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BAnna’s TAC 2014 Spaß-Lobo-IndRussian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4531 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes  Studies: German | Message 129 of 236 21 January 2014 at 9:16am | IP Logged | ||||||||
You only had *one* meltdown. Lucky you. I remember having a classic meltdown with my wife after watching an episode of Tatort in a bar in May. I remember using the words "Deutsch" and "Zeitverschwendung" quite a bit. :) For German, if you have limited time, perhaps the best way to spend it would be to just keep reading and watching movies. It's going to be a lot less stressful than say learning grammar actively, and people I know who are at C2 say that there is really no need to worry about the grammar too much. It will come, you just have to keep consuming, consuming, consuming the language. At this point I am just reading books I want to read, and watching movies/tv that I want to see. The lazy way to language mastery! Edited by patrickwilken on 21 January 2014 at 9:20am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5980 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 130 of 236 21 January 2014 at 9:31am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I've been trying to juggle three languages too, and it's just not working for me either. If
I've had 8 hours sleep and didn't have to go to work it seems ok, but those conditions never come round often enough. I seem to have a meltdown every 3 weeks or so at which point I switch emphasis from one language to another. But I feel I'm not sticking to anything long enough to make real progress. 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 131 of 236 21 January 2014 at 10:05am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Apparently more than one person feels and goes through the same things. Just read any log these days. Maybe we should embrace our meltdowns and temptations, and move on like good athletes. I mean, there have been people learned in many languages throughout history, so it's doable. My ego refuses to give in to laziness, and fail where others have succeeded. To paraphrase an ancient greek general : Their success doesn't let me rest.
We just have to do it in our own way. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| BAnna Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4620 days ago 409 posts - 616 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Turkish | Message 132 of 236 22 January 2014 at 4:06am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Thanks so much everyone for your insights, suggestions and commiseration. We are really so fortunate to have
this forum as a source of encouragement from folks sharing the same experience. @AlOlaf, oh yes, the obsession is great until that certain point when it isn't anymore and the exhaustion and alienation you mentioned set in. No fear, I will never give up learning German. I love the language too much, no matter how frustrated I may get at times. What you've been doing with Danish looks really cool too, but I think Russian is going to keep me busy for the next several years (or decades?). And patrickwillen, gbod, and renaissancemedi, it's very comforting to know the meltdowns are just part of being human while trying to make progress up the mountain. Wouldn't it be great though, to not to get to the point where the inner Ogre/Ogress takes over (or its opposite, the "Innerer Schweinehund", the lazy dog who is content to lie on the floor and get his belly scratched, --what is the language learning equivalent of that?). To your point, patrickwillen, I think part of the problem when I was doing the routine of studying each language every day is that I never had enough time to really enjoy content in a particular language because I still had to go study one or both of the other ones, so I couldn't really enjoy anything. And the transition times were killing me. There is definitely some mindset change and warm up time required to switch between languages. I've only done the alternating for the last two days, so it's too early to tell yet, but so far, so good. I'll outline below what I'm trying and update in future on this experiment. I look forward to reading in your logs what you're doing to try and make things work. What I will avoid is reading the logs of those people who study some ungodly number of languages seemingly effortlessly or those who report they simultaneously review anki