Little by little (TUR, DUT, ITA, FRE)

[Sonjaconjota]

Weekly update for the 2023 365 Day Challenge

2023/07/10
Turkish 30 min
- working on the review of lesson 3, part 10, of my beginners’ distance course


2023/07/11
Turkish 30 min
- intensive reading: story Konstantin


2023/07/12
Turkish 30 min
- working on the review of lesson 3, part 10, of my beginners’ distance course


2023/07/13
Turkish 30 min
- intensive reading: story Konstantin
- watching: 2 youtube videos: Travel Comic - Likya Yolu


2023/07/14
Turkish 30 min
- working on the review of lesson 3, part 10, of my beginners’ distance course


2023/07/15
Turkish 30 min
- intensive reading: story Konstantin

French
- listening: 1 episode Chroniques Criminelles


2023/07/16
Turkish 30 min
- working on the review of lesson 3, part 10, of my beginners’ distance course

[Sonjaconjota]

Weekly update for the 2023 365 Day Challenge

2023/07/17
Turkish 30 min
- intensive reading: story Konstantin
- watching: Sen inandir

2023/07/18
Turkish 30 min
- I’m working on the review of part 10 of my beginners’ distance course. I finished lesson 3 and started with lesson 4.


2023/07/19
Turkish
- Wildcard day: I was very sick this morning, probably due to dehydration because of the heat. So I’ve taken a day off from active studying and am counting consuming content towards my Turkish study time.
- Watching: Aşk taktikleri 2


2023/07/20
Turkish 30 min
- intensive reading: story Konstantin
- watching: 2 youtube videos: TravelComic - Likya Yolu

2023/07/21
Turkish 30 min
- working on the review of part 10, lesson 4, of my beginners’ distance course
- vocabulary stack
- 3 ministories from https://storybookscanada.ca/stories/tr/
- watching: 5 youtube videos: TravelComic - Likya Yolu
- I was also leafing through a picture dictionary and learned something funny: The words “ispanyol paça pantolon”, literally “trousers with Spanish legs”, refer to flares.


2023/07/22
Turkish 30 min
- intensive reading: story Konstantin
- watching: 3 youtube videos: TravelComic - Likya Yolu

Dutch
- listening: Vrij uitzicht, about 1,5 h
- working on PONS Power-Sprachkurs Niederländisch für Fortgeschrittene A2-B1, unit 4


2023/07/23
Turkish 30 min
- working on the review of part 10, lesson 4, of my beginners’ distance course
- I watched the last two videos of the Likya Yolu-playlist by TravelComic on youtube.

Dutch
- listening: Vrij uitzicht, about 1 h
- working on PONS Power-Sprachkurs Niederländisch für Fortgeschrittene A2-B1, unit 4

[Sonjaconjota]

Weekly update for the 2023 365 Day Challenge

2023/07/24
Turkish 30 min
- intensive reading: story Konstantin
- watching: 1 episode 50m2

Dutch
- listening: Vrij Uitzicht, about 30 min

French
- listening: 1 episode Chroniques Criminelles

Italian
- 3 minitopics HUEBER Italienisch Übungsbuch Grammatik A1-A2
This got me really excited, because I noticed that I’m nearly finished with this book.


2023/07/25
Turkish 30 min
- working on the review of part 10 of my beginners’ distance course, lesson 4
- watching: 1 episode 50m2

Dutch
- I finished PONS Power-Sprachkurs Niederländisch für Fortgeschrittene A2-B1, unit 4.
- listening: Vrij Uitzicht, about 30 min

Italian
- 2 minitopics HUEBER Italienisch Übungsbuch Grammatik A1-A2


2023/07/26
Turkish 30 min
- intensive reading: story Konstantin
- vocabulary flashcards

Dutch
- listening: Vrij Uitzicht, about 1h30


2023/07/27
Turkish 30 min
- I’m working on the review of my distance course. I finished lesson 4 of part 10 and started with lesson 1 of part 11.
- vocabulary flashcards

Dutch
- listening: Vrij Uitzicht, about 1h30


2023/07/28
Turkish 30 min
- intensive reading: story Konstantin

French
- 1 topic Communication progressive du français A2B1
- listening: 1 episode Chroniques Criminelles

Italian
- 1 minitopic HUEBER Italienisch Übungsbuch Grammatik A1-A2


2023/07/29
Turkish 30 min
- review of my distance course: working on part 11, unit 1

Dutch
- listening: Vrij Uitzicht, about 1h


2023/07/30
Turkish 30 min
- intensive reading: I finished the story Konstantin, the third and last one in my graded reader by Circon.

[Sonjaconjota]

Weekly update for the 2023 365 Day Challenge

2023/07/31
Turkish 30 min
- review of my distance course: I’m working on part 11. I finished unit 1 and started unit 2.

