Language Learning

So, who else is learning a language?

I started learning Brazilian Portuguese today. It's definitely challenging; I don't have an ear for Romance languages and my smattering of Latin knowledge isn't really enough to be useful.

My method is to start with DuoLingo for the basics. I've never used it before, and so far it's not bad. The gamification definitely appeals to me, and the "tree" is a lot more extensive than I expected. I have heard the app is dumbed down compared to the browser version though, which is disappointing.

I am keeping a BuJo style notebook for this too so it'll be part journal, part dictionary, part general resource.

Current goal is to commit to one hour of practice/immersion every day.

I also want to start learning more about the culture, history etc too at some point.

Anyway, fellow language learners of AW, what are you learning, how are you learning it, and what kind of experiences and challenges have you had so far?

Objectively Spanish would be more useful for my job, but I'm much closer to the Brazilians I work with--a few of them I consider to be work friends, at least. My interest in learning Portuguese comes from that. I think they'll all be pretty excited even if I'm terrible at it lol. It's kind of a respect thing for me, I'm weird like that.

Marlys, I took 4 years of German in high school, I plan to refresh it once I'm comfortable with Portuguese. I do remember a song my teacher taught us, you might find it amusing. Sung to the tune of "She's Coming Round the Mountain When She Comes":

Ich bin Auslander und sprechen nicht gut Deutsch,
Ich bin Auslander und sprechen nicht gut Deutsch,
Bitte langsam,
Bitte langsam,
Bitte sie doch sprechen langsam,
Ich bin Auslander und sprechen nicht gut Deutsch!

I learned German originally because one side of my family is from there, but far enough removed that no one speaks the language and no cultural traditions remain. I haven't completely forgotten it, but I'll definitely need to put the work in to get it back.

In addition to DuoLingo I also have Memrise installed for after I've completed the DuoLingo tree. I've also heard Anki is extremely useful but I haven't checked it out yet.

Got my hour of DuoLingo in today. I "bought" one of the extra lessons and quickly figured out it was way above my level lol. Kinda wish they would rank the difficulty of those.

I also checked out the website instead of the app and wow, I see what people mean. All of the grammar tips and notes I missed. =/ I almost feel like I need to start over completely from scratch to properly absorb it all. Now I realize why it seemed like I was progressing really fast, after 2 days I'm on level 6. The other part of it is that I'm actually recognizing quite a few words based on my general knowledge and the tiny bits of other languages I already know. Like I could not for the life of me figure out cachorro (dog), but I got lobo (wolf) straight away.

Now I'm kind of wondering how other people do the lessons. I just go straight through them one after another, because they're all really short and I usually get most of it on the first try. If I feel like I'm starting to get a little overwhelmed I'll go back and do some of the previous lessons to build my confidence back up and try again.

On a whim I also decided to dedicate a new journal entirely to my Portuguese studies. I mean, I set one up already, but I don't like it. What can I say I'm picky. I'll use it for now until the new one gets here on Wednesday. I got a hardcover, lined journal in green, to match the flag of course. Also made sure it's a little bit bigger than my bullet journal, as I quickly realized I don't like that particular size. I'd love to decorate it somehow but aside from something super cliche like soccer stickers, I'm not really sure what to do with it. I'm not visually artistic like that.

I'll definitely be listening closely at work tomorrow! I'm not going to try talking or anything just yet but maybe I can actually make out some of what's being said. I'm sure actually hearing native speakers talking will help me a lot, even if they talk too fast for my untuned ears.

I only use the phone app so I can use my headphones as my PC headset is having an issue I can't seem to fix. I find it easier to focus that way, fewer distractions.

Portuguese has the same two bonuses, I'd wager it's the same for most if not all languages. There's space for more so I wonder if they'll be releasing new ones in the future. I think I have enough to 'buy' the second one now but I figured it's probably like the other one and too high a level for me right now.

I haven't seen the beta feature yet but that sounds pretty nice. I'll probably check it out at some point and let you know how it is. I really don't have that many problems with reading aside from my lack of vocabulary, it's the pronunciations that are killing me right now. I had the same problem when I took Spanish ages and ages ago. It would be nice if they had something similar in audio format.

I got my hour in yesterday and almost an hour in today. Today's set of lessons was very long and I got interrupted by a phone call partway through. I figure I'll make up for it a little bit tonight. My new journal should be arriving today so I can start setting it up. I think I'll legit just sit here with the website up for the grammar notes and use the app for the actual lessons. Either way I'm going to probably go through every single lesson again. I wouldn't call it a setback, but it kinda makes me feel like it was wasted effort. On the other hand, that's a lot of reinforcement and extra practice which can't be a bad thing.