cards in Mandarin and walk a tightrope over a waterfall, while composing poetry in Ancient Sumerian or something along those lines. Those just make me feel like a hopeless dolt. Not helpful. Mon, Wed, Fri will be Russian days. The plan is to do formal studying of a single lesson and if I have time, I'll look at or listen to native content. Tues, Thurs., Sat will be German days. My goal will be to read or watch native content and if I have time, do some formal studying. Spanish: basically every day I'll do what I've always done, namely talk to family and watch TV or listen to music, but Sunday will be the day set aside to do some grammar exercises or read something challenging or learn some uncommon words or regional expressions. I've gotten along in Spanish forever without doing any formal study, but that particular lazy dog is going to start getting a bit more exercise. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4531 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 133 of 236 22 January 2014 at 10:10am | IP Logged | ||||||||
In my old lab, my boss would always talk about 'switch costs'. He strongly believed that it took half an hour or so to warm up to a task, so it was much more efficient to do one task for an extended period of time. I don't know how true that is, but I have been actively trying to remove English from my life (HTLAL is a stubborn exception) as I find that if I do English for any period of time my German drops dramatically. I can only imagine what it would be like if I was switching between different languages (esp. those I was not C1 in). Learning on alternative days sounds like a good idea. I hope it works for you. Edited by patrickwilken on 22 January 2014 at 10:11am 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 134 of 236 22 January 2014 at 2:32pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Accepting that meltdowns (or any other bad stuff) are a natural part of a process will always make everything easier, but OTOH it may also lead one to accommodate and progress unnecessarily slowly, yes. Sure blisters will make your pace slower, but they're not inevitable -- you can take regular rests along your march, use good shoes, or both... not too hard to translate to language learning and remedy, as you found out. That other bad end of the spectrum, the lazy dog, is long-time immigrants who are happy to get by in their daily lives and stop ever making any progress because they get however little they wanted. Self-complacency is really hard to avoid, but I'd say knowing it's there is half the work.
And don't forget juggling a dozen forty- pound sacks of thulium granules on their left hand -- it's all a piece of cake without that :) My experience... the key here is not to compare to others who may be way too ahead, but to oneself --how did I do last time? how did I do today? why?-- and slowly adjust one's rhythm so that every time one can do at least as much as the previous one. Bad routine adds to itself and feels like a burden that slowly grows until some day you just can't go on (been around the block a few times) -- good routine lets you rest enough to adjust, and that's how people grow stronger. How much stronger can / do you want to be? Now that's up to you, but don't be too surprised if one day somebody walks up to you and asks you how you can juggle all those sacks on your left hand while doing your studies ;)
Except for the 'half an hour' part, I'd say switch costs are very real and often overlooked / underestimated. But the good news is, we usually make them bigger and longer than necessary, and that's something you can work on, too. Unless you're some kind of natural born switcher, switching from A to B is yet another task at which you'll get better trough practice! An extreme example is those Shaolin monks who can go from total relax to a state equivalent of thirty minutes of physical warm-up exercise in a blink (I'm talking guys connected to an electrocardiogram machine, not some mystical BS) -- discouraging? Again, only if you choose to let it be so! I'm no sports champ, but when I took up swimming again you would have laughed at how I stopped just a second every day right before jumping in to start, and then how I shirked and slacked through the warm-up so I wouldn't be too tired for the real exercise. In a matter of months, now I just jump in, swim 300 metres and wait for the monitor to come and assign us our tasks for the day. And it's not that different with mental