Lilly's log - French, Russian, Spanish and Italian

Continue or start your personal language log here, including logs for challenge participants
User avatar
blaurebell
Blue Belt
Posts: 840
Joined: Thu Jul 28, 2016 1:24 pm
Location: Spain
Languages: German (N), English (C2), Spanish (B2-C1), French (B2+ passive), Italian (A2), Russian (Beginner)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3235
x 2240

Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby blaurebell » Tue Apr 04, 2017 10:09 am

French

I spent a lot of time reading comics yesterday, specifically Tome 1 of Ghost in the Shell and Tome 1 of La Guerre des Amants, which is a historical BD set during the Russian revolution. The latter was interesting enough, but the storyline was a bit weak in the end. I liked the art angle, but the bits about the famine were not that deep. This one actually won an award, so it might just be that I know more about these topics than most. I also didn't like that I finished it so quickly. It took me just half an hour, because it didn't actually have much text. Value for money is definitely better with manga rather than French BDs, but I love that BDs tend to be all colour. I also read more of Les Rivières pourpres and I'm enjoying it a lot.

French hours: 4.43h

Spanish

Two episodes of El internado, which is getting more and more unbearable, because all the characters do really stupid illogical things. That's what happens when you're making up a "story" as you go and you need to introduce conflict where there wouldn't be any in real life. People are simply not as stupid as all that! No wonder I didn't make it past season 4 last time round, it's just getting more and more unbearable. As for En tratamiento and Combatientes: My husband said that he doesn't want to watch En tratamiento from the start again, he'd only be interested in the bits that he hasn't seen yet. And Combatientes just isn't very happy, so not something he should watch on a bad day. I guess I will have to continue on my own again.

Spanish hours: 2.5h

Russian

It's still super difficult to concentrate enough for Russian. I managed only one page of reading and 20min of Clozemaster. Ah well, I'll try to increase it every day a little and hope that my brain starts to cooperate again soon.

Russian hours: 0.68h

Total hours: 7.61h
1 x
: 20 / 100 Дэвид Эддингс - В поисках камня
: 14325 / 35000 LWT Known

: 17 / 55 FSI Spanish Basic
: 100 / 116 GdUdE B
: 8 / 72 Duolingo reverse Spanish -> German

User avatar
blaurebell
Blue Belt
Posts: 840
Joined: Thu Jul 28, 2016 1:24 pm
Location: Spain
Languages: German (N), English (C2), Spanish (B2-C1), French (B2+ passive), Italian (A2), Russian (Beginner)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3235
x 2240

Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby blaurebell » Wed Apr 05, 2017 10:20 am

French

Since French is my main language for relaxing right now I somehow ended up with a whole lot of French yesterday. I regularly wake up way too early and then read until I can fall asleep again, so I clocked a couple of hours of reading at 5am in the morning. I find it quite amazing that I can now understand French even while half asleep! Later on we watched a couple of episodes of Un village français which seems very interesting, and then I read Tome 2 of La guerre des Amants. I liked this volume a lot more than the first one and I even learned a thing or two about the early Bauhaus years - and I already knew a lot about the Bauhaus before. Very cool.

To top it all off I listened to an École normale supérieure lecture about Hannah Arendt which was super relevant for my PhD. I learned French on a whim and super fast by accident. I didn't really think it would be more relevant to my PhD than for reading the occasional couple of pages with a dictionary. I learned much more French in much shorter time than expected. As it seems now, my knowledge of French will actually reshape my PhD somewhat. I've even come to realise that French might actually turn into my favourite language before long as well. I should have suspected that with my love for French philosophy and Arte, but it still came as somewhat of a surprise!

French hours: 5.97h

Spanish

I watched a couple of episodes of El internado. Not too unbearable. I also dealt with 4 different package delivery people (husband is bulk buying books again :lol: ) and my interaction with them was somewhat less hesitating. I guess all that Spanish input lately is reactivating my Spanish a little.

