#basque:goals

As I said in my last post, I'm slowly getting better at figuring out how to set goals which both push me out of my comfort zone and which actually orient me towards what I'm trying to do. This year my main goal is to just remember how to be a learner again; I feel like recently I've gotten a little too in-my-head about how I need to be perfect before I speak, and actually this tends to be a problem I have in general - I won't talk to people unless I feel like I can talk perfectly, but that's not how you learn. I'm also trying to get better at setting reasonable timelines for what it takes to get to a particular level of language, which I have a better feel for at this point, and taking into account how much time I'm spending on the language every day (it shouldn't feel overwhelming if it's supposed to be a brief warmup). With these in mind, here are my goals for the year:

CATALAN

This year, I really want to speak Catalan with more people. That's the bottom line. I'm at a level where I need to be doing language immersion, and that means not being shy about not knowing how to say things or starting off the conversation wrong or any number of things (this historically has been less of a problem for Catalan with me, but for some reason I was absolutely taken out last summer and essentially went partially mute from social anxiety, so we're going to find out what was up with that and try to coax me away from it). I also want to learn to speak the Valencian dialect of Catalan better, and hopefully I'll get the chance to do that!

I'm planning to continue my reading challenge as well, but I'm going to make a separate post about that.

BASQUE

I want to improve my Basque vocabulary, and also my listening comprehension skills. I want to finish Eskamak kentzen and also watch/listen to more things in Basque. I think I just need a whole bunch of audio input - I know a lot of the words, but it's still very hard for me to parse them in speech. In order to improve my vocabulary, I want to do a quick vocab review every day when I get to the library, before I start my work. That way, I'll have a constant, easy, long-term exposure to a wider variety of words, and hopefully after a few months I'll start remembering some!

WELSH

I'm not entirely sure what I want to do with Welsh this year - I feel a bit directionless with it, so I might put it on pause until it feels like the right time to take it up again. But I'd also like to get more listening and vocabulary practice - I can understand large portions song lyrics without looking them up, which is a huge step forward for me. If watching Rownd a Rownd seems like the vibe, I might try to take that up again. We'll see, this one is more open.

MALAYALAM

Mostly, my goal with Malayalam is just to keep taking class, but also I'd really like to get over my fear of speaking. I struggle to pronounce a lot of the letters, and I don't know a lot of words, but if I work on these, I think I'd feel more confident. (I do also just need to feel okay with looking like a fool, though.) By the end of the year, I hope I'm able to have conversations in class or with my family without wavering too much, even if I forget something or mess up the pronunciation.

OTHER LANGUAGES

One main thing I want to work on is learning how to learn a small amount of a language but still being able to use it with people. There are a few different languages which I've wanted to learn for a while but haven't had the time - I'm hoping that maybe I can work up the courage to learn a few phrases, talk to someone, and perhaps learn a thing or two. This is very open-ended, but it's more a challenge for me to expand my comfort zone.

Another year, another set of goals! This year, in the actual spirit of my very reasonable 2022 language goals, here are my plans for language study.

Catalan

First and foremost, my goal is to find Catalan friends in my new hometown, because I really need to speak Catalan with people at minimum once a week or I get very sad, and currently I’m not speaking it with anyone at all. This goal is pretty chill though—I just have to actually sit down and put in the time to find people.

My main goal is to read 30 books in Catalan. I’ll make a proper post about it with a list of books that I’m thinking of and how the challenge itself is going to work, but overall I’m trying to pick a mix of styles and genres, so expect anything from medieval literature to YA novels to academic texts. I have a lot of books that I’ve been meaning to read for a while, so hopefully this will give me a chance to chip into some of them. 30 books is less than other versions of this challenge that I’ve seen, but it’s also many more books than I’ve read in Catalan possibly ever and I think it’s more reasonable in conjunction with a full class load. Hopefully it ends up being just the right amount!