activities. I think the goal here should be to find out what the minimum time spent on each type of task is effective for you, and work on the switching until you get that to a minimum, so you can get a faithful idea of what you can and cannot due on every occasion -- Do a thorough self-assessment, and spend your energy on what works for you so it builds up, and avoid whatever may be good for nothing or even work against you. Turns out you cannot read if you're not sitting comfortably by the fireplace at home? Stop carrying books around! You can do flash cards in 5 minute commutes across stations? Keep them with you and do it! Etc., etc. I just hope this helps a bit, because it took bloody ages to write it semi-coherently. At least, can I count it as ESL writing practice? :) Edited by mrwarper on 24 January 2014 at 2:04am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| BAnna Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4620 days ago 409 posts - 616 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Turkish | Message 135 of 236 23 January 2014 at 3:50am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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MrW, thanks for your contribution to the discussion. I look forward to following your log, especially as some of
our languages overlap. You raise some good points. I realized that it is quite easy to transition in a situation such as the following: I'm on the bus and exchange pleasantries with my seatmate in English, then turn to read my book in German, and after a few minutes my cell phone rings and I speak to my husband in Spanish. No sweat, because these are strong areas for me in those languages. However, when concentrating on mastering a new or incompletely learned grammar point or observing a pattern in a particular language, switching over to do that "noticing work" in another language is harder and perhaps even not optimal to retention because my brain needs time to process the pattern. I then do goofy things like write a sentence in Spanish with a verb following the German word order...Or keep pronouncing words in Russian that start with "st" like the German "sht". This is just armchair theorizing on my part, of course. I unfortunately don't have access to an electroencephalograph to see what my brain is actually doing ;) As an aside, your English is very nearly perfect. There are a couple of typos in your post (I'm sure there are many more in some of mine), but since you made the effort to post here and have kindly provided me with corrections as padrino of team lobo, I'll offer you one correction to your quite sophisticated sentence:
Minimally it should be "total relaxation", but I'd probably reword the whole thing to something like: "An extreme example is those Shaolin monks who, in the blink of an eye, can go from a state of total relaxation to one equivalent to having done thirty minutes of warm-up exercise." It's possible that "in a blink" is a British expression, so it may be just fine, but it would sound a bit odd to an American (or maybe just to one from my region). I think moving the time expression would emphasize it a bit more. I omitted "physical" because the context makes it clear what kind of exercise is being referenced, so it would be redundant. The curse of the native speaker is to know what sounds right, but being unable to explain why. Studying other languages is actually expanding my knowledge of my own language. For example, as a "help" to remember the Russian word for train station, "вохсал" the British book I'm using said how easy this would be to remember, just like "Vauxhall", a word I'd never heard of...turns out it's a well-known area of London and somehow the first train station in Russia was named after it. For the story, see section under Etymology in the Vauxhall Wikipedia entry: Vauxhall 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| BAnna Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4620 days ago 409 posts - 616 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Turkish | Message 136 of 236 26 January 2014 at 10:08pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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26 January-Enero-Januar-январь 2014 Very long post, sorry...
