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| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4195 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 177 of 212 31 October 2014 at 8:28am | IP Logged |
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I finished Insurgente last night and downloaded Leal. I've read the other two books twice in English, so I read on ahead in Allegiant, the English version; I'll probably read a little bit of the Spanish version tonight before I go to sleep.
I've noticed in the last couple of nights that Insurgente seemed much more understandable towards the end than a lot of parts of Divergente did. With Divergent, I was happy that I wasn't getting lost, and I was getting the gist of what was going on. I still run into a paragraph or two here and there that I'm not understanding everything, but there are many more paragraphs where I'm reading, and although I do realize that I'm reading Spanish, I'm understanding most of what is going on. Looking forward to seeing what my understanding is after finishing another 525 pages of Leal. No Russian today. The amount of words that Anki is showing me every day has been dwindling. I've been adding words that I highlighted out of Insurgente (today the words included stunner, sniffling, and engrossed). For some reason, I must be "getting" more of the words so that I see them less and less. I suppose that there are a lot of words that I see over and over and over again, that just don't sink into my brain. Maybe for some reason they are now sinking? My sleep habits have improved now that I'm working from home; perhaps that has something to do with it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4195 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 178 of 212 02 November 2014 at 8:24am | IP Logged |
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First day of November, but did I do any Russian for the six week challenge? Sadly, the answer is no. I don't think that I will be on the top of the scoreboard for Russian hours studied, but still, I did nothing.
I did have a lot going on today. My husband is here from Colorado, we had my boy's 8th birthday party, and I ended up writing over 3900 words for NaNoWriMo. So I guess it's okay that I did absolutely no Russian at all. I did manage a little Spanish though. I think that's easier to fit in. I only did Anki, and then added a few words from Insurgente into Anki, including winking, colloquially, and pothole. Because I'm at the point where I can read Spanish easily, I'm sure that it will be easier to get more hours in Spanish. At this point, I can read a book, listen to a podcast, or do just about anything in Spanish that's not advanced. With Russian, I can pretty much read from my Penguin Russian Course or do Rosetta Stone. I'm not even at the point where I'm using Anki. I'll start that when I'm done with Rosetta Stone. This month I figure I have three competing items for my time: moving, NaNoWriMo, and the six week challenge. I think that the first two are going to take higher precedence, but that's okay. I will get some Russian done, I will get some Spanish done, and they'll all be here for me on December 1st, no matter what I do over the next 30 days. NaNoWriMo will be over then, and I'll have to wait until next year. Moving will be over in two weeks. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Elenia Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom lilyonlife.blog Joined 3800 days ago 239 posts - 327 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Swedish, Esperanto | Message 179 of 212 03 November 2014 at 12:31am | IP Logged |
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You're doing NaNoWriMo and the 6 Week Challenge? Wow! All power to you, I was not
brave enough to take up both! Well done to you at any rate, even with so much going on, you're able to keep up a fairly regular study schedule. Good luck with both NaNo and the 6 Week Challenge :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4195 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 180 of 212 05 November 2014 at 9:23am | IP Logged |
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I finally got around to studying Russian today. I may not be near the top of the boards this time around, but I'm doing something. That's the main thing.
Yesterday I woke up late; after dropping off my husband at the airport at 4 AM, I went home and went back to sleep. I didn't manage to do much, other than talk to dh about setting up accounts for the utilities at the new house, teaching school to my kids, and then researching who I was going to vote for today. I didn't even write anything for NaNoWriMo. Today was still pretty busy, but better. I taught school, went to vote, and watched the election coverage. After that was over, I had time to write a short chapter in my book for NaNoWriMo and study Russian for a little bit. I did Anki in the morning. I added five new Spanish words to the deck: hem, numb, shame (or embarrassment), jalopy (or crock, I guess it has two meanings), and ledge. I still have quite a few words to add from Insurgente, and I'm already highlighting words in Leal. The next four books that I read in Spanish (El Retorno de los Dragones, Los Juegos del Hambre, En Llamas, and Sinsaje) will all be in paperback form, so I don't expect to look up many words from any of them. It's just so easy with the Kindle books. I suppose that the more I read, the more vocabulary I'll know anyway. Especially since I'm putting the unknown vocabulary into Anki, so I end up learning it, even if I only see it every once in a great while. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4195 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 181 of 212 08 November 2014 at 10:33am | IP Logged |
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Still haven't done much Russian this month, but perhaps I'll get more done after we move, and after NaNoWriMo. I have more than 13,000 words written so far.
