Language Learning

I had the opposite experience the other day. I believe learning a language has plenty of ups and down depending on the people around you.

I surely sounded incredibly like a newbie, but I was asked in English, and I managed to find words that made sense in the other language. I took it simply word by word, skipping grammatical correctness and not caring about how unnaturally the sentence was constructed, added a swear word as a substitute for a noun I didn't know, and it all worked out! I was understood, and I was even indirectly praised by one present who didn't speak English! That made me feel encouraged to learn more, so that I can continue to impress!

This is after a lot of demotivating events however, so that made the upswing just even more powerful!

Being bad at something is the first step to being good at it. Don't give up because it's hard, that's why you're doing it in the first place.

I have done everything in the Duolingo for Finnish, i continue with it because i have not found an alternative app that allows me to practice for 10-30 minutes a day when I want. Most of the programs i have found have longer videos. It does have more and more that I can speak the sentence and it types it out for me. I continue to struggle to get it to recognize onni (Happy) not as uni (sleep).

I grew up in New Mexico, many of my friends were Navajo, so i decided to start trying to learn diné bizaad (the Navajo language). It is quite difficult, even compared to Finnish. But i already find myself picking a word or two from the elders i encounter around my town.

I'm gonna get back to reading today. Maybe I'll also do a daily writing thing corrected by chatgpt. Hopefully it's good enough.

Don’t let seeking perfect, or even good, be the thing that stops you. If you get your meaning over the net in another language, you’re speaking it. Not well, but you’re speaking it. Then it’s all about getting better. Enjoy the little wins and try to learn from the losses.

The first genuine time I tried to speak Spanish with my GF she outright refused to speak back to me in Spanish, no hangups with her, she just didn't engage me with it and instead spoke English. That was also a downer for me, but at the same time I realized I could say a basic few words despite never doing it before, so at least that was a positive.

Progress recently, scraped by quite a few days, doing bare minimum, due to various factors like stress and illness and more stress. Only today was I able to study the full 30 mins in Japanese and Spanish. Still not over the hurdles life threw at me save the sickness, but at least I'm on the horse again for now. Or at least today. No idea what tomorrow might throw at me, so hoping for something less serious.

Today managed to be with the GF a fair amount too, managed to do a full 180 flashcards on MaruMori and still have another 20 to go. Then I spent a while on Duolingo and Migaku for Spanish. I've completed both languages at 30 mins a piece, but still don't feel satisfied. Also to add, I still have yet to finish the last of the N5 off, so should probably aim to do a few more of those before pushing for other stuff on the Japanese front. Down to about 15 cards now, but I tend to do 10 cards a day based on N5 then 10 cards on a random assortment of N4,N3,N2,N1 levels jointly together.

Might end up going back to Dreaming in Spanish later, as well as that Japanese site for videos... cijapanese, that's the site.
Otherwise I guess I could dive into Irish again, but I'd feel easier just focusing on these 2 languages for now, as I'm still trying to get into the swing of things again. I was doing so well for months then life happens, I guess that's just life. Still. Such a bummer.

Anyway, back to the grind.

Started playing the new Pokemon game in Japanese. I think this series is really good for language - it asks what language you want up-front regardless of game region or system settings, kids are the main audience, it's full of concepts I've been exposed to all my life, most dialogue is taken at your own pace, there's furigana most places. There is a story I want to follow, and plenty of text to read, but most of it's not that important so I don't mind if some goes over my head.

This particular game, the battles aren't turn-based, and a few cutscenes are real time text instead of push to continue (and weirdly even in those no voice-over.) I also think you're locked in after you pick language? And if so, not sure why. Still, a good low-stakes game to immerse with.

It's been a little dialogue heavy at the start, should be less exposition once I get into it. For now I'm looking up a lot, but I think I'll lose patience for that pretty quick.

I can usually get the gist of what they say, which is exciting. I'm at the point where most of each sentence is intelligible, but the most important couple of words will be new to me. Between the context and the Kanji used, not too hard to hazard a guess at the new ones. Those i+1ish sentences are exactly what you want for learning.

Anki debt stronkest it's ever been . Hardly any motivation do dailies , (what little I know of )?current day Japanese political situation not helping matters that some times wonder if even worth continuing oar switch to different (language|country)

Pleeeaase motivation … COMEEE BAAAAAACK ‼️‼️ WANT ❗️ TO ❗️ LIVE ❗️ IN ❗️ JAPAN ❗️ SOME ❗️ DAY ❗️

I've been doing steady work on Busuu with German, and wondering how I could do more structured language learning. I have definitely thrived in a classroom seeing when it comes to language learning, but I have yet to replicate that environment outside of school.