern Manitoba), which is very high on my travel bucket list. New learning from this podcast: Winnie the Pooh was named after Winnipeg.

Democracy Now en español: I’ve been listening to this daily. I definitely have to focus, because it’s a bit monotone and the announcer speaks really quickly. If I let my attention wander for 20 seconds, I’m lost when I come back. But it’s interesting, easy to understand (when I focus), and informative. I don’t read or listen to much news lately, because I found that it was having a really negative effect on my mental health. Democracy Now has become my bite-sized news show.

Reading: I’ve only read about 20 pages of La Reina del Sur this week. Oops! I usually read before bed, and I’ve been going to bed too late. I really need to organize myself a bit earlier so that I have more time to read. I’m enjoying the book so far! I don’t love time jumps in any language…it just makes it too easy for me to stop reading, because it seems like a natural stopping point. Every time the book jumps from third-person Teresa’s point of view to the author’s first-person point of view, I’m likely to stop reading for the day. But aside from that, the book is very engaging and action-packed!

I still haven’t checked out Hotel Jorge Juan, which Chmury recommended. Maybe this weekend!

Overall listening

I feel like I’ve hit a good rhythm with my listening. On the two-three days per week I’m in office, I listen to an English audiobook during the morning commute (because mornings are already hard enough as it is), and something in Russian on the way home. For my walks (usually 3 times per day), I’ll do one half-hour walk while listening to Pimsleur and talking out loud. My neighbours must think I’m strange! I’ll do another half-hour walk while listening to an English audiobook. And usually the third walk is with my partner, so we just listen to each other.

Most of my Spanish listening happens in the morning, while I’m puttering around the kitchen and listening to Democracy Now en español. On weekends I'll often go for longer walks. If I’m out in nature, I listen to the world, but if I’m just going for a long walk around the neighbourhood, I’ll listen to longer Spanish podcasts.
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Re: Stell's log: Russian and Spanish

Postby stell » Mon Jan 23, 2023 12:59 am

Weekly Russian Update:

-Russian Accelerator: I finished unit 3 and started unit 4. I’m working slowly but steadily on Russian Accelerator. Ideally, I’d work on it every day, but in reality I’m quite satisfied if I carve out time 4 or 5 days a week.

-Duolingo (daily): I’m working on unit 4.

-Clozemaster (daily): I’m still working my way through the 100 Most Common words. I’m currently “playing” 235 of 534 sentences.

-anki (daily): So far, all of my words are from Russian Accelerator. As of this morning, I have 253 “young” cards and 185 “mature” cards. As much as I enjoy the act of creating paper flashcards, I think that choosing paper last time is a big part of the reason why I took a long break from Russian. The piles were just getting too unwieldy. I should have just dumped the cards and switched to digital flashcards at that point, but I lost my momentum as soon as I dropped those cards in the recycling bin.

-Pimsleur: units 16-20. Last year, I felt burnt out and quit at unit 26. I didn’t plan on revisiting Pimsleur at all this year. But surprisingly, I’m enjoying it! The half-hour lessons are perfect for a walk. I’ll keep doing them until I stop enjoying them.

The stories and dialogues are so cheesy though. There was some DRAMA in unit 18:

Her: Where is your wife?
Him: I don’t know. Would you like to have lunch with me?
Her: I can’t.
Him: Would you like to drink something with me?
Her: OK. I’ll have milk.
Him: Milk? You want milk? No, no, you want wine or beer.
I just want to yell at the women: THIS GUY IS A CREEP!

In addition to my regular Russian study, I also spent some time digging through Netflix to see what was there in terms of Russian content. It turns out that there’s more than I realized! I may try watching some cartoons with Russian dubbing, although I don’t think that I’ll be able to understand much just yet.

I’m not really sure where I’m at with motivation for learning Russian. I first started picking up a bit of vocabulary because I was living and teaching in a neighbourhood with lots of Ukrainian and Russian immigrant families, and about a third of my class spoke Russian at home. I loved watching their little faces light up when I tossed out a random word or sentence in Russian. They were especially pleased when I said things wrong. I wasn’t learning seriously, but I was having fun.

