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MrW is in again for ’14 旅立ち/Катюша/Spaß+ | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5224 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes  Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 1 of 16 04 January 2014 at 7:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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Finally got round to this too...
I wanted to start 2014 with a blank slate of sorts, which is the why of this new log. However, given how 2013 was a year of mostly involuntary hiatus in language learning (as opposed to 2012 which was mostly hiatus because I let myself get distracted from it), I think starting with some links to the past is most appropriate. I hope this lets me skip stuff like writing again a detailed self-intro of back story about my languages, while those who don't know me and are interested still have them handy, just one more click away. It should also provide myself with an easy way to connect everything together should I ever put to some use all of this logging. TAC '13 Self-intro: get to know me TAC '13 plans and goals TAC '13 end-of-year failure summary So, what's new for 2014? I'll still be trying to learn German and Russian, and hopefully some Japanese, and language-wise I will only add some English maintenance -- if I need justify further working on this, well... it's my only foreign language that's turned into a monetarily valuable asset so far :) I'm older, too, and (hopefully again) I'm wiser, with new weaponry in my arsenal, I think. Just a short story about that: I try to always preach by example in addition to words, and I wanted to give "my" Russian kids additional examples of discipline (besides their real parents') to learn from, i.e. show them that I do stuff even if I think it's a bit tiresome, or don't feel much like it when the time comes, etc., so in the last summer months of 2013 I took the opportunity to engage in another long-neglected activity of mine: swimming. For months, even at the end on December 29th, I reluctantly* woke up to swim at 7.00AM every other day, except of course for medical emergency days. Not that I'm going for the Olympics or anything, but I went from taking up to one minute to recover even after medium-speed 25m laps to being head of my class, and we consistently did over 1500 metres per day there, including technique exercises -- it is a real effort that I wasn't sure I could do any more. Turns out I am :) * reluctantly: it roughly feels like being given a beat up first thing in the day... Still, I started 2014 sitting to think why else I did next to nothing in 2013 instead of just however little I could -- I found little time but it was there nonetheless. I certainly had proven already that I have some will power and discipline. The answer came from slightly turning my head to the right. Doubly stemming from feasibility experiments for a friend's commercial project and another discipline / responsibility lesson we tried to give 'my' kids --one which was completely ruined by their mother--, two mobile vivaria have been sitting on my desktop for months, full of finger-sized butterfly larvae (caterpillars) growing on host plant cuts. These little creatures, and generations of their predecessors, have survived with only minimal casualties even in the middle of sickness, some major commotions and moving places without prior notice. Caring for them was, literally, vital (for them) -- so I managed to do it every single day whether we were in optimal conditions or 'hospital' was the theme for the day in real life. Reflecting on this, I realized how language study, even if theoretically possible, was always postponed because it would all be so much better some other day: when I get my materials ready, when I don't have to worry about this or that... I always delayed it because it somehow never was the right moment. But in life the right moment never comes if you sit to wait for it -- you have to make do every single day with whatever time and materials you have, here and now, or else someday you'll find you cannot do any more what you always wanted to -- because you're dead. That should be easy to fix (the silly delays, not death) once you realize it is what you've been doing. Last but not least, something I've picked up here at HTLAL: it seems like having mini-goals help people to stay focused with their TACs, and not give up. I've experienced that in swimming, too, so I'll try that as well -- I mean, set myself to get something small and concrete done within reasonable amounts of time, rather than more abstract stuff like I had before. Summing it up, I hope 2014 will be the year I'll finally stop giving excuses not to do stuff. I'd like this to mean in 2014 I'll do everything I can as best as I can. I'm human, though, and I'll probably need to take breaks. I'll thus try to keep real and hope 2014 will be the year when I only don't do stuff because I choose not to :) And thus I begin 2014. Here are my teams for this year: Team Spaß (German), most recent posts Team Катюша (Russian), most recent posts Team 旅立ち (Tabidachi) (Japanese), most recent posts Team Advanced ESL, most recent posts And finally I godfather (is that a verb now? I'd kick myself out the ESL team ;): Team Lobo (Spanish), most recent posts Team Exploradores (Spanish and stuff I can't help with ;), most recent posts Edited by mrwarper on 22 January 2014 at 2:37pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5224 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 2 of 16 04 January 2014 at 7:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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In this post I'll document factual progress (or lack thereof) in my studies for any kind of statistics and summaries I or anyone else wants to make, and the rest of the log will be for, well, you know, discussing fun stuff and socializing :)
