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Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5336 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian
| Message 217 of 221 25 December 2011 at 10:44am | IP Logged |
@teango, ellasevia and joanthemaid: Thanks for your kind thoughts. I can watch TV with my left eye, and read with my right eye, and am struggling to coordinate the two. I probably should have operated both eyes, but it hurt so much that I chickened out, and beside I hate operating away my ability to read without glasses.
CONCLUSION FOR THE YEAR 2011
Winston Churchill once said: "If you are going through hell, keep going". Which is pretty much what I have been doing this year. I think this may possibly have been the worst year of my life. One of my best friends says to me: "If I had lived your life, I would have a heart attack on a regular basis". And that was before this year started...
I will now at the end of the year however take the opportunity to thank those of you who have been there for me. You have been an immense help and support. I literally do not know If I had gotten through it without you guys.
I am afraid I did not get nearly as far as I had hoped in learning Russian or keeping up my other languages though. If I look at my high hopes at the beginning of the year, I must just admit that I was overoptimistic.
On the other hand I have at least a few acheivements:
- I have not quit - I am still hanging in there, and ready to tackle a new year
- I have been able to continue to do something language related at all times, even when I was unable to do any formal studying
- I have been able to keep up my log, and visit the log of others
RUSSIAN
I have had a few verbal communications - I hesitate to call them conversations, as they are too basic for that, I have listened to a lot af Pimsleur and some Michel Thomas and done a lot of Anki, as well as revising Teach yourself Russian script, some grammar, Russian for Dummies and have watched a number of films. I also managed somehow to get through Cuk i Gek - understanding about half :-)
ENGLISH
English is the big winner, because it is all around me, both at work, in my free time and on holidays. I do not need to do anything actively to get more practise there, as I speak it so much and 90% of what we watch on TV is in English.
SPANISH
The other big winner is Spanish, which also seems to just come by itself. In spite of the fact that I get quite a lot of practise, I do notice that I have lost a lot compared to the times when I was practically native, so I am going to keep up the effort there.
FRENCH
I have been able to speak quite a lot of French through my travels, but I have not read enough French, and written nothing. Need more work there. I guess I have kept my level of French, but not improved it much.
GERMAN
Have just read a couple of books, and spoken a tiny bit. Will need masses of more work in the year to come, particularly as it is to be one of my focus languages.
ITALIAN
Read a couple of books. Bad, bad girl :-) Must do more.
GREEK
My discovery of the year. Learned and forgot a little - will take it up again as one of my focus languages. Will have a Greek guest day after tomorrow - must hurry to revise Greek!
I got a mail yesterday from a Greek girl that I met at Crete. We got on so well, that she told me that she had said to her boyfriend: "I never expected that when I finally met my soulmate it would be in the shape of a Norwegian woman in her late 40ies". She is 27. I have friends between the age of 16 and 88, so age is not relevant to me. I also felt I had met my soulmate though, so that was great. I must have been Greek in an earlier life :-)
Anyway, Greek is something I would really like to learn.
TURKISH, SWAHILI AND SLOVAK
The only one of these three I can say I have worked properly on is Turkish, but I was sorry that I had not done more when I went to Turkey. I would like to do more with Turkish, but it will have to be one of my dabbling languages, since focusing on three languages (Russian, German and Greek) and revitalizing/keeping up 4 more (English, Spanish, French, Italian) is as much as I can handle.
In Swahili and Slovak I have basically just listened too a couple of the first lessons, and I do not expect to do much about them next year either. I might dip into Slovak, as I actually have some use for that, but Swahili will be put on ice for the moment.
I would like to send the last greetings of 2011 to my team mates, including those who have had to leave, and of course a particularly warm greeting to ellasevia, since the two of us seem to be the "last men standing" on our team. I have enjoyed being on team Ohana - and I am very honoured that a lot of people seem to think we are worth voting for. In all the misery some of us have been through this year, that means a lot.
I wish you all a happy New Year, and hope to see you again in my 2012 log, and in your own logs!
Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 26 December 2011 at 2:18am
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| joanthemaid Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5472 days ago 483 posts - 559 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, German
| Message 218 of 221 25 December 2011 at 10:50am | IP Logged |
I hope 2012 will be kinder to you than 2011 and wish you a happy and bountiful year !
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| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5397 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish
| Message 219 of 221 26 December 2011 at 2:08am | IP Logged |
I have to say I have really enjoyed reading your log this year, and I am quite impressed with your dedication to your languages, even in the midst of all the personal tragedies you've dealt with this year.
I sincerely hope that 2012 is a better year for you, and hope it brings you many successes both in language learning, and in life in general!
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| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5336 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian
| Message 220 of 221 27 December 2011 at 1:06am | IP Logged |
@joanthemaid: I hope so too, thank you for your kind thoughts.
@kerrie: Thank you, I am very happy to hear that. Sometimes you have the feeling that there are only one or two people reading your log, but then you see the numbers of people who have stopped by, and you realize that there are actually quite a lot of people who read.
Warm regards to you both!
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| ReneeMona Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5337 days ago 864 posts - 1274 votes Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2 Studies: French
| Message 221 of 221 30 December 2011 at 4:53pm | IP Logged |
Thank you for being such a great support and team member this year, Solfrid. I’ve been very impressed with your persistence and optimism in the face of all that has happened to you this year and I wish you a very happy 2012!
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