TAC 2018 - ceid donn

[ceid donn]

It's been a while, due to various reasons, but once again I am in need of a place to have a blog or documentation of sorts to motivate me towards my language learning goals this summer. Summer has not technically started but I will go ahead and start my SAC this week, My plan is to continue with these goals until September 1st, barring any unpreventable interruptions.

For the past 18 months or so, I have not been actively studying any languages, due to a combination of reasons:

--being severely burnt-out with studying
--discouraged with my progress and lack of opportunities to use my target languages
--poor health (which I will address down-post)
--no small amount of chaos and other unavoidable issues regarding my living situation and personal life

During this time I have at least been casually using French, and to a lesser extent, Gaelic, as well as Spanish, Italian, Welsh, Irish and Breton, mostly all online, albeit very inconsistently. Suffice to say, in most cases, my progress in various languages has withered considerably. With French and Gaelic, it has been specific areas that have been hurt the most and this SAC with be focused on regaining ground on those areas.

French

Current status: barely C1. My pronunciation and verbal comprehension have improved modestly due to continued exposure to to French language videos, music and podcasts over the past 18 months. My reading fluency, vocabulary and writing/grammar skills have all decayed to unacceptable levels and these will be my primary foci.

Main resources: Français Avec Pierre blog and You Tube, Memrise, Duolingo Stories, L'exercisier, French language poetry and music, personal journal

Gaelic

Current status: B2-ish. My reading skills, understanding of grammar and pronunciation still are pretty solid, but my general writing and reading skills need improvement. Unlike with French, I have to make a much more concerted effort to find and use Gaelic language resources online so my exposure to Gaelic in the past months has been pretty limited. My goal with Gaelic is mainly to increase my exposure and usage.

Main resources: Sgeul gu latha/Tales until Dawn, Litir do Luchd-ionnsaciadh, Gaelic language short stories and poetry, Memrise, personal jourmal



Health issues and health goals:

I'm still not in a great health at the present. This summer will be a chance for me to recuperate and regain strength and endurance. However, due to my current state of health, sitting at my PC for long periods of time is not really possible so I will have to do as much language learning offline or via my crappy little Kindle as possible. I will also need to do physical exercises daily and that will take time away from my language studies, which is one reason I have limited my primary target languages to just two.

Dabbling:

i doubt I will resist dabbling in other languages over the course of the summer, so I'm just going to integrate this into my SAC now. While I will try to firmly stick to my 2 Focus Languages Only rule this summer, I will allow myself a chance to dabble a little in other languages, and those most likely will be Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Welsh and Breton. When Duolingo launches its Indonesian course, or should I come across any new, attractive Indonesian resources, that will probably include Indonesian as well, because Indonesian is adorable.

Memrise goal:

I'm 2.48 million points away from the "Meminence" title and I hope to reach that by the end of the summer.

My longest Memrise streak has been 65 days. Currently I've got a 8 day streak on the "Paris French" course. While I've never been crazy about maintaining streaks, as it's so discouraging when you lose them, I will try to break my 65 day streak this summer, just to give myself another goal.

Duolingo:

The people behind Duolingo seem very dedicated to making me absolutely hate them with all my heart. I started using Duo ages ago, when it was still in its first incarnation, and haven't been very active in quite a while. i came back this month and am very dismayed by the changes there. So I will be largely ignoring the courses, beyond dabbling a little in Japanese, Welsh and Italian. For French, I will just be using their Duolingo Stories resource, which seems relatively useful. I changed my Duo user name to CadeArc if you wish to follow me--if you mention your Duo username here, I will gladly follow you back.

I'll be back this weekend with the first progress update.

[księżycowy]

Welcome back!

[ceid donn]

Welcome back!

Merci beaucoup, księżycowy.

[voron]

I am having issues with using the computer too much as well -- given that I am a programmer and already spend too much time behind the screen daily, every extra minute adds more strain on my eyes and back. I wish us both, and actually everyone on Unilang, happy offline learning and staying healthy.

Perhaps finding an exchange partner IRL can be a good idea?