I’m very much into hiking and videos about hiking right now.
An Italian youtuber that I like, The Walking Nose, has started a new series about hiking the Portuguese Camino de Santiago.
I have also found a Dutch guy whose channel is appropriately called Hiking Dutchman. But he doesn’t talk a lot in his videos, so it doesn’t really count as language practice.


2023/08/01
Turkish 30 min
- I’m starting a new reading project: LingoMastery: Turkish Short Stories for Beginners. I managed to work through the first story.
- watching: 1 episode 50m2


2023/08/02
Turkish 30 min
- review of my distance course: working on part 11, unit 2


2023/08/03
Turkish 30 min
- intensive reading: LingoMastery: Turkish Short Stories for Beginners, chapter II

Today I learned how the Turks commemorate the death of Atatürk:



2023/08/04
Turkish 30 min
- review of my distance course: working on part 11, unit 2

Dutch
- first text Hugo - Taking Dutch further, lesson 6

French
- 1 little topic CLE Communication progressive du français A2 B1

Italian
- 1 little topic Hueber Italienisch Übungsbuch Grammatik A1-A2


2023/08/05
Turkish 30 min
- intensive reading: LingoMastery: Turkish Short Stories for Beginners, chapter III
- vocabulary flashcards
- listening: I finally started to use the audios from youtube videos I prepared some time ago. I listened to a biography of Abraham Lincoln (about 5 min).

French
- 2 little topics CLE Conjugaison progressive du français A2B1


2023/08/06
Turkish 30 min
- review of my distance course: I finished unit 2 in part 11.
- vocabulary flashcards

Italian
- 1 little topic Hueber Italienisch Übungsbuch Grammatik A1-A2


For my translation work, I was looking up the English word “lifeline”. I know what it means, but I needed some suggestions for the translation into German.
The online dictionary dict.cc had several entries related to Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, a show that’s superpopular in Germany as well. And I was amused when I looked at the English and German names for the lifelines. German words are supposed to be long and unwieldy, because the German language loves to describe things with compound words. But look at this:
Phone-A-Friend lifeline - Telefonjoker
Ask the Audience lifeline - Publikumsjoker
Ask One of the Audience lifeline - Zusatzjoker im Publikum
The last one isn’t really much shorter in German, but you might find it interesting that we pronounce the numbers in English when using the expression 50/50:
Fifty-fifty lifeline - Fifty-fifty-Joker

https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/fifty_fifty

[Sonjaconjota]

Weekly update for the 2023 365 Day Challenge

2023/08/07
Turkish 30 min
- intensive reading: LingoMastery: Turkish Short Stories for Beginners, chapter IV
Does anyone know why the Turkish language uses the same verb for “to play an instrument” and “to steal”?


2023/08/08
Turkish 30 min
- working on the review of my distance course, part 11, unit 3
I dislike the fact that usually the passive and the causative seem to be introduced at a similar point in time. I mean, I understand that they are concepts of a similar difficulty and usefulness and are thus appropriate topics at a certain moment in the learning process. But presenting them next to each other means I’m absolutely going to mix them up and end up not remembering any of the markers.


2023/08/09
Turkish 30 min
- intensive reading: LingoMastery: Turkish Short Stories for Beginners, chapter V

Italian
- 2 little topics Hueber Italienisch Übungsbuch Grammatik A1-A2


2023/08/10
Turkish 30 min
- working on the review of my distance course, part 11: I finished unit 3 and started with unit 4.


2023/08/11
Turkish 30 min
- intensive reading: LingoMastery: Turkish Short Stories for Beginners, working on chapter VII (When I was writing it down, I noticed that I had skipped Chapter VI. I’ll get back to it later.)
Today I wasn’t able to finish one complete story, because I found this one, about a hit-and-run accident, very complex. It had a lot of new vocabulary about cars, and the structure of the sentences were complicated as well. I mean, look at this one, for example:

Ne olduğunu anlamaya çalisirken biraz önce yanimdan hizla geçen aracin camlarinin paramparça oldugunu ve yolun kenarina dogru savruldugunu gördüm.

I don’t think this is fitting for a graded reader for beginners.
I guess I have to be thankful, because there aren’t that many nice graded readers for Turkish. But if I compare the book by Circon (Lernkrimi Son Durak İstanbul) with this one, I really prefer the Circon one.
Of course the concepts are very different. The LingoMastery book has twenty stories of about three pages each, which is kind of a nice idea, because you can read each story in one go and get instant gratification. I also gives translations for a lot of the vocabulary. But there are so many new words all the time, and I especially dislike the use of complex structures.
The Circon book has three very long stories, and I find them much, much more interesting. Its true - because they are crime stories, there’s a certain number of words that are important for the story, but not necessarily in real life, like “police station, smuggling, weapon”. But at least these specific words come up again and again. Apart from that, the language is much easier in the Circon book, it is written in present tense and avoids complex structures.

