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Estival Ambitions: A Linguistic Odyssey | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Darobat Diglot Senior Member Joined 6986 days ago 754 posts - 770 votes  Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Latin | Message 9 of 242 02 June 2010 at 4:49pm | IP Logged | ||
Bon courage! Желаю успеха! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 5940 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 10 of 242 03 June 2010 at 4:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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[Note: This post was written last night (June 2nd) but for some odd reason I couldn’t load HTLAL.com at all. There was probably something wrong with the server. So…yes, this is my post from last night, even though it’s no longer that time.]
DAY 6: Japanese, Italian, German Anki Reviews: 522 repetitions in 30.83 minutes Kanji Reviews: 108 due; all reviewed New Kanji: (1760) 英, 映, 赤, 赦, 変, 跡, 蛮, 恋, 湾, 黄, 横, 把, 色, 絶, 艶, 肥, 甘, 紺, 某, 謀 Nooo!! Why must I always be so lazy? I started off the morning really well, and then got a bit side-tracked, a little more side-tracked, time flying…Japanese!...suddenly we’re out doing stuff again…Japanese!...lazy procrastination…Japanese!...lazy. That was my day. It should not be like this. I am going to try REALLY hard to focus tomorrow and get all caught up. I don’t like the fact that I’m already behind in my first week, and I thought that this 3.5 hours a day would be easy to apply myself to! There are two basic problems. The first is that I really want to study when I can’t at the moment--like at school, or somewhere else where it is just not (really) possible. When I’m at home or actually can study, I never want to. That’s bad. The other problem is that although I will get really into my study once I start, I have a hard time starting. I always am reluctant for some reason, even though I always enjoy it once I’ve begun. Related to this is that I am very distractible and always have lots of interruptions, which will derail my momentum. I need to find ways to fix these issues. Today I did not even quite an hour of Japanese (I actually did more than that, but I didn’t feel that it deserved to be counted) study. I finished the lesson I started on my last Japanese study day and wrote out the vocabulary for the next one, and began to read through. Cue interruption. (See what I mean?!) Besides that failed attempt at Japanese study, my only actual achievement was learning 20 kanji today, which I should have started doing a while ago so that I can catch up to my schedule (I should be at #1830…I’m only, you know, 60 behind). I was going to try to stay up late to finish all of my study, but I am tired and it’s just not going to happen. All I can hope for is that tomorrow isn’t going to have another surprise four-hour pointless tour around town so that I can focus on doing all this stuff that I should have done earlier. So for tomorrow, I will need to do: - Swedish: 2.5 hours - Greek: 1 hour - Japanese: 1 hour - Italian: 1 hour - German: 40 minutes - French: 30 minutes Oh my. Can I do it? Well, I’d better! Time to go to sleep and let’s pray that Thursday will be nice to me. :) お休みなさい。Buonanotte. Gute Nacht. P.S. While I’m waiting for this page to load, because there seem to be some sort of connectivity issues, I might mention that I got a shiny new phone today (even though I don’t use phones ever) and I can access the Internet on it—meaning that I can now do Anki and kanji reviews even when I’m not at a computer if need be. How exciting. Edited by ellasevia on 09 June 2010 at 5:15am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 5940 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 11 of 242 04 June 2010 at 8:18am | IP Logged | ||
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DAY 7: Swedish, Greek, French
Anki Reviews: 785 repetitions in 45.54 minutes Kanji Reviews: 89 due; all reviewed New Kanji: (1780) 媒, 欺, 棋, 旗, 期, 碁, 基, 甚, 勘, 堪, 貴, 遺, 遣, 舞, 無, 組, 粗, 租, 祖, 阻 Just moments ago I finished my two and a half hours of Swedish. Wow, that was really tiring. The lesson from SEGR was really long, in terms of both translating the beginning text and for vocabulary (about 100 words). At least I am now done with catching up on Swedish for this eight-day week...but I cannot say the same for all of the other stuff I was supposed to do. However, since I put so much time into this lesson and translating the beginning text (I'm leaving the end translation for my next Swedish day, since I've now run out of time and I'm tired), I am going to post it here