Today I also got Gramática de uso del español levels A, B and C in the mail and now I'm set for the next 2 years! My husband was rolling his eyes a little because he doesn't think my Spanish is bad at all. But then, I'm a perfectionist and I hear that I'm making mistakes! And the fact that I make mistakes also makes me more shy than I actually am! Seriously, I will never ever do Speak from Day 1 immersion again! It totally kills my Spanish enjoyment to have accumulated these fossilised mistakes. I'd be at C1+ now easily if I hadn't chosen the lazy path of early immersion classes + extensive reading :roll: Never again!

Spanish hours: 2.58h

Russian

My brain is starting to cooperate: I managed to read for a bit more than an hour and also did Clozemaster. I will try to increase the time spent on intensive reading before I go back to Modern Russian.

Russian hours: 1.58h

Total: 10.13h

I'd call it progress when 10h of language learning feels like a lazy day. 8-)
6 x
: 20 / 100 Дэвид Эддингс - В поисках камня
: 14325 / 35000 LWT Known

: 17 / 55 FSI Spanish Basic
: 100 / 116 GdUdE B
: 8 / 72 Duolingo reverse Spanish -> German

Cavesa
Black Belt - 4th Dan
Posts: 4960
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 9:46 am
Languages: Czech (N), French (C2) English (C1), Italian (C1), Spanish, German (C1)
x 17566

Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby Cavesa » Wed Apr 05, 2017 4:01 pm

blaurebell wrote:Total: 10.13h

I'd call it progress when 10h of language learning feels like a lazy day. 8-)


I'd call it madness :-D
You're awesome!
2 x

User avatar
blaurebell
Blue Belt
Posts: 840
Joined: Thu Jul 28, 2016 1:24 pm
Location: Spain
Languages: German (N), English (C2), Spanish (B2-C1), French (B2+ passive), Italian (A2), Russian (Beginner)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3235
x 2240

Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby blaurebell » Wed Apr 05, 2017 6:16 pm

Cavesa wrote:I'd call it madness
You're awesome!


:oops: But I was just reading comics, crime fiction and watching TV most of the day :lol: If I had done all that in English or German it would have been a very lazy day indeed!
2 x
: 20 / 100 Дэвид Эддингс - В поисках камня
: 14325 / 35000 LWT Known

: 17 / 55 FSI Spanish Basic
: 100 / 116 GdUdE B
: 8 / 72 Duolingo reverse Spanish -> German

User avatar
blaurebell
Blue Belt
Posts: 840
Joined: Thu Jul 28, 2016 1:24 pm
Location: Spain
Languages: German (N), English (C2), Spanish (B2-C1), French (B2+ passive), Italian (A2), Russian (Beginner)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3235
x 2240

Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby blaurebell » Thu Apr 06, 2017 8:27 am

French

On days with doctor's appointments I tend to get more French listening done, because I listen to France culture on my way into town. I tend to have less time for language learning in general though on such days. Yesterday I listened to a documentary about music in Paris at the turn of the 20th century and a couple of short things about Russian subjects. I also read a bit of Les Rivières pourpres and I'm now halfway through the book.

French hours: 2.95h

Spanish

I watched a couple of episodes of El internado and I'm almost done with Season 4 now. I kind of need to force myself, but at least I know that it's going to be good for my Spanish. 64 of 150h of peninsular Spanish done. I also did the first lesson of Gramática de uso del Español and I think the lessons have just the right length. Of course doing the A book is super easy for me, but it won't hurt to have some of the grammar rules repeated explicitly. I'm sure it will help to get some of my fossilised mistakes out of my system. In general it looks like an excellent grammar book. I wish there was something similar for Russian.

Spanish hours: 2.83h

Russian

I didn't really have much time yesterday, so I just did some Clozemaster. I now finished dictation for the 100 most common words and started on the 500 most common. A little more difficult and certainly helpful. I've done about 5% of the Fluency fast track and I think it's and excellent source of sentences I wouldn't normally come across. When I first started out with Russian I read a lot about the 10,000 sentences method, but thought that the Anki reviews would totally kill me for this amount of sentences. I hate anki precisely because of the reviews, so it's great that I can just set a maximum amount of reviews for Clozemaster and ignore the rest of the reviews that are accumulating. There are so many sentences in Clozemaster that the most common word groupings actually have too many repetitions of words to be efficient in the first place. Additional reviews aren't really necessary. It's really a nice tool to get exposed to more and more vocabulary without getting overwhelmed.

