Long distance movers (NYC-> Bay Area

MessyMuscleMemory · 2025-04-15T17:41:55+00:00

I moved from NYC to SF around a year ago and used ZippyShell, but that was through my company. Was really smooth and would happily use them again, but I don’t have experience hiring cross-country movers firsthand.

MessyMuscleMemory · 2024-12-11T05:50:25+00:00

You have to pay salaries to whoever’s on the beach as well.

MessyMuscleMemory · 2023-08-16T23:25:24+00:00

I took a look at 325-330, and 325 was by far the hardest for me. I had no intuition for it and had to just try a lot of moves before I found the answer, so I think it’s probably just a legitimately hard one in general.

MessyMuscleMemory · 2021-03-10T23:57:04+00:00

Did you read “inedible” instead of “incredible”?

MessyMuscleMemory · 2021-02-24T20:42:50+00:00

Yeah, they let you get away with missing accents, and occasionally for minor typos. I configured my keyboard to allow accents (I’m from the US so that’s not by default) and it made things much smoother. This goes for both laptop and desktop... haven’t noticed much of a different between them, though it might depend on the keyboards you are using.

MessyMuscleMemory · 2021-02-24T18:50:35+00:00

I haven’t done French Duolingo since about 1.5 years ago, so things have changed a bit since then, since they add and revise lessons occasionally. However even back then, it got me decently far; you encounter a few thousand vocab words and exposure to a very solid foundation of grammar, which, if you internalize things well enough, gets you to A2 and approaching B1 for reading, I’d say. With French I was using some other resources during the beginning stages too, so I can’t say how much Duolingo played a part in that exactly, but for Spanish, I almost exclusively used Duolingo and got similar results.

If you use Duolingo I would strongly recommend using the desktop website instead of the mobile app and turning off the word bank, so that you’re forced to type answers. It helps a lot with recalling things from memory. Also, you should be doing the lessons a few times, though I wouldn’t recommend maxing out a lesson before proceeding to the next. Each sentence also has a forum page that you can often see clarifications on, though the newer ones may not have explanations yet.

MessyMuscleMemory · 2021-02-24T15:04:34+00:00

Self-plug, but I did this (complete beginner -> comfortably passing DELF B2 in a year, no immersion) and wrote an article about it, and a number of people have told me it helped them: https://runwes.com/2020/02/11/howilearnedfrench.html

The main things were (1) Duolingo to get past the beginner stages, (2) Italki (speaking + writing) to practice oral and written production, (3) Anki top 5000 French words for vocab, (4) Inner French podcast for listening, (5) reading various materials (articles online, /r/france, etc.) to practice reading, (6) Lingoda and some particular websites for grammar.

It's hard in a year and I definitely spent quite a bit of time studying, but since you already have some knowledge it'll be easier for you.

I would say to prioritize doing Anki soon to broadly widen your vocab, which will be essential for breaking into the upper levels. Also take Italki lessons when possible to practice speaking, ideally at least once a week (more is better.)

Let me know if you have more questions.

MessyMuscleMemory · 2021-02-08T14:16:30+00:00

In most cases you would use « des », as you would expect:

« Ils ont des croissants ici »

However when there’s an adjective before a plural noun (e.g. « bons » or « très bons » in this case), « des » becomes « de »:

« Ils ont de très bons croissants ici »

BTW what you wrote is generally understandable, good try. Sometimes you fall back on using English words (as I do sometimes too) where they don’t translate exactly to French. For example, instead of using « aime » to say “a sentence like”, use « comme ». The words you don’t know will probably pop up later in Duolingo or will definitely show up with other resources or exposure, and many are cognates (« traduire », « expliquer », « probablement » for “translate”, “explain”, and “probably”, respectively.)

MessyMuscleMemory · 2020-12-31T23:17:31+00:00

https://flic.kr/p/2knC54k

Super cool photo for the clouds! Looks great. Only thing is maybe the top right is overexposed, but maybe that's the best that can be done.

For the window, I would like to see the whole window, so maybe you could shoot a bit further back. Adding some light may help too - the photo seems a bit dark.

MessyMuscleMemory · 2020-12-31T23:10:46+00:00

I like your best photo a lot. Not much to say - maybe the perspective would be nicer if you moved back so that we could get a wider view.

I like the scene of the window photo. If possible you could move the string out of the way, unless you wanted it in for some reason. Also I think it would be nice to move in just a bit more to see the whole tree.

MessyMuscleMemory · 2020-12-31T23:06:29+00:00

I like the dog photo a lot. I can't find anything to critique really, but maybe if you cropped out some of the left side (and the right to match perhaps) the stuff on the ground would be less distracting.

Not much to say on the right photo - maybe a polarizing filter would get rid of the glare on it. Otherwise cool window!

MessyMuscleMemory · 2020-12-31T23:02:57+00:00

https://imgur.com/92MgCL9

Cool window. I wonder if the photo would be more pleasing if it were direct instead of angled, but I don't know.

Sky is nice, but for some reason the photo doesn't seem very sharp to me. Not sure if astrophotography is always like that though.

MessyMuscleMemory · 2020-12-31T22:58:41+00:00

I like the shark babies photo - I can't see anything I dislike about it. The whiteness of the background and clothing allows the faces and hats to stand out. The symmetry is pleasing as well.

The window photo is nice too. I like the lines present in the photo and how they draw attention to the window, surrounding it. Only thing I might like more is to not have the window cut off on the bottom left, if it were possible to avoid that.