Welsh & Basque

This year I really want to work hard to actually get these two to an upper intermediate level, because I’m so close if I put in the work. For both of them, I have two main goals: (1) go through the textbooks/workbooks that I started going through casually last semester (Basic Welsh: A Grammar and Workbook by Gareth King and Standard Basque: A Progressive Grammar by Rudolf P.G. de Rijk) so that I can continue to review and learn new grammatical structures, and (2) watch one episode of a TV series each week in each language. For the TV series, I’m going to be watching Rownd a Rownd on S4C (which is available outside Wales/the UK! Huge win!) and Eskamak kentzen on EITB. If I have time, I’ll try to go through episodes more thoroughly and note down new vocabulary and such, but the main goal is to make a routine of it and watch consistently so I’m trying to keep it simple. I’d also like to use both languages with other people more often if I can, but I think finding a consistent language partner will perhaps be a goal for another year.

Malayalam

I’m planning to focus the first half of the year on Welsh and Basque, and then next fall, I’m hoping to be able to take the Malayalam classes offered by my university and to get into studying my home dialect (or rather, my extended family’s home dialect, since I didn’t speak it at home) as well. Since this will be later and also classroom learning rather than self-study, I’m not going to go into details, but overall, after my trip to Kerala (which I have stuff about, it’s on the docket!), I’m generally feeling much less alienated and much more motivated to study the language. I’m also looking forward to being able to take real classes, which I think will help keep me focused and on track.

Russian

This is a minor goal, but at my friend’s house over the summer, her mom was joking that if they just spoke to me in Russian while I stayed at their house, I’d probably be able to understand it by the end. That led us to concoct a plan where I study a bit of Russian vocab, then go there and do intensive Russian immersion for a weekend or so. This is more of a silly goal, but I’d like to try it because I think it could be fun.

Anki

This isn’t a language goal per se, but rather a general resolution to spend this year learning to use (and tweaking and configuring) Anki. Anki has a notoriously high barrier to entry, and from everything I’ve seen it should be treated as a long-term, intensive project—I’ll hopefully reap the rewards later if I take my time and set up everything right in the early stages. With that in mind, I’m hoping that by the end of the year I’ve figure out a set up for my decks and cards that really works for getting me to remember and be able to use vocab and grammar. I’ll focus on the languages here for the start, but I’m hoping that with habit and time, if I get a good system going I can use it with other languages too.

In the spirit of last year’s very reasonable and achievable goals, here are more reasonable and achievable goals for 2023!

Catalan - I’d like to get the C2 this coming year. I’d also like to read more; specifically Ausiàs March and Vicent Andrés Estellés, and possibly El Canigó and/or El comte Arnau. And if I can, I’d like to write one creative piece in Catalan that I can feel proud of!

Welsh - I’d like to listen to more of Pigion, watch more Hansh videos, and also to find more spaces to use the language in. I really want Welsh to start feeling like a language that I can do things in, because I’m at a level where I can.

Basque - I want to watch at least one or two things in Basque, and, the same as Welsh, for it to be a language that I can use for things, not just a language I’m learning.

Malayalam - I would like to get to a really basic home heritage speaker level of Malayalam by the end of the year—understanding conversations when I visit family, and being able to answer when spoken to. My goal is to watch one Elikutty video per week, and to try to integrate the language into my thoughts and routine more.

Spanish, Galician, Aragonese, Asturian - I’d like to brush up on Spanish for academic purposes, and also to learn a bit about the grammar of the other three. I’d like to start remembering to actually watch A escampar la boira, and to start listening to more music in Aragonese and Asturian. As for Galician, I’d like to go into breaking down lyrics for the many songs I already listen to in it, and maybe watch more videos in it as well. In general, I’m aiming to go into the sphere of Iberian studies, especially Iberian minoritized languages, and so I want to be more familiar with the larger panorama.

Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Cornish, Manx, Breton - Same as for the others above, I want to have somewhat of a functional understanding of more Celtic languages so that I can interact with speakers and media production without needing a translation. I also just listen to a lot of music in at least Irish, and it drives me crazy not to be able to at least superficially understand it. I think the Celtic cultural sphere is really interesting, and so I’d like to be able to learn more about it and talk to more people within it without needing to make them translate to English.