[ceid donn]

I am having issues with using the computer too much as well -- given that I am a programmer and already spend too much time behind the screen daily, every extra minute adds more strain on my eyes and back. I wish us both, and actually everyone on Unilang, happy offline learning and staying healthy.

Tapadh leibh, a voron. Yeah, I have issues with eye strain and back strain too, but mostly it's problems with my heart and blood circulation that do not permit me to sit at the computer for very long. It's rather ironic that i will be spending my summer doing cardiovascular conditioning just so I can sit in one place for longer.

Perhaps finding an exchange partner IRL can be a good idea?

This would be ideal at my stage in both my main languages, but it's not really possible where I currently live. If I was studying Spanish, yes. I live on the Texas-Mexico border and most people here think the only languages worth learning are English and Spanish. Sad, but US culture tends to encourage people to be deeply incurious, if not outright reactionary, towards other languages.

When my health is better and I feel I can be more reliable, I may look into finding an online learning partner. But in lieu of that, I have fortunately accumulated quite a collection of offline resources for both Gaelic and French, both printed and audio resources, so I will have plenty to keep me busy. It does however get rather lonely being an isolated language learner, hence why I keep returning to Unilang.

[księżycowy]

I'm not sure if it's the type of thing your looking for, but some of us are trying to get study groups going in certain languages.

Might be a bit hard to start that kind of thing for Scottish Gaelic though.

[ceid donn]

I'm not sure if it's the type of thing your looking for, but some of us are trying to get study groups going in certain languages.

Might be a bit hard to start that kind of thing for Scottish Gaelic though.

That's a given with Gaelic, unfortunately. For French or perhaps Spanish, I might be interested down the line. I will have to see how things go. I'm just getting back into the swing of language study after a lengthy break--probably the longest break from language study I've taken since I left uni 15 years ago. For this first week I've mainly been working on reminding myself of my goals and trying to make sure my study time is constructive and not just a few hours of me goofing around and just doing stuff that's easy for me. It's been so long since I've had to make the effort to progress, so I have a few study habits I need to re-acquire.

[księżycowy]

That's quite understandable. As you say, maybe down the road you could start/join one.

Good luck with getting back in the swing of things! I look forward to future updates!

[ceid donn]

Week 1 Progress

French

L'exerciser: Reviewed the first 4 units. All pretty basic stuff so far. The following units focus on pronouns and prepositions and cover things that I do not get much practice with using, so I will be working on those units a little more intensively.

Français avec Pierre: C'est la video que j'ai choisie pour cette semaine. La partie où Noémi parle en espagnol est très drôle (en fait, elle est espangole et japanaise). Pierre et Noémi ont un grand sens de l'humour. Je les adore !

https://youtu.be/37Od2MVELPs

La transcription pour cette video peut être trouvé ici

Duolingo: I did the first 5 Duolingo Lab stories. I have been doing one new story a day plus re-reading the previous day's story. So far I've been rather impressed with the quality of theses stories, plus they are very short and I can complete them in jut a couple of minutes. The first tier of stories have not been terribly challenging for me, but they are really nice for exposure to more conversational French and for practicing listening skills.

Memrise: Thankfully Memrise--unlike Duolingo --still has a Kindle app, which allows me to work on them without having to be stuck at my PC. I did the next 4 lessons (20 new words/phrases) and maintained my streak with the Paris French course, and have been speed-reviewing through the Memrise's official French course. Completed my speed-review of French 2 (371 words/phrases) and have started my speed-review of French 3. The official courses are nice because they have videos of native speakers and a lot of conversational phrases that I don't use much since I don't have anyone with whom to converse in French at this time.

Gaelic

Litir do Luchd-ionnsachaidh: I have a text that the now--defunct publisher Clì put out some years ago that is a collection of the first 200 litrichean in the series. So I've been reading through that. i read through 6 this week and so far I've been very encouraged by how quickly things are coming back to me. I am feeling reassured that I haven't really forgotten very much. It's just rusty from not being used. I think I should be up to tackling the much more difficult Gàidhlig in Sgeul gu Latha next. I will continue reading litrichean as they cover a lot of different topics and vocabulary.

Memrise: Working on the Colloquial Scottish Gaelic course (135/1221) and the Irregular Verb Formations course (86/230).