Russian hours: 0.33h

Total: 6.11h
4 x
: 20 / 100 Дэвид Эддингс - В поисках камня
: 14325 / 35000 LWT Known

: 17 / 55 FSI Spanish Basic
: 100 / 116 GdUdE B
: 8 / 72 Duolingo reverse Spanish -> German

User avatar
MamaPata
Brown Belt
Posts: 1019
Joined: Tue Jun 21, 2016 9:25 am
Location: London
Languages: English (N), French (C1*), Russian (B1), Spanish (B1).

Long lost: Arabic and Latin.
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3004
x 1807

Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby MamaPata » Thu Apr 06, 2017 3:17 pm

I've never used the Spanish textbooks so can't compare, but if you're looking for an introductory Russian grammar book, Russian in Exercices (by Khavronina) is a popular choice.
2 x
Corrections appreciated.

User avatar
blaurebell
Blue Belt
Posts: 840
Joined: Thu Jul 28, 2016 1:24 pm
Location: Spain
Languages: German (N), English (C2), Spanish (B2-C1), French (B2+ passive), Italian (A2), Russian (Beginner)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3235
x 2240

Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby blaurebell » Thu Apr 06, 2017 4:56 pm

MamaPata wrote:I've never used the Spanish textbooks so can't compare, but if you're looking for an introductory Russian grammar book, Russian in Exercices (by Khavronina) is a popular choice.


That one seems super difficult to find. I think I've got a reasonable one in German that was too difficult for a total beginner, but might do the job now. I do like the exercises in the Modern Russian workbook, but it doesn't have an answer key, so I dread using it.
1 x
: 20 / 100 Дэвид Эддингс - В поисках камня
: 14325 / 35000 LWT Known

: 17 / 55 FSI Spanish Basic
: 100 / 116 GdUdE B
: 8 / 72 Duolingo reverse Spanish -> German

User avatar
blaurebell
Blue Belt
Posts: 840
Joined: Thu Jul 28, 2016 1:24 pm
Location: Spain
Languages: German (N), English (C2), Spanish (B2-C1), French (B2+ passive), Italian (A2), Russian (Beginner)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3235
x 2240

Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby blaurebell » Thu Apr 06, 2017 6:36 pm

General observations on time spent

Earlier today I noticed that I just passed the first 700h of French. This was my original goal for my first year of French and I actually still have until July, 3 more months! In total I clocked 360h of reading, 260h of audio/video and a little formal study at the very beginning. I'm now on my second Super Challenge with 6400 pages read and I'm close to finishing the audio part. When comparing French and Spanish I have stronger reading comprehension with French and stronger listening comprehension with Spanish. With French the first 5000 pages were intensive reading, so I've got much more precision in my reading comprehension. I would guess that I'm now at B2+ reading, B2 listening. Since I don't have any need for output right now, all I have to do to improve my French further is to read and listen more. I will aim to reach 20,000 pages and around 1500h of French audio within the next 3 years. Basically the idea is to just have fun with the language until I hit the C levels. I have no real plans to activate my French anytime soon, but I suppose I might as well try when I reach my input goals. I've never tried to activate a language this late, so I'm curious what the effect of that will be.

I was curious and actually made an effort to calculate how much time I roughly spent on my Spanish in comparison to French. Turns out that I've had at least 570h of Spanish audio in the form of dubbed and native series. I also watched a whole lot of movies, but can't even estimate how much that might be. I also calculated that I must have had about 250-300h of formal classes which makes for a lot of grammar and speaking. Writing was generally somewhat neglected in those classes though and the grammar was not too intensive, since torturing paying customers isn't really in anyone's interest. I did go over the whole old Duolingo tree though, so that was a good way to practice some A1-B1 grammar. I can't even guess how much time I spent reading, but I know that I've read 4500 pages extensively. There were also many many hours of ambient Spanish and conversations which adds a whole lot more input and output that I wouldn't know how to quantify. I'm actually past 1000h with my Spanish now, but it still feels imprecise, full of fossilised mistakes and not yet at a level that I would need for university courses. I would guess B2 reading, C1 listening, B2 speaking, B1+ writing. The main problem with university would be the writing, the rest is actually ok. To get my Spanish up to speed I will now need to get rid of the fossilised mistakes - Gramática de uso del Español, FSI -, an essay writing output challenge and intensive reading SC to get a tad more precision into my reading comprehension. And of course input, input, input in general. I'm starting on the grammar track now and I'm accumulating more listening hours, but I only plan to do the output and intensive reading next year when I've made significant progress with my Russian.