Russian - I really want to be able to understand what people are saying at my friend’s house, and I think that if I put in enough Russian listening practice and vocabulary study I’d be able to piece it together, at least partially; I can already figure it out sometimes with just a few words and context. So I’d like to actually put in some time on that, in the hopes that maybe afterwards, if I spend a few days at her house, I’ll come out understanding Russian sdfhksdhf

Amharic - I’d like to be able to speak some basic Amharic, so my goal is to learn a few basic sentence patterns and some vocabulary, and maybe be able to say one or two things by the end of the year. Nothing big, but just a bit.

Hello everyone! I’m back onto the whole language month goals, and I’m starting out with a month of Basque.

I’m going to be using de Rijk’s Standard Basque: A Progressive Grammar, which I would not really recommend to any beginners—it’s alright but it’s not my favorite. The one good thing it does have, though, is exercises at the end of each chapter, which are just English-Basque and Basque-English translation; they’re a good way to start to get the gears running in my brain again. In addition, someone made a Memrise course of all the vocabulary (it’s called “Standard Basque - vocabulary” by MatiFilozof if the link doesn’t work), so it’s a good way to learn lots of vocabulary as well. I technically finished the course last summer, although I need to review it, but I figured that a combination of these two things would work to jumpstart my brain some.

I’m going to make these short. Basically, I’m really going to focus on passive input and learning more vocabulary because I think those are the things I like best and honestly I think they’ll give me a base to want to study from textbooks more.

My main focuses are going to be CATALAN, WELSH, BASQUE, and MALAYALAM. My other languages are obviously going to be a part of this but these are the ones I really want to focus on. Catalan I need to take the C2 exam for in like 5 months so I’ve got to study for that. My Welsh and Basque got a lot better last year, and I think if I put in more time on them they would just keep improving so I’m gonna try. Malayalam, however, is the most important because I’m probably going to be in Kerala in 2023 with all of my relatives to sell our family house, which is one of the last ties we have there and so I might not get the chance to go back after it. Because of that, Malayalam is a top priority, I want to at least get to speak it in Kerala one time in my life 😔.

I want to try to spend 200 hours on Catalan and learn 8000 new words, which I know is asking a lot but tbh I think I spent about that much time on it last year since I use it almost every day. For Welsh, Basque, and Malayalam, I want to spend 100 hours and learn 2000 words for each. The hour goals include listening to music and watching programs/Youtube, so hopefully that makes them slightly more attainable. Either way, I think these goals are pretty reasonable.

Repte Idiomes - Estiu 2021

INTRODUCCIÓ

Fa temps que he volgut millor la base lèxica que tinc en alguns idiomes amb els quals tinc vora un nivell B1, i també fa temps que vaig perdent l'interès en estudiar idiomes al nivell d'abans. Per això, aquest estiu només vull passar-m'ho bé estudiant, i també aprendre més paraules. Proposo el repte següent, per a mi i qui més hi vulgui participar: aferrar-nos a fer un (o més) curs(os) sencer(s) a Memrise (o Anki o Quizlet, et cètera)! No serà gaire exigent, però sí que es pot aprendre alguna cosa ^-^

OBJECTIUS

basc (~1900 paraules)

gal·lès (~1600 paraules)

romani (~2000 paraules)

amhàric (~1600 paraules)

rus (~5000 paraules)

HORARI

El repte va des del 27 de juny al 25 de setembre (90 dies / 13 setmanes)

Cada dia: 10-40 paraules a cada curs

Cada setmana: un dia de repàs / una tretzena part del curs completada

Cada mes: un terç del curs completat!

PARTICIPA!

Pels que hi vulguin participar, podeu fer un post diarament, setmanalment, o mensualment (la veritat és que això no és gaire organitzat) comentant el teu progrés! I esteu benvinguts i benvigudes a etiquetar-me als posts amb @guillemelgat​ o bé fent servir l'etiqueta #repte-idiomes-estiu.