to show my handiwork: Original Swedish: En ny förort Eva Andersson och hennes föräldrar bor, liksom mer än hälften av stockholmarna, i en av Stockholms förorter. De hyr en lägenhet på tre rum och kök i Skärholmen, som är en av de största av de välplanerade förorterna runt Stockholm. Skärholmen ligger på historisk mark och är rikt på fornfynd och gamla minnesmärken. Vikingarna byggde sig en fästning här för att försvara segelleden till Birka, och år 1521 slog Gustav Vasas dalkarlar upp sitt vinterläger här under befrielsekriget. Under Stormaktstiden uppfördes en herrgård, och på platsen för Skärholmens nuvarande centrum låg för inte så länge sedan fridfulla bondgårdar och torp. Det tar Eva tjugofem minuter att komma hem med tunnelbana från biblioteket i stan. När hon kommer ut ur tunnelbanan befinner hon sig plötsligt i ett bilfritt shoppingcentrum med snabbköp, varuhus och roliga butiker som lockar henne att dröja sig kvar på hemvägen. Detta är Skärholmens affärscentrum, som är samlingspunkten för förortsborna i sydvästra Storstockholm. Här ligger till exempel banker och postkontor, läkarhus och apotek, pastorsexpedition och arbetsförmedlingen. Arkitekterna har lyckats skapa en trevlig miljö för alla med skolor, kyrkor, ungdomslokal och pensionärshotell. Stora områden har planlagts för promenader, lek och idrott. För dem som önskar roa sig finns det biograf och restauranger. Eva behöver inte gå långt för att komma hem. Till sin bostad brukar hon komma med hiss från affärscentrum. Familjen Andersson bor på sjunde våningen och från balkongen har de en underbar utsikt över skog och sjö. Husen i Skärholmen smälter naturligt in i omgivningen, och Evas föräldrar, som flyttat hit från ett litet samhälle i Småland, tycker att det nästan är som att bo på landet. Familjen Andersson bor mycket bekvämt i sin lägenhet. Den är visserligen inte så stor, men den är hypermodern med centralvärme och sopnedkast, ett välutrustat kök och badrum med dusch. Den lättskötta lägenheten uppskattas särskilt av Evas mor, som arbetar som bibliotekarie på Skärholmens stadsbibliotek. Hennes far tycker också det är bra att bo bekvämt och ha nära till arbetet. På tio minuter hinner han gå till grundskolan, där han är lärare i svenska och historia. Hela familjen Andersson trivs jättebra med att bo i en förort. My English Translation: A new suburb Eva Andersson and her parents live, like more than half of Stockholmers, in one of Stockholm’s suburbs. They rent an apartment comprising three rooms and a kitchen in Skärholmen, which is one of the biggest of the well-planned suburbs around Stockholm. Skärholmen is located on historic ground and is rich in archaeological finds and old monuments. The Vikings built themselves a fortification here in order to defend the channel to Birka, and in 1521 Gustav Vasa’s Dalecarians set up their winter quarters here during the war of independence. During the Age of Greatness a mansion was built, and not too long ago where Skärholmen’s current center lies were peaceful farms and crofts. It takes Eva twenty-five minutes to come home by subway from the library in the city. When she comes out from the subway she suddenly finds herself in a pedestrian only shopping center with supermarkets, department stores, and amusing store which entice her to linger behind on the way home. This is Stockholm’s business center, which is the focal point for the suburban dwellers in southwest Greater Stockholm. Here there are, for example, banks and post offices, medical centers and pharmacies, parish offices, and employment agencies. The architects have succeeded in creating a pleasant environment for all the schools, churches, youth centers, and retirement homes. The big areas have been designed for walking, games, and athletics. For those who wish to enjoy themselves there is a movie theatre and restaurants. Eva doesn’t need to go far to come home. She is in the habit of coming by elevator from the business center to her residence. The Andersson family lives on the seventh floor and from the balcony the have a wonderful view of the forest and lake. The houses in Skärholmen melt naturally into the surroundings, and Eva’s parents, who moved here from a small town in Småland, think it is almost like living in the country. The Andersson family lives very comfortably in their apartment. It certainly isn’t very big, but it is ultra-modern, with central heating and a garbage chute, a well-equipped kitchen and a bathroom with a shower. The easy-to-manage apartment is especially appreciated by Eva’s mother, who works as a librarian at Skärholmen’s municipal library. Her father also thinks it’s good to live