Cool stuff I found this week so you can skip all the blather below: The first is presseurop (articles in a variety of European languages) Article in Spanish by Savater europa">El desconcierto de Europa German: Irreverent blog about vocab and grammar: German is Easy! Russian Worksheets Russian Worksheets It is said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. From stifa's log, I am copying the idea of posting in English, then the content into German and Spanish. The translations may not be literal but I hope to communicate the same content. I cannot do it at all in Russian yet. And following the examples in other people's logs, I am separating the updates by language. I unfortunately cannot remember on whose log I first saw this idea, but it is a good one. My apology for not giving the unknown person whose idea this originally was proper acknowledgement and thanks. Firstly, I can report that the change to studying different language on different days seems to be working out so far. I am now able to study while getting enough sleep and have a more satisfying personal life with less stress. My progress may be slower, but it's hard to tell yet how it will end up. If it does end up being slower, that will be ok. Learning German and Russian, and improving my Spanish is not an emergency. Russian-Русский I am making progress, slow though it may be. I can recognize some words automatically without having to think at all. I saw a poignant film, "In the Dark", about a blind man and his cat. From it I learned a few words suitable for insulting a cat :) Actually I like cats, but am allergic to them. I was waiting in line yesterday and the people behind me were speaking Russian, and I was excited that I could pick out a few simple words, such as "and/и", "good/хорошо", and "very/очень". Not much, but it is a beginning. German-Deutsch Based on the corrections provided by Josquin (thank you) as a starting point, I am again reviewing reflexive verbs and the subjunctive. I am also finishing up the last couple of chapters of the text most recently used which has some sections on Konjunktiv II, passive voice, etc. (Berlinerplatz 3-B1). I am extensively reading "Kitchen", originally written in Japanese and translated into German. An interesting word in that book was "erliegen", a dative verb that means to succumb to. I had the impression that many or most verbs starting with er- were accusative, but am not sure about that? At the same time, I am intensively reading "Elsa Ungeheuer" , Elsa the Monster, a comic novel and also am listening to the audiobook. From this book I learned a few words suitable for insulting people, but I would only make enemies thereby...something I would not like to do. My boss will be making a presentation in Switzerland and asked me to write an introduction for her in German. One of my skype partners was kind enough to help me with corrections. The most difficult expression was "Supply Chain Management". She had some good ideas of how to word this, but since my company's German-language site had "Supply Chain Management", I ended up leaving the wording in English (or maybe Denglish would be the more correct term?) Spanish-Español So now I am only studying Spanish on Sundays, but use it in my everyday life the rest of the time and read during the week when I have time. I need to be careful and monitor if this schedule is conducive to my improvement. I am continuing to focus on the subjunctive, (what seems to be my current "favorite" topic), and just started a text with cd, "Dominio" for level C1. I took a somewhat bogus online test of my Spanish level and the recommendation was that I take a C level class. So far I am only on the first lesson, but it seems to be about right. It started with an essay by Fernando Savater. Some items seem easy, others very challenging. My husband is already tired of helping me. I will probably need to post the writing assignments to Lang8 or even hire a tutor. One of the writing assignments is to write a 200-word letter to the editor on the question "Where does individual freedom begin and end?" That will undoubtedly take quite some time. NOTE: If you are a native speaker, Godparent, good fairy, fellow learner, etc., please do not feel compelled to correct everything or even anything at all written in the following rewording into German and Spanish. The process itself was worth doing as an exercise. I welcome corrections, but I wrote way, way too much ... If you do notice any general patterns in the mistakes, your pointing those out alone would be more than enough, and I very much appreciate your generosity in calling my attention to those general patterns as I will use them to guide the direction of