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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5524 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes  Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 737 of 1317 14 October 2013 at 2:25pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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For those of you who remember the "Seinfeld calendar" trick, which helped bootstrap my French studies, there's a really fascinating discussion of
how Beeminder can help you do things several days a week, for when 7 days a week is too many.
You're very close! I'm not really trying to replace readlang, which looks like a really nice web-based reading tool. But I don't want to do all my reading in a web app. I like reading in my regular browser, or using Moon+ on my phone and tablet. And I really like reviewing in Anki. So now I have this huge pile of cool, highlighted sentences. But entering them into Anki is a pain, because I have to flip between different windows, look stuff up on three separate dictionary sites, and so on. I just want to streamline the process a whole bunch. Think of my experiment as "readlang, but for loose sentences and Anki", or "the missing link between all my reading tools and Anki." The details are still developing.
This depends almost entirely on whether enough people want it badly enough, and let me know. :-) Please feel free to abuse the "VOTE" link below to say, "Yes, I would totally use that!", or to respond below. Edited by emk on 14 October 2013 at 2:35pm 11 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| sctroyenne Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5383 days ago 739 posts - 1312 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Irish | Message 738 of 1317 15 October 2013 at 4:46am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Uh, yes! Of course people would want it! BTW, tried to PM you regarding your French tutor but it says your inbox is full. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5524 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 739 of 1317 15 October 2013 at 9:33pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I'm glad to see that people are interested! Before building a software project, though, I always try to ask. I've learned that unless people are practically knocking down my door, it's rarely worth the days required to build something. The initial interest looks promising, so I'll continue working on it for a bit and look for some beta volunteers. :-) My Anki backlog is almost cleared. I have only a dozen-odd Egyptian cards remaining. As expected, my success rate has gone up dramatically since I started working through the backlog. It takes a while to reactivate Egyptian, but once I do, it's still more-or-less there, a full year after I stopped at Assimil lesson 30. Here's my monthly Anki revisions for the last 20 months of Anki. 
This will start going up again if I finish my SRS collection tool. :-) Trying Beeminder I've decided to try an experiment with Beeminder. This is described as "goal tracking with a sting!" The idea is that: 1. I enter a goal and deadline. In this case, my goal is "Finish 100% of Le Déchonologue by November 15th." Beeminder gives me a really nice graph showing my progress, and it gives me a week to get a head start. 2. If I don't make enough progress towards my goal, then Beeminder asks me if I'm still serious about it. If I am, then I need to make a $5 bet that I'll stay on track. 3. If I fail again, I lose my $5. But if I stay on track, it's free. To me, this isn't a huge threat—my current goal of "do something in French every single day" has been running unbroken for over 2,150 days. 4. Any time I want, I can cancel my goal, or I can adjust the details. But there's a catch: Any changes to the goal take place a week in the future. So I can let myself out of future commitments, but not out of current ones. I find this idea amusing, and I'm interested in this sort of software. So I set up two goals: a private one related to my business (which is easily worth risking $5), and a public goal to finish reading my current French book on schedule. I could beat this goal easily; as usual, the only challenge is making time. EDIT: Beeminder thoughtfully provides lists of their competitors and similar tools that don't require you to risk money. Nice! Edited by emk on 15 October 2013 at 10:23pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Bakunin Diglot Senior Member Switzerland outerkhmer.blogspot. Joined 5122 days ago 531 posts - 1126 votes Speaks: German*, Thai Studies: Khmer | Message 740 of 1317 15 October 2013 at 10:30pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I would want it, too! I'm glad you're taking it forward :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5524 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 741 of 1317 16 October 2013 at 5:54am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Sigh. This is what happens when I read books about time travel. Look very carefully at the chapter numbers and dates in Le Déchronologue:
I need to finish this book quickly, if only in self defense. Keeping the whole interwoven plot in my head is going to be tricky. Fortunately, the writing is excellent:
I'm really glad that I can read first-rate French science fiction these days. There's actually a surprising amount of it, and I'm getting better at finding it. I read from 17.6% to 30.8% today, or about 74 pages. I also finished off my last 74 Egyptian cards in Anki, bringing me to 0 across the board. I can't wait until I can dump all the sentences I'm harvesting from these books into Anki. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5524 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 742 of 1317 16 October 2013 at 3:45pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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The world of the Le Déchronologue is certainly strange—the Caribbean of the mid-17th century, with merchants, privateers and pirates. But their world is somehow in contact with other times, and marvels from other eras are available at the right price.
This world is surprisingly believable because Stéphane Beauverger has taken a craftsman's pride in the details. For example, the great difficulty with technological marvels is keeping them charged. And thus, batteries become a currency as valuable as gold. Similarly, until the invention of the record player, good music was an expensive status symbol. Here, the captain Henri Villon has been summoned in desperation and his exile reversed. As his ship halts just out of cannon range, watch how he announces his presence:
Of course infamous privateers should announce themselves via loudspeakers playing heartbreaking 16th century hymns. In a society where good music is rare, and technological marvels are a sign of power, it's a brutally effective bit of psychology. Here's a review in French:
If you're looking for good French science fiction, and you don't mind a challenge, take a look. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5524 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 743 of 1317 17 October 2013 at 3:49am | IP Logged | ||||||||
After much overhauling and rewriting, I took some time to add more dictionaries:
Now I just need: (1) user accounts, (2) bulk import, (3) working through the imported cards, and (4) bulk export. Not necessarily in that order. If people like the rudimentary French version, we can talk about other languages. And other improvements. One step at a time… But first, more reading about French pirates, because that's fun, too. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5158 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 744 of 1317 17 October 2013 at 4:45pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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emk, demain je vais commencer à lire "Extension du domaine de la lutte", je me souviens
pas si c'était une recommandation à toi, mais il me semble très intéressant et je voudrais te remercier quand même ! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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