Comencem? Som-hi!

(English translation under cut)

Okay so I think I’m starting to figure out things that work better for studying and things that don’t work as well, so hopefully this year will be a bit more consistent and better than last year. Here’s the breakdown:

5 Main Languages

These 5 languages were the ones that I decided last year I wanted to be my priority, and so I’m going to be focusing most of my study efforts on them (much as I would like to focus efforts on all of my languages, there are just too many ;;-;;):

Catalan - I really just have to be ready to take the C2 test, because I want to take it in the spring of my fourth year (2022). I’m going to try to keep watching shows, maybe attempt to listen to a podcast, read more books, and perhaps return to writing in Catalan more often. I would really like to try to do as many things as possible in Catalan, so the goal is to make as many of my daily habits in Catalan as I can. Besides that I’m not really sure what to do, since C1-C2 is really hard to maintain if I’m not living in Catalonia.

Basque - I know I say this every year, but I think if I put in hard work this time around, I will actually get to a B1-B2 in Basque. I need to review lots of grammar stuff and solidify it, and also need to learn lots more vocab, but I think if I do the thing where I look up words in songs that I don’t know, that might help. Also I’m going to try watching shows! Maybe if I have time, I’ll do the writing thing again as well, I think it helped a lot.

Welsh - This is also definitely 100% the year where I break through and start speaking better Welsh. I have a friend to study with, I have a plan, and I’m ready to get the B1. I’m going to try to finish all of SSiW, and do more vocab stuff on Memrise, then actually practice by listening to music and talking to my friend.

Malayalam - By the end of the year, I want to have a larger vocabulary. I think I have somewhat of a grammar foundation, but I know like 10 words and I can never connect them into sentences. The goal is to listen to more music, talk to my dad, and compile some vocabulary lists that I then will actually study. I also just really need to practice speaking/writing and listening.

Romani - I’m going to try to be more active in the server that I’m in, talking with people more often so that I can learn more words. I’m also going to try to read more of my book and listen to the radio that someone on the server recommended. By the end of the year, I want to be able to have a conversation in Romani, and to be able to feel that I’ve officially moved on to being an intermediate learner.

Other Languages

I have a lot of time right now to study languages that I probably won’t anytime in the future, so I do want to work on improving/studying some other languages that I’ve kind of been neglecting. These are the top four that I really want to work on:

Amharic - I was able to talk a bit in Amharic with my Ethiopian friend last summer, and I want to get back into studying Amharic and actually get better at it this time so that I can talk to him (and stay in contact that way, because we’re both terrible at staying in contact with other people). I’m going to try to finish Colloquial Amharic and then I’ll see where to go from there.

Kurdish - I want to listen to more Kurdish music and also to finish the textbook that I was using in class. I might also try to take a look at the other textbook my teacher recommended, but the basic textbook is first priority, I’m just trying to build a base in the language atm.

Tamasheq - This is what I said last year, but I need to review vocabulary and also verb conjugations which are so ;;-;; complicated ;;-;;. And then maybe get the book that goes with the course I used on inter-library loan next fall (if I can) because that might help a bit to get used to understanding the language and serve as a stepping stone for understanding the lyrics to songs.

Bambara/Wolof - I haven’t decided which of the two of these I want to learn first, ideally I’d like to study both of them but I think I’ll probably study Bambara now because it’s the lingua franca of Mali, a place I would really like to go someday. I also do want to learn some Wolof, but it’s less important??? I have Peace Corps courses for both, so I think I’ll just go through that and see how far I get.

Okay, I’m going to try my best to get back into language study, especially since I’m not really doing anything else with my life rn, so here are my way too ambitious goals for November:

Malayalam - review vocabulary (Sundays) + do the TL90Days challenge (Tuesdays)

Basque - write a one-page text (Mondays)

Romani - read 1-2 pages (Wednesdays) + write on the Discord (Thursdays)

Tamasheq - make/study flashcards (Fridays) + learn verb conjugations (Saturdays)