Speaking Our Language: Of course I had to go back to SOL! Really, honestly, still one of the best resources for Gàidhlig around, and one of the only resources that isolated learners like me have to practice more conversational Gàidhlig. I watched episodes 24-28 this week.

Memrise goal: I'm now 2.19 million points away from my next Memrise rank. Almost 300k points this week.

Dabbling: Spanish. Mostly on Memrise--using both the Memrise Mexican Spanish and the Mermise Spanish for French speakers when I need to take a break from my French and Gaelic courses.

[kevin]

That's quite understandable. As you say, maybe down the road you could start/join one.

Hm, in theory it would be possible to do the comparative study group thing that was suggested for other minority languages. You'd do Munster, I would do Ulster and ceid donn would do Scottish. Though I'd wait for Vijay to demostrate how the concept actually works.

Anyway, good to see that you're back to Gaelic! I feel I should learn a bit of it, too, before I go to Scotland later this year (though I'm almost sure there won't be much Gaelic in Dùn Èideann.)

[księżycowy]

That would be an interesting idea.

I've said before that I'm interested in both other Irish dialects, and also Scottish Gaelic.

Maybe we can explore this idea more once ceid donn feels ready. Hopefully by then Vijay will have demonstrated how it works.

[ceid donn]

I kind of got distracted by discovering that Routledge has made all the audio to the Colloquial series free for download, which led me to go digging through numerous files of language resources to remind myself of what I had. It's quite a rabbit hole. So this week so far I have been spending more time than I care just organizing my language learning resources, both on my PC and on my bookshelves.

However, I haven't been neglecting my languages this week. I've been working daily on both my focus languages, but It's super easy to overfocus on French as more diverse resources are easier to come by when I'm done my Memrise for the day. So tonight I'm setting aside time to read a Gaelic short story--"Bùrn" by Iain Mac A' Ghobhainn (Iain Crichton Smith)-- and working on a Gaelic medium learners' worksheet for it provided by Stòrlann.

When digging through my old files, I found my .pdf of the old Gaelic Language Practice book that my old Gaelic study partner and I used to use. I was looking at some of the first selections and it's really way below my level, but the selections later in the book could be useful practice for me, since my former study partner and I never finished the book. So if I have time this week, I'll be looking at that.

[ceid donn]

Ok, so we're having a massive heat wave here, and I have been trying to study relative pronouns. When I'm doing directed practice, I do OK but on my own? I dunno. I'm trying.

Here's a little thing I wrote this evening after I got bored with working in L'exerciser.

Prés de mon lit, il y a une vieille table en bois sur laquelle je laisse les livres que je n’ai pas encore lu. C’est un vrai désordre mais dans ma petite chambre il n’y a pas d’autre endroit où je puisse les entreposer dans une façon plus organisée et ordonnée.

Sur cette table, il y a beacoup de livres que je n’ai jamias ouvert mais il y a aussi d’autres lesquels j’ai commencé à lire mais je n’ai jamais fini. Un livre en particulier, dont le text est en gaélique écossais, rapporte une historie bizarre d’une femme qui avait connu Lee Harvey Oswald. C’est l’un des livres que je n’ai pas fini et j’ai oublié beacoup de parties de l’historie laquelle est racontée par un Écossais qui recontre cette femme par hasard. Ce livre, dans lequel j’ai ecrit quelques notes utiles sur la grammaire gaélique, est plutôt court. Donc il me semble que je devrais essayer de le finir un de ces jours.

Je suis très fatiguée et la chaleur a fondu mon cerveau alors j'ai probablement fait quelques erreurs. Je suis désolée.

[Dormouse559]

I'm glad to see you're picking up languages again, and French, to boot. Here's hoping you meet your goals, language- and health-wise.

I made a few corrections to your text. It looks quite good, though, and you even got the capitalization right for language names vs. demonyms, which is often tough for English speakers. I elaborated below on a few of the corrections.

Près de mon lit, il y a une vieille table en bois sur laquelle je laisse les livres que je n’ai pas encore lus. C’est un vrai désordre mais dans ma petite chambre il n’y a pas d’autre endroit où je puisse les entreposer dans une façon plus organisée et ordonnée.

