I admit, I did nothing :( but want get back into it this week. I needed a break with all the ongoing christmas preparations…
I’ve come to the realization that my “20 cards per day” in Anki is only 10 actual words per day, meaning I’m making half as much progress as I thought I was. I’m currently doing about 10 seconds per card, but I’m averaging 30 minutes to even 1-hour per session of ~100 cards these days (somewhere between 180 views to 300 views).
I’d like to increase this to 20 words per day, but honestly its already very grueling, and I don’t want to spend all my freetime each day on Anki. I still haven’t made much progress in Nico’s Weg, Basic German Grammar and Workbook, and Cafe in Berlin / Dino in Germany A1 series. If anything, I need to cut my Anki time down and focus on the other stuff. Maybe when I finish my textbook studies I can go back to increasing Anki to more cards/day.
I did watch Ghosts (German edition) here last night: https://www.ardmediathek.de/serie/ghosts/staffel-1/Y3JpZDovL3dkci5kZS9naG9zdHM/1 . Watching full-speed German comedy for the first time is mind-opening, it shows how “fast” real German can be. I fortunately found some English fansubs + OpenFansubs Firefox plugin that allowed me to watch that sitcom with English subtitles at least. I do plan on watching more German TV to “get used to real life German”.
“Peppa Pig” / Peppa Wutz in German is a commonly recommended Children’s TV Show to test your German. I’ve been trying to watch it each week to gauge my progress, often disheartened at how little I understand. However, various people online have told me that Peppa Wutz might be closer to “late A2” studies or even “early B1 studies”, so that makes me feel better. It does mean that my “schedule” is all out of whack due to lack of understanding. Peppa Pig/Wutz being late A2 means its something I “should” be trying maybe 4 or 5 months into my studies, not something in my 1st or 2nd month.
Still, I’ll keep trying Peppa Pig. “Real German” (even if its slow and for children) is more immersion than most other exercises. But I cannot and should not use it as “comprehensible input” (ie: learning material). The goal of comprehensible input is that you spend maybe 80% to 90% of the time doing something you know, and only learning on those 20% to 10% you don’t know. “Cafe in Berlin” reading material, Nicos Weg, and “Simple German Youtube” are the only stuff that really is “Comprehensible Input” right now.
The “simplest of kids songs” (ie: Backe Backe Kuchen) is comprehensible to me right now, but many kid songs (ie: “Im Walde von Toulouse”) are far, far too difficult for me right now.
An hour is quite a bit of time for 100 cards. What’s your recall percentage like? Do your cards have context clues, like phrases, sentences, or even voice clips?
I’ve felt a lot better about my progress once I cut my Anki time down myself, so I certainly agree with the idea of trying to budget more time elsewhere.
80% recall for Young cards. It’s pretty bad for any card 1 day or less, but I guess I’m reasonably confident that 2-day or larger interval cards have very high chance of me recalling.
An hour is a bad day where I need lots and lots of reviews. But it happens sometimes.
Maybe I’m trying too hard to recall without failing myself.
I will say that I am aiming at perfect spelling, pronunciation and gender. So ‘Das Stadt’ is wrong (Die Stadt is the correct Gender). But German is a very precise language and I feel it necessary to drill at least to this level.
Being picky about it seems like a good idea. I do the same with Japanese; the only thing I don’t fail myself on is pitch accent (Japanese has a high/low pitch thing). Everything else has to be right.
I do catch myself sitting on a card longer than I should at times, though if a session goes long for me it usually means I’m shadowing a lot of sentences out loud. I don’t think I’ve seen specific guidance on how long per card is too long, although if I go longer than around 10 seconds on a card it does start to feel like I’ve lost flow.
Doing an hour of Japanese (30 min study/vocab, 30 min listening practise), hour of Spanish (30 min study/vocab, 30 min listening practise), hour of Irish (full study), 30+ mins of maths and reading at least a chapter of a random book a day.
Sometimes I get really pooped though and can only manage 30 mins of JP then 30 mins of SP.
I woke up not too long ago but my spoons are already depleted from switching operating systems due to Windows constantly fucking with me, so there’s that.
Also have new study software from Steam, called “Chill With You Lo-Fi Story”, it’s not better for studying than Spirit City Lofi Sessions, but it has a story that progresses with more study, so I’m sticking with it for now until I can see the end of this girls journey.
Might have missed this last week but glad you got back into Irish!
Ad yeah… also had some issues when I made a OS switch from windows at home. Takes a bit to find your new workflows and getting cozy with your new OS.
I still haven’t given Steam study software a try, but damn I want to based on all your recommendations.
I’d try Spirit City: Lofi Sessions, Ithya: Magic Studies and Chill With You Lo-Fi Story in waves and not altogether. There’s probably a whole other bunch of software out there on Steam that’s similar but different, but these are the only ones I’ve managed to try fully.
The software on Linux is a bit buggy, the sounds on my machine go f-ways when I run Chill With You Lo-Fi Story, but only switched today so it’s possible it’s a me-issue.
Also the free route is still an option if you’re okay with using just youtube videos, the Lofi Girl channel has a pomodoro lofi video that I used to use before getting into the software side. I bought a bunch of these knowing I could just get free pomodoro tools elsewhere because I wanted the extra comfort/coziness that the games/apps provide.
Like for instance, this Lo-Fi Story game has the worst set of tools for studying compared to the other 2, but I’m still using it more because of the plot built into the game. And I guess the gated unlocks also keeps me going.
There was a Black Friday sale on not too long ago which is why I picked up the latest one, but the Winter Sale should be on soon if you’d rather wait to buy them then. They’re quite cheap at around 7 euro each (roughly) when on sale.
Dude, I just heard of Chill With You (from Denfaminicogamer actually) and I’m itching to try it out. Probably tomorrow. I had never seen the concept before, are there more decent ones other than Spirit City?
And yeah, I certainly also feel it when I’ve got other processes tugging on me during the week. Takes a toll.
Started listening more in Spanish. Not as hard as I remember. I think listening to a lot of Japanese throughout the year has increased my tolerance for ambiguity. With that, I’m just happy to be there. With Spanish, I’m finding I can get a sense of things, even when it’s quite fast. I think this is what intermediate feels like.
That’s awesome! Maybe also your ability to interpolate information has gotten more advanced? I have noticed that I do that as well and it works pretty well now. Early on I got stuck on words that I didn’t understand and couldn’t keep up with the conversation, but now I don’t let that stop me from hearing rest of the sentence. And picking up based on context.
I added a monolingual dictionary to my web browser lookup tool (Yomitan). There have been a few undeniable signs recently that my language learning has progressed the farthest it’s ever gone (I started in 2000!), but this is the most glaring, obvious one. It’s kind of surreal, honestly.
You’re doing it! Such a gratifying feeling to come back to something and find more success than you ever had. Like picking up a video game that was too hard as a kid, and just crushing it.
Monolingual dictionary feels so nice when you understand it. Keep up the momentum!
Obviously because of our weekly threads, right? ;)
Jokes aside I’m super happy to hear that!
Hell, why not? Something to be said for mild self-accountability when you’re telling people you’re doing something.
Maybe! In reality this is 100% you, be proud of yourself that you have made it this far!