For those who do not know me from past TACs, a firm idea of mine is that getting stuff done is mostly achieved by doing stuff rather than talking about it. By the end of the year, this post should be utterly empty, like it is at the time of writing, or full with rather boring entries stating I've gone through lesson X of course Y, that I've read book Z, or whatever. They'll be silent updates no one has to know about unless they keep checking here just for kicks. For those still interested, I got this idea from a couple of team mates from past TACs. They posted about everything, and I thought how infinitely more helpful it would have been for me if they had kept all the fluff apart from their interesting (that is, for me) posts. Oh, but before you write me off as the anti-social hermit I am, a further enlightening bit: when these guys actually documented some progress in their studies, rather than how they felt or whatever, it was all dull and mostly not worth a reply beyond 'well done', which is what set me thinking about what there is of each kind of value in the posts of a log, and to split the information this way in the end. So, without further ado, my progress report log, first entry expected before 2014/01/31: 2014/02/01 05:08 Rose up to the first German challenge just a few hours past its deadline. A slow start was expected, but not this slow. The hardest part is getting started, so let's take this positively. 2014/03/06 Again, I've been too busy to properly study. Not feeling bad about that. Still, I haven't managed to take advantage of time micro-slots yet. Superbad. Edited by mrwarper on 06 March 2014 at 12:07pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5224 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 3 of 16 04 January 2014 at 7:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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Finally, a place holder for whatever comes my way that I might want to have 'stickied' here. You may post freely now if you're so inclined. Meanwhile, I'll just post the local posting policy for this log: keep it civil, don't call me names, and we can discuss everything you want.
Next: give my teams some life signals and pointers here, subscribe to everyone and their mom's logs, and try not to be overwhelmed for the next few days. Wish me luck... Edited by mrwarper on 17 January 2014 at 3:22am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5332 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 4 of 16 21 January 2014 at 9:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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Good luck :-)
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| renaissancemedi Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Greece Joined 4356 days ago 941 posts - 1309 votes Speaks: Greek*, Ancient Greek*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Russian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew | Message 5 of 16 22 January 2014 at 8:37am | IP Logged | ||
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Good luck. You've chosen some demanding languages, but you seem determined.
You write your log and we'll read it :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Woodsei Bilingual Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Woodsei Joined 4795 days ago 614 posts - 782 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Egyptian)* Studies: Russian, Japanese, Hungarian | Message 6 of 16 06 February 2014 at 8:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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Good luck, mrwarper :) Your posts are always so entertaining, and they make my day. I
wish this year is a better one all around for you and the rest of us! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 4080 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 7 of 16 14 February 2014 at 2:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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What your German Level at MrW?
I see that you have taken a B2 level test. Who is the author of the concise German grammer you are using? Edited by Gemuse on 14 February 2014 at 2:56pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5224 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 8 of 16 06 March 2014 at 1:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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Entertaining? I'll that as a compliment, so thank you! -- I'll secretly keep aspiring to say interesting stuff, though ;)
Thank you all for wishing me luck btw -- I think I'll need some - and sorry about the late reply (1).
It's in Spanish so I'm not sure how useful it will be for you, or if an English version exists. Sorry about the late reply (2). It follows the 'world famous' Gaspey - Otto - Sauer method which I have roughly described elsewhere, and the authors are one E. Otto (presumably one of the above), and one E. Ruppert, and it is revised by one Ricardo Ruppert (a relative?). The publisher is Herder anyway -- but if you speak Spanish just go ahead! About my level, keeping in mind I never passed the B2 test, I have to say B1 and probably plummeting. It doesn't feel so bad when I read other people in German, but I know if I had to write, I'd be 'sweating ink'* as we say around here... *to sweat blood. ----8<--------8<--------8<--------8<--------8< ; ;--------8<--------8<--------8<---- Stemming from the above about late replies, yet another thing I'm getting tired of being generally crap at: replying to stuff within reasonable time frames. Just another reason why I'd like to kick myself at times. I always had an excellent (even if somewhat selective) memory, so I've been known to give replies to stuff YEARS after... only to find the other part had forgotten about the whole thing. Serves me well I guess, but have I learned from that? I'm afraid not nearly as much as I'd like to think. It's not nearly as bad in the forum, but when I read updated threads I leave their browser tabs open to comment on something, but generally 'just not now, let's see if somebody else replies and makes it more interesting'. All good and well, until the browser crashes and I forget which threads I had open to reply, because the notifications are gone from the mailbox by then... However, not an especially interesting conversation topic, I think. Edited by mrwarper on 06 March 2014 at 1:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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