Sur cette table, il y a beaucoup de livres que je n’ai jamias ouverts mais il y a aussi d’autres lesquels que j’ai commencé à lire mais que je n’ai jamais finis. Un livre en particulier, dont le texte est en gaélique écossais, rapporte raconte une histoire bizarre d’une femme qui connaissait Lee Harvey Oswald. C’est l’un des livres que je n’ai pas finis et j’ai oublié beacoup de parties de l’histoire, laquelle qui est racontée par un Écossais qui rencontre cette femme par hasard. Ce livre, dans lequel j’ai écrit quelques notes utiles sur la grammaire gaélique, est plutôt court. Donc il me semble que je devrais essayer de le finir un de ces jours.

The past participle in compound tenses (passé composé, plus-que-parfait) occasionally agrees with the direct object or the subject. (I talked about it here.) In your text, four past participles agree with the direct object. In all four cases, the object was masculine plural, so I just added an S.

As relative pronouns, "lequel" and its forms are only used after prepositions. You've probably seen them translated as "which" (since that's what English happens to use after prepositions), which I think is where the confusion is coming from. For "which" in reference to a subject or direct object, use qui or que, respectively. To indicate a non-restrictive clause, simply add a comma before the relative pronoun.

You probably should have said "une femme qui connaissait Lee Harvey Oswald" instead of "une femme qui avait connu Lee Harvey Oswald" because connaître changes meaning when used in compound tenses. I suspect you were going for the prototypical meaning of connaître, which is a shade of "to know", but in a compound tense, it means "to get to know" or "to meet (for the first time)".

[ceid donn]

Thank you very much for taking the time, Dormouse. Much appreciated.

The past participle in compound tenses (passé composé, plus-que-parfait) occasionally agrees with the direct object or the subject. (I talked about it here.) In your text, four past participles agree with the direct object. In all four cases, the object was masculine plural, so I just added an S.

Yeah, I do know this. These particular errors were really the result of my very poor ability to proofread my own writing. I mean, I know what I meant to write.

As relative pronouns, "lequel" and its forms are only used after prepositions. You've probably seen them translated as "which" (since that's what English happens to use after prepositions), which I think is where the confusion is coming from.

No, that is not where my confusion comes from. The French language text I have been using, L'execiser, does not really give an explanation of when lequel forms can be used without a preceding preposition and the English language resources I consulted only said it can be done so to avoid ambiguity when there are more than one antecedent to which the relative pronoun could be applied. However I have since come across this grammar text that explains this exception when trying to avoid ambiguity in more detail (see 2): https://books.google.com/books?id=FoICA ... ty&f=false

It seems that according this, I was in error to use a lequel form in place of que in the first case, yes, but I think my second use in place of qui is allowable, as I was trying to make clear that the Scotsman narrates the whole story and not just parts of it. My attempt at a sentence where I could use lequel in this way might be too simple and clumsy, thus not really necessitating using a lequel form here, but I don't think it's entirely incorrect.

This is an example of a sentence from this site using a lequel form in the way that I was trying to replicate:

There's a lock on each drawer, which is difficult to open (ambiguous).
Il y a une serrure sur chaque tiroir, qui est difficile à ouvrir (ambiguous).
Il y a une serrure sur chaque tiroir, laquelle est difficile à ouvrir (unambiguous).

Now that I have gotten some sleep and have had a chance to review this further and look at more examples, I think, I think I understand now when this optional exception is appropriate.

I suspect you were going for the prototypical meaning of connaître, which is a shade of "to know", but in a compound tense, it means "to get to know" or "to meet (for the first time)".

No, actually I wasn't. In the story, the woman meets Oswald and then casually gets to know him over the course of a few meetings at a Dallas diner in the early 1960s prior to her leaving the US, all of which was just prior to the assassination of JFK, and based on this very casual acquaintance, she claims to know with certainty that Oswald is innocent. As I said, it's a strange story. Anyhow, she wasn't someone who knew him as a childhood friend or anything like that, so that wasn't the connotation I was aiming for. Granted I was focusing more on composing sentences that used different relative pronouns so I wasn't too concerned about verb choices when I was writing this, but I suppose I could have made that clearer somehow.

