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Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4845 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian
| Message 481 of 646 13 August 2013 at 5:53pm | IP Logged |
TUESDAY, 13 AUGUST 2013
Although I'm participating in the 6WC, I'm not studying too much at the moment. In fact, my motivation for learning languages has reached a low point again. I spent an awesome weekend with my friends in Munich, which showed me what I'm really missing at the moment: fun! My textbook studies, however, are more of a distraction from that.
So, I returned Colloquial Welsh, Colloquial Scottish Gaelic, and Teach Yourself Gaelic to the library and cut short on my other languages again. If I study languages in the near future, it will be either Russian or Irish, maybe with some Japanese on the side. Well, I won't have too much time for textbook studies in the near future anyway, because I'll go on holidays on Friday and after that, I'll start working on my dissertation again. So, please don't expect too many updates from me in the near future. I have to see how much studying I can and want to get done during the next few weeks.
Other than that, I could use my Dutch yesterday when I read articles about Prince Friso's passing on telegraaf.nl and watched some videos about the Dutch and Belgian monarchies on YouTube. The Belgian stuff also contained some passages in French, which I could understand very well (they were rather slow and clear). Maybe, I should simply consume more native material instead of relying on textbooks. That would be more entertaining. Well, on verra.
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| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4708 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish
| Message 482 of 646 14 August 2013 at 5:28am | IP Logged |
Belgians are funny when they speak Dutch. And
I haven't used textbooks for like a month now.
So don't worry. I actually think you will be
fine. I have more fun here in Russia speaking
Russian than working through textbooks.
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| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4845 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian
| Message 483 of 646 14 August 2013 at 12:03pm | IP Logged |
Yeah, textbooks are getting a bit boring in the long run, so I will have to see how I can make learning more entertaining. Besides, I'm noticing that my interest in music has increased a lot while my passion for languages has notably decreased. So, maybe I just have to do something different for some time and then get back to languages when I feel like it.
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| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4708 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish
| Message 484 of 646 14 August 2013 at 3:15pm | IP Logged |
Pursue music for the moment then. I envy you -
you are probably a better musician than I will
ever be. And I am genuinely saying this: if I
would have my way right now, I would have
been a rock star, and not an engineer,
polyglot, or communication specialist.
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| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4845 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian
| Message 485 of 646 14 August 2013 at 7:51pm | IP Logged |
Thanks, tarvos! Well, I could be quite good if I practised regularly, but as I don't I'm rather average. So I resort to writing about music (which, according to some people, is like dancing about architecture), but that's fine by me. I just don't have enough time for everything I'm interested in... At least, I managed to fit in some Irish (and two tiny bits of Japanese and Russian) into my schedule today.
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| Emme Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 5348 days ago 980 posts - 1594 votes Speaks: Italian*, English, German Studies: Russian, Swedish, French
| Message 486 of 646 15 August 2013 at 11:56am | IP Logged |
Josquin wrote:
[...] Besides, I'm noticing that my interest in music has increased a lot while my passion for languages has notably decreased. So, maybe I just have to do something different for some time and then get back to languages when I feel like it. |
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I understand you perfectly there: my passion for languages too tends to rise and fall cyclically.
I try not to force myself to study when I don’t feel like it, because I know that sooner or later my enthusiasm will come back.
So, don’t worry too much if right now you prefer to spend your time away from languages: pursuing other interests and hobbies may help to maintain good spirits (which is by far more important than learning a few more declensions), so go for it.
And above all, come Friday, enjoy your holidays!
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| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4845 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian
| Message 487 of 646 18 August 2013 at 5:23pm | IP Logged |
SUNDAY, 18 AUGUST 2013
Thanks, Emme! I'm enjoying my holiday very much and I'm practically not studying at all. Instead, I'm reading (in German) and listening to good music a lot - a real pleasure!
However, I brought Colloquial Irish and Colloquial Russian 2 with me, so if I feel the urge to study I have the opportunity to do so. But generally speaking, I feel that my extreme studying of the last year was merely a phase and now I'm up for something different. I'll simply follow the flow of the tide and do what's fun, that means less languages and more other stuff.
I don't think I'm one of those polyglots whose entire passion burns for languages. I have many other interests and I'd like to pursue more of them again, so, probably, there won't be much to update for some time now. But I'll let you know when I'm studying languages more actively again - perhaps in autumn.
Slán agaibh!
Edited by Josquin on 18 August 2013 at 7:25pm
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| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4845 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian
| Message 488 of 646 25 August 2013 at 5:50pm | IP Logged |
SUNDAY, 25 AUGUST 2013
皆さん、 今日は! お元気ですか。 Всем привет! Как дела? Dia dhaoibh! Cén chaoi a bhfuil sibh? Feasgar math! Ciamar a tha sibh?
I’m spending a great holiday at home. I’m reading a lot every day and I’m even studying some languages now and then. I almost regret that I have only brought my Russian and Irish books with me, because I’d love to study some Japanese right now. I managed to find a digital copy of Genki though, so I’m reviewing some stuff that I had already learned through Colloquial Japanese. While I’m quite happy I started learning Japanese with Colloquial, I find Genki might be a good supplement, because it has a lot more exercises. However, the printed version is quite expensive, so I’m still hesitating to buy it.
I have reviewed some Russian grammar and I’m still working on Colloquial Irish. I have reached unit 9 by now. After completing Colloquial, I will take a different approach towards Irish, either Teach Yourself or Learning Irish. While Colloquial teaches some useful phrases, it doesn’t really explain the grammar for independent use of the language. Both Teach Yourself and Learning Irish concentrate on grammar, so they might be good supplements.
After my little fling with Welsh, I’m now thinking about other languages to dabble in. I’m currently interested in Mandarin and Persian, but I don’t think it would be wise to study Mandarin, because I might confuse Japanese kanji and Chinese hanzi. So, maybe, I’ll take a short detour and visit the languages of the Orient for the first time. Hungarian would be interesting as well, but maybe I’ll get to it some other time.
Generally speaking, I’m quite happy with the languages I’m studying right now, so I’m feeling only little wanderlust. Also, my interest in studying languages and literature has returned after I quit my job. Besides textbook studies, I finally managed to finish my German copy of Dostoyevsky’s Бесы, which had taken me more than one and a half years to read. After that, I read Heinrich Böll’s Irisches Tagebuch within four days and now I’m busy with Beowulf. My next items on the list: Halldór Laxness’s Íslandsklukkan and Mikhail Sholokhov’s Тихий Дон – all in German for now, but I hope I will be able to read them in the original some day.
Now, let’s see how things work out in September. I’m looking forward to it.
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