Goodbye to Four

These are languages I'm dropping, because I will never get used to the whole pitch accent thing...

>Estonian

>Latvian

>Lithuanian

>Norwegian

Gotta downsize.  It's the only answer to my obsession. :D  

I'm planning on setting up a way to purchase the books I have thru PayPal.   Prices will be reasonable.  Most of the books I have were purchased used to begin with.  My hope and plan is to get that setup by Wednesday, so stay tuned if interested.

Language Petals

I had originally left this blog to form a new one: LanguagePetals.  I guess my intention was for it to be a replacement language blog, but sort of became an everything blog for my interests.  Looks like my last post was Christmas 2015 - must've been the year I decided I was tired of blogging. ha!  

Anyway, if interested in seeing some of my language learning musings from that blog, just check out the CATEGORIES on the left sidebar.

I no longer update that blog. :)

Language DeClutter

Last post, I said I was going to drop some languages.  I can never bring myself to actually do it, but the ones I'm considering (off the top of my head) are...

• Czech
• Hungarian
• Latvian
• Norwegian
• Romanian (One of my earliest, so I may keep this one.)
• Slovenian
• Ukrainian

I'm at least going to do the courses I have for each of these and from there, see if I want to continue.

My definite keepers are...

• Bulgarian
• Croatian/Serbian
• Dutch
• Estonian
• Greek (modern)
• Lithuanian
• Polish
• Portuguese
• Spanish

But who knows, maybe I'll find myself phasing out a couple of these too and really just focus hard on five or six.  

My can't decide either way...

• Russian

I'm becoming a jill of all trades and a master of none. I want to stop "collecting" languages and actually learn them. :)

I'm Back!

I decided to revive this blog last night.  I still love learning languages, but it's been a while since I've really concentrated on any of them.  I might drop a few, because I really am trying too many, but I'll talk about that in another post. :)

Still Here & Foreign Movies

Just checking in to say I'm still around.  Okay, so my goal of posting every day hasn't worked out as planned, but aren't we all a tad overly ambitious when New Years strikes?  :)

I recently moved back in with my parents, and in many ways I think it will be a good thing, though I intend for it to be temporary.  First of all, they get HITN on their TV, which is a Spanish-language network.  I've watched Cuadriga, which is basically one of those Sunday-morning roundtable shows where they discuss news of the week.  I also like Puertorriqueñísimo and Así Canta Puerto Rico, which of course focuses on life and music of Puerto Rico, and even though I'm not normally into cooking shows, I've watched Sazón y Algo Más from time to time.  I really should be posting this to my Spanish-blog...

Another thing is, hopefully my mom and I can work on our Spanish together.  I think it sometimes helps to have a study partner for motivation, even if it is the blind leading the blind.  I also hope my being around will inspire her to get out her German courses, because I think she's probably more into the German than the Spanish.  She bought Teach Yourself German a few years ago, but I don't think she's used it at all (yet.)  Being the language addict I am, I think I actually finally asked her if I could take off the wrapper and look at it...the book, not the wrapper...  ;) 

In closing, I saw I'm not Scared last night, which is an Italian movie.  I think I've seen more movies in languages I'm *not* studying than am!  But that's okay, because I've liked most of them and don't mind subtitles (much better than dubbing.)  I had to laugh when they would say "Mangia!" during mealtime, and in one scene when a little girl becomes exhausted riding her bike in the hot sun and sighs, "Uffa!"  I was like, 'This movie is so Italian.'  :)

My parents told me they had watched The Secret in Their Eyes on TV one afternoon.  That one's in Spanish (Argentina).  I had seen it before and found myself all caught up in it - crime dramas tend to drag me in like that.  I really never pass up a chance to see a foreign movie, and it's not because I want people to think I'm *so* cultured (far from it.)  It's simply because the movies are good and just happen to not be in English.

January...

I hope the new year has been good so far with a fresh inspiration to reach those language-learning goals. My only language resolution is to dedicate more time to practice in all areas: listening, writing, reading and speaking. I seem to have hit a huge slump in my language studies, and I want this year to be the start of a turnaround.

Return of the Blog

I've been focusing a lot on vocabulary lately, especially Portuguese. The other day, I thought about giving up Spanish, but can't. You don't just give up something you've been working at for 15 years. I think Spanish has taken a back burner, because I've added so many languages to the list since beginning to learn it, and I take for granted that it's fairly easy (well, compared to some of the others I'm learning) + the numerous resources.

At the same time, I can't help but think about how advanced I would be if I had concentrated better on it all this time. It's useless to harp on that though, I just have to keep improving from where I am, and that goes for all of the languages on my list.

Drive-By Update

I figured after nearly a month, it was about time I posted to this thing, even though I don't really have anything exciting in the world of language learning to report.

I've been studying my Romanian for the last few days, as well as a little Serbian and Portuguese. I also tried to translate some Polish music this morning using this website.

Making a Real Effort

I really want to get better at my languages. I'm tired of being at a standstill and my lack of motivation.

So...

No more passively listening to a newscast while organizing my desk drawer, or reading headlines in a newspaper but not the whole article.

Goodbye to language blogs sitting empty or taking months to post.

Gone are the days of books collecting dust on my shelf, telenovelas gone unwatched, and song lyrics untranslated.

I'm done with audio/subtitle options on DVDs going unused, bookmarked but forgotten podcasts, and long drives sans course CDs.

There are so many things I could be doing every day to improve any one of the languages I'm learning, and I'm going to try harder to do just that.

Can You Hear Me Now?

I need to figure out how to record myself in the languages I'm learning in order to get feedback, as well as in English. Just an idea for the near future and something I've been meaning to do for a while.

Language Refresh

I went to World Market a couple of weeks ago and bought two diaries in which to attempt to write the old-fashioned way: one for Portuguese and one for Bulgarian so far (I would definitely like to get better at handwritten Cyrillic).

You Say What I Say

I've been making Slavic vocab lists. When learning languages that share a family (and even those that don't), it's helpful to look for alike words and phrases. That is, instead of thinking in terms of a single language, condense and conquer. ;)

A New Learning Idea

I love languages, but I've never been the type to dive head-first into the learning and it's a very frustrating trait to have. I listen passively, I read a paragraph (or worse yet, a sentence) and figure, "That's enough for today," I attempt to write once in a blue moon...oy vey! :)  Honestly though, I don't think it's that trait so much as it is I don't make use of what I've learned, no matter how small the amount, which is a great segue into the next topic...

One thing I've tried a couple of times is to write words, phrases and even brief grammar notes on a dry-erase board. I have a small one on my fridge and really should use this tactic more often, because once the books are closed, I rarely look again at the notes I took that day, but this dry-erase thing causes me to see those writings everytime I walk in de keuken. I can picture myself subconsciously repeating these new words/phrases throughout the day. As they enter into my lexicon more readily, I can erase them from the board, write them in a notebook (for safe keeping, in case they do fade from memory, although I hope enough repetition will make this event unlikely), then move on to the next set on a new day. I'll give this a more serious whirl and report back on whether it worked for me.