HAC 2018 - Karavinka
Posted: 2017-12-29, 10:05
This is a log of my feeble attempts at multiple languages. Four of them.
Some of them I have studied for a long time, but I only have a half-ass competency in them. I want to see if I can make them more like whole-ass. Those are French and German. The other two, I have tried to learn in the past but only have minimal traces left in my brain. Even bringing them up to half-ass level would be an achievement. Those are Spanish and Russian.
And while I'm at this, I'm taking a leisurely approach. My primary project will remain Turkish for the foreseeable future, and this TAC will not really be much of "total" annihilation, but more like a half-hearted one. Let's call it HAC instead -- HalfassHalfhearted Annihilation Challenge.
As for the materials, it's nothing and everything. Even for Spanish and Russian, I've decided to do without textbooks. But it still helps to have a measurestick of where I am and how much progress I've made so far, so that's why I decided to start this log. My sources will be anything I come across in those languages that piques my interest, and they'll be stored in Anki. For the ease of management, all four languages share the same deck and are color-coded. What management? Even if I don't feel like to review, say, French -- I will have to do all four languages as I come across them in Anki.
As of Dec 29, 2017:
* German: 152
* French: 279
* Spanish: 90
* Russian: 14
Total 535
Why so little in Russian? Because Russian was added as the last minute decision. I may drop this, if I decide Russian deserves a fully dedicated own project like Turkish. This deck has been going on for a while, actually, since late October... shows how little work I've put into it over the time. If I'm keeping a blog, I'll be more motivated to actually work on the deck. Hopefully.
What's the goal? Well, first of all, let's get them all to some respectable number in four digits. The commonly cited magic number of the sentence methods seems to be 10,000 but I'm not in a rush to reach that number. I've done it already once with German, and reaching 10,000 (actually some 13k) in a year took some serious dedication. ...Wait, isn't German there on the list? Yes. Back then, I used to pour in sentences en masse from textbooks, grammars, conversation guides, etc -- while that got me pass Goethe B2, I don't think the German in my old deck was authentic enough. Maybe I'll talk about it in more detail later.
Along with the current Turkish project, this may be the year I finally break away from the artificial textbook language that no one without brain damage would actually use. Some of my cards are banal and stupid, they vary in length, but at least none will be from any "resource." Almost heartbreakingly heretical for a language nerd, I've grown sick and tired of them, which is why I only chose modern languages this year.
A few examples. Each line or paragraph is one card each, and some of them contain vocabulary notes as well but I'm going to omit them here.
This wonderful deck is titled 西戎雜話, as I have a chuunibyou habit of naming all my Anki decks with 4 Chinese letters. Meant to mean Miscellaneous Dialects of Western Barbarians. I think it's fitting.
That said, I'm not sure what this thread will really be all about. I don't think I'm going to analyze Spanish or Russian in a way similar to my Turkish thread; that takes a lot of time. We'll see. Maybe I'll come up with an idea once the thread is up.
Some of them I have studied for a long time, but I only have a half-ass competency in them. I want to see if I can make them more like whole-ass. Those are French and German. The other two, I have tried to learn in the past but only have minimal traces left in my brain. Even bringing them up to half-ass level would be an achievement. Those are Spanish and Russian.
And while I'm at this, I'm taking a leisurely approach. My primary project will remain Turkish for the foreseeable future, and this TAC will not really be much of "total" annihilation, but more like a half-hearted one. Let's call it HAC instead -- HalfassHalfhearted Annihilation Challenge.
As for the materials, it's nothing and everything. Even for Spanish and Russian, I've decided to do without textbooks. But it still helps to have a measurestick of where I am and how much progress I've made so far, so that's why I decided to start this log. My sources will be anything I come across in those languages that piques my interest, and they'll be stored in Anki. For the ease of management, all four languages share the same deck and are color-coded. What management? Even if I don't feel like to review, say, French -- I will have to do all four languages as I come across them in Anki.