I've been studying Spanish still. For the past few days, I did November's Super Challenge Mini Challenge of watching a movie, watching it again with subtitles, and watching it again without subtitles. Maybe I should have watched Frozen, but I watched Divergent again. Same movie over and over again... but I am learning it better. It's almost like I don't realize it's in Spanish now. I obviously do know it's Spanish, but I'm not scratching my head as to what they're saying. When I first watched it, the only way that I could understand the movie was because I knew the book. For the last couple of days, I've had more difficulty with Anki than I normally do. Not just the new words that I added... but a random cross-section of the words. I have a cold, so maybe that has something to do with it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4195 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 182 of 212 09 November 2014 at 8:27am | IP Logged |
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It's getting down to the wire for me as far as my move is concerned. I only have two more days before day 1 when the movers are here (the day they come to pack our stuff). Day 2 they take everything away.
So now, rather than concentrating on getting rid of stuff, I've been doing some simple packing. Every box I pack myself saves some money. I'll get the kids to pack a box of stuffed animals each tomorrow. My boy won't like parting with his Legos for a week. Anyway, amid the packing and writing for NaNoWriMo (I wrote about 2200 words today), I've been doing some studying. I did my Anki work in Spanish and a lesson in Russian. I added five more words from Insurgente into my Anki deck: desk (pupitre), advisable, strips or robs (as in "selfishness robs you of all humanity"), bit or piece (trocito), and butt (like of a rifle or of a cow). I have 15 more words to add from that book, then I can start adding words from Leal. I plan on doing a little more reading tonight. It was a pretty good day overall, even though I didn't do a TON of language learning. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4195 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 183 of 212 21 November 2014 at 8:52am | IP Logged |
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Well, I'm moved. I have good things and not so good things about my language learning.
I did horrible in Anki today. I just couldn't remember a lot of the words. I've been missing a lot of days... my main priority with my free time is writing for NaNoWriMo at the moment, and with the move, there were five days that I didn't even do that. I've been too tired at the end of the day to even keep up with my Spanish. When I first got here it was a challenge just to get laundry done... just because I couldn't find anything. So I've gotten behind. That's okay. I guess that Glenn Beck is planning on making a Bible movie in Spanish. The concept sounds a little odd... the movie is supposed to have subtitles, but it would be cool to know enough Spanish to be able to watch it without looking at the subtitles. It'll be a year or so until it comes out, so I have time. There has been good though. Today I was listening to Buenos Dias America while driving to Radio Shack (I needed to replace a cable to the Tivo that I haven't been able to find since the move), and they were talking about a shooting in Florida. I hadn't heard about the news in English, so I had to rely on my Spanish knowledge to decipher the information. I think that the words entered my vocabulary initially through National Geographic, but I'm sure that reading more than two books of the Divergent series has helped with that sort of vocabulary as well. There was another article that I understood too, I think yesterday. So I've been making some progress, even with NaNo and the move going on. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4195 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 184 of 212 01 December 2014 at 9:06am | IP Logged |
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Learning languages has taken a back seat to a few other projects in my life over the past week and a half... I did finish NaNoWriMo (yay!). I didn't finish the book, but I finished the 50,000 words that I needed to write to win. I think I only have a couple of chapters to write until it's done. Then I want to revise book 1, publish that, and then revise the book I just finished before I publish that as well.
So I got that done... then my family got into playing World of Warcraft, so I've been playing that a lot. I was doing a Thanksgiving achievement that had to be done by tomorrow afternoon, so I finished that. I got behind in Anki again, but I caught up tonight. So tomorrow, there will be no NaNo, and no video game achievements to rush out and accomplish, so I will hopefully have more time for Spanish, and hopefully some Russian. Even with all that's been going on, I have found time to read some from Leal. I keep my Kindle on my desk, so whenever I'm waiting for my computer to reload or something (I've had some video card issues which has been causing my computer to restart, but I think it's fixed now), I've been reading a few pages here and there. I might read a few pages tonight. I have several books more to read, so it's not like I'm going to run out any time soon. I put some Spanish books on my Christmas list as well. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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