[Dormouse559]

It seems that according this, I was in error to use a lequel form in place of que in the first case, yes, but I think my second use in place of qui is allowable, as I was trying to make clear that the Scotsman narrates the whole story and not just parts of it. My attempt at a sentence where I could use lequel in this way might be too simple and clumsy, thus not really necessitating using a lequel form here, but I don't think it's entirely incorrect.

Okay, I see now. I didn't know about the disambiguating usage. I don't think it was necessary in either context though. With beaucoup de parties de l'histoire laquelle est racontée, it's clear you meant the whole story because you use the singular conjugation of être, not the plural.

No, actually I wasn't. In the story, the woman meets Oswald and then casually gets to know him over the course of a few meetings at a Dallas diner in the early 1960s prior to her leaving the US, all of which was just prior to the assassination of JFK, and based on this very casual acquaintance, she claims to know with certainty that Oswald is innocent. As I said, it's a strange story. Anyhow, she wasn't someone who knew him as a childhood friend or anything like that, so that wasn't the connotation I was aiming for. Granted I was focusing more on composing sentences that used different relative pronouns so I wasn't too concerned about verb choices when I was writing this, but I suppose I could have made that clearer somehow.

No, no, I was just making unfounded assumptions. It sounds like an interesting story.

[ceid donn]

All the same, thank you for your assistance, Dormouse.

Week 2 Progress

The heat here has been really getting to me and it's really been draining my energy over the past couple of days--it's getting up to 105F/40C by late day here, although today it's a little cooler. But I have managed to get some things done this week. Hooray!

Français

Memrise: I made the stupid mistake sometime ago of deleting some of the courses I had previously completed, and on Memrise, that means if you want to review them again, you have re-do the entire course. And that's the case with French 3-7. So I can't speed-review them--I have to re-do the whole course, which is very time-consuming, and with French 3, it seems like a waste of time, since it's just too easy for me. So I've stalled on that. I may skip to French 4 or 5 and redo those for this week, but I mainly focused on Paris French this past week, which is a user-made course for the obligatory drilling of intermediate-advanced vocabulary. Right now I'm at 500/3874 at learning the vocabulary of the course and have kept upmy streak (19 days as of today).

Duolingo: Still just doing the French Stories, with one new story per day. They aren't really challenging for me, I usually get all the question correct, but that's okay. It's just really for reiteration and immersion and they don't take up much time.

Français Authentique: This week instead of Français Avec Pierre, I've been watching some of Johan's videos, in particular ones that go over word choice like this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bc5p5oZQG3E&t=315s

His videos are pretty informative and are good listening practice, but I confess I really prefer Pierre and Noémi to him.

L'exerciser: Completed all exercises for the unit on relative pronouns. Am I now a wizard with using them? No. But I got all the exercises done. Haven't decided on what grammar topic I should focus on next, so I may just work on relative pronouns some more.

Reading: I've been reading some short stories for learners most nights when I go to bed. i forget the title of the book I'm reading right on (it's a Kindle book), but it's pretty easy reading. I am looking for something a little more challenging for my level though.

Gàidhlig

Speaking Our Language/Look@LearnGaelic: Watched episode 29-30 plus three Look@ videos on differnt grammar topics. I had forgotten about the Look@ videos on LearnGaelic--they're really good, but it doesn't appear they have added any new ones recently.

Memrise: At 190/1221 on the Colloquial Scottish Gaelic course. The course is suppose to contain the vocabulary from the Routledge Colloquial Scottish Gaelic book, but if it is, the word list isn't following any order that corresponds with the book. That's fine--I'm not working through the book and am really just doing the course to drill vocabulary and spelling and there aren't many good options for intermediate to advanced Gaelic learners on Memrise.

Reading: I read the short story "Bùrn" by Iain Mac A' Ghobhainn and started rereading Nigheanan Mòra by Catrìona Lexy Campbell, which I never finished. I also bought a couple more short ebooks to read next: An Taisealach by Iain Fionnlagh Macleoid and A' Choille Fhiadhach by Kenny Lindsey. Haven't started with Sgeul gu Latha--hopefully I will this week.