Then the pandemic hit, and I completely burned out with teaching. When we moved to a new area and I made a career switch, I let Russian go. Then, it started feeling like maybe I would be able to travel again. And I started dreaming of doing intensive language study and slow travel for six months, the way that I did in Central America. I decided that I would study in St. Petersburg, visit Odessa and Kyiv, travel on the Trans Siberian Railway…

Well, we all know what happened in 2022.

I’m no longer learning because of my local community. And I’m no longer learning for future travel. Those are my two main reasons for language learning, and they both just...POOF! Gone! Now, I’m learning because I enjoy the sound of the language and the look of the cyrillic alphabet, and it's easy to find good resources. I’m not sure that will be enough to maintain my motivation long term, but I guess it’s enough for now!
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Re: Stell's log: Russian and Spanish

Postby stell » Sun Jan 29, 2023 2:03 am

Weekly Russian Update:

Russian Accelerator (five times this week): finished unit 4. It takes me between 30 and 40 minutes to do one lesson (including adding new anki cards as I go), and each unit has five lessons, plus media clips and a 20-minute podcast. When I was working on Russian last year, I think I made it to somewhere in unit 6, and I know that the lessons will start getting a lot longer at some point soon.

Pimsleur (five times this week): units 21-25. I’m now one unit from where I gave up last time, except that I’m not feeling burnt out at all this time. While the instructions tell you to move on if you’ve mastered 80% of the material, that seemed way too low to me, and last year I repeated most of the units twice. But that meant that units 21-25 took me two weeks last year. And they were ALL ABOUT DRIVING. Turn right and then go straight ahead. Can I have 75 litres of gasoline? Moscow isn’t very far. One thing about me: I hate driving. I hate car culture. I drive because I need to, but I get no pleasure out of it. So yeah…two weeks of driving vocabulary was painful. This time I’m not repeating any of the units, and I’m not worrying too much if I can’t spit out “drive straight ahead” automatically. It will come. And in the meantime, I’m moving forward and will hopefully be on to a new theme soon.

anki (daily): Still adding words and sentences from Russian Accelerator. As of today, I have 136 “new” cards that I haven’t seen yet, 216 “young” cards and 302 “mature” cards. The new cards are definitely piling up, but that doesn’t bother me. I’ll get to them eventually, and in the meantime I’m constantly reviewing prior learning both through anki and through the synergy between all of my resources.

Duolingo (daily): I’m almost finished with unit 4. I don’t take Duolingo very seriously, but I enjoy it and I do feel that I'm learning from it as a secondary resource. I play three lessons per day, which takes me less than 10 minutes.

Clozemaster (daily): I’m currently “playing” 285 of 534 sentences in the 100 Most Common. I usually do two or three rounds of ten sentences per day.

Peppa Pig (four times this week): I watched four episodes of Peppa Pig on Netflix. I watched once with English subtitles, and then again without subtitles. I don’t understand much of it, but there are definitely words and expressions that I can pick up. Is it a useful and efficient use of learning time at my current level. Meh. Probably not. But it only takes ten minutes to watch an episode twice, so it’s not pushing any of my other resources to the side. And while the high-pitched voices can be a bit annoying, I surprised myself by genuinely laughing out loud a few times. дедушка Rabbit making a mark in the sand on the deserted island every time he thinks of cheese, and all of the grandfathers side-eyeing each other when one of them says that there must be something there to eat? Comedy gold!
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Re: Stell's log: Russian and Spanish

Postby stell » Sat Feb 04, 2023 10:27 pm

Weekly Russian Update:

Russian Accelerator (five times this week): I just finished unit 5 lesson 4. Doing the lesson from start to finish took 50 minutes…which was honestly a bit too long. I started feeling sleepy during the last five-minute listening segment. I may break up lessons that take over 45 minutes into two sections. I’m very intrigued by the way that words change when counting. There’s a lot to remember!

Pimsleur (six times this week): Level 1 units 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, and Level 2 Unit 1. I was right…I pushed through, and we moved on from driving directions. We’re starting to work on the past tense, which I find interesting and which complements what I’m doing in Russian Accelerator. So, after finishing Level 1, I went ahead and used an Audible credit for the first five lessons of Level 2. From the beginning, my attitude towards Pimsleur has been to keep doing it until it stopped being fun. I’m still enjoying it, so onward I go! At the end of the last unit of Level 1, there was audio for the reading lessons, but I didn’t get much enjoyment out of reading lists of unrelated words and sentences. I did a few of the reading activities, but I’m not sure that I’ll continue.