I am trying to actively listen to the Brazilians I work with but they all talk way too fast for me lol.

I'm also trying to decide when to start talking to them--I don't want to sound pretentious or anything. I've read after about 10 hours of study is a good time to start, I feel like I might have at least some conversational basics down by then. I made sure I have the important one, anyway: "I don't understand" lol. I don't think they'll really give me a hard time about it though. I bet they'll be really surprised since literally all of our bilingual office staff speak English and Spanish except one, and that's because she's a Brazilian too.

I've definitely heard that too, in fact Peppa Pig is often recommended as a show to start with. I need to dig it up after work but I also found some resources for accurate subtitles you can download for media you already have for the purpose of language learning. I've been spending a lot of time in the reddit language communities lol.

Listening to my drivers, I've made, not exactly a breakthrough, but a realization. The first issue I have with listening to them is that there's often a lot of Spanish being spoken in the dispatch room at the same time and the languages are similar enough that I can't filter it. It just throws me right off, I can't concentrate on the Portuguese at all. I made out maybe 3 words in a conversation yesterday.

On the other hand, in a conversation between different drivers later that day (and no background Spanish) I found I could actually follow them, I just don't know enough words yet. But I was able to figure out what they were talking about in context even if I only got maybe 1 word in 10. It might also be a dialect thing? One of them specifically I seem to understand better than anyone else. I plan to ask him to practice with me later on.

Notebook is arriving today, not yesterday. For some reason I thought yesterday was Wednesday. I'm thinking about making a study station outside of my office where I'll keep all of my study materials, with a "no non-referential English allowed" rule in that specific space.

The general consensus is that a Latin base helps, but modern Romance languages have diverged enough from it that they're more similar to each other. Pick whichever one you're the most interested in and start there. I would say either pick a language that has a lot of cultural interest or relevance to you, or one you might find useful for your job/daily life.

Got my hour in today. I am kinda blitzing through the lessons a little bit but I think I'm going to put a lot of time into studying this weekend once I have my new journal. It was delayed and won't be here until today.

I think everyone has an aptitude for languages. I mean, you've learned at least one already, no? But I do agree that there is some degree of affinity that can make learning easier or more difficult.

Finally got my new journal in yesterday, have it mostly set up already. So far I'm using it to track my DL tree progress, daily practices, general info/reference stuff and the grammar notes I did already have. Tomorrow I'll probably spend a significant part of my day going through the non-mobile version and getting all the notes, etc that I missed from using the app. Debating whether it's worth keeping a few spreads of vocab/basic phrases to practice; if nothing else, the act of writing it down does help with retention. I don't want to rely too heavily on rote either though.

I admit I'm also kind of hoping if I do extended study sessions on the weekends I can drastically shorten the amount of time it takes to learn. I'm impatient I know, mostly because I'm a. motivated and b. excited. One of the Brazilians I work with sent me a picture yesterday that had some Portuguese in it and I was actually able to read most of it, I was so stoked lol. Progress! Even if it is very very small. I mean hey, a week ago I wouldn't have had a clue what it said.

Today was officially my 7 day streak on DuoLingo. I don't plan to use it for long; once I'm done with the tree I'll use it for reviewing while I move on to Memrise and immersion, basically. If I can find a decent cheap textbook or two I'll do that too.

So many notes...there's no way I'm going to be writing all of them down in one day. But it's a start.

I've been keeping up on my daily practice.

I also picked up Tinycards, which is a companion app to Duolingo. It generates flashcards based on the DL tree you're learning. You can use it to review vocab, basically. Like DL you have to unlock each lesson and keep them all gold. The voicework on it is significantly poorer, but I am finding it useful. I'll probably use both from now on.

Surprisingly kept my streak even after a really tough day at work yesterday.

I've noticed an interesting side benefit to my advancing knowledge of Portuguese--because I'm starting to understand how the grammar works, I'm having an easier time understanding my Brazilian drivers in English. For example, I talk to one of them via text almost every day, but sometimes he'll word something a bit strangely in a way that makes it hard to figure out what he meant. But with my newfound grammar knowledge, I've been able to successfully bridge that particular gap without asking him for clarification. It's also helping me with the nuances of the way they speak English, too. No one speaks broken English or anything, but there is a noticeable difference in how they speak, and knowing why they say things the way they do is immensely helpful for communicating.

This is pretty fun, lol.