As of Dec 29, 2017:
* German: 152
* French: 279
* Spanish: 90
* Russian: 14
Total 535
Why so little in Russian? Because Russian was added as the last minute decision. I may drop this, if I decide Russian deserves a fully dedicated own project like Turkish. This deck has been going on for a while, actually, since late October... shows how little work I've put into it over the time. If I'm keeping a blog, I'll be more motivated to actually work on the deck. Hopefully.
What's the goal? Well, first of all, let's get them all to some respectable number in four digits. The commonly cited magic number of the sentence methods seems to be 10,000 but I'm not in a rush to reach that number. I've done it already once with German, and reaching 10,000 (actually some 13k) in a year took some serious dedication. ...Wait, isn't German there on the list? Yes. Back then, I used to pour in sentences en masse from textbooks, grammars, conversation guides, etc -- while that got me pass Goethe B2, I don't think the German in my old deck was authentic enough. Maybe I'll talk about it in more detail later.
Along with the current Turkish project, this may be the year I finally break away from the artificial textbook language that no one without brain damage would actually use. Some of my cards are banal and stupid, they vary in length, but at least none will be from any "resource." Almost heartbreakingly heretical for a language nerd, I've grown sick and tired of them, which is why I only chose modern languages this year.
A few examples. Each line or paragraph is one card each, and some of them contain vocabulary notes as well but I'm going to omit them here.
Naja, das ist es jedenfalls, was ich mir ständig einrede, damit ich vor lauter Nervosität nicht umkippe.
Rise hat mir eine wirklich lange Mail geschrieben. Sie schrieb darüber, wie frustriert sie über unsere kurzen Gespräche war, wie sie nicht den Mut fand, mir zuvor eine Mail zu schicken.. ..darüber, dass der Anhänger, den sie für mich gemacht hatte, genauso aussah, wie einen, den sie für sich selbst gemacht hatte, nur in einer anderen Farbe.. und darüber dass sie das Stofftaschentuch, was ich ihr schenkte, immer bei sich trug, aber nie benutzte.
Muy pronto nos tendremos que enfrentar al fin del mundo. Sin embargo, ustedes que ahora están aquí conmigo... ¡Todos ustedes serán salvados!
Los seres humanos no volvimos a pisar la luna ni fuimos más allá. Supongo que, por como se ven las cosas, ya estaré muerto mucho antes de que se pueda sacar un boleto de ida y vuelta desde la Tierra hasta Alfa Centauri.
Какой чудесный на улице день.
Цветенье цветов, и птицы поют.
В эти дни, такие дети как ты...
Должны гореть в аду.
Я прошу, остановись, моя Валькирия. Здесь же все иначе, это вовсе не игра. Кнопки перезапуска здесь просто нет, и если умирают - значит, навсегда.
Un tranquille filet de fumée bleue s'élève dans les airs.
Il y avait d'autres personnes dans la rue ― peut-être une ou deux femmes au foyer qui rentraient chez elles après avoir fait les courses, et des jeunes qui allaient à la même fac que moi. Mais c'était loin d'être bondé. Cependant, le trajet jusqu'à l'université ce jour-là était décidément différent des autres jours. Tous ceux qui croisaient mon chemin me dévisageaient. Et je suis sûr à cent pourcent que bien que c'était parfaitement calme ― presque trop pour que je ne l'entende pas ― chacun d'entre eux lâchait une espèce de gloussement en passant à côté de moi. Et ça, j'en étais persuadé.
This wonderful deck is titled 西戎雜話, as I have a chuunibyou habit of naming all my Anki decks with 4 Chinese letters. Meant to mean Miscellaneous Dialects of Western Barbarians. I think it's fitting.
That said, I'm not sure what this thread will really be all about. I don't think I'm going to analyze Spanish or Russian in a way similar to my Turkish thread; that takes a lot of time. We'll see. Maybe I'll come up with an idea once the thread is up.