Memrise goal: I am now 1.85 million points from my goal. Just over 250k points for the week.

Dabbling: Didn't do much dabbling, mostly because I haven't be feeling up to it. But I did do some Spanish on Memrise, as well as took a quick look at Colloquial Spanish of Latin American Vol 2, which I would like to actually work through at some point. And of course I am exposed to spoken and printed Spanish nearly every day. I did take a look at Yoruba, but while it is a very lovely language, I don't see myself getting into it any time soon. I am longing for Indonesian right now, so I will probably go look at some Indonesian resources after I finish this post.

[ceid donn]

.

[ceid donn]

Ok, I reinstalled the Google Japanese IME and it's working fine. But does anyone know how to set up macros to quickly switch between language inputs in Win10 like you could in Win7 and Vista?

EDIT: nvm, I found it. I didn't go far enough down the Win10 keyboard settings rabbit hole to find it earlier.

Also, if anyone else would prefer to use the Goodle IME over the Windows IME, you can download it here: http://www.google.co.jp/ime/

Since I'm here, here's a couple of videos!



Seo bhidio snog, dèanta le neach-ionnsachaidh Albannach mu Loch an Eilean rè ghrèin-stad an t-samhraidh am-bliadhna agus fotografachd-dhròn aige fhèin a chleachdadh

This a nice video of Loch nan Eilean during the summer solstice this year, using drone photography, shot and narrated by a Gaelic learner from Scotland:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VynQKNbCmFU&list=WL



J'adore cette chanson par le chanteur FéFé et je pense que la vidéo est tout à fait ingénieuse:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F31ESEs1wmc

[ceid donn]

Week 3 progress (very short update)

This week hasn't been the most productive--I was in a lot pain for a couple days due to an old neck injury which in turn required me to take something a little stronger than Tylenol, which did not help my productivity language learning-wise.

Then today, which was suppose to be the day I set aside to try to makeup for time lost earlier in the week, kind of got blown when one of my cats got out and was missing for 11 hours. He's home safe now, very hot and dehydrated but otherwise OK. But having to go looking for a lost cat on a hot summer day kind of drained me.

So I'm going to make a quick update here, put this week behind me and get back to work.

French

Main things I've done this week with French are Memrise, Duolingo stories, other reading, listening to some French pop music and watching some shows on Netflix that had French audio available for them. I didn't work on grammar, so this week I will review relative pronouns and begin working on the next chapter in L'exerciser which is "Le Indefinis, Les Pronoms, Les Adectifs." With Memrise, I will just continue drilling vocabulary with the course I'm working on and I want to watch a couple of videos from Français Avec Pierre since I didn't watch any this past week. For reading I think I'll go back to the Learn French Through Reading series and reread the novels I have. I'm getting a little bored with the silly short stories for learners I've been reading.

Gaelic

This week, despite setbacks and distractions, I have made a concerted effort to work more on Gaelic. I am trying to finish Nigheanan Mòra--not quite there, but I should be able to finish it this week, and get through the entirety of the Memrise course for the Colloquial Scottish Gaelic, which will likely take me a couple more weeks to complete at least. But I did a lot of work on those two things this past week, plus I have been keeping a list in my SAC journal of vocabulary words from Nigheanan Mòra that I need to review for expanding my vocabulary.

Japanese

I finished the first unit in Colloquail Japenese earlier in the week and I have been making slow but steady progress in the Japonais 1 course on Memrise. I am on unit 13 right now, so just over half way through the course. I should be able to finish it this week and move on to Japonais 2. Mostly so far it's all review so I don't need to spend a ton of time on it. i also did a little of the Duolingo Japanese course which so far it just reiteration of the Memrise course, so I'm not sinking much time into it. Tomorrow I will review Unit 1 in CJ and get started on Unit 2.

Dabbling: I found a Memrise Indonesian course that I think I like and started doing just 1500 pts a day on it just for a little review. And I did some Spanish review on Memrise too as well as read some Spanish language coverage and social media about the World Cup. And I might have looked non-committedly at some Hawaiian stuff.

Memrise goal: earned almost 260k points this week and am about 1.6mil points from my goal now.