future study. Unfortunately we are often all too blind to our own errors. BTW, anyone with suggestions of how to say "log" , "extensive/intensive reading" or "Supply Chain Management" in German and/or Spanish, I'd love to hear your ideas There is an awful lot of Spanglish and Denglisch out there. Thank you in advance, and now on to the butchery of two beautiful languages... Zusammenfassung auf Deutsch Es wird gesagt, dass Nachahmen die aufrichtigste Form der Schmeichelei ist. Mit Stifas Log als Vorbild, mache ich die Idee nach, Beiträge zuerst auf Englisch zu verfassen, dann die ins Deutsche und Spanische zu übersetzen. Die Übersetzungen mögen nicht wortwörtlich das Gleiche sind, aber ich vermute, den gleichen Inhalt mehr oder weniger zu mitteilen. Noch nicht kann ich das auf Russisch erledigen. Nach Beispielen, die ich in den Logs anderer Leuten gefunden habe, teile ich auch die Aktualisierungen nach Sprachen ab. Leider kann ich mich nicht erinnern woran ich zum ersten Mal diese Idee gesehen habe oder wessen Log es war aber ich finde es eine gute Idee. Ich entschuldige mich dafür, dass ich die unbekannte Person deren Idee ursprünglich es war nicht richtig anerkennt und bedankt habe. Zuerst, kann ich berichten, dass, so weit ich es beurteilen kann, die Veränderung sich gelohnt hat, verschiedene Sprachen an verschiedenen Tagen zu studieren. Mit weniger Stress kann ich jetzt lernen, und inzwischen genug schlafen und sogar ein zufriedenes Privatleben genießen. Es mag sein, mein Fortschritt wird langsamer als vorher, aber ich weiß noch nicht was das Ergebnis sein wird. Es würde auch völlig in Ordnung sein, wenn es langsamer wäre. Deutsch- und Russischlernen, und die Verbesserung meiner Spanischerkenntnis ist kein Notruf. Russisch Ich mache Fortschritte, wenn auch langsam. Ich kann automatisch ohne denken eigene Wörter erkennen. Ich habe einen berührenden Film "In der Dunkelheit" gesehen, über einen blinden Mann und seine Katze. Aus diesem Film habe ich gelernt. einige Worte geeignet für die Beleidigung einer Katze. :) Tatsächlich gefallen mir Katzen, aber ich bin allergisch gegen sie. Gestern wartete ich auf einer Schlange und das Paar hinter mir Russisch gesprochen hatten. Zu meiner Freude könnte ich einige Wörter begreifen, z. B "und/и", "gut/хорошо", und "sehr/очень". Aller Anfang ist schwer. Deutsch Aus den Korrekturen Josquins (Danke) als Startpunkt, sehe ich die reflexiven Verben und den Konjunktiv noch einmal durch. Ich beende auch das Lehrbuch (Berlinerplatz 3-B1), das ich gerade benutzt habe, das einige Übungen mit Konjunktiv II und Passiv, usw. enthielt. Ich lese ausgiebig das Buch "Kitchen", das ursprünglich auf Japanisch geschrieben und ins Deutsche übersetzt wurde. Ein interessantes Wort im Buch war "erliegen," ein Verb, dass Dativverb ist und "succumb to" bedeutet. Ich glaube die meisten Verben die mit er- anfangen, Akkusativ brauchen? Gleichzeitig lese ich intensiv "Elsa Ungeheuer", einen scherzhaften Roman und höre auch das Audiobuch. Aus diesem Buch, habe ich eigene Wörter, geeignet für die Beleidigung die Menschen gelernt, aber ich würde nur Feinden dabei machen...was ich überhaupt nicht wolle. Meine Chefin macht eine Präsentation in der Schweiz und hat mir gefragt eine Vorstellung auf Deutsch zu verfassen. Einer meinen Skype-Partnerinnen hat mir geholfen bei Korrekturen. Der schwierigste Ausdruck war "Supply Chain Management". Sie hatte einige gute Ideen wie Versorgungskettenmanagement, aber denn die deutsche Webseite meiner Firma enthielt den Begriff "Supply Chain Managment", habe ich schließlich für den englischen Ausdruck entschieden. Oder vielleicht wäre es besser gesagt, der Ausdruck auf "Denglisch" gelassen? Spanisch Nun lerne ich Spanisch nur sonntags, obwohl ich täglich es verwende und lese in der Woche wenn ich Zeit habe. Ich soll vorsichtig sein und beobachten ob dieser Plan mir hilft zu verbessern. Lerne ich weiter um Konjunktiv, was mein Lieblingsthema erscheint zu sein, und habe gerade ein Lehrbuch mit CD "Dominio" für Niveau C1 angefangen. Ich bestand eine ungenaue Prüfung am Internet, die mir Niveau C1 empfohlen hatte. Soweit habe ich nur an das erste Kapitel gearbeitet. Es begann mit einem Essay von Fernando Savater. Die Aufgaben erscheinen mir ziemlich gut. Es gibt Dinge, die leicht sind und andere, die sehr herausfordernd sind. Mein Mann ist schon leid, mir zu helfen. Ich werde wohl die Schreibaufgaben auf Lang8 stellen oder vielleicht einen Nachhilfelehrer suchen. Einer der Schreibaufgaben