Dutch
- Hugo - Taking Dutch Further, lesson 6, text 2

French
- 2 minitopics CLE Grammaire progressive du français A2 B1

Italian
- 2 little topics Hueber Italienisch Übungsbuch Grammatik A1-A2


2023/08/12
Turkish 30 min
- working on the review of my distance course, part 11, unit 4
- watching: 1 episode 50 m2

Dutch
- listening: Vrij uitzicht (about 1h)

Italian
- 1 worked through the last little topic in Hueber Italienisch Übungsbuch Grammatik A1-A2.
I really liked this book. When I first got it, I found it too “light” and “fun”, but that’s precisely it’s strong point.
If you want to buy just one single book for Italian grammar, maybe go for something more thorough. But this is a very entertaining grammar book with supershort chapters for instant gratification.
So, I’ve leafed through it quickly and have marked the topics that are still shaky, among others my old nemeses, PREPOSITIONS.
I’m always a bit surprised when people want to reach like a B1 in six months. When I have a look at an A2 grammar book, in any language, I always think that you are expected to know SO MUCH grammar at this point.
If I was able to use all the A2 grammar confidently and correctly actively, I think I would have a great level in this language.


2023/08/13
Turkish 30 min
- working on chapter VI, LingoMastery: Turkish Short Stories for Beginners
- listening: biography Che Guevara (about 10 min)
- watching: 1 episode 50 m2

[Sonjaconjota]

Weekly update for the 2023 365 Day Challenge

2023/08/14
Turkish 40 min
- Today I realised that there were actually two stories in LingoMastery - Turkish Short Stories for Beginners that I had not worked through completely, so I finished chapter VI and VII.

French
- listening: 1 episode Chroniques Criminelles

Italian
- After a long time, I opened Nuova grammatica pratica della lingua italiana again. I saw that at some point I had started the chapter about the passato prossimo, so I finished that.


2023/08/15
Turkish 30 min
- working on the review of part 11, lesson 4, of my beginners’ distance course
- watching: 1 episode 50m2


2023/08/16
Turkish 30 min
- working on chapter VIII, LingoMastery - Turkish Short Stories for Beginners
- watching: I watched the last episode of 50 m2. In the end, I did not enjoy this show. Although I of course love classics like The Sting or The Godfather, generally I’m not fond of films or series with a hero who’s a baddie, although in this case it’s all in the spirit of “everybody deserves a second chance”.
Apart from that, I hated the way this ended: Instead of working towards a conclusion and wrapping things up, the creators just went on and on complicating things more and made the characters get themselves into situations they would not be able to get out again without problems. And then everything culminated in an open ending! I guess they were hoping for a second season, but this was just frustrating.
I’ll go for something more light next. I’ve seen that there’s a new season of The Summer I Turned Pretty on Prime. I think I’ll watch season 2 dubbed into Turkish, as I did with season 1.


2023/08/17
Turkish 30 min
- working on the review of part 11, lesson 4, of my beginners’ distance course
- watching: 1 episode The Summer I Turned Pretty dubbed to Turkish
- listening: biography Atatürk (about 15 min)

Dutch
- listening: Vrij uitzicht about 1h30


2023/08/18
Turkish 30 min
- working on the review of my distance course: I finished part 11
- I also finished chapter VIII, LingoMastery - Turkish Short Stories for Beginners
- watching: 1 episode The Summer I Turned Pretty dubbed to Turkish

Dutch
- I listened to the last hour of Vrij uitzicht.
I liked this book!

2023/08/19
Turkish 30 min
- intensive reading: chapter IX, LingoMastery - Turkish Short Stories for Beginners


2023/08/20
Turkish 30 min
- review of my distance course: working on part 12, unit 1
- watching: 1 episode The Summer I Turned Pretty dubbed to Turkish

[Sonjaconjota]

Weekly update for the 2023 365 Day Challenge

2023/08/21
Turkish 30 min
- LingoMastery - Turkish Short Stories for Beginners, working on Chapter X

French
- I started a new book, David Foenkinos: Le mystère Henri Pick, and read the first three of the little chapters.

Italian
- I started a new audiobook, Maurizio de Giovanni: La condanna del sangue, and listened to about 30 minutes.


2023/08/22
Turkish 30 min
- I finished LingoMastery - Turkish Short Stories for Beginners, Chapter X and worked a little bit on the review of my distance course, Part 12, unit 1.