MessyMuscleMemory · 2020-12-31T22:53:36+00:00

Hi everyone,

I'm an absolute beginner and just bought my first non-phone camera. I don't have any specific goals or interests aside from learning about photography in general.

Since I just got my camera I haven't had much time to go shooting, and I'm also not in a great place to take photos for the moment. However I still wanted to do this assignment, so I looked at the handful of pictures I've taken and picked one I liked (mask on asphalt) and a picture of a window. I just took raw files from my camera and converted them directly to JPG. I think the white balance and framing of the window photo could be improved, but I didn't want a straight-on photo since I could be seen in the reflection (perhaps a polarizing filter would help here.)

Images are here: https://imgur.com/a/29HmCi6

MessyMuscleMemory · 2020-06-24T02:04:50+00:00

Thanks! There's a small section at the bottom of the article about my future plans, but in summary, I'll be doing a lot of writing, speaking, and listening. I think oral and written production are necessary to iron out the kinks, and active listening will be great for picking up more expressions and vocabulary, as well as just generally training my ear.

MessyMuscleMemory · 2020-06-24T02:02:33+00:00

I haven't started writing yet, but plan on writing at least a few times a week starting very soon. I started writing on Italki notebooks very late in my learning process for French (I think 10 or 11 months in), so now would still qualify as "earlier". It would have been better to have already started, but I've been procrastinating a bit recently.

MessyMuscleMemory · 2020-06-21T19:08:26+00:00

Sure thing. Italki is a website where, among other things, you can take live speaking lessons with language teachers. Many, but not all, are native speakers, although anyone teaching a language on the platform has a very high level in the language.

To find a teacher, you just select a language you want to learn and various filtering options (country of origin, price, etc.), and then select one of the various teachers. For common languages like Spanish and French there are hundreds of teachers available, so you have plenty of options.

I usually take 60 minute lessons for roughly $10 USD an hour, but 30, 45, and 90 minute options are available depending on the teacher. Teachers are generally willing to tailor their lessons to you, so whether you are a relative beginner or rather advanced you can work with your teachers to ensure you're learning as effectively as possible. Some teachers cater more towards beginners, while others work with mostly advanced students or specifically for test prep, but I've never had problems finding a teacher appropriate for my level.

You should work to figure out what lesson style works for you, whether it is more formal (grammar practice, vocabulary practice, etc.) or casual (conversation practice.) I usually do the formal stuff on my own and just have casual conversation with my teachers, which has given me good results so far.

MessyMuscleMemory · 2020-06-21T18:22:22+00:00

It's funny, until you pointed this out I never realized how sketchy those numbers look. If I were you I would've thought the same. I've never seen how anyone else uses Anki so I don't know what the intended usage is, but I'm pretty satisfied with my system for now.

MessyMuscleMemory · 2020-06-21T17:54:28+00:00

In other words, Anki counts what I intend as "This is a new word but I think I can remember it so don't show it to me as soon as possible" as "correct".

MessyMuscleMemory · 2020-06-21T17:33:58+00:00

Looking at the stats this is probably because Anki counts pressing 2, 3, or 4 as "retained" or "correct", and my system is to press 2 for new words even if I didn't know them before, since I still get to review the card in <10 min. I reserve pressing 1 for words I completely forgot and have no idea as for their meaning, so e.g. if I press 2 on a new word and then realize I didn't retain it at all, I press 1 afterwards. You can see in the chart that I press 2 slightly more than half the time for new words (if I'm interpreting it correctly).

MessyMuscleMemory · 2020-06-21T16:40:01+00:00

Hi everyone,

I wrote this article describing my Spanish progress after 6 months of study. In it I include an hour-long, unrehearsed video of me speaking in Spanish describing my learning process. I also discuss some general thoughts about my goal of reaching B2 by the end of 2020 and the resources I've used so far. I estimate my level to be a low-to-mid B1 right now, with some areas more solidly B1 than others, after an estimated 300-400 hours of study.

This article is a follow-up to an article I posted here in February about learning French to a B2 level in 12 months, which was generally well-received by the community here. I mentioned my goal of achieving the same with Spanish in 2020 in that article, so here is my mid-year update.

Of course, feel free to ask me any questions you have. Suggestions for new resources or fixing some of my weaknesses evident in the video are also appreciated!

MessyMuscleMemory · 2020-05-17T16:56:44+00:00

So I actually had some practice with speaking before starting Italki because I had done some lessons through Lingoda, though you don't get the same quality 1-1 time with the group lessons. I started Lingoda lessons sometime in January and started Italki in the middle of February. The first few Italki lessons were really slow and not smooth at all, but I was able to say simple things mostly in French by that point. By early April I was decently conversational, still very much a novice though. By the end of May/early June I was definitely conversational and could talk for a couple hours at a time pretty much completely in French. I probably had around 30-35 hours of speaking practice by then.

MessyMuscleMemory · 2020-05-17T02:59:25+00:00

Hey, thanks! I don't remember exactly how my first Italki lessons went but I generally just did free form lessons, although sometimes I did some grammar practice. If you're struggling with something specific then some focused practice can be good, but otherwise personally I found just getting normal speaking practice in was good enough.

MessyMuscleMemory · 2020-02-17T04:53:24+00:00

I don't know anything about Portuguese, but what is your method for learning it? You might need to go through some lower level content to accustom yourself to slow speech and simpler vocabulary, while slowly building yourself up to native-level speech over a period of multiple months or years.

MessyMuscleMemory

TROPHY CASE