ist einen 200-Wort Brief zu einem Zeitung-Redakteur schreiben über die Frage "Wo fängt an und endet die individuelle Freiheit?" Das wird gewiss viel Zeit brauchen. Resumen en Español Se dice que la imitación es la forma más sincera de adulación. Por eso, usando el log de stifa como modelo, imitaré la idea de escribir primero en inglés, y luego traducirlo al alemán y al español. Puede ser, que las traducciones no serian literal, pero espero que se puedan comunicar el mismo contenido. Todavía no lo puedo hacer en ruso. Y siguiendo el ejemplo de los logs de otras personas, me estoy separando las actualizaciones por idioma. Desafortunadamente, no recuerdo cuyo log era, adonde he visto por primera vez esta idea, pero es buena. Pido disculpa, que no haza bien reconocido y agradecido a la persona desconocida cuya idea esa era al principio. Primero, debo informarles que según lo que he experimentado hasta ahora, el cambio de horario valió la pena. Es decir, estudiar lenguas diferentes en días diferentes de la semana funciona mejor. Con menos estrés puedo ahora aprender y a la misma vez dormir lo suficiente y disfrutar una vida privada satisfactoria. Es posible que progrese más lento, pero no lo sé todavía. Por si acaso el progreso sea más lento, está bien. Aprender alemán y ruso y mejorar mi español no es una situación de emergencia. Ruso Voy a gatas pero sigo adelante. Reconozco algunas palabras sin pensar. Miré una película conmovedora, "En las Tinieblas", sobre un ciego y su gata. Y resultó que aprendí algunos palabras que sirven de insultos para gatos. En realidad, me gustan los gatos, pero soy alérgica a ellos. También ayer estuve esperando en una fila y la pareja atrás de mí hablaban en ruso y me alegré que era posible comprender algunas palabritas como "y/и", "bueno/ хорошо", y "muy/очень". No es mucho, pero es algo. Alemán Basado en las correcciones de Josquin como punto de partida, me he puesto a repasar otra vez los verbos reflexivos y el subjuntivo. Termino también los últimos capítulos del libro (Berlinerplatz 3-B1) que acabo de usar y que contiene unos ejercicios sobre el subjuntivo, la voz pasiva, etcetera. Leo extensamente "Cocina", escrito originalmente en japonés y traducido al alemán. Una palabra interesante en ese libro era "erliegen", un verbo dativo que significa "sucumbir" (No sabía tampoco como decir "succumb" en español hasta ahora, así que obtuve dos palabras por el precio de uno). A la misma vez leo intensivamente "Elsa la Monstrua" un libro de ficción cómico y escucho también el audiolibro. De este libro he aprendido algunas palabras para insultar a la gente, pero así pudiera sólo enemigos ganar, lo que no me interesa tanto. Mi jefa presentará en Suiza y ha me preguntado que escribiera yo un comienzo en alemán. Una de mis skype-socias me ayudó. La expresión más difícil era "Supply Chain Management" Lo busqué en español y encontré "Gestión de la cadena de suministro" ¿Es correcto? No tengo ni la menor idea como se lo dice en español. Ella tenía algunas ideas, pero como salió en el sitio web en alemán de nuestra compañía "Supply Chain Management", acabé usando ese termino en inglés. Español Ahora sólo estudio los domingos el español, aunque lo uso diario en la vida cotidiana. Leo también durante la semana cuando tengo tiempo. No sé si este horario sería lo suficiente. Así que debo de tener cuidado y controlar si este sea propicio para mejorar o no. Sigo enfocada en el subjuntivo, lo que en momento mi tema favorito parece. Acabo de comenzar de trabajar con un texto con cd, "Dominio" para el nivel C1. Hice una algo tonta online-prueba de español que me ha recomendado el nivel C. No he ni terminado con el primero capitulo, pero me parece bien. Comenzó con un ensayo de Fernando Savater. Algunas cosas son bastantes fáciles y otras parecen muy exigentes. Mi esposo ya está cansado de ayudarme. Creo que necesitaré poner algunos de las tareas en Lang8 o tal vez tendré que contratar a un tutor. En unas de las tareas, debo de escribir una carta de 200 palabras al director de un periódico y dar mi opinión sobre el tema "¿Dónde empieza y acaba la libertad de uno?" Creo que vaya a tardar algún tiempo. Edit: fixed some typos. Note to self: erliegen (to succumb to) takes the dative. Erlegen (to hunt something down) takes the accusative. Related, but quite different meaning. Edited by BAnna on 28 January 2014 at 9:39pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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