2023/08/23
Turkish 30 min
- Working on the review of my distance course, Part 12, unit 1


2023/08/24
Turkish 30 min
- intensive reading: LingoMastery - Turkish Short Stories for Beginners, Chapter XI


2023/08/25
- intensive reading: LingoMastery - Turkish Short Stories for Beginners, Chapter XII

French
- reading: 6 mini-chapters, David Foenkinos: Le mystère Henri Pick


2023/08/26
Turkish 30 min
- review of my distance course, working on part 12, unit 1


2023/08/27
Turkish 30 min
- review of my distance course, working on part 12, unit 1
- vocabulary flashcards

[Sonjaconjota]

Weekly update for the 2023 365 Day Challenge

2023/08/28
Turkish 30 min
- Working on the review of my distance course: I finished Part 12, unit 1.

2023/08/29
Turkish 30 min
- I started chapter XIII, LingoMastery - Turkish Short Stories for Beginners.

Italian
- listening: Maurizio de Giovanni: La condanna del sangue., about 1h


2023/08/30
Turkish 30 min
- I finished chapter XIII, LingoMastery - Turkish Short Stories for Beginners.
This is a real drag right now, I’m slow and unmotivated. But, then again, I’m thankful for the challenge, because without it, right now I would not touch my Turkish books at all.
- watching: 1 episode The Summer I Turned Pretty dubbed to Turkish

Italian
- listening: Maurizio de Giovanni: La condanna del sangue, about 1h


2023/08/31
Turkish 30 min
- working on the review of my distance course: I started unit 2 of part 12
- watching: 2 episodes The Summer I Turned Pretty dubbed to Turkish

French
- listening: 1 episode Chroniques Criminelles


2023/09/01
Turkish 30 min
- Working on the review of my distance course: part 12, unit 2
- I watched the last 2 episodes The Summer I Turned Pretty dubbed to Turkish.

2023/09/02
Turkish 30 min
- Working on the review of my distance course: part 12, unit 2

Italian
- listening: Maurizio de Giovanni: La condanna del sangue., about 1h


2023/09/03
Turkish 30 min
- intensive reading: LingoMastery - Turkish Short Stories for Beginners, chapter XIV
- vocabulary flashcards

[Sonjaconjota]

Weekly update for the 2023 365 Day Challenge

2023/09/04
Turkish 30 min
- Working on the review of my distance course, part 12: I finished unit 2 and started with unit 3.


2023/09/05
Turkish 30 min
- intensive reading: chapter XV, LingoMastery - Turkish Short Stories for Beginners


2023/09/06
Turkish 30 min
- intensive reading: working on chapter XVI, LingoMastery - Turkish Short Stories for Beginners


2023/09/07
Turkish 30 min
- intensive reading: I finished chapter XVI, LingoMastery - Turkish Short Stories for Beginners
- working a bit on the review of my distance course, part 12, unit 3


2023/09/08
Turkish 30 min
- Working on the review of my distance course, part 12, unit 3
- vocabulary flashcards

I’m struggling with getting back into a routine after the summer holidays, and I’m actually about to throw in the towel with this challenge.
I’m soon going to finish both the review of my distance course and the graded reader, and some new resources will probably make things interesting again. Up to that point, I’ll rely on pure stubbornness, I guess.


2023/09/09
Turkish 30 min
- intensive reading: chapter XVII, LingoMastery - Turkish Short Stories for Beginners


2023/09/10
Turkish 30 min
- working on the review of my distance course, part 12, unit 3
- a couple of words came up that I’m always confusing, so I spent most of the time looking up example sentences for uzak / uzaklık, uçus / uçmak and uyku / uyumak / uyanmak.

[Sonjaconjota]

Weekly update for the 2023 365 Day Challenge

2023/09/11
Turkish 30 min
- intensive reading: working on LingoMastery - Turkish Short Stories for Beginners, chapter XVIII


2023/09/12
Turkish 30 min
- I finished reading LingoMastery - Turkish Short Stories for Beginners, chapter XVIII.
- working on the review of my distance course, part 12, unit 3


2023/09/13
Turkish 30 min
- working on the review of my distance course, part 12: I finished unit 3 and started with unit 4
- 1 episode Terzi

French
- listening: 1 episode Chroniques Criminelles


2023/09/14
Turkish 30 min
- intensive reading: LingoMastery - Turkish Short Stories for Beginners, chapter XIX
- 2 episodes Terzi


2023/09/15
Turkish 30 min
- working on the review of my distance course, part 12, unit 4


2023/09/16
Turkish 30 min
- intensive reading: I finished LingoMastery - Turkish Short Stories for Beginners, by working through the last story, Chapter XX!
- vocabulary flashcards


2023/09/17
Turkish 30 min
- working on the review of my distance course, part 12, unit 4
- 3 episodes Terzi