Speaking of Russian: The main problem right now is vocabulary and the lack of cognates. Pushing through the comprehension barrier is just so much more difficult with this language! At least I have now a fairly good grammar overview and know that it's just a matter of time now. More intensive reading every day and I will get there eventually. Getting to this point where success is inevitable was the goal for my 3 month Russian challenge and I reached it already a while back. The only problem now is that intensive reading is much more slow going than it was with French and it's a real strain for me to read more than an hour. It took me a while to accept, but I think I need to stop pushing myself now or I risk burning out again, since it's still such hard work to read in Russian. Also, although I think the Modern Russian written exercises are actually worthwhile in general, I won't continue with them for now. I find that they disrupt my flow, especially since they have no answer key, and I also feel that it's too early for free translation for me. The free translation exercises stress me out too, so I avoid doing them and then get stuck on the audiofiles too since I don't want to move on with the files before I do the exercises. Next week I will therefore resume the audio files of Modern Russian and continue with them until the end of Modern Russian 1 without doing any of the written exercises anymore. Afterwards I will go over a German base textbook which is called Russisch mit System. I found it too difficult when I tried it for the first time, but I think I might be ready for it now and it has an answer key for the exercises. Once I'm finished with that one I will continue with Modern Russian 2. And of course I will continue with my Russian intensive reading SC.

Russian is the first language where I actually need an iterative approach to get my head around all the grammar and vocabulary. The 300h I clocked so far haven't been quite enough to reach my goal of breaking the comprehension barrier. I will probably need to double it to get there. Russian really is a challenge! I know I'll get there, but it will still take a whole lot of effort.
3 x
: 20 / 100 Дэвид Эддингс - В поисках камня
: 14325 / 35000 LWT Known

: 17 / 55 FSI Spanish Basic
: 100 / 116 GdUdE B
: 8 / 72 Duolingo reverse Spanish -> German

Arnaud
Blue Belt
Posts: 984
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 11:57 am
Location: Paris, France
Languages: Native: French
Intermediate: English, Russian, Italian
Tourist : Breton, Greek, Chinese, Japanese, German, Spanish, Latin
Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=1524
x 2172

Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby Arnaud » Thu Apr 06, 2017 7:11 pm

blaurebell wrote:
MamaPata wrote:I've never used the Spanish textbooks so can't compare, but if you're looking for an introductory Russian grammar book, Russian in Exercices (by Khavronina) is a popular choice.


That one seems super difficult to find. I think I've got a reasonable one in German that was too difficult for a total beginner, but might do the job now. I do like the exercises in the Modern Russian workbook, but it doesn't have an answer key, so I dread using it.

You can easily find the pdf online or order it on amazon (a little expensive, as I payed mine 12 euros in a parisian russian bookshop)
0 x

User avatar
blaurebell
Blue Belt
Posts: 840
Joined: Thu Jul 28, 2016 1:24 pm
Location: Spain
Languages: German (N), English (C2), Spanish (B2-C1), French (B2+ passive), Italian (A2), Russian (Beginner)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3235
x 2240

Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby blaurebell » Thu Apr 06, 2017 7:18 pm

Arnaud wrote:You can easily find the pdf online or order it on amazon (a little expensive, as I payed mine 12 euros in a parisian russian bookshop)


Thank you Arnaud, should have looked on Spanish Amazon too. It's definitely not so easy to find on the German Amazon since there it's actually misspelled as "Russian in Execirses" :lol: :roll:
0 x
: 20 / 100 Дэвид Эддингс - В поисках камня
: 14325 / 35000 LWT Known

: 17 / 55 FSI Spanish Basic
: 100 / 116 GdUdE B
: 8 / 72 Duolingo reverse Spanish -> German


Return to “Language logs”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests