Reineke’s movie extravaganza
Printed From: How-to-learn-any-language.com
Forum Name: Language Learning Log
Forum Discription: Your personal language learning logbook: milestones, successes, brick walls & goals great and small. Document your progress and get support, tips and encouragement from other forum members.
URL: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=5602
Printed Date: 15 May 2021 at 6:19am
Posted By: reineke
Subject: Reineke’s movie extravaganza
Date Posted: 13 April 2007 at 11:17pm
With a pinch of literature. If I can get to it.
This started as a Japanese learning log. Since I like the idea of keeping a log I will continue writing in it but entries will be about other languages as well.
"I intend to refine my language learning methods, develop new ones and learn as much as possible. I'd like to brush up and improve on what I already know."
Yeah whatever. I edited the title. I am not really studying anything. I might be learning something along the way along the way but I'm not studying anything.
Japanese
Prior knowledge: 2 weeks of experimenting, mostly with the dictionary - therefore virtually nil.
Spanish
No prior knowledge or study. I will start with Pimsleur.
Brushing up and improving on:
http://learnalanguageortwo.blogspot.com/2009/06/tv-method-or -how-i-learned-italian.html - Italian
I will likely do a bit of everything here. It is probably my most advanced language, learned while watching TV. If you care to know how, follow the link.
French I might actually try to finish that Mauger course.
http://learnalanguageortwo.blogspot.com/2009/01/german-timel ine-and-january-09-recap.html#comments - German Learned the same way as Italian, purely by watching TV. I will start with some easy listening and later we'll see.
Of the three Italian is the strongest and German the weakest. I have spent a lot of time on and off studying these and I've studied Italian since I was a http://learnalanguageortwo.blogspot.com/2009/06/tv-method-or -how-i-learned-italian.html - wee little bairn . I can watch movies and read moderately difficult texts in German. Since I haven't done much reading in German (ever, sigh) any attempt at reading in that language feels like a major effort. That's rather unfortunate as one of my "plans" has been to read a lot in this language.
I intend to study Japanese vigorously. I have no prior knowledge, only a strong desire to learn this great language. I intend to continue studying Japanese after the six weeks are over albeit at a slower pace.
I will periodically report here on my progress or lack thereof.
My modest arsenal (Japanese)
Textbooks/Grammars:
Oxford Takeoff in Japanese + 4CDs (1 damaged @#$%**grumble**!!!)
Japanese for Busy People I
Genki I
Some 105 pages of printouts of online grammar guides and useful vocabulary
Barron's Japanese Grammar
Gene Nishi Japanese Step by Step
A Guide to Reading and writing Japanese (Tuttle Publishing)
Heisig: Remembering the Kanji
Langenscheidt Pocket Japanese Dictionary
Audio courses:
Barron's Pronounce it Perfectly in Japanese
Pimsleur complete audio course
Vocabulearn level I
NHK Basic Japanese
NHK Brush up your Japanese
Japancast mp3 podcasts 1-47
Breaking into Japanese Literature: audiobooks (7 short stories)
Other textbooks, courses etc: I'll mention them when I actually get to them.
Hardware:
Two computers hooked to 2 TVs, a 400 DVD changer, one 1TB external hard disk drive, one Zen Creative Vision M (or whatever) 30GB player, Sennheiser wireless earphones that I will most likely tape to the back of my skull for the duration of the challenge. I'd like to hear from others regarding their use of hardware in language learning. Hopefully I will not prove that fancy gadgets do not a language learner make.
Saturday, April 14
Pimsleur Japanese lesson 1
Pronounce it Perfectly in Japanese 1st lesson aiueo
Wrote some sentences and vocabulary
Brain struggling to find familiar roots
Read a little about the writing system
Learned that "banzai" means "ten thousand years". Hmmm, I think I might remove this from the title of my personal challenge.
Sunday, April 15
Pimsleur lesson 2
Reviewed the first lesson of "Pronounce it"
Barron's Master the Basics Read the chapter on word order. Wrote down all the sentences.
Tried learning some kana through Genki I and Tuttle. Pain. Tried doing both hiragana and katakana together. Bad idea.
Monday April 16
Pimsleur lesson 3
Pronounce it 1 review
Master the Basics review. Read on parts of speech. Made notes, copied sentences.
Vocabulearn track 1
Heisig: Remembering the Kana: done first 9 hiragana out of 46
Apparently Barron's "Master the basics" is the same thing as Barron's Japanese Grammar. The second one does have a few useful additions and the first one some questionnaires but otherwise wasted $$.
Tuesday, April 17
Vocabulearn track 1
Pimsleur 4
Master the basics review. Read the chapter on pronouns. Few explanations.
Reviewed some hiragana.
Goofed off.
Made hiragana flashcards.
Wednesday, April 18
Hiragana review
Pimsleur review (all 4)
Vocabulearn
Played with the dictionary most of the day. Wrote half a notebook worth of vocabulary.
Thursday, April 19
Pimsleur review - lesson 4 only
Dictionary - finishing up with my notebook. I intend to read through my notes several times.
Friday, April 20
Dictionary notes almost finished.
Moving towards Pimsleur and Takeoff in Japanese
Hiragana flashcards review
Saturday, April 21
Overdid it with the dictionary thing a little bit -
I have a notebook with some 3800 entries, but I learned a lot.
Pimsleur 5
Hiragana flashcards
Vocabulearn track 1
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Replies:
New week
Sunday, April 22
Vocabulearn track 1
Pimsleur 5
Takeoff in Japanese 1
Pronounce it 1 review
Master the basics review
Hiragana flashcards review
dictionary notes - review
I will need to put some order in my notes.
I've been reading on the 10,000 sentence method. I'll need to read some more before I try to incorporate it in a modified form. I will most likely start collecting interesting sentences from the two grammar books.
I've bought some new materials today. Walking around the mall with Pimsleur on is not very beneficial. Yesterday I fell asleep with headphones on. Not on purpose, and no, it didn't turn me into a Japanese speaker. My head buzzed for an hour afterwards. Pimsleur's rather boring but I do find it useful. Takeoff is very lively. They seem to have employed real voice actors. A lot of new vocabulary right from the start. I think the two courses complement each other nicely.
reineke on 22 April 2007
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May 06 I think I worked a couple of days after my last post but after that my computer crashed along with my course.
Back in action. Reineke's crash(ed) course in Japanese continues.
May 07 Pimsleur 1-3
May 08 Pimsleur 4-6
This is so boring that it's an incentive to study every day - so I don't have to redo the course again.
Vocabulearn track 1
Takeoff in Japanese lesson 1
reineke on 06 May 2007
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Crashed soon after takeoff. I will have to redo everything. I have peeked in other people's logs and took some comfort :) Resurrecting my efforts.
June 18, 2007
A short update, a very busy weekend (not necessarily language-wise). I managed to do 6 lessons of Japanese, 3 of Russian (Pimsleur), I did a fairly decent amount of reading in German (which felt exhausting), I saw some documentaries in German as well, and I spent some time on Italian message boards. I received a couple of rather indirect and therefore very pleasing compliments. One was in the form of a question - whether I was an Italian studying in the US on the Erasmus program. That felt good, although I'm afraid I abused my Italian too much lately. I feel guilty about my French as well. Am I doing the right thing in tackling Japanese right now? Maybe I should devote my attention to other languages first and reward myself with Japanese last. I didn't get to do any French :(
June 23 2007
Installed Screamer Internet radio tuner. It comes with a whole lot of preset stations - especially for European languages but you can also find things like Persian pop and "dance party". It's worth checking out. I love it so far as it's simple and does not come with any bloatware. Another one is XStream radio but this one is mostly music and it does not come with so many stations. Incidentally, while adding stations to my favorites list (a rather long process) I discovered a Russian audiobook station. My willingness to learn the language instantly jumped 30%.
Installed foobar2000 player. Very efficient and plays anything you throw at it.
Installed the Korean KMPlayer. Very sleek and efficient. The default setting was in Korean and that was a shock initially. Gasp!
Installed Mnemosyne. Still trying to figure out the best approach to organize my learning through that little program.
Bought even more language materials. Wife was so glad. During the past few months she has been glued to Chinese TV. Daughter has been watching Chinese cartoons and listening to Chinese music. They have soundly trounced me in the number of hours "studied".
Organizing and planning my study course. From next week on I will have a lot of free time and I intend to use it.
The past few days were not very productive. I listened to Italian radio a little and I worked a little on my (still) painful German reading. I also listened to some French. French and German feel a little squeaky. Italian does not. It will be interesting to see what's the best way to brush up on these languages.
I have done a lot of reading on Krashen. His initial idea on the silent period was some 10-12 hours. Certain proponents of this method now talk about 600-800 hours. FSI can bring a student up to level III proficiency in a level I difficulty language in about 600 hours. Now, how best to structure a "silent" 600 hour period? How well would this compare to FSI's 600 hours? I'd like to find out if Krashen changed his mind in the meantime. I also read about a study where a group of students exposed to comprehensible input for 20 hours had better comprehension than students who studied for 100 hours using other methods. This means that comprehensible input is very useful even if used for short learning stretches and one does not need to be exposed to megadoses of input to start seeing results.
A few things I cannot get out of my thick head. One is that you do not need grammar books. I did learn Italian this way, and I am a "believer" but later I also found formal grammar study rather beneficial. Krashen maintains that one can use grammar books as an ordinary course material - it does not hurt or help according to him and if it's beneficial it's more of a placebo effect. I will use grammar books in several ways. I will come back to that later.
The din effect. Krashen's din. I like the phrase and I think I know exactly what it means but I want to read on it a little bit more.
Now, my specific problem is how to costruct an enjoyable (or tollerable) and efficient course based on some the elements of comprehensible input method and a few of my own ideas. Efficient is the key word here as I can certainly mimic how I learned Italian and (to some extent) English but I'm afraid that would put the final nail in the coffin of my dreams of polyglottery. I first need to understand Krashen and his critics better as I have yawned through all my classes on the theory and methodics of teaching foreign languages. Yawn.
Before I forget - again I'd like to thank Talairan for helping me with the missing two lessons of Takeoff in Japanese. It has helped me appreciate this site and its users much better.
June 30, 2007
Listened to most of Takeoff in German in one sitting. Yawn. Bought it on impulse a while back together with Rosenberg's German, How to speak and write it thinking that I "must" finish some sort of a formal course. Boy, was that boring and it's one of the more interesting courses out there. I like the Japanese version better. I also like Rosenberg's book and all the illustrations.
Finished with Takeoff, listened to the last cd several times while shopping. That was not a very wise purchase. At least I have an idea about the course as I have an identical one for Japanese. Way to go, leaving us hanging about Susanne und Hubert! Bought some new books:
La telarana de Carlota
Harry Potter y la Orden del Fenix
Las Cronicas de Narnia
El libro de la Selva
Mi vida de Bill Clinton (don't ask)
and
Don Quijote de la Mancha
I already have a couple of Potter books in German.
July 1st 2007
Changed whatever I was able to easily change to Spanish on my computer and the "Zen" (let's call it ipod from now on). A few settings did not go into effect. I'm not gonna spend half a day trying to figure it out. Changed the homepage to Spanish Wikipedia. Doing a little more "soulsearching" (see the "Global competitiveness" thread). Listening to Pimsleur and queing up a lot of Spanish DVDs.
Sigh...
Taking a deep, zen breath.
...
Pimsleur Spanish 1-10 in one sitting.
Oxford wordpack 1-5
Topcat in Spanish (a few episodes)
Spongebob Squarepants
Some 8 hours of Spanish today.
July 3, 2007
For yesterday:
Pimsleur Spanish 11-20
I had to restart no. 20 several times. Not because it was difficult, but because I had totally zoned out. I'll add more variety.
Some vocabulary work.
Maybe some 6 hours of Spanish.
I think I'm finally in the learning mode.
I'm glad I had to dig deep for my learning log. I'm happy so many people are writing log entries as well.
reineke on 19 May 2007
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This week was uneventful. I spent a lot of the time soulsearching and experimenting. I watched cartoons in Spanish every day with my daughter. One day I will write an essay why I think cartoons are such great tools for adult language learning. I also listened to the Russian audiobook channel. I actually understood a thing or two. In reality my comprehension was rather disappointing. Anyway, hopefully next week I will get out of my Russian dilemma (more of a gridlock) and finally settle on my future language lineup. I do not intend to drop anything I "officially" adopt. Spanish is in, that's why I added it to my profile.
As for Japanese, has it been almost two months that I did not touch it? How sad.
I am pretty much a virgin learner once again. I'll redo Pimsleur, and continue with it at moderate pace. I also intend to rely heavily on Vocabulearn and word lists in the beginning. Now on to digging up my old notes...
reineke on 14 July 2007
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I don't want to interrupt your log but I think you have to slow down in the beginning since Japanese can play with your head in the beginning, plus it is easier to progress at a fast pace once you have some knowledge of the course.
tpiz on 16 July 2007
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I do appreciate helpful comments. I have been huffing and puffin' today and I decided to tackle Heisig. No putting it off until some rosy future date when I know more words/grammar etc. Right here and right now, dude! You're going down! I'm plugging in vocabulearn too, 24/7.
reineke on 16 July 2007
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sorry, by course I meant language, but hey it's not race, I just started Japanese 2 weeks ago and maybe after I've progessed far enough I will try to talk with you in Japanese. Also, try using Assimil, I think it is a really good course.
tpiz on 16 July 2007
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Ok, I can type (XP) in Japanese with Word and Wordpad but not in HTML forms like this one. Not a biggie for now but it bugs me a little.
reineke on 17 July 2007
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I had the same problem before. You have to select manually "Hiraganna" in the menu that appear next to the language bar once you select Japanese.
Asiafeverr on 17 July 2007
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ほくさい
ばしょ
草
おおおｈｈ。。。
どもありがとｍｒ。ろぼっと！！！
reineke on 17 July 2007
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Did over 80 kanji today. Listened to vocabulearn most of the day. It was a good day. I will most likely be posting much less.
reineke on 17 July 2007
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Kanji are at 200 now. Kinda disappointing, but I've been doing a few other Japanese-related things. Heisig rocks, btw, although some stories simply won't stick. Got a mnemosyne file for it. I purchased a Japanese pictionary, a storybook and the remaining 9 cds of vocabulearn. I really enjoy the pictionary, it's something I can do with my daughter and while she's learning English words I'm drilling Japanese. I also devised a pictionary of my own, looking up basic words in thematic fields that are not well covered elsewhere and coming up with pictures for them. I'm at around 500 words there and I have to say I'm amazed how well it sticks. I wouldn't bother doing it for any other language but Japanese is special in this regard. Bought breaking into Japanese literature and the Read real Japanese book. Just noting that I also bought 13 secrets to learning Japanese and Akiyama's 2001 idioms a while back.
I see an uncanny correlation between the Starbucks, Borders and Amazon shareprice and my buying binges and dry periods.
reineke on 01 August 2007
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Keep up the good work Reineke!
administrator on 01 August 2007
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Administrator, I hold you personally responsible for this latest failure. No more pats on the back, please!
Update. During the last four months I experimented for a few weeks with Russian. I abandoned that too easily. As far as my other studies are concerned, nothing happened. I watched movies here and there, mostly in Italian. It's possible I did a few other things but I honestly don't remember and this is one big reason why I'm continuing with this journal.
reineke on 17 December 2007
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Some 9 hours of German fairy tales while commuting and at work. Useful time probably around two hours. A couple of Italian movies. A few pages of Maupassant.
reineke on 23 December 2007
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You're making good, steady progress. You should try to stick with just one language more though lol. GL with furthered studies
magic9man2 on 25 December 2007
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Played with Japanese, Russian, Italian and German. Japanese mostly vocabulary, and "Learn Basic Japanese". German and Italian mostly movies. I have "sampled" so much Russian that I might as well say I'm studying it.
reineke on 07 February 2008
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A lot of Russian. Vocabulearn, random reading, often just titles of well-known classics and book reviews. Some listening. I saw several children's movies, Ilya Muromets etc and a crime miniseries Brigada. Picture dictionary. I should do some Pimsleur... Hmgrmble.
German - movies, documentaries. A pinch of French - watched an entire animated series. Italian - very little.
Japanese - ALMOST NOTHING. Vocabulearn.
Spanish - bought more material. The DK picture dictionary and two collections of children's stories.
May 2-4 2008
Oxford Picture Dictionary, Vocabulearn, Pimsleur, Teach Yourself Russian Grammar, a limited number of Russian movies repeated ad nauseam, children's books, picture books etc. and young adult literature. Internet Radio. Very limited time. Unlimited willingness to cut corners.
During the last few days I've been looping the Russian movies and listening to Russian vocabulary. I am learning vocabulary out of context and thinking of ways to tackle Japanese. One of the movies is Skazka o poteryannom vremeni (The Tale of Time Lost) which is appropriate punishment for my laziness. I am also checking out Steve's (Zhuangzi) LingQ.
I am sort of out of exercise with language learning. Ahem, actively, using "real" grammars and textbooks. I will try to refresh what I have already learned as far as Japanese is concerned, but I will tackle Russian first and likely Spanish. I can afford to make mistakes, lose time there. Making mistakes with Japanese is similar to steering a large ship, it takes a long time to notice and go back on course.
May 24 2008 Yawn. Well, so far so good. Most of my study time was really dead time or someone else's time lol. In the evenings I am too tired to pay attention, but I've been tugging at it and I can see the results. It's difficult to judge, language sort of creeps up on you. I need to sleep more. Seriously.
Pimsleur Russian I 1-16 done
16-26 need one more sweep
Vocabulearn I some 70% done. Ridiculously inefficient, at first glance. Basic vocabulary needs overlearning.
1 chapter of a Russian book - audio + Russian text 2x times
Picture dictionary + random Russian audio
Russian movie "Skazka..." - looping it over and over. It's near perfect for language learning. A few scenes with chases etc and no talk but otherwise great. My other expeditions into Russian cinema were not so successful.I'll probably turn to cartoons - the few that I can find. Later to documentaries. Slim pickings there as well, but enough for my purpose I suppose.
Bought the largest, most up-to-date dictionary I could find (Oxford).
08 September 2008
Stopped doing Pimsleur soon after my last post. Finished Vocabulearn I. I didn't do much during the past few months but I kept tugging at it - like grandpa and grandma with that turnip. Maybe I'll pull it out by January.
Tonight I finished my first Russian book.
reineke on 07 March 2008
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My “plan” for 2009
Russian: meh
Italian: uh, I guess I’ll do something
French ugh
Spanish: uh, oh
German: aarrgh!
Japanese: d’oh!
1 Sleep more
2 sleep less but use the time wisely
3 try to relax; if unsuccessful, see no.4
4 try not to burst a vessel
5 stop posting
Edit: I managed to write my 500th post. Posts 470-500 were reserved for the TAC. SOMEONE HELP ME, PLEASE!! Aaaahh!
reineke on 12 December 2008
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I don't have a chance in heck to start Japanese in 2009. Or 2010. Sigh.
Italian: TV, reading etc.
French/German
maintenance/possible upgrade
Movies, books...
German: bonus points, sugar plums and treats for every major reading effort
Russian/Spanish
Continue with vocabulary experiments
Continue with Russian.
I'm not sure I will have much time for Spanish, but I'll try.
reineke on 18 December 2008
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Japanese is going in the slow cooker.
The TAC goal remains the same - get a lot of work done in 2009.
I will periodically provide updates on my blog (link on the left side). Or not, lol. I will stop posting here.
reineke on 01 January 2009
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Mehehe, I'm a bit late. I originally stopped with my 666th post, and then after a short
relapse on the 699th. Japanese has been cooking so slowly it's by now a delicious
sukiyaki. My German is awesome. French - if Japanese is sukiyaki, then French is...
something else. Yeah. I rock.
reineke on 03 January 2011
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I think I will continue with this log. Or not. The best way to ensure failure is to make
a firm plan about something. I was able to reconstruct some of my recent efforts mainly
thanks to some of my other wailings of discontent here and that's one reason why I'm
bumping this up. My most recent efforts were related to German so I suppose I should
provide a short intro. I picked up German in the 1990's purely by accident - watching TV
from time to time. After a multi-year break I resumed consuming German content in 2009
and 2010. I am not a big believer in any method. I respect grammar and give it wide
berth.
reineke on 09 January 2011
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I have been thinking about the usefulness of keeping an accurate log of my learning
efforts (passive learning thankfully does not require much effort). If you look
at the top post on the previous page, you'll discover that it was written in 2007. So,
don't hold your breath. A language log may be motivating or depressing, depending on
circumstances. Or just plain boring. It goes against my chaotic nature. Isn't
motivation useful enough on its own? Ehhh...
reineke on 09 January 2011
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I managed to stick with German for two years. That's pretty awesome. During this time I
listened to dozens of audiobooks and I saw hundreds of hours of TV shows. I only read
maybe 20 - 30 books. At this rate I will need another two to three years before I am
comfortable with my language skills.
reineke on 10 January 2011
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I hope this site will be around for a long time. The unresponsiveness
and slow loading times don't bode well though.
reineke on 12 November 2012
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Update.
The past two years were not conducive for language learning. I can say that with clear conscience.
Japanese - nothing
Spanish - nothing
French - nothing
Italian - occasional movie
German - some audiobooks, a few movies, TV shows, documentaries etc. No substantial reading of any sort.
Russian - one audiobook, listened to repeatedly. In the past I did something similar with one movie, watching it repeatedly ad nauseam. Still no nausea with this one.
I have not made any measureable progress with German. At least I don't think so. I did a lot more in the 2009-2011 period than the previous post suggests. At intermediate-advanced stage it is difficult to measure or feel progress, especially if one is only listening to the language.
I have made a bit of a breakthrough with Russian. I was able to read a short story by Chekhov yesterday on LingQ without much difficulty.
I have updated my first post to provide links to the posts where I explain how I learned http://learnalanguageortwo.blogspot.com/2009/06/tv-method-or -how-i-learned-italian.html - Italian and later http://learnalanguageortwo.blogspot.com/2009/01/german-timel ine-and-january-09-recap.html#comments - German while watching TV.
I am now doing the same with Russian, only I am using audiobooks.
reineke on 20 November 2012
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11/19-11/22
Ryunosuke Akutagawa Racconti
La Fontaine Fables
Mann Buddenbrooks 20 tracks
C'era una volta il West
Per Un Pugno di dollari
Wrote this on pasteit. After this I didn't keep any track. Not happy with any method of keeping notes. Including actually making notes. Edited the title to reflect the fact I am not really studying anything. It's a working title. My mind is a total blank. Too much TV I guess. I remember watching that "ad nauseam" Russian movie. I was happy to notice that several scenes I was not able to understand two years ago are now crystal clear. Courtesy of listening to American pulp in Russian. Eventually I will have to look into cyrillic handwriting. Terence Hill - saw one movie in German. The shock of hearing German and not Italian was such that I was not able to follow for at least 3-4 seconds - an eternity.
reineke on 01 December 2012
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Captain!, I cannae keep her flying, I haven't got the power!
reineke on 09 January 2016
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Yes you can!
tpiz on 09 January 2016
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1/15/16 I just completed the Cervantes online placement test. The results suggest I
could be placed at C1.3-C1.4 levels.
1/17/16 I believe it's time to learn some Spanish. As of today, 1/17/2017, there is
still no such thing as "my Spanish". I have never studied this language and the little
I know is from short bursts of casual listening. I don't know how to conjugate some
very basic Spanish verbs. I don't think my C1 placement rating was a fluke though
since the test is passive and for all practical purposes I can follow the gist of
fairly advanced stories, I can read newspapers and follow TV programs. I can recognize
moods and tenses, habitual action and many other grammatical forms and patterns.
However, this level of competence is that of an impostor, a spy and a thief. The
degree of transparency is almost random. I don't know a fair number of basic words
that don't have a readily recognizable equivalent in other languages.
2/15/16 I look words up only when I am especially curious. Currently that means less
than once per week. I picked up Italian watching TV as a kid. By the time I studied it
at the university I was reading books without a dictionary. I picked up German as a
teenager in a similar manner. I opened the dictionary in each case maybe a few dozen
times. I do own several vocabulary builders. "Mastering Spanish" has created a dent in
my ottoman.
I studied French in school. Through Italian, French and English I can understand
thousands of Spanish words. I probably understand north of 10,000 words. I understand
words, phrases and expressions that have very approximate equivalents in other
languages. I am currently mapping between these languages. Given that I have a wealth
of cognates at my disposal, I am mapping more than Magellan. While I'm internalizing
the cognates I am also learning new words. Stopping to look up one word would break
the magic and slow things down.
On the list of the most common words in Spanish ranked from 9,001-10,000 I understand
easily more than half. Of the other half, I partially understand many words. Sometimes
I can recognize that a word is a a verb, that it has something to do with a negative
emotion etc but I cannot provide the exact meaning. One noun I believe to be a body
part. I would not bet on it but I might have heard it before or maybe it sounds very
much like another word that actually denotes a body part. Eventually I'll find out.
Maybe I'll just end up knowing it. Some simple words may be learned in a single
eureka-type discovery. Most often, they're not. Half-learned words may end up
forgotten or half-forgotten, relearned...
I just finished watching an episode of a lengthy anime series. We learn that the main
character, a girl, is sick. Her grandfather calls her in sick at school, the teacher
mentions it to pupils, her schoolmates discuss her illness, they go to visit her, they
say hi, offer remedies... During approximately the first 3 minutes "resfriada" was
repeated 10 times. In the latter half of the episode the word occurs 3-4 times. In the
next episode the key developments from the past episode will get summed up. That's all
the spaced repetition I need.
2/18/2016 I just clocked in 100 hours of listening to Spanish. I am mostly watching
cartoons. Maybe I keep coming back here because I like bright colors.
reineke on 18 February 2016
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Good to see you after all these years reineke!
luke on 19 February 2016
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Hey Luke, good to hear from you! How's everything? How come you did not migrate? You like
orange too?
reineke on 19 February 2016
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2/21/16 I'm almost finished with the first Torpedo album. In my memory "Torpedo 1936"
has always been a super-cool cult comic. Upon second reading, I have discovered themes
that may not be appreciated by all the readers. I looked up some vocabulary. I was
especially curious :) I have since encountered many of these words while watching
cartoons.
2/28/16 Breaking into a European language without paying attention to what I was doing
was never an issue for me. For at least two of my languages I have always only sought
pretty pictures and pretty sounds, pretty words and then pretty thoughts - language
learning was an afterthought. With others, the first thought I had after coming out of
the textbook stage was: "I can't understand what the heck they're saying". I don't
remember my second thought about the language or language learning after that.
03/07/16 One of the first expressions I heard watching Nación Z an eternity or so ago
was "rueda pinchada". I didn't have to look it up. After some 220 hours of listening I
heard it again. RAE'S CREA lists "pinchar" at 31,329th place and "pinchada" is much
lower than that. I have traveled over 1.2 million words in between.
I am mostly watching cartoons. Last night I was watching Chicho Terremoto, better
known in Italy as Gigi la Trottola. I am currently watching/reading Hugo Pratt's Corto
Maltese (Corto Maltés in Spanish). Comics are good for children and language learners.
I will soon dust off Hermann's Jeremiah and Jodorowsky's Metabarones.
I have moved from "literatura infantil" to "literatura juvenil". In practice this
means there are no more pretty pictures, or they are few and far between. The novels
are under 150 pages long.
Soon I will read Historia de la Literatura Española by Ángel del Rio. It's an easy
read. I picked up a beautiful hardcover version from Amazon for $4. The book has
probably not been touched since 1967. I am not surprised :) Books like these are a
great source of easy, descriptive, essayistic language. I also bought a Spanish-
Spanish dictionary, el Pequeño Larousse Ilustrado and Duden's pictorial dictionary. I
may play with them from time to time.
I am awaiting Basil Hall Chamberlain's Handbook of Colloquial Japanese. I am very
curious how good a job the Harvard bookstore can do with these out-of-print books that
contain funny foreign characters. The rare book editions available on Amazon are often
OCR'd garbage. All these books will contribute to the eventual collapse of my
bookshelves.
Language forums have gotten slow and stale. My new, soon-to-be-old log can be found
here:
http://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1902
¡Hasta la vista, chavales!
reineke on 07 March 2016
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Spanish (continuation)
Those baby books were the last books I read in
Spanish in 2016. However, I continued with TV
watching.
6/02/2016 I just learned "loco como una cabra" from
Gatchaman. Yeah, those guys in funny bird suits.
I also wanted to save this:
"In an attempt to summarise all the information
available, John De Jong (personal communication)
recently presented ranges of time required to reach
different levels. The 400 hours for B1 is
optimistic according to his calculations, which
suggests a range from 380 hours (fast learners) to
1386 (slow learners). For C1 the range is from
1,520 hours (fast learners) to 4,490 hours (slow
learners) which neatly straddles Takka’s estimate"
of an average of 3,000 hours. "Taking all of these
factors into account, only the person asking the
question can answer it by logging the progress of
the learners in their context. There is no simple
answer.” The CEFR in practice, p.98-100
C2 = 4600 - 12,000 hours? My freestyle diving into
native material suddenly looks very reasonable.
6/19 I have been watching mostly cartoons and live
TV including things such as the Spanish version of
"Cops," investigative journalism (sometimes
subtitled in Spanish), religious TV, commercials
(not on purpose), a bit of Galician programming,
talk shows, agriculture programming (very short - I
did catch some "bovine" references), soccer.... My
TV watching was pronunciation practice, listening,
reading and listening-while-reading all rolled into
one.
A few observations:
- Don't confuse telenovela-watching or any single
source of entertainment with live TV.
- Don't get intimidated with different regional
accents.
- Don't believe the hype: regular people and their
idiosyncrasies are perfectly intelligible after
some live TV watching. If you have trouble
following a simple life story your troubles are
likely due to general listening comprehension
issues OR the person is mixing in elements of a
dialect.
- Channel surfing is very useful.
- Read in your strongest languages and watch TV in
your weakest language. Always begin with
pronunciation and listening comprehension.
- drop L2 subtitles ASAP, don't use L1 subtitles
In short, I love TV as a language-learning tool.
That's how I learned Italian and German from
scratch and that's how I improved on my other
languages.
I am sticking with (in)comprehensible input.
7/5 Slam Dunk (TV series), Stephen King
(audiobook), The Tale of Despereaux (60 pages).
7/6 TV - cartoons
7/7 4 short stories; TV - cartoons
7/8 Live TV - 1990's corruption cases, Mafia,
Intelligence (TV segment)
Update (September 2016) I have started watching
Portuguese TV programs.
reineke on 16 February 2017
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Portuguese through incomprehensible input
Sept. 18, 2016
Portuguesification. What an ugly word.
Nevertheless, I am happy to report that I have
watched 10 hours of Portuguese-language programming
this weekend. That's the most time I've ever spent
on Portuguese. Prior to this, I may have spent a
few hours listening to a Portuguese-language
audiobook in short 5-10 minute bursts. That was
maybe 2 years ago. I have noticed a difference in
my comprehension level between yesterday and today.
I needed the full ten hours and one night of sleep
to be able to make such a claim. I am far from
being able to claim I actually understand Brazilian
Portuguese, but I can now catch entire sentences.
Portuguese is still largely incomprehensible.
Jensen (1989) showed that the Portuguese (speakers)
understand speakers of Spanish to a significantly
higher degree than the other way around. I am still
far from being considered a speaker of Spanish but
I am hopeful that my background in Italian will be
of help too.
Sept. 23, 2016 Portuguese: 20+ hours of TV.
Spanish TV: 500 hours since January. I can now
follow some crazy "fast" stuff in Castilian.
I have also sampled some audiobooks. Feels like a
walk high in the Alps. One moment you're groping
around and the next you can see for miles.
Listening to a passage from Brothers Karamazov was
easier than watching Caillou. A show glorifying
Roman debauchery was easy. Abelha Maja, in European
Portuguese, was incomprehensible several days ago.
Today I was able to follow the story. Maja is still
hard, however.
Sept. 26, 2016 30+ hours of TV.
"Sun Tzu said: In the practical art of war, the
best thing of all is to take the enemy's country
whole and intact; to shatter and destroy it is not
so good. So, too, it is better to recapture an army
entire than to destroy it, to capture a regiment, a
detachment or a company entire than to destroy
them.
2. Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles
is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence
consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without
fighting...
The rule is, not to besiege walled cities if it can
possibly be avoided. The preparation of mantlets,
movable shelters, and various implements of war,
will take up three whole months; and the piling up
of mounds over against the walls will take three
months more."
Sun Tzu (also) said:
"There are three ways in which a ruler can bring
misfortune upon his army:
1. By commanding the army to advance or to retreat,
being ignorant of the fact that it cannot obey.
This is called hobbling the army."
In other words, at the very least, learn to
differentiate your front from your rear. Learn the
pronunciation, master some vocabulary and develop
basic listening skills before you start engaging in
other activities.
Portuguese castle:
I estimate that the friendlies outnumber the
enemies 3:1. There are numerous ogres in the
tunnels below (low frequency items), but they come
out rarely and when they do, more often than not,
they're on my side. Half of the remaining enemy
force are potential deserters. The rest can easily
be surrounded and captured once the friendlies
become a cohesive, maneuverable force. The
friendlies' uniforms take a little getting used to,
but I can now easily recognize entire regiments
charging full speed in the heat of battle.
Portuguese subtitles are not available for any of
the programs that interest me at the moment. Maybe
it's a good thing. I didn't look up any words. I
don't own a Portuguese dictionary. I could live
without it, but in order to have the freedom NOT to
use a dictionary, you need to own at least one.
Sept. 30, 2016 TV (Br. Portuguese) 40+ hours
I listened carefully to three different episodes
from the same TV series. In each case I counted 30
consecutive sentences and in each case I fully
understood approximately 28 sentences. When I hit a
hard spot the main reason for a breakdown of
comprehension seems to be the inability to make out
individual syllables. I didn't try to assess
whether I would have been able to understand a
troublesome word/words. I can spot new words and I
have picked up new vocabulary and expressions. I am
able to sink into the content at which time my
ability to make observations is limited.
Recognizing and decoding cognates in real time
leaves no time for thinking (or conscious
recognizing). If the sentence is isolated and I
hear something like "O meu chapéu!" I may snap out
of it and notice the similarity to French. If I
heard "melhor" in a similar situation I am not sure
I'd be comparing it to other languages. I don't
think I can remember when or how I first noticed
most of the words I am now able to comprehend.
Sleeping on previously covered material helps. I am
more likely to analyze and notice if I'm not
particularly interested in the content. The more
vocabulary the better, of course, but decoding and
processing takes precedence.
Oct. 1, 2016 Br. Portuguese is going well.
Regarding Portuguese being an enemy castle... it
turns out I missed the "hotel e churrascaria" sign
in the back. Everything's 50% off. Live and learn.
I can follow detective shows. My comprehension
dropped after I switched to a different show but it
quickly recovered. Today I spent 50 mins watching a
program in European Portuguese. Listening to
European Portuguese feels like I've just started
listening to the language. I got a bit of a
discount compared to where I was when I started
listening to Br. Portuguese, but in order to cash
in that IOU I'll need to spend at least 20-40 hours
listening to European Portuguese.
The idea to start listening to Portuguese was born
while I was watching a football game in Romanian.
I'm tired of being a conformist so I officially
give up calling the game "soccer".
Oct. 19, 2016 According to Kodi, I have spent
around 150 hours on Portuguese-language TV
programming. The first 20-30 hours were almost pure
incomprehensible input and now I have no trouble
understanding detective type TV shows. The best way
I can describe the process is that it's a bit like
turning on the world's slowest defogger. I cannot
routinely string together 30 fully understood
sentences with some material but I am getting
close. I am learning new vocabulary daily. I am
also hearing the newly learned words and
expressions on a daily basis: droga, cara, legal,
Nossa, mandachuva, a gente, ainda, barulho, turma,
tá ligado, tá this, tô that, achar (several
meanings), lembrar... My Oxford Portuguese is still
shrink-wrapped. Cognates remain my no.1 priority.
Not bad for a month's worth of TV watching.
Conscious vs subconscious noticing. Eh, I don't
have time to contemplate what's happening between
my ears.
Nov. 06, 2016
The idea to start listening to Portuguese was born
while I was watching a football game in Romanian.
The game was at first impossible to follow. Before
the game was over, however, I was able to pick up
words, expressions and shorter sentences. Watching
the commercials was very motivating.
"Mastering the vocabulary of most European
languages means simply learning to recognize a
number of old friends under slight disguises, and
making a certain effort to learn a residue of
irrecognizable words, which, however, offer less
difficulty than they otherwise would through being
imbedded in a context of familiar words. The higher
vocabulary of science, art, and abstract thought
hardly requires to be learnt at all; for it so
consists either of Latin and Greek terms common to
most European languages or of translations of
them."
Henry Sweet, The Practical Study of Languages
(1899) .
Portuguese: around 250 hours of TV watching. No
subtitles. I can comfortably understand dubbed
shows.
Related:
You are still watching a staggering amount of TV
every day Unless you are a millennial. Then you’re
only watching an enormous amount of TV every day.
Nov. 16, 2015 Portuguese-language TV: 300+ hours.
My Portuguese dictionary is still shrink-wrapped.
My listening comprehension keeps improving. The
idea that I would not improve, that I would keep
parsing Portuguese through my knowledge of other
Romance languages and that my knowledge wouldn't
grow because the brain is "happy" with simply
understanding a message and everything superfluous
gets ignored... is a load of theorizing nonsense.
On the other hand I do believe that particles and
word endings do take a fair bit of time to filter
out from the stream of (in)comprehensible audio
input. There's always a chance that the brain isn't
catching everything. Tá Falado, "Brazilian
Portuguese Pronunciation" course is supposedly good
and I should probably check it out. Wireless
headphones are the best language learning tool I've
been able to discover in my quest for improvement.
I will soon start watching "real" Brazilian movies:
http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2014/25-essential-
films-for-an-introduction-to-new-brazilian-cinema/
http://www.adorocinema.com/
I've ordered over a dozen books in Br. Port.
including non-fiction (mostly history) and a couple
of Portuguese classics (Saramago). I'm aware of the
spelling reform since newer books advertise their
compliance with the new rules but I'll be damned if
I pay $50-$90 for popular fiction. Since I'm
shopping the bargain bin my collection is rather
varied and contains books by Umberto Eco, Dan
Brown, Brazilian pulp etc.
Speaking... Brazil is already full of parrots and
while the same can be said for Mexico I have plenty
of practical reasons to practice Spanish.
The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon is alive and well.
Most of the time, however, I am not encountering
obscure words and the a-ha moment is a culmination
of many encounters
reineke on 16 February 2017
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What is the Spanish version of "Cops" and where do you watch it? That sounds good.
James29 on 03 March 2017
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I am not a faithful follower of any show. With
foreign TV programs there's the added difficulty
that it's impossible to subscribe to some channels.
I believe that the show is called Policías en
acción:
http://www.lasexta.com/programas/policias-en-
accion/
It's an adult show. You will find some free
episodes on Youtube but be warned that because of
the generic title you may run into all sorts of
inappropriate videos that have nothing to do with
the show.
Categoría:Docu-realities de España
https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categor%C3%ADa:Docu
-realities_de_Espa%C3%B1a
reineke on 10 March 2017
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Apparently Costco's "web resource guide" that they
are putting into their notebooks includes a link to
Htlal. It does not seem that Costco customers are
using these notebooks for language learning or the
forum concept is played out.
Spanish update: I am stll listening to native
Spanish sources. Lest you think I'm "inputting" for
the sake of getting sufficient exposure to this
language, let me state that I am listening
attentively and with interest.
reineke on 30 August 2017
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