comfortably and to be near to work. In ten minutes he has time to go to the elementary school, where he is a Swedish and history teacher. The whole Andersson family very much enjoys living in the suburbs. Can we see now why this took me a while? Well, moving on... Today I also finished my hour of Japanese. I typed up the vocabulary for lesson 19 and read through most of the lesson, but since I was at the dentist's office (can you believe it--another medical appointment...and I have another tomorrow!), I kept having distractions. I'm now learning about relative clauses, which...well, we'll just say they are not currently my friends. I got a bit tired of doing that, so I then started the Michel Thomas Advanced Japanese course over again (I did that in December) and listened to the first ten lessons or so, transcribing each sentence as I listened. That was really easy, but it was review and also a brain break compared to the monstrosity of what I was doing before. In addition to that, I did my Greek and German. I did all of my Greek vocabulary from the Νέα Ελληνικά lesson, and finished with twelve extra minutes. I'll use that tomorrow to add some vocabulary into Anki. For German, I took my grammar book and rode my bike to a nearby park and did the chapter on the genitive case while sitting on a swing. Very fun. I also added all the new words from that chapter and the one on the dative case to Anki. I didn't get around to my Italian or French, but I learned 20 kanji (yay!) and did a bunch of extra Anki reviews so that I won't have any to do tomorrow. Exciting. I was going to post a picture this amusing note I wrote to myself last night on my dry erase board, but it's took late now. Maybe tomorrow. Tomorrow, I have the following planned: - Iberian: 2 hours - Italian: 1.5 hours - Japanese: 1 hour - French: 30 minutes - Greek: 12 minutes That's much more manageable. If I finish all of that early enough I'll reward myself by getting to do some Georgian/Hungarian/Finnish/Arabic/Turkish (whatever I feel like) study and/or watching an episode of El Internado. Yay, motivation. :D God natt! Καληνύχτα! Bonne nuit! Edited by ellasevia on 04 June 2010 at 4:45pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 5940 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 12 of 242 05 June 2010 at 6:34am | IP Logged | ||
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DAY 7: Iberian, Japanese, Italian
Anki Reviews: ~175 in ~10 minutes Kanji Reviews: 97 due; all reviewed New Kanji: (1790) 査, 助, 宜, 畳, 並, 普, 譜, 湿, 顕, 繊 I think I needed a break from studying. Either that or I just have SERIOUS concentration issues. In the morning before my most recent doctor's appointment, I did my Anki and kanji reviews and did an hour of Japanese. For the latter, I studied the vocabulary from the last lesson (on medical care), finished reading the grammar explanations, typed up the lesson's dialogue into real Japanese script, and did the same with some earlier lessons which I hadn't done it for. Then I was just starting to do some Italian, but...doctor time! After the appointment, I got really lazy and apparently lost all motivation to study. I went out for a short bike ride and listened to a lesson of LearnItalianPod, so I guess that could count towards Italian time, but I didn't really learn anything new, so I wasn't going to. I also then shadowed some Georgian. When I came back I was still feeling unmotivated so I just put on an episode of El Internado--after all, it's Spanish practice. It was the second-to-last episode of the fourth season, and it was leaving a bunch of stuff hanging, so I just had to watch the next one. Wow, I just love that show. It was pretty funny, because at the end it shows a guy who you have assumed is dead waking up and walking out of a strange hut on a beach with 'exotic, foreign-looking' people. The people start talking to the guy (who is Spanish), and suddenly subtitles in Spanish appear on the screen...but I could understand them anyways! “Δημήτρη, έλα! Ξύπνησε!” (Dimitri, come! He woke up!) It was in Greek. :) After that I kept meaning to do some more study, but I was just not in the mood. Later on I just pulled out my copy of Teach Yourself Finnish and was reading from that for a bit. I would like to allow myself to flirt with some of these other interesting languages a bit, but I’m afraid that if I start spending time learning vocabulary (creating lists in BYKI or Anki, for example), I’ll start to feel obligated to continue and then will have to start studying full-on. Problematic… Tomorrow I have an SAT II for World History. It shouldn’t be too hard compared with the AP World History test I just took in the middle of May, but nonetheless I will go to sleep now in order to feel rested for it. Tomorrow I will also not have access to the computer at all, so I probably will not get anything done (even though the computer actually plays a minimal role in my studying, I feel that its presence is necessary for some reason). I’m very excited to see all of my kanji and Anki pile up. Well, Day 1 will start again on Sunday, and we’ll see if I’ll be able to get myself to work. ¡Buenas noches! Boa noite! お休みなさい！ Buonanotte! EDIT: This was originally that horrible, mistake-laden post I attempted to write from my phone, so I've rewritten it in order to make it legible and to give more details. Edited by ellasevia on 06 June 2010 at 11:58pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 5940 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 13 of 242 07 June 2010 at 5:59am | IP Logged | ||
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Okay, I am just going to admit failure and move on.
Yesterday I did almost nothing, just as I predicted. Instead I took the SAT test, then spent some time with friends afterwards, then did a little baking with yummy results, and then we went to a dinner party. To that dinner party I brought several books, wrongly thinking that I would actually find time and space to study. But one of those books was my Georgian book, and when people were asking me about what I was reading, I held up the books and they all kept asking "What's Georgian? Where is that spoken?" I really have been surprised how many times I've heard that lately since I've been dabbling in it. Today the computer was back (but not until late in the morning and it seems that if I am to begin work and be concentrated I have to start early), so theoretically I could have done tons and tons of stuff. But alas, being the lazy procrastinator that I am, I did not do anything AT ALL. Maybe it was just a bad idea starting with my intensive schedule immediately after school got out...should I have given myself a few days to cool off? Ah, well I've now taken those days off as yesterday and today (and partly Friday too). Today I watched an episode of El Internado (that show needs to stop being so addictive), so I guess it could count as Spanish practice. Oh, and today they were speaking a bunch of German in there too. I had a ton of Anki and kanji reviews piled up and I really did not feel motivated to go through all of them. I'm frankly quite sick of all this kanji nonsense at the moment and just want to be done. Actually I was seriously considering just cramming the last couple hundred characters within the next few days and not even bothering with the reviews until I'm done with the book. Then I would work on the reviews later on. It seems like both a really good and really bad idea at the same time--does anyone have some advice on this? (Don't say that I should just give myself a break from kanji, because I really, really, really just want to be done with kanji by the time I leave for Africa and only want to have to deal with some reviews when I get back.) Anki is manageable, just extremely boring. Apart from all of the other negative aspects of this wasted day, I did learn something valuable about myself. Someone in another thread posted a link to a website called structuredprocrastination.com, which had some amusing essays which I related to immensely. The main idea of them was that procrastinators perpetually put off what they perceive to be the most important thing on their mental list of obligations, and instead focus on what they think of as less important tasks as a way of avoiding the more important things. You should read the essay (and the one about procrastination and perfectionism while you're at it; they're not long at all), if only because they're pretty funny. In the essay the author proposes a method for us procrastinators to harness this character flaw and turn it into a positive quality. All we need to do is find something that seems important but really isn't, and make that our top priority. Then we'll do all of the less important things willingly. Hmmm... Maybe I'll just need to make a mess of my room and keep thinking about how I need to clean it up or something. This is when I wish I had more summer homework that I could use to put off. For the rest of the evening I'm just going to try to do all my Anki and as many kanji reviews as possible. Tomorrow, then, I will initiate my schedule again from Day 1, with Swahili, Swedish, and Greek. However, tomorrow is the first day of my driving class (gasp--a thing that seems big and important but isn't actually), so maybe I'll just smuggle some books in--a friend who was also forced to do this last summer told me that she just took her Icelandic book with her and read the whole time and no one noticed or cared. Okay, that concludes the news from these two horribly and embarrassingly unproductive days. Good night. EDIT: So I'm done for the night now and I was able to review ALL of my Anki and ALL of my kanji. How? Well, I must have something in my head listed as a higher priority than that now. Or something like that. So I did 644 Anki reviews in 32.62 minutes and I did all 203 kanji reviews, although there were quite a few failed cards. That's all for now, folks! Edited by ellasevia on 07 June 2010 at 7:57am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 5940 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 14 of 242 08 June 2010 at 7:51am | IP Logged | ||
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[This post was overly negative, so I've edited it to remove all of the irrelevant and nasty parts, and also to shorten it up. It was pretty much just a big rant about how I was very frustrated with everything lately and how I was on the verge of a mental breakdown, with the waste-of-time driving class as the last straw. In it I had also decided to take some time off from studying, but since that was then canceled in the following post that has also been removed. It now only includes more relevant stuff.]
Lately I have been feeling rather frustrated at my lack of time and/or motivation to work on languages. When I have time, I don't really want to work, and when I'm pent up in that silly driving class I really want to work! I've also been having a lot of Anki and kanji reviews lately, not to mention the fact that I'm very much behind on my new kanji studying... Returning to what this log is actually about now, I did my Anki reviews (676 in 35.96 minutes) and reviewed six of 98 due kanji. In my free time at my class today I translated the ending text of my SEGR lesson, but I think that it needs serious improvement. I also went through some of a Spoken World Swahili lesson and shadowed some more Georgian. I'm going to try to work hard to be productive in the next few days despite the lack of time because of that driving class. Usiku mwema! God natt! Καληνύχτα! Edited by ellasevia on 09 June 2010 at 5:13am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 5940 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 15 of 242 08 June 2010 at 3:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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Um, yeah. Disregard that last post. I woke up this morning feeling fine. I think I just needed to do a bunch of screaming and complaining to get it all out and now I'm good again. :)
So... I will be doing Day 1 today (finishing up the amounts that I didn't do yesterday) and then Day 2 as well, presuming I have time. Which I WILL. Last night after I wrote that last post, I made up a list of activities to do for "Sanity and Happiness Restoration Week." I wanted to make a diverse set of things to do that don't have to do with languages. However, I was finding it hard to think of things, because they're all, well, boring! I will do a couple, because I have been meaning to do something like that anyways (eg, plant something for my room). The others I am just going to do only if I really want to (unlikely), and then study languages the rest of the time. I think I was looking at everything all wrong. I not should be thinking of this driving class as a useless waste of time (even though it is), but rather as a slingshot for motivation. During the class I am restrained and prevented from doing what I want, so my motivation builds, so that when I get home I can be very productive. Okay, I will try my hardest today to be productive! I hope no other message like my previous one will have to show up again here any time soon. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| darkwhispersdal Senior Member Wales Joined 5838 days ago 294 posts - 363 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Ancient Greek, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese, Latin | Message 16 of 242 08 June 2010 at 7:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've taken up Tai Chi and Kung Fu to break up my language learning schedule and they are great ways of getting rid of stress.
Also don't get so hung up on not making your objectives on a particular day it'll only stress you out and make you procrastinate more. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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