New Penguin Russian Course: I felt like working with paper and pencil this morning, so I cracked open this book for the first time. I enjoyed it, and added several words to anki. But wow...sounding out unfamiliar words is NOT an easy task for me! I don’t know exactly how I want to work through NPRC. It may be a “weekends only” resource for me, because I don’t see myself having time for both NPRC and Russian Accelerator on work days, and I really want to focus on completing RA.

anki (daily): I’m still adding words and sentences from Russian Accelerator, and also added a few words from the first chapter of New Penguin Russian Course. As of today, I have 340 “new” cards that I haven’t seen yet, 274 “young” cards and 383 “mature” cards. I do feel that my backlog of new cards may become a bit of a concern. I’m only adding 20 new cards per day to my active cards, and I don’t want to add any more than that. I know myself, and I will never spend an hour a day on anki. I don’t think that it would be productive to add more than 20 news cards per day. But at this rate, it will take me 17 days to get to the new cards that I made today. I’m hoping that working on my resources will give me the practice that I need to keep everything fresh until words and sentences make it into my anki reviews.

Duolingo (daily): I’m currently working on unit 5. I do three lessons every day, which is a quick and easy warm-up. Not much else to say about that!

Clozemaster (daily): I’m currently “playing” 390 of 534 sentences in the 100 Most Common. I’ve been doing three rounds of ten sentences per day, which is what’s allowed on a free account.

In Russian From Afar (a bunch of times, but didn't really keep track): Although I did get some amusement from watching Peppa Pig last week, it didn’t appeal to me this week. Instead, I looked at some of the many Russian YouTube channels. While most of them are either too hard for or filled with English explanations, I did find a resource that seems perfect for me right now: A1 videos from In Russian From Afar. I watched and listened to “мой день” at least eight times this week, although I didn't really keep count. I watched and/or listened in a variety of ways: with Russian subtitles, with English subtitles, with no subtitles, audio only (listening without watching the video). I really enjoyed it, and I was quite surprised that I didn’t get tired of listening to the same thing over and over again! Luckily, there are quite a few A1 videos on that channel. (Please note: Sergey, six hours of sleep every night isn’t enough!!!)

So far, my motivation for Russian remains strong. I don’t have to force myself to do anything…I’m kind of hyper-focusing right now, and I actually have to stop myself from doing too much or starting too many resources. (I’m looking at you, Assimil, just sitting there on the shelf. Oh, and also looking at you, Red Kalinka, with that list of audio ebooks just calling out to me.) I would really like Russian to join Spanish as a forever language, and I don’t want to burn out.

It’s so funny to think that just a few months into learning Spanish, I was doing near-daily language exchanges and reading Roald Dahl books. Russian is a very different creature!
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Re: Stell's log: Russian and Spanish

Postby garyb » Sun Feb 05, 2023 10:28 am

I'm following your Russian updates with curiosity, as I attempted it around a decade ago but didn't get very far, with one of the main reasons being that I couldn't find resources that worked well for me.

New Penguin Russian Course started off well but it quickly got quite heavy-going and as you say it requires a certain time dedication. Even Pimsleur got difficult to keep up with after the first few lessons; finding transcripts made it a lot more accessible, even if that's not the "correct" way to use it. I found Michel Thomas quite good, but even the advanced one only barely scratches the surface. There is an Assimil now, but based on my experience with Assimil for other truly new languages (as opposed to false-beginner or closely related to one you already know) it's probably best left until you've finished a few proper beginner courses. I'm not familiar with Accelerator or the Youtube stuff but it's great to hear that there's more choice of materials now.

The other issue I found was just that as a new language it was quite overwhelming and I could only manage about half an hour of proper study per day before my brain just refused to take in any more. Definitely one for a slow-and-steady approach and accepting that it'll take a long time to even get to the stage of basic conversations.

FWIW I quite enjoyed "La inflación del yo" as it's a subject I have opinions on :D But it definitely could've explored some aspects of the subject more and better.
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